Betrayal

Chapter Fifteen Broken Nests

Morning found them on a sloping field where sheep and a handful of young goats were grazing. Varek pointed to a far rise where a small farmhouse and a precariously tilting old barn sat.

“We’re close,” Maldred said. “Very close now. The pirate treasure is somewhere beneath us.”

“For all the good it’ll do us,” Varek grumbled. “We’ve got no shovels, and I dare say borrowing some from that farm would be a bad idea.”

“We won’t need shovels,” Maldred replied. For the rest of the day he lay on his stomach in various areas of the pasture, fingers dug into the earth, jaw working, occasionally humming. Varek hovered nearby, sometimes fascinated, most of the time bored.

“Beastie, why haven’t you run off?” Rikali had settled herself on the ground, an arm’s length from the draconian. “I know you can’t up and fly away, but you’ve had chances—ain’t none of us been watchin’ you close. Dhamon ain’t even here now.”

The creature let out a deep breath, hissing like a snake.

“Beastie?”

“My name is Ragh.” The whispery voice sent a shiver down the half-elf’s spine. “Perhaps I’ve nothing better to do. Perhaps I simply find your little band… interesting.”

The half-elf raised an eyebrow. “Or perhaps you want some of the pirate loot. And that ain’t gonna happen.”

The sivak closed his eyes. “Coins and baubles mean nothing to me.”

“Then what? What…?” The half-elf’s eyes widened as she leaned closer. “Beastie… Ragh… are you here ’cause you think you owe us some kind of debt? ’Cause we rescued you from that village?”

The sivak glanced at her, then looked away.

“An honorable draconian?” she pressed. “That’s it, isn’t it? Well, don’t you worry. I’ll keep your little secret. Everyone’s got a secret, don’t they?”

* * * * *

Dhamon made himself scarce, using the excuse he was scouting the area to make sure there were no Legion of Steel Knights around. He knew there was nothing he could do to help Maldred, as the big man was using magic, and magic took its own time. He used the time to run. His strides were long and easy, and he concentrated on his pacing and speed. The exercise kept his mind off everything but the act of motion. At times he would study the landscape in front of him, then close his eyes and run blindly from memory, letting the air wash over his face. When he opened his eyes he would pick up the tempo, feet pounding against the earth, legs pumping until he couldn’t go any faster. He kept the pace up for some time, feeling his heart thundering wildly in his chest and sweat beading on his skin, then reluctantly slowed to a quick walk, dragging great gulps of air into his lungs before starting to run again. The exertion felt good, and rather than tire him, it seemed to give him more energy.

He covered considerable ground, noting the remains of a tiny village that had been beset by fire long months ago and a single standing farmhouse with a large field. The far quarter of the field was filled with corn and showed some evidence of being harvested. He saw thin, twisting roads in the distance, which he suspected led to a few of the small towns he’d noted on the map, and he saw great expanses of grass, dead from the lack of rain.

Wild animals were few in the open. He spooked a grazing deer, and a dog spotted him at the end of a small ravine and gave a merry chase, but it had no hope of catching him. At the edge of a large pond, he spied wolf tracks, but they were not particularly fresh. He stared at his reflection in the water.

His face was shallow, his eyes sunken, and his scraggly beard and tangled hair helped to complete his haggard appearance. He sat on the bank and fished about in his pocket for a small knife. Sharpening it on a stone, he shaved himself. Next he cut away at the knots in his hair. A quick plunge in the pond to refresh himself, and he counted the small scales on his leg.

“Twenty-nine,” he said. “Twenty-damn-nine.”

He rose and ran again. After another hour Dhamon glimpsed three riders to the east—the first people he’d caught sight of all day. From their angular outlines he felt certain they were armored. Perhaps they were more Legion of Steel Knights. He tried to circle behind them, but they were moving quickly and took a road to the southeast. Dhamon had no intention of traveling that far away from his companions.

Dhamon returned to the vale at mid-afternoon, finding Maldred still talking to the earth. He headed out again, running for a few more hours until his boots had rubbed his heels raw, and he finally felt a hint of fatigue. It was sunset when he finally came back. Varek and Rikali were sitting next to a small fire, roasting something that suspiciously looked like lamb. Maldred was on his back, snoring loudly, the draconian standing over him.

“I can’t pretend to understand what he was trying to do with his magic,” Varek said, indicating Maldred. “Whatever it was, it didn’t work.”

