by Lisa Smedman
One of the ogres lurched at him, surprisingly fast. Torrin barely got his mace up in time. He swung it, shouting its command word. Thunder boomed as the weapon connected with the ogre’s reaching hand, smacking it aside. The ogre howled its rage and backed away rapidly, its hand tucked tight against its chest. Blood dribbled from the spot where its fractured fingerbones protruded through its flesh.
The other two ogres barely glanced at the injured one. They advanced more cautiously, fanning out on either side of Torrin, flanking him. Struggling to keep his footing in the slippery muck, Torrin backed up a step. If only he could reach for his runestone, he could teleport out of there! But it was inside his pack, and there was no time to get it out. He’d have to fight his way clear, instead. And he’d have to do it before the duergar official he’d offended on the staircase sent men after him. The duergar would know, after all, where Torrin had wound up. It was their rune that had teleported him there.
But first, he had to deal with the ogres. “It’s not your dinner time quite yet,” Torrin said to them through gritted teeth. He gripped his mace with sweaty hands-wary, yet confident in its ability to protect him. “Now then… Who’s next?”
One of the ogres moved a step closer. Torrin shifted his mace. The other moved closer still, crowding Torrin. Yet still they didn’t attack. What were they waiting for? Were they trying to goad Torrin into charging them, hoping he’d slip and drop his weapon? Ogres weren’t that clever. Or were they?
One of the ogres barked something over its shoulder at the injured one. The latter thrust its good hand out through the grate and slapped the wall outside. Belatedly, Torrin realized that the spot on the wall was glowing faintly. The potion Torrin had drunk was wearing off; the glow indicating the rune’s magic was so dim he’d missed it earlier.
As the ogre’s meaty hand slapped the rune, a wave of magical energy shimmered through the cavern. The ogres grunted in pain and fell to the ground as it swept across them. The injured ogre let out a low moan as its hand struck the floor. Then the wave of magical force reached the back of the slave pen. As it struck Torrin, he felt as though his arms and his legs were suddenly boneless. He crumpled where he stood, the mace falling from fingers that could no longer grip. Helpless, he lay on his side in the muck, unable to move. Even breathing was a struggle. It felt as though his lungs were about to collapse in upon themselves.
“Mar… tham… mor,” he prayed, barely able to force the words out. “Aid… me…” His mind screamed at his body to crawl through the muck to his mace. But all he could do was lie there, as weak as a newborn.
The ogres began to recover from the magical effect before Torrin. They were bigger than him, tougher. Though still shaky, they rose to their hands and knees. One of them crawled to Torrin’s mace and hurled the weapon behind it; it struck the grate with a loud clang. The other flipped Torrin over roughly. Torrin felt large hands ripping his clothing, pawing at his pack, and tearing it off his back. Claws raked his shoulder, and he cried out in pain. Blood streamed down his back. He struggled to rise, but a heavy hand slammed him down. He heard the ogres grunting, panting out a single word in Dwarvish over and over again as they tore at his pack and pockets: “Key, key, key.”
Torrin found enough strength to twist one hand out. “Key!” he shouted at them, trying to raise his magical ring. His other hand groped for the wrist of the nearest ogre, and the manacle enclosing it. He rapped his ring hand down sharply on the manacle and spoke the ring’s command word.
The manacle burst open, falling away from the ogre’s wrist.
Suddenly, the ogres were no longer mauling him.
Torrin rolled aside and sat up. He pointed to his finger, indicating the ring. “Key,” he said. He pointed at the manacle on the wrist of the second uninjured ogre, then made a beckoning motion. “You. Come. Key.”
The freed ogre stared down at its bare wrist with a sloppy grin on its face. The ogre beside it glanced at the first, then extended his arm to Torrin.
“That’s right,” Torrin said. “Play nice and I’ll help you.” He knocked his fist against the manacle, and it fell away.
The ogre with the shattered hand stood near the grate. It had Torrin’s mace in its uninjured hand, and was savagely taking out its anger by biting one end of it; its teeth ground against the iron-hard handle. Cautiously, Torrin made his way to it.
