Fikumin

But for Luthos' wicked will...

(Aftermath II)

Ah. There it is, Fikumin thought, small feet moving fast, boots tapping the rocky terrain lightly, the sound taken by the echo of the cave and multiplying, as if an army of the Folk were marching, deep in the bowels of Northwall Heights. Solid rock over his head, thick quartz veins embellishing the walls on his right shoulder, the dark underground river flowing on his left. The light of his torch shined on the embedded crystals, bouncing off and making the shadows move, as if they were alive.

Stiles jumped up, when he heard him approach and looked on nervously at the bobbing light nearing them, Glen’s sword in hand.

“Is that ye dwarf?” The former pirate asked, squinting his eyes to cut through the darkness.

“You know of another?” Fikumin retorted, reaching them.

Marcus guffawed at that. The hale ex-legion sergeant was still carrying Glen on his back, the young lord unconscious, but looking better than he did, when Fikumin had left them to search ahead earlier. Looking better didn’t say much, as he hadn’t yet escaped the danger.

“Never thought, I’ll meet one in the first fuckin’ place,” Stiles griped, with a grimace.

“I’ve found a way, but you need to watch yer step,” Fikumin said, wanting to get them moving.

“How deep is the river?” Marcus asked him later, well into their long journey through the cave.

“It’s what is in it that worries me,” He replied, pausing to examine an interesting rock, before hurrying behind him.

“Fuck does that mean?” Stiles asked, his tone alarmed.

“How should I know?” Fikumin retorted.

“Yer a bloody expert?”

“Not of these caves, I’m not.”

“Fuck are we followin’ ye then?”

Fikumin stared his way, thick brows meeting on his forehead.

“You didn’t want to stay at the Fort.”

“Damn right I didn’t,” Stiles admitted. “I ain’t no fool.”

“They might get a deal done,” Marcus said. He’d fallen behind again, as he carried the biggest load. “The Cofols might let them go.”

“Hah, why would they do that?” Stiles queried.

“They wouldn’t,” Fikumin commented. They’d reached a turn, the cave splitting into two large tunnels. One following the river acting as its banks, hopefully leading to an exit at its source and the other heading another direction. He made a gesture for them to stop.

“Rest up a bit here.”

Stiles stared around them, found nothing he could sit on and collapsed on his arse, setting the burlap sack he was carrying next to him. Marcus followed him soon after, but he took the time to lay Glen down carefully, before sitting down himself.

“How’s he?” Stiles asked, mildly concerned.

“Still breathing,” Marcus replied, checking up on Glen’s injury. “It takes some effort though.”

“The potion he ingested works slowly,” Fikumin explained, getting ready to prepare some more. “But I might up the dose.”

“What’s wit his hand?” Stiles probed, eyeing him as he started lightly mixing up in the mortar using the pestle.

Glen’s left hand had turned a sickly dark-grey color. It looked like dead flesh and while it gradually seemed to recover as well, it was very slow.

“He casted a spell,” Fikumin said. “Despite being warned not to.”

“Are ye jesting, dwarf?” Marcus snapped angry.

“Glen is a bloody wizard?” That was Stiles, himself way more open-minded.

Fikumin stared them both down, all serious. “Do you know what caused this then?”

They didn’t.

The dwarf smacked his lips and nodded. “That’s it then for me,” and seeing Stiles opening his mouth to ask again, he added. “And no, Glen isn’t a wizard.”

Which makes him using spells, all the more strange.

Stiles was slowly chewing on a piece of salted pork and part of a biscuit, after soaking them both with water from his flask. He paused seeing Marcus, sitting cross-legged next to him, drinking from a leather flask similar to his own and narrowed his eyes, oozing suspicion.

“Is that wine?” The former pirate asked.

Marcus raised a brow, mid-swallowing.

“Why ye ask?”

“Can I have some?” Stiles insisted.

“I didn’t say it was,” Marcus countered, not convincingly.

“Ye didn’t say it wasn’t.”

Marcus sighed and seeing no way out of this, he offered him the flask. Fikumin watched him drink for a while, or more accurately, until a frustrated Marcus smacked his thigh hard and forced him to stop.

“Abrakas tits!” Stiles protested and Marcus frowned, still in the process of prying the flask out of his hands.

“Abrakas had no tits, ye fool.”

“How would ye know?”

“Ye hear things, in the Legion,” Marcus replied taking his flask. He shook it a couple of times and grimaced seeing there wasn’t much left. “I had this saved for the road,” He griped.

