The Guardian Stone (The Gods and Kings Chronicles Book 3) Read online

  “It’s an underground river that runs beneath the depths of the Great Sea,” answered Ivatelo. “It’s the passage I spoke of that connects Coralan to the mainland.”

  “The one that we didn’t use because it no longer exists?” said Dolum.

  “Let me try to explain,” said Ivatelo. “During the War of Sundering, the lumani allied with King Johan. Yet soon thereafter, Yansarian called them to Coralan to guard his citadel. Whether King Johan felt betrayed, or simply did not trust such a formidable army under the control of the god, is not known. Either way, he would not let this pass without ramifications.”

  “He collapsed the tunnel?”

  “Precisely,” said Ivatelo. “But such actions were not enough for our dear old king. He wanted to guarantee that he would never have to deal with this race again.”

  “And how did he do that?”

  “He forced the goblin captives into slave labor,” said Desperous, chiming in from the rear of the group. “And he erected a great wall around its perimeter, creating a prison for the goblins and a tomb for the lumani.”

  Bently audibly sputtered in disbelief. “You mean the Ravor Wall?” exclaimed the man in horror.

  Dolum felt his head go light.

  “The most foul and godforsaken land in all of Laveria,” said Desperous, much too matter-of-factly. “A swath of marsh fabled for its plague and pestilence. And a prison to the most wretched creatures ever to walk this earth.”

  “Not to be the pessimist of the group,” interjected Dolum. “But why are we going down a hole that leads to a river, that leads to a collapsed stairwell, that leads to a goblin-infested swamp?”

  “You’re asking the wrong person,” said Ivatelo with a snicker. Dolum didn’t know if he should hate the magic for his wry demeanor, or laugh like a madman right beside him.

  “We have rebuilt the stairwell,” said Kylick, finally contributing to the conversation. “A fortress has been erected in Ravor to bar the goblins access to Coralan.”

  “The goblins seek out the fabled island of the gods, while your people seek out the fabled land of Laveria,” said Desperous quietly.

  Kylick nodded, sending the loose hairs of her topknot bobbing. “Many have tried to press through to Laveria. My father and his father before him. Each successive generation has raised an army and attempted to cross the treacherous marsh, yet none have returned to tell of their success.”

  “Nor have any reached the walls of Ravor,” muttered Bently. “The goblin swarm numbers in the tens of thousands. Passage through the land is not feasible.”

  “Yet we will try,” said Kylick sternly.

  “I’m sorry,” began Dolum, his mind simply twisted by the logic. “But did anyone bother to tell the Guardian that it seemed unlikely we could even make it to Laveria?”

  “It is not our place to bring such fretful thoughts upon the brow of his holiness,” said Kylick. Her voice sounded as if this were an argument already debated. “A task has been bestowed upon us, and we will act accordingly.”

  “Even if it defies all reason,” muttered Dolum before he had a chance to catch himself.

  “For a person stained with the mark of cowardice, you have hardly a problem speaking your mind when it should not be heard, short one,” said Kylick.

  Dolum glared back, but held his tongue. The conversation came to an end. In silence, they settled further into the earth.

  • • •

  There was no sense of time in the dark depths of the earth, simply the dull thud of feet against wet stone to count. Yet rounding a sharp corner, they were suddenly out of the close confines of the stairwell. They had come upon a precipice overlooking a massive cavern. The earth fell away before them, plunging into a pool of water that spanned a thousand paces or more in diameter. No less than a hundred small ships were moored in the black pool.

  Each ship was like the rest; flat-bottomed, two dozen paces in length and half that distance in width, with a rope railing running the perimeter. Dolum had seen similar barges plying the swift waters of the Fame south of New Halgath. They ran with the current, needing only an oarsman to steer, yet these peculiar vessels had a furled sail set at their midpoint. Dolum was left to wonder what purpose a sail would have so far from the sky above.

  A dark gaping crack cleaved the stone wall on either side of the harbor. This was the passage into the River Deep, Dolum imagined. “Why two passages?” asked Dolum as they descended a flight of railless stairs that switchbacked down to the docks.

