Tangled Threads Publishing

Tag: treasure room

  • 3.12 – Vanishing

    3.12 – Vanishing

    The first thing that caught Einarr’s attention about the cave was the scattering of skulls not five paces in. Someone had thought to take shelter here, long ago, and been eaten by kalalintu. At least, he assumed as much: it was possible they had died of starvation before the kalalintu nested above, but the other possibility seemed the more likely.

    The walls were solid stone as far as he could see, although the torchlight fell short of the back. His light held aloft like a brand, his other hand rested on Sinmora’s hilt for reassurance.

    Slowly he walked deeper into the cave. Nothing. No cracks in the walls where they might have pressed forward, no gaping pits in the floor they might have fallen through, no tracks, no new blazes. Einarr spun on his heel as his mind raced, searching for anything he might have missed.

    He glanced down at Jorir as his eyes roved about the room, but the dwarf’s brows were furrowed in consternation.

    From nearer the entrance, Tyr cursed to the sound of rolling stones. Einarr shouldered his way back, swallowing hard to ignore the pounding of his pulse.

    “What happened?” Tyr stood bent over, his leg held out at an odd angle with his boot under a lip of rock virtually indistinguishable from the floor.

    “Went to take a look at a weird shadow and a rock turned under my foot. Give me a hand, will you? I think I’m stuck.”

    Einarr and Jorir nodded as Jorir took hold of the man’s foot while Einarr bent to try and turn the rock trapping him to open the gap a little. After much careful prying and pressing, he gave a shove. The rock shifted.

    Tyr, braced to pull himself out of the gap as soon as the pressure lifted, staggered back a step or two. Einarr, from his position near the ground, stared into the hole he had made.

    “…I think I might know what happened to our two missing scouts.”

    ***

    The slab of stone seemed as though it must have been deliberately placed, although Einarr could not have guessed how or by whom. It was almost as though it hung on a hinge. On the other side, the rock sloped steeply downward, curving towards the center of the plateau.

    Einarr had straightened quickly after the passage was revealed to him. Probably the passage would submerge not long after it rounded the corner, at which point his men were probably dead… but he had to check.

    “Charcoal. Does anyone have a stick of charcoal or some chalk?”

    Odvir brandished a sharp triangle of shale. “Where are we going?”

    “Through there.” Einarr pointed at the passage he’d just seen and Odvir nodded. Moments later a sign was scratched on the stone of the wall and they were through, clambering carefully down the incline.

    Einarr shivered as they rounded the corner of the passage. No sign of water, yet, but the temperature was falling with every step they took. It would be hard to forgive himself if he killed two men in such a stupid way.

    Jorir grumbled about the pace Einarr set, but it sounded half-hearted to his ear.

    About fifty feet further on the passage opened out into a broad cavern – far broader than Einarr would have expected the tiny island could have supported. Torchlight glinted off the water forming much of the cavern floor.

    Einarr jumped as a voice echoed through the room. He called out. “Hello?”

    “Boti! Wake up, man, they found us.” Einarr still couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, but the excitement it carried was palpable.

    “Troa?”

    “We’re over here. Follow the wall to your right – and watch your step. There’s more than just wet rock down here.”

    Einarr clambered over the rocks, the rest of the team hot on his heels. “We’re coming. Can you move?”

    “I’m fine. Boti got a nasty knockabout finding this place… and, well, there’s something you need to see.”

    Einarr nearly tripped picking up his pace to get to where they were. When he looked down to see what it was, dread sank in his stomach.

    The torch in his hand illuminated the still-clothed skeletal remains of a chief or a captain. The skeleton’s fingers clutched at its throat. He stopped, furrowing his brow, and bent closer. The captain’s sword still hung from his bones, and the hilt showed no sign of rust.

    Einarr shook his head and continued on. Tempting as it was to look and see, to rob a captain of his sword – even in death – seemed wrong. And that was before taking into account the spirits haunting this place.

    He could see Troa’s shock of straw-colored hair in the flickering light now. Einarr stepped over the remains of the strangled Captain and hurried the last several paces past tide pools and jagged rocks to where the other man was rousting Boti back to consciousness. The man had the beginnings of a bruise covering the side of his face, and if he’d passed out down here that was hardly the end of it. Fortunately, he did seem to be blinking back to consciousness.

    Einarr gave a low whistle to see his crewmate’s injury. “What did I need to see, though?”

