Marrow Hole (pages 15-16)

Transcript

… medic spoke again. “Are you ready?”

When confronted with the choice between a possible quick death and a certain slow death, Gareth reluctantly agreed to the strange procedure. The medic ordered her apprentice, Dreksa, to join her in what she called the wet room.

Gareth was led by the ancient goblin past the rickety beds, the shelves, and the boxes, into a side chamber. There, in the doorway, he was struck by a wall of humid heat. As his eyes adjusted, he learned the reason for the difference in temperature: the only light in here came from the embers that burned under huge vats of boiling water. Then slowly, with horrible realization, he discovered the meaning of this room’s name. All around the edges of this cave were corpses – goblin corpses, mostly, as well as some he could not recognize. Few were fully intact. Some sported large incisions closed only by metallic clamps, and all appeared to have some kind of tubing extending from their mouths, noses, torsos, or limbs.

“They are not dead,” the medic corrected him, as if she could read his mind. “They will be, sometime. But not until I am finished with them. Going well, Kander?”

Gareth quickly looked around the room until he saw the shadow of another young goblin, crouched over and pumping a bellows in slow rhythm. This child, Kander, nodded silently and … [cont.]

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