Arts of Dark and Light: Book 01 - A Throne of Bones (75 page)

Lodi hadn’t thought twice about the Ludareka, a wide, aggressive river that ran down from the mountains and eventually made its way into the Elvenlands, where it was known as Elf River. Swollen with snowmelt and the rains that had made their journey eastward a slow and miserable one, the river raged and boiled its way south. They’d previously crossed it much further to the south, over a decaying stone bridge that had been built by the elves of Glaislael many centuries ago and still stood, spanning the river, a mute testament to a defeated and departed civilization. The orcs showed no more inclination to guard that bridge than repair it, so Lodi had assumed it would be a simple matter to travel south along the river until they found a similar bridge and crossed back with the same ease.

However, it seemed that whoever had set the orcs to hunting them had anticipated their need to get across the river and had therefore sent them directly to the nearest bridge. It wasn’t that his little trick of climbing out of the water without leaving tracks had prevented the orcs from picking up their trail. It was that they had never wasted any time searching for it. They knew that this rickety wooden structure that hung above the tempestous, fast, moving water would draw any dwarf hoping to make his way out of the orclands and back to the Underdeep.

With a deepfelt sigh of frustration, Lodi began counting orcs. There were eighteen of them, which gave him a momentary sense of satisfaction that he’d estimated their numbers correctly, more or less.

The sight of the orcs lounging about the wooden supports of the bridge, their boisterous bickering interrupted periodically by the occasional brawl, sent a shiver down his spine.

There was no typical orc intelligence directing them, of this he was certain, although he didn’t know if it was the huge shaman, the summoned demon, or something else that was behind this unexpectedly anticipatory action. Regardless, he was worried now in a way that he had not been when they were hiding out before. Because he expected that, in addition to this group that had been ordered to rush to the bridge to cut off their retreat, there were probably one or more similar groups carefully combing the forests behind them, looking for signs of their passing. This required thought, but first they needed to put some distance between them and the orcs.

He indicated that Thorald should follow, and they walked north along the river until Lodi felt they were sufficiently far from the guarded bridge.

He went to the river’s edge and sat down.

There were too many of them to openly attack. If they got lazy and the guards fell asleep, they might be able to sneak across, but even then, he had to assume they’d been ordered to sleep on the bridge itself. They couldn’t fly across, and the river was too wide to loop a rope across a branch on the other side. He could attach a rope to a crossbow bolt and fire it into a tree, and they could use it to pull themselves through the rapids and across the river. But he doubted it would hold the weight of a dwarf, given the force of the rushing water.

Building a raft seemed their best bet, but it would be risky. Very risky, since they’d have to enter the water at night. He couldn’t swim, and he doubted Thorald could, so even if they weren’t spotted by the orcs or smashed onto rocks, a simple upsetting would be enough to finish them. What were their chances? Perhaps one in ten? There wasn’t even any guarantee they’d be able to make it to the other side. They might float miles down the river, only to end up on the same side of it on which they’d started. And poling across wasn’t an option either, given the depth of the river.

Then a thought struck him. The river was deep, and if his memory served him correctly, it flowed all the way to the sea. So there was a chance—perhaps not one in ten, more like one in a hundred, but at least failure meant only that he’d have to figure out something else. He dug through his pack and withdrew one of the two gold coins he’d rescued from the dragon’s hoard, then he took the waterstone he used for keeping his blades sharp out of his belt pouch.

“What are you doing?” Thorald asked.

“I’d think it was obvious. I’m grinding gold dust.”

“Yes, I can see that! I mean, why are you doing that?”

“Got an idea for crossing the river.”

Thorald looked from the bowl to the river, perplexed. “You can’t think we’ll get across that river without a bridge!”

“No, I don’t. We won’t.”

“Do you think there might be a ford?”

“Nope. Too close to the mountains. That water is coming down hard and fast. And it’s deep. I bet we could go south a hundred miles without finding a place shallow enough to walk across it.”

Thorald watched him work. “How are you going to make a bridge out of a little gold dust?”

Lodi ignored the question and drew his knife from his belt. He ran the wickedly sharp blade across the tip of the little finger on his left hand, then squeezed it until there was a small quantity of blood in the bowl.

“Are you some sort of alchemist?” Thorald asked, seeming a little alarmed by the sight of the knife and the blood.

“Nope,” Lodi said, still squeezing his fingertip. “See, they got keen noses, especially for blood. But they love gold almost as much as we dwarves do. So if there are any of them within a few miles of here, this here mixture should bring them in a hurry.”

“Bring what, naiads? Who is ‘they’? The river god?”

“The river god? I hope not, we don’t want the bridge washed out—we got to cross it!” Lodi scoffed as he poured out about half the bloody contents of the bowl into the river. “And what use would river sylphs be against a troop of orcs? Just keep your eyes open and be real civil if they show up. Don’t be waving your hammer at them or anything stupid, all right?”

“If what shows up?” Thorald asked, exasperated.

“You’ll know. I guarantee, you’ll know. Now, I’m going to get me some sleep. You’re on watch. Keep your eye on the river. And make yourself useful. Maybe see if you can catch some fish for dinner.”

Lodi woke to the sound and scent of frying fish. For a moment, he lay back and luxuriated in the almost euphoric sense it inspired in him, after days of eating nothing but stonebiscuit and the occasional raw mountain squirrel. Then he realized where he was, and he sat up in a panic.

“What are you doing?” he hissed. “Are you mad? Put that out!”

Thorald stared back at him unrepentantly and reached out with his knife to delicately flip over one of the fish that was roasting on the glowing coals. “Look at the direction of the wind, Lodi. Even if someone is there to smell it, there ain’t nothing they can do from the other side of the river.”

