The Wealth of Kings (10 page)

It came speeding toward him.

Kirrik fumbled with the powder.

Red rushed in, yelling and jumping with a mighty swing that punctured deep into the creature’s back. It screamed and arched upward toward the ceiling. Then, it leapt up, clinging to the ceiling and shaking Red from its back.

A thick mess of yellow gunk coated Red’s pickaxe, but now the creature was cautious, scurrying away and snarling at the two dwarves.

“Hit is again!” Red yelled. “I’ll keep it busy.”

Kirrik put his head down and focused. Soon he made two more bombs. He could hear Red shouting and cursing at the beast as it snarled and lunged at him. Kirrik stuck the fuses in and prepared to throw one. “Move!” Kirrik yelled.

He stood to throw the bomb and saw Red’s last moments as the beast dropped from the ceiling and drove both claws through Red. Then the creature looked to Kirrik and made a noise that almost sounded like laughter. Kirrik lit the bomb and threw it.

He didn’t wait to see if it hit its mark. He had to act fast if he was going to stop the monster from escaping this chamber. If it had been sealed in here by the stone wall, then odds were it couldn’t dig out. So, Kirrik did the only thing he could think of. He mixed all of his powder in the three containers and prepared one large bomb.

The explosion rocked the chamber. Shards of stone flew around, bouncing dangerously off the walls, but Kirrik didn’t slow. He didn’t look up either. The screeching scrapes along the ground were enough to tell him the beast lived through the second bomb. Worse than that, it was coming for him.

The snarling grew louder and the seconds slowed while Kirrik’s hands furiously worked the last bits of powder. He popped the fuse and lit it. He picked up the three containers, hugging them tightly to his chest. He didn’t have any special casing to hold the bomb in place this time.

He was going to have to do that himself.

Kirrik leapt up onto the large bottom half of the boulder he had blown apart, drawing the creature closer to himself. Then, a moment before the fuse reached the powder, he turned and leapt into the hole. He felt something sharp rip through his back as the creature caught him, and then there was a flash of light and a terrible, thunderous explosion that shook the entire mine shaft. Hunks of rock and great granite slabs fell into the cavern, sealing the chamber, and closing off the tunnel for fifty yards beyond.

Year 3,711 Age of Demigods, Mid-Summer.

2
nd
year of the reign of Aldehenkaru’hktanah Sit’marihu, 13
th
King of Roegudok Hall.

Al’s cavedog moved almost effortlessly through the winding tunnels as he led the rescue group down to shaft thirty-seven. The explosion had been felt all the way up in the throne room. He had called for a group of volunteers moments after, but he had little hope in his heart that he would find anyone alive. Even the miners that had been on their way to replace Tareggh and his crew told Al it was a hopeless effort. They had been a quarter mile outside of shaft thirty-seven and they had still been assaulted with a wave of heat that coated them in dust from the explosion.

Still, Al was king. He could not sit idly by while others did work he felt he should be doing. After all, it was his command that had sent the crew down to the mine in the first place. In his mind he recalled the wreckage at Valtuu Temple. They had needed to dig out survivors there as well after the battle with Tu’luh. Yet, there
were
survivors. That was why Al was not about to waste precious moments. If he could get there and start the work faster by riding upon a cavedog, then perhaps it could make the difference between life and death for one of the trapped miners.

His determination burned hot as he and the others reached the point of the cave-in. Al leapt off from his cavedog and started calling out to the rescue group.

“Split into two groups. Fifteen of you will work the rubble. Clear it away as quickly as possible.” Al turned to the cavedog riders farther to the back of the group. “You fifteen take the loose rocks and boulders out so we can clear a path. Let’s get on it!”

Al moved in with the rest of them, pulling rocks free from higher up on a sloped pile and handing them down to the other dwarves that would shuttle the removed stone away from the cave-in site. It was hard, sweaty work, but none of the dwarves complained. They moved in perfect harmony with each other. The diggers grabbed the rocks and pivoted at the waist, hardly looking before they set them into hands already outstretched and waiting to take the stone away and pile it along the sides out of the way.

They worked for hours before the other mining crew arrived on foot. They dutifully moved in without being told where to assist and started adding their efforts to the rescue crew’s own efforts. With the extra hands to help, it only took another ninety minutes before they cleared enough stone away to find the blast marks on the left side of the wall.

“Looks like they found another chamber,” one of the miners said as they turned their attention to the charred hole.

