CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

Reshackled, the dwarf slumped against a column of rock. His range once again reduced to too narrow a scope for suicide, he lay in wait of sleep. But it did not come for some time. The dwarf tossed and turned, jangling in his wake. The pickaxe had once again been confiscated, and he had been warned by Caltraz, stout human equal (chin somewhat), of a necessary willingness to work following the night. Grime hung to the dwarf’s filthy gi, washed out navy. His fingernails were stained and caked with the earth. Bald dirtied dome nestled in mud, the dwarf had not felt so low since laying alone before the dwarfen ruin.

As if an eagerness to escape his situation overpowered physical constraints, the dwarf felt himself in the dimly lit cavern beneath the church. He remembered the pool nearly drowned in, the funguay who nursed him, and the apparition of wretched flesh. The strain of the tipped tool rising and falling onto the cavern’s flesh stripping away dirt allowing in rushes of mud was felt. But he thought himself adamant in opposing any work. They sooner they killed him--like Caltraz killed Balto--the better, and it wasn’t going to happen in the face of obedience. His rebellious spirit eventually did succomb to exhaustion, and the dwarf passed away a span as if nothing, aware of nothing but stings and jolts of fresh pain delivered across his damp curled form. Air rushed rapidly, its sounds and violent cracking clueing in the dwarf to his tormentor: a relentless whip. Operating the cruel weapon was the man with skin as dark as the unlit cave, laughter betraying pearl white teeth.

“Awake? Good,” he said, tossing the familiar iron pickaxe onto the ground. “Pick it up and get to work.”

The dwarf, crumpled, made no stir. The deep bronze bandit licked his lips and gave no another smile. In a flash the dwarf yelped, knee hot. In another, the dwarf clutched the back of his neck. A third strike whipped across the dwarf’s dome and, before a fourth could be delivered, the dwarf shot his hand out.

“Well, well. Ain’t you gonna play nice now.”

The dwarf gripped the pickaxe with enough pressure to redden his hands. He shot himself forward and felt the tool rip from his hands and fly onto the shore of the vast underground lake. And then the whip was upon him again, dwarf tucked into as much a ball as his form allowed. The dwarf screamed.

“Knock it off,” threatened Caltraz, his disembodied voice unable to connect with a form, the dwarf’s nerves too battered, senses dulled, eyes shut. But he could make out the assertion and more than understood the whipping ceased. “Don’t go crazy.”

“Or what?” flashed clean gums. “You’ll do me in like Balto?”

“Yeah. Just like Balto.”

“You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

“No one’s finer made than Crumb.”

“No one’s more man than Crumb,” added Crumb. “No one hunts like Crumb, no one whips like...”

“Give the bearded man a chance to dig ‘fore you hit ‘em again.”

“You chieftain now?”

“Chieftain’s orders.”

“Lapdog.”

Caltraz gave his compatriot a slap across the back.

“Don’t kill the digger.”

“Lapdog,” repeated Balto.

And Caltraz left. Crumb frowned. The dwarf’s eyes stung.

“I don’t care none what he says,” he started. “You keep resisting and I’ll bury you.”

The dwarf sucked in air and rose, welts on exposed flesh and beneath material active and complaining. He staggered towards the pickaxe and stopped suddenly gagging, the end of his leash reached. Crumb broke his gloom and retrieved the water washed tool, tossing it some way towards the dwarf, who made no movement. Whip bouncing somewhat in warning, the dwarf bent and froze. If he could endure the pressed anger of Crumb, he could escape to his last ‘SAVE’. But the dwarf could hardly process such searing pain. Worse than any new agony suffered, even the thought of another whip reflexively shut his eyes. He thought of the dwarfen ruin again, that mystifying entrance of jubilant dwarfs of yore tempting him inside. He recalled the circumstances landing him there once alone in wait of Doctor Mallow--his legs had grown a horrible purple.

