A Sea of Skulls (Arts of Dark and Light Book 2)

by Vox Day

  After he finished cleaning the armor, he returned it to the room in which he and the others had been sleeping, found the twins, and arranged for a purchase. His newly-owned pickaxe thus acquired, he went in search of Vismi Bismisson and found him in the funeral plot, where the bodies of Hotstone dwarves were interred to rejoin with the Earth Father. The huge cavern was abundantly lit with glowmoss and earthlight lamps, and festooned with colorful banners bearing clan runes, but the rows of rough canvas bags belied its somber purpose.

  “What can I do for you, Lodi?” The mayor was polite, but he was clearly pressed for time.

  “I wanted to give you this.” Lodi offered him Orin’s pickaxe and two silver coins. “That should cover the cost o’ havin’ it bronzed. Thought it would make a good remembrance for the folks here. You know, for the ones who died, the outsiders.”

  The mayor accepted the pick, but refused the coins. “We won’t have it bronzed, we’ll have it gilded. Get me the names of those who died. They’ll be buried with our own and their names will be inscribed on this. A fitting tribute to the dwarves who saved Hotstone. Will you want to say a few words?”

  Lodi shook his head. “Nah. Just wanted to give you Hotstoners something to remember them by. Seems they deserve it.”

  The mayor smiled, though his eyes were grim. “Never fear, Lodi Dunmorinson. We dwarves, we don’t forget.”

  The mass funeral was every bit as horrific and heartbreaking as Lodi assumed it would be. Forty-eight Hotstoners and nine outsiders were given back to Zeme Otek, who would see that their bodies eventually returned new life to the Kamensvet. The zemknez, an elderly dwarf with a long white beard that brushed the ground even though braided, spoke eloquently enough of bravery and sacrifice, but his words were cold comfort to the bereaved families who had lost their loved ones. Myf and the other pasla wept openly, and even Lodi found he had to swallow hard once or twice when a young widow tried, and failed, to hold herself together when speaking of her fallen husband.

  Afterwards, Lodi found Boru, and they sought out the cavern stationmaster. Fortunately, neither he nor his two engineers were among the slain, but they confirmed what Lodi had already surmised. While they could drag the carts to the platform easily enough, there was absolutely nothing they could do to bring the track back to life again.

  “It’s possible to walk it,” the older of the two engineers pointed out. “I done it a while back, after they cleared the blocking of the tunnel, but afore they had the track hot and running again. Takes a sixday, maybe half that again with the wives and little ones. There’s only two declines that’ll be a little tricky, but there’ll be ropes to assist you. Maybe even steps carved on the sides by now.”

  “There has to be a better way,” Boru said. “Don’t you got none o’ them carts with the push lever on it?”

  The two engineers looked at each other. “Yeah, we got one. That’s how we was going to bring the train to the station. But you can’t use it to go all the way to Iron Mountain. You’ll go too fast on the big declines, jump the track, and probably kill everyone riding.”

  “I ain’t talking about the whole train,” Lodi said. “Forget the train. We got to get word to the king. He needs to know what happened here. For all we know, every cavern from the Underdeep to the Nebesvet is in danger from them critters.”

  “We could rig up some brakes for it,” the younger engineer said. “We never needed them here, but it shouldn’t be too hard. It’d let you carry two, maybe three carts safely.”

  The older engineer had his eyes closed. “Three is no problem. The decline ain’t that steep. We could probably do four, but let’s leave it at three and keep it safe. You can’t take everyone on three carts, though.”

  “I don’t see that we want to anyhow,” Boru pointed out. “We got no idea what we might run into anywhere between here and Iron Mountain. Track’s dead, but maybe it’s blocked by a rockslide, maybe it’s been mined, hell, maybe a dragon found it and followed it down to the city! We don’t want the families coming with us until we know it’s safe.”

  “You, me, and eight others,” Lodi said. “If you Hotstoners can help us gear up, that’ll be enough to deal with most anything we run across. I’ll need to bring the young divci too; she’s in my charge, and considering that tunnel, I can’t be certain she’d be safer in Hotstone anyhow.”

