THE SEVEN FOLD CONVENANT

The Weight of Allies

Kaelen looked at the three dwarven soldiers and made a decision.

"Can you walk?" he asked the injured one.

The dwarf, Kell, tried to stand. His leg buckled immediately. The soldier beside him caught him before he hit the ground.

"That's a no," Kaelen said.

"We're not leaving him," the sword-wielder said. His name was Dorn, according to the quick introductions that had followed Aldric's revelation. The other one, the quiet one with the crossbow, was called Fen.

"I didn't say we were leaving him." Kaelen turned to Hessa. "How far is the eastern exit?"

"Two days if we move fast. Three if we're slowed down."

"Can you get him there?"

Hessa looked at Kell. Then at Kaelen. "You want me to take him back through the tunnel?"

"No. I want you to take him to the surface. Find a village. Get that leg set properly. Then meet us at Kaldren."

"That could take a week. Maybe more."

"We'll manage."

Dorn stepped forward. "I'm not leaving my captain."

Kaelen studied him. Dorn was young, maybe twenty-two. His beard was barely more than stubble. He had the look of a soldier who had never lost a fight until tonight.

"Your captain is injured. He'll slow us down. And if Voss reaches Kaldren before we do, none of this matters." Kaelen met Dorn's eyes. "You can stay with him if you want. But then you're not helping him. You're just dying together."

Dorn's jaw tightened. He looked at Kell, who nodded reluctantly.

"He's right," Kell said. "Go with the scout. I'll find you in Kaldren."

Dorn did not look happy. But he stepped back.

Hessa moved to Kell's side and helped him to his feet. The dwarf was heavy, broad in the shoulders, but she supported him without effort. Werewolf strength, Kaelen reminded himself. He needed to remember that she was not an ordinary woman.

"Take the left tunnel at the first fork," Hessa said. "It climbs toward the surface. There's an old hunter's trail that leads to a village called Thornwell. I know people there."

"And you'll meet us in Kaldren?"

"I said I would." She paused. "Be careful. Voss has more men than Moran. And Moran is not the worst of them."

"What does that mean?"

"It means Voss keeps company with things that aren't human. Things I don't have names for." She turned and helped Kell into the darkness. "Don't let your guard down."

They watched her go. The light from the soldiers' lantern faded as she moved deeper into the tunnel.

Fen, the quiet one, spoke for the first time. "We should move. If there are more of those things in the tunnels, we don't want to be here when they find us."

Kaelen nodded. "How many soldiers did you have in the convoy?"

"Twelve. Including the captain."

"And Voss?"

"He was supposed to meet us at the pass with twenty men. Dwarven mercenaries from the eastern houses. He said he needed protection for the weapons shipment."

Weapons shipment. Kaelen thought of Brogan Flint, the dwarven blacksmith who had found flaws in weapons supplied to human armies. Those same weapons were supposed to be in this convoy.

"Where are the weapons now?"

"At the bottom of the eastern pass. The bandits took what they could carry. The rest was destroyed in the attack."

Destroyed. Or taken by Voss's men and hidden somewhere. Kaelen filed the thought away. He needed more information before he could act on it.

They moved through the tunnel in single file. Kaelen led, with Aldric behind him and the two dwarves at the rear. The lantern cast weak light on the stone walls. The tunnel here was wider than the section they had entered through, with old support beams spaced every few paces.

Aldric spoke quietly. "You handled that well."

"I'm not interested in compliments."

"I'm not offering one. I'm saying you're better at this than your father was."

Kaelen did not respond. He kept his eyes on the tunnel ahead.

"He was a good man," Aldric continued. "But he trusted the wrong people. He thought the Covenant could be reformed from within. He thought if he presented enough evidence, the council would act."

"And you disagreed?"

"I knew the council was compromised. I told him to go to the dwarven houses instead. They have their own courts. Their own laws. They're not bound by Covenant politics."

Kaelen stopped walking. He turned to face Aldric.

"You knew my father's plan. You knew he was investigating the Covenant. And you did nothing to help him."

"I did what I could."

"Not enough."

