The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [125]
“We’ve got wood down here,” Kov told them, “but it’s damp. I don’t know how well it will burn. We’re going to have to take our time and clear out the fungus, then see how far under the fortress we can get. But we must be silent, very very quiet.”
Leejak translated, glaring at each man in turn. Gebval stepped forward and began talking, waving his hands, crossing them in midair as if he were passing shuttles through the warp on a loom. When he finished, Leejak gave Kov the gist of his speech.
“He say he summon water out of wood. Must dig pit for water here. Then he summon it.”
Kov wanted to heap scorn on the idea, but working his pretend magic would keep the spirit talker out of the way.
“Splendid!” he said. “That will be a great help.”
Leejak raised a skeptical eyebrow but said nothing more.
Two of the Dwrgwn took shovels and began to dig an alcove into the side of the tunnel, while the others stood ready with baskets to take the loose earth away. Kov and Leejak walked away to talk where they wouldn’t be overheard.
“That wood,” Leejak said. “Very old. Should be all gone.”
“Agreed,” Kov said. “If I’m guessing aright, the Deverrians built this place over a thousand years ago. Someone else must have been using it since then, repaired it, even, with fresh wood.”
“Then they leave, Horsekin come?”
“Just so, but the Horsekin haven’t been here long. Refugees from the cities of the far west, would be my guess, who might have stayed here for some hundreds of years. I don’t know. If we had time, we might find old coins and things in the ruins, but we have no time.”
“Just so. Bring it down, then get out.”
They returned to the newly-dug alcove to find the Dwrgwn digging a cistern into its floor. Gebval stood nearby, chanting under his breath, waving his hands back and forth. At times he shut his eyes and swayed to some inner rhythm. On his chest the bronze knife glittered, but the glow that fell upon it gleamed gold, too bright and too yellow to originate with the fungi baskets. The hair on the back of Kov’s neck rose in a cold shiver. Gebval called out a sharp order. The Dwrgwn in the cistern clambered out, whispering among themselves.
The last man out pointed to his feet—soaked through up to his ankles. “They’ve hit groundwater,” Kov murmured, but he disbelieved his own remark. Leejak shook his head in a no.
Gebval chanted on and on while the golden light grew brighter, crept up the chain that held the knife, and covered his head like the hood of a cloak. Kov glanced in the cistern and saw fragments of splintered wood floating as the water rose and swirled around. Leejak suddenly swore.
“Get out of here!” he said to Kov, then turned and gave orders in Dwrgi.
Two of the Dwrgwn grabbed Gebval, who continued chanting and glowing, and dragged him along as everyone began running back down the tunnel northward. Utterly puzzled, Kov followed more slowly until he felt what Leejak had sensed—a trembling in the earth. The summoned water spilled over the cistern and began to flow down the tunnel after him as Kov ran, following the others. When they reached the level portion of the tunnel, the water slowed, but it kept on coming.
The trembling grew to a shaking. A cacophony of cracks, rum blings, thuds, and distant booms drowned out the murmur and splash of water. The Dwrgwn darted through the rough doorway from the ancient tunnel into the feeder shaft they’d constructed earlier. Gebval looked around him and then fainted, falling into the soft earth. His impromptu attendants picked him up again and ran, dragging him along. Panting and gasping for breath, Kov made it through to the new tunnel. The Dwrgwn who’d dug the cistern picked up their shovels and began forking dirt into the breach that led back into the tunnel leading to the fortress. Others pitched in, desperate to divert the swelling tide of groundwater.
The noise from overhead grew louder, resolved itself into the thunder of horses’ hooves and screaming from Horsekin throats. Beyond that, distantly, the