Page 8 of The False Shaman (Claimed by the Red Hand #2)

ARCHIE

I'd been hoping to seduce Droko, not make myself his lackey. But if I could find a good vantage point to spy on the honor guard, I might learn something useful about that prophecy, though why Droko thought a common bedboy could succeed where a mystical orcish shaman couldn't was beyond me. Still, he'd asked, and I wasn't about to disappoint my best chance at surviving with my head intact.

The trick would be figuring out somewhere I could watch the guards without being spotted myself.

I searched through the caves, looking for hidden passages or secret overlooks. The caves were treacherous—a place of secrets, dank and dark and filled with potential hazards. Most of the passageways reeked of sulfur, though that was probably for the best. It meant the honor guard wouldn't be able to *smell* me while I watched them.

I shuddered.

I'd have to be careful around the honor guard. If Gargle had his way, I'd be done for. He'd been eager to be rid of me once Taruut died and the old man's protection with him—and he'd be twice as eager to see me gone if I landed myself in Droko's good graces. Finding a safe place to observe them without being seen was crucial.

I might not know much about orcs, but I was no stranger to a ruthless rivalry. On a slow night at the brothel, ten boys would all vie for the attention of the same paying man…and only the most cutthroat among us would wind up with enough coin for a meal and a bed.

Gargle wasn’t the only one who had it in for me, either. That creepy goblin wouldn’t shed any tears for me if I wound up on the wrong end of a spear.

But the memory of him cramming his body through impossibly small cracks had got me to thinking…maybe I hadn’t been searching these passages nearly as well as I’d thought.

I searched. But now I examined the cave walls more carefully, and eventually I spotted a crescent-shaped gap I’d initially taken for a shadow. It was barely as wide as my hips turned sideways. I contorted myself and pushed my way through, gritting my teeth as the rough edges scraped against me.

Greedy rock clawed at my clothes and hair. I exhaled hard, taking only shallow sips of breath in hopes of making myself smaller, but it was no use. The walls felt as if they were closing all around me—like I’d wedged myself into the maw of the cliffside and would soon be swallowed whole. Even worse, as I dithered about turning back, I started to second-guess which direction I’d even come from.

If I meet my maker, I thought, at least I’ll die standing. I was crammed in so tight, there’d be nowhere for me to fall. Not exactly how I’d planned to die…but I supposed it was better than starving to death once I was too old for the flesh trade.

I was running through all the worse ways I could have perished—the dick pox, for instance—when I realized I felt the air stirring at my right hand. If it wasn’t just my fading mind playing tricks on me, maybe I wasn’t so turned around after all. I drew a steadying breath, then exhaled solidly and crammed myself toward the breeze.

It took a few tries, but eventually, I staggered out of the rock crevice and into a man-made chamber, with straight walls, a level floor, and a cavernous ceiling. A shaft of dim light shone down through a narrow gap high overhead, where a full moon rode the night sky.

I hadn’t expected to choke up from the sight of the sky. It stirred up dangerous hopes I couldn’t afford.

I shut them down. Wanting what you can’t have never ends well.

I tore my gaze from the hole in the ceiling and scanned the chamber. There’d been a doorway, once, cut into the wall across from me, but the passage was now caved in. And a half dozen still figures lay upon low stone biers in two neat rows of three, flat on their backs with their hands folded on their chests.

I sucked in a breath. Maybe I’d turned out to be pretty useless as a spy…but wouldn’t Droko be thrilled when I told him I’d found the crypt of the shamans? Or, at any rate, as thrilled as orcs allowed themselves to get.

I set down my lantern and crept cautiously forward. But even before I reached the bodies, I could tell that they were too small to be orcs—orcs of the fully grown variety, anyhow. As I rounded the figures, I saw that they hadn’t simply seemed short because I’d been looking at them from an odd angle. They truly were short. Even shorter than me—but easily three or four times as wide.

Whatever they were…talk about girth . But they weren’t orcs. Not at all.

My shoulders slumped. Just how many crypts were hidden in these endless caves? And what kind of creatures were these, anyhow? I'd thought I'd had the “eyes to see” something to help Droko, but no. I was just a useless bedboy nobody here even wanted.

Why should I care about failing an orc—one who, despite all my best flirting, still saw me as nothing more than a slave?

The sensible thing would be to do as I’d been told and eavesdrop on the honor guard. But I'd never been very sensible, and my curiosity was already getting the better of me. After all, how often did you stumble across…whatever these things were?