Aldric met his gaze without flinching. "No. Not enough. I was a coward. I told myself I was being careful. I told myself I would act when the time was right. And then your father died, and I spent nine years telling myself it wasn't my fault."

"Was it?"

Aldric was quiet for a long moment. Then, "Yes. It was."

Kaelen wanted to hit him. He wanted to grab the old man by the coat and slam him against the tunnel wall. He wanted to make someone pay for the years of unanswered questions, the dead ends, the nights he had spent staring at the ceiling wondering what really happened.

But that was not going to get him to Kaldren.

"We're going to find the records," Kaelen said. "And then we're going to expose Voss. If you help me do that, I won't leave you in the tunnel."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you're on your own."

Aldric nodded. "Fair."

They kept walking.

The tunnel opened into another chamber an hour later. This one was different. The walls were smooth, not chiseled. The floor was paved with flat stones that fit together without mortar. A door stood at the far end, made of dark wood, set into a stone arch.

Kaelen had never seen anything like it in a mine.

"What is this place?" Dorn asked.

"I don't know." Kaelen approached the door. It was carved with symbols he did not recognize. Circles within circles, lines that crossed at odd angles. Not dwarven script. Not elven. Not human.

Aldric came up beside him. His face had gone pale.

"I've seen these symbols before," he said. "In your father's notes. He called them the old writing."

"What does it say?"

"I don't know. He never finished translating it." Aldric traced one of the circles with his finger. "But he said the door was important. He said it led somewhere that wasn't on any map."

Kaelen pushed the door. It swung open without resistance.

Beyond it, stairs led downward into darkness.

Fen spoke from behind them. "That's not the way to Kaldren."

"No," Kaelen said. "It's not."

He looked at the stairs. At the dark below. At the symbols carved into the doorframe.

"We don't have time for this," Dorn said. "Voss is already ahead of us."

"He might be," Kaelen said. "Or he might have come this way."

He stepped onto the first stair.

The stone was cold under his boot. The air rising from below smelled of dust and something else. Something old. Something that had been sealed away for a very long time.

Aldric followed without a word. The dwarves exchanged a look, then came after.

The stairs descended for a hundred steps before they stopped at another door. This one was not wood. It was metal. Dark iron, covered in rust, with a single symbol in the center.

A serpent coiled around a broken crown.

Kaelen knew that symbol.

He had seen it on his father's desk. On the case in his hands. On the letter that had sent him east.

"This is it," he said. "This is what my father was looking for."

He pushed the door open.

And stopped.

Beyond the door was not a mine shaft. Not a tunnel. It was a room. Round, with a domed ceiling and walls covered in shelves. Shelves filled with books. Thousands of them. Scrolls. Loose pages. Documents stacked so high they touched the ceiling.

In the center of the room was a table. On the table was a map. Not of Avarra. Not of any place Kaelen recognized.

It was a map of a world with seven continents. Seven territories, each marked with a symbol. The same symbols that were carved into the door.

And in the corner of the map, written in the old writing, was a single phrase that Kaelen could not read.

Aldric spoke from behind him. His voice was barely a whisper.

"Your father found this place. This is where he learned the truth."

Kaelen looked at the library. At the map. At the weight of nine years of questions and half-answers.

"What truth?"

Aldric stepped forward and picked up a book from the nearest shelf. It was bound in leather, cracked with age, the pages yellow and brittle.

"The Covenant was not created to keep the peace," he said. "It was created to keep a secret. The seven races were not the first to live in Avarra. There was another civilization. Older than the elves. Older than the giants. Older than all of us combined."

He opened the book and pointed at the first page.

"They built this library. They built the tunnels. They built everything. And then they disappeared. Overnight. Without a trace."

Kaelen stared at the book. At the symbols. At the map of a world he did not know.

"And the Covenant?"

Aldric closed the book. "The Covenant was created to make sure no one ever found out what happened to them. Your father discovered the truth. That's why he died."

The room was silent.

Then, from the tunnel behind them, came the sound of boots on stone.

Many boots.

Dorn grabbed his sword. "Company."

Kaelen turned. The sound was growing closer. Not one group. Two. One from the direction they had come. Another from somewhere ahead.

Moran had found them.

And he had not come alone.