“Mace,” he ordered, pointing at the weapon, praying that the word was the same in the duergar dialect as it was in Dwarvish, and that the ogre would understand it. He gestured at the floor. “Put the mace down,” he said. He held up his fist and pointed at his ring. “Key,” he repeated. He was acutely aware of the other two ogres crowding in behind him, breathing down the back of his neck. He pointed first at the manacle, then at the locked grate. “Key.”
The ogre stared dully at Torrin for a long moment. Then it spat the mace out and held up its wrist.
Torrin expended another of the ring’s charges freeing the slave. Then he turned and knocked his fist against the padlock. The grate swung open on squealing hinges.
The three ogres stared at the open grate for one heartbeat, two… and then all tried to barge through it at once. After a brief scuffle, the two uninjured ones erupted out of the slave pen. The third ogre ran after them, clutching its wounded hand to its chest.
Torrin heaved a huge sigh of relief. He scooped up his mace and hurried to the back of the cave where his pack lay. The buckles were dangling, and the straps were shredded; but although the main flap had been ripped open, the ogres had gotten nothing out of the pack. Torrin plunged a hand inside and commanded the runestone to his hand.
He pictured the cubicle in the library he’d teleported into earlier. It was uncomfortably close to the stairs and the duergar official who’d confronted him, but that might be a good thing-the duergar wouldn’t expect Torrin to return there so soon. He’d clean up with water from his waterskin, put on fresh clothes from his pack, and try again.
With Marthammor Duin’s blessing, Baelar and the others would be inside the temple already, searching for the cursed rune. Maybe Torrin could do something to help them, rather than hinder them.
He pictured the empty cubicle. The image came clearly to mind. “The library of the Runescribed Hall of Laduguer’s Graving,” he said. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin. Take me there.”
Nothing happened.
“The cubicle in the library-the one I teleported to a short time ago,” he repeated. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin. Take me there. Now!”
Light flared beside him as a rune in the wall blazed to life. Torrin turned to look at it. “ Thulkrin,” it read. “Blocked passage.”
Torrin’s heart sank. The runestone wasn’t going to get him out of there. The rune had obviously been put into place to put slaves from escaping-or from being stolen.
Slowly, Torrin lowered the runestone. The corridor outside would certainly be similarly warded, as would anywhere else the slaves passed through.
“By Moradin’s beard,” he whispered, “Now what?”
He’d better decide quickly, he thought. Judging by the shouts coming from farther along the tunnel, either the three escaped ogres had just been spotted, or the duergar he’d angered on the staircase had sent guards to collect the wayward “human slaver.” Either way, Torrin didn’t want to stick around.
Chapter Fifteen
“Gold is gold, though it be in a rogue’s purse.”
Delver’s Tome, Volume III, Chapter 93, Entry 62
Torrin rushed down the tunnel, away from the shouts. He soon realized the ogres’ cave was just one of many slave pens. He kept passing similar caves, each with a padlocked grate.
The corridor looked as though it had once been part of a mine. The walls were cut stone, and heavy timbers shored up the ceiling. Inscriptions were everywhere. Large runes marked the entrance to each slave pen-likely similar to the one the ogre had activated. Other runes had been carved into the timbers and walls, still others into the
floor. Whether they were magical or merely directional, Torrin had no idea. But he took no chances. He jumped over all of them.
As he ran past their slave pens, the ogres, orcs, and goblins confined within ran forward, some shouting at Torrin, others banging their manacles against the grates. Torrin rapped his fist against as many manacles and padlocks as he could-each of the locks fell open as his ring worked its magic. Freed slaves poured out, whooping with glee. Others shouted for him to free them, too. But as much as he’d like to, Torrin couldn’t free them all. There just wasn’t enough time. Nor did he want to use up all the charges in his ring. According to Delvemaster Frivaldi, the ring had held twenty-eight charges when he’d given it to Torrin. And Torrin had used up… How many by now? Twenty? Twenty-two? He’d lost count. He had better not use it again unless he had to.
