An Oath Sworn Sample Chapter

Ink Spills, Green Eyes

His foes’ corpses were stacked like cords of wood as high as his waist. Grady the Invincible surveyed the quiet battlefield with a fierce smile, his thick beard’s intricate and torc filled braids fluttering in the wind. Blood dripped artfully from the raised blade of his trusty ax. The impressively massive, double-bladed weapon swung over his head as he roared out his victory. The other thegen around him raised their weapons and added their cries to the din.

The goblin raiders were many, but they stood no chance against the defenders of Rockhome and their honored leader.

Emerlda stepped out of the crowd of huddling miners, safe behind the line held by the storied protectors. She removed her helmet and shook out her long blond locks, setting the shining fringe of golden hair lining her chin to wave. The small red cut on her cheek and her shining green eyes contrasted sharply against the dusting of black over the rest of her. “I knew you’d come. As soon as those things broke through the walls, I knew.”

Grady’s chest swelled with fear and something softer, warmer. He reached over and drew Emerlda in a couple steps. She was a tall dvergr, but she only reached his chin. Grady looked her over again in relief at finding her unharmed. “I’m just glad you’re alright.” 

Emerlda stepped closer to Grady. The warmth radiating from her stoked his heart’s furnace. Her smell, wholly her own, made him dizzy. She leaned in even closer and tilted her head up to him. “Grady,” she whispered urgently. Grady closed his eyes and leaned in anticipating the taste of her lips.

 A strong hand shook him at the shoulder. “Phukit's coming Grady. Wake up.”

“Gah!” Ripped from his dream, Grady jumped in his seat, his knees knocking painfully into the underside of his desk. The violent upheaval upset the pot of waiting ink, spilling its contents over the nearly completed forms. It glowed a faint green in the lichen light of his office. “What? Phukit! Oh shit.” He looked at the clock on his wall. Fifteen to Ten. “Shit.” He took in the sight of the ink eating up the neatly numbered rows of a particularly tricky maintenance cost report. “I can fix it. I can fix it.” Grady dipped at the spill with the corner of his already stained smock. “Thanks, Emerlda. I’m at the end of a triple. Phukit promised to fire me if she caught me napping again!” 

“She's down the corner and should be here…”

His supervisor interrupted from the doorway, brusk and unamused. “Having some sort of gathering are you, Computer Grady?” 

“No, Senior Clerk.” Grady shuffled to the side, hiding the spill and the fresh ink on his sleeves behind his back.

Senior Clerk Phukit examined Emerlda over her handlebar swooped beard. She took her time to absorb the scene before her. She adjusted her brown and gold tartan jacket and lightly touched her paisley neck scarf. Phukit pivoted to face Emerlda. Grady was relieved when her tone was cool and polite. “And you are?”

“I'm Emerlda, daughter of Rubin. Miner. B-Class.” She held out her hand. Her warm open smile was at such odds with Phukit’s stoney expression, Grady couldn't help but grin. He did his best to hide it behind a cough.

“Pleasure.” One pump and Phukit released her grip. “Pardon me.” Her return smile was business sharp and polite and faded once her attention returned to Grady. “Computer Grady, have you compiled the maintenance numbers yet?”

“Yes, of course.”

Phukit held out her hand. “Well?”

“Yes, of course, I had it done.” Grady braced himself. He cast about for some way to soften the blow. Quickly he decided there was only one way out. Through. “There was an accident…” He stepped aside revealing the mess behind him. Grady prepared his best cringe. Done properly it would blunt the force of Phukit’s incoming tirade.

Phukit scowled and pursed her lips, building up pressure to let him have it all in one go. Emerlda ducked around her and interposed herself between them. “It was my fault, Senior Clerk. Practically kicked the door in when I arrived. Forgot I was in an office for a second.” 

The Senior Clerk peered over Emerlda’s shoulder at Grady, who shrugged apologetically. “I am easily startled, Senior Clerk.”

 Pinching the bridge of her nose she sighed. She took note of the time. “These things happen. Emerlda, was it? Computer I believe you are on the end of a triple?”

“Yes, Senior Clerk.”

She referred to several sheets of paper on her clipboard. “According to my notes, your output was more than acceptable. Thank you for your efforts. I know triples can be rough. Once you have cleaned up this mess and repaired any ruined work you may clock out. Take a double off. Rest up.”

“Yes, Senior Clerk. Thank you, Senior Clerk.” He bobbed out several short bows.

“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miner B-Class.”

“Yours too, Senior Clerk.” One more quick shake and Phukit was out the door checking on the clerk in the next office over.

