by Nick Harrow
It might’ve been my imagination, but the soultaker’s steps grew quicker. She thrust herself forward with long, efficient strides, and her bare toes found purchase in crevices and crannies I doubt I would have been able to find with a magnifying glass. Her long, lean body moved with the relentless efficiency of a well-oiled machine. Del in action was a wonder to behold.
The shouts and echoes of battle still carried through the cavern, but the thick and heavy voices of the rock boys had been all but drowned out by the cries of the raiders. The battle was over, or it would be soon, and then the search would begin anew.
With a final burst of speed, Delsinia launched herself out of the cavern and into the relative safety of the tunnel where Zillah and the blood gnome waited.
“Oh, that’s a big one,” Zillah said as she rushed forward to take the half-orc’s weight off Delsinia’s shoulders. “Look at those muscles! Can we keep her?”
“I doubt it,” I responded. “Tie her up. Quickly. We have to get the fuck out of here.”
Zillah and Delsinia worked together with smooth efficiency. The scorpion queen rolled the half-orc onto her belly and kneeled on her spine. Delsinia hooked Charlie’s arms behind her and tied them in place with the bone chain that bound her daggers together. She detached the daggers, hooked them onto her clothes, then tied a complex knot into the chain around the half-orc’s wrist. The soultaker checked her work with a quick tug. When the knot held, Del nodded to Zillah, satisfied the half-orc wouldn’t be able to break free.
The half-orc groaned and struggled to roll over. Her hands twitched below the chains, but she couldn’t do much with Zillah’s weight on her back.
“Teamwork.” Zillah winked at Del, and a warm pride spread through the soultaker.
“Get the raider on her feet.” I used Del’s mouth to convey the order. “We need to get out of here before the searchers find us.”
My guardians dragged Charlie to her feet, and Zillah brandished her spear at the half-orc.
“You move funny, you look at me funny, you even breathe funny,” the scorpion queen said, “and you’ll be deepthroating my spear before you can so much as blink.”
The half-orc glared at my guardians, her red eyes alight with a fierce hatred. Her nostrils flared, and the muscles in her jaw jumped as her teeth ground together.
“You won’t be able to get it,” Charlie spat. “My people will die before they let it go. It means more to them than life itself.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Zillah asked.
“Our way home.” The half-orc seemed confused by the question. “The godmarrow.”
Chapter 8 – Gnomes on the Rage
WELL, THAT WAS A BIG ol’ surprise.
“What do you know about godmarrow?” I asked through Del’s mouth. There was something familiar about the inside of the soultaker’s skull that made it a little easier to control her than Zillah.
“We can use it to return to our homes.” The half-orc strained against the bone chain that bound her wrists. The links creaked, but there was no give to them.
“You’re raiders. Why not just use the same gate that got you here to go home?” I asked.
“We’d like to, but some asshole blew it up a few days ago.” Charlie grimaced as the chain links bit into her wrists. “We were advance scouts for the rest of the raiders and came down here to score some godmarrow for the guild while the newbies cleared out the baby dungeons nearer the surface.”
“Let’s walk while we talk,” I said. “I’d rather not hang around while your buddies are looking for you.”
Delsinia nudged the blood gnome with the clawed toes of her left foot, and the pasty little freak scrambled ahead of us.
“Back topside?” it asked. “Or somewhere else?”
“How far away are your people?” I asked.
“Not long, not short,” it said. Half a watch?
Spending time surrounded by a bunch of this little dude’s friends and family didn’t strike me as the safest move, but I’d run out of time and options. I had an evil plan for the little monsters, and I’d rather get them on board sooner rather than later.
And if they fucked us over, we’d solve the problem a different way.
We’d kill them all.
“Take us to your leader,” Delsinia responded before I could put words in her mouth. “But if you try to eat us, you will all die.”
“Deep breath,” the blood gnome said. “No eat the pretties.”
Delsinia bared her teeth at the little guy’s come-on, and it got the picture. It ducked its head and scampered past her to lead the way.
