God of Magic 2

by Logan Jacobs

  “Okay,” Aerin admitted as we passed a coyote painted on the wall taller than Maruk. “I see it now.”

  “These are wonderful!” Lena said. “What do you think they’re for?”

  “Decoration?” Maruk guessed.

  “They don’t appear to have magic,” I put in. At least, none of the drawings had magic I could sense. Still, whatever other purpose they might have served, they told us one thing. We must be close to the caves.

  The others kept pace as I trudged forward along the bank. The river had grown shallower and shallower as we continued, and the ground underfoot was now dry stone rather than mud. Ellis hadn’t said anything about that, but I tried not to be discouraged as I scanned the landscape for cave entrances.

  As it happened, though, it was Lavinia who found them.

  “Over there,” she called and pointed to the low canyon wall across what was left of the river, a mere shimmer of water no more than a few feet across.

  It took me a moment to realize she meant the short, wide crack at the bottom of the canyon wall, the top of which couldn’t have been more than three feet tall.

  “Uh, are you sure that’s what we’re looking for?” Maruk asked in an echo of my own thoughts. “I don’t think even Aerin could fit in there.”

  “It’s a cave,” Lavinia replied, almost defensively. “Let’s go check it out, maybe there’s a trick to it.”

  “I’ve had quite enough of tricks for one day,” the orc said, but he followed as we all crossed the canyon to examine the cave.

  My earlier estimate, I realized, had been generous. The actual height of the cave was probably closer to two feet rather than three, although it was about seven feet wide. Still, Maruk made a good point. It didn’t look like the sort of place anyone would live. Even someone as small as Aerin would barely be able to sit up within it, and the rest of us would have been forced to crawl through on our bellies.

  “I’m starting to wonder if that elf just wanted us out of his house,” Lavinia said bitterly as she kicked a rock into the cave. I heard it collide with the back wall and realized the cave was more or less just a slash in the rock.

  “Oh, no, he really does need that charm,” Lena said. “The sprites--”

  Aerin cut her off. “He wasn’t lying when he asked us to get his trinket or whatever, or when he gave us directions,” she said, but she hugged her arms to her chest the way she did when she was nervous about something.

  “So maybe this isn’t the cave we’re looking for,” I said in an effort to remain optimistic. “There could be more of them farther down.”

  Aerin nodded and Lavinia pursed her lips, but no one said anything, so I walked past them and continued down the canyon again. It didn’t take long after that for the river to disappear entirely, and even I had begun to get nervous when finally, I caught sight of the caves. As Ellis promised, they were unmistakable, though I figured his estimate of a few miles was a bit more liberal than ours. It didn’t matter, now, though, because we’d made it and now we could get the elf’s charm back.

  These caves were also low and wide, but I could see already they went much deeper into the canyon than the one Lavinia had spotted, and there were four of them lined up neatly, almost as if they’d been dug out of the rock by human hands rather than some occurrence of nature. Still, if they were man-made, I would have suspected that whoever had dug them would have made them a little taller. These were not so low as the last, but even so, their roofs only came up to shoulder-height on me, and there was no way our seven-foot-tall orc friend was going to be able to get inside without being doubled over.

  This problem was readily apparent to all of us, and we stood outside the first cave for a few moments in silence as we each contemplated what to do next. Finally, Maruk spoke up.

  “Aerin, you’re the smallest. Perhaps you could go in and see if this Burrowes fellow is at home?” the orc suggested.

  It wasn’t a bad idea, necessarily, but I remembered Aerin’s confession in the Shadow Delves that she was secretly terrified of caves, and as she looked at this cave, her face had gone pale, and her freckles stood out starkly.

  “I can go,” I offered quickly. I would have a harder time of it, this was true, but I didn’t want Aerin to feel pressured to do it for the group’s sake.

  The healer shot me a grateful look.

  “You’re too tall,” Lavinia said with a shake of her horned head. She could protest safely enough knowing she wouldn’t be chosen for the task, either. Including her dragon horns, the ladona woman was taller than I was.

