“Where’s Jaik?” asked Reneeke shortly after awakening. In the quiet of the morning, the sound of Seward preparing the morning meal provided a home-like air. Naught more than flour cakes and jerked beef, it was still better than the trail rations he and Jaikus had stashed away in their packs. He was beginning to wonder why Bella had given them so much.
“Off exploring the building you two came across yesterday,” replied Lady Kate. A glance to the position of the sun and she added, “He has been gone almost an hour.”
Charka sat up in his bedroll. “You might want to go get him, Reneeke. We’ll be eating shortly.”
“Sure thing,” he replied.
Getting up, he stretched then made his way through the ruins toward the building Jaikus had gone to explore. When he drew near, he hollered, “Jaik!” No answer came back as he reached the doorway. Stepping within the room, he hollered, “Jaik! Time to eat!”
Then from deeper within the building, he heard Jaikus reply, “Rene, you’ve got to come here and see this.” Entering the room, he walked across to the doorway on the other side of the room. “Charka wants you to return,” he said.
Reneeke found Jaikus standing before a mural depicting a great battle of some distant past. A walled keep was encircled by armored beasts of hellish vision. Siegecraft rained stones and fire over the walls to devastating affect upon the defenders. From the way the part of the keep’s wall was in mid-collapse, it was apparent the attackers were winning.
Jaikus cast a grin to his friend. “Pretty cool, huh?”
“Yes, it is. But that still doesn’t alter the fact that our leader wishes you to return. You are in enough trouble already without giving him more reason to dislike you.” Glancing around the barren room, Reneeke asked, “Did you find anything?”
Disappointment tinged his friend’s words when he replied. “Not yet.” Then he indicated an opening located on the far side of the room. “There is a whole series of rooms further down that way I explored until the light grew too dim. The only thing interesting I came across was this mural. There was a patch of darkness even further in that I thought might have been a stairway leading down. I would dearly love to go check it out.”
“Maybe tonight. But right now, I think it best for us to return.”
“You’re right, of course.”
The two friends left the room with the mural and headed back through the ruins to the Troupe’s campsite. Breakfast was ready. It wasn’t the most flavorful of meals, but it did fill one’s stomach.
“We’re going to leave most of the equipment and two of the mules,” Charka explained while they ate. “Travel light on the way there…”
“And heavy on the way back,” finished Seward.
“That’s the plan,” agreed Charka.
Seward glanced over to the two Springers with a grin. “Are you boys ready?”
“Ready for what?” asked Jaikus. Mouth full of flour cake, he turned a questioning stare to the man.
“To be Springers of course,” the man replied.
Two faces gazed at him in confusion.
“Don’t you know what that means?” he asked.
“Of course they do,” interjected Charka. “They volunteered for the job, didn’t they?”
“Springer…is a…job title?” asked Reneeke.
“Yes. What did you think a Springer was?”
Reneeke glanced over to Jaikus. “We thought it meant someone new to the Guild. You know, like a new adventurer.”
Swallowing the flour cake, Jaikus nodded agreement.
Seward laughed. “Where did you hear that?”
Before they could answer, Charka stepped forward and held his hand up to just below his chin. “Was it from a boy about yea high?” When Jaikus nodded, he asked, “Dark hair, and probably hanging out with another five or six others just like him?”
“Yeah,” answered Reneeke. “That’s the kid. He mentioned you usually take along a couple of new adventurers such as Jaik and me.”
“Why, in the name of all the gods, would I want a pair of useless lads along on a trip through the Swamp?”
“He…uh,” clearing his throat, Jaikus grew a bit red in the face when he said, “said that you were…uh, ‘pretty nice about such things’.”
“That’s right,” nodded Reneeke. “That you were ‘always one to help out the new guy.’”
Seward doubled over in laughter. “Oh, man. That’s funny!”
“Quiet,” Charka ordered his man.
“Yurki?” questioned Lady Kate.
Charka nodded. “Sounds like something he would do.” Turning to his two Springers, he explained. “Yurki is the leader of a pack of young’ens that hangs around the Guild. It seems he played a small joke on you boys.”
Jaikus looked at their Troupe leader with growing apprehension. “What…kind of joke?”
“You aren’t going to hold them to the contract are you?” asked Lady Kate. “They didn’t know.”
Charka nodded. “A contract is a contract. Besides which, if not for their volunteering, we would have contracted a thief for this venture.”
“What kind of joke?” reiterated Jaikus for a second time.
Seward smirked. “Springer is not the term for a new adventurer.”
From Lady Kate’s expression, Reneeke was certain it wouldn’t be good. “What does it mean?”
She sighed. “A Springer is someone that we at the Guild use in lieu of a thief.”
Jaikus was even more confused. “I don’t get what you’re saying.”
“Springers ‘spring the trap,’” explained Charka.
“You mean…?” questioned Jaikus with growing horror.
The Troupe leader nodded. “That’s right, lad. If we feel there is an element of danger, you and your friend go first. A chest to be opened, you open it.”