By the sound of the shouts, the duergar guards were drawing closer. Hopefully, the milling knot of freed slaves would slow them down.
As he leaped over a rune on the floor, the jump carried him a little too close to one of the smaller slave pens. Its lone occupant, a snout-nosed orc with braided hair and ears that suggested he was at least part human, thrust a hand through the grate and caught Torrin’s arm. When Torrin tried to yank free, the orc’s filthy claws dug painfully into his arm.
“Free me,” the orc grunted in Undercommon, a pidgin language cobbled together with words from more than a dozen underground-dwelling races. “I pay.” Still holding Torrin, he dug a palm-sized sheet of ragged-edged metal out of the filthy leggings that wrapped his lower legs. He held it up. “Gold!” he panted. “I pay.”
The shouts behind Torrin were getting ever closer. “Let go!” Torrin cried. “There’s no time.” He wrenched his arm free and ran. Blood dribbled down his arm from the scratches the orc had gouged in it.
The orc’s pen turned out to be the last. Torrin ran on into a section of mine that had no side caves. He reached a spot where the tunnel branched, and chose a direction at random. More side caves appeared, those ones filled with stone-cutting equipment: picks, shovels, drill bits, and ore buckets on shoulder yokes. It was an active mine, not an abandoned one. That explained the slaves.
Suddenly, Torrin realized that the shouts behind him were staying in one spot. It was likely the duergar guards had run into the fleeing slaves. Nearly out of breath, Torrin slowed to a walk. Just as his breathing was returning to normal, he heard a clicking noise, like the sound of claws on stone, coming along the tunnel he’d just run through. The clicking grew louder, closer. He ducked into one of the side caves and hid behind some ore buckets, readying his mace. Peering out, he saw a spider the size of a dining table scuttle into view across the tunnel’s ceiling. A duergar sat in a saddle cinched to its bulging abdomen. The hood of his gray mantle hung down, brushing the floor. He wore riding boots and held a lance like the one Baelar had been carrying, with a fist-sized gem set into its blade.
The spider scuttled out of sight, and silence returned. As Torrin eased himself out from behind the ore buckets, one of them shifted slightly, threatening to fall. He caught it. To his surprise it was made of stone, not metal, and was terribly heavy. Grunting, he eased it back into place. As he did, what felt like a lip of hardened slag on the edge of the bucket bent easily under his hand. Gold? He reached for a pick and tested its point on the slag. The metal scratched easily.
He was certain: it was gold.
Had the bucket been used to carry molten metal from the River of Gold? That would explain why it was made of stone. It would also explain why a guard bearing religious regalia was down there in the mine.
Perhaps the slaves would be worth talking to.
Torrin doubled back the way he’d come, praying the spider-mounted guard wasn’t doing the same thing. Fortunately, he reached the orc’s slave pen without incident. The orc stared hopefully at Torrin through the grate.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Torrin told him. “I’m going to set you free.”
The orc grinned.
“But not until you answer some questions,” Torrin continued. He showed the orc his mace. “Now back away from the grate. Go to the rear of your cave. Do exactly as I say, and I won’t use this.”
The orc gave Torrin a long, appraising look. Then he nodded and moved back, limping slightly. Still holding the mace, Torrin knocked the padlock open with his magical ring, opened the grate, and stepped inside. He replaced the padlock, adjusting it so that it appeared to be closed, and joined the orc. He held his weapon close to his chest to keep it hidden. With his clothing torn and filth-splattered, he’d pass for a fellow slave at a casual glance, should any guards come their way.
The orc stood, rubbing his manacled wrist. “What you want to know, human?” he asked.
“That gold you showed me,” Torrin said. “You picked it off one of those stone ore buckets, didn’t you?”
The orc’s eyes narrowed, and he darted a wary glance at the exit.
“I don’t care about you stealing,” Torrin said. “What I want to know is where the gold was mined. Did it come from a flow of molten gold that moved through the earth like lava?”
