We made it back to the cave just as the sun was setting. Since we were going underground, though, that didn’t matter much. We navigated the familiar path back to the complex without incident. I was getting a little nervous because we hadn’t encountered any more of the slugs or other hostile subterranean creatures. In the back of my mind, I thought when that bill came due we would be paying it with interest.
Once we made it back to Segerick’s group, I approached him.
“We found what we were looking for, so that means we’ll be bringing up a workforce,” I said. “You will all need to avoid that part of the mountain. Sawwar can describe the area. Hopefully, if negotiations go well, our turnaround time getting you all off the island will be significantly less than I planned.”
“Can’t we just all pitch in and mine it ourselves?” he asked.
“That would be great and net us more money,” I said. “The problem is what happens if a band of slavers blunder into everyone while we are working? Then, what we are working for goes up in smoke. Some people would invariably be hurt, captured or killed. It’s better, I think, to give up a little bit of profit to keep you safe.”
“I guess that makes sense,” he admitted. “The seam is not in the cave complex, is it?”
“No, it’s under a waterfall in a stream bed out on the side of the mountain. If we’re careful, the slavers will have no idea that you are here. We’ll head back tomorrow.”
For the remainder of that night, we rested. The journey back would take less time than the climb up did, but we would be laden with the wyvern skin and that was not an inconsequential concern. Early the next day, we got up and headed back to town.
Once again, we encountered nothing under the mountain. The lack of activity was really starting to creep me out. I began jumping at shadows. After the second or third time, Aleyda became irritated and told me to stop. I didn’t want to jinx us, so I didn’t mention what had me so nervous.
After traversing the bat cave once more and washing off, we headed back down the mountain. I would have to admit that moving downhill was a lot easier than climbing up it was. For some reason, the foreboding sense of doom that I had experienced under the mountain had not left me. When we passed the slope where we encountered the wyvern, my eyes kept scanning the sky looking for more. There weren’t any, though. In all obvious respects, our journey was peaceful. Yet, I just couldn’t relax. Once again, we had to rely on Aleyda’s superior sense of direction not to get lost.
As the day was drawing to a close, we reached the main trail. It was too late in the day for companies to be sending expeditions out, so we didn’t pass anyone headed up the mountain. But that didn’t mean we didn’t encounter anyone. In a couple of instances, we passed or were passed by returning expeditions. Some of them looked pretty beaten up. One of the benefits to carrying a lot of wyvern skin, though, was that nobody gave us too much trouble. I assume they thought that if we were tough enough to take on a wyvern we were tough enough to kick their asses as well. Nobody was exactly friendly. As a matter of fact, we rarely engaged in anything that remotely resembled conversation. We weren’t, however, threatened or attacked on our way back. That was nice.
It was dark by the time we reached the turnoff to our camp. We moved up the trail until a voice ahead of us screamed out a command to halt. I recognized the voice. It was Gento, the other human in the company.
“We come in peace, Gento,” I said. “Take me to your leader.”
“Oh, it’s you guys,” he said. “I thought we were being attacked. Things have heated up down here a little since you left.”
He walked closer and unhooded his lantern, shining it on us. “What’s that you are carrying?” he asked.
“Wyvern skin,” I replied.
“Wow,” was his only reply. “Did you find it dead or something?”
“No, we fought and killed it,” I responded.
“Well, aren’t you all the tough ones,” he said. “That’s a story I have to hear.”
“I would be glad to tell it when you are no longer on watch,” I said. “You said things have been heating up? How so?”
“Yesterday a force from Clan Galwick skirmished with some soldiers from Gremmans,” he said. “I hear it was ugly for both sides. Thankfully, the mages almost have the portal in town done to bring in reinforcements. Our time is running out.”
Crap! The portal was almost done already? Thoughts of sabotage quickly flitted through my mind. If the portal got built soon, all my planning might be for naught.
“Let me go see Caider and I will catch up with you later,” I told him.
“Sounds good,” he said.
We entered the camp and went and found Caider. He was sitting with Tikter near their tents, which were prominently located near the fire. Happy hour must have been going on for awhile because he wobbled a little bit when he stood to greet us.
“Back so soon?” he asked.
“I think we found it,” I told him.
“Found what? The source of the gold? And what is it that you are carrying?”
“Wyvern skin” I said. “We had to put one down and thought that there might be a market for it.”
“Oh, there’s a market for it,” Tikter said, having walked up in the middle of our conversation.
I reached into my pack and withdrew the samples of gold. “I need someone to verify that this is actually gold and not something else before we drag everyone up there and begin mining in earnest,” I said. “We should also do some panning because there is a lot in the stream bed.”
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Tikter grabbed the rock and started performing some tests on it. He scratched it and ran it along some sort of plate, examining the streak that it left of the plate.
“When I knew you were headed back out, I ran into town and bought a streak plate,” he said. “I’m glad I did. It’s one of the most reliable ways to test things. We can have it quietly assayed tomorrow, but it certainly looks like gold to me.”
“This is great,” Caider said excitedly. “We can make our big score and maybe even leave early before things get too dicey here.”
“Do you think things are about to get bad here on the island?” I asked.
“With two armies starting to fight each other, what do you think?” he said. “I think if the Gremmans force catches us out in the field, it will be all too obvious where we are from. That territory is mostly human. From what I have heard, you don’t see a lot of orcs there. I don’t think they would be too keen on us take loot back to enrich the country they are fighting.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “There is one other issue I want to bring up. When we originally made our deal, the idea of us finding a gold strike was never considered. We are the ones who took all the risk and found the gold. How are we going to get paid for our find?”