  Lena had leaned down to peer into the cave and straightened up abruptly as Lavinia spoke. “I think I see some rare mushrooms,” she reported. “The ceiling’s a little low, but I don’t mind going.”

  Aerin looked hopeful, but Lavinia frowned. “You know we’re here to find this Burrowes guy, not collect mushrooms, right?” she asked. “Look, this doesn’t really seem like the place anyone could live. Let’s try the other caves.”

  We were about to turn away when a gruff voice sounded out from within the cave, just beyond the reach of the sunlight. “You’re looking for Burrowes?”

  We all whirled around at once as the owner of the voice stepped out among us, and I realized how the caves, low as they were, could still be home to the person who had stolen Ellis’ charm. At first, I thought the man was a dwarf, but unlike all the dwarves I’d met, he was beardless, bald, and had a somewhat slighter build. He was also barefoot, and his proportionally large feet were calloused and dirty. At the sight, another name came to mind, one I barely remembered from my quick study of the various peoples that lived in this world. He was a halfling.

  “Yes, we’re looking for Burrowes,” I said quickly when I realized we were all staring at the man and none of us had answered him. “Are you him?”

  “No, I’m Tunnelly,” the halfling replied with a strangely accusatory frown, as though his identity should have been obvious to us. I realized only then that there were the purplish blotches of an old bruise around his eye, and as he spoke, he unwound a length of what appeared to be boxing tape from his knuckles. He wore no shirt, but his chest was covered in the same bronze-colored tufts of hair as were his toes. In fact, aside from the tape, the only thing he wore that could be considered clothing was his pair of loose trousers.

  “Uh, could you tell us where to find Burrowes?” I asked when it became clear to me Tunnelly wasn’t going to say anything else unprompted. “We have business with him."

  Tunnelly looked me over with open suspicion and apparent distaste, and his expression didn’t change as his gaze moved to the rest of my companions.

  “Business,” he said at last, “with Burrowes?”

  “Yes,” I said with an effort to keep my voice even and friendly. I was hot, tired, and ready to get the hell out of here, but I knew provoking Tunnelly wasn’t going to solve any of those problems. “We believe he has something that belongs to a … friend of ours.”

  The halfling smirked. “Oh, you mean that elf?” He barked out a short laugh. “Yeah, Burrowes swiped some of his garbage about a week ago. Now the asshole’s too afraid to step out of his house. Didn’t think he’d start sending people to do his dirty work, though. You with the caravans?”

  “Yeah,” I said with a frown. “Look, we just need to get back what Burrowes took from Ellis, then we’ll be on our way.”

  “You can come and ask him, then,” Tunnelly said, though he seemed amused by the prospect. He turned back into the cave, then angled his head back toward us when we hesitated. “Don’t worry, the ceiling gets higher farther down.”

  He laughed heartily then, and part of me wondered whether he was being serious or not. I glanced to Aerin for confirmation, hoping the healer’s ability to sense auras would let us know if Tunnelly was playing some kind of joke, but Aerin was too busy staring into the cave with a nauseated look to notice me. Maruk and Lavinia didn’t look much more excited, but Lena shuffled past me and ducked into the cave behin
d Tunnelly.

  “Oh, it’s so cool in here,” she breathed.

  I followed though I had to crouch awkwardly to do so, and I could hear the others behind me. Lavinia’s horns scraped against the cave ceiling, and Maruk grunted as he tried to squeeze his massive frame inside. Meanwhile, Tunnelly watched us all with a look of great satisfaction before he waved his hand and led us deeper into the cave.

  The halfling hadn’t mounted an attack yet, and I considered Ellis might have been exaggerating the family’s warlike nature, but I didn’t discount it entirely, either, and Tunnelly’s expression put me on edge. He could be trying to lead us into a trap.

  I kept my hand on the grip of my dagger as I followed the halfling, and I turned back to warn the others to be prepared as well.

  “Be on your guards.”

