Tungdil helped her up. “Don’t kneel to me. There is no need to beg for help. I will do what any dwarf would do.”
She smiled at him and wiped the tears from her wrinkled cheeks. “May Vraccas bless you, Tungdil Goldhand.” She drew a golden amulet from her pocket and hung it round his neck. “This belongs to my son. He will know that I have sent you. And if you cannot find him, keep it still, for having tried. He would be proud to know a hero was wearing it.”
The pendant showed a silver moon in front of golden mountains. “I thank you. How is it that the king did not send to search for your son?”
Fire sparked in her eyes. “He had them searching half a cycle long. They found his shield up by a deep ravine and they presumed that he had fallen there.”
“What makes you so sure that this is not the case?” Boindil stared at her. “Not, of course, that I wish him dead.”
“A mother feels it when her own child dies.” She gave a faint smile. “He is not dead. I know he lives and is in need of help.”
Tungdil gave a start when he heard her words, as if pierced by an alfar arrow. He turned away. “Trust her feeling,” was all he said to Boindil. Then he left the chamber, turning once more at the doorway. “We shall bring you back your son. Dead or alive.”
N ext morning the small band left the safety of the dwarf lands and marched to the Northern Pass, where biting winds awaited. The icy gusts sang many-voiced along the edges of the cliffs. Tungdil wondered if the wind was mocking them or issuing a warning.
“The wind is good. It will blow away the mist,” said Boindil, muttering into the scarf he had wrapped around his face. He peered out, even if it felt as if his eyes might turn to balls of ice in the cold.
“Out here it will,” corrected Tungdil. “As soon as we reach the tunnels we’ll meet the wretched fog. I’m sure of it.” He fell silent for a while and looked up at the walls. “I wonder what the monsters want with Gremdulin.”
“They’ll want the password from him,” Boindil guessed. “The snout-faces are getting cleverer. But it won’t help them. Only the king and two of his closest men know the words that will unlock the bolts.”
“They are welcome to that.” Tungdil pointed to the cliffs. “Can you think of a creature that doesn’t fly and still can survive on rocks like that? And if it’s orcs, why didn’t more of them climb up along there, take over the ramparts and let down ropes for the others?” His brown gaze swept searching over the grass that bore patches of snow in places. “Boindil, something’s not right here.”
“A new adventure, Scholar,” grinned Boindil. “Like the old days.”
“No,” replied Tungdil, shaking his head. Then he took a mouthful of brandy from his leather flask. “Not like the old days. It will never be like the old days. Too many of our comrades have died.” Hastening his pace, he took over the head of the contingent.
“Was Tungdil Goldhand always… like that?” asked Manon cautiously. He had moved up to march at Boindil’s side.
“What do you mean?” thundered the dwarf-twin.
“Don’t get me wrong. He will be a good leader for us, but… the men are surprised at him. We have heard tales of his deeds. We had heard of his appearance.” He looked over at Tungdil carefully. It was hard for him to voice the concerns his troops had spoken of. “The way he looks-it’s not like the hero they imagined. And there are rumors going round about the way he behaved at the high king’s feast. They say he is drunk all the time.” Manon let his gaze fall. “My men think these rumors are not unfounded.”
They are not alone in that, thought Boindil to himself. “Call them to order,” he growled. “They shouldn’t be spreading gossip like washerwomen. You will soon see that Tungdil is a hero still.” He could only hope his words were true. Silently he wished for strength for his friend, so that he could again be the dwarf he once had been. A dwarf like Vraccas had intended.
Manon nodded and returned to his place in the troop.
After more than half an orbit they entered a passage, which filled up with fog when they had hardly gone a hundred paces.
Boindil nodded. “This is the right place. I remember it exactly.” He sniffed at the murky air. “That’s the one: damp, cold, revolting.”
“Only the orcs missing,” said Tungdil quietly and he motioned to his companions to draw their weapons. “Take care. In this pea-souper you won’t see the enemy until he’s right in front of you. And be quiet. The more noise we make, the more you’re telling them about your whereabouts.”
They crept along in the fog. It brought back memories for Tungdil and Boindil. “There were three of the snout-faces,” whispered Ireheart. “Two we finished off, but one escaped, remember?”
Indeed, how could he have forgotten that sight of mutilated dwarf corpses? The orc that got away had laid about himself horrifically, mowing down their comrades. “Be quiet!”
“Perhaps that orc is still around?” murmured Boindil, and drew back: his companion’s breath was heavy and sour with alcohol. “Oh, you know what? Maybe I do feel like a fight, after all.”
“Boindil! Just keep quiet, for once!”
“All right. I won’t say another word. Until we find the orc, that is.” He wielded his war hammer in a trial move. He had missed this sense of excitement.
They made their tortuous way through the mist that was dampening their beards and hair; drops of moisture had collected on their armor. The dwarves pricked up their ears to listen for sounds in the gray murk; you could detect nothing but the steps of the dwarf directly ahead, or the one behind you. The monsters were not showing themselves, which was not making progress any easier.
“When’s this fog going to stop? I’d rather face an attack and use my crow’s beak to slash through. I can’t stand this creeping around,” Boindil complained.
“Have you seen an orc?” asked the wraithlike figure of Tungdil bad-temperedly.
“No, why?”
“Then why are you talking about it?”
Ireheart fell silent again and he heard Tungdil take another draft from his flask; there was a smell of brandy.
After endless walking they discovered they had reached a cave. They felt their away round the walls. Tungdil located the rune and then they found a tunnel leading deeper into the Outer Lands. Nobody dared raise his voice. Now they were really in a place no dwarf had been before.
Suddenly, round a turning, the fog thinned as if a wet gray curtain had been torn away and discarded.
The quiet made them nervous. The dwarves would have been keen to hear the slightest sound, any sound to indicate life here in the tunnels-it didn’t matter if it came from friend or foe.
“This is a ruddy labyrinth.” Manon spoke. “There are more and more forks to the path.”
“I know,” replied Tungdil. “And someone has been here before us.” He pointed to scratches on the rock wall that no one else had noticed. “It’s an orc rune from Girdlegard. It stands for gr. We’ve been following the marks for some time.”
“We’re on the tracks of the pig-face that escaped us that time!” Boindil nodded to Manon as if to say, You see? This is a fine leader we have. “Wonder where it’s taking us?”
Tungdil shrugged his shoulders and moved on. The runes he found now were less carefully scratched, and soon they petered out altogether. Tungdil led the troop along the passage, leaving his own marks on the wall as he went.
“A cave,” he said after the last turning. He pointed. In front of them slanting light filtered through, shining on the bones that covered the floor. They entered the chamber cautiously.
“Ho, so somebody doesn’t like orcs,” said Ireheart, looking at the remains scattered around. He crouched down to examine his finds. “They’ve been dissected. The kind of monster that pulls an orc apart is my kind of monster,” he joked. He spat on the bones. “They’ve been here for some time, it looks like.”