Salt Storm: The Salted Series: Episodes #31-35 Galvin, Aaron (classic fiction txt) 📖

all to the killing fields and clearing out room in the cages for all the other shipments to come. He said it were mercy to give the Selkies quick deaths, rather than have them starve or suffer from the cold.”

Lenny took a step back at the Orc’s admission. And we could’ve been some of them trapped and killed here, Pop. Lenny thought to himself, remembering when he and his father had been brought down from the capital with Jemmy T, all of them packed to the point of suffocation.

“Why’d they send us down to the ice mines in Røyrkval, then?” Lenny asked the cowering Orc. “Why send some of us to the City of Song if the whole point was to kill as many Selkies as ya could?”

Yusuf shrugged. “Your group was stronger than the rest, perhaps? I don’t know. All the ones who land here are marked for death. Truly, there is nothing else for them to do here but die.”

“But why?” Tom asked. “Why kill them? The women and the children?”

“I-I only know what I heard,” said Yusuf. “They’re just rumors.”

Tom grabbed Yusuf by his hair, forcing him to look on the strewn, Selkie corpses as if the Orc had been blind to his previous work. “They’re not rumors, you fool! These people are dead! Can’t you see that? Hmm? Now, tell us why! Spit it out, before I decide to take your tongue out too and cast you screaming into the fire!”

Yusuf cringed at that. “Some . . . some of the other soldiers said that the Merrow king . . . that King Darius is superstitious, sir. He believes in the old stories of the Ancients warring with the Sancul. They say it’s why he sent the Selkies to work the mines in Røyrkval in the first place.”

Lenny cocked an eyebrow. “Superstitious?”

“Aye.” Yusuf nodded. “They said he thought there was some kind of mystic treasure hidden in the lost city . . . some kind of power tucked away, deep inside the ice.”

A lost key. Lenny thought, glancing in Tom’s direction. Like Pop said all along.

If the behemoth Selkie had any secret knowledge, however, Tom Weaver kept it hidden well. His face remained a mask of sternness in lieu of Yusuf’s answers.

“What’s this magic treasure supposed to do?” Lenny asked. “This power it’s supposed to have?”

Tom Weaver frowned at Lenny’s question, but he made no move to rebuff him as Yusuf continued shaking upon the floor. “Well?” Tom nudged their Orc prisoner. “What of it?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “No one does.”

Lenny cocked an eyebrow. “Someone does. If not, then why go all through this trouble?” His thoughts turned to all the Selkie dead outside and the one laid to rest in the Ancient City of Song. “Why keep searching?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “Please, believe me. I only know what I heard.”

Lenny started forward, bringing the tip of his blade to touch beneath Yusuf’s chin even as Tom Weaver kept his hold of the Orc’s hair. “Then, tell me,” Lenny shouted. “Tell me why!”

“Dolan . . .” said Tom.

Lenny ignored him. “Why?” He demanded of Yusuf, the tip of his blade digging into the Orc’s skin enough to bleed him. “Why are all these Selkies here? Why do you Orcs keep killing us, huh?”

Tom Weaver yanked him back easily enough, tossing Lenny aside to skitter across the floor. “Easy, Dolan.” He said when Lenny wheeled around as if meaning to come charging back once he regained his footing. “He can’t tell you anything if he’s dead.”

Yusuf fell shivering to the floor then. “Please . . .” he wept. “I-I don’t know much else. The others said there were too many rebellions lately. Too many runners . . .” Yusuf glanced between Lenny and Tom, pleading in his eyes. “The king didn’t want another Selkie Strife.”

“Yeah?” Tom snorted. “Well, the Merrow king is gonna get one. Especially when the rest of the group we busted outta Røyrkval finds out about this operation you have going here. Now that they’ve got another taste of victory in their mouths, you Orcs and your Merrow king are gonna have your hands chock full of Selkie rebellions.”

Yusuf shook his head. “My people don’t like the king either.” His voice shook. “I think it’s why they’re rallying to the Blackfin instead. He says we’ve been serving the Merrows too long and that Darius is weak. The Blackfin and his Violovar have been promising change for our people. To make the Salt safer and protect us from the Nomads. He says we’ll stop serving Merrows too, and that he would have us Orcs to rule the Salt.”

Lenny sneered. “The Blackfin to rule the Salt, you mean. For some reason, I don’t see him as the sort for sharing the crown, if you know what I mean. And if he’s such a big tough guy ready to take on the crown, why bother picking on slaves, huh?”

“I-I think he is afraid your kind, sir,” said Yusuf. “The Merrow king too.”

Tom and Lenny shared a look. “That don’t make no sense,” said Lenny. “What’s the Merrow king and the Blackfin got to fear from Selkies?”

“I don’t know,” said Yusuf. “But I heard some of our other soldiers arguing about it. They said all the Selkies they interrogated confessed to running and rebellion because they knew, sir . . . the Selkie runners knew something was wrong . . . that something is wrong, sir.”

The hairs on the back of Lenny’s neck raised at the conviction in Yusuf’s voice.

“The other soldiers claimed the Selkies knew something terrible was coming,” said Yusuf, trembling as he spoke. “Something awful . . . and that the Selkie runners feared whatever comes next more than they feared the threat of dying down here.”

16

KELLEN

Kellen had lost count of the days he and the other Sancul had swum since leaving Garrett Weaver and the Nomad horde behind. In the eternal dark and deep of the Abyss, time seemed of