  “One way goes east, the other west,” replied Kylick.

  “What’s west?” asked Dolum, surmising the eastern passage led to Laveria.

  “We don’t go west,” said Kylick, then sadly, “That way the Shadow lies.” She would say nothing more on the matter.

  When they finally arrived to the harbor, Ivatelo walked off to get a better look at the western passage. Meanwhile, the others dispersed to prepare the ships for departure.

  Feeling a bit useless, Dolum sought out the nearest soldier of rank. “Is there anything we can do to help out?”

  “Nothing, except watching where you go,” answered the lumani in an unfriendly manner. “A few years ago the goblins ransacked our defenses and tried to cross the river. After things settled, we pressed back into the tunnel and regained control. However, we failed to flush them all out.

  “There are still hundreds of them down here. They’re like tunneling rats. They lie in caves near the river, waylaying those foolhardy enough to venture off by themselves. They’re starving, you see. They’re hungry enough to eat the flesh of the living.” The lumani grinned. “Mind yourself, lad.” With that, the lumani effortlessly hoisted a crate of provisions onto his shoulder that Dolum couldn’t have budged, and departed, barking orders at his comrades.

  “Don’t fret what he has to say,” said Desperous, setting a reassuring hand on Dolum’s shoulder. “He’s just trying to unnerve you a bit.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” said Bently. “The goblins are more akin to beasts than men. Their survival instinct is truly vile.”

  Dolum shivered at the thought of cankered lips and sharpened teeth. Sometimes when his uncle had a few too many drinks he would tell of a pack of goblins that used to haunt the Fir’re Mountains. Lan Byron had personally hunted them down. He talked of the goblins as if they were evil embodied, and often toasted to the lost comrades of that expedition. Dolum assumed much of what his uncle said was a drunken yarn. He found himself silently hoping that this was the case. Shrugging off the unknown, Dolum decided to make himself useful, and he set off to warn Ivatelo of the lurking danger.

  He found the magic at the brink of the black stone beach. Ivatelo was as near to the western passage as he could manage without getting his feet wet. Dolum held back and watched the man. For a long time Ivatelo simply stood there, still as a statue, staring with his piercing gaze into the abysmal darkness. What he was looking for, Dolum could not guess, but it made for a chilling spectacle. He noticed the bristles of the man’s beard moving slightly, driven by a wind that funneled through the earth. Dolum faintly smelled sulfur. And there was something else. Something rotten. Something that smelled of death.

  A shrill whistle blared from the harbor, causing Dolum to jump. It was time to cast off.

  “As near as I will ever get,” murmured Ivatelo to himself. He sighed, and turned away. He smiled when he saw Dolum waiting nearby and patted the dwarf’s shoulder. “We should be going,” said the magic. Dolum thought he saw a hint of longing in the man’s eye.

  The ships set sail with a strong lurch. The sail of each ship suddenly billowed as if a great wind fell to their backs, yet no gust was felt.

  “How is it that we move as we do?” called Dolum to a nearby lumani.

  The soldier shrugged. “It’s the river of the gods. It has always taken us where we wish to go. We do not question the nature of these things.”

  One after the next, the ships passed into the cleavage in the
eastern rock face of the cavern. The great armada stretched like a train for nearly a league. Dolum had boarded the same vessel as his companions, and they found themselves situated near the middle of the progression. They were enveloped in a world of darkness the second they departed the cavern. The only illumination came from the small guiding torches set at the prow of each ship. They created a dream-like image. These fires, lined one after the other, seemed to meander aimlessly into nothingness, as if they were part of the long body of some burning serpent.

  Dolum sat at the prow of his ship, listening to the rush of water. Having something to focus on eased his mind. He saw and heard nothing of Desperous and Ivatelo, but he sensed they were nearby. Bently came and sat beside him for a time, whispering old tales of war. Even then his voice echoed in the gloom. Dolum felt it was better not to talk at all.