Lodi licked a finger and held it up. Sure enough, the wind was coming from the east, and it was carrying the smoke from their fire across the river. Even in the unlikely even that the wind changed slightly and started carrying the smoke downriver, they could be confident that the orcs at the bridge to the south wouldn’t notice the smell, not with the size of the fires they made every evening. And considering the odds that were presently stacked against them, this might be his last chance to get a decent meal in this life.

“All right, lad. We could use a good meal before we deal with those buggers at the bridge. How’d you catch them?”

“Dug up some worms and undid a link from my chain. Worked like a trick. This river must be so full of trout I’m surprised we can’t just walk over on their backs. I caught two before you even started snoring.”

“Smells good.” Lodi crouched over the riverbank and poured the remainder of the blood and gold into the rushing waters. “No sign of anything bigger than trout?”

“Nothing except that pike there,” Thorald said, pointing to a slender, evil-looking fish that was half again as long as the two trout still waiting to be put on the fire. “These look ready. I wish we had some oil though. Do you want that one?”

Lodi speared the fish with his knife, peeled back the blackened skin, and began eating the flaky white flesh inside. It was marvelous, and if it wasn’t the finest meal he’d ever eaten, it was perhaps the one he’d appreciated the most.

He was looking up at the night sky, thinking that tomorrow might not be such a terrible day to die, when there was a large splash right in front of him.

Thorald made a noise that was as close to screaming as it was possible for a dwarf to make and still call himself a dwarf.

“Lodi, what in the blackest name of the Deep Dark is that?” The young dwarf was pointing at an expanding circle that was rapidly flowing downriver and out of sight. Admittedly, it was a very large circle.

“That’s something splashing in the water,” Lodi said, suddenly feeling that luck might be back on their side. “Apparently something just a bit larger than your pike.”

The creature that made the splash suddenly popped up from the water not three armslengths away from him. Despite himself, Lodi very nearly let out a very undwarven sound. It had the head of a dwarf, only smaller, beardless, and more streamlined, the upper body of an elf, though more muscular, and its hips were covered in scales. Several feet behind it in the water, a tail lashed the water.

“What is that?” Thorald said in a hushed voice as the fish-creature pointed downriver and made weird clicking noises at them, punctuated by the occasional eerie screech.

Lodi ignored him and clicked back, albeit much more slowly and without any of the screeches.

The creature rocked back in the water, its dwarf-like features betraying shock, then dove down into the water and disappeared.

“You know how to talk to that thing?” Thorald said, incredulous.

But before he could answer, the wild mer reappeared. This time, it was calmer, and it cocked its head to one side as it stared at Lodi and clicked slowly at him. Lodi clicked back, and it beat its tail against the water in excitement. Lodi used his hand in a similar fashion. They were communicating! He offered it a piece of the cooked fish that had cooled off a little, and the mer wolfed it down in a single bite, revealing two rows of sharp, jagged teeth that looked as if they were capable of biting through a dragon’s hide.

Lodi pointed downriver. They exchanged some more clicks. And when it smiled, seemingly pleased, Lodi took a gold coin out of his pouch and gave it to the river monster. It fairly leaped backward, turned a somersault in the water, then surfaced again, clicking madly at him. It slipped into the current, and with one last flick of its tail, disappeared beneath the surface of the water.

“Were you bargaining with it?”

“You can bargain with everything except trolls and devils. Trolls are too stupid, and devils are too damn smart.”

“How can you bargain with a fish-man?”

“Well, he thought you were real pretty, so I offered you for its wife if he’d help us clear the bridge in the morning. I gave him the coin to make rings, so he’s off to fetch the priest now. He wants to make it all good and proper-like.”

“Lodi!”

Lodi chuckled. “Hey, I told you they loved gold. The mer got big kingdoms and all sorts of things going on under the sea. They say they got buildings even bigger than the ones men build in Amorr and Savonne. But they can’t smelt metal under the sea, what with it being wet and all, so precious metals are a particular rarity. They mostly get them from trade with sea elves or from shipwrecks. They love shipwrecks! But the river mer, they’re the wild ones, and there ain’t no shipwrecks in the rivers, so they’ll do just about anything to get their hands on some.”

“And he smelled it from that dust you put in the water?”

“Well, it was probably the blood that got his attention first. I just put the gold in to make him curious. They don’t get a lot of meat other than fish, and they’ve got noses like sharks.”

“What’s a shark?” Thorald said. “Anyway, I don’t understand how you can talk to them.”

“When I was a slave in Amorr, they had this huge stadium called the Colossus where they’d make us fight. Sometimes they’d fill the whole ground with water and bring in ships—to have naval battles, you know. Once, for one of the special ones, they brought in about a score of mer captured by fishermen. The mer fought real good and real clever, so I got to know two of them that survived the bout because we were owned by the same stable. I learned a few words.”

“Do you think he understands what you want?”

“Yeah, they’re probably smarter than gobbos and orcs. I think he got it, because most of the words I know have to do with fighting, us being fighting slaves and all. He’ll bring some others, and they’re going to attack the orcs at the bridge in the morning, so we need to be in position to run across.”

Thorald frowned, looking dubious as he put the remaining three fish on the coals. “Do you really think they’ll come? And how can they attack the orcs from the water?”

“You’ll see.” Lodi picked a little bone from his teeth and flicked it into the river. “They’ll be there because I promised him another coin and some fresh meat. No way they’ll want to miss out on that.”

“Meat? It’s already dark! How are we going to find any squirrels or deer now?”

“No need for that.” Lodi smiled grimly. “When we cross that bridge tomorrow, just be sure to throw an orc or two in the water for our new friends.”