  Chapter 8

  It took about twenty feet of awkward shuffling before the tunnel finally did open up as Tunnelly promised, and then the ceiling became high enough for me to stand. Even Maruk was able to stand up mostly straight, though he still had to duck his head slightly in certain places.

  Soft globs of some glowing green substance lit the tunnel along the floor and ceiling, and I thought it was some sort of enchanted paste before Lena whispered something about bioluminescent algae. When Tunnelly wasn’t looking, I caught the alchemist scoop up a handful of the stuff and put it in one of the empty jars she had in her pack.

  Our halfling guide took us about forty feet deeper into the tunnel before he made a sudden left, and we entered a large torchlit chamber. Ellis had mentioned Burrowes lived here with his family, so I’d assumed Tunnelly was his brother or something, and that there would be a few other halflings here besides the two of them, but as my eyes adjusted and I looked around the chamber, I realized how wrong I was.

  There had to be around fifty people in the cavern, men and women both, all going about their business. The chamber itself was larger than a football field, and it seemed to contain the whole village or at least a good part of it. There were individual dwellings that lined the walls constructed of wood and stone, pits for communal fires, racks where the leathery hides of some creature I couldn’t identify were being tanned, and a wide pool at the back. More tunnels led off from the chamber, and the walls above them were marked out in the same dark paint we’d seen on the canyon walls.

  What really drew my eye, however, was the structure in the center of the cavern. The floor had been cleared and stakes were set up to cordon off a square area I figured was about fifteen feet across. It was difficult to see due to the crowd of halflings gathered around, but I realized after a moment of confusion that inside, two halfling men were fighting, and suddenly Tunnelly’s boxing tape wrappings made sense.

  Without really meaning to, I stopped to watch the fight, but as it happened, it was nearly over, anyway. The smaller of the two, a young man with bright orange hair and an almost feral expression, delivered a blow of startling force to his opponent’s jaw and knocked him down. Another halfling, who I supposed was acting as the referee, sounded off a count before he declared the young halfling the winner. It was impossible to miss the name the way it echoed around the chamber: Burrowes.

  “There he is,” Tunnelly said with a grin. “Have a nice chat.” He patted me on the arm in a way that was strangely condescending given I was at least two feet taller than he was, and then he left.

  The gathered crowd began to chant and cheer while Burrowes postured and gloated in the ring, and as I watched, I began to suspect this wouldn’t be as easy as just asking for Ellis’ charm back. We had little choice but to wait while Burrowes made his rounds with the crowd and soaked up the attention. It was clear he enjoyed the spotlight, and the referee almost had to push him out of the ring so he could announce the next fight. I heard the referee say something about settling an argument regarding a shovel as he introduced the next pair of opponents, but I was hardly listening because Burrowes started for one of the side tunnels, and I didn’t want to lose him.

  We almost had to jog to catch up, but thankfully, Burrowes’ ego worked in our favor, and the halfling man turned around when he heard us behind him. However, his broad, arrogant smile was quickly replaced by an expression of confusion and consternation.

  “Who are you?” he demanded as he crossed his short muscular arms over his chest. Like Tunnelly, he wore only trousers, but the thick hair on his arms, torso, and feet were the same bright orange as the curls on his head. He was only about three feet tall, I figured, but he didn’t look the slightest bit intimidated by our party, and his brown eyes raked over us. Before I could answer, however, his expression changed again and became excited. “Did you catch that fight? What did you think?”

  “Not really,” I replied. “We just saw the end--”

  “The end was the best part!” Burrowes crowed, and then he put his fists up and danced back and forth while he mimed the last few punches of his match. When he got to the knockout blow, he raised his arms over his head and cried out, “And Burrowes is the victor!”

  I sensed he was going to start recapping the cheering of the crowds if I didn’t step in, so I glanced back to the others to signal they should back me up.

  “Yeah, it was great,” I said. “Very impressive.”

  “You had excellent, uh … form,” Aerin supplied awkwardly.

  “I think the whole thing is rather barbaric--” Maruk started, but Lavinia cut him off with an elbow to his ribs. “Ow!” the orc hissed. “That’s where the cactus pricked me!”

