“This may be why there’ve been no more attacks on the gate,” chipped in Manon, picking up a thigh bone and checking out the knife marks on it.
“There are too many orcs. Nothing could eat all of them,” said Boindil doubtfully.
Manon looked at the huge cavern and held his hand out in a beam of light. “What if it’s a really big monster? A dragon?”
“I don’t think so,” contradicted Tungdil. “We would have seen tracks: marks on the rock, discarded scales, broken teeth.” He had located the way out.
“And a dragon could never have got through the narrow passageways.”
“There used to be smaller dragons in the old days,” objected Manon.
“I know. I’ve seen the books and the drawings. I’ve studied them all.” Tungdil wanted to show the thirdling that he was indeed the educated dwarf here. “That is why I am dismissing the possibility of a dragon.” He turned and walked on.
The others followed him to the next tunnel and then they got to a further cave that had a stream running through it. The dwarves spread out. It was clear from the tracks on the ground that there had been an encampment here. And a very big one, at that.
The number of fires that had been lit here in the past indicated to Boindil that perhaps two thousand people had made camp here. “They were here for quite some time,” he said, looking at the marks. “And they haven’t been gone long.” He ran his gloved hands through the ash. “Cold, but fairly fresh.”
“The question is, were they orcs or something else entirely for whom our deadly enemies are food?” Tungdil pointed over to the opening of a wide naturally formed tunnel. “That way. Let’s see if we can find more clues as to where they’ve gone.”
They moved on, weapons at the ready, and muscles tensed. Just because a creature had developed a taste for orc flesh did not mean that a dwarf would be considered a friend.
The tunnel ended at a heap of stones blocking their path.
Tungdil looked up, then at the stones in front of him. “These boulders haven’t fallen from the roof. They’ve been piled here on purpose to close off the tunnel.” He looked at Boindil. “Maybe the army camping here did this to cover its retreat.”
“Or perhaps they were trying to stop more monsters coming through,” suggested Manon.
“It’s all very peculiar,” was Ireheart’s view. “Easier in the old days, wasn’t it, Scholar? The pig-faces came, we wiped them out, all done, finished.” He sat down on a rock ledge, and slipped off his helmet, scratching his head; it was one of the few days he wore his hair unbraided, and it looked strange on him. “Now we’re right back at square one.”
“Except we know now that someone has a fancy for orc flesh,” Manon chipped in. “I’m sticking to my dragon theory. We’re in the Outer Lands here…”
“No. There are no more dragons. Or they’re never seen nowadays.” Tungdil sat down, too, and ordered the troops to take a rest; they all relaxed and had something to eat. “No dragon would take the trouble to collect its prey together in this way.” His clothing stuck to him; he was dripping with sweat. He was not used to the exertion of a long march any more.
“Those beasts are clever. They would never put orc-snout flesh in their mouths,” laughed Boindil, as he bit into his bread and stinking cheese. All of a sudden his gaze fastened on the heap of stones behind Tungdil. “What’s that? Isn’t there something catching the light?” Boindil jumped to his feet and began to pull away the rubble. He called five of the warriors over and got them to dig. He was too tired.
It took quite some time before the hidden object was revealed. Rubble kept slipping back down over where they were working whenever they removed a sizeable boulder, and there was dust everywhere by now. Finally Tungdil was handed a flattened helmet. A helmet with a golden moon on the front; black bloodied hairs stuck still to the rim.
“So that will be her son we have found,” said Ireheart under his breath.
Tungdil put the helmet in his pack. “It’s his helmet we’ve found. Not him. Don’t make the same mistake as the search party the king sent out. They might have placed the helmet there on purpose, so it gets found and it’s assumed that he’s dead.”
“Why on earth would anyone do that?”
“Exactly. Why? Orcs would never have taken the trouble. It must have been something with a brain,” insisted Tungdil.
Ireheart leaned back and looked at the stone barricade. “Are you thinking of dismantling it to find out?”
Tungdil shook his head. “No. I’m sure that would be a waste of effort. We-”
They all heard the clinking noise that traveled out along the tunnel toward them from the cave; metal had come into contact with stone.
“So we are not alone,” whispered Boindil, stuffing his food back into his knapsack.
“Let’s go and see,” agreed Tungdil, getting the troop to assemble.
While they crept silently back through the tunnel to the cave they picked up that same sound again. It was nearer now.
Tungdil, Boindil and Manon took a cautious look out of the tunnel mouth. At first glance there was little to see. The cave was empty and abandoned. Dust circulated in the air, and there in the center of the cave was a pile of rubble that had not been there before.
“A ghost?” Ireheart mouthed to Tungdil.
“Well, we are in the Outer Lands, but I wouldn’t jump to conclusions like that,” he said thoughtfully. “Whatever it is, it’s-”
“Up there!” called Manon, pointing out a dwarf-sized form up by the roof.
“Who can that be?” Tungdil asked him.
Ireheart looked up. “What, by all the gods, is he doing up there?”
To all intents and purposes the dwarf seemed to have hauled himself up on a pulley hoist attached by chain to the top of the rocks. Now he was settled in a leather bucket-seat arrangement, working away with a long iron chisel.
Manon shook his head. “He’s not one of ours. I’ve heard nothing about any other missions, and I haven’t got the faintest idea what he’s up to up there. Or how on earth he got there.”
The stranger positioned the iron bar, pulled a hammer out of his belt and whacked it on the end, pushing the tip of the chisel into the rock. Large chunks of rock splintered off, falling noisily to the ground, with granite dust clouding after. Now they knew what had caused the new pile of rubble they had seen.
Boindil cursed. “Look at the roof,” he called out in alarm. “There are cracks everywhere.”
“Can you do all that with an iron bar?” laughed Manon in disbelief.
“False granite,” explained Ireheart. “I’m a secondling, and even if I was never much good at handling stone, I know my minerals better than a thirdling.” He indicated the place where the clumps of stone had collected. “See how the chunks break open when they fall? Looks like granite, but it’s nowhere near as hard. The older the stone the more porous it gets.”
“That fellow is trying to bring down the whole cave!” Tungdil turned. “Let’s get out of here, or we’ll have no way back!” The others followed him at speed.
The dwarf working overhead had noticed the approach of the uninvited newcomers and was redoubling his efforts. One last mighty blow with the hammer and a boulder the size of a house broke free. It crashed to the floor and sent a great cloud of dust right up to the roof of the cave.
Immediately, the unknown dwarf shimmied down the chain and disappeared in the dry cloud of powdered stone. Only visible as a vague shape, he ran off in front of Tungdil and his troop as they coughed their way through the dust cloud to reach the safety of the side tunnel.
Above them the work of destruction continued. Perhaps the best comparison is with a vaulted roof whose keystone has been kicked out by the actions of a madman. There was no support left in place to take the immense weight of the massive ceiling and to transfer the pressure to the side walls.
More huge stones fell; two of the warriors were buried, crushed under the stone slabs as if they had been soft kashti mushrooms. Their helmets rolled between the legs of the remaining soldiers, tripping one of them up. His comrade was just in time to pull him back onto his feet. Not even the largest monster could have withstood this rockfall; perhaps even a full-grown dragon would have been brought to its knees.