Into Chaos

by Toby Neighbors

  “Indeed,” the scholars said.

  “And now we have to go,” Jax said. “The duke won’t be happy if we’re late.”

  Zollin bowed to the scholars, trying to show his respect. Most of them returned the gesture, and Zollin followed Jax out of the room. They went back upstairs, walking down long hallways and making turn after turn until Jax opened the door to a small room. There was no fireplace, no window, just a bed and simple wooden table. The floor was covered with freshly dried rushes. There was water in a tall pitcher by a simple copper basin on the table. A thick towel was folded and set to one side.

  “If you have nicer clothes, you might want to put them on,” Jax said. “The duchess is particular about cleanliness.”

  “I’ll change,” Zollin said.

  Jax left him alone, and it took all of Zollin’s willpower not to read the book the scholars had given him. Instead he stripped down and washed himself as well as he could with the clean water and towel. Then he put on the clothes that Estry had given him. They weren’t lavish, but they were finely cut and expertly tailored. When Jax returned a few minutes later, Zollin was ready to leave.

  “Lead the way,” he told the teenage boy, who grinned knowingly and hurried off through the maze of Ebbson Keep.

  Chapter 14

  Brianna got directions to the fissure that Jute had escaped from. She found it, but when she did, she was shocked that Jute had crawled through it. It was nothing more than a crack in a section of rock that stuck out of the mountainside like cancerous growth. The crack was just wide enough for Brianna’s foot to fit in sideways. She knew the dwarves were strong, resourceful people, but she didn’t realize just how desperate Jute was. From that point on she determined that she wouldn’t tease him anymore. His escape from the underworld was not just heroic—it was a legendary feat that she wanted to honor.

  She knew she could never squeeze through the tiny fissure in the rock, but the dwarf could not swim through molten rock the way that Brianna could. Instead, she needed to craft a way they could both use to get into the dwarfish caverns deep beneath the surface of the mountains. Extending both hands, Brianna let her power flow out in a wave of radiant heat that blasted into the mountainside. The rock quickly turned red around the fissure, then a glowing gold, before melting away and running down into the mountain. Forming a tunnel they could easily descend only took Brianna an hour, and afterward she felt tired but satisfied. The only thing left to do was to prepare the dwarf for the rigors of returning to the underworld.

  When she got back to her camp, she found the dwarf talking to Sorva. The dragon was amused at the little dwarf, who was busy eating the roasted venison from the day before. He seemed in high spirits, despite his injuries. She hoped she was not making a mistake by taking him back to the underworld so soon.

  “You seem in high spirits,” she said.

  “I will see my kinsmen soon,” Jute said triumphantly.

  “What if we fail to free them?” she asked.

  “Then I will die with them, but I will not die a failure. My ancestors will sing of my feats in the halls of renown.”

  “That would be fitting,” Brianna said. “I saw the fissure you climbed through. I won’t pretend to understand how you managed that.”

  “Well, it wasn’t without a few bumps and bruises,” Jute said. “But we dwarves are not without the magic of our kind. Fitting into tight places is something any dwarf can do.”

  “Not many can force themselves through cracks in stone that breaks bones in the process and keep going,” Brianna said. “I am very impressed. Now, let’s see what we can do about that arm of yours.”

  Brianna didn’t know much about healing, but she knew that broken bones left to heal on their own often went lame. She didn’t want Jute to lose the function of his arm, so she needed to set the bone back in place and immobilize it. The fact that she had never done anything like that before would just have to be overcome with sheer force of will.

  The day before, she had splinted the arm with two stiff branches and some of the twine from her saddlebags. The bone in the dwarf’s upper arm was broken in two, so the bones needed to be realigned so that they might heal properly. She cut the rest of the leather strap that tethered the saddlebags together. It was a long piece of strong leather, and she cut it in two equal lengths after severing the second saddlebag. Then she began to dig with a broken stick.

  “I hope you’re not planning to tunnel down into the underworld like that,” Jute teased.