“Interesting guide,” the half-orc sneered. “Only a monster would work with that scum.”
“You work with the tools you have,” I said through Del’s mouth. “If you’re lucky, you’ll get to be one of those tools.”
“I ain’t working with you freaks,” she said. “It’s my job to kill things like you.”
“You know,” I said, “as tough as you think you are, you and your people are in a pretty bad spot. I could help you, if you cooperate. Or I could kill you all. You decide how you want it to go down.”
“How would you help us?” The half-orc shook her head in disbelief. “You don’t look like much of a mage, and I’m willing to bet the scorpion girl isn’t one, either.”
“Insult me again, and you will not have to worry about returning to your home,” Delsinia said, her tone half-bored, half-irritated. “We are the servants of Lord Rathokhetra, and we do not suffer insults from fools.”
“Really?” the half-orc said, disbelief clear in her voice. “That’s the motherfucker who blew up our gate and stranded us here. I oughta kill both of you right now.”
Clearly, the time for subtlety was passed. We’d snuck into this woman’s camp, kidnapped her from beneath the noses of her guards, and bound her in chains. If she still thought she had the upper hand, it was time to show her differently.
I took control of Zillah’s body, whirled to face the half-orc, and caught her throat in the crotch of the scorpion queen’s mancatcher spear.
“Both of us?” I asked. “There are three of us here. I am Lord Rathokhetra, and you are in no position to threaten me or mine. One more outburst and my guardians will snip your head off in the blink of an eye. We can talk, or you can die. The choice is yours.”
The half-orc stared into Zillah’s eyes while Delsinia cleaned her nails with a dagger.
“Then talk.” My stunt may have knocked the wind out of Charlie’s sails, but she was far from cowed.
“Let’s be clear,” I said. “I don’t like raiders. The sooner you and your people are gone, the happier I’ll be.”
“Then let me get back to my team,” the raider said. “The dwarves are close to the godmarrow, and if it weren’t for the tons of iron ore in their way, we’d already have it. A few more days, and we can get the fuck out of here.”
“I have a better idea,” I said. While we’d waited for Delsinia to snatch this woman, I’d woven the separate strands of my problems into a loose solution. The information she’d just provided me tightened up my scheme significantly. “Work with me, give me the godmarrow, and I’ll send you home.”
The half-orc tried, and failed, to look ferocious. She gnawed on her lower lip as she considered my words, which revealed the sharp white points of a pair of small tusks that jutted from her lower jaw.
“I’ve never heard of a dungeon lord being anything other than an evil piece of shit. You got the drop on me, and it doesn’t look like I have a lot of choice but to hear you out.” she said. “What is it you want me to do?”
I explained my plan to the half-orc as we went. Delsinia and Zillah both seemed surprised but supportive of what I had to say. Even Rathokhetra grumbled his assent at the scheme I’d put together all by my lonesome. I wasn’t a military genius, but the plan I’d come up with seemed to be the best option for facing down a literal army with my limited resources. It wasn’t perfect, but not
hing ever was.
“It’s not a bad idea.” Charlie glanced at me from the corner of her eye. “It does sound like my people will have to take a lot of risks, though.”
“There’s a shit-ton of risk to go around,” I said. “This plan is less risky than digging up some godmarrow and playing around with powers you don’t understand. Do you really think you’ll be able to excavate something that important without someone much stronger and nastier than you noticing? Godmarrow’s powerful stuff, and there’re things in the Great Below that can’t wait to get their hands on it.”
That was a bit of a bluff because I wasn’t positive that monsters really could feel the godmarrow, but it made sense that powerful magic had an aura that big, bad critters could detect. From the uncertain look that crossed the half-orc’s face, the story was at least plausible.
“If you get the rest of your plan in order, I’m in,” she said. “If not—”
“If you’re not in, you’re out,” I said. There was no beating around the bush with this one, and it was important she understood just how high the stakes were for her and the rest of the raiders. “And if you’re out, you’re dead.”