“But, we’ll be killed,” objected Reneeke.
“Most likely,” agreed Seward. “Only about one out of three Springers makes it back alive.”
“We’re not going to die just so you can get rich!” exclaimed Jaikus.
Charka stepped right in his face. “I’m not going to lose out on recovering treasure just because you didn’t know what you were agreeing to. You are our Springers. You will be Springers! And if you fail to uphold your end of the contract that you signed so readily signed before we left Reakla, you can forget about accompanying us back through the Swamp. And you will never, ever, be admitted into the Guild!”
Chapter Seven
Under the withering glare of their Troupe leader, Jaikus and Reneeke moved off a ways to discuss this latest development.
“We’re going to die,” moaned Jaikus.
“Everyone dies, Jaik.”
Flashing his friend an annoyed look, Jaikus spat, “Don’t start in on one of your philosophical musings. Not now.” A glance back to the others revealed them waiting for their answer impatiently.
“There is no way he’s going to put me forward for Guild membership anyway.”
“I think you are correct, Jaik. But that still doesn’t alter the fact that we are in a dire situation.”
“Rene, I don’t want to die on my first adventure!”
“Neither do I; nor on any other for that matter.”
“And for what? Just so they can get rich?”
Reneeke was silent a moment as he pondered various courses of action. Finally, he said, “I see that we have only two choices before us. First, we agree to be Springers and possibly die some grisly death at the hands of a long dead trap-setter.”
“You put that so well!”
He ignored his friend’s outburst. “Or, tell them that we renege on the contract and forge our way back to Reakla through the Swamp on our own.” He met his friend’s eyes. “You know there is no way we could even begin to make it back on our own. The Swamp would swallow us up as sure as anything.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Being Springers may be a death sentence, but at least there is th
e possibility, however small, that one or both of us might actually survive to see Running Brook again.”
At mention of the village where they had grown to manhood, Jaikus envisioned the worry his mother would experience should he fail to return. The thought saddened him greatly.
“It’s better than nothing,” Reneeke said.
“I don’t like it.”
“Sometimes, Jaik, life only gives you the choice between bad, and worse.”
Sighing, Jaikus nodded. “You are correct, as usual.”
Reneeke laid a hand on his friend’s back. “Come on. We may as well get this over with.”
Resolved to face the unenviable task of being Springers, the pair walked back to where the others waited.
“So? What’s your decision?” asked Seward. “Are you going to die here, or in the Swamp?”
Reneeke shot the fighter a look of annoyance. “Neither.” Then to Charka, he asked, “What do we have to do?”
The trip through the skeletal remains of Sythal took a little under the hour foretold by Charka. During the trek, Lady Kate walked with the forlorn, and despondent, Springers.
“It isn’t nearly as bad as what you two are thinking,” she announced.
“What isn’t? The chance of us surviving this ordeal?”
“The fact that you are Springers does not relieve us of the obligation to do everything in our power to see that you survive. We have a score of healing potions and scrolls with us for no other reason than because you two are along.”
Hope glimmered. “Really?” asked Jaikus, almost afraid to believe it to be true.
“Of course. We are not heartless mercenaries. What Yurki said is partly true. Charka takes care of those under his command. And that means you two, too.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” commented Seward. Glancing ahead to where their leader led the way, he said. “He isn’t that nice.”
“Perhaps not,” she agreed. “Although, a leader who habitually returns with fewer than what he left with, quickly finds it difficult to recruit more when the need arises.”
Reneeke gave Jaikus a glance and grinned. Perhaps their situation was not completely hopeless as they had thought.
“You see, Jaik? We’re going to be fine.”
Seward couldn’t resist one last barb. “Springers are considered expendable. It goes with the territory. So should he come back with one, or none, very few would think much about it.”
Lady Kate turned a withering gaze upon her cohort. “Perhaps you could curb your tongue and leave these boys alone?”
He gave her a bow with half a dozen flourishes. “As you wish, milady.”
Rolling her eyes, she shook her head.
Their destination turned out to be a group of buildings that, somewhere far below the surface, may have formed the four sides of a plaza. The northern side was rubble, while the east and south sides each had a few walls jutting upward out of the ground, but held very little in the way of areas in which to explore. Three buildings were still relatively intact on the west side, though intact was a generous term.
The building on the left had three walls still in place, with the fourth having disintegrated into a pile of rubble. The one on the right boasted two walls still proudly standing, while the other two were in various stages of collapse. In the center, four sturdy walls rose in almost perfect majesty for a span of two floors before quickly tapering to a point. It was to the center building that Charka led his people.
An opening loomed in the side. The interior was lit by intermittent rays of sunlight making their way through cracks and other imperfections in the structure.
“A doorway,” commented Jaikus.
“No, a window,” corrected Lady Kate. “Remember, the bulk of Sythal lies buried deep below our feet.”
“So that means it wasn’t a doorway I entered earlier when I went exploring. It was a window?”
“Hey, we got ourselves a smart one here.” Seward flashed Jaikus a humorless grin.
“Ignore him.”
