The Dungeoneers Read online

  “Rare or unique?”

  Finn shushed him. “Subcorollary to corollary one. Honest, by definition, includes bartering, persuading, sweet-talking, swindling, and winning through games of chance or feats of strength and skill.”

  “Wait, how is swindling . . .”

  “Ah ah ah! Rule number two. Never . . . ever . . . steal from your fellow adventurer. There is nothing worse than pilfering from a comrade or cheating him out of his fair share. Such an offense is tantamount to treason and punishable by death.”

  “Did you say death?”

  “Unless, of course, your fellow adventurer is a jerk, at which point you can ignore rule number two . . . and rule number one, for that matter, and go straight to rule number three. If you are going to steal, steal from people who deserve it or who won’t notice. Preferably both.”

  Colm shook his head, already lost. He wondered how long it had taken the townspeople he had pickpocketed to notice their purses were gone. He didn’t think they deserved it, but he didn’t think they’d be too put out, either. Did that mean it was all right to do what he had done, at least according to this man?

  “Rule number four,” Finn continued. “Always check for traps. Naturally, this requires some extensive training, but it usually falls to our profession to do the disarming. And believe me, you do not want to get an earful from a barbarian who’s just had his face scorched by a fireball that he triggered because you weren’t paying attention.”

  “Our profession . . .”

  “Rule number five. Stay behind the big fellow. Of course, all parties are different, but indubitably there will be a shield of some sort, someone to soak up the brunt of the damage. Maybe it’s a knight or a paladin or just some hulking mass of muscle with a peanut for a brain but a club the size of an oak tree—doesn’t matter. Just stay behind him. Let him do most of the work. Help out where you can, but be stealthy. Dart in. Dart out. Stay in the shadows.”

  “What kind of work are you talking about?”

  “Corollary to rule number five. If the situation calls for sneaking, skulking, or general skullduggery, never ever let the big guy do it. Most of them are dolts who think with their sticks, and if they aren’t dolts, then they are self-righteous, chivalrous windbags who think they can solve all the world’s problems with a lengthy speech and a sharp piece of metal. They simply aren’t made for stealth.”

  “Skull digging what now?” Colm was feeling light-headed. He wanted his apple back. And his coin.

  “Rule number six—and this is more of my own personal rule. Give the mages some space. They are unpredictable at best, and a downright liability at worst. Sure, at a certain proficiency they can be quite powerful, but more often than not, you’re going to find yourself caught in a stinking cloud of miasmatic fog that your own companion created, barely able to breathe.”

  “So asthmatic fog is bad . . .”

  “Miasmatic. Please try to keep up. Rule number seven. Learn to share, even if you don’t like it. Just because you’re the one who disarmed the trap and sneaked past the guards, silenced the alarm, put the dragon to sleep with a draft, and broke through the locks on the chest, that does not give you the right to just take everything inside. You work as a team. And if you don’t spread the loot, there will be consequences.”

  “Consequences?”

  In answer Finn just held up his hands, spreading the fingers he had left. It looked like he was trying to wiggle the stubs. He smiled graciously.

  “But how are you working as a team if you are just sneaking around doing your own thing all the time?”

  Finn rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We each have our part to play, Colm. We all bring something to the party. Like fingers,” he said, splaying his own again. “You can hold a sword between thumb and fore, but you’ll drop it with the first swing. It takes all five to clutch it tightly—or in your and my case, maybe just four.”

  Colm shook his head. This man, this rogue, seemed to talk around things more than about them, answering in riddles and leaving Colm more lost at the end than at the beginning. Colm stopped in the road and dug his fists into his hips. He wasn’t going to take another step until he had some real answers.

  “What are you even talking about?” he shouted. “Who even came up with these rules? And . . . what are you talking about?”

  Finn looked taken aback. “I’m talking about your future, Mr. Candorly. I’m talking about becoming a dungeoneer.”

