I tried to imagine growing so old as to need such things.I had always presumed I would fall in battle.Most likely against this very clan.As I grappled with the bizarre turn my circumstances had taken, a scent teased at the back of my tongue.Beneath the sulfur, the air was thick with an unpleasant odor—a combination of resins, herbs, and smoke.I’d noticed that right away.But there was something else.Something darker….
“It was a few days before we realized Taruut was not just meditating,” Gorgul admitted.
Of course.The smell of death.
Gorgul seemed as eager to leave this chamber as I was.He turned smartly and led the way down another branch.“Heated waters run beneath the caves.”He showed us into a cavern where a brazier burned low, barely enough to see by.Smoke gathered at the ceiling.A bowl-shaped depression filled with water took up most of the room.“A few times a day, the Great Whale spouts.Never the same hour…but Taruut the Wise could sense the tremors of the Whale and know when the eruption was coming.”
The stone floor was slick and wet, and moisture dripped from the stalactites.
“The Whale spouted just before you got here,” Gorgul said.“It will be some time before she spouts again.”
The guard led me through various chambers, far more than I would have expected to find beyond the bony curtain that covered the fissure in the rocky cliff face.All of them were filled with dubious trinkets.Most of them smelled of disuse.There were such great stretches of twisting passageway, so many offshoots and nooks, that eventually they all blended together…until we came upon the archway leading to the shaman’s private rooms again.
I was eager to be rid of my guide, but instead of saluting me and heading off to do whatever he normally did, he cleared his throat and said, “No doubt you’re wondering why I neglected something so important in your tour.”
What was he going on about now?“You tell me.”
“The crypt.”
“The crypt,” I repeated, in the tone my father used when he wanted to watch an opponent squirm.
It apparently worked.Gorgul shifted his grip on his spear—telltale nerves—and said, “Taruut kept its location secret, so we haven’t been able to….”He winced.
“Your shaman hasn’t been laid to rest?”I demanded, shocked.
“There was no one here to perform the rites.”
I wasn’t sure which part was worse.That the old shaman hadn’t been given to the pyre like a proper orc, or that I was now expected to see him off.
Gorgul said, “Taruut’s body lies in state in the village square.The honor of sending him on his next journey is yours.”
Spewing a prophecy, I could handle.But the funeral rites of an honored shaman would give away my utter lack of shamanic skills in no time.“Surely the honor should fall to someone from his own clan.”
“You are Red Hand now,” Gorgul said firmly.“But of course, no one would expect you to prepare the body yourself.If your goblin is not up to the task, you have Taruut’s slave at your disposal.”That might work.If I got something wrong, I could always blame the slave.“Do you wish to see him?”
I made an impatient gesture, and Gorgul led me deeper into one of the innumerable tunnels we’d toured before.Lantern high, he passed a pair of guards and pushed through a stout iron gate.It was the first chamber we had encountered that was not filled with superstitious nonsense.The room was nearly empty, in fact….
Other than the practically naked human male shackled to the far wall.
My eyes went immediately to the sweep of his pale belly, bared for all to see.Utterly vulnerable.I blinked and looked away, but the sight of the tender, smooth flesh had seared itself into my mind, and I was unprepared for the strength of my reaction.In a deliberately bland voice, I asked, “What is he being punished for?”
Gorgul seemed surprised.“This is no punishment.He’s just a slippery one, is all.”
Slippery?A cascade of images came to me, unbidden.That smooth, pale belly, oiled and pliant.The sweep of his thigh.The fragile throat that was currently hidden by the tall collar….
Surely ashamanwouldn’t have such thoughts.
I’d need to watch myself.
Projecting as much boredom as I could manage, I said, “Those neck irons seem like overkill.Get rid of them.”
“As you wish, Droko the Sage.”Gorgul gestured toward the other guardsmen and they immediately set to work removing the bonds.“You are the shaman.”
4
ARCHIE
Obviously, I’d known Taruut’s replacement was coming.But what I didn’t expect was for him to be a big, strapping specimen of man-meat.Droko the Sage stood tall and strong—easily as tall as Gargle—with shoulders so wide they filled the doorway and hands big enough to circle my waist with ease.
