Alto cast his eyes about, trying to make sense of it. “What else is there?”
Kar shrugged. “I wish I knew, my young friend. I wish I knew.”
“You suspect something?” Alto accused. He could see it in the wizard’s eyes.
Kar nodded, briefly. “Far-fetched speculation with no proof. I’ll withhold my thoughts to spare you any bias. You’re a quick-witted lad; I’d rather you reached your own conclusions and shared them with me when you’re ready.”
Alto stared at him until he figured out what the wizard wanted. He nodded moments before Tristam slammed a drawer shut on the desk and straightened from his task. William glanced over from his sentry position at the tunnel that led deeper into the mines.
“It’s a silver mine. A good one at that,” Tristam explained. “No explanation beyond that why it’s been taken over.”
“Where are the bodies?” Alto drew everyone’s attention with his question. “I mean, we’ve been through some of the mine and found no bodies. In Highpeak, the town was littered with the dead. Here, there’s nothing.”
“Disposed of,” Karthor said with a glance to his father.
“Aye, lads,” Kar said. “If you were planning on spending time in quarters such as these, would you want the stink of a rotting body here? Besides, mines attract trouble enough, why invite more?”
“More trouble? What do you mean?”
“Mountains such as the Northern Divide are riddled with caves and passages. Why else would goblins and other foul folks make their homes here? It’s not uncommon that miners break into caverns that may or may not be inhabited by creatures happy to make a snack out of something killed by someone else,” Kar explained. “Indeed, somewhere in these mountains there are entire underground dwarven complexes! Long abandoned, so the dwarves claim. Overrun by dark forces, some say.”
“Goblins?”
Kar snorted. “It would take a legion of goblins to run out a dwarf!”
“What then?”
“What indeed?” Kar said with a wink. “Think on that as we spend time away from the surety of the sun.”
“Kar, enough of your bedtime stories!” Tristam snapped. “We can’t just stay here. Our water and food left with the horses, and I don’t fancy dining on goblin-flesh.”
“Wait, Kar might be right!” Alto said.
“Of course I’m right, I’m a wizard!” Kar snapped.
“No, about the underground caverns,” Alto said. “Think it through: the goblins didn’t bring the carts filled with rocks up to this level—they left them in the room below. The room that served as a hub for other tunnels.”
“Makes sense,” Karthor said. “If it serves as a hub, why bring them up another tunnel if they don’t need to?”
Alto nodded. “True, but what if they found the silver ore there and then took them down a different passage?”
Kar snapped his fingers. “The ore must be smelted and there’s nothing here to purify it. Silver ore is worth far less in its raw state.”
“So this is because someone wants silver?” Tristam asked. “A lot of work to go through for a mine.”
“There are many mines in these mountains; this is only the first we happened across,” Kar reminded him. “The others might be overrun, too.”
Tristam grunted. “But goblins working a forge? The thought of goblins even owning a forge I’d bet long odds against. We’ve seen their weapons. Crude at best.”
“Only one way to find out,” Alto said.
Tristam stared at the farm boy with great potential and then nodded. “I don’t like the thought of leaving the entrance unguarded, but I’m not willing to split us up. There’s not enough of us.”
“Then we all go,” Kar said. He slapped his hands together and turned to the tunnel. “Let’s be off!”
“What about Drefan?” Alto stared at the body of their fallen companion.
“We’ll get him on our way back,” Tristam said. “If we don’t come back, it won’t matter.”
“Motivating speech,” Kar offered with a twinkle in his eye.
Alto grabbed a torch out of a barrel near the tunnel. He struck flint to steel to light it and then led them back into the mines. They emerged in the chamber where he, Trina, and Namitus had fought the goblins. It looked the same as before, though this time they took extra time to study the room.
“That one,” Namitus said, pointing at the tunnel farthest from the one they’d used before. “When I saw Spike talking to the others, a goblin fled down that tunnel from him.”
“Spike?” William was the first to ask the question.
