Glen

Garth Aniculo

Hardir O’ Fardor

Quiceran’s Road

 

 

Glen stayed near the collapsed part of the tunnel for almost two hours. He bandaged his arm a second time cutting parts of his undershirt and used a piece of cloth to stem the flow of blood from his head wound. His neck felt swollen where the plant had touched him and his eyes burned at the stench of decay in the gradually turning very dark tunnel as the sun moved on the sky.

The tunnel itself impressive as much as ominous. Glen quickly discovered remnants of torches mounted on the walls alongside nicely crafted glass-made small vessels that had once contained a lightstone.

Probably.

Someone has stripped everything at some point in time, he thought. Glen stared at his arms for a long moment, the skin on them an unnatural dark grey.

A problem, but not as big as finding a blade stuck in him.

“Damn dagger went clean through the vambrace,” he muttered examining the ruined hardened leather armour. How it had done it, impossible to visualize. Glen had it in his hand when he fainted…

Hmm.

“Oi, who’s there?” A familiar voice was heard coming from above.

Glen turned his head up and saw a small pink head looking down the hole. The tunnel had a height of three meters and the initial opening was another five at least above that. Perhaps a bit more.

“It’s me Whisper!” He barked.

“Who?”

“Glen!”

He heard murmur from above and people talking about lurking dangers.

“Do ye know who I am?” Jinx asked thoughtfully while pausing at each word, squinting her eyes to better see him. “Wait… that wasn’t the phrase… give me a moment please.”

“Whisper, ye dumb girl,” Glen hissed a vein throbbing on his temple. “Drop a fuckin’ rope down, afore I bleed out!”

“Don’t have one!”

“Are you plaguin’ kidding me now?” Glen blasted her losing his patience.

“Yep,” Jinx said looking at the others. “That’s him alright. Soren drop the rope.”

Glen groaned loudly in response, half of it was despair, the other just pain.

 

---

 

It turned out you can’t climb up a rope with one hand completely useless, so Jinx came down instead to help him out, while the others slowly directed the caravan to the large comfortable opening that wasn’t there when Glen had arrived.

Could he have missed it while being dragged through the jungle? Glen didn’t think so.

“Whoa, ye look like dried up shite,” Jinx said when she came nearer. “What’s that awful smell? Ah, don’t tell. Better if I don’t know.”

“There was a plant wit a big mouth, it turned to sludge,” a frustrated Glen explained to her the parts he knew.

“How big?”

“The mouth?”

“The plant,” Jinx said checking on his arm.

“Ahm, I’ve only gotten a glimpse of the mouth,” Glen admitted with a shiver. “Pretty big, I suppose.”

“Uhm,” Jinx replied.

“What does that mean?”

“The hummin’?” She asked.

“Aye.”

“Ye have a nasty cut here that don’t look like a plant could’ve done it,” Jinx raised her head to look at him. “And ye look as sick as Gimoss Glen. What happened?”

“I used the dagger,” Glen said. Seeing the worry in her face had rattled him. “How bad does it look?”

“Ehm, I can give ye my hat,” Jinx said. “Flix has a veil—”

“I ain’t putting on a goddarn veil Whisper!” Glen growled.

“I wouldn’t either,” Jinx said. “But I got nothing to hide Glen.”

She’d a point there, Glen decided. He stared at the dark tunnel, the only illumination coming from his lightstone.

“What’s the direction of the mountains?” He asked her instead.

Jinx pointed towards the south and it matched the way the tunnel was heading perfectly.

“I think this is it,” he told her.

“Where’s the door?” Jinx queried unsure.

“Ah, who cares about a door? That’s a fuckin’ road, if I ever seen one,” Glen grunted and hearing the thud of someone landing on the stone floor, he turned and asked. “Right Flix?”

“I think Garth found Quiceran’s Road… somehow,” the old Gish admitted and bringing another lightstone to bear on the darkness helped them see a few more details of the underground passageway.

It was darn right impressive in size.

 

---

 

“You can’t bring the carriages into the shaft Glen,” Jinx said, but Angrein disagreed.

“While this isn’t the proper way to enter the tunnel,” he said. “You just need a ramp and making the opening larger to allow for carts and animals to join us.”

“What’s the right way?” Jinx asked him, but Glen was thinking more on the latter part of his answer.

“Kalac, can we cut down some of the trees around the opening?”

“We can,” the Horselord replied. “Use the animals to bring them here. It’s some distance though. It can’t be done in a day.”