    Troa pointed ahead into another side chamber. From what the torchlight revealed, the entirety of the floor in there appeared to be covered with water. It couldn’t possibly be deep, however.

    Catching the firelight of the torches, magnifying it against the water, were piles of gold and jewels; valuables of all sorts the like Einarr had never seen. Even on Svartlauf.

    “What… how did this get here?”

    Boti groaned as Troa sat him up. “Who knows? I can’t tell if we’re looking at the Allthane’s barrow or the horde of some survivor who couldn’t take the seclusion. Either way…”

    Einarr nodded in agreement. “Either way, it’s what we came here looking for. Let’s get out of here, bring another team or two in the morning. In the mean time, we haven’t quite finished with that hulk up above.”

    “Aye, sir.” Troa pulled Boti to his feet, the semi-conscious man’s arm slung over his shoulder.

    Einarr took two steps back the way they had come. Then, in the same instant, each and every one of their torches snuffed out.

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  • 1.26 – The Isinntog

    1.26 – The Isinntog

    After what felt like an eternity of creeping, during which he kept expecting to hear the creak of hinges or feel the vibrations of the giant’s steps on the floor, he made it to the pillar on which he had glimpsed his goal.

    It was not ivory, he saw now that he stood before it, but instead a rough limestone, and thick enough to hide him from anyone standing at the door. Up we go.

    What should have been an easy climb was rendered arduous by his inability to move horizontally around the pillar without exposing himself in front of the open doorway. He was faced more than once with the choice between exposure and an inadequate grip. He chose the grip. His odds of weathering the fall were better than his odds of facing a jotün and escaping with his prize.

    When Einarr was about halfway up, he ventured a peek around the edge of the column. The doorway yawned more widely now than it had when he entered, but still he saw no-one. Sweat beaded on his brow, and he wished for a good enough grip to wipe his palms on his trousers as he once again placed the pillar firmly between himself and the door. A glance over his shoulder confirmed that there was nothing behind him but more of the giant’s gold.

    Einarr climbed more quickly, now. He could admit, if only to himself, that the idea of being found by the jotün unnerved him. The sooner he accomplished his goal, the sooner he could escape the oversized, frigid Svartlauf.

    His hands gripped the lip at the top of the pillar now. Einarr let his feet drop free of the ridges they clung to and swung backwards. This was the riskiest part, because from the moment he pulled himself up there he was vulnerable. By that same token, the longer he hung here the more likely his fingers were to slip.

    Einarr heaved. The sleeves of his tunic tightened over his biceps as he hauled first his chin and then his chest over the lip of the pillar.

    More than merely reflecting the sunlight slanting in through the room’s single window, the torc that rested on a velvet pillow on the pedestal seemed to shine with its own light. The pure white gold was braided into a ring, and at each knot a diamond was set. The ends of the torque were wrought into elegant dragon heads. On the inside of the arc, its name was inscribed with runes. Each rune was powerful in its own right. Taken together they were fearsome indeed.

    For the jotün, it might have fit a pinky. For someone like Erik, the torc would have been just a hair too big to fit over his upper arm. Einarr, being a smaller man, could have worn it about his neck, although that would lead to no end of ribbing from the rest of the Vidofnings. He only hesitated a moment before slipping it around his neck. They still had to leave through the storm again, and they were down a man. A little ridicule was worth the gamble that it would ease their journey out. It felt unnaturally cool against his skin.

    Einarr looked around. He could, of course, lower himself back over the lip and try to climb down the same way he came up. The problem being, climbing down over a lip was always more challenging than climbing up it, and there was always the possibility of finding a better way down.

    Alas, the best possibility came in the form of a five-foot high stack of coins some feet back from the base of the pillar. With a running start he could probably make it, but he would also destroy all pretense at stealth for his escape.

    He lowered himself off the edge of the pillar once more and reached out with a foot for the toehold he had used on the way up.

    Einarr still clung to the side of the pillar when the ground shook violently. He clung to the stone with tense fingers. After a long moment, he exhaled. He moved a hand down towards the next ledge.

    The shaking this time left Einarr hanging by the fingers of one hand. He looked down. A five foot drop isn’t so bad. Einarr let himself fall those last few feet, landing as softly as he could on the flagstone below. Then he ran as quietly as he could towards the door, making sure to keep a pile of treasure between him and the open passage as he went.

    Einarr made it halfway across the room towards the door that way. He thought he might make it. And then a familiar voice struck his ears.

    “I knew it, Master! They were after the Isinntog!”