Al moved through the others, taking a closer look. He saw dark brown spots on some of the stone. He knew at once that this was where the other miners had been.

“Hello?” Al called out as he pressed his face close in to the blocked passageway.

No answer came.

Al shook his head and smacked the wall with his fist.

“Shall we keep digging, sire?” one of the rescuers asked.

Al nodded. The others began removing rocks while Al moved to the back of the group and took a drink from the canteen hanging from his cavedog’s saddle. “What next?” he grumbled to himself in a low whisper. “Empty mines, dry wells, emigrating dwarves that would prefer to live on the surface than under my rule, and now dead miners.”

Al hung the canteen back onto his saddle and took in a deep breath of musty air.

“It isn’t your fault,” someone said.

Al turned around, but all of the dwarves were busy hauling stone away from the passageway.

The voice came again, more faintly this time. “It’s not your fault.”

Al looked up the tunnel, but no one was there except for the rescuers and miners.

“You are destined to find the Wealth of Kings,” the voice said in a soft whisper.

Al spun around. What in Hammenfein’s name is going on?

The voice disappeared without another word.

“You alright my lord?” one of the miners said as he walked by carrying a hefty boulder half again as large as he was.

Al nodded and wiped a hand over his face. “Just a bit tired,” he answered.

“Well, take a rest then, Sire. We can manage.”

Al shook his head. “That isn’t the kind of king I wish to be,” he said as he walked back to the blocked passageway.

He bent down and pulled a massive, oblong boulder out from the pile. He rolled it away carefully, letting the rough edges slam down to stop its own momentum before other dwarves hauled it away. He then pulled a black sphere of stone and tossed it to another dwarf. He continued working the front of the line until they broke through the passageway.

“By Icadion’s beard,” Al muttered as he broke through to see a large chamber. There were bags on the ground with gems and crystals spilling out of them. Unrefined hunks of gold and hunks of diamond sat on the ground on the northern side. Pickaxes littered the ground. But, there were no bodies.

Al turned around to face the others and shook his head. That was when he saw a streak of blood stretching across the wall beyond the charred stone. He pointed to it. “Can an explosion make the other miners disappear?” Al asked.

The mining crew entered the chamber and began looking around.

One of them bent low, picking up a ragged piece of canvas. He smelled it and then looked to the blood on the wall. “I’m not sure what to make of it, sire, but there should be…”

“Should be what?” Al pressed.

The miner held up the ragged cloth. “Pieces,” he said flatly. “Not to be crude, but the explosion should have left evidence of the others.” He then shook his head and pointed around the chamber.

“I have blood here,” another miner called out.

“I found some here too,” said a third.

“Sire, over here!” another called out.

Al moved around a column to see a dwarf squatting inside of a lava tube. “What is it?”

“Blood, a lot of it.” The dwarf turned and pointed to the bottom of the tube, slowly tracing a line with his hand and turning to point at the back of the tube. “There is a wide trail of blood that goes back down the tube.” Then the dwarf pointed up. “Diamonds too,” he added. “A big vein of gold off to the outside of this chute as well.”

“Come out of there,” Al said quickly. The miner did as he was told.

Without warning, Al’s cavedog sprinted into the tunnel and started making clicking noises. Its pink, forked tongue flicked in and out as it licked the air and its muscles tensed. Then, the animal did something that Al didn’t know a cavedog could do. It made a guttural sound that was something between a bird’s cry and a snarl. All of the other cavedogs filtered into the chamber around the dwarves and formed a defensive wall between Al and the lava tube. Two of the cavedogs even pushed the miner farther away from the tube’s opening.

“What are they doing?” one of the rescuers asked.

Al shook his head. “I haven’t the faintest idea, but it seems they believe there is danger coming from that tube.”

“They might be right, judging by the blood we see around the chamber,” the miner with the piece of cloth said. “I’m no expert with war, but if there is something in that tunnel, I could seal it off with explosives. My bet is that’s what the others tried to do when they were attacked.”

“Attacked by what?” Al asked. “There isn’t anything down here but stone.”

“With respect, sire, that isn’t entirely true, if you believe the legends.”

Al turned a curious eye on the miner. “Why would the others blow the tunnel while they were still in it?”

The miner sniffed the cloth again and shook his head. “I’m not for knowing that,” he said. “But, I can tell you that Kirrik was one of the best explosives engineers we have ever produced. If his powder was set to detonate, you can be sure he did it on purpose.”

“Could have been an accident,” one of the rescuers put in.

