Word of Truth

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Now, Whitney could see what she saw. He’d been right. Arrows or something like them would shoot out of four holes situated in a diamond shape in the wall on the opposite end of the hall. They were positioned knee-to-waist-high—which Whitney realized was chest and head height for a dwarf.

  “Keep the light there,” he instructed Aquira.

  Gauging the exact placement of the holes was difficult. It was also taking a big chance that Whitney could move fast enough even if he knew precisely where the arrows would strike.

  “Okay, Aquira. See that hole in front of you?”

  She moved a bit to the left.

  “Yes. That one. I want you to hold the torch in front of that hole. Make sure your legs are out of the way. Do you understand?”

  She puffed.

  “I’m going to dive to my right. If I press up against the wall, and you block that one, I should be safe.”

  Even hearing his own words struck a bit of terror into his heart. What if there was another grouping of arrows that would shoot from the other direction? What if something got Aquira?

  No, she looked all over. If that’s all she found, that was all there is.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  She puffed.

  After a deep breath, Whitney looked down at the plate below his boot. He whispered something. He wasn’t even sure what. It wasn’t a prayer, but it was as close as he’d get.

  “On the count of three, okay?”

  Here goes nothing.

  “One. Two. Three!”

  He threw himself to the right with every bit of strength he could muster. With the torch so far away, he couldn’t tell how close he was to the wall, but it didn’t matter, he needed to get low and far, fast. As soon as his foot left the trigger switch, he heard a loud ka-thunk followed by Aquira’s alarmed cry, then felt air rush past him as the three remaining arrows blew by, one just barely scratching his left leg.

  “Aquira!” he shouted, rushing to his feet.

  Ahead, the torch lay on the ground, fire still burning, but there was no sign of the wyvern.

  “Aquira!” he shouted again, rising. He started toward the torch, then thought better of it. If there was another trap and Aquira was injured, he’d likely find himself in Elsewhere permanently. He decided to crawl, feeling every inch of the floor as he went, searching for even the slightest imperfections in the dwarven-carved stone.

  He reached the torch without a problem. A giant spear protruded from its base, just as it was meant to do. Crawling further, he found Aquira lying just outside its circle of light. She was breathing and close to the wall, eyes open but twitching.

  Whitney cradled her. “You okay, girl? Did you hit your head?”

  She blinked her two sets of eyelids, obviously recovering from the shock. He also noticed that it wasn’t an arrow that’d been shot, but a miniature spear. The force of it must have been enough to blow her back into the wall. It was far bigger than the arrows he’d expected, and Whitney was thankful she’d held on long enough to keep the missile from eviscerating him.

  “That-a-girl,” Whitney whispered. “That’s it. You’re okay.”

  He held her close and rose. She breathed softly against his chest, her frills opening and closing along with her shallow breaths. Anything worth booby-trapping was worth stealing—in most cases, at least. In this one, Whitney hoped it would be the Brike Stone.

  He gathered himself and started off again. At the end of the hall, where the arrow holes were, the tunnel turned to the right. Light poured out through an opening about forty meters or so down. He had to guess they’d left the dwarf head throne room and were now in the heart of the mountain.

  Still taking it slow, Whitney pushed forward. Aquira seemed to have almost fully recovered physically, but still seemed quite shaken.

  When he reached the next room, it became immediately apparent that the light was less from the torches and more from their reflections on countless amounts of gold. The first room, which made Whitney think King Lorgit to be the richest man alive, was absolutely destitute compared to this.

  Aquira chirped.

  “Glad you’re feeling better.”

  High stacks of golden bullions were stacked a dozen meters tall all around him. For the briefest of moments, Whitney worried that if even one of the towers toppled, it would crush him beneath the weight. Then, he thought that dying under a pile of gold might be preferable to whatever Nesilia had planned.

  Whitney whistled. “Would you look at all this? We could liberate every man, woman, and child in the Panping Ghetto. Then again, there’s probably no Panping Ghetto left in Winde Port.”