    Hel’s bells, it’s the dwarf. Resilient little bugger. Einarr turned on the speed now, aiming for a stack near the door to hide behind until the jotün had passed the threshold.

    He wasn’t fast enough. Einarr was in the open space between two stacks when the giant’s foot dropped like a blue boulder into the treasure room.

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  • 1.25 – Treasure Room

    1.25 – Treasure Room

    Back down the crates he went, dropping from board to board until his feet landed on flagstone once more. The room he needed was all the way across the hall. Dashing across the open floor was tempting, but such was the call an animal would make. That he had seen no sign of the jotün did not mean he could not be discovered. Better to slip around the edges of the room, where he could hide if the need arose, than to dash across the floor and be caught in the open.

    As he dashed across the doorway of a room that smelled like smoke – a kitchen, perhaps – Einarr heard a deep, rumbling wheeze from elsewhere. It sounded similar to how he thought a mountain might breathe. Glad I didn’t just cut across the room. Someone’s there, and I’m not sure if I’d rather it were the wolf or Fraener. From there he was extra careful to step as quietly as his boots would allow on the flagstone.

    The door to the treasure room stood barely ajar, although wide enough that a man could slip through with only a little squeezing. Inside, the treasure room was piled high with jewelry and coins and gems, most of it far too large for Einarr to contemplate taking with him. Still, though, Erik and Tyr deserved some reward for all of this.

    He picked his way through the hoard, his eyes open for gifts for his crewmates even as he looked for the Isintogg. A string of rubies sized for a human woman would please Tyr’s wife the next time they made port in Ringvassoya, and so they went into his sack alongside a golden flagon for his father. He nearly mistook a gold-colored shield engraved with an eagle for a coin. Once he realized what it was, he slung it over his shoulder for Erik.

    Erik should get something extra, too. He searched as he stepped carefully along between the piles of treasure. He has mistresses everywhere, it seems like, so something valuable… There. A large ivory ring – really more like a torque for a human – set with pearls. It clinked against the treasures already in his sack when he dropped it in.

    Einarr froze when the sound of an indistinct voice carried into the treasure room. Either the giant was muttering to himself, or the dwarf had woken more quickly than Einarr expected, because even fimbulvulfs could not speak. Carefully, now, and mind your exit.

    There was light in the room from outside, but climbing up to escape through a window with his prize was a daunting idea. Whether it was more daunting than racing across the floor of the hall while the jotün attempted to squash him remained to be seen.

    He tiptoed around another haphazard pile of treasure, his eyes turned upward, looking for where the jotün might have decided to display a goddess’ torque. Surely an item like that, as magical as it was said to be, would merit a pedestal, at least.

    He risked climbing one of the piles of gold coins for a better view of the room. The metal was slippery underfoot, coins the size of dinner plates sliding around as he tried to sneak up the side of a miniature mountain. There must be a stand, or something…

    There. In the very center of the room, as far again from Einarr as he was from the door, a slender ivory pillar stood – fifteen feet tall if it was an inch. At its top, a tiny star caught the light and twinkled against the twilight of the treasure room. That has to be it. He looked down to begin his descent and stopped cold. The footing had been slippery on his way up: how would he get back down without alerting the giant to his presence?

    Finally, he set his jaw. The shield he had claimed for Erik was big enough he could stand on it, and the slope of the pile was steep enough it should slide. The only concern was how many coins it would dislodge as he went. He had no better ideas, however. Einarr removed the shield from where he had slung it over his shoulder and held it against the coins beneath his feet as he put his first foot in front of where a man would carry it in battle. With a deep breath, he hopped forward with his back foot and leaned into the slope.

    Einarr hardly dared breathe as his shield-sled carried him down the pile toward the floor in a jangle of sliding metal. The slide was over almost as soon as it had begun, and the sound of the shield moved from the tinkle of coins to the grating of metal on stone.

    He let go of the edge of the shield and let momentum carry him forward three steps. Only then did he allow himself to exhale.

    Einarr hefted the shield again and froze as a voice from outside once again reached his ears. He re-slung the gift and impromptu vehicle across his back and crept as quickly as he could to place another stack of treasure between himself and the door to the vault.

    The floor vibrated twice, then stopped. Einarr tiptoed across the flagstones, being careful always to keep something between the door and himself. He was well and truly alone, here, and he did not rate his odds against a jotün highly.