Rikali nudged her husband. “Mal says this just isn’t the right spot. Said we’ll go a little farther south tomorrow and he’ll try again.” She fell to devouring a hunk of meat Varek had passed her, not coming up for air until all that was left was a bone.

Dhamon ate very little and found himself wishing for some alcohol to wash the food down and relax him. It was hours before he could fall asleep.

By mid-afternoon the next day, Maldred had directed them to another likely place, but this, too, proved unrewarding. For three more days they wandered the countryside, passing a village and a cluster of sheepherders’ homes, crossing a prairie, and coming to a narrow strip of woods that looked as though loggers had worked it over in the spring.

Again Maldred stretched out on the ground, and again Dhamon took to running, gone from sight in minutes. The big man’s fingers sifted through the grass, which was brittle and yellow.

“Fall’s taking a strong hold here,” Maldred said. “The weather will start getting cool very soon.”

Within moments he was humming and thrusting his fingertips into the ground. Minutes later he rose and moved west, stretching out again and repeating the process. Magic had come so much easier to Maldred when he was young. Now it was work, even the simplest of enchantments. Sweat soaked his clothes and ran from his forehead, though the day was not especially hot. His throat was dry and his tongue swollen. He asked Rikali for water before he moved onto another spot, and then another and another. He was about to ask her for water again when his mind finally touched something wooden beneath the branches of a locust tree. It wasn’t roots, and the wood was not alive—it was rotting and speckled with nails.

“Where’s Dhamon?” Maldred managed to gasp.

Varek and Rikali shrugged in unison.

“Running,” the sivak said. “Watching for Knights.”

“Find him for me, would you?” Maldred asked Varek.

The young man twisted his lips into a crooked frown and shook his head. However, Rikali gave her husband a pleading smile, and he grudgingly acquiesced, trotting off to pursue Dhamon’s tracks. The half-elf watched him go, then turned her attention back to Maldred.

“What did you find, Mal? You can trust me.”

He didn’t answer. He was humming once more, digging until his hands were covered with dirt, pulling them free, edging forward a few feet, and digging all over again. The half-elf followed him, persisting with her questions, and Ragh kept nearby as well, intently watching the big man. Before the hour was out Maldred was exhausted, after having put so much energy into his spell, but he refused to quit. He dug into the earth in a half-dozen more places before moving to the top of a scrub-covered bank, where he rolled over onto his back and gasped.

“Mal? Mal!”

“I’m all right, Riki,” he said after a moment. “Just let me rest for half a minute.”

Without his asking, she fetched another skin of water, cupped the back of his head and poured practically all of it down his throat. Her hands brushed the sweat off his brow.

“Learning to be motherly, Riki?” he asked, after he had caught his breath. He saw her pinched expression. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

Her face relaxed only slightly, and he rolled over onto his stomach and started humming again, thrusting his fingers into the soil.

“There is something here,” he said after a few minutes, his voice raspy despite all the water he’d drank. “Big, broken.” Maldred rested his face against the earth, concentrating on the feel of the dry grass and the dirt against his skin, working to send his senses even deeper into the ground. The magic let his mind travel. Burrowing like a mole, his mind went past the remnants of roots from a tree that used to be here, past rocks and dried husks of bugs, past the skeleton of a small animal. There was a thin sheet of slate, then he was traveling through more dirt, more rocks, past large chunks of stone that appeared to have been worked—perhaps remnants of a building. There were pieces of wood, thin and polished and somehow preserved despite, or perhaps because of, the weight of the earth.

“Table legs,” he whispered. “A cooking pot.” There was more worked stone, roughly uniform. Probably they were the bricks of a house or a well. And so he rose and moved on another hundred yards, then a hundred more.

“Iron,” he whispered. “More iron. No wood this time.” He sagged in disappointment and was about to give up for the day, but his mind was still restless, still roved and touched object after object.

“Iron,” he repeated. His eyes flew open wide. “Iron? An anchor!” Maldred refused to let himself become too excited. That would break his concentration on the finding spell—and threaten the enchantment that cloaked his ogre body.

He delved deeper, searching in concentric circles away from the anchor. How large was the anchor?

His magical senses couldn’t tell him that. Was it from a fishing boat? How old was it? Was it from a ship on that river he’d noted on the old map? His spell could answer none of those questions, and he didn’t want to stop to consult the enchanted map.