  Dungeoneer. Colm let the word sit on his tongue for a moment. He had never heard that particular name before, but he could guess at its meaning. What Finn called dungeoneers Colm had always called adventurers and his father had always called fools. He had never met anyone who actually did that sort of thing, only heard about them, read about them, fantasized about them. He didn’t know they had a name. “You mean you . . .”

  “Me.” Finn smiled proudly. “And you too, provided you’re interested.” The rogue patted his side. “And you pass your test.”

  Colm’s eyes went instinctively to the pockets on Finn’s breeches.

  “Still plenty of time to get that silver back, Colm Candorly. We aren’t even out of Felhaven yet.” He started down the road again, and Colm ran to catch up.

  “I still don’t understand,” Colm said.

  “Of course not. You’ve spent your entire life under a shoe cobbler’s roof in a backwater village. You’ve only heard of people like me through tavern tales and candlelit ghost stories. You’ve probably never even seen a troll in your life.”

  Colm shook his head.

  “Count your blessings—the pinnacle of ugliness, trolls. But you aren’t the only one. We all had to start our education somewhere. Ever heard of Tye Thwodin?”

  “Maybe,” Colm said, though in truth he had never heard that name in his life. He just didn’t want Finn calling him backwater again.

  “Absolutely must work on the lying,” Finn remarked. “Well, then, I suppose I should start at the beginning.” Finn slowed his pace a step. Colm slowed to stay a step behind him. “The first thing to know about Tye Thwodin,” Finn said, “is that he wasn’t always rich. He started as a blacksmith’s apprentice, soot faced and thickheaded. When he wasn’t bent over the anvil, he spent his hours wandering the woods outside his village of Stonewood, bordering on the Stormforge peaks.”

  Those, at least, Colm had heard of. His father had shown him a map once that stretched far beyond Felhaven and its neighboring villages, and Colm had traced the ragged path of the mountains and their inked-in caps. They seemed so much closer on the parchment, but Rove Candorly said he’d gone his whole life without ever once seeing them, and had no regrets.

  “Those mountains are dangerous,” Colm said, remembering something else he’d heard. Another story. Probably like the one Finn was just starting to tell.

  “To be sure,” Finn said. “There are tunnels coursing through their bellies, tunnels filled with all manner of things unseen by most of us. And unseen by young Tye Thwodin too, until he fell into a sinkhole and found himself surrounded by darkness, all alone.

  “Armed only with his blacksmith’s hammer, he groped his way along the passage until he came to a large, torchlit chamber littered with rotting wooden chests, each of them packed with precious, glittery gems. Being a poor blacksmith’s apprentice, Tye followed his instincts, stuffing his pants as full as he could. He tucked jewels into his boots and hid them in his cheeks and under his tongue, wherever he could find a place to stash them.

  “Then he grabbed a torch and turned back to the tunnel—to find his way blocked by an ogre. Full grown, ten feet tall, nothing but a giant stone in its hand, but more than enough to crack Tye’s egg-shaped head. The ogre came for him, growling and swinging, and Tye did his best to ward him off, the torch in one hand and his hammer in the other, smashing the creature one solid blow across its boil-crusted jaw.” Finn took a swing with his dagger in imitation, and Colm put another foot of space between the two of them. “But it wasn’t enough.
The ogre was too strong, and Tye was weighed down with all the loot he had taken. He tripped and fell and was just about to have his brains made into pudding when an arrow buried itself in the ogre’s back.

  “In the torchlight, young Tye could make out four figures, each of them armed, wearing everything from rune-etched robes to full plates of armor. And at the front of the pack stood a man in a sweeping black cloak holding a bow, a second arrow already nocked. The stranger asked for Tye’s name and how he had happened upon this place. And if he was alone. Tye said yes, and all four of them laughed.

  “‘Then you are more thickskulled than that ogre,’ the man with the bow said. ‘Even a fool knows better than to venture beneath these mountains alone.’ Then he asked if Tye had taken anything from the chests. The blacksmith’s apprentice found it difficult to speak with all the emeralds in his mouth, which caused the stranger to laugh. He demanded that Tye empty his pockets, and his boots, and his cheeks. Then he gave over one spit-covered ruby, folding it into Tye’s palm, saying that it was his first taste and that he’d never be rid of it. That it was in his blood now, and he would be haunted by the desire to descend for the rest of his life. Then the stranger with the bow pointed back down the tunnel, explaining which way to get to the surface, and warning Tye not to try and follow them.

