I might be no shaman, but my station as a chieftain’s son served me well.I approached the sentries with my head high, not giving the guards any reason for suspicion.I gave no sign of the relief that flooded me when the guards reflexively took a knee as they pounded their chests and said, “Praise Ul-Rott.”
The chieftain’s name might be different, but my reply was as reflexive as blinking grit from my eye.My hand fell to the hilt of my blade as I said, “My s—”
Had I really almost answered,My swords are his?
I was supposed to be a shaman, not a warrior.
And my hand rested not on a sword, but the hunk of gnarled wood we’d scavenged from the woods.
“My staff,” I managed, “is his, for the glory of the Red Hand.”
The guards rose, but didn’t open the gate.Not until a big orc with honor guard markings painted on his cheeks in white clay shoved through from the other side and demanded of the sentries, “You would keep the new shaman waiting?You’re lucky he hasn’t cursed you already.”
The guards’ postures grew a lot more deferential…though I was under no illusion that the one they bore any respect for was me.
The honor guard did not just fold to a single knee.He knelt fully, bending forward until his tusks brushed the ground.A posture of total subservience.“I am unworthy of your blessing.”He canted his head slightly and asked, “Erm…your name?”
“Droko.”
“Droko the Sage,” he finished loudly.Crespash had the good sense not to snort.“I am Gorgul, second in command of the honor guard.And it is my great privilege to serve you.”
Gorgul rose and quickly summoned a few of his lieutenants to march us through the village.Red Hand orcs stopped in the center of the walkways and bowed their heads, making room on the cobblestone paths for us to pass.I was aware that more than one pair of eyes regarded me with curiosity, but thankfully, nobody accused me of being a fraud.
Yet.
The Red Hand village was situated at the foot of a stony bluff, and it was toward this natural wall that Gorgul led us.I expected a dwelling.There was none.Back home, the shaman of the Two Swords clan lived in a grand stilted lodge.It was decorated with signs of his rank, perfumed with incense and the smell of exotic herbs and spices, and surrounded by all of his acolytes and slaves–while the shaman of the Red Hand clan apparently lived in…a cave.
The entrance was hung with a curtain of bones–scores of the tiny things, small and off-white in color, some chalky and brittle, some smooth and shiny.Fingerbones, most likely.And there was no telling what we might find beyond them.
I paused at the curtain, wishing I’d spent more time in the shaman’s lodge.Or, frankly, any time at all.At least then I would have some idea what to expect.
Gorgul paused too.He and Crespash and I all stood there looking at each other…and I wondered if my ruse would be uncovered by something as minor as my ignorance about how a shaman should walk through the door.
I steeled myself to be called out…and humiliated…and run through with a vicious, obsidian-tipped spear.But instead, Gorgul averted his eyes and said, “Forgive me, Droko the Sage.Taruut the Wise was a powerful shaman—but he was too old to walk.We carried him everywhere—so we have no order in place for a shaman who can use his own two feet.Who should lead the way?Command it, and it will be so.”
“You know the way,” I said.“Proceed.”The word even held the ring of authority.
I supposed being the third son of the chieftain was at least good for that.
Bones clattered as Gorgul pushed the curtain aside and led me into the dimness of the cave.I’d expected it to be cool.But the air inside was warm and damp, and the smell of sulfur blotted out every other scent.
The slender cave mouth soon opened into a wide, low chamber.Our guide picked up a lantern and shone it at the far wall.It was covered in carved niches that glinted with crystals, powders, jars of strange liquids, and bundles of herbs and feathers.
Back in the longhouse, despite my parentage, I’d only been allowed to keep what would fit in my footlocker.Clothing and weapons.A whetstone and some coin.And a few precious books from the library my father never bothered to visit.
Here, though, the walls were lined with trinkets and tools.
Not one of them familiar.
Thankfully, nobody stopped me on the spot and tested me on the items’ arcane uses.Gorgul led us past the carved niches and farther into the caves.His sandals slapped the stony floor as he strode forth like the soldier he was.When he spoke to point out the various hallways, the caves picked up his voice and amplified it, so it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
The passageway branched, and branched again.A labyrinth.And now that we were past the entrance, it looked as though the work had been done not by mallet and chisel, but by nature.The walls were smooth and glistening, striped with different shades of dun and gray.The ceiling undulated overhead, sometimes low enough to make out the pointed daggers of rock aiming down at us, sometimes too high to see at all.
He paused before an archway etched with cryptic symbols in chalky white and brown blood.“These were the personal chambers of Taruut.We only entered to help him into his chair.And even then, we kept our eyes averted.They are yours now.”
It was dark, but still I could make out shelves full of more useless junk—jars of mysterious powders and liquids, and strange symbols hewn from bone and stone.A carved sedan chair was pushed against one wall.A sleeping pallet was cut into another, padded with hides.
An old man’s room.
