Chapter Nine #2
I ogled at that amount of amethyst. It was a key component in alchemical potions throughout the lands.
Coughing lightly despite my cloth barrier, I led Newt down into the mines, offshoots every twenty or thirty paces, miners emerging with dusty ponies, their carts packed full with purple gemstones.
The heat intensified the deeper we went.
Sweat coated my clothes now, making the rock dust cling even worse.
Several older dwarves met us at a shaft that went down into the rock, the iron door blocked by four armed guards.
They gave Asdren a polite nod then broke into a heated discussion in Dwarvish that ran too fast for me to pick out any of the words I had learned from the stalwart pony song.
One with red hair like me waved a hand at me, his dusty face locked into a scowl as he and Asdren had words.
Their interlude ended when Asdren barked at the guards.
They looked at each other, and then one opened the rusty iron door to a large lift.
Chains and pulleys hung overhead, attached to the metal platform, to lift and lower the riser.
“Get on,” Asdren snapped, his ire clear.
We led our horses on, turned, and watched as the guards pulled a lever that set the winches and gears into action.
We slowly descended, the guards disappearing from sight as rock with deep gouges swallowed us.
“Knew they’d give me some shit about bringing an elf.
Sure as my cock bends left, my da will know about us entering this tunnel before we reach the bottom. ”
“I will not steal a thing,” I promised, my voice muffled by my bandana.
“I know, Chirp, and I told them so. Informed them I was a Grimmane, and you was my servant.” My eyes narrowed. “They let you in under my sworn vow that if you touched so much as a sliver of amethyst, I would beat your skinny arse until it was red. That seemed to placate them enough. Damn idiots.”
“Long as they let us pass,” Narub commented. “I would hate to have to stab one of your people, Asdren.”
“They ain’t mine. I gave up all rights to the mines when I joined the military.
They’re my da’s workers, but yeah, running them though would be a last resort.
” He gave me an unreadable look that made me feel quivery.
“We’ll be passing through one of the main veins down bottom here before we take one of the old side veins that gave up its maidenhead several hundred seasons ago.
She’s like your grandma’s quim. Dried up and filled with crawlers, but it’s one of the fastest ways to start the climb up.
We’ll rest at an old prayer site for a spell, water the horses and ourselves, then push onward.
You think you can keep up the pace, Chirp? ”
“I think I can outpace you, old man,” I snarled before turning to look at…rock. Ugh. What I would give for a tree to climb.
“Someone has a stick wedged up his arse, and it’s a pointy one,” Smuta mumbled as we clattered and clanked down, down, down. Glancing up, all I could see was a black hole and endless miles of chain.
“I hope your welds are sturdy,” I said as I stared into the dark, hot void.
“Ain’t never known a dwarven pickaxe to dull, a dwarven sword to dull, or a dwarven weld to break,” Asdren answered from behind.
“I have met a dull-witted, mealy-minded dwarf, though, so perhaps your people should focus on sharpening your minds and not your pickaxes.”
Not a sound was heard other than the creaking squeals of the chains and gears. With my back to the other four, I could not see their reactions, but I could envision them. Eyes wide, mouths agape, shoulders slack in shock.
“Listen here, boy-o,” Asdren growled as I stared ahead, blinking rapidly to clear the rock dust from my eyes.
“I ain’t sure what exactly crawled up your arse this morning, but keep in mind that you’re running down the very same people who signed on to help your king find this fucking missing elf, so I’d—”
That brought me around in a hurry. He was inches from me now. Glaring up at me with metallic blue eyes, sharp with anger.
“For money! You signed up for money. Everything with you is all about coin!” I poked him in his chest. The same broad chest I had laid my head on last eve—or day, fuck this stony place—after we had been lovers.
The others were on the periphery, silent as rocks. “Aye, for money. Gold is the only thing that would have brought me back to this miserable hole in the fucking mountain!”
“At least you admit this is a miserable hole!” I yelled down at him.
“Someone want to tell me what the fuck is going on here?!” Smuta yelled, stepping up and then between us, her bosom flat to my navel.
“This fucking elf is all up in his emotions today. Worse than a fucking female,” Asdren grumbled and got a shove that sent him back several steps to conk his thick head on the rock moving by at a snail’s pace.