“Ha!” the miner said. “Kirrik wouldn’t accidentally set off his explosives even if he was sleeping with a torch in one hand and a bomb in the other. No, he set it on purpose.”

Al sighed and moved toward the lava tube. The cavedogs fought against him, blocking his path and trying to push him back, but he pushed through all the same. He jumped up into the tube, followed a half second later by his cavedog.

“Stubborn lizard,” Al snarked.

The lizard made a clicking noise in its throat and its tail went rigid as it zipped around Al and stared down the tube. Al shuffled forward, and put a hand on the wall to steady himself as he leaned over the edge. The light the others brought into the chamber was enough to penetrate a few feet of the darkness as the tube dropped into oblivion below. Al saw streaks of dried blood and knew that there had been something in the tube. He reached down and patted his cavedog on the head.

“Stubborn, but smart,” he said as he offered the creature a smile. It didn’t look at him. It kept its eyes on the darkness below and remained still. Not until Al was safely buffered by the other cavedogs did Al’s lizard come out of the tube.

The others waited quietly for Al’s assessment.

Al looked around the chamber. There was wealth to be had in here, but not enough to risk dying for. “Gather up the diamonds and other treasure they found and move it into the main shaft. Once that is done, blow the lava tube shut.” Al pointed to the passageway. “Then start piling those stones in here and seal this place off. Hopefully the blast you drop in the tube will kill whatever it was. If not, then we will bury it inside.”

The others hopped to work without a word. It took them little more than ten minutes to gather all of the gems and gold. What struck Al, though, was the fact that none of the cavedogs moved from their defensive positions in front of the lava tube. Whatever it was, cavedogs could sense it, and they hated it.

Even when they prepared to blow the tube, the cavedogs stayed in place.

The explosives expert, Rupit, pulled several long, cylindrical bombs and wound their fuses together. Unlike Al, he was not quite strong enough to push through the cavedogs and get into the lava tube, so he lit the fuse and then tossed the bomb to the back of the tube. It bounced off the back wall and then the sizzling sound faded as it descended into the mountain’s depths.

“Back up,” Rupit said as he hurried back through the throng of angry lizards.

Seven seconds later an explosion erupted and the tube was illuminated with hot, yellow and red light. A wave of smoke and dust blew out from the tube, shooting over the cavedogs and settling slowly in the chamber. That was immediately followed by a rumbling tremor as rocks clacked and smashed into each other deep within the tube.

“One more time?” Rupit asked.

Al looked to the cavedogs. They still stood rigid, guarding the dwarves. The king nodded. If the cavedogs still sensed danger, then best to be safe.

Rupit repeated the process, gathering several bombs together. “You all might want to go out and take shelter for this one,” he said matter-of-factly. Everyone left but Al, who stood in the passageway so he could watch from behind cover.

Rupit lit the bomb and tossed it in. This time he didn’t meander through the cavedogs to get away. He ran and hopped around them, scurrying for cover. He made it to the passageway with time to spare. Al was about to ask him why he had run, but the answer roared through the tube a moment later as flames and shards of rock exploded out and sprayed into the chamber.

Al ducked back, pushing Rupit out into the main shaft as a great quake shook the ground. Dust fell from the ceiling and everyone held their breath until the shaking stopped and the dust settled.

“I think that did the trick,” Rupit said.

Al slowly inched back into the chamber and saw that the cavedogs were now filtering out into the hall as well. The lava tube was sealed, entirely caved-in. He smiled and nodded. “Alright, let’s set the miners to work in here on extracting everything we can from that gold vein. Once this chamber is dry, then use this as a place to stack the stone from the main tunnel while we continue to expand down the original mine. I want a guard set as well, just to be on the safe side.”

“Sire?” one of the miners asked.

Al pointed to the bags of wealth. “This will help, but it won’t solve our food shortage problem. I need this mine cleared. However, if the cavedogs can sense whatever attacked the others, then the answer is to assign soldiers with cavedogs to each mining unit. That should ensure safety while also keeping our mining operations going at full capacity. Also, none of you are to speak of this. I don’t want hysteria running through the mountain.”

The miner nodded, but what else was he going to say to the king?

Al counted out ten soldiers from the rescue party and sent them up to the main hall with the bags of treasure, and with orders for Benbo to set up proper shifts for guards in each of the open mines. The other twenty stayed to watch over the current miners, as their shift wasn’t set to end for a few more days.

“I’ll send some runners down with extra food and provisions,” Al promised as he saddled his cavedog and started his way back to his chamber.