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  • 1.24 – Giant’s Palace

    1.24 – Giant’s Palace

    In the next heartbeat Sinmora was in Einarr’s hand. He pressed himself against the central pillar as he raised the sword to parry the dwarf’s blade. That was a long drop off the other side – one he definitely did not intend to take himself.

    Axe struck long sword and the dwarf jumped backward, eyeing the drop himself.

    “You could have just opened the door and been on about your business, you know.”

    “Just like you could have turned back after your friend got chomped. My master is most displeased about his dog.”

    “The wolf should be fine. My friend, on the other hand…”

    “Got what he deserves.” The dwarf lunged again, striking out at Einarr’s chest from his position on the high ground.

    Clang! This blow, too, was parried. Einarr edged up a step and struck at the dwarf’s inside arm.

    The dwarf dodged back. He, too, was wary of the long drop. Caution wasn’t going to win this fight, then.

    “If you put your axe down and open the door, neither of us has to die.”

    “I let you through, my master kills me. I kill you, he rewards me. Now, which would you choose?”

    Einarr shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He lunged upward, his body low to the stairs, and slashed at the dwarf’s knees.

    His opponent jumped, and Einarr was forced backwards to avoid the plunging axe aimed for his head.

    The dwarf drove the axe with such force that the head bit into a join in the stone stairs. He tugged on the handle, but it was wedged fast.

    Einarr saw his opportunity and seized it. He surged forward, shoulder first, knocking the dwarf up the stairs and away from his weapon. Before the dwarf had time to blink Einarr followed through with a backhand strike to his mouth. The crunching sound suggested he’d broken teeth. A flat-footed kick landed on the dwarf’s face and he stumbled backward another step.

    That gave the dwarf just enough time to regain his balance and counter-surge. He bent at the waist and charged forward in a tackle. Einarr backpedaled a step or two, but tightened his stomach in time to avoid being winded.

    For his trouble, the dwarf got a knee to the jaw. He spat blood but did not let go. Einarr’s lips curled into the rictus of a snarl as he brought his elbow down on the base of the dwarf’s skull.

    Now the dwarf slumped, releasing his grip about Einarr’s waist as he slipped to the rough stone stair beneath their feet.

    Einarr puffed air through his moustache. Finally. He started to pick his way around the dwarf’s unconscious form, and then an idea hit him. He turned, only for a moment, and pocketed the key that the dwarf kept on a thong about his neck. “I’ll be taking that.”

    Now Einarr took the rest of the stairs back to the landing, stepping as softly as he could. He opened the door and bent over to peek through.

    What he saw made little sense: flagstones the size of carts, and wooden pillars that rose beyond what he could see from his hiding place. He neither heard nor felt the thunderous steps of the Jotün, and so he slipped outside the dwarf-sized door embedded in the giant-sized wall and locked it behind him.

    He turned. Staring upward, the tree-like pillars were the legs of an oversized table and chairs. Crates and barrels and sacks were piled haphazardly against the walls. I wonder if this is how rats see the world? It was a struggle not to gawk. The room reeked of stale sweat and rotted meat. Einarr wrinkled his nose as he surveyed the room, looking for a better vantage point.

    The table legs were too smooth to climb, and the bench likely wouldn’t get him any better of a view. Besides, if he climbed the table he might have to see where that smell was coming from. Instead, he moved in front of the stacks along the wall. A stack of potato sacks looked like it would do, but more promising was the pyramid of crates in the corner ahead.

    The nearer he drew, the better the crates looked. The slats were rough-hewn, with enough space between that he could use them as hand- or foot-holds. Up he went, pulling himself up the outside of the boards like an oversised inchworm. At the top of each crate he took the time to look around the room, not wanting to go any higher than he had to in order to locate his goal.

    He scaled three chests in this manner before he could see across the top of the jotün’s table and get an idea of what sort of a hall this solitary giant kept.

    The top of the table was littered with the remains of past meals, dirty dishes and bones alike. Einarr forced himself to look away from the carnage of the table to study the walls.

    There were doors about the hall into other rooms. This in itself was unusual, although he wondered why the Jotün bothered: the only one closed was the one he had locked behind himself. The third thing he noticed was that the owner did not, in fact appear to be home. No figure slept in the bed behind the large double-doors in the back, just as he had not felt the giant’s footsteps earlier. If Fraener was out about the island hunting, that was so much the better for Einarr – provided, of course, he was not hunting the Gufuskalam.

    One door stood closer to closed than the others, and it was through there Einarr spotted the glint of gold. There we go.

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