“You watch what you say about females, or I’ll separate your puny cock from your body faster than you can spit,” Smuta warned and turned her attention to me. “You got your feelings hurt by this arse?”
“No, I have no feelings for him. He’s a cold-hearted sellsword who has no loyalty to any kingdom or any person.”
The confusion left her face and was replaced with weariness. “For fuck’s sake.” She threw a dark look at Asdren, standing on the edge of the platform, rubbing the back of his head. “You two fucked.”
“No!”
“No!”
We both shouted at once.
She rolled her eyes as she scratched her left breast. “Fine, so he didn’t drop a load in your deepest shaft.
Maybe it would be best if you two did rut a bit.
Get it out of your systems because me and the boys didn’t sign up for some romantic drama play like the humans write in their romance books.
No offense, they’re fine books and all, but the angst of two people who want to fuck but ain’t got the sense the Stonefather gave a goat and fight about not wanting to fuck plucks my curly hairs. ”
“I have no interest in having him plumb my depths. He’s like a stone. No emotion or beauty inside where it counts,” I replied as a pony shifted behind me, his tail swatting my leg.
Asdren opened his mouth to fire back when the lift hit the bottom.
The impact jarred us all. With a muffled curse, Asdren flung himself off the platform.
Smuta, Dulgar, and Narub gave me long looks before taking their ponies and heading out.
Newt pushed at my backside with his nose, eager to follow his herd, so I cleared my throat of dust and stepped off the platform and into a cavern of lilac wonder.
The rounded walls were covered with purple gemstones.
My mouth fell open in awe as we walked down a narrow path cut into the stone, the lights of a hundred torches reflecting off the glassy quartz.
Colors from palest lavender to a deep royal purple clung to the walls.
Several miners glared at me. I kept my hands in plain view, one with reins, and the other bared, as we plodded along deeper into the mine.
“This is beautiful,” I whispered aloud as the sounds of axes breaking gems rose and fell in a rhythm that ran perfectly with a song they were singing. “Do the miners work in tandem?”
“Aye, they sing, and they strike,” Asdren called back over his stiff shoulder.
The lyrics were in Dwarven, obviously, but I could make out some of the words.
Ho, drive the hammer home was followed by a few lines I did not know.
Ho, may the mountain feel our might…something about dark and light…
a spark of steel. “Come along, Chirp. We got lots of walking to do, and you’re making the miners nervous. ”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek to not explain to them that I was not a thief.
If they knew my last name, they would toss me down a shaft.
Moving along, I spent the next few hours marveling at the gems surrounding us.
Thousands of tons of them. The gold they would bring the Grimmane mining company was beyond any sum I could imagine.
And being raised dirt poor, I could imagine a great deal of gold.
The mines wandered on this way and that.
A web of dusty tunnels filled with dwarves, ponies pulling carts, and small cages with birds hung along the walls.
I tried to block out the unhappiness of the caged finches but some of their sadness leaked into my heart.
Asdren led us down a narrow corridor off the main thoroughfare, the stone under our feet even dustier here, the torches less frequent, and the bird cages long gone.
“I’ve never been this deep into the old mines before,” Narub commented, sword riding on his hip. “My da used to tell us that this far into the stone the walls talk and the old gods whisper to those that have the sharpest stone sense.”
The twins paused ahead of me, heads tipping left then right like two identical dogs trying to pick up the sound of their master’s tread.
“All I hear is my pony farting,” Dulgar said as we cleared the narrow tunnel to empty into a large cavern with stone carvings of dwarves lining the walls.
The floor was aged stone adorned with etchings worn smooth by the passing time and small boots.
Dozens of small tunnels bled off this main area, some filled with rock, others open.
A musky smell I was unfamiliar with lingered in the air.
“Someone fed them too much grain,” I explained while slowing down to stare skyward at the immense statues.
“Are these gods? They look nothing like…oh, this is no dwarf,” I whispered, moving to the base of a mighty stone dragon, wings tucked around it, long snout touching its clawed feet.
I placed a hand on the cool stone. Cool.
“The rock is colder here.” I turned to look at Asdren.