The Northern Approach (9 page)

“Is why you do not carry the drinks anymore,” Yoska explained, patting the backpack he had taken back from On’esquin. “Valuable goods go with the more fragile of us. Now, we move on before more things try to stop us, yes?”

“Yes, that would be wise,” agreed On’esquin.

Raeln eyed the hall ahead of them that fell into darkness too deep for his eyes to penetrate after no more than twenty feet. He looked to Yoska, whose eyes were already wide in an attempt to see, and then over to On’esquin, who might have been entirely blind already. On’esquin appeared to be staring at a wall rather than the passage.

“I can’t see down there and you two can’t see yourselves,” Raeln noted, waving a hand in front of On’esquin’s face and getting no reaction.

“We need light only for first part,” said Yoska, slapping aside Raeln’s hand when he tried the same test. “Dwarves light most tunnels, but not where invaders might come. Makes invaders think dwarves can see in the dark and give up, when truth is dwarves can see little better than you. Does not work so well on undead. If our magic green man can light the way, we can hurry…”

On’esquin put a hand to the wall and slowly inched down the tunnel, as blind as a man with a bucket on his head.

“Magic orc, you will magic us a light, yes?”

Stopping after no more than five feet, On’esquin grumbled and said over his shoulder, “I cannot use magic, Yoska. I lost the ability to do that when I gained the powers you’ve seen. You likely have more capability than I do. I know Raeln does.”

“He says that as though I should believe him,” muttered the gypsy, giving Raeln a sidelong glance. “I think we do not hear the full story. For now, I humor him.”

Digging through the small containers along his belt, Yoska produced a bit of flint and steel. He reached past Raeln and pulled an old torch from the wall and set to lighting it, creating far more smoke than light throughout the minute of tapping the steel and cursing that it took to finally light the torch. When it did burst into flame, the old rags that covered the end flared and faded to produce a dim light that created long shadows around them.

“Dwarves do see well in the dark,” Yoska noted, holding up the torch. “They use less light than we do. Will be hard to see, but not impossible. Is better than nothing, no?”

Still a short distance ahead of them, On’esquin turned and said, “Yes, it is better. Am I misunderstanding something about the language spoken in these lands? I do not understand the need to confirm to refute your statements.”

“I think you do, yes,” Yoska proclaimed, grinning.

Raeln smiled, not really wanting to engage the two as they struggled to understand each other. He, at least, was able to see clearly well down the hallway so long as the torch was behind him. He opted to keep that from the others. There was no sense in rubbing in that he was far more capable than them at something so mundane. They had their talents—whatever they might be—and he had his.

“From here, is only few hours to the main fortress they would have holed themselves up in,” Yoska told them, heading down the tunnel and pushing On’esquin ahead of him. “If dwarves are happy to see us, we make very good time through mountains. If not so happy…we test how many axes green man can take without falling down. Is traveling game. My personal best is none. I keep count for you, yes?”

“I would prefer ‘no’ on that,” On’esquin said, but Yoska pushed him onward.

Letting the gypsy push On’esquin ahead of the group, Raeln followed, keeping watch around them in case anything like the golems remained active. He could see the tunnel behind them clearly, but attempting to look past the torch was difficult.

The tunnels they went down were a little more than ten feet wide, with reinforcement beams every few feet to ensure the stability of the already-hard stone of the mountains. Aside from the support beams, the tunnels were smooth and empty, not a sound coming from ahead of them other than echoes of their own footsteps. There were not even any side passages for the first few hours, making Raeln wonder if perhaps this passage was abandoned or led somewhere the dwarves had forgotten about.

Twice along the way, they stopped briefly for Yoska to light another torch as the old began to sputter. Thankfully, torches were not hard to come by, with sconces every twenty feet or so and spare torches in racks beneath each. As they had been in Raeln’s few meetings above-ground, the dwarves seemed overly prepared for anything that might come along. Prior to the war, he had considered them paranoid, though judging by how things had turned out, they were wiser than most. His village would have fared better had they been so paranoid.

After about four hours—an approximation Raeln had to make, given the lack of sunlight or other indications of time’s passage—they reached a split in the tunnel that joined a much-older section with the one they stood in. The tunnel they had been going down ended abruptly at a barred set of doors, the wooden beam that locked them shut bent as though pounded nearly to breaking. The older-looking section descended off to his left, the shadows revealing nothing.

“Old tunnels belong to other people that live beneath the dwarves,” Yoska explained, nodding toward the unlit hall that descended away from them. “Elves with bad tempers live down there and will not trade with my people. Something about thieves and liars. Is long-time misunderstanding. We do not go down there, I think. Last visit, they say they wrap my intestines in pretty box and send it back to surface if I return.”

“My people said the same thing about yours when they weren’t around. The liars and thieves part, not the intestines,” Raeln admitted, approaching the door cautiously. He touched the beam, hoping he would not need to break through it to open the doors, but it was wedged tightly. “I doubt we ever came out ahead in any trade with your people.”

Yoska glowered and looked genuinely hurt. “Is not our fault you are terrible at negotiations. You should practice more. Besides, is not my family you speak of. Is another clan that may not have such upstanding pride in being kind to the other peoples, yes?”

“And if I said I had no way of knowing which clan we dealt with?” Raeln asked.