“The clearing is that big?” Glen asked. He hadn’t gotten on the surface yet citing an inability to use the ropes and a fear that he’ll worsen his injuries. It wasn’t a good excuse, but everyone was too excited with his finding to question it. They had created a small camp instead inside the tunnel and a bigger one on the surface. Their conversation was under the light of several torches as the lightstones Flix had were few in number and not all of them produced the same illumination.

“It is. Never seen anything like it in my life,” Kalac replied.

“It’s like a lighting strike fell, but there is no sign of a fire,” Metu added expanding on the matter and Glen eyed him not pleased with discussing it in detail.

“Thank you Metu, see to our dinner while we deliberate on our options,” he told him and the slave bowed and walked away, only to return a moment later.

“Master Garth, I can’t climb up the ropes. I need someone from the surface to pull me up,” he said sadly.

Glen couldn’t call him out on the obvious lie, since he’d used the same excuse as previously mentioned to avoid the scrutiny over his sudden rather-ghoulish appearance.

“There are plenty of biscuits in Soren’s carriage,” Jinx told him. “Give them a shout to drop a sack through the hole. I doubt anything can damage them.”

“The Wyvern ate all the biscuits Lady Jinx,” Metu reported.

“What? Ye should have stopped him!” Jinx hissed. “Why the hell didn’t you?”

“Feared for my life, Lady Jinx,” Metu replied honestly and Jinx had nothing after that.

“There it is then, no biscuits,” Glen said to move the conversation towards a more productive topic. “How long to create a proper entrance at this spot Angrein?”

“A permanent one isn’t feasible without workers and material. Given the location, you’ll need to create an honest road towards Jadefort. There is wood aplenty though and that can solve you a number of problems. A ramp can be built in a week.”

“That seems like a long time,” Glen noted, grimacing as the stiches on his injured arm were hurting again. He’d another set of stiches in the middle of his forehead that still leaked a bit.

“That’s the minimum time needed given the manpower we have. If we all work together hard,” Glen didn’t like the way the conversation was going at all and his grimace turned into a scowl. “I believe we’ll have the ramp and the wooden cover above it done in that time. Ten days at the most.”

“What cover?”

The Imperial Blacksmith stared at him a little surprised. “You’ll need to cover the whole entrance and dam most of this area to keep mud and the jungle away from the tunnel. Else in the next rain all this material will pour inside and seal it shut again.”

Glen smacked his lips not expecting the amount of work needed.

“You need to heal that arm Garth,” Flix said. “If it takes two weeks or three, it’s also better to have the entrance left open and operational. The tunnel might not be accessible a kilometer in and we need it open to get out.”

“How do you know it goes that far?” Glen asked him.

“That’s how far the mountain’s base is from here. I should have said at least,” Flix replied and got his pipe out. “I suggest we rest now and tomorrow start working.”

“If we have time,” Kalac suggested after Flix walked away towards the small cots the Gish had put down near the wall of the tunnel. “I could sent a rider back and bring the workers from Jadefort here. We were using them to repair the walls, but this seems more important.”

“It’ll be a month to get here again though,” Glen argued.

“You could go ahead with your mission, while the workers finish up the entrance. I suggest mudbricks, they work well at the fort,” Kalac insisted.

“You seem very eager to help Kalac,” Glen said looking at him. “It might not be easy where we are heading.”

Kalac nodded in agreement. “As you’ve said Garth. Jadefort is a poor place to settle and I’ve been there for a long time. The lake doesn’t agree with me.”

 

---

 

Jinx and Flix were relaxing on their cots with Alix nowhere to be found since he’d come down the rope an hour before dark. Both Gish were smoking Redleaf and appeared quite pleased with themselves.

“Whisper is that my pipe?” Glen asked kneeling next to them.

“Why?” She asked opening a foggy eye.

“Where did you get it?” Glen rustled not falling for her shenanigans.

“I found it,” Jinx replied, leaving it vague as if he would fall for that.

“Whisper you shouldn’t take my stuff,” he admonished her.

“Flix will give you another one,” she blurted out.

“Is that so?” Glen asked raising a brow. He shouldn’t have done it as his wound started aching again.

Fuck.

“Angrein volunteered to make me a new one,” Flix said casually. “So you can have my old one.”

Glen narrowed his eyes, another very hurtful expression given his condition.

What is this shite? He complained inwardly, turning to the old Gish.

“How about, I get the new one and ye keep the one you had?” Seeing Jinx opening her mouth to argue, he added. “And ye keep the one you’ve stolen?”

“I found it on the ground!” Jinx argued. “You had it lost, never to use it again.”

“Whisper hand me the pipe for a moment,” Glen told her with a grin.

“Why?”

“I’ll smoke it for a bit to numb myself to the pain,” Glen explained.

