by Tom Liberman
Four goblins lay dead on the cave floor as pools of blood grew into large puddles that accumulated an indentation and were soaked up by heavy straw mats, while five more sat against the far wall their hands raised over their heads and their eyes wide with fear. A large orc moaned on the floor his left arm, still clenching a long blade, chopped off, while his right arm tried to staunch the flow of blood from the wound. Finally a strange child of the dragons sat on one of the straw cots his lips curled into a snarl, a dagger in his hand, but blood flowed freely from a deep stab wound in his upper leg.
Jon motioned to the orc against the wall and one of the goblins rushed over and began to attempt to stop the flow of blood with a heavy cloth jerkin bandage although it did little to help.
“Needs a tourniquet,” said Germanius to Sorus. “You know how to tie one?”
Sorus nodded his head and went over to help the goblin with the orc while Jon walked over the dragon creature as it took in a deep breath. Jon shook his head, the left side of sandy blonde hair flew freely while the right side was matted down with blood. “Don’t do it!” but his shout was not quick enough as a blast of greenish gas billowed out of its mouth towards the gray knight who dodged quickly to the right and only took a small part of the blast. Jon took a single stride forward and hit the creature in the head with the butt end of his sword, which sounded a loud crack. The dragon child immediately slumped over while Jon shook his head and put his hand to his eyes. “Burns like fire,” he said.
“Don’t rub it,” said Germanius. “Sorus get that jug of water there and rinse out his eye with it, I’ll keep watch on the prisoners.
Sorus, half-finished as he helped the little goblin tie the tourniquet around the stump on the now unconscious orc, quickly turned over the job to the orc’s ally. He then leapt up and followed Germanius’s commands and held the jug over Jon’s eye.
The gray knight squirmed away and tried to scratch at it as Sorus noted some blisters on his cheek. “Stop that Jon, let me get water in there,” he said, unstoppered the jug, and held it up.
“Smell that,” said Germanius and Sorus realized that he might be ready to pour beer or alcohol into the wound and brought the jug to his nose to make certain of its contents. He didn’t smell anything but decided to take a sip just in case and found it contained nothing more than water. He then held it over Jon’s eyes and quickly poured out a bit too much as it slopped over the lip in a rush. Jon pulled away and shook his head for a moment and then turned back to Sorus his eye closed and already swollen.
“Better give it another wash just in case,” he said and held open his eye with his forefinger and thumb as he knelt down and tilted his head back for another splash.
Sorus was a little more careful with the jug this time and managed to get a healthy dollop of the water on target. After a few more careful applications the young gray knight seemed to be somewhat soothed.
“Damn thing,” said Jon and took the jug from Sorus and poured it over his head. “I should have seen it coming.”
“You did see it coming,” said Sorus as he turned back to the prisoners and noted with satisfaction that they still sat huddled against the wall with no hint of aggression on their faces. “You missed most of it. I’d hate to see what would have happened if you got the full blast.”
“I’d not be as pretty anymore,” said Jon as he fingered his eye and Sorus could see redness even in the dim light of the cave.
“Tie them goblins up,” said Jon. “The orc is done for, he’s lost too much blood,” he continued and walked over to the unconscious creature whose arm was not effectively treated and the blood flow had slowed to a thick trickle. He grabbed the creature by the chin and turned his head first one way and then the other. “He’s finished. Shouldn’t have gone for his sword or he’d be alive today.”
“What about him,” asked Sorus and looked up from his job with a nod to the child of the dragon who still lay unconscious on the floor.
“I hit him pretty good,” said Jon, his huge stone sword now sheathed. “I don’t think he’ll be waking up for a bit but I didn’t bash his skull like I did that fellow down the hill. I meant to just knock him flat but I was a bit keyed up and hit him too hard.”