  “Tye learned two important lessons that day. One, there was more wealth to be had in a year of dungeoneering than a lifetime of smithing. And two, four blades were better than one. From that moment on,” Finn said, “Tye Thwodin gave up being a blacksmith’s apprentice and studied the art of dungeon delving, traveling the lands in search of treasure and of companions to aid him in his adventures. Eventually he took all the knowledge he acquired—and a good bit of the gold—and formed his own guild. The first of its kind. A place where those of a certain disposition could go to study, to learn the tricks of the trade. To become dungeoneers themselves.”

  “So let me get this straight, this school of yours—”

  “It’s not a school,” Finn corrected.

  “Fine, then. This guild. Whatever.”

  “And it’s not mine,” Finn interrupted.

  “All right. This guild that you work for. They train people like me to venture into deep, dank, monster-infested dungeons—”

  “And booby-trapped. Don’t forget booby-trapped.”

  “Monster- and trap-infested dungeons in the hopes of stealing—”

  “Retrieving,” Finn amended.

  “Retrieving buried treasure?”

  Finn shook his head. “How many times must I tell you? Not buried. Locked away in vaults and guarded by huge, hulking, brutish, snot-covered creatures with necklaces of human bones and a stench that you can taste, wielding giant clubs studded with hollow iron spikes to let the blood flow easier. Or some such.”

  Colm pursed his lips. “Right. And these dungeoneers . . . there are a lot of them? People like me?”

  “Like you. Not like you. But most of the dungeoneers we train are young. Master Thwodin likes to get ’em started early.”

  “And you’ve actually been to one of these dungeons yourself?” Colm prodded.

  Finn held up all the fingers on one hand, seemed to remember that it wasn’t enough, then put up a finger on the other. “Five so far. But I’ve only officially been in the business for a short time. There are some at the guild who have explored ten times that many or more. Master Thwodin, of course . . . and some others. But it only takes one.” The rogue licked his lips. “One moment when the door swings open and you bury your fingers in all that precious, gleaming good stuff, and just feel the weight of it, the cool electric tingle, the showering waterfall clink of it pouring down . . .” Finn’s eyes seemed to glaze over.

  Colm tried to picture it. All that gold. Enough so that his family would never have to worry about buying sugar again. Enough that they could build a bigger house. Enough that his father could quit his work as a cobbler, though Colm was sure he never would. It was in his blood, the same way that dungeoneering had somehow gotten into this Tye Thwodin’s.

  “There’s plenty to be had, if you know where to look,” Finn continued. “Though by the time Tye takes his share and you distribute the rest among your fellow adventurers, it never seems to last as long as you think it will.”

  Colm was about to ask another question when Finn’s hand latched onto his arm. The rogue hissed for silence and cocked his head. Colm could hear it too.

  Hoofbeats.

  It was only a moment before the horses producing them appeared from around a bend of trees. Three men approaching. Colm didn’t think much of it. There was only the one main road through Felhaven—not that there was much cause to go through Felhaven, but people sometimes did.

  Finn had a different reaction. The man’s face went white, and he quickly pulled up the hood of his cloak. “Don’t say a word,” he commanded.

  “What?” Colm asked.

  “Not even that one,” Finn barked, then put a hand on Colm’s elbow as they started walking slowly forward, staying to the side of the road, Finn ordering Colm to stare at his feet. Before looking down, Colm noticed that each of the approaching men wore bits and pieces of chain mail and leather—not quite armor, but enough to suggest that they had seen the business end of a blade before. Each rode with a sword on his hip as well. Colm wasn’t sure what was happening, but he could tell by the grip Finn had on his elbow that it would be best if these three men passed without a word.

  And for a moment, it looked like it might happen. Then the lead rider, a man with little hair save for a pointed flame-colored beard like a spearhead, pulled his gray stallion around.