  “Nope,” Brianna said, keeping the rest of her plan to herself.

  She had seen a bed of clay near their camp, and she hoped there might be more just under the soil. She was rewarded when, after digging for a moment, she came to thick, sticky clay. She had to use her dagger to pry the stiff clay up, but once she felt she had enough, she carried it back to Jute.

  “What kind of sorcery is this?” he asked.

  “Not sorcery at all, I’m afraid. Take this.” She handed him a small stick.

  “What’s this for?” he asked.

  “For you to bite on when I set your arm.”

  He looked at her with apprehension, but she knew the only way he could go with her back into the caverns was if his arm was set and protected. She splashed water on the clay and began kneading it like dough. The clay was thick and sticky, but it softened with the water. She worked it until she felt confident that it would be easily moldable around the dwarf’s arm.

  Untying the splint took a slow and steady approach. Jute watched her with eyes that expected misery, but she was gentle and got the splint off without hurting him. He raised the stick to his mouth, bit down hard, and turned his head away. Brianna tried to work fast, but setting the bone was difficult. She put one hand over the broken bone so that she could feel both ends. Then, with a knee pressed firmly against the dwarf’s chest, she pulled hard.

  Jute screamed, but the sound was muffled, partly by the stick and partly by the dwarf, who was trying not to cry out. She brought the bones back together, then relaxed her grip, hoping that nothing adverse would happen. Jute was breathing heavily, and sweat beads popped up on his forehead. Brianna retied the splints in place, only this time she used the leather straps. Then she covered the arm with clay.

  “What … is that point of covering … the arm with mud?” Jute asked, still breathing hard from the pain.

  “You’ll see,” Brianna said.

  Once the clay had coated the arm and splint, she used her power to heat the clay until it hardened. It was the best she could do under the circumstances. The splint alone would have left the arm vulnerable, but the clay cast would protect it from further injury. The clay reached from Jute’s shoulder to his wrist. Finally, Brianna cut one of her blankets into strips and made a sling that wrapped around Jute’s arm and neck to support the arm while they traveled.

  “That’s it,” she said at last. “Good as new. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything for the pain.”

  “What pain?” Jute asked. “If you call that pain, you’ve never been kissed by a dwarf.”

  Sorva growled playfully, and Brianna could feel waves of mirth radiating from the dragon. She got up and went over to where Sorva was resting. The dragon spent most of the day in the clearing, preferring to hunt at night.

  “I’m going down into the mountain for a while,” Brianna said. “You can explore the mountains, but check back here every day. When I come back, this is where I’ll meet you.”

  Sorva nuzzled Brianna and voiced a deep, affectionate growl.

  “You sure that thing doesn’t have mites?” Jute said. “I wouldn’t go getting too friendly with a dragon.”

  “Sorva is my pride mate,” Brianna said. “You weren’t so picky when they were helping fight the witch’s army.”

  “Fat lot of good that alliance did us,” he complained.

  “You rest for now. We’ll head down inside the mountain at first light.”

  “There is no sunup or sundown underneath the mounta
in. I’m ready now.”

  “No you’re not,” Brianna said. “Sleep. Eat. Then sleep some more. We’ll go in the morning.”

  Jute grumbled, but he was asleep ten minutes later, and Brianna took a ride with Sorva. She wanted to feel the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin before going down into the dwarf caverns and, worse, the underworld. She tried her tell herself this was exactly the kind of adventure she had claimed to want, but the reality was she didn’t feel ready. Being away from Zollin made her feel unburdened in some ways, but in others it left her feeling unprepared, as if she were setting out on a journey but forgetting to take something important.

  They ate together, but while Jute slept, Brianna tossed and turned. She realized that she was afraid. There was something about the underworld that frightened her. It wasn't the dark, since she could have light from fire anytime she wanted it. And it wasn’t being in the confining spaces deep underground, because she could super-heat the rock and swim to the surface whenever she wanted. It was something else, something terrible about the underworld itself, but she knew she had to face her fears.