“What’s in it for me, hmm?” She haggled shamelessly.

“You won’t get punched on the nostrils,” Glen retorted dead serious and Jinx handed him the pipe without further argument.

 

---

 

“Get up.”

Glen opened his eyes and stared at the grumpy face of Fikumin, the dwarf’s expression sour.

“The fuck do you want dwarf?” He grunted, the tunnel full of shadows despite the still lit torches near the collapsed roof.

“You know darn well Garth,” Fikumin spat. Glen got up, his back hurting from his drop, too much riding in the last couple of weeks and the stone wall he’d found to rest on.

“Care to elucidate Fikumin?” Glen rustled.

“You’ve used the dagger again.”

“I was almost killed by a gigantic pumpkin.”

“People could have died damn you,” Fikumin hissed. “What was the spell?”

“I have no idea,” Glen replied. “But the pumpkin went poof. No one died.”

“Are you insane?” Fikumin argued. “The jungle is full of carcasses! Nothing is left living, even the trees look diseased Garth!”

“They’ll get better,” Glen replied and grimaced his arm hurting. “If it’s any consolation, it did it on its own.”

“That’s even scarier,” Fikumin said frowning some more.

“Listen friend,” Glen said warningly. “I was in a bind and it got me out. You should be happy for me.”

“What happens if it kills one of our people?”

“It won’t. I told you I know how to use it,” Glen said, although he didn’t. “We found the road, you should rejoice dwarf.”

“You look like a corpse Garth,” Fikumin retorted. “Next time it might kill you, so think on that.”

“It won’t,” Glen sighed. “The dagger works for me.”

“The dagger does perhaps,” he agreed. “But Magic serves no man, or woman. And punishes those that stray too far from the right path.”

Wow, that sounds like the ‘don’t steal because you’ll get punished’ speech the butcher had given me when I was six.

Glen had stolen plenty of stuff after that and while he’d gotten his share of kicks and punches to the face, there he was still kicking and punching back.

Glen smacked his lips. “Did ye learn that in dwarf school?”

“Ask your Gish,” Fikumin replied. “Oh wait, he didn’t bat an eyelash at the mayhem.”

“What do you mean?” Glen asked him narrowing his eyes.

Fikumin looked about them. The others were sleeping across the wide underground road. Not the two Gish of course. The dwarf grimaced and pushed his wild hair off his face using his stubby hands.

“I need a fuckin’ drink,” he said finally. “And you need to open your eyes. Not everyone doing your bidding is here out of the goodness of their heart, or voluntarily.”

“Angrein is,” Glen said testing him. The dwarf’s words while paranoid, had given him pause.

“There were three privileged castes in Imperial society. The Elderborns, or Elderbloods.”

“What’s the difference?”

“An Elderblood isn’t always an Elderborn,” Fikumin replied.

Right. That’s some bullshit weird rule, Glen thought. “What are the others?”

“The Favored. Old bloodlines that had gained their position through merit. Usually Warrior classes, or Hunters and finally the Artificers. Blacksmiths, architects, bards—”

“Bards?”

“There’s power in a song Garth.”

“What about the rest of the people?” Glen asked.

“They were above humans, barely above the Folk, but they were standing afar from the upper castes. Some were outright tossed out and others never came out of the woods.”

“That sounds lovely,” Glen commented. “Sort of how we do things as a matter of fact.”

“Humans don’t keep slaves Garth.”

“Cofols do,” Glen argued.

“It’s an Imperial custom,” Fikumin grunted.

“So what is your point dwarf? Angrein was a slave,” Glen said.

“Was Garth. Then he became an Imperial Blacksmith. Flix as well,” Fikumin explained and turned his head to glare at the old Gish that had sneakily approached them and was listening in to their conversation.

“Master Fikumin is correct Garth,” Flix said with a small grin. His face showing its age when he didn’t use makeup. “We are Imperials. The rewarded former slaves are even more fanatics is what you are saying, aren’t you?”

“You’re an assassin Gish,” Fikumin said. “Who do you work for?”

“I want Garth to reach his destination,” Flix replied dodging per usual.

“Why?”

“Why do you want to avenge your loved one? Find the Aken that did it and kill it dead?” Flix asked him and Fikumin grinded his teeth so hard, Glen could hear him from a meter away.

“I vowed to do it Gish!”

“As have I,” Flix replied simply. “Everyone has his mission Dwarf.”

Well, that answers a couple of questions I had since Rida.

Glen sighed and stared at his boots. The right one was pretty gone, torn in two places from the plant. He’d have to find new ones soon, or fix them somehow.

Metu seems like the kind of guy that loves repairing footwear, he thought.