“I’ll try,” Jaikus assured her.
Charka brought them to a halt before the window. “We will explore the upper areas first. After that, we will descend into the depths.”
“Shouldn’t we explore the lower areas first?” asked Reneeke. “It would seem that there is where treasure would most likely be found.”
“No. You’re thinking about this all wrong. If you were on the ground before a tall building, where would you expect the treasure to be secreted away? In the uppermost reaches, of course. People tend to stash their really good items as far from the entrance as possible. Before Sythal was buried…” he pointed toward the edifice rising before them, “this was the area furthest from the entrance. And thus, more likely to still contain items of value.”
Jaikus nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Okay, then.” Glancing to his two Springers, he said, “Who wants to be first?”
Exchanging glances with Reneeke, he was about to volunteer when Reneeke said, “I will.” Relief flowed over him, but so too did concern for his friend.
“You two will rotate the duty.” Turning to Jaikus, he said, “Until I say otherwise, stay back with Lady Kate.”
“Yes, sir.” Moving to stand beside the magic user, he watched as Charka removed a rope from his pack.
Passing one end to Reneeke, Charka said, “Tie this around your middle.”
About to ask why, Reneeke stopped the urge and took the end of the rope. While he secured it around his waist, Seward removed a lantern from his pack. It was a bulls-eye lantern, one that shined its light through a single opening in one side. There was a shutter whereby the light could be reduced in smaller increments to a tighter, more focused, beam. By the time Reneeke was securely bound, the lantern was lit and its light was being directed in through the window. With the shutter opened to its widest, the light filled the room.
Charka motioned for Reneeke to precede him into the room. “You first.”
Seward handed Reneeke the lantern before the Springer carefully made his way through the window.
Following ten feet behind came Seward and Charka, both keeping a firm grip upon the rope. After them came Lady Kate, with Jaikus bringing up the rear.
A single doorway broke the empty monotony of the room. Other than dust and dried leaves that had been blown in by the wind, there was nothing else of note. Reneeke paused and turned back to where Seward and Charka still stood on the other side of the window. “Should I go through the doorway?”
“Go ahead.”
Moving forward, Reneeke heard the others begin making their way through the window and into the room.
A hallway extended from the other side of the doorway. Further openings appeared in the walls on either side at staggered intervals. The first one was on his left and opened onto a room similar to the one behind him.
“If you don’t see anything,” Charka instructed, “continue to the next.”
Keeping that in mind, Reneeke moved from doorway to doorway. At each, he would pause to inspect the room by directing the lantern’s light from one side to the other. When he failed to see anything of interest, he would continue on.
As he approached the fifth doorway, his eyes caught sight of a flash of light coming from within the room. He immediately came to a stop. “I think I see something?”
“What?” asked Jaikus. Despite the possible lethality of the situation his friend was in, Jaikus found himself drawn into the excitement of the moment.
“I’m not sure,” replied Reneeke. Moving to the doorway, he paused and slowly roved the light across the room’s interior. When the edge of the light reached the far right, the flash appeared again. A closer look revealed that whatever it was, was partially hidden amidst a pile of debris.
He sensed someone had come up behind him and glanced back to find Charka peering over his shoulder. “It might be a coin. Go find out.” As Reneeke entered the room, the Troupe leader added, “Be careful.”
<
br /> The debris held bones, stones, and tufts of fur which may have once belonged to an animal. “Looks like this may have been a predator’s den.”
“If it was,” replied Charka, “then that would mean the room is safe.”
Crossing the room, Reneeke aimed the lantern directly toward the pile. He could see that there was more than a single item glittering within. Upon reaching it, he used the toe of his boot to disperse the pile and revealed two round, golden disks, each the size of his palm. There was also a silver one of the same size tucked beneath the two golden ones.
“Three disks,” he announced. “Two golden, and one silver.” He then bent over to pick them up.
“Wait,” ordered Charka. Turning to his magic user, he motioned for her to enter and check it out. “We’ve encountered these before,” he told his Springer. “Most are harmless. Others are not.”
Reneeke stepped back as Lady Kate came forward to kneel by the three disks. A moment later, they glowed a soft blue. The glow lasted for only two seconds.
She glanced to Reneeke. “They are safe,” she told him then collected the disks and slipped them into her pack.
“What happens when they are not safe?”
“Of the two we have encountered that were not, one exploded, and the other caused a colony of warts to appear and spread across Seward’s face.” She gave the Springer a grin. “Lucky for him, Charka was willing to foot the bill for a curse removal at the temple upon our return.”
“Why would it do that?”
She shrugged. “Who knows? There are all kinds of magical items out there of which the intrepid adventurer should be leery. In the Tower back at the Guild, there is an entire room devoted to the weird and odd.”
From the doorway, Charka said, “If that is all, then we should continue.”
“Yes, sir,” Reneeke said, then made his way from the room and headed down to the sixth door.
Therein they discovered a small room with a narrow, winding stairwell extending to both the floor above and the floor below.
Jaikus and Reneeke Join the Guild Page 9