“Ah,” the orc said, suddenly at ease again. His eyes gleamed. “You want gold. Come here steal.”
“That’s right,” Torrin said. If playing the part of a rogue would earn the orc’s trust, he was happy to oblige.
“No good,” the orc said, shaking his head. One of his braids flopped over his face; he flicked it back with a grimy hand. “Go there, get scar. Spellfire.”
Sounds of footsteps approached the pen. Torrin heard voices, repeating a single word every few moments, in duergar. The word was close enough to Dwarvish that he understood it. “Secure. Secure.”
Guards, checking the slave pens! Torrin eyed the padlock and suddenly regretted not having properly closed it. The guards would reach the orc’s pen at any moment.
The orc saw where Torrin was looking. “Down!” he hissed. He scooped a ragged blanket from the floor. “Hide under blanket. I close lock-you open again?”
Torrin nodded. Then he lay on the floor and let the orc cover him. The orc’s chain rattled as he moved across his pen. Then Torrin heard the click of the padlock closing and another rattle of chain as the orc came back again. A sudden weight landed on Torrin’s scratched back. The orc was sitting on top of him. Torrin bit back a groan of pain.
He heard footsteps outside the pen and the squeak of the padlock being lifted. “Secure,” a voice said in duergar. Then a clank. The padlock fell back into place against the grate, and the footsteps went back the way they’d come.
A moment or two later, the pressure on Torrin’s back eased. The orc whisked off the blanket.
“Thanks,” Torrin said, climbing to his feet.
The orc held out his manacled wrist. One eyebrow lifted in a silent question.
Torrin knocked his ring against the manacle. It fell open. As the orc eased it to the floor, Torrin took a step back, still holding his mace. There was no sense in being too trusting.
“One more question,” he said. “After the molten gold was tapped, where did you take it? To the temple in Drik Hargunen?”
The orc snorted. “No allow slaves in city,” he said. “Only allow blind slave.”
“Where did you take the gold?”
The orc shook his head. “Not take.”
“I don’t mean the gold you stole,” Torrin said, thinking the orc must have misunderstood. “I mean the gold you collected in the ore buckets. The molten gold. Where did the duergar tell you to carry it to?”
“Nowhere,” the orc said. “Just pour. Into lines in floor.”
Torrin’s heart beat a little faster. “Lines?” he repeated.
“Scratches. Deep.” The orc traced imaginary lines on the floor with a cracked claw. “Duergar cut floor.”
Torrin couldn’t believe his ears. The “scratches” in the floor had to be rune magic. The rune that had poisoned Moradin hadn’t been inscribed in the temple in Drik Hargunen. It
was there in the mine. Somewhere nearby!
“Those scratches-the ones you poured the gold into,” Torrin told the orc. “Take me to them, and I’ll teleport you to wherever you want to go, anywhere on the face of Faerun. I swear it, by every hair in Moradin’s beard.”
The orc shook his head. The wary look was back in his eye. “No can go there,” he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. “Spellfire.”
“Then just show me the way,” Torrin said. “Take me as close to the spot as you dare, and then you can go.”
The orc’s expression grew even more anguished. “No, listen, human. Go there, get spellscar!”
He bent over and undid the rag that bound his calf and foot. Torrin saw a blue glow-veins of spellfire crackling across the orc’s foot and ankle.
“Spellfire,” the orc said in a strained voice. He rewrapped his foot again, hiding the blue glow from sight. He jerked his chin at the padlock. “Open it, I tell you how to go. Draw map.” He shrugged. “You want scar, human, you have.”
“Very well,” Torrin said. He eased off his pack and drew from it a roll of parchment and a slender length of charcoal. “Draw me a map. And hurry, in case the guards return.”
The orc obliged. Torrin watched over the orc’s shoulder as he sketched. If the map was even close to scale, the cavern where the rune magic had been invoked was enormous. Fortunately, by the look of it, it wasn’t too far.
The orc finished his work and picked up the map. Torrin took it. “My thanks, ah…” He suddenly realized he’d never asked the slave’s name.