"I do not think it was his heart," said Gunderal. "Wizards would not have much use for that." She brushed an errant curl back behind her ear, tilting her head to one side in puzzlement. "There's something else here. Some runes below the bones, like the ones back in the mosaic. See that one"-she tapped the symbol with one shell pink nail-"is almost the same as the one written near the big jewel carried by that wizard toppling towers in the picture."
Distracted by a clattering sound, Ivy whipped around to see Kid poking through another pile of bones. She snapped an order at him. "Get away from that!"
Kid just gave her one of his pointed smiles and said, "No magic here, my dear. No spells. Just dead, cold dead, in their little pots and niches." He trotted back to where they stood. He leaned very close to the wall to study the peculiar runes pointed out by Gunderal. "Beautiful Gunderal is right. These are the same as the ones written in the mosaic. Jewels-these marks may mean jewels. And there are footprints below the niche that are the five that we tracked before. Looking for something, but finding nothing, I think." Something about the lone pile of bones discovered by the sisters intrigued him. Kid stuck his long, black-nailed fingers into the pile of bones before them, shifting the skull out of his way as he felt around the niche.
"I swear if you stir up another pathetic skeleton to attack us, I'm leaving you behind," exclaimed Ivy.
"Do skeletons attack him often?" asked Sanval, remembering the lurching collection of bones in the hall of ash.
"With depressing regularity," Ivy replied. "Skeletons, animated corpses, crawling hands of the undead. There's something about him. Like honey to bears. Get away from those bones! We don't have time, and there is nothing there for you to steal!" Ivy suddenly could not bear to see the lonely mercenary disturbed again. Eventually, everyone should be allowed some peace and rest. She reached out and smacked Kid not too gently across his bottom.
"I go, I go," bleated Kid in mock terror, skipping out of her reach. "See how swift I run. Can you catch me, my dears?"
Rounding a corner at a quick trot, Kid almost smashed his nose on the stone wall that blocked the tunnel ahead. Ivy swore. They had reached a dead end.
"Just need to find the handle," said Mumchance, running his hands over the smooth marble wall. "It must open. They did not walk through solid stone."
Gunderal nodded and passed her hands over the wall as well, making ladylike sniffs, as she tried to divine what type of lock might hold the door closed.
"So who do you think is down here?" Sanval asked Ivy as the pair in front of them tried to open the secret door.
"Treasure hunters, most likely, and not from Procampur's side of the wall," Ivy admitted with as much candor as she could spare. She was not going to mention her worries about possible stray troops from Fottergrim's horde. That would be enough to send Sanval dashing off in the darkness to save the day and probably get himself killed. "You have camels but no bugbears among your mercenaries. It could be deserters, which would be an encouraging sign, but you would think that they would be carrying more gear with them."
"Why are deserters a good sign?"
"Now you want to chat? When we are in a hole in the ground with no clear way out?"
"Do you have something else to do? Just now?" And the man even made his comments sound reasonable, much to Ivy's disgust.
Mumchance muttered something about missing his good pick and gestured Zuzzara to come forward. He took her shovel and tried to wedge the blade under the secret door. Ivy and Sanval moved farther back down the tunnel to give them room to work.
"Why are deserters a good sign?" When Sanval wanted to talk, he evidently wanted to talk.
"Because you don't desert if you think you're going to win. You leave when the food starts running low, or the water runs out, or the guy in charge turns out to be a raving lunatic with delusions of immortality and world conquest. Which happens far more frequently than you would think sensible. Look at Fottergrim."
"World conquest?"
"Well, no, not since the Black Horde was destroyed. But why be such an idiot orc and seize a city? Especially such a city with such a history of bad luck. No one has ever managed to hold onto Tsurlagol. Wandering here and there in the hills, he could survive. Raid a town for a day, carry away the chickens and children, that I can understand." Sanval gave her one of those straight down the nose looks that were a specialty of his. "Not approve, mind you, but understand."
"About the chickens?" His tone was exceptionally dry.
"And the children. An orc has to eat, and he has to have somebody to wash out his laundry. A moving horde like Fottergrim's needs slaves to do all the tasks that fighters think are so far beneath them."
"Laundry."
"Cooking, digging latrines, washing socks. Even if you only change your socks once a year, it is nice to have a clean, dry pair."
"So why not take a city and enslave its citizens?"
"Because it is too big. Somebody is sure to object, like Procampur, and knock the walls down and take it back. It is strange. Fottergrim has been unusually clever for an orc these past ten years. It is almost as if someone talked him into taking the city. Or he was seized by divine madness. And I will bet you my nonexistent lunch and unlikely dinner, he is up on the walls right now, regretting that he ever invaded Tsurlagol."
"So you think we can win the siege," persisted Sanval.
"Certainly hope so," replied Ivy, trying for a nonchalant tone to impress him. "Because we don't get paid unless Procampur wins. So I would like to bring a wall down before I leave for better places. And nothing is getting done by standing here!"
The last was pitched much louder and Mumchance responded with, "We're trying, Ivy." The dwarf dropped to his hands and knees, sniffing along the floor like a hunting hound, obviously trying to scent some stray draft blowing under the door that might reveal an opening. Wiggles ran around him, occasionally giving the dwarf's red nose a big lick. "Get away, sweetheart," muttered Mumchance at the dog. "Let me do my work."
"Perhaps Enguerrand can succeed without your help," suggested Sanval. He probably meant his words as a kindness, but that statement pricked Ivy's pride.
"Give me pike dwarfs and gnome archers, and I can topple any cavalry charge," said Ivy. "And Fottergrim has much more than that."
"Pikes and arrows would not work against such trained cavalry as Enguerrand leads," stated Sanval with calm conviction.
"Does. Did. That's how I met Mumchance," said Ivy.
Sanval cocked an eyebrow.
"In the mud, pinned under a horse, having been on the wrong end of the charge," explained Ivy. "Terrible day, rain pouring down, fresh plowed field all gone to muck. But there were these dwarves and gnomes. Just standing there. Waiting for us. They looked so very short from where we were sitting on top of our great big chargers. So the trumpets sound, the drums beat, and we go racing up hill in full armor in the stupidest charge in the history of horse-mounted warfare. I was one of the lucky ones. The arrows got my horse, and it rolled over on me. That horse's death saved me from being spit on the pikes. Also I fell face up, rather than face down, so I didn't drown in the mud."
"How old were you?" said Sanval.
"Fifteen and foolish at that age, like all young humans," said Mumchance standing up and brushing off his knees. He hooked his little hammer out of his belt and began tapping on the door, pressing one ear against the stone to listen for echoes. With a roll of his good eye toward Ivy, he added, "But she was politer than most."
"Keep working," said Ivy. "You don't have time to gossip." To Sanval, she said, "My mother taught me court courtesy."
"Really?" said Sanval, clearly remembering the song about the red-roof girls and a few other comments.
"Oh, I can speak like a lady when I need to," said Ivy with a blush. She remembered the song too. It lacked elegance. Any Procampur court lady would swoon at the first verse alone, and it was probably just as well that she'd stopped before she'd gotten to the last lyric, because that might have caused a few of the more squeamish Procampur gentlemen to faint too. That boy in the Forty had been extremely pink in the face when she had passed him in front of the Thultyrl's tent. "And my father was a druid who taught me how to keep my mouth shut. The elves used to call him the Silent Walker. For example, he would never interrupt a good story halfway through. It was one of the things my mother liked best about him whenever his silence wasn't driving her crazy."