  Dolum’s mind drifted, and for a long while he slept, dreaming of his father’s stone throne and the eternal lights of New Halgath that bathed everything with an emerald glow. Then he was being led through a passage by a hooded man cloaked in black. There was a familiarity about the passage, carved into the cold stone by the skillful strokes of a pick. I am home, thought Dolum with certainty, although he had never been in this passage before. The figure led him deeper than he had ever gone, beyond the city lights, beyond the pathways of the living. The air was stale, unmoving. They pressed on, until the path suddenly ended in a hollow in the earth. At its center stood an ornate stone pedestal that sprouted from the floor, carved from the living rock of the mountain. The pedestal was incomplete, and a hammer and chisel were discarded in the freshly hewed detritus that lay about its base. The man turned, and a snarling snout protruded from the cloak. Canines dripped with blood. Yellow eyes flared with ephemeral light. Paseran cast his hand over the table and Dolum felt compelled to lift the chisel and hammer. It was his task to complete the altar.

  “I am not your maker, but your master all the same,” sang the bear-faced man, his voice melodious and soothing.

  Dolum smote the chisel with the hammer. The clangor of metal striking metal echoed in the hollow expanse.

  “You will face me in time, and all will be brought to shame.”

  Clack went the honed metal face against stone. Flakes of stone flew through the air, stinging Dolum's cheeks and clattering across the floor.

  “I will smother the land with brimstone and spoil, and all who remain will bend their backs in toil.”

  Dolum’s hands were suddenly warm and dripping. He looked down, seeing now that there was a body resting supine upon the pedestal, arms neatly folded across his stomach. Dolum gasped. The red curls of his father’s beard were stippled with blood. His chest was cloven from the chisel, and a wellspring of blood poured freely from the cavity. Dolum clamped his hands over the hole in a fruitless effort to stanch the flow. His father’s eyes were pools of ink, just like Desperous’s. King Salmaen’s mouth gaped, his tongue slowly working at some unheard word.

  “Turn west and I will show you a better way,” whispered Paseran in his ear.

  Dolum awoke engulfed in ominous shadow. The snaking flames had disappeared. Dolum stirred nervously. What had happened? He held his hand to his face, but could see nothing. His heart rate increased. He could hear the rapid thud in his chest. Had he been left behind on the ship? Had he fallen overboard? He began to panic, and frantically felt about the unyielding surface of the barge to get his bearings. His fingers clasped a leather shrouded ankle.

  A reassuring hand gripped his shoulder. “Be still, young dwarf.” It was Desperous.

  “What’s happening?” demanded Dolum.

  “Hold your tongue,” whispered Desperous. “We’re in unsafe waters. I can hear them now.”

  The elf’s words caused Dolum’s breath to catch. The nightmare faded to a far off memory. Real horror filled his heart. The thought of an ambush in this absolute darkness was a terror like nothing he had ever experienced. He clutched his short sword to his body and struggled to ease his panicked heart.

  Desperous drew him close and whispered into his ear. “Grip the deck and don’t move. They’re coming.”

  Without warning, an explosion illuminated the whole of the tunnel with such intensity, it seemed that the sun itself had crested from the water. For a moment all Dolum could see were black outlines; ships, the undulating walls of the tunnels, stalactites that drooped overhead like the teeth of some wild beast. Then screams. Terrible, terrible screams.

  A tragedy had befallen the ship directly ahead of their own. The boat was split down the center, and its shattered hull burned violently against the black backdrop. There was a flurry of movement in the water as lumani swam weakly toward the other ships. Many were charred and injured. Many more were bobbing bow-backed in the water. But there was something else in amongst the lumani. Shadowed figures were pulling them one by one beneath the turbulent waves.

  Suddenly, one of these figures slithered under the railing. Dolum kicked frantically and clumsily turned his blade toward the intruder. But before the creature could gain a footing, there was a flash of steel, and Desperous swung his Razorwind, striking the beast in two. The creature’s upper torso flopped lifelessly next to Dolum, its guts spilling across the deck. Dolum eyed the creature’s grotesque knotted face, and contorted in disgust.

  “Up! Back now!” barked Desperous to Dolum, just as their ship crashed into the remains of the vessel before them. There was a heavy lurch and the bow sunk below the waterline. Churning water and fragmented figures pooled across the deck. Dolum retreated, avoiding the sludge. In amongst it came the goblins.