The dwarf stumbled over to the iron deposit, tool held but not rising, Crumb clearly irritated. When enough patience burnt, the bandit cracked the air. The dwarf inhaled deeply and the pickaxe ascended. With great force he brought the pointed end down into rock, ore shattering. The tool rose and fell twice more, the former thrice. At the apex of this tool’s flight the dwarf spun on his heels thrusting the pickaxe forward as fast as an arrow, palms radiating pain as soon as their grips loosened. Crumb’s mouth opened and closed in irregular patterns, and he managed only two steps forward before crashing to the floor, pickaxe pushed further up his chest. The dwarf made a grab for the whip and felt the tight pull of his chains, him too ending up on the cavernous floor. So sore from the application of his ‘DRILL’ technique and equipped poorly with little sleep, the dwarf gave in to rest as it came...

“Hells. What have you done?” mused Caltraz. His stout form made contact with the crumpled Crumb. “What have you done...” His eyes glanced over the just noticeable hue of indigo in the dwarf’s arms. “That’s not what that technique’s for,” was his verbal conclusion. Physically, he unhooked the dwarf’s chains from its post and guided the dwarf through a series of mysterious tunnels visited in his unconscious state. Underground hills sloped and twisted, and once or twice the bandit’s pace outperformed the weak dwarf’s, lead jerking him forward. Nearly there, as Caltraz suggested, the two stopped in front of a turn. “Now,” began the bandit, “I don’t know how she’ll take this. Suggest you keep your beard shut and let me talk.” The dwarf meekly nodded, and the two continued into the familiar torch lit cave where mammoth chili had been served.

On a makeshift throne of bones sat the chieftain, wild, matted hair about her, ragged robes stained in splattered crimson. At the approach of the dwarf, she sneered.

“What is this animal doing out of its pen?”

“Crumb’s dead.”

“What?” she asked in disbelief.

“His hands, not mine. I arrived too late.”

“Did you now?”

“What?” asked Caltraz with a wavering tone.

“The dwarf in chains killed Crumb? Whip Crazy Crumb?”

“Pickaxe’s through his chest. He’s done.”

The chieftain shot up from her seat, maneuvered to Caltraz, and brought a clean, swift slap across his cheek. She took the chains from him and stared down the dwarf.

“Bloodthirsty little man,” addressed the chieftain. “If you’ve saught our clan’s eradication, you’ve done well. And I don’t just mean Balto nor that denture wearing fool. My men informed me of the ride they found you on. How interesting one has mastered arachnids--not a common skill. And how unusual it was to be picked off one by one in morning mist, each of us entombed in silk. The best of us had bounties. The worst, like what I’ve to work with, were turned out. And you killed two of them. You must have a big heart for such a little man not cashing those bounties yourself. Just doing your part?” she asked shifting closer. “Well here’s me doing mine: I’m gonna keep you in this hole ‘till you die. When your arms give out, you’re gonna keep working. No sunlight. No food that ain’t mush, if I decide to feed you at all. You’ll get nothing tonight.” The chieftain shook the chains in her grip. “Back to the hole. Get moving.”

So little distance between the two, the dwarf spat again. But she’d evidently anticipated the move, shifting back, grabbing his beard, sending him to the ground. As the dwarf rose a sword tip pressed behind his ears.

“Done with this cheek,” declared the familiar voice of he with eyepatch. “Let me run him through, sir. For Balto.”

“No,” she responded. “Sheath it. He wants out, but it won’t be that fast.”

“You know what you’re doing?”

“You’re challenging me?”

“Yea, since when did your tolerance deepen so? A year ago you’d’ve put ‘im down.”

“Ain’t a year ago. What’s now is now, and someone has to mine the iron.”

The dwarf, head lowered, facing rough rock, overheard the silence. It was broken by the man in eyepatch.

“When ‘e’s just about to give out, I lay ‘em out, then.”

“You lay him out, then,” conceded the chieftain.