  A low growl emanated through the room, making the words catch in Whitney’s throat. Then, he heard the sound of shifting coins, and two glowing orbs appeared in the darkness between two columns of ingots. It moved toward him, slowly. The growl came again, and Whitney took a step back.

  “Who—wh—what’s there?” he stammered.

  The response was a sharp bark. He’d heard a sound like that before with Torsten the first day they’d met.

  Dire wolf.

  Amazingly, that day, setting off to battle with the world’s most evil warlock and a vile Spider Queen were fun times compared to the woes of this day.

  “Easy, boy… Easy,” he said. “We’re friends…”

  The further into the room Whitney went, the less he could see, like something was sucking all the light from the room. However, the orbs that were its eyes grew larger. Then, suddenly, it broke through the darkness and was fully visible in all it’s vicious, slobbering glory.

  Aquira rose, but she faltered in the air and slammed down on the floor, flopping around like a fish out of water. Poor girl was still dazed from the spear trap. Whitney bent and scooped her up.

  The wolf broke into a run. The coins beneath its feet were tossed around like dust on the Glass Road.

  “Shog…”

  He squeezed the dagger in his free hand, then realized it’d be useless. But those spears that had just about skewered him wouldn’t. He turned to run, and just then heard a metallic snap and clank. The dire wolf was yanked backward to the ground.

  “You’re chained up,” Whitney said, his voice quavering. “Yes, you are. Oh, what a good little boy.” Though his voice was gaining a bit of strength, his knees were still wobbling. He laughed. “You’re chained up!”

  The wolf stood and snapped at him again, but Whitney waved the torch, and it retreated slightly.

  Relieved, Whitney gave his weak knees a break and collapsed to the floor. “Gods and yigging monsters, Aquira, I thought we were dead.” He laughed again, then said, “Okay. I need your help again.” He stroked her back. “You feeling up to it?”

  She nodded and puffed, then turned and growled back at the dire wolf who, although chained, looked like he was ready to spill their guts to the floor.

  “We need a plan.”

  Whitney looked around at a room similar to the first. In addition to the towering stacks of gold bars, piles of trinkets cascaded over the sides of chests. But one thing was different. The only reason to chain up a wolf was to protect something, and Whitney now saw what it guarded.

  “The Brike Stone,” he whispered.

  He followed the chain to a ring that was connected to a podium of sorts. Darkness engulfed the area like a plague. Even so, the stone was far larger than Whitney had expected—the size of his fist or greater. Unlike the stories Tum Tum had apparently heard, the blood-red stone emanated no light of its own. It was just a dull, dead thing that seemed to absorb all the light around it—the petrified heart of a dragon if the stories were to be believed.

  “It’s frightened of the fire,” Whitney told Aquira. “You know what to do, right?”

  Without another word, Aquira hopped down to the ground. She was half the massive dire wolf’s height, but with her wings expanded, she cut quite the intimidating figure. Especially as she blew flames in a wide plume. The dire wolf leaped back but returned im
mediately to snarl after the fire dissipated.

  Walking a circle around the wolf, keeping it at bay with his lit torch, Whitney split the beast’s focus. It didn’t know whether to watch him or Aquira. Confused is exactly how Whitney wanted the creature. He could have Aquira enkindle it, but if that melted the chains before the beast died, they were done for.

  Every time the wolf got close, Whitney waved the torch, and it hopped back. Then Aquira blew a small wisp of flame in its direction, and it leaped the other way. It bent low, hackles up, scared.

  Whitney was nearing the podium, which held the Brike Stone. Suddenly, his flame was snuffed out like magic. He swore, threw the dead torch to the ground, but dared not take his eyes off the dire wolf. It showed yellow teeth, thick saliva on black gums, and darted for Whitney. Aquira roared and shot a focused line of fire that nipped the wolf’s tail. It spun around, giving Whitney the opening he needed.

  Turning his back, he was at the mercy of the dire wolf. Mercy he didn’t believe the creature would have should it spin to find him stealing the very thing it was meant to protect.

