Stan Nicholls - Army of Shadows

Stryke's team had an area of jungle to search. It wasn't one of the densest parts, and they were able to pace out most of it, looking for any sign that might betray the dwarfs.

Those humans had to be slavers," Coilla said as they trudged. "No other reason I can see for taking prisoners alive."

"Oh, great," Jup groaned. "And that's supposed to cheer me, is it?"

"Yes. Slaves have a value. It doesn't serve the slavers to be careless with their wares."

"Assuming they are slavers. Who knows what goes on in this world?"

"I think Coilla's right," Stryke said. "They sought out the young and fit, so it figures. Spurral might not be having too good a time of it, but they don't gain by harming her too much."

"Not too much," the dwarf repeated bitterly. "This isn't lifting me, Stryke."

"I know. But don't we like to try working out the odds before any mission?"

"Yes," he sighed, "I suppose we do."

"Well," Coilla remarked by way of steering the subject elsewhere, "one thing we've found is that this world isn't made up of just dwarfs."

"Worst luck."

"And if there's humans here too," she went on, "there could be other races."

"Like Maras-Dantia?" Stryke said. "The way they got here, I mean."

"Could be. From what we know, Maras-Dantia was like a big sinkhole once, sucking in all those races, including ours. Could have been the same here."

"Why does it have to have been once?" Jup wondered, taking an interest despite his worry. "You mean some time in the past, right?"

She nodded. "Has to have been. All the races were too well rooted. That must take time. Other thing is, no new races were turning up out of nowhere. We never heard of anything like that, did we?"

"Doesn't mean to say it only happened way back in the past and can't happen now. Why did it stop?"

"It'd take better heads than ours to know that."

"Maybe it's happening all the time," Jup persisted. "If not in Maras-Dantia, in other places. Like here."

"Could that have been how that crew who wanted the stars got to Acurial?" Coilla wondered. "By chance? You know, perhaps they fell into — "

"Don't think so," Stryke interrupted, "not from what Pelli Madayar said. I got the sense they weren't the sort to be tossed around like corks."

Reafdaw had been walking ahead, scanning the greenery. Now he stopped and held up a hand. They cut the talk and froze. He used gestures to indicate a point on the jungle floor that to them looked no different to any other. They quietly caught up with him.

He pointed downward. Two things became clear with scrutiny. There was trampled vegetation in a particular spot. And when they grew accustomed to the scene they could make out a patch of ground that had a phony look to it. It was just about possible to see the lines that hinted at something like a trapdoor. They silently positioned themselves around it, weapons drawn. Stryke began issuing orders via signing.

Jup and Reafdaw crouched and inserted their blades into the almost invisible slits. On a signal they levered the trap out of true, and with Stryke's and Coilla's help, lifted and tossed it aside.

A piercing scream came from the pit they exposed.

They looked down. A young female dwarf was cowering below in a hollow not much bigger than herself. She wasn't alone. Three dwarf children, all males, clung to her. Their dirty, upturned faces were terrified.

Jup spoke softly to them in Mutual, assuring them they were safe. The orcs stepped back out of sight while he did it, to save spooking them. At last Jup won their confidence, and got them to accept that the orcs were friendly. They were helped out of their dank pit and given water, which they bolted.

Stryke judged it best to take them to the elder's longhouse. On the way they were silent, and noticeably still fearful. But the orcs, and even Jup, despite his anxiety, held back on questioning them.

Being in the more familiar surroundings of the village, and then the longhouse, seemed to reassure the quartet. If not exactly relaxed, they at least became easier in themselves. They were given food, and more to drink.

The girl's name was Axiaa, or something very much like it, and she was related in some obscure way to the three children. Obscure because, as she haltingly explained, in the closed community of an island, everyone was related.

The boys were called Grunnsa, Heeg and Retlarg, as far as Stryke and the others could nail it. Their names didn't translate to Mutual, and the dwarfs' throaty first language made understanding no easier. Grunnsa was the oldest, at ten or eleven seasons. Heeg and Retlarg were perhaps seven or eight, and brothers. Grunnsa was their cousin, and possibly their uncle too, such were the island's tangled relationships.

It seemed that the brothers' parents had been taken by the humans. Grunnsa's might have been too, or could be in hiding somewhere. It was unclear.

"Who were those raiders, Axiaa?" Stryke asked.

Being addressed by an orc, and the servant of a god to boot, made her a little shy, but she answered, "Gatherers."

"Seen them before?"

"Oh, yes. They come from time to time and take away some of our kin. Never all. They like for there to be more when they return."

"Why do they take you?"

"To trade. Sell. For work on other islands."

"Are there many other islands?"

"Yes. Many."

"The dwarfs have visited them?"

"A few have. The brave ones. But most of us never leave here."

"Why?"

"Outside" — she waved a hand in the direction of the sea — "is death."

"Oh good," Jup said.

"Axiaa," Coilla asked, "do you know where our friend was taken? The she-dwarf we came with?"

"The goddess."

"Er, yes, that's her. Where did she go?"

"Bad place."

"But do you know where? How could we find it?"

The girl didn't seem to grasp that.

"We know!" Retlarg piped up.

Coilla turned to them. "You do?"

"Yes," Heeg confirmed.

"The grown-ups don't know we know," Grunnsa confided. "But we found out."

"How?"

"Show you?" Retlarg asked.

She nodded, puzzled.

The three youngsters leapt to their feet and tore to one side of the spacious room. They fell upon a piece of furniture not unlike an ottoman: a couch that doubled as a storage chest. Throwing aside its coverings, they raised the top. There was a jumble of household possessions inside, which they cheerfully tossed onto the rush-matted floor as they burrowed. At last they retrieved a rolled, yellowing parchment, about the length of an orc's arm, secured with a round of smooth twine. They ran back to Coilla and gave it to her.

Along with Stryke, Jup and Reafdaw, she took it to the feasting table. Sweeping aside the remains of their earlier meal, she unfastened the scroll and rolled it out. They weighed down its corners with coconut drinking vessels and fat candles.

It was a chart. Whoever had drawn it, quite a while ago from its state, had a fine hand. It had been executed in different coloured pigments, now much faded.

The map showed a world dominated by ocean. But sprinkled with islands of all shapes and sizes, some in close clusters, others alone, a few isolated. There were hundreds of them.

"I'm guessing the one we're on," Stryke said, "is here."

He pointed to a shape quite far south, but reasonably close to a number of others. A red cross had been drawn inside its outline, and there were some crude symbols underneath. None of the others had that, save one. This bore a stylised skull in its centre and it had been circled in black. It was northwest of the first, and without knowing the chart's scale they thought it looked not too far away.

"Gotta be that one," Jup reckoned.

The three kids clamoured to see, the table being too high for them. They were hoisted up onto chairs.