  Desperous stood his ground, and soon Bently was at his side. Together they held off the flood of goblins that clawed their way aboard. Desperate to make himself small, Dolum crawled on his elbows and knees toward the aft of the ship. Never before had he beheld such a horrid sight. The skin of the goblins was mottled and slick like a toad. Their eyes were yellow halos encircling a wedge of coal. They reminded him of owl eyes, unblinking as they pierced the veil of shadow. They sneered ravenously with jagged teeth that were filed to points, and clambered about on all fours as quickly as they did on two feet. There were whooping battle cries, and invocations to the Guardian. Dolum took heart in none of this and crawled onward, desperate to find his way through the pressing surge of legs.

  There was an odd creak ahead of their ship. Dolum reeled around, following the sound. To his utter horror, he discovered that the goblins had set a chain across the span of the river.

  “Move!” roared Bently.

  Dolum didn’t budge. He was petrified.

  Cursing under his breath, Bently lifted Dolum by his belt, and dragged him to the aft of the ship just as they reached the chain. There was a crack as the wooden mast split under the force of the impact. The floorboards tore loose of their mooring and a spout of water began to bubble from the hole. The terror-filled looks on everyone’s faces said it all; the vessel was destined for the bottom of the river. All about him, lumani began to urgently cast aside their armor. Dolum had no time to make sense of this frantic measure. The hull broke apart, and the ship settled beneath the waves, throwing Dolum headlong into the waiting arms of a goblin.

  • • •

  Bently snarled as his body struck the frigid water. He suddenly understood how these ships traveled so quickly. Besides the windless breeze that billowed the sail, there was a strong current to aid the ship’s voyage. The rapidly moving water tugged at Bently’s clothes and dragged him alongside the field of debris.

  Two more vessels struck the chain before it broke loose of its holdfast. The remaining lumani ships plowed through the wreckage without slowing.

  Bently spied the shadowed figures of the goblins in amongst the flotsam. They had yet to pay him notice, but it would only be a matter of time. He drew his knife and clamped down on it with his teeth. With strong strokes, he swam toward the nearest ship.

  “They’re right behind us,” warned a lumani swimming parallel to him.r />
  Bently dared a glance over his shoulder just in time to see three goblins submerge. The creatures moved through the water as effortlessly as otters, and almost immediately one of them reappeared directly ahead of the lumani.

  The lumani drew his blade and made after the lone figure, but his efforts were in vain. The soldier cried in terror, and began to stab blindly into the water about him. It was to no avail. In an instant, he disappeared beneath the waves as if some massive weight had yanked him down.

  Bently avoided the spot where the lumani had just disappeared. But much to his horror, the trio of goblins reemerged directly ahead of him, popping up just long enough to mark his location.

  Bently cursed the vile creatures and began swimming with all his strength. But it was no use. Something cinched around his ankle and he was gone, yanked beneath the churning water. The black submerged world rushed by in a blur. He struck something hard and his breath burst from his lungs. Panic began to set in as a searing pain crept through his limbs. He was drowning, he realized, and had only moments to act before he would lose consciousness.

  “Your ankle,” a voice reminded him.

  Bently concentrated on what needed to be done, and strained against the current to reach the binding that was holding him down. It was a rope fashioned as a noose attached to a rock. So simple, yet so deadly. Annoyed with his own foolishness, he hacked with his knife and in an instant he was free.

  Bently broke the surface and let out a howl, filling his lungs with life-giving air. He had been dragged downstream some distance, and was near the end of the convoy. Lumani lined the vessel’s railing and were plucking their comrades from the water. Bently gratefully accepted an outstretched hand and collapsed on the deck, taking in great gasping breaths. Besides a sore ankle, he was no worse for wear.

  “Thank you, Guardian,” said Bently to his god, momentarily finding certainty in his faith.

  Something caught his eye.

  “Wait,” screamed Bently. He jumped to his feet and motioned as if to go over the side. The strong grasp of the lumani held him firmly. “My companion, he’s out there!”