  The stationmaster looked as if he wanted to argue, but Lodi quelled him with a stare. “With eleven, we only need two carts. Attach the push-cart to the first one from the train and leave it loaded. Thori can be one of the eight; the twins will make our lives a living hell if we don’t let them unload those damn picks.”

  He half expected opposition, but found none. Boru shrugged.

  “We owe it to them. We’d have lost five or six more if they hadn’t been along.”

  There was a brief silence. Then the younger engineer spoke up. “Make it an even twelve. I’m coming with you.”

  “You can’t-”

  “I can too!” the younger engineer cut off the stationmaster. “I’m fifty-five years old and I’m old enough to make my own decisions, father! If something goes wrong with the push-cart, who is going to fix it? Besides, I’ve never been to Iron Mountain and I want to see it. What if I’d been killed by one of those supina pasla?”

  Lodi frowned, not because he had any objection to the young dwarf joining the expedition. In fact, he thought it would be rather handy to have someone familiar with the track machinery along. But the engineer’s use of the term “scaly dwarves” troubled him. The bodies of the draktakha had been buried in one of the caverns used for degradable trash; they too would serve the dwarves of Hotstone Cavern in death. But before they’d been disposed, Lodi had taken a close look at one, and there was no denying that whatever it was, it was much more closely akin to a dwarf than an orc or a goblin.

  There were minor differences about the beardless faces, the teeth were similar to a kobold’s and the bodies were somewhat thinner than the average dwarf’s, but it could hardly be denied that if you starved a dwarf, shaved him, bashed him in the mouth with a shovel, dipped him in glue and rolled him in bronzed snake scales, he’d look damned close to a draktakh. Too damned close.

  But that was for the king’s council to sort out. His job was to see that Thorald had gotten word to the king about the massive orc invasion of the Elf and Man lands, and to let him know about this incursion by the mysterious creatures of the deep. He regretted that they hadn’t thought to preserve one of the bodies, then realized he could simply ask the Hotstoners for permission to dig one up. He looked at the young engineer and smiled. The lad could come in handy sooner than he probably expected.

  It took two days to prepare and provision the three carts, which was a day longer than Lodi would have wished, but the stationmaster insisted on affixing one of the cavern’s largest glowstones to the front of the push-cart. He argued, reasonably enough, that given the greater-than-usual chance of a cave-in or rockslide blocking the track, it would be foolish to depend on their darksight alone. Barring the two steep declines that would increase their speed considerably, the stone would cast enough light to let them brake before crashing into any unexpected blockages.

  The first two days on the track passed quickly, though laboriously. The push-cart was essentially a giant lever, which permitted three dwarves on one side and three dwarves on the other to alternate pushing down, which turned the axle that propelled the iron wheels underneath. This permitted them to move nearly as fast as the thermo-propelled train normally did so long as there was a slight decline, but was the going was considerably harder and slower on a flat or an incline. Fortunately, the greater part of the track angled down, as the city of Iron Mountain rose from the shores of the great underground lake nestled at the heart of the mountain.

  Every hour, two dwarves rotated off the cart and two fresh dwarves took their places at the levers. It wasn’t difficult work in comparison with the mining that was familiar to most of them; the trick was to
stay in rhythm. They sang mining songs, and smithing songs, and even fighting songs. Lodi, forgetting himself, taught the younger dwarves one of his old favorites from the siege days, a ribald Kingsguard song, before he spotted Myf standing at the front of the cart behind them, listening to them. But his partners at the lever were already in full throat, so there was little he could do in good faith but join in with them.

  You can bash an orc with a battle-axe,

  Beat a goblin to death with a rock.

  You can crush a troll with a boulder roll,

  Kill a kobold with a good hard knock.

  The Kingsguard ain’t like t’other dwarves

  We got balls like igneous rock.

  We don’t got no fears, we don’t need no spears

  We beat ’em down with a big hard cock!