  “So, Burrowes,” I said, “we need to get something from you. You took a charm from an elf that lives around here, right?”

  Burrowes stopped cheering himself on for a moment and started to laugh. “Yeah. He was being annoying, so I swiped it.” He waggled his eyebrows proudly.

  “Alright,” I said as diplomatically as I could manage, “well, we came to get it back.”

  “Oh, did you come to get it back?” Burrowes repeated mockingly. “How nice of you.”

  “Not really,” I said and put my hand on the halfling’s shoulder as he began to turn away. “We need something from Ellis, and he needs his charm back, so we’re not leaving without it.”

  Burrowes frowned at my hand on his shoulder and appraised our group again. Then his lip curled up in a grin.

  “I’ll fight you all for it,” he said. “We settle things in the ring around here.”

  “Goodness,” Maruk breathed.

  I had expected something like this from Burrowes, but I hoped we might be able to talk him down. Time was of the essence, and we had more important things to do than box an arrogant halfling.

  Burrowes stuck a thick finger in his ear and scratched it, his expression casual. “That is if you’re not too big of cowards to face me,” he said. He flashed a grin at Maruk. “I can see your friend there is shaking in his boots.”

  “I could step on you,” my big orc friend said as his eyes narrowed.

  “You want to go?” Burrowes cried as he spread his arms tauntingly.

  “Look, we don’t have time for this,” I said. “We don’t want any trouble, we just want the charm you stole from Ellis. We’ll pay you for it if you want. A few copper pieces were worth our time.”

  “Yeah, I got that, wizard boy,” Burrowes drawled, “and I don’t want your money, I want a fight."

  “I’ll kick his little bitch ass,” Lavinia offered behind me. “I don’t mind, really.”

  I didn’t want to give in to Burrowes’ ridiculous demand for a brawl if we could help it, but the halfling didn’t seem to have much of a sense of self-preservation.

  “I want to fight each of you,” Burrowes insisted. “You all gotta beat me in the ring, and then I’ll give you the stupid charm.” He gestured to the ring, and I noticed for the first time the charm Ellis had sent us for was hanging over one of the posts. If it weren’t for the horde of halflings surrounding it, I could just walk over and take it, but I decided I’d give Burrowes one last chance to coope
rate.

  “That’s ridiculous, we’re not going to do that,” I replied.

  “Then you’re not getting the charm back,” the halfling said with a brazen smile.

  My patience had worn out.

  “How about you give us the charm, or we’ll all fight you right now, no ring, no referee?” I said in a low voice as I drew my dagger and summoned forth a mana blade.

  Burrowes’ eyes went wide, and he took a step back. For a second, I thought he might try to make a run for it, but then he cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted so the whole cavern could hear him, “Fight!”

  Apparently, that was all the signal the other halflings needed, and as soon as Burrowes called out to them, they all turned on us at once.

  What a bunch of idiots.

  “Maruk, watch out for Lena,” I ordered. “Aerin, Lavinia, let’s take these guys down."

  Lavinia drew her bow, and Aerin pulled her axe from her belt as we faced the wave of angry halflings that raged toward us. Some came with improvised weapons, such as pickaxes and rocks, while others charged forward with only their fists.

  I didn’t know what had inspired such astoundingly stupid levels of confidence in these people, but even though we were outnumbered, I knew we could make quick work of them. Already Lavinia had taken a few out with her arrows.

  The first halfling to come into my range was unarmed, but he didn’t even slow down when he saw my dagger. I slammed the hilt into the side of the halfling’s head. He reeled back but recovered again almost as quickly and came back to attempt a swing at my gut, which was about as high as he could reach.

  Before either of us could land a strike, however, Aerin reached out and grabbed the halfling where his shoulder met his thick neck. He looked stunned for a moment and then dropped like a rock.

  "Pressure point,” Aerin panted when I looked to her for an explanation.

  “Which elven god teaches you how to kill people like that?” I asked, amazed.

  Aerin grinned. “That I learned on my own.”