“The goblin in charge had a helmet with a spike on the top of it,” Alto explained.
“Until you knocked it off his head,” Trina added. Alto blushed at the praise in her voice.
“Search the bodies,” Tristam commanded. “We rifled the fallen for coins before; this time take any food or drink. No telling how long we’ll be down here.”
Trina frowned while the others moved to search the bodies. Alto found the practice disturbing; blood and other fluids ran from them and occasionally a strange noise could be heard. Namitus joined him, his own face a tight mask of pale skin.
Their spoils consisted of five partially-filled water skins and several pouches with dried and salted meat and even harder bread in them. A sixth skin of water had been ripped in the fight. Alto reclaimed his dagger once Trina and Namitus found knives of their own from the dead. They girded belts and scabbards for their swords and Alto acquired a small wooden shield. Carrying both the shield and the torch was difficult, but he managed.
“I should go first,” Namitus offered when they gathered at the tunnel he’d pointed out.
“I’m all for keeping my men safe,” Tristam began, “but it speaks poorly for us as men to let a boy lead the way. The saying, ‘women and children first,’ wasn’t meant to apply here.”
Trina stiffened and began to scowl but Namitus beat her with a laugh. “I’ve played the part of a boy because it suited me well. Might have saved my life, even,” he admitted. “I doubt Teorfyr would have paired me with his daughter had he known I was six years older than her.”
Trina’s rage turned to a gasp. Alto understood her feelings; he’d only known Namitus a matter of hours but the false boy had already become a fast friend. Now he felt betrayed.
Tristam held up a torch of his own just above Namitus’s head. He reached out with a dirty hand to the unflinching boy-turned-man and rubbed his thumb up his cheek. He chuckled and backed away. “They’re fair and hard to see, but you’ve the whiskers of a man.”
“A benefit of my grandmother,” Namitus said. “As is my youthful appearance.”
Kar chuckled and pushed William and Karthor out of his way so he could look on Namitus. “Pray tell, who would your grandmother be?”
“I’ve never met her, but my mother swears her mother is an elven woman named Jillystria.”
“Pick up your jaw, dear,” Kar advised Trina. “You hardly look the part of royalty, no matter how remote, when you’re gaping like fish freshly gaffed.”
Trina jerked as though she’d been pinched. She looked at Kar and then clamped her mouth shut fast enough her lips made a popping sound. When she opened them again, she turned on Namitus. “Namitus? Is this true? Why?”
He turned to her, his smile fading. He nodded. “It is. I’m sorry; I never meant to deceive any of you. No, that’s not true. I had to trick your father and his men or they might have tossed me overboard at the time. I did it to survive, but I meant to escape as soon as I could. I found your people captivating and you…you were something else. So I stayed and worked hard to learn your ways and be accepted.”
“Alto said you loved me,” Trina accused him.
Namitus’s eyes narrowed for a moment. He glanced at Alto but the young man held his ground. He sighed. “That’s fair enough,” he admitted. “I did, but you’re so young. It wasn’t right for me to hold any improper notions. I kept telling myself
I’d learned all I could, that it was time to move on, yet the opportunities to do so came and went.”
“So you picked now to tell me?” Trina’s voice rose as she confronted him.
“Settle this later,” Tristam said as he stepped between the two of them. “Noise travels underground, whether it’s a woman screaming or a man being slapped.”
William and Karthor chuckled.
“You’d be best suited to going first, if you’ve got elven blood in you,” Kar admitted. “Probably see better in the dark than the rest of us and hear better, too. But you’d have men with torches behind you casting your shadow ahead of you.”
Tristam frowned. “Stay near the front then, behind me. Alto, keep your girl in the back and keep her quiet.”
Trina’s eyes widened and her mouth flew open to vent her outrage. Alto moved in front of her to break her line of sight with his boss. He shook his head and said, “Later. Right now we need to get out of here so you can have the chance to let him know what you think of him when the time is right.”