Germanius came over with a bucket of what looked to be dish water. “Put on that amulet,” he said and then threw the contents of the bucket on the child of the dragon with a splash. A moment later the creature sputtered to consciousness as it spit water from its mouth and tried to rise, although it immediately gave a cry of agony as the deep wound in its leg made itself felt. “Show him the carving,” said Germanius as he eyed the creature with a steady gaze.
Jon pulled out the wood statue the grizzled veteran gave him earlier in trade for his own more poorly carved specimen. The creature’s eyes widened for a moment and it looked towards a wall of the cave that was, to all apparent vision, nothing out of the ordinary. Sorus was by now finished with the goblins and immediately went over to the area to search it closely.
The wall of the cave didn’t look unusual in any way, sort of a dull gray with sparkly things in it, and Sorus couldn’t make out anything different in this section from any other area. “I don’t see anything,” he said over his shoulder.
“Take a branch from the fire,” said Germanius, “and bang around a bit,” he added with a nod of his head. “I’ll bet my left arm there’s something there, something to do with the dragon, or the staff, or both.”
Sorus came over, took a brand from the fire, and walked back over to the section of the cave where the creature looked a moment ago. The child of the dragon, for his part, looked anywhere but that area as it snarled at Jon. At one point it went to inhale deeply again but the Gray Knight punched him hard in the stomach, and it rolled over on its side and held its belly after that although the movement forced more blood from its leg.
“He’ll bleed to death if we don’t get that wound covered,” said Germanius to Jon as Sorus searched the back region of the cave.
“Go ahead,” said Jon. “I want to keep my eye on him in case he tries breathing that toxic goo on me again.”
Germanius nodded his head and began to pull some of the clothes off the dead goblins and rip them into strips. Within a few minutes he had enough to tie them around the upper thigh of the creature several times over and staunch the flow of blood. The beast didn’t squirm too much and managed to keep a snarl on its face the entire time.
“I found something,” said Sorus as he came back from the search just as Germanius finished with the wound. “There’s a notch in the wall or something, I tried to pull it and push it but nothing happened. Maybe I’m imagining it,” he finished with a shrug of his shoulders. “I didn’t see anything else suspicious looking. It might just be a natural indentation. I can’t tell a thing in this firelight. It’s hours until morning and I don’t like the idea of waiting here,” he finished with a look at the bodies on the floor and puddles of blood that slowly shrank as the straw sucked up the excess. The boy felt nauseous for a long moment and thought about going outside the cave to get some fresh air but then decided against it as Jon sat hunched over the strange dragon creature and whispered something to it as it continued to glare at nothing and remained silent.
“It’s something,” said Germanius as he came back. “Looks to me like a little piece fits in there. Search gas breath there is my bet,” he finished while he stared at the creature.
“It’s not talking any,” said Jon, “and I doubt the show it the statue trick will work again. “Sorus, you know what that notch looks like in the wall, see if you can find anything on the dragon child that looks like it might fit while I’ll go through his things. If he breathes in deeply give him a club to the stomach,” he finished with a nod to the young boy.
“My eyes ain’t what they used to be,” said Germanius. “Especially in the dark.”
“You looked like you could see just fine when you killed that one that was coming up behind me,” said Sorus as he reached do
wn and pulled at the heavy wool shirt the creature wore. The shirt was empty but it’s pants pockets contained a number of strange items including a little silver stick like object with two curved projectiles coming off the end. “I think I found something,” said Sorus, holding it up to the light, and the creature suddenly hissed at him although the venom of the action was somehow less, the light in the creature’s eyes seemed to be dim. “It’s lost a lot of blood,” said the young brewer and looked at the blood soaked bandages that covered the wound. “I think you might have got him in a vital spot, Germanius,” he concluded.
“You were the one that stabbed him, Sorus,” said the old knight and patted him on the back.
“I was?” asked Sorus as he suddenly straightened up and looked at the older knight with his lips pursed. He scratched his head for a moment and then shook it back and forth. “I don’t remember that … well … we rushed in and then Jon killed that one up front and I stabbed the other one and then … well … it happened so fast. It was like it happened slow then but now, I can’t seem to remember it. Did I really do it?”