“Ah, finally. Wood. Curved timbers. Broken timbers.” He spoke in Ogrish, his native tongue coming easier to him. Riki tapped her foot in frustration. His mind floated over sections of wood that were little more than mulch piles, then pieces that had been better protected by slabs of slate that covered them. He discovered something he couldn’t put a word to, and for several minutes his mind caressed it as he might run his fingers over a lover’s back. A sail, or what’s left of it, he finally decided, attached to a shattered spar. Another anchor. Bones—lots of bones. A ruined sea chest.

“Where’s Dhamon?” he finally croaked.

The half-elf shrugged, even though she knew he couldn’t see her with his face pressed against the ground.

“Go get Dhamon!” His fingers stopped working, and his eyes closed.

“Mal?” Rikali knelt by him. “Asleep,” she said after a moment. Sighing, she sat next to the sivak. There was little she could do except wait for Varek and Dhamon to return. Varek came back in the mid-afternoon, shaking his head and muttering that he’d tracked Dhamon at least four miles before giving up. He hadn’t wanted to stay away from her any longer, and if Maldred wanted Dhamon so badly, he could go search for the man himself. Riki didn’t argue, but she put a finger to her lips and nodded toward the big man, who was still soundly sleeping. Varek sagged next to her and closed his eyes.

Dhamon arrived shortly before sunset.

The half-elf was on her feet, intercepting him before he reached Maldred. She wrinkled her nose, sniffing. “Town nearby?”

“About eight, nine miles. It’s small. You’d be hard-pressed to even call it a village.”

He knew why she’d asked. The half-elf could be perceptive when she wanted to, and he knew she smelled alcohol on him. Dhamon had wandered into the village after spotting its only business, an inn with inviting smells coining from it.

Dhamon reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and passed it to her.

“Venison,” she said approvingly. “It’s spiced.” She gobbled the dried strips without a thought of sharing.

Behind the half-elf, Dhamon saw Varek’s eyes narrow. Is the young husband jealous? he wondered. Or am I? Dhamon brushed aside thoughts of Rikali and went over to Maldred. He knelt by the big man and prodded him awake.

“I found something,” Maldred said, as he pushed himself to his knees. “Something right here.” He thrust a finger at the ground in front of him and grinned lopsidedly. “I’m not sure just what it is, but I think we should take a peek.”

“You still look tired,” Dhamon observed.

“Magic does that to you.” Maldred leaned over the spot he’d indicated and pressed the heels of his hands into the earth. He closed his eyes and started humming.

Dhamon was quick to interrupt him. “You sure you’re up to this? Whatever’s down there has probably been down there more than three hundred years. I’d say it could wait another day.”

“I appreciate your concern, my friend,” Maldred replied, “but I’m not that tired. Not when there’s pirate treasure to be had.” He resumed his humming, and Dhamon sat back. Varek and Riki approached quietly.

Maldred’s tune was different this time, deeper and throatier, louder and without much fluctuation—like a bass horn sounding one long, constant note, then sliding down a measure as its player runs out of breath. He kept up the monotonous tune, snatching a breath here and there, letting his humming become softer yet at the same time more intense. Suddenly the sound wavered. Dhamon was on his feet, motioning Riki and Varek to back up. The ground trembled gently at first, then shook, pebbles bouncing as the big man hummed louder. Maldred moved too, crawling backward on his hands and knees without stopping his spell. The ground split in his wake.

“By all the vanished gods!” Varek cried. His face was filled with astonishment, and his feet were frozen to the spot. The half-elf yanked him back. The sivak approached cautiously, clearly awed. Where Maldred had knelt was a gaping hole, sides irregular and looking like the open mouth of a hungry beast. The vibrations continued, and the companions—save the sivak—stepped back, though the hole didn’t widen.

Rather it deepened, as if Maldred’s magic were a giant drill that was excavating far into the earth. Dhamon tested the ground near the edge. The earth fell away into a black nothingness far below. There was a rumbling, followed by a tremor. The shaking continued for several minutes more, then finally quieted.

“Pigs, but I thought you were makin’ an earthquake, Mal. I thought it was gonna be like that Vale of Chaos all over again.” The half-elf shook a finger at the big man, then crept forward, leaning dangerously over the edge despite Varek’s attempt to hold her back. “Can’t see much,” she announced. “It’s a long way down there and there ain’t much light. Just some dirt and rocks and wood.”

“Wood,” Maldred said grinning. “Worked wood where there shouldn’t be any.”

“Lots of wood,” Ragh added.

Dhamon was leaning far over, his keen eyes picking through the shadows. “Oh, there’s more than wood down there,” he said, breaking into a rare grin. “I see a ship’s mast, my friend, and part of a sail. And there are a few broken crows’ nests.”