The sun was lowering on the horizon when I saw Ul-Rott out of the caves.My sense of time was off-kilter from spending so long underground.One look at the purpling sky—just as cloudless as the chieftain had claimed—filled me with urgency and dread.If I didn’t find the crypt by morning, the old shaman would have to go on a funeral pyre, like a lowly soldier.
And Ul-Rott would stoke the flames with my headless corpse.
I strode back to the chalk map, searching desperately for some way we’d overlooked.No doubt the answer was right there.I just needed to see it.
I was on my hands and knees, following a sinuous path with my fingertip, when the sound of orcish footfalls paused in the entryway.I glanced up and found Kof regarding me with some confusion through his single eye.“Droko the Sage,” he said quickly, touching the ground with his bent knee.“Are you well?”
“I’m fine.”Though I wouldn’t be for much longer if we didn’t find that crypt.
“Please.”He sidestepped a chalk line and then hovered at my side, as if searching for some way to help me up without actually touching my sacred person.“This is the work of servants.It’s not fit for a shaman.”
I pushed back into a ready crouch, planting my elbows on my knees.“Time is running out.Unless you have something useful to add.”
Kof squatted beside me.“I have been scouting the northernmost tunnel….”He hesitated.
“And?”
He pointed at another of the markings with a wince.“And it loops around, and exits here.”
The last two potential routes…both of them useless.
“Then that’s it.We’ve explored every possible passage big enough for an orc, and not one of them leads to a crypt.There must be something we’ve overlooked.”I turned back to the map, hoping to find any gap that might contain a crypt.
Kof shifted uneasily.
I glanced up, finding his scarred brow furrowed with concern.“What is it?”
“It’s not my place to say.”
“You’re the captain of my guard.If you don’t tell me what you think, then who will?”
He pondered his words for a moment, then forced himself to speak.“Any of us can stare at this map.Even me…with a single eye.But the only one able to hear the whispers of the ancestors is you.”
Meditation.A shaman’s solution to any problem.But the last thing I wanted to do was sit on my thumb and pretend to be receiving some esoteric wisdom.I was no man of thought, only action.If I wanted the orcs to believe I was a shaman, though, I’d need to play along.At least until Kof ventured back into the caves so that I could resume my strategizing in peace.
When I made my way to the meditation chamber, my mind was on the tunnels as I dragged my fingertips across the cool stone wall.I couldn’t see much of anything by the tricky light of a lantern.Surely, it was possible the guardsmen missed something.Unless they touched every surface, a narrow passage, a hidden gap, would be easy enough to overlook.If only I could go back to the map and take another—
A figure stood in the open door of my sanctuary, backlit by a flickering brazier.Taruut come to visit from beyond the veil of death?A ridiculous notion that I immediately dismissed.All this talk of visions and ancestors had clearly gone to my head.I raised my lantern and threw open the shutter….
Only to see it was Gorgul waiting for me in the chamber.
Of all the guards, he was the most ambitious.If anyone had made progress, it would be him.“Did you find anything?”I asked.
A pleased smile wrapped itself around his tusks.“I’d say so.”
It looked like I would manage to live another day, after all….
At least until Gorgul tossed me something distinctly head-shaped, and I realized it was the source of my “ivories.”
Dropping the skull, I stiffened and drew myself up to my full height—Ul-rott was right, I did make a better soldier than a shaman.But as such, I could see that without armor, without a weapon, I stood no chance at all against the spear in Gorgul’s hand.The honor guard was supposed tobemy weapon.
I would have preferred a sword.Unless you’re phenomenally clumsy, cold steel won’t bite you in the back.
“Don’t worry,Droko the Sage,” Gorgul sneered.“I’d be an idiot to do you any harm.Especially when there’s so muchyoucan do for me.”
He invited me into my own sanctuary with exaggerated politeness, then rolled the stone over the doorway to seal us both in.
I squared my shoulders and declared, “I am your shaman.You are the one in service.Not I.”
