“Master Henric,” an acolyte saluted at the door to the Arms-Master’s cabin.

“Come in,” he waved, barely taking notice of the acolyte with his nose buried in papers at his desk.

“It’s the new arrivals… and the ferals,” he swallowed.

“And?” Henric rose from the papers with a raised brow.

“It’s getting heated. A few mercenaries have stepped in to separate them–but you know.”

Henric bounced up from his chair, grabbed his coat, and stormed straight out the door, followed a step behind by the acolyte.

“Like the God-lord’s bastard son, I’ll let this place collapse into a riot while the Imperator is off gallivanting around playing hero.”

Temporary accommodation had been provided in the Low District for the influx of Imperials that came from the trader’s post, and it hadn’t taken long for friction to arise between them and the ferals they lived beside.

“What is going on?” Henric barked, wading through the surrounding crowd that had gathered.

“These barbarians have let their filthy spawn play by the entrance of our home.”

“Watch ye mouth, Imperial,” spat the feral across from the man, tightening his hold around his son's shoulder. “Me kids have always played there. Who ye new fellas think ye are? Ye can't just march in ‘ere and order us around!” The feral continued and spat at the man’s feet.

“Why, you. Uncivilized,” the Imperial growled, grabbing the hilt of his sword at his belt.

“Enough!” Henric said, stepping between the two. “Or I’ll arrest the lot of you.”

The Imperial glared at both the feral and Henric before stepping backward with a grunt.

“Have the lot of you lost your minds?” Henric shouted, glaring at the crowd. “We just barely survived the last attack. You're not that stupid, are you? Have you forgotten that the wargs are still out there? I would happily let you fools at each other’s necks, but that would mean fewer men to hold the walls against our enemies. Think, damn it,” Henric spat, tapping forcefully on his forehead. “User your freaking brains. If we survive the winter, then you can go wild. See if I care. But I will not sit back and let you make a mockery of this place with the treats that are breathing down our necks. Be responsible, damn it!”

Silence followed for an awkward moment.

“Hear, hear!” A man shouted, and a second later, several others throughout the crowd followed, gradually growing into cheers.

Watching amidst the crowd from afar, Trumus scowled and turned into one of the narrow alleys, followed by two armed men.

**Imperator**

“Getting anywhere?” Mark asked Elowen, who scribbled notes as she studied the walls.

“No,” she shook her head. “What are you expecting? I’ve never seen any of this before. It’s fun to study, but don’t expect me to make any sense of it.”

Right, this isn’t a movie. Decoding a foreign language that is nothing but primitive drawings will probably take years.

“Well, good job,” Mark said, grasping for words.

“Right,” Elowen said and turned to him. “Soo… what’s your plan now?”

“We need to figure out what’s down here. Hopefully, we can ensure it’s safe before bringing people here to mine the metals.”

“That would be wise,” Elowen nodded. “Should we go on then? Not like we can figure much out remaining here.”

“We?” Mark crooked his head. “I planned to leave you here with the others to watch the camp. It'll be too dangerous for me to take you deeper into the cave until we figure out what's going on here."

“Leave guarding the camp to the mercenaries. Look, you need me, and you know it. We're not children.”

“Ahem,” the smithy apprentice cleared his throat and stepped up to the pair. “What about me? I’m the only one with the skills to evaluate the ore.”

“Great, so do both of you want to come with me? I'm about to go sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong in a potentially dangerous cave. Doesn't that concern you?”

“We’ve already got no choice but to try and survive the winter, Imperator,” Elowen said. “It’s not like we’re trying to charge off into danger; we're already stuck in the middle of it. We just want to try and help. Try to do whatever we can to increase our chances of survival. Do you even know what you’re going down there to find?”

“I ah–”

“Didn’t think so. We've got skills, Imperator. Don't leave us here to kick rocks.”

“Give me a moment to think about this,” Mark said, pacing the chamber.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

He felt wrong dragging these kids into potential danger, but they were right. On account of being in the Frontier, they were already faced with near-impossible odds. Coddling them might just be more reckless than taking them with him.

“Fine,” Mark finally said, marching over to the two acolytes. “Grab your stuff—and you,” he added, pointing at Elowen. “Keep it light.”

Tightening their backpacks, the trio prepared themselves at the mouth of one of the tunnels leading away from the main chamber. They had picked it because of the wall art around it.

Dotting almost every inch of the tunnel's mouth, there were drawings of people and animals that they recognized, but nothing to make sense of what it might be trying to say.

The group was following simple logic. More drawings probably meant a greater chance of finding whatever was in the cave, assuming there was something to find. Which would allow them to decide whether or not they stuck around.

Mark took the lead with the acolytes at his back. He reminded himself that while they might only be teens, but they were armed with crossbows.

Holding a torch in one hand and his other hand pointed down the cave and ready to blast anything that moved, Mark led them through the winding tunnel. It was hard to orientate themselves, but he was fairly certain they were going down.

They stopped several times for the apprentice to test ore samples, gaining fairly consistent results. The strange part was that the ore was quite rich, definitely rich enough to justify keeping the mine open, considering the metal-poor people of the Frontier. This left a growing hole of doubt in Mark’s gut. He needed to know why they would abandon such a valuable asset.

“There are traces of gold here,” the smith said, eyeing a rock he had split with the torch's light.

“Gold? Seriously?"