  The chain pulled taut, slightly shaking the podium. Behind him, he could hear the sound of jaws snapping and wings flapping. He reached out slowly, letting his fingertips graze the cold hard Brike Stone. Upon its icy touch, he felt like his very soul was coming undone. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and clenched it tight. Then, he drew it to himself. He couldn’t breathe. Immediately, he regretted it. The ground shook, the walls clattered, and before he knew it, the dire wolf was back on him.

  Darkness now surrounded Whitney despite Aquira’s attempts to give light. For so long, he’d said he had a plan for the day he would perish, and in a vault full of someone else’s gold, being torn to shreds by an overgrown dog wasn’t it. But if the last six years taught Whitney anything, it was that you don’t always get what you want.

  You can damn well try to, though, he thought.

  He lowered the Brike Stone into his cloak pocket and spun. The feeling vanished, and Aquira’s flames returned just in time to turn the wolf’s attention once more.

  Whitney ran, barely dodging the beast’s razor-sharp fangs. Aquira flew above, raining flames down between them to keep it at bay without risking melting the chains.

  Calculating the distance, Whitney guessed he was almost to the place where the chain would snap tight, and he’d be safe from the wolf. When he got there, however, he heard a slight strain and then the distinct sound of dozens of metal shards flying in every direction. The chain had snapped... into pieces.

  Whitney turned, knowing he had no choice and no defense. He put his hands up in a weak attempt to slow the attack, but it wasn’t necessary. As the dire wolf dove for Whitney, one of the golden towers toppled over and crushed the thing, eliciting a sharp yelp.

  He looked up to see Aquira hovering above it all, a mischievous grin on her snout, if that were possible.

  “Wha-ha,” Whitney laughed. “Ha. Wha… Ha!” He had no words, just a series of vaguely happy sounds. There was no time to celebrate. The ground still shook, and with or without Aquira’s help, the other towers were just as likely to come crashing down. He ran, avoiding the newly-created mound of gold, and Aquira swooped in beside him.

  One after another, the towers clattered to the ground. The sound was loud and incessant, and Whitney could hardly think. When he saw the opening to the tunnel, he went to dive but pulled back just in time when he saw a glint of gold in his peripheral. A second later, the shaking stopped, and a pile of gold ingots blocked the entrance into the treasure room.

  Just like that, he was stuck.

  He tried to sift through the gold bars, but they were heavy, and there were a lot of them—at this rate, it would take him well into the night. By then, King Lorgit might have figured out Sora’s involvement in the fire. He might already have.

  “Shog in a barrel,” Whitney swore. He turned back to the room, now more like a mountain of gold.

  Aquira made a clicking noise and moved in front of him. He watched her throat inflate, and a plume of flame shone in her mouth. He pulled her back by the tail. She snapped and nearly took his hand with it.

  “Hey! You melt that in a room this small, you’ll turn us into soup with it,” he explained.

  She backed away, hanging her head in shame.

  “How could they even get all this in here through that hole in his bedroom?” Whitney said aloud. “There has to be another way out.”

  Without hesitation, Aquira was reinvigorated. She shook out her frills and took flight. Whitney did his best to follow, but without wings himself, he was forced to crawl up and over numerous peaks and dip into just as many valleys. It took more time than he’d desired, but he finally found Aquira zipping around some distance away. The room was far more extensive than he’d previously thought.

  Aquira screeched. Looking up, he shouted, “Did you find an exit?”

  Whitney followed her calls. If she could have responded, the answer would have been, “Sort of.”

  Whitney was now staring at a ten-meter by ten-meter hole in the ground. It appeared to be like a dumb waiter with a set of ropes leading up and around two pulleys at the top of a stone shaft.

  “I guess that answers the question of how they got this all in here.” Whitney closed his eyes, and sighed. “Only one way out, and that’s down.”

  He leaned over. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something like this—escaping the tower of the Whispering Wizards came to mind—but without gloves, that rope was going to smart.