Germanius nodded his head, “It was a fine blow just as it was going for its blade, right where you could put it down without killing it,” he said. “Maybe too deep and too close to the big blood veins in the leg but we’ve got what we need and prisoners are never easy to deal with when you’re a small party. Check his belt pouch, he’s probably got some silver or gold and we might need that before we’re done here in on the mountain. Them creatures deal in precious metals and we’re not in Elekargul anymore.”
Sorus rummaged around the creature’s belt for a moment and felt it stiffen in resistance, but then it slid down against the back wall and closed its eyes. Its breathing became shallower each moment and by the time the young brewer pulled a small pouch that made a satisfying chink sound from its belt it was clear the creature would be dead in a matter of moments. “Should we just let it die?” he asked as he looked down on it.
“We tried to bandage it,” said Jon with a shrug. “We can’t stay here and take care of it or they’ll be hundreds of them down on our head soon enough. Germanius is right; we use that thing you found, see what’s in the back of the cave there, and move on.”
Sorus stood for a moment longer and stared at the unconscious creature and the moment of the attack came back to him with terrible intensity. He remembered his sword when it cut down the first goblin as it turned to look at him with surprise the only expression on its face, then he turned to his right and saw the dragon child as it rose up from its position on the straw mat, a sword in its hand, and he stabbed forward with the tip of his blade as he had practiced so many times while he dreamed of knighthood. He remembered as he watched the other boys lucky enough to be chosen as squires while he still lay on the sick bed and wished he didn’t have to be the one with the weak constitution, that it was he who learned to be a squire, learned to be a hero of Elakargul. Then, after he sunk his blade into the thing’s leg, which had the same resistance as that goblin boy’s stomach down the hill, like a stab into a mass of straw, the flash out of the corner of his eye as the larger goblin came at him and Germanius struck it down with a casual swipe of his sword. “Will I ever be able to kill something so casually,” he thought to himself and then tried to imagine what he must have looked like to Jon and the grizzled knight while he stabbed the dragon child in the leg. “I wonder if they think about everyone they’ve ever killed,” he continued to muse to himself for a moment longer as the slow breath of the creature seemed almost ready to stop but then, just when he thought it was done, another ragged gasp came from the poor thing.
“Come along, Sir Sorus,” said Germanius. “We’ve got work to do and you’re going to have to figure out a name to take.”
Sorus looked at Germanius his eyes opened wide for a just a moment as he suddenly realized that his boyhood fantasy was a reality. He was a knight of Elekargul as pronounced by another knight. Somehow it wasn’t as great a moment as he imagined all those times.
“Not what you were expecting,” said Germanius and put his arm around the boy and smiled with the amazingly full set of teeth the veteran still had in his head.
“No,” said Sorus and shook his head. “I imagined it different but I guess it’s probably always pretty much like this.”
“It’s always different,” said Germanius. “I’ve knighted seven boys before you in my years and not one was the same. Someday you’ll be knighting boys and then you think of me now and again, won’t you?”
Sorus nodded his head, “I’ll never forget you Sir Germanius. I don’t think I could have done it without you.”
“Now, don’t get sentimental on an old fart,” said the knight with a smile. “This night is far from done and I smell dragon meat not far in our future. It’ll likely kill us all but you wouldn’t be the first boy knighted and killed in the same day. Not by a long shot.”
“What are you two talking about,” said Jon as he suddenly emerged from around the corner of the cave. “I untied the goblin boys. No sense letting them starve to death in the cave or get eaten by a bear. Where’s that key you found?”
“Right here,” said Sorus and pulled out the silver device. Jon looked at it for a long moment.
“I couldn’t find that notch of yours,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders, “so the honor is yours. Just remember if there’s a dragon behind it then we let Sir Old Fart go first! Right?”
