The Second Book of Lankhmar

Mouser's dirk, Captain," Skor called up, "lying just as we uncovered it."
           "I didn't move it the least bit as I brushed and worked the earth away," Gale confirmed in her piping tones.
           "That's a wise girl," Fafhrd called down. "Leave it so. And don't move from where you are, either of you. I'm coming down."
           Which he accomplished swiftly by way of the ladder of thick pegs jutting from the shoring, going down hand over hook. When he reached the crowded bottom, he knelt at once over Cat's Claw, bending down his head to inspect it closely.
           "We didn't find the scabbard anywhere," Gale explained somewhat unnecessarily.
           He nodded. "The ground gets chalky here," he observed. "Did either of you find a chunk of the stuff?"
           "No," Gale responded quickly, "but I've a lump of yellow umber."
           "That'll do fine," he said, holding out his hand. When she'd dug it from her pouch and handed it to him, he sighted carefully along the dagger's blade and rubbed a big gold mark on the foot of the shoring to show which way the weapon pointed.
           "That's something we may want to remember," he explained shortly. He lifted the wicked knife from its site, turning it over and reinspecting it from blade tip to pommel, but he could discern no special markings, no message of any sort, on that side either.
           "What have you found, Fafhrd?" Cif called down.
           "It's Cat's Claw, all right. I'll send it up to you," he called back. He handed the knife to Skor. "I'll take over for a space down here. You get some rest." He accepted from his lieutenant the short-handled square spade that had replaced his ax as chief digging and scraping tool. "You're a good man, Skor." That one nodded and mounted by the pegs.
           "I'm coming down, Fafhrd. My turn to help," Afreyt announced from above.
           Fafhrd looked at Gale. At close range the golden strands were sweaty and the fair complexion streaked with dirt. Pallor and tired smudges around the blue eyes belied the air of smiling readiness the girl put on. "You need a rest too. And sleep, you hear? But only after you've had a mug of hot soup." He took from her her scoop and handbroom. "You've done well, child."
           While she wearily yet reluctantly mounted the pegs, with Afreyt urging her to greater speed from above, Fafhrd drove the spade into the earth near the hole's edge, continuing the excavation straight down.
           After Afreyt had climbed into the hole to join Fafhrd in his task, the harlot Rill led the exhausted Gale back to the cookfire beyond the shelter tent. Cif followed them, somewhat like a sleepwalker, staring at the knife she held, which Skor had handed her, and after a bit the others gravitated back too. Standing in the cold to watch folk dig is of no lasting profit.
           Rill was pressing Gale to finish the mug of soup she'd poured her.
           "Drink it all down while there's some heat in it. That's a good girl. Why, you still feel like ice! You need to be under blankets. And get a sleep, you're groggy. Come on now, no arguments."
           And she led her off willingly enough to the shelter tent.
           Cif was still staring bemusedly at the Mouser's knife, slowly turning it over and over, so that its bright blade periodically reflected the low firelight.
           Old Ourph said ruminatively, "When Khahkht the Conqueror was buried bound and beweaponed alive for treason, but later cleared and dug up, it was found his daggers had worked their way yards from his corpse in opposite directions, so strong and wide were his hatreds."
           Pshawri said, "I thought Khahkht was a Rimish ice devil, not a Mingol warchief paramount."
           After a while Ourph replied, "Great conquerors live on as their enemies' devils."
           "Or their own folk's, sometimes," Groniger put in.
           Skullick said, "If dead old Khahkht could make his daggers travel through solid earth, why didn't he have them cut his bonds?"
           Rill returned with an armful of girls' clothes which she hung by the fire and then sat down beside Cif, saying, "I stripped her down to the buff and bundled her into a warmed nook beside the drowsy Ilthmar kid, who'd half waked but was bound again for slumberland."
           After a courteous pause, Ourph explained, "Khahkht's bonds were chains of