“Then I say wolves are racists and you should apologize for calling my people liars and thieves. Is only fair, yes?”

Rolling his eyes, Raeln returned his attention to the doors. The beam was cracked and warped badly from sustained pressure against the other side of the doors. If he released that bar, the doors would burst open, bringing with them anything pushed up against them. It would not budge when he pressed against it, giving him no way to ease the doors open.

“Are you sure this is the only way through?” he asked Yoska, who shrugged and then nodded. “Do we have any idea what’s on the other side?”

On’esquin shook his head and took a spare weapon from Raeln. Yoska kept his expression neutral, telling Raeln that he had an idea about what they would find but wished to say nothing. From what Raeln had gathered of him, Yoska would have spoken up if it were something they could avoid or do something about.

“Allow me,” On’esquin offered, patting Raeln’s arm. “The crazy old man is right. My gifts do provide a good reason to have me go first.”

Agreeing reluctantly, Raeln backed toward Yoska as On’esquin set his sword to one side of the tunnel and knelt, bracing his shoulder against the bent beam. The orc waited until Raeln was several feet away and then grunted loudly, straining against the beam until his legs trembled. Despite muscles that made his arms thicker than Raeln’s legs, On’esquin barely budged the beam. The warping of the doors and beam had likewise bent the brackets that held it, practically locking the beam into its frame.

“Move. We don’t want to sit here forever,” Raeln told On’esquin, pushing him aside.

“Are you sure about trying that?” asked On’esquin as he moved away.

“I see stubbornness in the wolf,” said Yoska, standing back. “And a future with sore back.”

Raeln centered himself in front of the door, staring down at the hard and dry wood that the beam was made of. He slid the pads of one hand over the rough surface, searching its few cracks and imperfections for weaknesses.

“Wolf is big, is true,” Yoska continued chattering at On’esquin, lowering his voice enough that Raeln had to turn his ears to make out his words. “Is limit to all men. Size is one thing, but you are much stronger, no? Wolf will hurt himself and whine great deal. I wager a drink on this. I also do not wish to be one to carry him.”

“I’ll take that wager,” replied On’esquin a little louder.

When Raeln glanced back at him, the orc was smirking, his tusks giving him a challenging and somewhat sinister appearance. To Raeln it appeared On’esquin was happy to win or lose. If he had to guess, On’esquin was using this to size Raeln up.

Returning his attention to the door, Raeln stopped his hand over one part of the beam, then moved it back an inch. What he had thought might be a poor job sanding the wood turned out to be a bulge where the beam had bowed badly. Scratching at it with his claw, pieces flaked away, exposing a thin crack. The wood was still strong and would have been best dealt with using an axe, but they had swords and knives that would shatter or dull long before getting through the wood.

Raeln closed his eyes and relaxed his body, resting his hand atop the crack. He let his mind go blank in preparation, as he once had before any battle. It had been months since he had found the calm needed to control his body in this way, but he needed it now or he would hurt himself…to the amusement of the others.

The calm took far longer than Raeln remembered to fully relax his arm and hand, but once it had come, he hoped he still had the skill necessary to do what he intended. Years had passed since his training, and this had hardly been part of his routine practices. The soldiers from Lantonne that had taught him as a child had given him extensive lessons on dealing with armor or weapons, but he remembered those lessons clearly. What he wanted to do here had been taught by only one man, an old drunk that Raeln had been ashamed to call one of his teachers. That man had shown him how to meditate, to predict the movements of his enemies, and overall to become far more lethal, especially when dealing with wizards.  Now, he had to remember those lessons after months of ignoring his practice.

Rearing back, Raeln came down as hard as he could with his palm, aiming the end of his swing below the beam. The pad that ran across his palm just below the base of his fingers flared with pain and went numb as he connected with the beam, but the wood’s resistance disappeared after a moment’s hesitation and snapped with a deafening crack. His hand went through, splinters driving themselves painfully through his hand’s fur and into his skin.

Raeln panted and steadied himself, kneeling in front of the door with its broken beam. The doors themselves creaked open slowly as he knelt there, revealing more darkened tunnels beyond. He quickly slid away from the opening, hugging his throbbing hand to his chest.

Without a word, Yoska passed a sloshing flask to On’esquin and walked around Raeln, holding the torch high. For his part, On’esquin beamed at Raeln, patting him on the back as they went on.

Beyond the doors, the tunnels looked little different in design. It was not the architecture that changed, but the details. Where Raeln lay, the halls were as clean as an underground tunnel could be. Even the stones under his feet felt smooth and free of anything more than a thin layer of dust.

After the doors, blood covered the walls and deep scratches had been dug into the doors themselves. Even the stones nearby had been worn in spots, as though something had clawed at them until its fingers bled. There were no bodies, but easily enough blood for a dozen grown men to have died at that spot.

“Thoughts?” asked On’esquin, eyeing the bloody hallway as he fastened the skin of wine to his belt.

Raeln rolled onto his feet and eased one of the doors the rest of the way open. Flexing his aching hand, he tapped the metal brackets for a beam on the inner-side of the doors with his other. Unlike the brackets on the outside, these were unused.

“Something locked them in, not out,” he noted and sniffed. “It was dwarves who died here. They were massacred. Torn apart, judging by the smell of entrails.”

“Inside their own fortress?” asked the orc, getting a confused shrug from Yoska.