—
“Hey, Lekk?”
Lekk looked over his shoulder to acknowledge Cark, before turning his eyes forward again so he didn’t fall on the steep slope they were descending.
“Where are we going?” Cark asked.
“Down.”
“Yeah, but…” Cark looked back at their other friends—no, their raiding party. Lekk had gotten together a bunch of his buddies so they could all go on their first raid together. Technically it was an unsanctioned raid, but that never mattered as long as the raiders came back with something cool. “There’s nobody down here to raid? None of the other clans live this deep, do they?”
“They definitely don’t,” said Cark’s brother Cand. “Nobody lives this deep, not even goblins.”
“Yeah?” asked Lekk, who could hear something ahead. “Then who made all these tunnels?”
“I don’t know, like…rainwater or something?”
Lekk was pretty sure rainwater hadn’t made all these tunnels that were big enough to stand in. “There’s something down here.”
“Yeah, but is there someone down here?” Cark pressed. “Like, someone for us to, you know, raid? If all we raid is rocks then everyone’s going to laugh at us and call us kids.”
They reached the bottom of the slope, and the tunnel branched into three directions. The voice Lekk was hearing was coming from the left, so he went down it without hesitation. “There’s someone down here,” he promised.
“Okay, but who?” Cark asked.
“And how do you know?” added Patt.
“They have treasure,” Lekk said, instead of answering those questions. The voice was telling him that. “It’s not going to be a blood raid, but we’ll come back with something really valuable.”
There was some grumbling and clattering of weapons at that. “I think we should stop,” Cark said.
There was a sudden whoosh of air from up the tunnel, blowing something warm in all their faces and putting all their torches out. Lekk smiled. “You guys can stop if you want. I’m going ahead.”
And he did, not looking back. Something was moving in the cavern ahead.
They all followed him. And Lekk’s whole raiding party disappeared into the dark.
—
How Best to Use a Sword 