"So what do you think," my old friend said, while an impish grin
played havoc with the scars on his ugly face. The grin had been threatening
to erupt for quite some time: Ewan "Slick" McLurk had his man the
moment I walked in the door, and he knew it.
Granted, it was reckless to the point of stupidity, but Slick's scheme had
several redeeming features. The possibility of acquiring ridiculous amounts
of money was one of them, and so was the opportunity to explore Cairn, a region
so obscure that its interior is blank on most maps.
I tried reminding myself that there are good reasons for this scarcity of
information. I thought long and hard about a mangled map I saw in the Great
Library of Charybdis, where Cairn's heartland bore the following, less than
inviting legend: "HERE BE M- oh shit." But it was to no avail. Self-preservation
was being soundly thrashed by curiosity and greed.
"May your last four teeth fall out while you're kissing the barmaid,
you scab-ridden mongrel," I complimented, while studying the object which
motivated Slick's upcoming expedition. The map seemed genuine enough, and it
was either very old or a very impressive piece of forgery. It depicted Cairn
in its entirety, as well as the islands which lie between that continent and
the mainland wastes of Ochre. The writing on the crackling old parchment was
in the language of the ancient Chaldeans.
"I found it in an out-of-the-way tomb, off the coast of Mercia," Slick
explained, "and you wouldn't believe the trouble I had getting to it.
I lost four men on the way down that bastard, fighting Revenants - you know
those animal-headed blokes - and Shades and Zombies and all manner of evil-minded
creatures. I swear, it was like elbowing your way to the bar in an orkish tavern
at last orders..."
He interrupted himself to drink from his mug, giving me the opportunity to
head him off at the pass. "Get to the point, you blathering Imric goat.
Tell me how this map will help us find the ruins of Kasdim."
--
Two weeks later, as July became August, we were sailing south along Cairn's
east coast, looking for features that matched McLurk's map. More specifically,
we were searching for a long but narrow inlet which seemed to offer easy access
to the interior. According to the map, Kasdim lay at the heart of the continent,
and we wanted our overland journey to be as short as possible.
Standing on the deck of the McLurk's trusty ship, the Wandering Mary, we were
struck by the strangeness and desolation of Cairn's landscape. The wind-blasted
shores bore countless jagged cliffs and rock formations, while the dominant
form of life seemed to be tall and twisted plants, which grew in thickets on
treeless beaches. It was clear that the search for Kasdim would be arduous
and dangerous, even if we found our inlet.
As if to underline the danger we were facing, the outlook began gesticulating
frenetically while making a sequence of rather embarrassing squeaky sounds.
He was pointing towards the beach and a jagged rock formation which was behaving
in a very un-rocklike manner: Rising up slowly, it spouted trunk-like legs
and unfolded a head the size of a house. The rock-creature began following
us along the shoreline, matching our speed with surprising ease, while uttering
a growl that caused the Wandering Mary's deck to vibrate in response.
The creature was the size of a Dark Dragon but much more muscle-bound and
bulky. Its skin and shape resembled the rock formations we had mistaken it
for, but looking closer, we saw that a row of spikes rose from its spinal ridge,
and that sword-sized teeth protruded from its lower jaw.
"Rrrrrrrrrrrr!" the creature intoned, shaking its ridiculously large
head while peering at us with disproportionately small eyes. It followed us
for a while, then gave up and veered off inland.
"He's off to fetch his rock canoe," McLurk joked, but nobody laughed
(well, expect for McLurk). We were too busy realising that we were about to
wander into that creature's homeland.
Later that day we found the inlet, and began carefully making our way up it.
Trusting Slick's map now, we searched for a place where a small Chaldean village
was indicated - perhaps a minor port in the days of the empire. Finding the
ruins, we disembarked and began preparing for the dangerous journey inland.
According to the map, a caravan route had once connected our little village
to Kasdim, and we planned to follow its course.
--
"Remind me again why we're killing ourselves in this godforsaken wilderness," one
of McLurk's men asked, somewhat rhetorically. Slick sent the man an angry look,
but his answer was friendly enough.
"Kasdim was a remote outpost of the old Chaldean Empire," he began. "It
was a place where merchants traded with the aernar, a native people who have
since been exterminated by climate change and hordes of invading minotaursÂ…"
"Minotaur hordes, you say?" Slick's slightly unfortunate choice
of words caused uneasy muttering among the crew. "Never mind about the
minotaurs," Slick continued, quite unfazed. "The point is that Kasdim
was a distant trading post, which lay far from the borders of the empire. Of
all Chaldean settlements and colonies, it was perhaps the most remote."
"When the Empire fell, some of its inhabitants opened a magical gate
from the capital of Ashur to obscure Kasdim. They fled while their city fell
around them, bringing with them as much wealth, magic and knowledge as possible.