“Where do ye think, we are?” Stiles retorted, reinforcing it with a shrug of the shoulders. He reached inside a pocket next, found another piece of meat and put it in his mouth, careful to find his best teeth at the back end of it. Fikumin’s stomach growled seeing him and got up from the still unconscious Glen’s side, to find something for himself in their dwindling food supplies. He was reaching for the lit torch when Stiles, his mouth full of food, was heard again.

“Damn that was some pretty strong wine,” The former pirate said.

“Bah, I’ve had stronger stuff,” Marcus commented dismissively, but an awed Stiles was looking beyond the light of their torches, secured with flat rocks on the ground, where the cave forked and the mouth of the new tunnel was now lit up as well. Fikumin got up slowly, narrowing his eyes, torch in hand.

“Well, if it ain’t yer wine,” Stiles droned, a weird expression on his face. “Then that’s two bloody dwarves standing there, looking pissed as all hells,” He pointed a dirty finger, where Fikumin was looking. “And one of ‘em has tits.”

The red bearded dwarf, rich facial hairs split in the middle right below his chin, creating two elaborately braided tails that reached his knees, cast a side glance to his partner, the blond-haired dwarf with the tits and without a beard and she responded with an angry snort.

As fine a wench this was as Fikumin had seen, in a god darn while.

“We seek passage,” He started in the old tongue and stepped forward to approach them. “Through your mountain.”

The male dwarf frowned.

“How did you get in?” He queried, strong baritone voice belonging to a man five times his size at least.

“We came through the split in the earth, caused by the earthquake,” Fikumin replied.

“The human mines.”

“Aye, that’s correct. I’m Fikumin Flintfoot.”

“Hmm. Name’s Norec Trollfall,” Norec said, examining him closely, much as Fikumin did in turn. He wore chainmail over his tunic and had a war hammer strapped on his back, as big as him. “This is Lorfouna Koboldtoe.”

Fikumin offered her a toothy grin, but her frozen stare put a stop to that. He cleared his throat awkwardly and looked back where Stiles and Marcus where waiting, bewilderment on their faces.

“I’ll appreciate, if you allow me and my friends to use your tunnels,” He finally said to the two members of the Folk.

“You’re from the North,” Norec noted.

“Was born beyond the Nor Maze Heights on Jelin.”

“That’s a long way for a dwarf to travel,” Lorfouna pointed and she’d a huskiness in her voice that set his blood on fire. Fikumin blushed and shrugged his shoulders to hide it.

“I’m an adventurer,” He looked into her grey-blue eyes proudly. “The fastest of the Folk,” Lorfouna raised a mocking brow at that.

“And a Priest of Luthos,” Norec added, ending their little moment. Fikumin turned his way, a little surprised.

“What gave me away?” He asked.

Norec pointed where they’d come from, almost a day back now, if he kept the time right.

“Mines are sealed. Humans collapsed the entrance yesterday. We went there to investigate,” Norec said, with a smirk. “Only chance for you to get out, was to find us in our return trip,” He eyed him knowingly. “Before you starved to death.”

“I found the tunnel,” Fikumin insisted.

“Which road would you have taken?” Lorfouna asked, hint of a smile on her pretty face.

“Reckoned I’d follow the river,” Fikumin replied readily and Norec scoffed at that.

“And you would’ve all been dead,” He added matter-of-factly.

But for Luthos wicked will, was his meaning.

Stiles scrunched his jaw this way and that, a few white hairs laced in his short black beard standing out, appearing fully agitated, when he returned to them.

“Hells were ye sayin’ back there?” He queried, unable to keep it in.

“They know the way out of the caves,” Fikumin informed them, disregarding his question.

“Sounded like gibberish to me!” Stiles insisted fully worked up.

“We were talking in Imperial.”

“The fuck is that?”

“It’s an older language,” Fikumin explained patiently.

“What do they want in return?” Marcus asked, focusing on the important stuff.

Fikumin sighed, glancing at the couple waiting for them to get ready.

“We’ll found out soon, I suppose.” He said and then helped Marcus put Glen on his back again. At least the young man had more color on his cheeks, Fikumin thought, throwing the burlap sack over his own shoulder.

But Glen needed to come round from his slumber sooner rather than later. The fact he hadn’t yet, was cause for grave concern. Each passing day lowering the chance, he’d ever wake up at all.