Chapter Twenty-Four
Druadaen looked up when Umkhira came back through the waterfall. “We were becoming concerned.”
She shrugged. “It is wise we waited so long before sending out a scout. They remained near the intersection for quite some time.”
Ahearn nodded. “Aye, once they realized we’d tricked them with the scent, they waited there in case we backtracked, tried to make good our escape by getting behind them. Now come over here and help us puzzle out some of these tribal trinkets we found among the coins.”
Druadaen turned away from where the others were sorting the spoils of the battle into shares…and discovered Zhuklu’a staring at him. She did not avert her eyes. “Yes?” he asked.
“I understand why the others are here. But not you. You show no interest in the profits of your victory. You have no loved one to rescue. You have no honor to restore, nor vengeance to satisfy. Why are you here?”
Druadaen told her in as few words as he could.
She frowned throughout, but at the end, she nodded. “So you are like a hunter, learning as much as they may about their prey.”
Druadaen shook his head. “Others might use what I learn that way, but it is not why I am doing it. I am trying to understand how urzhen—er, the Rot and the Red—repopulate so quickly that they go a-hordeing every nine or ten years.”
Her frown returned as she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. “The urzhen of the under all have many young. All the time.”
He smiled. “Yes, I understand that part. What I do not understand is how they get enough food to feed so many mouths.”
She thought, then nodded. “That is a wise question. I had not thought to ask it, but as I hear your words, I come to wonder the same thing.”
Druadaen felt his spine straighten slightly. The only reason she would now wonder the same thing is if she has noticed the imbalances that almost certainly hold the clues for solving this mystery. “Were there any groups or tribes that seemed to be consuming more food than they were gathering?”
She shrugged. “That is hard to answer. I did not live so long among the shaman’s tribe. And even as I arrived, he was getting much food as tribute and in trade.”
“I understand the tribute. But what of the food which he got through trade? Who had it and what did he trade for it?”
She frowned again. “He traded mostly with other Rot. Sometimes Red. It was often spoils from battles. But then there were other times…” Frustrated, she shook her head. “I do not know how to say these things.”
Umkhira leaned toward them. “What is it you do not know how to say, eshzha?” It was an affectionate ur zhog term for a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Zhuklu’a’s voluble reply caused the older Lightstrider to frown also, but in the end, she nodded and said to Druadaen, “She believes that the shaman traded his skills—in language, in knowledge of the upper tunnels and surface—for food.”
“And with whom did he do this trading?”
Zhuklu’a nodded her understanding of the question. “Red, usually. Tribes from the Black.”
Druadaen frowned. “But how is that possible? Doesn’t the Underblack have less access to food than the Undergloom? And so the Rot usually have more than the Red?”
“That is correct,” she replied, Umkhira nodding over her shoulder.
“Then how can the Red trade away that which they need even more than the Rot?”
They shrugged in unison. “You should ask Kaakhag,” added Zhuklu’a.
Druadaen smiled. “I did that the first night of our journey north.”
“And what did he say?”
“He shrugged. Just the way you two did.”
Zhuklu’a frowned. “Maybe the food comes from the Root.”
Druadaen frowned at the unfamiliar term. “What is the Root?”
“It is…eh…eh…” Frustrated, she released another stream of the far more complex Lightstrider dialect at Umkhira.
Who explained: “She says that whenever the Rot or the Red cannot explain something, they believe it is the doing of the Root. It is all just legend.”
Druadaen nodded. “Still, I would hear about this ‘Root.’”
Zhuklu’a sighed, shrugged. “It is the Root of the World. It is where the Bent were born into existence, along with the rest of the underkin. And it is the rock-womb which continues to spawn Deepkin unto this very day.”
Druadaen tried not to sound too incredulous. “And it is right here, in the Gur Grehar?”
Umkhira smiled. “Wherever there is an Under, there are many underkin who are certain that the Root of the World lies directly beneath them.”
“I told you. It is all just legend.” Zhuklu’a’s tone was slightly abashed but also slightly petulant.
Druadaen reflected that one of the many constants he had noticed among all races was that, during their adolescent phase, most of them became prickly. “Yes. It is easy to see how such a legend would arise, since every eight or nine years so many Red and underkin pour out of the Underblack to give rise to yet another Horde.”
“That is what the Unnamed believed,” she agreed.
“The Unnamed?”
Zhuklu’a flapped an annoyed hand at herself. “The shaman. He refused to share his name. He believed that if spirits learned it, they would have power over him. So he called himself the Unnamed.”
“And he believed that when the underkin of the Black go a-hordeing, many come into being at the Root of the World?”
She nodded. “Soon after I became a slave from whom the Unnamed hoped to learn languages, I heard him talking to a kosh war chief. They did not agree on much, except that, starting three or four years after each Hordeing, urzhen and other underkin begin wandering up from the deepest tunnels. These are the places where even the Red dare not go: the lairs of the greatest Deepkin and the monsters that live among them.”
“When you say ‘wandering up,’ do you mean that they are alone, or that they do not know where they are?”
She shrugged. “Both. The kosh chief said that many who come from the deepest Black only know a few, simple words of urzhen. That they were like children, but fully grown. And they are almost all males.”
Druadaen felt a chill run slowly down his spine. “And the Unnamed believed they came from the Root of the World, that they had been sent by…by the gods?”
Zhuklu’a shook her head. “I do not know. The Unnamed always said that the gods had made the Root of the World holy by anointing it with their own blood, but he never said that they created it.” Seeing Druadaen’s questioning look, she clarified. “He said it many times in his rituals. I did not misunderstand it, and he was not misspeaking.”
“I did not think either of those things. Tell me, how did the tribes of the Underblack feed these new arrivals?”
“I do not know.”
“Did they trade with the Undergloom for food from the surface?”
“I was not present in those days, but I do not think so.”
“Then how did the Underblack feed those new warriors?
“I cannot say, because I had no reason to ask. And he had no reason to tell me, a mere captive and slave.”
Druadaen nodded. “Zhuklu’a, what you shared has been very useful. I wonder if you would continue to help me with your knowledge.”
She started, checked with Umkhira to make sure she had understood the Commerce correctly. “My knowledge?”
Druadaen nodded and waited.
She shrugged. “You were one of those who saved me from an end worse than death. If I know a thing, I shall share it.”
Druadaen pushed aside a sudden sense of irony. Chance, rather than strategy, had given him exactly the witness he needed to answer so many of his questions. “That is a great help to me. So, in addition to telling me everything you remember about the shaman and his dealings with the Underblack, I would also like you to tell me everything you remember about the food.”
“Food? You mean when I was a prisoner?”
“Yes. But not just what they gave you to eat. Tell me what other foods you saw, how often, how much was eaten, and by whom. Both those in that tribe and any others you saw or heard of.”
Zhuklu’a frowned. “That is a long, long saying. Are you sure you want me to tell everything?”
Druadaen smiled. “Yes. Everything.”
* * *
Shortly after they woke into the dark of what Kaakhag assured them was a new “day,” Ahearn stood and uncovered the noticeably dimmer lichen. “Time to go.”
“Go where?” S’ythreni asked suspiciously.
“First we make our way to the Grotto of Stone Bones. That’s our shortcut to the back door.”
“The back door?”
“The way out of this gods-forsaken place. So let’s be on our way…unless some of you want to remain?”
Within two minutes, they were in the tunnels, heading toward the Grotto of Stone Bones.