  She also realized she was doing exactly what Zollin had done in the Northern Highlands. He hadn’t chosen the dwarves over her; he was simply doing the right thing. It was the same motivation that was sending her down into the underworld to help the dwarves trapped under the Walheta Mountains, yet she had blamed Zollin for helping when all she wanted to do was run away. She tried to rationalize that she had been through something traumatic, but in her heart she knew that she was the one who had turned her back on their marriage.

  Her biggest regret was that Zollin didn’t know how she really felt. She loved him, but for the last year she’d been afraid to tell him how she was feeling. Returning to Brighton’s Gate seemed like a good plan at first, when all they wanted was time to be together without someone constantly trying to kill them. But when Zollin started settling in, she should have spoken up. If she had shared her feelings along the way, they might not have been so raw that when she finally said something it turned quickly into a fight. Unfortunately, the trap she’d fallen into with Prince Willam left her feeling guilty. She thought she owed it Zollin to do things his way. He had been faithful, and she had not, so she pushed her feelings down until she was angry at everyone without really knowing why.

  She knew that Zollin loved her, and as she lay staring up at the dark sky full of stars, she realized that she loved him more than ever. But she also knew that she wasn’t able to love him the way he deserved. It seemed like all she did was hurt him. Maybe she wasn’t meant to be anyone’s wife, she thought. Maybe, when she became a fire spirit, she was just too changed. She didn’t know how to deal with her feelings, but before she knew it, the sky began to lighten, and it was time to start their adventure.

  Brianna could feel Sorva’s misgivings, and she did her best to pacify the big dragon. She gathered as much of their supplies as she felt they would need. Food and water were the biggest items, enough for several days if they were careful. Then she roused Jute.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine,” he grumbled, getting to his feet and stretching. “Dwarves aren’t heavy sleepers.”

  “Eat a little something, then we’ll head out,” she said.

  “I can eat as we go. It’s past time I returned to my kinsmen.”

  “You’re sure you’re up for this?”

  “Just get me back into the caverns,” Jute said. “You won’t need to worry about me.”

  “All right,” Brianna said, handing the dwarf a small loaf of hard bread, “let’s go see what has become of your kin.”

  Chapter 15

  Mansel didn’t have an axe, but his sword was sufficient to cut most of the limbs from the gnarly tree. He also pulled up the brush and tossed it all over the edge of the ravine. He would have to find something to bundle the wood up with so that it could be carried by the horses.

  Skinning the bear was a much more complex problem. If he had time, space, and enough rope, he would have harnessed the strength of the horses to move the huge carcass, but Mansel had none of those things. He was forced to skin the bear one side at a time. It was difficult and messy, but his dagger was well honed, and he did his best to keep the skins in as good condition as he could.

  Once he skinned the side that was facing up, he was forced to roll the bear over, a feat that would have been impossible had they not been on the side of a hill. Gravity was in Mansel’s favor, and he managed to roll the carcass over, remove the hide, and then cut free two large hunks of meat from the bear’s massive haunches.

  After Mansel had the skins rolled up, he took the fresh meat and scrambled back down into the ravine. He hung the meat from their saddles and bound the tree limbs and scrub brush with a length of twine he found in his saddlebag. Once he had their supplies loaded on the horses, he helped Quinn back into his saddle. The carpenter had no idea where they were, and he was exceptionally weak, but he did his best to do whatever Mansel told him.

  The gray winter sky was thick with carrion birds as they finally set off, and Mansel guessed that the only reason more animals hadn’t been drawn to the bear’s carcass was because most carnivores hunted at night. Mansel wanted to be long gone from the scene of the kill by then.