Upon arriving in Kasdim, they established themselves as the last custodians
of Chaldean culture. For many centuries they lived in peace, but then-"
At this point, McLurk was rather rudely interrupted by a medium-sized boulder,
which smashed into the crewman he was addressing, cracking his skull open like
a nut. As the rest of us dove for cover behind a claw-shaped rock formation,
two more missiles flew overhead, plowing into a nearby grove of tall plants.
From behind the rocks, I risked a swift glance in the direction the rocks
had come from. Our ambushers were three tall and powerfully built humanoids,
who now came lumbering towards us, each of them wielding a square-shaped, metal-clad
club.
"Giants," I whispered to Slick and the others, "a kind I've
never seen before. They're relatively short-statured for their kind - no more
than three meters tall, I'd say - and they seem to possess of some kind of
fancy club technologyÂ…"
"Clever giants, do you think?" McLurk said, looking worried for
the first time since we left the mainland. But he shook it off almost instantly: "Nah,
don't think so. Pigs can't fly, and giants can't think." He drew his cutlass
and turned to the remaining crewmen, ordering them into defensive positions.
Moments later, the giants came crashing around our stand of rocks, two on
the left side, one on the right. Instead of gleefully entering a howling berserker
rage at the first opportunity, as giants generally do, these fellows seemed
focused on the task at hand.
"Hnnngah!" one of them said, swinging his strangely shaped club towards me
with the full force of his massive right arm. He was surprisingly quick for
such a big creature, and the blow almost caught me off guard. But I got my buckler
up just in time, deflecting the club into a fang like rock behind me.
What did strike me, however, was the stunningly awful smell emanating from
the giant's dirt-coloured hide armour. Clearly, these locals had some things
in common with the giants we knew and loathed on the mainland.
"My turn, you big lump," I said, taking two swift steps to the right
while thrusting my longsword towards the giant's ample belly. Like I said,
he was quick, but not quick enough: My sword sliced through fat with satisfying
ease, leaving a nasty gash. I continued my movement in a half circle around
my opponent, and as his second blow thudded onto the dusty ground, I administered
a slashing blow to the giant's right hand. The club fell out of his injured
arm, and he hesitated as his sluggish mind sought the next move. I used the
opportunity to drive my sword half-upwards through the giant's throat, and
he immediately fell to his knees, dying now, and gurgling blood.
Behind me, Slick and the remaining crewmen had one of the other giants down,
but they were still struggling with the final opponent. I ran over and plunged
my sword into the small of the giant's back. Together, we had him down soon
enough, but not before another of Slick's men fell, his chest crushed by the
giant's club.
1: Cairn Giant clubs bear the marks of Svartdvergir craftsmanship
2: Silver and
gold bracers, as worn by minotaur warriors
3: Minotaur treasure chest,
full of ill-gained wealth.
4: Warriors commonly wield double-bladed axes
5:
Kings wear wonderfully crafted helmets
6: Tunic belonging to a priest
7: Halberd
used by minotaur commanders
As the dust settled, I took a closer look at the weird clubs that the giants
had wielded. They appeared to be normal, roughly fashioned clubs, to which
a detachable metal casing had been attached using heavy screws. The casing
was studded with spikes and - more mysteriously - decorated with twisted and
deformed dwarf-runes. I had seen those symbols before, among the Svartdvergir
slaves of Morak. But how had this handiwork of the dark dwarves ended up in
the middle of Cairn, in the hands of the local giants?
"No time for pondering clubs now, old friend." McLurk had buried the fallen
men under and inch or two of dusty soil, and he was ready to move on. "Since
these blokes were traveling without food or water, there's probably a camp or
settlement nearby. I don't want to be here when they realise that they are three
retards short of a full set."
Soon we were off again, traveling quickly and a lot more quietly now, through
jagged rock formations and forests of thorn-bearing plants.
--
As we were preparing set out on the third day, a wall of dust rose in the
western sky. Within minutes, a sandstorm bore down on us, almost flattening
us with gusts of wind and scourging sand. Electricity followed in the storm's
wake, and bolts of wild lightning arced down from the sky, striking the rocks
and treelike plants around us.
Realising the danger we were in, we set out for the only cover we had seen
before storm struck: a large cliff formation in the center of the plain. Though
visibility was reduced to almost zero, we made our way to the cliffs, and sought
shelter on their leeward side. We were safe from the worst of the wind, but
wild lightning still threatened to flatten us with electricity or dislodged
chunks of cliff.
Searching frantically for a better place to hide, we found a narrow fissure
in the eastern wall of the cliff. Gratefully, we squeezed in, hoping that the
crack would widen into a cave with space enough for all of us. Noticing that
the walls receded on both sides of me, I recovered a tinderbox and a torch
from my sand-saturated backpack. As the torchlight spread, I saw that we had
stumbled across much more than just a hiding place.
At the far end of a smooth-walled cavern, a rough stone table stood in front
of a stairway leading up. More remarkably, two minotaurs sat by the table,
apparently engrossed in a game of chance which involved bone splinters of various
sizes. Jumping out of their stone chairs, they were clearly as surprised to
see us as we were to se them. Both reached for huge, double-bladed axes which
reclined against the wall next to them.