“I’ll go first. After me will be Namitus, William, Karthor, Kar, Trina, and Alto,” Tristam announced. He thrust his torch into the tunnel ahead and nodded. “Into the belly of the beast.”
“I hate when he says that,” William muttered.
“Better than the dragon’s den,” Kar quipped.
With that cheerful thought to guide them, they walked into the tunnel and followed it as it descended slowly into the mountain. At times it widened but never enough for two men to stand abreast without fear of being hit by the other’s sword should the need to swing them arise.
The tunnel branched off three times, the first time to a short dead end as the silver vein ran dry. The second time the mine forked, it led them to a chasm. Kar summoned some magical lights that he sent spinning into the chasm to illuminate it. They had no idea what was above them but between their torches and the magical lights, the opposite wall of the chasm was at least a dozen feet away. At the bottom of the sheer walls some sixty feet below them, they could see a fast flowing underground river.
The third fork in the tunnel led to a mine that had been active recently. The irregular oval chamber was large by underground standards, easily forty feet long by half that wide. Wooden supports were spaced every few feet between the floor and the ceiling. Carts were half-filled with rocks and silver ore. Picks, shovels, and hammers rested on the ground or in the carts.
The final tunnel they explored continued deeper into the mountain but they stopped at a breach in the lefthand wall. Tristam poked his head around the opening and jumped back just as fast. Namitus stumbled back, knocked to the ground by the larger man. Three short-handled spears bounced off the rock wall just ahead of them.
“Charge them!” Tristam shouted. He reversed direction and ran through the uneven opening.
William leapt over Namitus before the man could pull himself out of the way. Karthor followed but Kar chose to move to the other side of the opening and peer through. The wizard glanced at Alto and Trina. “Well?” he asked them, motioning them forward with his hand.
Alto jerked himself into action. He lurched forward, holding his shield in front of himself and trying to keep the torch’s flames from licking at his face and hair. Alto knew Trina followed behind him by the muffled grunt Namitus made when she kicked him on her way past.
{(no scene break here)}
A host of goblins were waiting for them in a small cavern with a river running through the middle of it. Tristam had breached their front ranks already, taking them by surprise with his charge. He hewed back and forth, focusing only on offense and seeking to strike down as many as he could before they recovered. William joined him on the rocky ledge that served as the bank of the river, striking into the goblins and either killing them or knocking them into the fast flowing water.
A large plank of stone served as a bridge across the river. Tristam leapt onto it, intent upon reaching the other side where goblins armed with spears were waiting. Karthor filled his spot, using his mace to keep the recovering goblins at bay. Alto saw that the goblins on the near side numbered less than a dozen now and his companions had things in hand. He jumped onto the stone bridge, intent upon helping Tristam.
A spear clipped the farm boy’s shield, jerking his arm and causing him to smack himself in the head with his torch. He dropped it into the river but stopped himself before swatting with the sword in his hand at the embers that burned his brow and neck.
Alto clenched his teeth and leapt off the rock into the group of goblins to his left. He swung his sword, smashing aside spears, axes, and knives as best he could. Some poked through, but he moved aggressively and prevented any from striking a telling blow. He lashed out savagely, taking inspiration from Tristam’s earlier assault.
By the time Alto had run out of targets, he was gasping for breath. He turned slowly, his shoulders heaving, and saw nothing but the bloody remains of the goblin defenders. His own hands, arms, and clothes were covered in blood, some of it his own. He looked over to Tristam and saw the man holding his hip while he limped over to where he’d dropped his torch earlier.
Alto turned and stared at the river, where he’d dropped his torch. Tristam’s had burned out after he’d used it as a club on the head of a goblin. Only the lights from Karthor’s holy symbol and a pair of goblin corpses that were still smoldering near Kar lit up the small chamber.
“Gah, roast goblin stinks!” William held a hand to his nose and kicked one and then the other burning goblin into the stream.
