Malediction (Scars of the Sundering Book 1) (24 page)

Kale rubbed
his arm. "What do our stripes have to do with anything?"

"Probably
nothing. Children of Destiny? Isn't that what all the old draks call you
stripeys?" Kali put her hand on Kale's shoulder. "It doesn't mean
anything, but there are a lot of draks who think it does. You can be an
inspiration to them."

Kale brushed
her hand off his shoulder and stepped back to stand next to his sister.
"We don't want to be an inspiration to anyone. Besides we don’t believe
all that talk about destiny. It’s all superstitions and nonsense."

"Tell
us what's going on, or we'll head right back upstairs." Delilah locked her
arm with Kale's.

"There's
a seedy underbelly to this city." Kali leaned against the wall. She picked
her teeth with one of her claws. "Do you know about the mines?"

Kale shared
a confused look with his sister. They both shook their heads.

"Deep
below, under the catacombs, there's quite a few mines. Of course, humans being
short sighted and impatient, they linked the entrances with the catacombs and
various other underground places. They own the mines."

"So?
What do they mine?" Kale wished she would get to the point. He wanted to
stare in her blue-flecked yellow eyes and hold her hands but had difficulty
reconciling his desire with his distrust of anyone who beat around the bush.

"Salt
mostly." She clenched her fists and leaned toward them. "It's not
what they mine. It's how they mine it. There's a thriving slave trade under
Almeria. I know it. The prince knows it. And too damn many humans know it and
don't do anything about it."

Delilah
tapped the butt of her staff against the ground. "I don't like slavers.
But what do we have to do with this? You don't have draks around town who can
help you?"

"Yeah."
Kale nodded at his sister. "That hat guy gave up this hat with only a word
from you. Don't tell me you don't have influence around here." He agreed
with his sister on the slaver issue, though. He didn't like it when even the
oroqs kept goblin slaves before they were driven out of Drak-Anor.

"Well,
sure, but"—Kali smiled a lopsided grin and stroked Kale's arm—"how
honest do you want me to be?"

Delilah
pulled Kale's arm away from Kali. "Completely. Or we don't budge."

Kali licked
her lips and regarded them for a moment and then nodded. "All right. Fine.
I consider you, both of you, more expendable than the draks I know around town.
You don't have any ties around here, so if something goes wrong and you get
captured or killed, it'll be easier for me to save my own skin. But I meant
what I said. I think you probably have skills and talents most of the draks
around here don't have. Am I wrong?"

Kale didn't
know what kind of skills or experiences draks in Almeria had, but he would bet
money none of them had fought dwarves or oroqs before, and he knew none of them
had ever charged into battle flying on the back of a dragon.

He looked
back at Kali. "No, you're not wrong about that."

"Okay,
so what's the plan? What are we doing? Freeing the slaves? Wiping out all the
slavers?" Delilah leaned on her staff and awaited Kali's response.

Kale knew
bringing his sister along was a good idea. He could count on her to do whatever
it took to accomplish their goal, even if she wasn’t completely sold on the
plan. He felt more confident in his own abilities knowing she was there, too.

"I
hadn't intended for us to free all the slaves right now. I've only just learned
the way into the mines through the catacombs and sewers." Kali stepped
forward, ducking under an arch-spanning spider web. "Think of this more as
a scouting mission."

* * *

The deeper
the three draks traveled into the catacombs, the staler and fouler the air
became. Mingled with the decades-old scent of decay, fresher odors seeped in
from the sewers. Scratching sounds and squeaks in the dark told Delilah they
were not alone, but Kali dismissed them as rats or possibly very large spiders.

I hope she's
right about that. I can handle those. If we're being stalked by ghouls, that's
another story.
Delilah kept her misgivings to herself and her eyes on Kale. Her
brother seemed enamored of this orange-scaled drak.
And maybe he should be.
None of the females back home seem to be interested in getting to know him.

Kali stopped
at a three-way intersection. She pointed down the left passageway. "If you
go that way, you'll end up near the city market. There's a loose grate that
leads into one of the water runoffs. If it's not full of water, you can follow
that all the way to the market. We're going this way." She pointed to the
right.

"Have
you ever been to the mines before?" Kale kept pace next to Kali. Delilah
followed them, her staff providing enough light for them to see several burial
niches ahead. Once, she thought she saw something move in the shadows, but when
they reached the spot, it turned out to be a rat's nest.

"No,
but I've heard stories. I haven't been arrested for anything bad enough to
warrant imprisonment in the mines yet. They'll also send you if you rack up
enough debts you can't pay. I've even heard they send soldiers out west, toward
the wastes, to kidnaps draks and dwarves when too many prisoners die."

It sounded
unbelievable to Delilah. "How do the people tolerate this? Don't they
care? Pancras said the princess was nicer than the prince. Doesn't she
care?"

Kali looked
back at Delilah. "I don't think the princess knows. She and the prince
have never gotten along. Her father sent her down here to marry Gavril as part
of some political deal. The people? As long as it's draks and not humans, the
ones who know or suspect just don't care. But the lords like to keep it a secret.
No one asks too many questions."

After what
seemed like hours to Delilah, they came to a bricked-up wall. A section of
bricks near the bottom were broken and pushed aside. Kali crouched down by the
hole. "This used to connect this part of the catacombs to the old iron
mine. It ran dry, so they bricked up the access. All the bodies in this area
are miners that died on the job. Hired dwarves, draks, humans, too. We can get
to the salt mine through here." She dropped onto her belly and wiggled
through the hole.

Kale
gestured at the hole. "You go first, Deli. We'll need your light in
there."

Delilah
dropped to the ground, pushed her staff through the hole, and then followed it.
Kali helped her to her feet, slapping her on the back as she stood. The tunnel
was only a few inches taller than the draks, and was a perfect semi-circle,
except for the floor. It was as if the tunnel was bored out of the earth by a
machine.