"You wouldn't believe the weather outside," I said, possibly managing to hide
how close I was to soiling my armour. I switched the torch to my left hand and
drew my longsword. There was no time to form an orderly queue out the fissure;
we would have to stand and fight. I looked over at Slick, who had already drawn
his cutlass, and was grinning a maniacal grin which reminded me of previous
near-death experiences. "Call me speciesist," he said, "but I don't hold with
bovines standing up on their hind legs."
The minotaurs stood fully three meters tall, and their bull heads were held
up by impossibly muscular, human-like torsos and necks. Both wore shining bracers,
solid gold nose rings, and an assortment of slightly gaudy jewelry. Their eyes
shone with a malevolent shade of red as they charged towards us on hoofed feet.
"Kill you! Eat you!" one of the minotaurs quipped, as he barreled towards me
with his horns lowered for goring. I waited until the last moment, then ducked
and rolled right. I had the considerable satisfaction of hearing the minotaur
pound into the wall behind me. As I jumped to my feet, however, I saw that his
huge axe was already sweeping towards me. This minotaur hadn't even blinked
at smashing full-tilt into solid rock .
I tried twisting out of the way, but the axe struck my left shoulder with
considerable force. The torch fell from my hand, and I was pounded back into
a prone position. I nearly lost my sword in the process, but managed to cling
onto it. "Weakling," the minotaur rumbled gleefully, as he prepared
to deliver another, potentially fatal blow. Across the chamber, McLurk was
shouting at his crewmen to join the fray while nimbly circling the other minotaur.
I noticed that my friend was bleeding from a chest wound.
I rolled left this time, and the minotaur's axe missed me by a hair's breadth.
I swung a hopeful blow as I rose to a crouching position, and more due to luck
than skill, my sword sunk into the minotaur's right leg. It didn't inflict
much of a wound, but at least I had drawn blood.
"Stand still!" the enraged minotaur insisted, as I dodged a wild
backhand swing. By way of reply, I plunged my sword into his flank, which had
been left hopelessly exposed by his latest, somewhat careless move.
"Gaaaaah!" the minotaur roared, and his red eyes flashed as he sought
to split me in half with a devastating vertical blow. Foam had begun to form
around his mouth, and it was clear that these minotaurs weren't the most levelheaded
of fighters. His axe thundered into the cave floor where I stood half a moment
later, causing the entire cave to echo with the sound of metal striking stone.
My opponent was left half-crouching and hopelessly off balance. I took the
opportunity to drive my sword through his neck, and the fight ended as quickly
as it had begun. The minotaur collapsed to the ground with a satisfying soft
thud.
In the other end of the chamber, McLurk and three crewmen had somehow managed
to topple their minotaur, and they were mauling him badly as he struggled to
climb to his feet. Seconds later, that fight was over too, as McLurk's final
blow almost severed the minotaur's head from his neck. The bad news was that
another of McLurks crewmen lay mangled on the floor. If we kept losing them
at current rate, I'd have to man the rigging myself on the way home.
--
After downing a few healing potions, McLurk and I decided to explore the stairway
which the minotaurs had been guarding. We told the remaining crewmen to wait
in the cavern and prepare for a hasty retreat.
The broad stairs wound upward into the heart of the cliff formation. After
climbing in silence for a while, we arrived at a long, smooth-walled corridor,
which seemed to lead out onto the eastern cliff face. Carefully, we moved towards
the daylight which streamed into the corridor's far end.
We peered out onto a broad shelf, which had clearly been carved out of the
cliff wall. Half a dozen stone-hewn houses stood on the shelf, their shape
and colour causing them to merge almost seamlessly with the cliff behind them.
Even if we had approached the cliff formation from the east, we might very
well have ignored these artfully concealed dwellings. The sand and wind still
howled across the plain below, but up on the shelf the air was strangely calm.
The houses were of simple construction, and had been worn and battered by
the fierce climate. A couple of them were missing walls or ceiling, and on
the far edge of the shelf, a building had collapsed completely. A cistern stood
at the centre of the shelf, and while cracked and broken, it appeared to be
holding water. Near it stood the only thing in the village which seemed to
be of recent construction, a rather impressive statue of a minotaur king.
On the roof of the southernmost building, three minotaurs stood watching the
storm below. Two of them held the now familiar double-bladed axes, while the
third leaned on a large halberd which was adorned with bits of jewelry.
As we were considering our options, three minotaurs walked out of a building
directly in front of us. "Change of guards," I thought for a panicked
moment, but fortunately the group turned north, and they walked away without
noticing us.
Still, the danger of our position was apparent: If discovered, we would have
an entire village of minotaurs to deal with, and that was not a tempting prospect.
We slunk back into the darkness of the corridor, and made our way back down
the winding stair.
Outside the storm was dying, which meant that the minotaur watchmen would
soon have a perfect view of our escape route. We hurried through the fissure,
aware of the need to be far away when the dust settled. |