“Did you clip their fingers first?” Tristam yelled over at him. “We don’t get paid without trophies.”
Tristam stared at the water and cursed. Alto walked over to Tristam, his own leg tightening from a poke he’d taken in the calf. He fished the flint and steel out of his pouch and held it up. Tristam grunted and held out his torch for Alto to light.
“Thanks,” Tristam said. He looked at the bodies surrounding them before taking a sack out from his belt and handing it to Alto. “You fought well. Foolishly, but we’re standing and they’re not. At the end of the day, that’s what matters. Now the gruesome part of our business. Cut their right thumbs off and put them in here.”
Alto stared at the bag, and then at the goblins. He took a breath to steady his nerve but found the stink of blood and worse did little to help. He nodded and turned to get to work, but was joined a moment later by Trina.
“I’ll do it,” Alto insisted. “This isn’t the work for a lady.”
Trina smirked at him. “I’m not a princess,” she reminded him. “To my people, I’m just as capable as anyone else.”
“I didn’t mean disrespect,” he stammered. “I meant this is gruesome work and—”
“How many goblins did you kill?” she interrupted him.
Alto glanced over. “I’m not sure. Eight, maybe?”
She nodded. “I slew five. Do I look like the kind of girl that’s afraid of blood?”
Alto blushed and looked down at the goblin in front of him. He grimaced as he used his knife to cut the thumb off the body. “I guess not,” he mumbled. “This is no proper way to make a living, though.”
Trina laughed, a light sound that seemed ill-fitting for their situation. She popped a thumb off and tossed it to him. “No, I don’t suppose it is, but we’ve got to start somewhere, don’t we?”
“This isn’t what I had in mind when I wanted to grow up to be a hero,” he admitted quietly enough so that only Trina could hear him.
“That’s what makes you heroic,” she said with a twinkle in her eye. “We’ve many tales of haunted tombs and rampaging monsters among my people. You want to be a hero—you should come to my land sometime.”
Alto stared at her until she blushed and looked away. “It’s so far,” he said.
She shrugged but wouldn’t look at him. “I’m here and that’s no farther.”
“Yeah, you are,” he said after a moment of thought. He grinned. “Maybe I will!”
Trina met his eyes for the first time since she’d looked away. “I’d like that.”
“What kinds of monsters are there?” Alto asked her.
“What?”
“You said rampaging monsters, what kind? I’ve heard stories but never seen any real monsters.”
Trina’s eyes narrowed. “All kinds. And they like to eat boys that are too stupid to know any better!” She stood up and stormed off, heading back across the bridge. Namitus didn’t get out of her way in time and received an elbow in his side that helped him clear the stone bridge and land near Alto.
Alto watched her go and then turned to look at Namitus. The young-looking man rubbed his side and stared after her. He shrugged and bent down to start collecting the thumbs from the goblins. “She’s got a fire no sea can ever put out,” he offered.
Alto grunted, forgetting for the time Namitus’s betrayal. He went back to work, focusing on not thinking about how he was desecrating the goblin corpses. By the time he finished, his body was aching with the minor injuries from the battle. Karthor had done his best to bandage the wound in Tristam’s hip and offered similar treatment to Alto, but the youngest member of the Blades shook his head. His cuts had stopped bleeding and it seemed likely they’d need more of Karthor’s skills later.
Chapter 11
“Now what?” William asked. “We’ve got one torch amongst us and it looks to be nearly burnt out thanks to the long trek through the mines and using it to brain a goblin.”
“Karthor and Kar can light the way,” Tristam grunted. He turned to look at their surroundings and then pointed his sword at a cave that led away from the room. “We go this way.”
“I’m a wizard, not some fool with a deck of cards at a tavern!” Kar snapped.
“Does that mean you can’t guess my weight?” Karthor asked him.
Kar snapped his mouth shut after a moment and glared at his son. “Bah, I should have left you with your mother’s parents!”
Child of Fate Page 11