Kale was
next. As he crawled through the hole, his cloak snagged on a brick. He jerked
it free, but smacked his back against one of the bricks. Delilah heard him
whimper and he lay there a moment, unmoving.

"Kale?
Kale!"

He pushed
himself up and winced. "I'm okay. It's all right. Those lumps are
sensitive, you know?"

Kali's eyes
widened as she regarded the twins. She backed against the wall. "What
lumps? Do you have some sort of disease?"

"It's a
long story. Nothing contagious." Kale rotated his shoulders and twisted
his back. He sighed and shook his head.

Delilah brought
the top of her staff around and flipped Kale's cloak off his back. The lumps
split open and oozed a viscous, cloudy fluid. She noticed flaps of flesh
underneath the peeling skin.

"You've
busted them open, Kale. There's something inside."

"What?"
Kale craned his neck, whipping his head from side to side trying to see what
his sister saw.

"You
didn't tell me you were sick." Kali made a warding gesture and moved
further away from the twins.

"I'm
not. I went through a chaos rift before we went home and strange things have
been happening to me. That's all. Nothing for you to worry—ow!"

Kale yelped
when Delilah poked the flesh around the mound. More fluid oozed forth.

"No
wonder it hurts. Whatever is in there is crammed in. Give me one of your
daggers." Delilah wedged the butt of her staff in the bricks. She bent
Kale over and pulled him around so she could get a closer look.

"Stop,
Deli! I'm fine."

"Don't
be a baby, Kale. I've seen worse than this. We need to get this taken care of.
Kary, Kali… whatever your name is. Come over here and help me. Take his hand or
something. Keep him still." Delilah held out her hand. "Kale. Dagger.
Now."

She felt him
slap the hilt of one of his throwing daggers into her open palm. She wasn't
used to seeing open, gaping wounds on her brother, but she'd seen plenty of
draks run through by dwarves or oroqs. Dismemberment, evisceration, beheadings,
they were all worse than this. She probed the wound on Kale's back with the
dagger. The flesh flaps within strained against the rest of the skin and scales
surrounding them. She poked at one of the flaps with her claw.

"Hey!"

"Did
that hurt?"

"Not
really. It felt really weird. Did you stick your claw in my back?"

Kali gulped
and looked away. It appeared she was about to spew her last meal all over the
tunnel. Delilah chortled and with a flick of the dagger, slit the skin around
the flaps.

Kale
screamed. The flaps burst forth from the slit and unfolded, spreading into a
wet, leathery wing. Delilah's eyes widened in wonder, and she repeated the
motion on the other side of his back. Kale cried out a second time, and another
wing unfolded. Fully unfurled, they hung down past his buttocks and reached the
brim of his hat.

"How's
that?"

"What
is it?" Kale's voice quivered in pain. "What did you do?"

Kali looked
up and gasped. She dropped Kale's hand and fell to her knees. "Great
Rannos!"

"Kale,
this is amazing." Delilah released her brother. He straightened up and
looked over his shoulder.

Reaching
around his back, he felt the wings and then flapped them. Sticky ichor flew
off, like when a dog shakes after being in the river. Delilah covered her eyes
from the spray. "Are those wings?"

Delilah
nodded and laughed.

Kale craned his
neck to see the other side and flapped his wings again. "That is
fantastic!"

"Wait
until Pancras see this!"

"Terrakaptis
should see this!"

"Do you
think I can fly?"

"Can
you carry me when you fly?"

The draks
talked over each other in their excitement. "We have to try these
out!"

"Pacha’s
blue bollocks!" Kali shrieked. "Doesn't this strike either of you as
a little strange?" She crawled backward away from the twins until she was
trapped in a corner.

Kale
giggled. "I'm just happy it's not a worm or a boggin bursting out of my
back to eat me. This is great. I can breathe fire now, I have w—" He
gasped and covered his mouth with his hands. "I'm a dragon!"

"You
can breathe fire?" Kali worked her way up the wall until she was upright
again. Delilah noticed she held a wicked-looking curved knife in her hands.
"I thought you were just talking big when you said you burned a minotaur
to death."

Kale spun
around and inhaled. He pushed Delilah back and breathed. Flames shot down the
tunnel, burning away cobwebs. Delilah put her arm across Kali and held her
back. She looked at the orange drak, then down at her dagger, and shook her
head.

"Okay,
Kale. That's enough. It's getting hot and hard to breathe." Delilah coughed
and blinked her eyes, working to flow tears to wash away the irritation caused
by the smoke.

Kale turned
around again and faced the two females. His grin split his head in two.
"Well? What are we waiting for? Let's get going!"

* * *

Kale felt
great, better than before they went to Ironkrag to help the dwarves with their
ghoul problem. His back stung a bit where Delilah cut him, but the ache he had
been living with was gone. He arranged his cloak to hang down his back between
his wings. Extended, he could scrape the sides of the tunnel with them. He
couldn't wait to go outside and find out if he was able to fly.

He couldn't
help but have a little spring in his step as he continued on, although Kali was
not as eager to walk alongside him.
Oh well, she'll come around. I hope.
He glanced over his shoulder at the two females. Delilah looked ahead, watching
for oncoming threats. Kali kept glancing behind, eyes darting to and fro, like
a frightened animal seeking an escape.

Kale tried
to put her at ease by smiling every time their eyes met, but it only seemed to
agitate her further. As the tunnel sloped downward and ended in a sheer drop,
he put aside the thoughts of putting her at ease.

Delilah
kicked a rock over the edge. It clattered against the bottom after what seemed
to be a short fall. "If we hang-drop, I think we'll be all right. I don't
know how easy it will be to climb back up, though."