I paused, weighing my options. Returning to my spy duties might please Droko, potentially securing me a safer position. But this crypt...it wasn't the one we needed, true, but it might prove to be something . Something hidden, something valuable. The shaft in the ceiling taunted me with a glimpse of freedom, even if it was out of reach. And this place could be my secret refuge if things went south.

Cautiously, I approached the closest bier. I would have expected the corpses to be rotten, but they were incredibly well-preserved. Maybe even petrified, as if the atmosphere of the caves had conspired to protect them from the elements, although that protection would no longer be appreciated.

Even in the meager light, I could tell these dead guys weren’t orcs or goblins—and they definitely weren’t humans. They had eyes, nose, and mouth (presumably, under their big, flowing beards) but aside from that, their faces looked like no men I’d ever seen. The noses were broad, the brows heavy, and the eyes set wide in the skull. I’m not sure what color they used to be, back when they were up walking around. Now, their flesh looked stony, almost like sculpture, and their garments were covered in a fine sifting of limestone dust. I could have taken them for skillfully made statues, if not for the dusty topknots and beards that were clearly made of hair. Whatever they were, they’d been here for ages, completely undisturbed.

Which meant whatever they were buried with was fair game.

Some people think it’s bad luck to steal from a corpse—and those people have never had to sell their bodies for a crust of stale bread. The way I see it, the dead have no use for their jewelry and baubles, and someone’s eventually bound to come along and plunder those treasures. That someone might as well be me.

I took up my lantern and gave the dead guys a more thorough assessment. Five of them were buried in plain, serviceable clothing. Mostly light leather armor, cracked with age. Well-made, but without any tooling or ornamentation. But the sixth dead guy must’ve been their leader. His boots were fancier. The buckles on his chest piece were etched with geometric designs. And the dusty ring on his forefinger would bring in some good coin, even if the gemstone in the setting turned out to be common.

I'd been telling myself there was no point dreaming of escape—the Wastelands would kill me as surely as the orcs would. But that ring...that ring could change everything. Such a fine piece of jewelry could buy more than just a meal or a bed for the night. It could buy a whole new life, far from stinky caves and nasty honor guards. Far from Droko , a voice whispered in my head, but I pushed that thought aside.

Unfortunately, that ring wasn’t merely stuck tight…it was bonded with his finger. Not only did the bodies look like statues, they felt hard as granite. I’d been expecting some resistance, sure. But no matter how I tugged and twisted, that finger didn’t budge.

I cast around for something to help me pry up the finger, and my gaze fell on the dead guy’s scabbard. No idea what it says about me that I only had eyes for a jewel when a weapon was right in front of me. A heavy ring might buy my passage on a caravan—but I could hardly expect a caravan to troop through the orcish caves just in case a slave was hoping for a ride. Before I could spend any ill-gotten gains, I’d need a way out.

And that meant I’d also need to fight.

Not that I stood any chance of landing a blow on one of those spear-toting bullies, mind you. But cutting someone’s throat while they slept….

I’d never killed a man. But to keep myself out of the slave pit…maybe I could.

I pushed away the thought as I reached for the scabbard. I’d expected the sword to be cemented in place like the ring, but with a determined wiggle, it came free. Unfortunately, it was too big to fit in my belt and far too heavy for me to wield one-handed. Heck, it was hard to lift the thing even with both. Even if the guards miraculously ignored the fact that I was dragging a massive sword along behind me, I doubted I would get in more than a single swing before one of them put a spear through my belly.

Moonlight shifted and I glanced up at the hole in the high ceiling. Maybe I could fit through that shaft—if I somehow sprouted wings. So close, yet so far. Still, it did give me hope that maybe there was another way out of these caves after all—one that the orcs didn’t know about because they couldn’t navigate the tight passages. If I did find an exit, I’d prefer to have something other than my bedroom skills to trade.

Maybe I could still salvage the ring.

Anyone with a lick of sense wouldn’t dream of using a fine blade to hack at a petrified corpse, but if that was the only use I had for the sword, so be it.

I managed to raise the sword. It was a lot heavier than I’d thought. I didn’t swing at the stony finger, so much as simply allow the ponderous blade to fall. I’d expected a loud clang. The chipping of metal. Maybe even sparks. What I didn’t anticipate was the sword falling straight through, as if the stony man was made of fresh meringue.