  There were about twenty more verses, most of which involved the various and creative ways the Kingsguard claimed to slaughter the enemies of the king with their unique and oversized weaponry, but Lodi decided against teaching them to the lads. Or rather, Lads, he corrected himself, for as his old Sergeant, Dulin Rockjaw had told his unit after their first skirmish, “once you see’d blood spill, you ain’t green no more. Yez still lads, but yez lads with a capital bloody L!”

  Aside from Boru, who’d taken an earlier shift, his companions were all decidedly young, but except for the engineer, each of them had broken red ground, and unusually vicious red ground at that. So, they merited due regard, even if the way they delighted in putting particular emphasis in the form of volume on the last three words of the last line made Lodi wary of giving them any additional material.

  After his shift was over, Lodi carefully walked across the thick iron bar connecting the two carts and pulled himself up to the platform. Despite the chill air of the tunnel and the wind caused by their movement, he was stripped to the waist, and sweating as he was, he was reluctant to enter the compartment knowing that Myf would be in there. So, he was further discomfited when she came out bearing a pair of scones and a skin of mushroom wine.

  “I thought you might be hungry after all that work,” she said.

  “You may want not want to stand directly downwind, lass. It’s sweaty work, pushing these carts.”

  “I can see that,” she said, seemingly unconcerned. But she did lean against the side rail, which kept her safely out of the breeze of their passage. “Aren’t you going to come inside?”

  “Aye, once I dry meself a bit.” He raised the skin in salute and took a swig from it. “Thank you for this. I saw you was listening to us sing.”

  “If you can call it that.”

  “You know we didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  “By what? I could scarcely hear anything with all the noise from the track. But some of the younger dwarfs are undaunted by the fact that I cannot speak to them and I find their attentions onerous at times. So, I come out here to be alone.”

  Lodi’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s been at you? I warned those hot-peckered louts to keep their poxied hands to themselves!”

  She burst out laughing. Her laughter sounded like the sweet shattering of delicate crystal. “They’re very sweet and they mean no harm. You needn’t be at them. They merely grow tedious after a while.”

  Lodi growled low in his throat. They was good lads, they was, but if they didn’t treat the lass right, he’d bash a skull or two, he would.

  They stood there together in companionable silence as Lodi finished the scones and the wine. The breeze had dried him off and he was beginning to feel the chill, so he handed her the wineskin and slipped his shirt back over his head. His beard, he was pleased to see, was finally long enough that he needed to pull it out of his shirt, although it was still embarrassingly short for a dwarf of his years.

  “Do you think we’re likely to see any orcs or cave goblins?” she asked him unexpectedly.

  “No, I shouldn’t think so. If anything, we’re more likely to run into them draktakha again.”

  “And you will let me know if we do?”

  “Of course,” Lodi assured her, puzzled. “Why’d you ask?”

  “I should like to be warned when I am to avert my eyes, Kingsguard,” she replied demurely. She sniffed twice, rather archly, turned around, and went back into the passenger compartment.

  Lodi stood there in the darkness with the tunnel walls flashing by, alone, feeling as if his cheeks had been set afire. He wasn’t sure whether he should laugh or leap off the front of the moving cart in shame. At just that very moment, the dwarves laboring on the push-cart burst into song again.

  “You can bash an orc with a battle-axe!”

  Lodi groaned. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Then, he dug deep within himself to find the nerve to do something that took more courage than facing three orcs in the great arena of Amorr with nothing more than a rusty Man-sword, something that made him distinctly more nervous than climbing down a cliff into a wyrm’s den in the troll-infested mountains of Uskiluhk. He took a deep breath, then he opened the door to the passenger compartment.

  Myf was sitting in her usual seat. Their eyes met. And then, her lips turned upward in a faint, but distinctly mischievous smile.