  He turned back to the room and approached the closest pile of coins. “Just a few,” he said, swiping up a handful of them and shoving them into his pocket. “For my troubles.”

  XIX

  The Traitor

  “Torsten!” Rand shouted from down the tunnel.

  His elbow, propped against the wall, helped him wield Torsten’s claymore. King Liam’s weapon had been re-designed for a brute Torsten’s size, but it was the first thing Rand grabbed after coming to and choking the life out of the guard they left behind. The man hadn’t stood a chance.

  When Nesilia gave him the mission to remove Torsten from the equation before their magic-aided, naval ambush, he thought it’d be difficult. But then he saw him—the Shieldsman who’d pretended to be his friend, all while lying about Sigrid. The Shieldsman who’d abandoned him to face Oleander’s wrath alone.

  The truth was, the grimaur talon he’d been provided slid into Torsten’s side all too easy. Rand only wished he was able to stab deeper and truly take Torsten down. Hampering him would have to suffice.

  Torsten and his entourage stopped to look back. Rage twisted the features of Lucas and the other guard, but not Torsten. Even while fighting the toxin, he looked ashamed. Sad. Like how Rand’s father would regard him every time he lost to Sigrid in some manner of competition. Or every time he came back, bruised from a fight with the kids at school.

  And at that moment, Rand’s own ire waned. His heart plummeted. He knew what was coming… he could feel the subtle vibrations of the floor beneath him that only he knew had nothing to do with the crowd above.

  “You need to run,” he said. “You all need to run.”

  “Enough of this,” Lucas replied.

  He turned to the guard and whispered something. As he did, Torsten’s lips quivered like he was trying to speak, and his muscles wouldn’t comply. Rand had been drunk enough plenty of times to understand what that felt like.

  Rand stared at him. Torsten had betrayed his trust, but had also trained him, picked him out of all the King’s Shield recruits who’d tried to rise from Dockside. Helped him see the better parts of the world.

  Lucas pushed Torsten toward the exit; toward what was coming. Then, fearless, he turned to face Rand. He drew his gleaming longsword and set his jaw.

  “It’s time for you to die, traitor,” he growled.

  Brandishing his weapon, he charged. Rand shifted back into a fighting stance and lifted
Torsten’s claymore as high as he could. His legs remained a bit woozy from the beating Lucas had put on him back in the cell.

  “I’m trying to help,” Rand implored.

  “You’ve done enough of that!”

  The young Shieldsman came at Rand with reckless abandon. It was obvious. This wasn’t about defending Torsten or fighting a traitor, but because Rand had offered his life as a blood pact to attract Sigrid.

  Young and foolish, that’s what Lucas was. Perhaps Rand wasn’t actually much older beneath his scrubby beard, but he’d faced enough adversity for a thousand lifetimes. Lucas’ charge left openings for numerous countermoves. Rand easily had the upper hand against such a raw opponent, if only he wielded a weapon suited for his size. With Salvation, he could only manage to parry the first attack. Using a defensive, high-elbow stance, he defended against a flurry of strikes that pressed him down the tunnel and back toward his cell.

  “You were a Shieldsman!” Lucas screamed, swinging hard.

  Rand blocked, but the force sent him reeling against a wall. Out of training for so long, he wasn’t as strong as he’d been. As his muscles strained against the attacks, his anger returned.

  The King’s Shield truly was nothing like the legends, as it had been under Sir Uriah and the Wearers of White who’d preceded him. The Order had failed Rand just as much as he’d failed it. Failed their Kingdom.

  Sigrid had clearly seen that, to give Nesilia control. The Glass Kingdom was unfixable and needed to be purged. Ruined by a sick King, a mad Queen, and a cursed, petulant child who couldn’t even grow a beard, let alone think for himself.

  “And you’re a fool!” Rand yelled.

  He countered fast and thrust the blade, but just then, the ground trembled. It sent them both staggering, barely able to stay on their feet. When the violent tremor ceased, a low, gushing sound replaced it, growing louder with each second.

  “The sea,” he said to himself.