“Right,” said Sorus with a smile and Germanius let go a great guffaw. Sorus heard a scramble behind them as the goblins fled the cave but then began to look closely at the wall as he tried to find the little indentation he noted just a few moments before. It took him five frustrating minutes to find the thing but once he did the little silver key thing fit into it like a custom made lance in the hands of a veteran knight of Elekargul. Nothing happened for a long moment as the three stared at the silver thing glinting in the notch of the wall. Then there was a deep sort of grumble of a sound as the cave began to shake like in an earthquake.
Most of the volcanoes in the region were west of Elekargul in the territories of Doria and the orc realms, but there were still plenty of earth tremors, and Sorus knew enough of what they felt like not to be too frightened. Still, it was unnerving to be inside a cave under tens of thousands of tons of rock when an earthquake was going on all around you. It didn’t last long and the three men looked at each for a moment with eyes wide in the dim light of the fire.
“Did you see anything move?” said Jon and looked at Germanius, who shook his head and turned to Sorus, who in turn shook his own head and looked around. “Maybe it was back a bit,” said Jon and turned deeper into the small cave, “where we tied up the goblins.”
In a moment the three moved towards the rear of the cave and found the cause of the strange rumble. A large stone stalactite that ran from the ceiling almost to the floor along the wall had swiveled or twisted somehow to reveal a wide passage behind it, with a set of perfectly cut stairs, both wide and smooth, that led downwards, not into darkness but into light as evenly-spaced light stones were embedded into the wall to provide fine illumination for the trip down.
“I’ll be a two-legged dolphin,” said Germanius with a look of astonishment at the passage. “I been around a bit and ain’t never seed nothing like that afore.”
Jon Gray stared at it as well. “I have,” he said. “It’s Old Empire made for sure. Sorus, maybe you should head back and tell the people in town what we found.”
“The hell with that Jon,” said the boy, “and call me Sir Sorus if you don’t mind.”
Jon nodded his head, “You can call me fish for brains but that’s dangerous stuff down there, darklings, brain suckers, black things, if you come with us it won’t be pleasant.”
“Sir Fish for Brains,” said Germanius and clapped Jon on the back.
Jon laughed out loud as did Sorus. “Ok then,” said the young Tanelornian as he put his hand on the hilt of his sword and moved to the
front. “Follow me.”
Chapter 8
“I don’t know why you trust that dragon child,” said the ghoulish creature as it licked its lips with an impossibly long tongue and fingered the open sores along its left side with the two digits that remained on its right hand. Before it, on a throne made of the thick bones of several creatures, or possibly of one many ribbed beast, sat Lord Whitebone in a regal and lush purple robe. “The creature clearly works for the lizards of Darag’dal, that unctuous Melharras, and his overly sly sidekick. It will betray us and use the Staff of Sakatha for his own ends once we raise the master.”
“You servants of the Lady of the Abyss are not capable of independent thought,” said Whitebone with a shake of his head and he gave a strange sigh. How he managed such without any air in his lungs remained a mystery to the ghoul lord but one he did not ponder greatly, being without a heartbeat himself. “The only one of you that shows any capability towards rational thinking is Tenebrous and I understand he is, once again, in trouble with she who has ruled for all eternity.”
“Do not speak his name,” said the ghoul as it scratched at other sores, this time on its leg. “The sooner she returns him to the Deathlands from whence he came the sooner I can take back my rightful place beside her throne.”
“The internal strife within the Abyss bores me,” said Whitebone as he somehow managed a tired expression on his skeletal face. “I understand the child of the dragon’s motivation just as I understand your motivation Thantos, the motivation of the lizards, the motivation of your mistress, and the motivations of the cockroach that crawls across your foot. Do you suppose for a moment that I don’t?”
Thantos looked at his foot for a moment, started to jump backwards, managed to control himself, and looked back up at the skeletal lord with fangs bared, “You like to play games Lord Whitebone,” he said, a small snarl coming from his mouth, “but you cannot think that giving Snowball to that creature was wise.”