“So, now that’s out of yer chests, can we be friends?” He asked the short creatures. Flix shrugged his shoulders and Fikumin groaned in frustration. “Fiku, he has a mission. I bet it was Nym that gave it to him,” Flix almost got drown in his own spit at his words. “He wants to help me reach Wetull. That’s not unhelpful to my cause. Right Flix?”

“Right Mister Garth,” Flix replied with a chuckle.

“Just Garth will suffice,” Glen deadpanned and yawned hard, his forehead hurting at the abuse. “Fuck, I barely got a couple of hours of sleep,” he added and glanced at his companions. “I don’t think I’ll be able to help ye lads build the ramp in my condition.”

Even Fikumin cracked a smile at his words.

Which come to think of it was a bit strange, since Glen wasn’t jesting.

 

 

The work on the ramp turned into a proper project under Angrein’s direction. A short-term one was constructed initially out of timber cut from the jungle. It wasn’t an easy job and it lasted well over two weeks, which disappointed Angrein, but helped our group come a bit closer and learn each other.

The sturdy cover over the enlarged entrance to the tunnel was a different thing completely though, but late on the third week workers reached our position from Jadefort. Garth promised them a hefty reward with coin he didn’t have at hand at the time, if they helped built whatever Angrein had come up with. We wouldn’t get to see the finished entrance to the underground tunnel for quite some time but it was impressive, this must be stated here.

As Garth would describe it much later.

‘A plaguin’ barbican in the middle of the fuckin’ jungle!’

The better part of it being he didn’t get to pay them any coin at all, but just exchange land for it. Which was of course in his mind an even better deal.

 

 

Outlaw neighed and shook his head irritated from the fumes of the torches. They had made as many of them as they could and had taken them along for the journey. The seemingly straight underground passage continued for more than a kilometer and unsurprisingly ended at the base of a mountain. One of the many interconnected rock giants people called the Pale Mountains.

The rock barring their way a dark grey, almost black, basalt. Cut perfectly straight and polished, but at a large area in the middle where mold had covered the surface, along with rust. It shined a dark red in the light of the torches. At ten meters wide and more than three in height the rock barrier was massive.

“Well that sucks arse,” Glen commented and walked towards the substantial wall of rock that marked the end of the tunnel. “What do you make of it Fikumin?”

“That’s hard rock to cut through,” the dwarf replied thoughtfully. “Quite lovely actually.”

“Ye think?” Glen asked, not really eager to start digging through stone, despite his arm feeling better. He had taken one of Flix’s expired elixirs that may or may not help in your recovery, according to the old Gish. It tasted like yesterday’s dog piss and it numbed your teeth going down, but it had closed the wound. Glen had also gained some of his color back, though he had lost some mass.

“It can be done,” the dwarf replied.

“Ayup,” Soren agreed with a big smile, always eager to swing large tools at things.

“Alix?” Glen asked, going for the less eager to practice hard labor member of their group. Other than him and Metu that is.

“Ah, there’s no door,” he said sounding disappointed.

“Well, we didn’t expect to find one,” Glen corrected him. “Perhaps it was a metaphor?”

“An unfinished second entrance?” Kalac chanced tapping at the rock’s surface with his bronze hand.

“That would suck even more,” Glen said with a sigh and noticed Jinx sniffing at the fungus. “What in Oras Hells are ye doing?” He snapped and she hissed annoyed.

“There’s rust here,” Jinx replied, as if she knew what she was talking about.

“Yer point being?” Glen asked and approached. The Gish had Valwarin’s pendant out and was looking at it perplexed. The pendant a simple iron ankh-like shape, like the one the Priests of Uher used, the chain going through the small loop at one end.

Pretty underwhelming as far as pendants go.

“All doors have hinges,” Jinx said and both Glen, Alix and Angrein perked up at her words.

Hinges rust.

“Clear the mold,” Angrein said and started scraping it away with a hammer like tool. Flix gave him a knife and the man took it. “The more people go at it, the faster we’ll know,” he explained and everyone went to help clear the massive wall of rock with their daggers.

Glen stood back to supervise the effort and glancing sideways spotted Metu next to him. The slave returned his stare guiltily and asked with a small voice.

“Would master Garth favor a cup of wine?”

“We have some left?” Glen asked curious.

“I kept a bottle,” Metu replied, keeping his voice low.

“Ah, good man,” Glen said with a big grin. “I’d love a cup. All this walking and breathing fumes has dried up my throat something fierce.”

“I’ll get on it Master Garth,” a relieved Metu replied with a bow.

“Bring a chair from the carriage,” Glen instructed him. “This might take a while.”