“Oh, wow, ‘Merlda. You really saved my bacon. I owe you one. No, five. I owe you five.” Grady wanted to run forward and give her a big hug. He didn’t, but he wanted to.

“What are friends for?” She shrugged her strong, rounded shoulders. The light in the room flickered along the golden outlines of the tattoos covering her arms. Grady admired how she looked in the glow from his office lamp. She had clearly taken the time to trade in the miner’s end of shift coating of grime for the artful smudging favored by those who followed the fashions from Up-Wall. Her eyes were tastefully darkened and a thumb wide streak of smoke marred the playful yellow fringe of the hair dangling from her jaw line. The way she was smiling at him, with her thumbs tucked into the belt of her pale gray coveralls, thrilled him to his toes. “What’s that you’re reading?”

“Huh?” Grady followed her eyes and saw his novel open, pages down. The cover sported two weapon wielding figures clothed mostly in sweat and tasteful lines of blood. Grady grabbed up the book and held it behind his back. “Oh. Ha. Nothing. Just another of my silly heroes’ tales.” Looking up at Emerlda’s warm face encouraged a blush to bloom on his cheeks. He hoped his beard hid most of it. 

 “A bunch of the crew are going to get a flagon and some deep fried ‘shrooms at some new tavern near the East Wall.” She brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear. There was a dare poorly hidden in her merry green eyes. “Care to come?”

“Uh.” His mind worked furiously. He looked back and forth between the mess on his desk and his friend. The world, for a moment, sparkled green. “I’d love to, really, but…” He gestured vaguely behind himself.

“Yeah! Of course. Gotta keep the bosses happy.” Grady was sure he only imagined the slight disappointment in her voice. She stopped half out of his office door and leaned against the jam. “We’ll be there for a good chunk of the shift. If this doesn’t take you a rock’s age to fix up, maybe you could meet us, me, there after?”

“Uh. Yeah. For sure, yeah. Shouldn’t take me more than an hour or two.” 

“Alright! Get to it. No shirking. The pub’s a part of block 625 East. I’ll be waiting. See yuh soon, Grady. Sorry again!” She waved enthusiastically.  

 “No need to apologize! Thank you!” Grady followed her out of the door with a half raised wave of his own waiting to see if she would look back. She didn’t. Not that it mattered. 

The bone deep weariness that nearly ninety straight hours at a desk engenders in a body evaporated. There was no room for exhaustion, Grady had plans! Plans to hang out, to get some drinks with, of all dvergr, Emerlda.  

The glowing pond of ink on his desk mocked his newfound excitement. He grumbled at the delay created by care as he bent the paper around the ruinous liquid and poured the spilled ink into the trash. A critical examination of his handiwork revealed that not too much was ruined and all of it was legible enough. A simple copy job would not keep him. 

He bounced in his chair as he grabbed some clean sheets, filled his pen from a different, upright inkwell, and took a moment to breathe and shake out his hands to settle them. He dutifully copied figures onto a clean sheet, freeing a great portion of his mind to imagine the revelry to come. His mind’s eye watched himself open the pub door. With a rush, Emerlda leaps up and drags him to a seat next to her at the bar. Grady hears indistinct echoes of himself being funny, winning Emerlda’s miner friends over. Their slaps on the back are hard but well meaning. The scene changes to a quiet corner where just Emerlda and he sits to drink and talk away the late hours of the shift. Then… who knows. 

In the real world, the practical one with paperwork to fix and a boss to please, the clean pages filled with numbers neatly written and correctly summed and subtracted. Each column represented the cost of some vital piece of the puzzle that kept the mine functioning at peak efficiency. A flicker of satisfaction at the fresh copies flared like a spark from an anvil and was gone. He placed it in the clearly marked ‘Done’ tray. Grady shuttered his lamp, cutting off the lichens’ glow. He sat in the darkness for a moment to steel himself for what was to come. 

As he locked up his office, he realized he forgot his book. “Yup. That seems right.” He chafed at even this small delay. 

Once he hitched his bag onto his shoulder, one novel heavier, Grady started to wend his way to Eastern block 625. A press of dvergr bodies filled the raised walkway. Grady waited for a gap in incoming pedestrian traffic, scuttled into the opening, and began to make his way upstream against the flood of miners entering the yard ready to start their next working shift. Normally, the pathways flowed in both directions, but Grady had not left on time. Shifts wait for no one. Grady had to concentrate to successfully weave his way through the push of gray clad bodies. A misjudged angle caused a passing shoulder to slam into him. That was going to bruise. He rubbed his shoulder and hoped that the passing miner’s shoulder also hurt, that their brief collision impacted the other person at least a little. 