“I understand your position,” he said, although his face had darkened as I spoke. “I don’t have a problem giving you a finder’s fee of some sort for the effort you took to locate it. Why don’t we just flip the deal. We will give you twenty percent of everything we dig up and the company will keep eighty.”
“Hmm,” I replied. “If we are really flipping the deal, we should get a third, just like the company is keeping a third of everything that we have earned. That will still make us all pretty damn rich, I think.”
“A third is much too high,” he said. “After all, there will be a lot of backbreaking labor for everyone and the company will have to finance the equipment required. Where is the rest of the equipment you bought, by the way?”
“We lost it when we were trying to find a place to fight the wyvern. We got caught out on an exposed shelf and had to lighten our load a little to survive.”
“I understand,” he said. “Didn’t you try to recover it?”
“Once you see the slope, you’ll understand why,” I responded. “We will have to traverse it to find the gold. Why don’t we split the difference and settle for twenty five percent of the gold for us.”
Caider looked at Tikter and received a small nod.
“That sounds fair, but it will be twenty five percent after we account for expenses,” he said. “Now, what will we need to extract the gold?”
“It is behind a waterfall. We will need to be able to divert the stream. There is also quite a bit of gold in the stream so we will need some way to sift it out. The seam is high enough that we will need to build scaffolding as well. We need saws, fasteners of some sort, digging tools and quite a bit of rope.”
“That will be expensive,” Tikter interjected. “I am not sure we have enough liquid funds to cover the purchases.”
“Well, we already have some tools that would work,” I responded. “We used them to make this clearing. I’ll tell you what. In order to make the split easier to administer, we’ll front some of the expenses. Take that wyvern hide and its teeth and sell them for your best price and use that money. It will all wash out in the end anyway.”
“That’s a good idea,” Tikter admitted. “We also probably need to buy a little smelting equipment. Gold is heavy and transporting a bunch of rock down the mountain probably will not be too profitable.”
“Is everyone back in camp currently?” I asked.
“Those that are still alive,” Caider responded.
“What are we going to do with the one slave you captured?” I asked. “If we take him back up on the island he could get hurt or killed.”
“I will have Tikter sell him to another company tomorrow,” he said. “We won’t get a whole lot, but you are right. If he dies up there we will get nothing.”
I had to fight off the wave of anger that threatened to engulf me at that news. Still, I had to keep the big picture in mind. It galled me to think that way, but I was trying to save a whole lot more people than a single individual. Perhaps we would have some extra money left over and I could buy him back once we reached the continent. Sure, that was unlikely but sometimes we have to dream a little to sell ourselves on something that unpalatable.
Tikter sauntered off to gather the troops. When he returned, I realized that there were only fifteen of us left.
“All right,” Caider said. “We will be moving out the day after tomorrow. James and his people found a gold seam. Our new plan is to spend no more than a week up there, grabbing as much as we can, and then heading for home. We are all going to have to work hard during this time to maximize our riches. You are not to mention this to anyone outside of the company. We don’t need people stalking us or trying to rob us. Tomorrow, Tikter will get the tools we need while the rest of us pack up camp. At dawn the next day, we head up the mountain. James told me that it is a good distance away and some hard traveling. Do you think we can make it in one day, James?”
“It will be a hard day but yes, I think we can,” I said. “We need to keep the weight of our gear on the way out as light as possible, though, or else is could stretch into a second day just getting up there.”
“You heard the man,” he said. “We may need to rough it for a little while, but it will be worth it in the end.”
“Gold,” Yahg said, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
“We need to keep a low profile so we are not followed,” I said. “When we are on the trail, no talking about gold. Everyone needs to think we are just out exploring in force.”
Glancing around at the others, I could see that everyone was on board with the plan. I think that their expectations of what the island would offer had been shattered by the actual reality of living on it, and there were a lot of people ready to head home. Honestly, I was one of them. It would be hard to do everything we needed to with only thirteen workers. I am certain Caider and Tikter wouldn’t pitch in a whole lot, except maybe to help refine the gold. It seemed like I was the only one who hadn’t been expecting it to end up this way, however. We were leaving with fifteen people. If we came back with fifteen, then I would be very surprised. On our way back, we would need to maintain a very low profile. I had no doubt that some of the larger companies would have no compunction against slaughtering us and looting our bodies. I had found the workers I needed, though.
Things seemed to be looking up. I was aware, though, that expectations did not often meet reality.
The next day passed quickly. When Tikter went down to the port to sell the slave and the wyvern skin, I did not go along. We did, however, send Aleyda’s armor with him for repairs. Did I think he was probably going to screw us, at least a little bit? Of course I did. We needed the rest, however. Shepherding this large a group up the mountain would be a challenge in the best of times, and these weren’t the best of times. Things on the island were reaching a boiling point. There was now political trouble in addition to the various and sundry problems that the island always posed to the unprepared and the unwary. I was going to need to act decisively if we were to save anyone.
I spend a lot of time getting people to try to lighten their loads. Tools were important. Food was important. Everything else was secondary. Some people just didn’t seem to get the message, however. I was worried that our trail would be clearly marked by the discarded items that people got too tired to keep carrying. That was especially true when I considered the weight of the equipment that Tikter brought back. That stuff, especially the crucible used to smelt the gold, looked heavy as hell.
When Tikter came back he walked over to me.
“I had the samples assayed,” he said. “It’s certainly gold.”
With a nod, I walked off to continue helping the other pack up camp. I didn’t ask how much the wyvern products sold for. I am certain the answer would be a lie in any event.