CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

“God damned dog.”

As soon as he and the chieftain were alone in the slick chamber of lake and iron, the dwarf, in chains held by the red headed bandit leader ahead, leapt in her opposite direction. Caught unawares, she toppled. The dwarf attempted to seize the opportunity in escaping, but her grip maintained, and he jerked back. With his bare head he aimed to ram the downed chieftain before the hard breath emptying stab of an iron scabbard ended the attempt. He wheezed incessantly. The chieftain rose first and began whipping the dwarf with the chains themselves, bearded face soon lashed and left with the lattices of metal. Rendered unconscious, the rock digger awoke later leashed to the post.

The tanned corpse had been removed, observed the dwarf. His hands began shaking. He had murdered. Even if the dwarf still fervently believed in the chasing of his own death and ‘LOADING’ so long as this world persisted, the dwarf still took a man’s life. His palms slid along wet rock and the fresh lacerations across his face began stinging. He disrobed from his incredibly damp and bloodstained clothes, throwing the wad of navy and tarnished gold into a corner of the cavern. His naked self shivered against rock, but no further minute of the filthy gi could be tolerated. And just as it felt the dwarf was to slip into unconsciousness again, the intense murdering of the bandit replayed in reverberations within his mind. Ears ringing, he watched blood burst from the victim in dentures. The dwarf thought of the crumpled, lifeless bandit and turned away from the dark spot where it once lay. Would he persist after all? The thought chilled him worse than the cool cave. If the dwarf were to die, would the returned bandits not be an ever-present threat on the plains? The dwarf indeed thinned their numbers with their delivering in silk to the city of Nasteze. Now the plains were hunted by those with no burden to incarcerate. With the dwarf’s recent actions, the outfit had been dealt two more blows. Regardless of the humanity of his victim, would it not be the arachnids, then? He thought of the poor mount which suffered by the bandits’ hands--what number would they stop at before reclaiming the steeple? He thought of the chains which bound him. How many lives had been claimed within this cave aside from two of its wretched lords? Was the killing blow the dwarf struck for them, the spiders, or himself? If he’d been brave enough, could ‘DRILL’ not be used on his own skull for a quick death? His worn arms immediately protested.

The dwarf knew it was day by the slits along the ceiling, patches of lake turned blue. He hadn’t slept. The fallen light shifted a small distance across water before the chieftain arrived, pickaxe in hands. She approached the motionless dwarf whose open eyes at least met hers. WIth all her might she brought the end down to which the dwarf reflexively rolled. Mind scrambled, he did not immediately make a move to retaliate and noticed the chieftain’s lack of momentum, her pose preserved. But he did rise and find her eyes again, and the bandit leader released the buried axe.

“What’s the matter, naked one?” the chieftain taunted. “Eager to die, scared to hurt?”

The dwarf was in no hurry to admit the truth of her words.

“I fail to understand you. You are like a feral. Perhaps God really has rendered you idiot.”

Who was she to invoke Him? The dwarf restrained a groan from how much of his father his thoughts sounded. But a spark lit between his ears realizing a yet tested tool.

“You will mine,” she said once and once more. “Understand and accept what you have no choice in.”

The dwarf, weak but determined, ambled towards the chieftain. Her lips curled.

“Well?”

Upon a few steps closer the dwarf brought his hands together and out emerged a golden rope of light. The chieftain balked, and he lunged forward and whipped fervently. Rage felt across his face, veins pumping, the dwarf’s pace slowed upon realizing the ineffectiveness of his weapon. Indeed, her bemusement revealed little to the dwarf. She gave him a sudden hard shove. Hard on his bottom, the dwarf just barely made out the chieftain’s muttering:

“He knows faith.”

Returning not long after with Caltraz--stout and bearded--and Patches--eye on the dwarf, the chieftain began issuing orders. The dwarf felt a terrible premonition form.

“Bind him, prepare him for transport,” ordered the bandit leader. Caltraz dismounted the chains from the post while Patches gruffly bound the dwarf’s wrists in fiber. He was led up through the tunnels leading to the main cavern, the bandits chattering the while.

“... He’ll make us rich, then?” asked Caltraz, unconvinced.

“This place’s already out a ways,” said the chieftain. “There’s no chance anyone’s been deep inside a long time.”

Alarmed, the dwarf thought of the ruins in snow so near to his steeple. But could the bandits mean a place so far off? Soon, the group were back in the main cavern.

“And he’s supposed to be our way in,” confirmed Caltraz.

“It won’t matter whether he wants to help us or not,” said his leader. “No one wants to die like that.”

“But,” started Patches, “We lost good men in there. We are to risk what’s left on him?”

“There’s no risk. He can do it,” claimed the chieftain. “He will do it. Just load him in the cart.”

“But,” echoed Caltraz, “Can’t we make ‘im put his clothes on first?”

It was not meant for the dwarf to yet see the sun, the vehicle hauled by Caltraz rolling under thick clumped clouds. Beside him within wood were torches and a spool of his own chains. Aching head, the dwarf did not adjust well to the loud shrieking world, birds out, doe fleeing, grass rustling, the occasional branch swaying. He made out the cliff face they followed--seemingly the same as the bandits’ lair--in between eyes shut from overstimulation. To the rumbling of the cart he fell asleep, jerked out indeterminably after and onto his feet. He just barely managed to avoid collapsing to the ground. Around him milled a stretching Caltraz and smoking Patches.

“You haul him the way back,” argued the sweating former.

“If he survives,” said the latter. “If we.”

The dwarf’s tested his bounds. The fiber held unfortunately well. The chieftain took up the chains in one hand and passed light out to her subordinates, one left for herself. The group approached another gap in the cliffside, Patches first, Caltraz beside the dwarf, the chieftain behind. A word was sought for by the stout bandit.

