* * *
Cor began arranging things he would need for travel. There was very little food left other than preserved jerky. He could certainly eat it if that’s all he had, but he quickly realized that he knew nothing of living off the land while traveling. He would need to purchase provisions, and his only source for that would be Cade. Of course, that was a hope and could be a completely different problem; if Cade chose not to help him, he would likely have to seek provisions in Hager. Cor gathered two large water skins and fashioned himself a bedroll. There was little else he could do to prepare, so it was time to find what he could only term the Dahken treasury.
Taking several large sacks, Cor walked around the outside of the keep, nearing the front entrance. Two huge wood doors, each about twelve feet tall, stood closed with a bar across them. The bar was little more than a wood plank, but clearly had been added recently, likely to keep the wind from opening the doors. This he hefted off its brackets and dropped to the side, and the doors swung open rather easily.
The immensity of the hall surprised Cor; it was over fifty feet wide and larger than that in depth. Light filtered down from unclosed windows high above, perhaps three times Cor’s height from the floor, and as he entered, he found the final resting place of many warriors. Centuries old skeletons, most of them fully armored with weapons lying nearby littered this room, and many of them were contorted in unnatural positions of agony, while others seemed to lay in peaceful resolve. Cor disturbed none of these, determined to let them rest as they were, though his passage did aggravate several birds that fluttered about, chattering angrily before lighting elsewhere or simply flying away.
At the rear of the hall was a great rectangular table, nearly as wide as the room itself with no less than fifty chairs around it. At the center of the far side sat a chair that was larger than the others and carved from a dark wood, perhaps mahogany. The back was nearly seven feet tall, and it had large arms carved into the shape of downward turned claws whereas the other chairs had none. It also bore the remnants of an upholstered cushion, long eaten away by time, rodents and moths.
On the back wall, Cor saw the two doors as described in Rael’s journal, and he opted for the left one, seeing no real difference between the two. It opened easily into a corridor roughly thirty feet long, at the other end of which he saw the other door leading back to the hall. Set into the center of the opposite wall was another huge door, nearly the size of the main doors into the keep and banded with iron as Rael described. Cor approached it, firming his resolve. He had no idea what guardians lay behind the door, but fear lost its place in his heart a day ago at least.
Despite its great size, this door also opened easily, and a true horde of treasure greeted Cor’s eyes. He had never seen so much gold, silver and gems at one time; Rael never had much on him at a time, and the sums he had seen his father make at market were a mere pittance as compared to this. His eyes moved over open chests and carelessly dropped sacks that spilled over with gold and silver coins. Gems of various sizes and colors glittered intermittently in the horde of precious metals.
Cor stepped into the room, an empty sack in hand, unsure where to begin. There was no light source in the treasury itself; what little light he had came from the hallway behind him. There was a sudden sound of movement from the back of the room beyond his vision, followed by a hail of several dozen coins flung his direction. Cor covered his face with his hands as most of them missed or bounced off his armor, and he drew his sword and fetish, hearing something in the rear of the chamber that shambled his way. He held his sword before him, ready to strike, but the movement instantly stopped and then started again, receding into the back of the chamber again. It came to Cor’s mind that the guardians of this treasure may not know him, but they knew Soulmourn. And the last time they encountered the sword, it was in the hands of a Lord Dahken. That was all the safe passage he needed.
Though fairly certain he was now safe, Cor decided not to tarry long here. He had little knowledge of the value of gems, and so he avoided them altogether, focusing on as much gold as possible. By the time he filled the first sack, he realized the flaw in this logic; gold is heavy. He filled the other two sacks with whatever he could lay his hands on. The silver coins were lighter than the gold, and the gems felt nearly weightless in comparison.
Cor tied one of the sacks to his belt and carried the other two, one in each hand, and the weight of the coinage surprised him somewhat. He set the sacks down in the corridor to pull the door shut behind him and then picked them up again to continue outside. Cor dropped the treasure in a heap with relief and set about gathering his other belongings alongside the sacks, including Rael’s saddle. He considered the pile for a moment, before his eyes narrowed as something occurred to him. Cor jogged into the keep and into the study; from there he took six blank scrolls, a quill pen, two stoppered glass vials of ink and several coal pencils. All this he brought back to the rest of his supplies.
Cor found Rael’s horse around the back of the keep, the black stallion grazing peacefully. He led the animal back around the building where it eyed his small stack of items, especially the saddle. Cor blanketed and saddled the horse, then went about placing the other items in saddlebags or attached to the saddle itself. Comfortable that all was secure, he mounted the horse and trotted out the gate.
16.