A huge hunk sheared off and crumbled to the floor. I hadn’t just severed the petrified finger—I’d shattered the ring, and taken off part of the bier while I was at it. Never in my life had I seen a blade so sharp—and when I inspected it to see how much damage I’d foolishly done to the edge, there wasn’t a nick to be seen.

Screw the ring. This sword was my ticket out of here—not to fight my way out, but to sell it once I snuck off into the night.

While the sword was easily the most valuable thing I’d ever encountered, I wasn’t about to leave the ring behind. Even in pieces—and even if it was silver, not gold—I could trade it for something. And it would be a heck of a lot easier to hide.

Going by touch, I sifted through the grit and rubble, doing my best not to imagine the stone I’d just fondled was actually a finger. I was about to cut my losses when I glanced up at the stone corpse and saw the gleam of metal where his hand (and a hunk of the bier) had been cut away.

The dead guy’s hand had been covering a knife . The big ol’ sword had nicked the pommel, but the rest of it might be intact. There was a sheath, meticulously hand-sewn from black leather and edged with lengths of rawhide stitches, built into the guy’s vest. It was just large enough to carry a bone-handled knife and nothing else.

I worked the blade free. It was long as my hand, and curved like a fang, with a satin edge that seemed to call for blood. I had no idea if it was made for battle or for cleaning the dirt from under its owner’s fingernails, but I knew one thing: between the sword and the knife, I had something far more valuable than some old ring.

I had a chance.

My loose linen pants could easily hide the dagger. I cut a strip of cloth from the hem to strap the blade to my thigh, then resumed my search for whatever was left of the ring. I was scanning the rubble with my lantern opened wider when my fingers closed on something small and hard. I brought it closer to the light, my breath catching as I saw a deep blue gemstone, about the size of my thumbnail. I’m no jeweler, so I couldn’t tell what I was looking at—but I knew for sure it was one big stone. I quickly pocketed my ticket to a whole new life. Assuming I could get out of this cave alive, of course.

As I straightened up, ready to make my exit, I noticed a discolored bit of parchment sticking out from beneath the bier.

A scroll.

The path lies unread until seen with knowing eyes.

Well, damn. I’d been looking for a literal path. But obviously, I should’ve had my eyes peeled for a map!

With bated breath, I teased it out from under the bier. It had been there for some time. The edges were frayed and stained with mildew, and simply looking at it made me dizzy with anticipation. Droko would be so thrilled when he saw it.

Not that I cared , of course, since I wouldn’t be sticking around. I had a solid plan. The gemstone would be enough to grab a ride on the next caravan I came across, the dagger would protect me, and the sword could set me up for life in one of the border settlements…maybe even in The Fortifications themselves.

Still, I couldn’t help but be curious.

I brought the scroll over to the lantern and carefully unfurled the parchment.

It was no map. Just a bunch of weird markings.

So much for my “knowing” eyes.

I pondered the marks, feeling stupid. I'm not as good with letters as I am with figures, so I wasn’t even sure whether I was looking at words or some kind of random tally. If it was writing, it hadn’t been done in any script I knew. Maybe this was how orcs wrote things down—different from the common letters I'd learned in the pleasure houses. Either way, it wouldn't help me impress Droko. Just another dead end.

No matter. I wasn’t planning to stay long enough to bask in the strapping young shaman’s appreciation, anyway. Maybe I couldn’t reach the air shaft. But now that I knew I could shove myself through tiny gaps like a goblin, no doubt I’d soon find another. One I could actually get to.

The narrow passage back didn’t seem quite so daunting on my return trip, even dragging the heavy sword in one hand and hefting the lantern in the other. The comfort was in knowing that the tight squeeze didn’t go on forever. Before the crack opened out into a broader tunnel, I used the precious sword to carve a ledge into the living rock of the cave. The niche was both well away from prying eyes and easy to grab, in a gap that I could get to without skinning myself alive, but where a burly orc could never hope to follow.

I was shocked when even without the momentum of a clumsy swing, the sword pushed through the rock like the cave walls were made of stale bread.

Maybe the sword could be good for more than just barter.

The shaft overhead in the burial chamber had seemed impossibly out of reach earlier. But now, with this incredible sword in hand, I saw a new possibility. I didn't need a pair of wings or another exit. I could cut stairs into the wall and carve my way out of this place for good. I simply needed to gather a few supplies, first.

Oh, who was I kidding? I couldn’t leave without seeing the look on Droko’s face when I showed him that scroll.