“You’d put your very life in the hands of a slave?”Crespash snorted.“Then you’re even dumber than I thought.”
12
ARCHIE
Never get attached.
It’s the cardinal rule of a working boy.Sure, you have your regulars.But the day always comes when they show up at the red lantern with coin in their pocket and a bulge in their pants…and they beckon you over…only to ask if there’s anyone new.
The bedboys who pout about it—or even throw a hissy fit—are the ones who guarantee they’ll never win back their old clientele.So the fact that there is no happily-ever-after for someone like me…well, I’ve learned to grin and bear it.
So what if I couldn’t hope to bed the hot young shaman?I’d prove myself useful in other ways.After all, it wasn’t as if I’d everaspiredto being a prostitute.It was just the hand I’d been dealt by fate.
As I slipped down the winding tunnel, I tried to imagine myself as something else.Something more.A confidante.An advisor.
And yet, all those imaginings somehow managed to culminate in me tugging open the ties on the shaman’s leathers and watching them slither to the floor.I’d always prided myself on having a good imagination.But this was one instance where I would be better off without it.
The sound of my footfalls changed as the passage opened out to a larger cavern, and my lantern beam was swallowed by the opening.Judging by the undisturbed grit beneath my soles, no one had come this way in a long time.Which would make it an ideal place to lick my wounds in peace….
Or maybe not.The chamber was good-sized, but cluttered, and hard to see by a single light.I opened my lantern and held it high, and shadows danced wildly.
It was a storeroom—or it had been, once.But the shelves were swathed in something I took for fabric, initially.Until I realized I was looking at sheaves of webbing and the collapsed shapes of cocoons.And that the grit crunching under my feet was made up of the crumbling shells of some kind of insect.
My initial instinct was to run.But it was obvious that whatever was once breeding here had long ago dried up.I found a shard of rock and used it to clear away some of the webbing.It was thicker than I expected, but brittle, too, and it parted with ease.Small carcasses filled the shelves in drifts.Spiders.Some normal-sized, some as big as my hand.Thankfully, all long-dead.But once I got beyond the creepy, eight-legged confetti, I saw the shelves had once held something other than bugs.Vessels of wood or clay or glass.It was like Taruut’s stash of tinctures and herbs, but enough to supply an army.
I uncorked a stoneware jar and tipped out a sifting of dust.Whatever army this storehouse might have served was long dead, and the shaman who’d amassed it was already moldering in the mysterious hidden crypt.
The herbs were useless, but that didn’t mean there was nothing here I could use.I dragged a brazier closer to the shelves.The wood inside was beyond desiccated, and when I coaxed flame into it from my lantern, it blazed to life with a startling crackle.
The light illuminated even more crunchy mounds of spider bodies—ew—but up above, on the highest shelf…was that a scroll case?Maybe there really was a map after all!Since the shelving was built for orcs, I couldn’t quite tell what I’d found from where I stood.But I’m not a bad climber, and if I cleared away enough of the spiders….
“Well—look who’s here.”
I jumped and whirled around, only to find Gorgul standing in one of the doorways with his hand resting on his spear.His footsteps must’ve been camouflaged by the crackling of the old wood!Still, there were even more guards behind him, and I should have heard them coming.Iwouldhave…if I hadn’t been so focused on the scrolls.
Gorgul handed off his lantern to an underling and strode into the chamber, making no attempt now to tread softly.His steps were punctuated by alarming crunches.“Weak little humans should take care in snooping around unfamiliar caves.”He picked up a skeletal carcass the size of a sea crab.“If this cave spider were still alive, she’d eat her way through your soft belly and pump you full of eggs.And you can see how eagerly they breed.”
He tossed the dried spider in my direction.I dodged, and it shattered against a dusty shelf.
“You’re not nearly as clever as you believe,” he went on, scanning the room.“What is it you think you’ve found?There’s nothing here anyone would care about.Nothing here but rot and ruin.Face it, human.There’s only one thing a whore like you can offer—and it’s nothing that would interest a shaman.”
I’d quit being ashamed of my profession years ago.And yet, somehow, the orc’s insult cut me to the bone.Probably because it came on the heels of me entertaining the notion that I could ingratiate myself to Droko.Because it hit me right where a sliver of hope had breached my heart.
I knew damn well that hope is for suckers.But it stung nonetheless.
The worst part was, that horrible guard could tell he’d gotten to me.A grin of smug satisfaction curled around his tusks as he basked in my humiliation.He’d be singing a different tune, though, once I brought that scroll to Droko.
His gaze followed mine and landed on the cracked leather case.Without so much as straining, he plucked it from the high shelf and my heart sank.Now he’d be the hero…and I’d be just another puny slave.
“There’s nothing here,” Gorgul repeated…and dropped the scroll case onto the flaming brazier.
The leather case might have protected it, once.But not now.Hungry flames chewed through the cracked leather sheath as I watched my one chance at impressing the new shaman go up in smoke.
Gorgul took a step in my direction.I’m sure he would’ve loved nothing more than to grab me by the hair and shove my face into the smoking coals.
The long knife hidden in my trousers weighed against my thigh, but it was obvious he’d spear me before I got close enough to use it.Still, my sense of self-preservation is finely honed, and before he could catch me, I’d grabbed my lantern and slipped through a crack between two shelves that was too narrow for him to follow.
“Go, little human,” he called after me.“Scatter like the vermin you are.You can’t hide forever.Eventually you’ll end up like the spiders.Dried up and dead.”