  Mansel was exhausted, but he managed to keep going. He led his horse with one hand, while the other remained on the pommel of his sword. The big warrior had no idea what Zollin had done to the weapon, but as long as he held it, his strength remained endless. Night came swiftly to the mountains. It grew dark on the pass as the shadows of the mountains cast the trail in premature darkness. Mansel was happy to put an end to their journey for the day, and when he came upon a small concave spot in the hillside, he pulled Quinn off his horse and started a fire with the brush and limbs he had cut after killing the bear.

  He unsaddled the horses and made a spit with the limbs to cook the bear meat on. While the food cooked, he unrolled the bear skins and did his best to scrape the fat and tissue off the animal hide. Mansel’s father was a tanner, and Mansel knew that he needed to preserve the skins as best he could. In an ideal situation, he would stretch the hide, remove all traces of the tissue clinging to the skin, and then coat it with a tanning agent. But Mansel didn’t have the time or resources to do any of those things. He just wanted to get as much flesh off the skin as he could so that the bear skin would keep them warm as they made their way out of the mountains.

  “You’re not going to make me eat that, are you?” Quinn said in a quiet voice.

  Mansel turned and was relieved to see that Quinn recognized him. The warmth of the fire was doing more for the older man than Mansel had dared hope.

  “Do you mean the bear meat on that spit or the fat I’m scraping off this skin?” Mansel asked.

  “Either,” Quinn said. “I don’t think my stomach can take it.”

  “You need to eat.”

  “I need a lot of things,” Quinn said. “I don’t even remember how we got here or where that skin came from. And I’m a little afraid to ask.”

  “You’ve not been yourself,” Mansel asked. “We’ve had a hard road so far.”

  “Not myself?”

  “You were hallucinating,” Mansel explained. “You had a fever, I think.”

  “You think?”

  “It’s hard to tell when you can’t feel your fingers. This is the first decent fire we’ve had since we left the valley.”

  “How long ago was that?” Quinn asked.

  “A week—we’ve been traveling slowly. Neither one of us is in top shape.”

  “No, I suppose not. And the bear?”

  “It caught our scent earlier today. I didn’t really have a choice.”

  “You killed a bear by yourself? With just your sword?”

  Mansel didn’t answer. There was no sense in justifying what he’d done. If the shoe had been on the other foot, Quinn would have done the same. Fighting any animal with just a sword was dangerous, but M
ansel had no other options.

  “I guess you saved my life again,” Quinn said. “I’m starting to feel like I’m more of a liability than a help.”

  “We both know that isn’t true,” Mansel said, as he stood up and shook the bear skin.

  “It stinks.”

  “Of course it does, but it will keep you warm.”

  “I’m warm enough.”

  “You won’t be saying that when we’re fighting our way through snow tomorrow.”

  “Mansel, I need to tell you something.”

  The big warrior turned and looked at his mentor. Quinn had taken Mansel on as his apprentice when Mansel was fifteen years old. Coming from a large family, Mansel had never known the kind of attention and kindness that Quinn showed him. He had spent the rest of his teenage years carrying heavy loads of wood and learning a trade from Quinn. Mansel thought of the older man as his father; Quinn had certainly shown him more love than his own father ever had.

  “What is it?” Mansel asked.

  “I don’t think I had a fever—not a regular one at any rate.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Something’s happening. I’m sick.”

  “You’re not well, that’s true enough. You’ve been through a lot. If I’d gotten to Zollin’s place a little sooner, I could have saved you a beating.”

  “The beating isn’t what I’m talking about.”

  Quinn lifted his arm and pulled up his sleeve. There were punctures where the wolverine that attacked Quinn in the darkness had bitten him. The hard leather of Quinn’s wrist cuffs had kept the animal’s teeth from breaking the skin in most places, but there were three puncture wounds. At the time Quinn had acted as if the wounds were superficial, and it certainly hadn't seemed to bother him. When Mansel had seen to the injuries incurred during Quinn’s fight with the miner Kurchek, he hadn’t even bothered to look at the bite. But the three puncture wounds were inflamed, and each one was leaking a clear fluid.

  “The animals weren’t mad,” Mansel said.

  “No, but they weren’t normal either.”