“Listen, I dunno what you’ve seen, but best listen to the boss here. Or if you’ve a problem with that, me. There’s definitely treasure locked up in this place, but it won’t be easy access. Get through this with us and I’ll make sure she lets you go.” And Caltraz shrugged. “Maybe a gold piece or two for the trouble.”

“Caltraz,” barked a gruff Patches. “Get over here with the key.”

The bearded bandit’s pace picked up to meet his smoking partner, and his hand fished through a pocket to produce the means of accessing what appeared to be a chiseled stone door, imposing weather worn faces meeting the dwarf’s gaze. He averted his eyes. But the dwarf did watch the door, with some effort, open. Patches lit his torch and entered first, the dwarf’s conversational partner next, himself third and chieftain last in such narrow confines. The door shut behind them sealing off the last light of the outside world.

Dust clung to every surface and indent possible, bricks fuzzy. On the low ceiling skittered large insects, some weaving webs and others clawing them apart. Roots managed to dangle as well, but the hard constructed lair within rock seemed to hold otherwise against nature, no moss in sight. Each of their steps first dulled, boots clicked and bare feet slapped against loud, deep stone, and the tunnel opened into a wider hall. Still in darkness asides from their fires, the dwarf only barely distinguished a gate of bars at the end. A great lifeless chandelier hung from above. Rotted furniture smothered the walls. What little remained of carpet suggested a finer expanse once claimed. Distracted, the dwarf’s chains yanked him ahead and to the bars--confirmed. Beside jutted a conspicuous lever. Wordlessly, Patches passed his torch to Caltraz and took hold of the lever with both hands pulling it down and raising the bars, ends sharp. The dwarf was shoved forward with sudden force and heard and felt the snapping of metal as the bars returned. Sealed alone in the chamber, the dwarf’s only light was that from behind and what little appeared through slits in the east wall.

“No one cut his binds?” asked Caltraz.

“Too late now,” said Patches.

The chieftain said nothing. Ahead of the dwarf came groaning.

“Boy,” began an anxious stout bandit. “You’ve got to move.”

It seemed unbelievable to the dwarf death dangled from such precarious lines, the iron and wool clad zombie inching out from black. So poorly penetrated was it by the glowing eastern cracks, the dwarf worried what else lay. And why did he worry, he berated himself. Did he not long for death? Here it babbled and sputtered, frothed and staggered. The dwarf backed against the bars and felt a sudden release of tension.

“Move!” ordered Caltraz, knife sheathing against leather.

The dwarf darted forward and brought his arms out in arcs producing the means of whipping the zombified bandit in holy glittering light. In his successful striking--rotted flesh searing--a dining hall revealed itself and its tenants of which there were many. All as mindless and deformed in appearance as that which the dwarf struck down, he sweat in as much anticipation as he did exhaustion. The dwarf’s arms remained in a slight purple hue, and he was more than usual disturbingly aware of the level gained in ‘ONE-HANDED’--this implied survival and persistence. Was he, thought the dwarf, ready to give the final say in Balto and Crumb’s lives? Had he endured yet past the point of no return? Waspig fluttered through the dwarf’s mind. His heaving chest above the corpse of the undead swelled once more with the comfort of its absence, a strange contradiction the dwarf realized. Better him than them, he concluded.

A hand gripped the dwarf’s naked shoulder digging in dull nails. His immediate pain crashed against a regret of nudity and a betrayal of no warning. Betrayal struck him strange, for what allegiance was the enslaved owed? But regardless it hurt in much the same way the zombie’s grab at attention managed; only one could be whipped. He chanced his bald dome bashing it against what became a cavity in decayed guts. The assailant fell backwards breaking from its legs and the dwarf brought his ‘FAITH’ down onto it rendering the undead dead. The dwarf became aware of his stained skin and again regret the drying gi in the chamber of limestone.

A clump of staggerers rushed the dwarf against the eastern wall, and he ran against the other end of the hall at bars in darkness, no lever. Across from him the glowing sight of his kidnappers soon smothered in an alarming amount of walking dead, some dressed in bandit gear and others as naked as the dwarf. Just two zombies in particular came aggressively adorned in imposing iron armor head to rotted toe. Circling to the west, the dwarf scanned darkness in search of a sword--anything capable of, he shuddered, dismemberment. The lack of such ushered him back to where he started, soon facing the chieftain and her remaining men. The dwarf’s eyes suggested enough to the former, her smile nearly as wretched as the shambling corpses inching closer. It was Caltraz that produced a sword stashed above his knife, and it would have transferred to the dwarf’s willing hands had not the chieftain shoved him backwards.

“Too bad,” she said.

Turning around, it occurred to the dwarf the men she lost to the room. They were many. And they were close, forcing the dwarf back to the east, again concentrating on weapons. But his revisiting yielded a different result: the glowing slits of the outside sun were obstructed by nailed, rotted planks. With little hesitation, he thought of them as lesser targets than a concrete prison, and his fist blasted the window’s obstructor into chips and pulp.

“MELEE INCREASED TO 15”

Chiseled through rock to allow in warm sunsets, the once obstructed window gave way to a healing bath of light, zombies caught in its immediate path fried in shrieking horror. But the protection offered was narrow; the dwarf moved on to the next set of planks.

“MELEE INCREASED TO 16”

“MELEE INCREASED TO 17”

“I can’t believe it!” cried Caltraz.

Much of the undead collapsed in agony upon entry of the day’s last embers. But two did not. In secure iron they marched towards the dwarf. Gazing upon the ashes of the purified souls, the dwarf steadied his beating heart with slow, determined breaths. Every limb ached. His head longed to rest. The light was warm, and his eyes drifted.