“What’s wrong?”he sneered.“Is Droko the Sage not wise enough to deduce some meaning from a handful of rocks?”
“Watch your tongue.Sound carries in these tunnels.”
“Oh, and now you’re the expert in caves, as well!What other secret talents have you been harboring all these years?Perhaps you’re now a master musician.Or a sea captain.”He pawed through the herbs, locating a bundle of dried berries that he popped into his mouth, winced, and spat out again.“Too bad you’re not a crypt-finder.Because that’s the only talent that will keep our heads firmly seated on our necks when Taruut’s funeral rolls around.”
“You mean to tell me you were searching all night with nothing to show for it?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he drawled.Playing coy—or just taunting me?“At any rate, if you plan on seeing another summer, I suggest we go find that damn crypt.”
Crespash needed no light, though he didn’t grumble over me taking a lantern.Low-hanging fruit, I supposed.We set off to the main hub of the caves, where I found the guard captain Kof scratching a diagram into the floor with a shard of chalk.“I’m keeping track of who’s gone where, my shaman.”
“Strategy is well and good, but we need every man searching, including you.Pick one of the unexplored tunnels and handle it yourself.”
“As my shaman commands.”With a grim nod, Kof took up his lantern and lumbered away.
Once he was out of earshot, Crespash said, “There are rumors about that one.”
“What rumors?”
“That he lost his eye to some ill luck.And Taruut’s favor was the only thing keeping his guards loyal.”
“They’re soldiers,” I said, “and they’re orcs.There may be idle talk, but the guardsmen will stay in line because that’s what they’ve been trained to do.”
“If you say so,wise one.”
Ignoring the jibe, I gazed down at the map chalked onto the floor.“Is it accurate?”I asked.
The goblin shrugged.“Close enough.”He ran a finger-stump along a sharply-curved hallway.“This slopes downward, then curves around on itself.”He smudged out the path and redrew it with arrows to make it more precise.“And this chamber is a lot smaller.”He sketched a line.Considered it.Then drew another shape…the shape of an engorged cock fucking the gap between the chambers.
“Will you be serious?”I snapped.
He added a few hairs to the ballsack.“If the crypt were in any of these obvious places, I would’ve found it by now.It’s been decades since it was last seen.But I suppose it was best to send your guards on a fool’s errand before one of them noticed how clueless you are.”
“I’ll have you know I just cured the chieftain.”Thanks to Archie…though I didn’t want to give Crespash any reason to be jealous.Goblins are petty things—and humans so incredibly fragile.Even without teeth or claws, Crespash was perfectly capable of tearing the young man to shreds.
“Maybe today you were lucky.But what about tomorrow?All it takes is a big enough mistake for them all to figure out you’re a fraud.”
“Shamans are known for being cryptic,” I said.Crespash rolled his eyes.“I can do this,” I insisted.“I have no other choice.”
“Don’t you?The caves run deep—deeper than I thought—and clearly, the orcs don’t know the half of them.They say there’s no way out….But what if you were looking for a tomb and you happened to stumble across an exit?”
“What are you saying—thereisa way out?”
“Just exploring the possibility.”
Goblins.Always wallowing in nonsense.“Even if I could slip away—even if I did manage to evade any soldiers they sent after me…I’d only bring retribution to my clan.”
“Yourformerclan.Who married off your woman before you even had a chance to squeeze her tits.”
“Even so.There’s more than just me to consider.If I break the covenant, the chieftain’s family will bear the brunt of my failure.My mother, my sisters…how would I live with myself if I fled like a coward and they were the ones who got punished?”
As I rubbed out the grotesque penis drawing with the sole of my boot, Crespash gave a humorless laugh.“Why not save yourself?Surely, at some point, the charade will come undone.”
“A general can establish his career on one good win.The same does hold true for a shaman.”
“Once we find the crypt, I suppose you could swap out your bag of pebbles for the dead orc’s milk teeth,” Crespash said.“Still, a single cure does not a shaman make.”
If he’d seen the afflicted area, he might reconsider exactly how grateful Ul-Rott would be.“I can learn.Archie has some skill with healing.He can teach me—”