I let her chew on that in silence while we followed the blood gnome.
“Del,” I thought to the soultaker, “you understand what’s happening?”
“You have a plan that is sound in theory,” she responded. “The execution will require very precise planning, but I have faith you can manage it. I am yours, my love. Do not doubt my resolve or dedication.”
“Thank you,” I said. “But don’t be afraid to tell me I’m full of shit or that my plan is bad. You have more experience as a dungeon lord than I do, and I value your advice.”
“Your confidence in me is inspiring,” Del said. “I will search for flaws in your plan. You will be the first to know if I find any.”
Satisfied Delsinia understood what I needed from her, I turned my attention back to my current host, the scorpion queen.
“Sorry about the meat puppet show,” I thought to Zillah. “I didn’t want to commandeer your body without warning, but that half-orc had to be put in line.”
“Hey, my body is your playground,” Zillah said. “I dig going along for the ride while you take the wheel. It’s liberating. And our next ride will be very interesting.”
“Easy, tiger.” Zillah’s arousal made it hard to think while I was in her body. If this was how she felt most of the time, I was impressed she ever got anything done. “We still need to deal with these blood gnomes. You’re cool with the plan?”
“As cool as I can be,” Zillah replied. “The odds are long, even with your brains and my mad combat skills. The raiders help our numbers, but we still don’t have nearly as many men as we need.”
“I’m working on that,” I said.
“Fingers crossed,” Zillah said.
We walked in silence for a while after that, lost in thought. I turned my stratagem one way and then another in hopes that I’d find flaws in it before my enemies did. My dungeon lord tricks tilted the odds a little more in my favor, and the highly unorthodox battle plan I’d dreamed up would be like nothing Lexios had ever seen.
What I really needed was more information about what the tax collector would bring to the battlefield. I still didn’t know exactly what we were up against, and Lexios might have magic of his own that could put a crimp in my plans.
“Close,” the blood gnome whispered. When it turned back to face Zillah, the sensory stalks inside its eye pits wriggled like strands of seaweed in an ocean current. “Stay quiet. Behind me. Be safe, not be stupid.”
It pressed a long, pale finger to its wrinkled gray lips to emphasize the importance of its instructions, then motioned for us to follow.
The little guy padded along ahead of us, its flat feet slapping against the stone with every step. Its scrawny legs and knobby knees moved quickly, but the rest of us had no trouble keeping up at a more sedate pace. When your legs are only a foot and a half long, you don’t cover very much ground.
It only took a few minutes for us to see the first sign of the blood gnomes. A trio of femurs, the hip joints lashed together with hanks of coarse, greasy black hair formed a tripod on the side of the tunnel. A small, bird-like skull with a pair of diminutive antlers sat atop the tripod, and a smoky red glow oozed from its blackened eye sockets.
“Warning to outsiders,” the blood gnome said. “Come farther, get eaten. Not you, okay?”
It gave Zillah and Del a smile that might have been comforting had its teeth not been twin rows of jagged black needles.
We proceeded past the warning sign, and Zillah’s muscles tightened with apprehension. Her tensed body was like a suit of armor around my thoughts. As dangerous as this territory was, it was a great comfort to ride along in one of the deadliest warriors I’d ever seen in action.
The next warning sign was more impressive than the first. A big cat’s skull hung from the cavern’s ceiling by a rope of knotted hair, red light drooled from its eye sockets, and oily fluid drained from the snout. Our guide breezed right past that warning sign without a word and didn’t stop us at a pile of glowing canine skulls lashed together by wiry spinal columns, either.
The fourth warning totem was the most impressive. Strips of scaled flesh dangled from a crocodilian skull’s incisors, and the glow from its eyes crackled and sparked like captive lightning. Someone had taken great pains to carve elaborate runes down the long slope of the skull’s nose, and those glowed with the baleful orange light of hot coals. A faint moan escaped from the thing and set Zillah’s teeth on edge.
“Go no farther,” the blood gnome said. “I be back. Must talk with Big Gnome.”
