Page 62 of On a Barbarian World

Late in the afternoon, after a lazy lunch with Kavon, Aurina took a nap. She grinned to herself. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had the luxury of an afternoon nap. She kind of liked it.

Then, she had gone out and watered the plants on Kavon’s balcony, and snipped off a few dead leaves. Since no one had been watching, she’d sunk her hands into the rich soil and wiggled her fingers around with glee. She was planning to ask Kavon for some seeds and another flower box. There was enough room to nicely fit another one on the balcony.

The sound of a throat clearing brought her back to the present, and the meeting of Kavon’s mining supervisors. She’d wanted to join in, curious about how they conducted their mining, and what minerals they mined.

At the same time, Kavon was off with his warriors, busy assuring all his people he was very much alive.

She shifted in her seat and felt a twinge. Yep, he was very much alive. They’d just about killed each other with sex.

Except it wasn’t just sex. At least, not for her.

“Aurina?”

She blinked and focused on the man and woman with her. “Sorry, Gadiel. What was that?”

“We have encountered this rock with the following properties.” The woman in charge of Kavon’s mines rattled off a description. She was older than Aurina, with dark brown hair pulled up in a tight bun. “But we aren’t certain if it is worth mining.”

Aurina frowned. “It doesn’t sound familiar to me. Could you get me a sample? If Kavon allows me some of my tech back, I can scan it.” She stared down at the miners’ papers, with their very accurate, hand-drawn pictures. She paused and pointed to one image. Was that what she thought it was? “What do you do with this?”

“It’s waste,” the man, Gadiel’s top mining superintendent, said. “We have the nanami consume it during mining.”

Aurina sat forward. “It looks like zanite. Tell me its properties. Color, weight, hardness.”

The man nodded and listed the answers to her question.

“Stars,” she said. “It’s definitely zanite. It is a highly valuable mineral in the central systems.”

Gadiel frowned. “Used for what?”

“Just about everything. Mostly it’s added to other metals to strengthen it. You could use it to do the same with your metals.”

The man started scribbling furiously, and Gadiel nodded. “We can rework the nanami to start collecting it.”

“I wanted to ask you all a question.” They looked at Aurina expectantly. “Do you know anything about the mines in the Caverns of Riom?”

Both faces went blank with shock.

The man cleared his throat. “They are a legend. The Lost Mines of Riom are said to be filled with bad, unstable ground. No one knows their exact location.”

“I know. I suspect Durendal is in those mines. It’s worth the risk.”

The mining supervisors looked at each other.

“The mine tunnels are said to be haunted,” Gadiel said. “Old adventurers who risked entering them either never came back…or came back sick or crazy.”

“Something in there messes with their nanami,” her superintendent added. “It drove them out of their minds.”

“Plus,” Gadiel said, “there are monsters far worse than the naga in there.”

Aurina couldn’t imagine much worse than the naga. “It’s the only plan I have. Of course, it will be Kavon’s decision on what he wants to do.” She stared at the papers. “Do you have any maps of the old tunnels?”

Gadiel sighed. “Yes. They are very old, and, we suspect, not very accurate. And it is possible things could have changed over the years. Tremors cause tunnels to collapse or new tunnels and caverns to open up.”

Aurina nodded. She wondered how much of what they were telling her was warlord-manufactured stories to keep Markarians away. “Show me what you’ve got. Please.”

After another hour with the miners, Aurina had a somewhat workable map of the tunnels. Okay, so it was a thousand years old and pretty sketchy, but it was something. She also had a workable plan. There was a closed-up entrance to the mines at the base of the mountain. From there, they could follow the map to a few of the places marked as interesting or dangerous.

Now, all she had to do was convince a certain hard-headed warrior to give it a shot.