  Lugbol

  Lugbol lay sprawled on his back, as exhausted and satiated as an orc could be. In addition to gifting him Tadezha for three days, the Great Orc had sent his newest grun-kor a cow from his private herd as a sign of his favor yesterday. They had feasted and futtered and then feasted some more. His belly full and his bollocks empty, Lugbol barely noticed the lingering pain from the brand on his left bicep or the marks that her claws had left on his shoulders, back, and buttocks.

  “I wish you could stay another day or three,” he told her, following a contended sigh.

  “So do I,” she said, surprising him.

  “Truly? Why? I’m no Great Orc!”

  She shrugged and looked off into the distance. “So? I barely see him. He had me once, the night I was given to him by the King of Shadaru. Ever since, he only keeps me around to dole out to reward his captains, or gives me to kings he suspects are trouble and wants to keep in line. That way they can say they had one of the Great Orc’s kir’agh; some of them are so eager to boast about it they can hardly wait to get the futtering over with. And some of them are cruel.”

  He frowned, suddenly wondering if he had been too rough with her. Somehow, she seemed to read his mind, because she laughed and pulled at his hair hard enough to make him growl.

  “Don’t be silly. Every kir wants to be properly pounded! It is not difficult to feel the difference between enthusiasm and cruelty.”

  He looked up and down her naked body. Her upper arms and breasts were mottled blue with bruises.

  “I was maybe too enthusiastic?”

  “There is no such thing.” She lightly ran a claw down his chest. “I want to ask you something.”

  “So ask.”

  “Will you do something for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ask the Great Orc for me. As a gift.”

  “I can’t do that!” He looked down. “I mean, it’s not… I don’t–”

  “I don’t mean now! I mean when you do something that brings you to his attention again. Something that makes him ask you for a reward. I know him, Lugbol. He always asks, because he knows most orcs are too afraid to ask for anything from his hand. I mean, look at you!” She lowered her voice in mock imitation of a male orc’s. “It’s an honor, Great Orc! If I can just cut off me vank for yez, Great Orc, I’d be damnable proud!”

  “Shut up! Bloody kwee don’t know nothing of honor!”

  “Maybe not, but bloody kwee know all about this!” She grabbed him in a manner that made him close his eyes and grunt. He was just about to throw her on her back when he heard Korpaghu call to him from outside the tent.

  “Grun-kor!”

  Oh, for the cursed love of Gor-Gor. “What?” he bellowed, hoping that Korpaghu would correctly conclude from his tone that he should squag off and go bothe
r some other unsuspecting kor.

  “Got a summons from King Nekheru. He’s calling all grun-kors and warleaders under his command to attend him. Now, Grun-kor!”

  “What command? We ain’t under his command!”

  “We are now. His kors made it real clear.”

  Lugbol unleashed a thunderous stream of obscenities and vulgarities that only made Tadezha fall flat on her back and laugh. She watched him dress, with a speculative expression that made him feel both proud and suspicious.

  “Well, I should go. You want someone to bring you back to the Great Orc?”

  “Go.” She fluttered a hand at him. “Go and do something that will make me yours, Lugbol.”

  He growled low under his breath. By all the gods of the orcs and trolls, she was the finest, loveliest greenskin he’d ever seen. “I’ll do it or die trying,” he assured her.

  “Try not to get yourself killed,” she said. She ran her dark green tongue over her left tusk. “I would be sorry to hear it.”

  Damned if she wasn’t the sweetest ghash he ever did see. He cursed again, then stormed out of the tent, half-aroused and half-ready to kill the first orc he looked upon. Fortunately, that first orc was Ghurash, and the sight of his sour, tusked face was enough to settle him down.

  “Who put us under Nekheru?”

  “Who knows? Nobody knows nothing more than what I told you. Didn’t you say the Great Orc wanted us back in the Man lands?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yeah, well, Nekheru’s got the command. He’s taking an army west while the Great Orc goes south, after the damned Elves.”

  Lugbol thought about it a moment. The iron Men were bad, but their fire magic didn’t seem to be anywhere near as dangerous as the hellish sorceries wielded by the elf shamans. “I don’t know squat about Nekheru. Is he good for anything more than squagging gobbos?”