The three ogres stared at the open grate for one heartbeat, two… and then all tried to barge through it at once. After a brief scuffle, the two uninjured ones erupted out of the slave pen. The third ogre ran after them, clutching its wounded hand to its chest.
Torrin heaved a huge sigh of relief. He scooped up his mace and hurried to the back of the cave where his pack lay. The buckles were dangling, and the straps were shredded; but although the main flap had been ripped open, the ogres had gotten nothing out of the pack. Torrin plunged a hand inside and commanded the runestone to his hand.
He pictured the cubicle in the library he’d teleported into earlier. It was uncomfortably close to the stairs and the duergar official who’d confronted him, but that might be a good thing-the duergar wouldn’t expect Torrin to return there so soon. He’d clean up with water from his waterskin, put on fresh clothes from his pack, and try again.
With Marthammor Duin’s blessing, Baelar and the others would be inside the temple already, searching for the cursed rune. Maybe Torrin could do something to help them, rather than hinder them.
He pictured the empty cubicle. The image came clearly to mind. “The library of the Runescribed Hall of Laduguer’s Graving,” he said. “By blood and earth, ae-burakrin. Take me there.”
Nothing happened.
“The cubicle in the library-the one I teleported to a short time ago,” he repeated. “By blood and earth, ae- burakrin. Take me there. Now!”
Light flared beside him as a rune in the wall blazed to life. Torrin turned to look at it. “ Thulkrin,” it read. “Blocked passage.”
Torrin’s heart sank. The runestone wasn’t going to get him out of there. The rune had obviously been put into place to put slaves from escaping-or from being stolen.
Slowly, Torrin lowered the runestone. The corridor outside would certainly be similarly warded, as would anywhere else the slaves passed through.
“By Moradin’s beard,” he whispered, “Now what?”
He’d better decide quickly, he thought. Judging by the shouts coming from farther along the tunnel, either the three escaped ogres had just been spotted, or the duergar he’d angered on the staircase had sent guards to collect the wayward “human slaver.” Either way, Torrin didn’t want to stick around.
Chapter Fifteen
“Gold is gold, though it be in a rogue’s purse.”
Torrin rushed down the tunnel, away from the shouts. He soon realized the ogres’ cave was just one of many slave pens. He kept passing similar caves, each with a padlocked grate.
The corridor looked as though it had once been part of a mine. The walls were cut stone, and heavy timbers shored up the ceiling. Inscriptions were everywhere. Large runes marked the entrance to each slave pen-likely similar to the one the ogre had activated. Other runes had been carved into the timbers and walls, still others into the floor. Whether they were magical or merely directional, Torrin had no idea. But he took no chances. He jumped over all of them.
As he ran past their slave pens, the ogres, orcs, and goblins confined within ran forward, some shouting at Torrin, others banging their manacles against the grates. Torrin rapped his fist against as many manacles and padlocks as he could-each of the locks fell open as his ring worked its magic. Freed slaves poured out, whooping with glee. Others shouted for him to free them, too. But as much as he’d like to, Torrin couldn’t free them all. There just wasn’t enough time. Nor did he want to use up all the charges in his ring. According to Delvemaster Frivaldi, the ring had held twenty-eight charges when he’d given it to Torrin. And Torrin had used up… How many by now? Twenty? Twenty-two? He’d lost count. He had better not use it again unless he had to.
By the sound of the shouts, the duergar guards were drawing closer. Hopefully, the milling knot of freed slaves would slow them down.
As he leaped over a rune on the floor, the jump carried him a little too close to one of the smaller slave pens. Its lone occupant, a snout-nosed orc with braided hair and ears that suggested he was at least part human, thrust a hand through the grate and caught Torrin’s arm. When Torrin tried to yank free, the orc’s filthy claws dug painfully into his arm.
“Free me,” the orc grunted in Undercommon, a pidgin language cobbled together with words from more than a dozen underground-dwelling races. “I pay.” Still holding Torrin, he dug a palm-sized sheet of ragged-edged metal out of the filthy leggings that wrapped his lower legs. He held it up. “Gold!” he panted. “I pay.”
The shouts behind Torrin were getting ever closer. “Let go!” Torrin cried. “There’s no time.” He wrenched his arm free and ran. Blood dribbled down his arm from the scratches the orc had gouged in it.
The orc’s pen turned out to be the last. Torrin ran on into a section of mine that had no side caves. He reached a spot where the tunnel branched, and chose a direction at random. More side caves appeared, those ones filled with stone-cutting equipment: picks, shovels, drill bits, and ore buckets on shoulder yokes. It was an active mine, not an abandoned one. That explained the slaves.
Suddenly, Torrin realized that the shouts behind him were staying in one spot. It was likely the duergar guards had run into the fleeing slaves. Nearly out of breath, Torrin slowed to a walk. Just as his breathing was returning to normal, he heard a clicking noise, like the sound of claws on stone, coming along the tunnel he’d just run through. The clicking grew louder, closer. He ducked into one of the side caves and hid behind some ore buckets, readying his mace. Peering out, he saw a spider the size of a dining table scuttle into view across the tunnel’s ceiling. A duergar sat in a saddle cinched to its bulging abdomen. The hood of his gray mantle hung down, brushing the floor. He wore riding boots and held a lance like the one Baelar had been carrying, with a fist-sized gem set into its blade.
The spider scuttled out of sight, and silence returned. As Torrin eased himself out from behind the ore buckets, one of them shifted slightly, threatening to fall. He caught it. To his surprise it was made of stone, not metal, and was terribly heavy. Grunting, he eased it back into place. As he did, what felt like a lip of hardened slag on the edge of the bucket bent easily under his hand. Gold? He reached for a pick and tested its point on the slag. The metal scratched easily.
He was certain: it was gold.
Had the bucket been used to carry molten metal from the River of Gold? That would explain why it was made of stone. It would also explain why a guard bearing religious regalia was down there in the mine.
Perhaps the slaves would be worth talking to.
Torrin doubled back the way he’d come, praying the spider-mounted guard wasn’t doing the same thing. Fortunately, he reached the orc’s slave pen without incident. The orc stared hopefully at Torrin through the grate.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Torrin told him. “I’m going to set you free.”
The orc grinned.
“But not until you answer some questions,” Torrin continued. He showed the orc his mace. “Now back away from the grate. Go to the rear of your cave. Do exactly as I say, and I won’t use this.”
The orc gave Torrin a long, appraising look. Then he nodded and moved back, limping slightly. Still holding the mace, Torrin knocked the padlock open with his magical ring, opened the grate, and stepped inside. He replaced the padlock, adjusting it so that it appeared to be closed, and joined the orc. He held his weapon close to his chest to keep it hidden. With his clothing torn and filth-splattered, he’d pass for a fellow slave at a casual glance, should any guards come their way.
The orc stood, rubbing his manacled wrist. “What you want to know, human?” he asked.
“That gold you showed me,” Torrin said. “You picked it off one of those stone ore buckets, didn’t you?”
The orc’s eyes narrowed, and he darted a wary glance at the exit.