“Without a doubt,” the acolyte confirmed. “It’s not much, but it could be a sign that there’s more down here.”

Something definitely happened here. A gold-producing mine in the Frontier would likely make us the wealthiest fraction of this frozen waste. There’s no way a clan just abandons an asset like this.

As they kept walking, the cave gradually opened up into another chamber. However, unlike the eerie silence above, they could hear the water of an underground waterfall crashing against the rocks and a subterranean river rushing through.

“Stay on your guard,” Mark commanded as they entered the chamber.

The ceiling disappeared into darkness, the light from their torches being unable to illuminate the vastness of the cavern, and the end of it was nowhere in sight.

“Look, more cave art,” Elowen said, pointing to drawings across several large boulders jutting from the ground as they walked through the cavern.

"Be careful," Mark said as they continued on.

The two acolytes nodded in the darkness and followed.

Mark raised a hand, halting the acolytes as he heard soft chatter in the distance, and carefully walked toward it.

Spotting the warmth of firelight cast across the cavern wall, he turned to hand his torch to Elowen and continued alone in the darkness.

A couple dozen yards later, he rounded a bend of rock. A half dozen figures sat around a campfire, its smoke trailing up and into the distant cavern ceiling.

From what he could see, the creatures had disfigured underbites and were about four to five feet tall, with dark blue skin.

Okay, they’re definitely not human.

Mark eyed the tools around them. They were sticks and rocks: primitive items with no sign of weapons in sight. Then again, if no one knew they were down here, maybe they didn’t have a need for weapons. However, that didn’t explain the mine being abandoned. How would these primitive creatures threaten a great clan? A great clan that no doubt had no shortage of iron weapons and probably even armor.

Necklaces of bones and rags covered their skinny bodies, and they seemed completely oblivious to Mark watching them.

Mark mulled over what to do. He didn’t doubt for a second that he could blast the little creatures away with his lightning. No, if anything, that would be too easy. But what if they were peaceful? Besides the fact that he didn't want to go around making new enemies, he didn’t particularly want to go around slaughtering sentient creatures either. At least not unless he had to.

Think, damn it. There has to be a better solution.

Stepping out and saying, “Hey, guys, I’m over here,” didn’t seem like a great solution either. If an entire civilization of these things was down here, and he alerted them to their presence, that likely wouldn’t end well.

Mark felt a hum resonate from within, and his brow rose. It was the Lightning God, he realized. It was weak but unmistakable. The imprisoned god was trying to communicate with him.

I can control the power of my lightning? Mark’s jaw dropped, and he looked down at his gloved hands. It wasn't words that entered his head, but just a sense of meaning.

Strings of electricity sparked across his hands, and he felt himself gain a deeper understanding of the power he wielded. His command had been limited with the suit, but an intrinsic feeling told him that was no longer true. His control over the lightning had grown more intimate.

Stepping out from the cropping of rock he hid behind, Mark raised a hand.

This better work.

Lightning shot out, but it wasn’t the thunderous claps he had sparked cultists with. This blast was barely audible. It slammed into the crowd and doused them with streaks of cackling energy.

A few grunts and gasps escaped their lips as they fell to the ground, convulsing, and Mark called his acolytes over to him as he ran out toward the camp.

“Quick, before they recover. Tie their hands and feet,” he ordered, and the two of them got to work without a word.

Pivoting with his hand held high, Mark remained on guard as his acolytes secured the weird creatures.

“All done,” Elowen said, finishing a tight knot on one of their wrists. “But what are these things?”

“I was kind of hoping you would tell me. You’ve never heard of these things in any books? Or maybe something similar?”

“Never…” Elowen shook her head. “But Imperial knowledge of the Frontier isn’t necessarily the best.”

“Great, so we have no idea what these little guys are?” Mark groaned.

“They don’t look like warriors, though,” Elowen added. “They don’t look particularly strong, either.”

“Right,” Mark nodded, eyeing their thin arms and soft, meek builds. “I thought so myself. Also, how would these creatures, with their primitive tools, threaten what should have been a very powerful barbarian clan?”

“I doubt they could have. Unless they came into the caves after the clan had already left, or maybe their civilization has greatly regressed since then.”

Mark noticed that a heavily walked path led away from the little camp, where the rocks had been worn down to match the creature’s feet.

“Look,” he pointed. “They’ve been here a long while from the looks of it.”

“Agreed,” Elowen nodded. “That path has likely been here as long as that settlement above. Not that I'm an expert or anything. But didn't Venjimin's books suggest that the settlement has only been abandoned for a couple hundred years? Surely, that path is older than that.”

“Something like that," Mark nodded. "So, it seems like it is reasonable to believe that even if they weren’t directly responsible for the clan leaving the mine, they were at least here—in all likelihood.”

“Exactly.”

“Acolyte,” Mark swung around to the smith apprentice. “Go get one of the mercenaries. We’ll have him set guard here while we continue deeper.”

“Yes, sir,” the Acolyte saluted and ran off in the direction they had come.

“You want to go deeper?”

“Of course I do. None of this makes any sense. And we can’t just ignore a mine with iron, copper, and possibly gold. This could be our key to not just surviving the winter but thriving through it,” Mark said.

“I hope you’re right,” Elowen swallowed, but her tight grip on her notebook indicated her hunger for knowledge was winning the battle against her growing fear.

"Let's make Fort Winterclaw rich," Mark grinned unsteadily.