We watched the withered little fucker scuttle out of sight around the bend in the passage ahead of us. The slap-slap-slap of its steps soon faded away, and the rest of us were left in silence.
“You can’t trust that little shit,” Charlie warned us. “Once it gets back with its tribe, it’ll forget how scared it was. You’ll be up to your assholes in flint knives and teeth in a flash.”
“I’ll use that bridge to beat those pasty little bastards to death when we come to it,” I said. “If a horde of bony cannibals shows up looking for a meal, I’m confident my guardians will knock their teeth down their throats and wipe the floor with them.”
“And what am I supposed to do?” The half-orc flexed her wrists and rattled the bone chain behind her. “I’ll be dead if a fight breaks out.”
“I hope not,” I said. “But who knows? Bad shit happens to good people all the time. Not that I think you’re a good person.”
Charlie chuckled at that but said nothing else. That was good because Rathokhetra was not pleased to have a raider so near at hand. The dungeon lord had spent many mortal lifetimes trying to eradicate the treasure hunters, and his instinct was to pop the half-orc’s head like a zit before she could betray us.
And if I hadn’t needed her, there’s a good chance I would’ve done the same. Dead raiders couldn’t attack my dungeon. They also couldn’t harm the wahket. Most importantly, corpses couldn’t tell their treasure-hunting friends about me or my dungeons.
The sound of gnome feet reached us a few minutes later. It sounded like there was a single pair, which was enough to get Zillah to relax just a hair. She was still ready to strike at a moment’s notice, but she’d eased back on the trigger.
“Come, come.” Excitement had twisted the scrawny cannibal’s already high-pitched voice several octaves higher. “Big Gnome want see!”
“Be ready,” I whispered to Del with Zillah’s voice. “We could use the blood gnomes, but if they get ugly, kill every one of them.”
We followed our gruesome guide down a long, narrow passage. There were no more skull tripods to warn outsiders away, but crude inscriptions covered the walls with pictograms that made it very clear visitors were not welcome. Most of them were tall stick figures being torn apart by smaller stick figures, though there were a surprising n
umber of pictograms that showed the stunted cannibals used outsiders as breeding stock as well as food.
“Horny little buggers,” Zillah muttered. “They must fuck like rabbits. Though I didn’t see a prick or a slit on our guide. I wonder what they bump uglies if they don’t have any uglies.”
I really could’ve gone all day without the images that stuck in my head.
“Almost home.” The blood gnome spoke in a conversational tone, like it didn’t care who heard. That made sense; we’d returned to its stomping grounds and the only people likely to be here were friends. Why wouldn’t it be a cheerful little fuck?
The passage ahead took a sudden hard left turn, narrowed significantly, and angled steeply downward. Zillah’s longer body had difficulty navigating the tight confines, and there was hardly room for her to wield her spear. If the tunnel narrowed much more, she’d have to wait for us to come back for her.
“Fuck this shit,” Zillah snarled. “This is a goddamned trap.”
She ducked her head low, pulled her first pair of legs up to her chest, bent almost horizontal, and let the three pairs of insectile legs that supported her tail drive her forward. With her torso nearly perpendicular to the floor, Zillah plowed over our guide as she bulled ahead.
The blood gnome squawked and tumbled ahead of the scorpion queen. It rolled into an empty cavern that was an almost perfect ten-foot cube. It screeched out a string of harsh syllables in a language I didn’t understand and jabbed both index fingers in Zillah’s direction. Its flat feet scrabbled at the floor and frantically pushed its prone body backward like a retreating crab.
A chorus of inhuman voices responded to its cries with angry shouts, and small, white bodies plummeted through holes in the ceiling to land on Zillah’s back and tail.
“Meat! Meat for Big Gnome!” the tricky little bastards screamed. They carried small hatchets and flint knives in their hands and their naked bodies were adorned with red-brown smears that could’ve been either blood or shit. I decided to pretend it was blood, no matter how bad they stank.
