Not gonna lie…I may have broken into a nervous sweat.It turned out to be an asset for slipping through a particularly punishing gap.Gorgul wasn’t wrong.If I got lost in the stony labyrinth, there was only so long I could last without food or drink.But, who knows?Maybe, by that time, I would grow thin enough to shove myself through a gap that led to freedom.
Unfortunately, it was just as likely I’d only find myself wandering deeper into the earth.I squeezed out into yet another stony chamber, about as big around as the parlor of a fancy brothel.My sense of direction seemed fine back in Wildwood, where I never got lost, even when a new crop of lean-tos sprang up where mere days before, there’d been a road.But the caves, carved by the capriciousness of water, followed their own flowing paths that were nothing like the constructs of men.
And even worse…after a while, they all looked the same.Same rugged walls.Same threatening stalactites.
Same crescent-shaped gap.
I’d circled back around to the sword!I crammed through the gap and fumbled into the crevice where it was hidden, panicking momentarily as my grasp closed on thin air.But then my fingertips brushed the smooth pommel, and I swayed with relief as I drew out the sword.
I imagined that dumb oaf Gargle coming at me with a spear, only for it to shear right in half as I raised my glorious blade.That was supposing I was able to lift it in time—which, honestly, would be a stretch.But a guy can always dream.
Of course, it would be even more satisfying to cleave Gorgul in two like I’d sliced through the stone bier.But, setting aside that I didn’t have the strength…if I somehow did manage, the memory would undoubtedly haunt me for the rest of my days.
I dragged the sword from its hiding place and reacquainted myself with the shape of the hilt.My fantasies about becoming the shaman’s confidante were no better than the spider carcasses.Dust and ruin.If Droko let me serve him, it would never be as anything other than a slave.And Gorgul would make sure that my time in service was as short as possible.In other words…there was nothing for me here.
I had to go.
I shoved through to the chamber where the stumpy figures lay in petrified eternal rest—not because I thought they could help me, but because it was the last place I’d seen the sky.My eyes were accustomed to the low light of the lantern, but outside, it was daylight now.The light beaming through the shaft a dozen feet overhead made my eyes water, and I squinted as I adjusted to the brightness.
I didn’t know exactly where that shaft would lead, but the only sound filtering down was the rustle of wind through branches and the chatter of an annoyed bluejay.Not the sort of sounds you’d hear within the walls of an orcish village.
I pressed the tip of the sword into the cavern floor.There was resistance….And then it pushed through as if the floor were clay, not stone.I might not be able to reach that shaft in the center of the ceiling without a grappling hook.But if I carved steps into the stone wall and reached the ceiling, maybe I could tunnel my own way out.
A circuit of the chamber revealed a craggy diagonal ridge that almost read as a stairway—if you looked at it just right and squinted hard enough.Parts of it were too narrow to even qualify as a toehold, and stretches of it were nearly vertical.But as I hacked off a shard of stone with my preternaturally sharp blade, I saw that with a bit of help, stairs could emerge.
It was slow work.I found a rhythm with the tool, getting a feel for the best angle to hold the blade and exactly how much stone I could hew away with a single stroke.But even as I got the hang of it, my shoulders began to ache and my arms trembled with fatigue.
By the time I could no longer lift the heavy sword, I’d carved all of three steps.Steep, narrow, precarious things barely the width of my foot.
Good thing I’d only need to use them once.
My stomach growled, and I stashed my sword in its niche to head for the kitchen before anyone wondered where I’d gone.Gorgul would probably think I’d been hiding from him, and that was fine by me.People tended to underestimate me.Might as well use it to my advantage.
The gnarly old cook at the brothel always shooed whores out of the kitchen so no one could take more than their fair share of the slop, so I was working by instinct alone.Even worse, I didn’t recognize most of the ingredients.At least, I thought I didn’t….
Until I unstoppered a jar of reddish seeds and inhaled their intoxicating spice…and recalled Taruut’s words.
The berry of the Rubyseed plant is a capricious thing.Harvest them too young, and they’ll pucker your mouth.Too old, and you’ll shit for days.But at their pinnacle of ripeness, the taste is so exquisite, clans have fought wars for a wagonload of the fruit.
The Rubyseed he’d shown me back then was on the ripe side—a cure for constipation.But the bottle in my hand was clearly of the war-starting variety.
Couldn’t care less if Droko likes my cooking, I told myself as I stewed some jerky and dried roots, and seasoned them with the rare spice.Just making myself seem useful so I don’t end up in the slave pits before I cut my way out of here.
13
DROKO
One by one, my teams of explorers returned to report all the passageways in which they didn’t find the crypt.And one by one, I chalked their routes onto the floor.As the day wore on, the map tripled in size.
And still…no crypt.
Kof stood beside me, glaring down at the map.His shoulders drooped.But he made no move to stop searching.“We must have missed something.I’ll go back and check again.”
A good general knows when to march his troops, and when to rest.
“Go back to your barracks,” I told him.“We’ll take up the search in the morning.It’s been a long day.”
“Indeed it has,” said a goblin voice, once the guard captain was out of earshot.“But you may want to savor it.There may not be many more ahead of you.”