Once he reached the pedestrian gate, Grady swung out of the press and found the small open space between the wall and flow of bodies. He leaned against the wrought iron fence, waiting for the shift change traffic to end and for the walkway to grow a little quieter. His desire to join up with Emerlda urged him onward, but the traffic was against him and clearer paths would make for faster travel. Ignoring the constant rumble of the laden chain carts in the sunken avenues below, he continued to rub at his shoulder and looked up as the last reflected rays of the sun painted the Ceiling with reds and purples.  

Through the coal-dark fog Grady was able to make out bits of the great stalactite palaces that housed Rockhome’s elite. They hung over the Floor like all consuming teeth from Wall to Wall to Wall to Wall in every direction. Far above him, Grady could just make out the small color-filled figures of people walking along the impossibly delicate looking layers of artistically carved bridges and walkways strung between the buildings. Not for the first time Grady wondered what it would be like to work and live above the continuous pall of noxious, industrial fog that clung to the Floor. 

By the time the last of the miners left the pathway, only the highest reaches of the Ceiling were colored by the fading sun. The Floor itself was deep in darkness’s grip. Even during the height of a topside day, the gloom was never fully banished. The street lights flickered to life as their internal clockwork ignited pilot lights and opened up gas spouts. Patchy warning paint glowed in the dim light, lining the walkways to keep unwary pedestrians from falling into the constantly moving carts below. 

After all, the cost would be too high to halt the flow of commerce for such a small, cheap thing as an individual's lost life. 

After the press of the shift change the new openness of the walkway was a balm to Grady’s bruised shoulder and the habitually emotional ache he felt when alone in a large crowd. 

Without others around it was easier to know that he mattered. 

He left the mine’s entrance way and entered the lamp lit pathways of the Floor proper. Grady walked with his hands in his pockets and his eyes locked on the Ceiling as it twinkled with its own lights. Millions of bright points outlined the hanging buildings and their spiderweb of walkways. Stories about the night sky brought by surface traders spoke about the stars that twinkled in that impossible empty firmament. 

As far as Grady was concerned, they could keep it. He could not imagine a sight more impressive or one with more twinkle than the Ceiling in the darkt. I wonder if the people up there ever look down here? Does the Floor sparkle as much? He doubted it. They probably couldn’t see a thing through the fog. 

Grady had not spent any time on the east side of the city during his fifty odd years of life. The orphan asylum in which he grew up was in the North West, if it still existed. Both the tenement he called home and the mine office where he spent most of his time were westerly. The sameness of every inch of the Floor and the effort it took to remain alive and comfortable stifled any desire Grady possessed to explore. Despite his lack of familiarity with the immediate area surrounding his destination, Grady’s steps never faltered nor did he ever feel lost. He knew how the grid worked and which way was east. Concentrating on his path made it easier to ignore the building buzz of stomach churning anticipation about what was to come.    

The sounds of raucous singing drew Grady down one of block 625 East’s side streets. He stopped in front of a door underneath the same simple sign that read ‘Pub’ and hung over every one of the Floor’s many drinking establishments. He remained still, staring up at the sign for a good few minutes. 

He stood frozen by an internal war. One faction consisted of his joy at being invited by Emerlda, his hopes about what that invite meant, and his excitement about being wanted at any kind of social situation. They battled the Adversaries, a teeming horde of Grady’s doubts and insecurities, supported by lumbering, monstrous cadres of fear and inadequacy.

The door flung open and two figures, linked by arms flung over shoulders, burst out into the street dragging noise and the funk of good beer in their wake. They swayed and stumbled off into the city singing the bawdy chorus of some drinking song that reddened Grady’s ears and added three new words to his vocabulary. The party beyond the swiftly shutting door pinned Grady in place with awful fascination. Dvergr, jammed from wall to wall, standing and at tables, hoisted flagons, conversed with lubricated vigor, or laughed heartily in unison. 

The door swung shut and Grady made some calculations. The arms he saw hauling drinks were as thick as his leg. A number of the seated revelers still topped Grady’s standing height by a hand. The pub was a boozer, one of the unofficial miner only establishments spread throughout the Floor. Grady had never been to one before. He wouldn’t dare.

This is too much. I can’t. He’d apologize to Emerlda and say the work took longer than expected. Next time for sure. He’d even promise. If there’s a next time.

The muffled cries and shouts of a good time bubbled behind the door.  

“First fear, then bravery,” Grady quoted and pressed against the solid rectangle of the book in his shoulder bag. He slapped his palms to his cheeks, the sharpish shock grounding him. The promise of Emerlda drew him in like a loadstone. With a gulp Grady pushed the door inward on its two way hinges and stepped into the alien world of a pub at full swing.