  “Trendle Treeband?” he asked, pointing a finger at Finn. “Is that you?”

  Finn made as if he were going to keep walking, even hurried his step. Colm hurried alongside him. The man on the gray horse drew his sword.

  “You there,” he ordered. “A word.”

  Finn stopped, kept his hand around Colm’s arm. “Let me do the talking,” he whispered. Colm nodded eagerly as the horseman and his two fellow riders circled back around, all three facing Finn now, Colm standing behind him. The one in front rubbed his bald head with one gauntleted hand but kept the sword pointed at Finn.

  “I’m afraid you have the wrong man,” Finn said from beneath his cloak, his head hung low enough that the hood covered his face. It didn’t stay there long, however, as the tip of the man’s sword caught the front of the hood and peeled it back, revealing Finn’s black coils and azure eyes. The eyes, Colm guessed, were a dead giveaway. Though giving away what, he wasn’t sure.

  “I knew it was you,” the man with the orange beard said. “I saw that curly mop of hair and that little prancing step of yours from down the road, and I said to myself, ‘Well, look what we have here. It’s our old friend the tale teller.’ How long has it been, Trendle? Three years?”

  Colm stepped forward. He knew what Finn had said, but obviously there had been some mistake here. “Excuse me, sir. But you have the wrong man. This is F—frwmrm fwmmwm.” Finn’s hand clamped down tight over Colm’s mouth. It tasted like salt and stolen apple.

  “Trust me, boy.” The bearded stranger laughed. “I wouldn’t forget the face of the man who cheated me out of two hundred silver pieces.”

  “Technically, I didn’t cheat you. You lost,” Finn said.

  “At a rigged game.”

  “There was still some small chance of you winning.” Finn pinched two fingers together to indicate how small.

  The man laughed. Finn did not. Colm saw the rogue’s other hand inch a little closer to the ivory handle of his sword. Colm’s stomach suddenly filled with worms.

  “You know, they made up a song about you back in Storm-geld,” the man with the sharp beard said. “‘Be wary of Trendle Treeband. Only four fingers, but the quickest hands. He’ll promise you silver and gold by the sack, then strip the shirt right off your back.’”

  “That’s not bad,” Finn said, but found his words
cut short by the edge of a sword balanced precariously on the tip of his nose. The other two horsemen drew their swords as well. Colm took another step back, then looked down the road, remembering what his father had said to do at the first sign of danger. This was definitely a sign, but there was no way he could outrun three men on horseback.

  “I’d ask if you have the money you owe me, but I’m sure you’ve already spent it on wine or worse. Besides, at this point, I’d much rather have your head,” Orange Beard said. He didn’t appear to be joking.

  “The money would do you more good,” Finn protested. “Severed heads have such limited utility, and a surprisingly short shelf life. Really, they are only good as conversation pieces for a day or two before the rot sets in—”

  The sword pressed in tighter, shutting Finn up.

  “You always were a talker, Trendle. Thankfully for you, I’m not a murderer, or a bloody thief like you. So I think instead I’ll just tie some rope around those skinny wrists of yours and drag you to the magistrate at Felhaven and turn you in. Maybe there’s a reward for you out there somewhere. You and your . . .” He looked at Colm and spit. “Accomplice.”

  Finn leaned back and shook his head, the man’s sword still less than a finger from his face. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” he said. “You see, I promised this boy’s sister that I would take care of him. If anything should happen to him, she will hunt me down and strangle me with her bare hands, along with her sixteen other sisters.” Colm flashed him a look, but Finn ignored it. “So instead I’m going to have to ask you to let bygones be bygones and allow this boy and me to pass.”

  Colm stared, slack-jawed, at his companion—with a sword at his throat, held by a very angry man with two more armed men behind him. The rogue didn’t seem to be in any real position to make requests. And yet there he stood, polite but defiant.

  “How about this?” the bearded man said. “How about I let the boy go. We skip the trip to the magistrate. And you draw that pretty little sticker you have there, and we find out if it’s half as sharp as your tongue?”