The fine granite dust got into the dwarves’ airways and lungs and made it impossible for them to breathe properly. The cliff shook under them, cracking and roaring. The mountain screamed its distress out loud, outraged at the destruction.
“The bastard,” spluttered Manon as he rushed past Tungdil and Boindil to try to catch the dwarf who had brought the roof of the cave thundering down. “I’ll kill the bastard!”
Tungdil did not doubt the earnestness of Manon’s words. The thirdling had lost two of his men for no good reason.
“No, Manon!” he wanted to call out, but from his dust-stopped throat he could only produce a croak in protest. The only way to stop a murder now was to run after the two of them himself.
In the tunnel they ran into the air was clear; no clouds of dirt obscured their view. They hastened after one another as if they were threaded like pearls on a string: the dwarf first, then Manon and last of all, Tungdil, losing ground all the time. He was out of condition and had no energy left.
“Stop,” he groaned, spitting out saliva that could well have served as mortar. “Manon, wait for me! He could be leading you into a trap.” He set off again in pursuit, with the rest of the troop and Boindil following behind. “What a hothead!”
As they reached the cave where they had first seen the orc bones they caught sight of Manon disappearing down another tunnel they had not noticed before.
The chase continued.
Tungdil had a terrible stitch in his side. He gasped and his breath whistled like an old kettle; even the older Ireheart, who had bidden farewell to battles and other exertions now at his advanced age, had more stamina than he did. “Run on ahead,” he panted, falling back to a walking pace. “I’ll be along shortly. I don’t want to hold you up.”
“No need, Scholar,” said Boindil, pointing to a fork in the tunnel.
There Manon lay, his drawn sword in his left hand. He sported a bad cut just below the eye. Ireheart and Tungdil bent down to help him while the warriors provided cover. Of the dwarf they had been chasing there was no trace.
Tungdil checked the jugular vein. “He’s not dead,” he reported with a huge sigh of relief.
Boindil was holding up a stone the size of a small egg that had the thirdling’s blood dripping from it. “They got him with a slingshot!”
“Begone!” A voice echoed round the tunnel. “There is nothing here for you to find.” They could make out something the size of a dwarf, wearing nothing but a loincloth and a chain mail shirt. In its right hand the figure held a large hammer aloft. The smoke from its torch made it hard to distinguish facial features.
Tungdil stood up and made his way to the front of the band, while two of the warriors saw to Manon. “Who are you? And why did you bring down the cave-?”
Behind the figure a huge shadow filled the entire cave. Cogwheels grated and whirred loudly, mechanical parts screeched. The thing was getting closer.
“Get away from here!” the figure called to them, dropping the torch and hurling the hammer at them.
One of the warriors fielded the missile, catching it on his shield, which deflected it to crash against the low stone roof.
The events of the cave were repeated: great fragments of false granite fell onto the rock floor, and the passageway split open with a gaping hole several paces wide.
“Back! It’s too dangerous to try anything here.” In frustration, Tungdil clenched his fists. This time he stood no chance of discovering the secret of the Outer Lands.
Boindil and three warriors grabbed the unconscious Manon and ran for their lives. Not all of them escaped the fatal rain of stones. Two more were buried under the false granite and the rest managed by the skin of their teeth, coughing and gasping, to reach the cave of bones. Behind them the tunnel collapsed and belched out a fountain of deadly dust that covered the dwarves.
And that was not all.
The mountain shook in rage as if angry at what was happening within; it seemed to want to punish those who were inside it. Above their heads they could hear cracking and twisting noises, as splinters of rock started to fall.
“What have we done to make Vraccas so angry? This chamber won’t hold much longer,” guessed Ireheart, worried about his friend. “Can you go on?” he asked the gasping Tungdil.
“I’ll have to,” he groaned, fighting for breath as he struggled to his feet. “I never wanted to die like this.” He thought about the strange shape he had seen behind the figure of the dwarf. “What was that thing he had with him?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was, he would have set it on us if the tunnel hadn’t collapsed.” Boindil shook the dust out of his beard, which had turned gray. “You’re the scholar, Tungdil. Have you ever seen anything like that before?”
On the opposite side of the cave, parts of the walls were starting to burst, with stone shrapnel flying hundreds of feet through the air. One of the warriors was hit in the face. Blood shot out of the wound on his cheek.
Tungdil did not answer, but gave the signal for them to set off. Things were no longer clear at all.
They hurried back through the fog-filled tunnel, while the stone under their feet shook and would not come to rest. Tungdil was convinced that the rock was furious at the intrusion: the insides of the mountain had been vandalized, and its caves destroyed.
But they escaped the anger of the mountain, finally reached the Northern Pass and made their way home through the frost and fog. Hoar frost formed on their helmets, their chain mail, their shields, and their beards, turning the dwarfs completely white.
When they arrived back at the gate, they were expected.
II
Girdlegard,
Kingdom of Gauragar,
Spring, 6241st Solar Cycle
Make way! Make way for the King of the Players!” shouted the herald in his multi-colored garb, one hand beating the drum he carried on a strap round his neck. Then he raised the trumpet to blow the fanfare, a tune vaguely reminiscent of Gauragar’s royal anthem. He strode noisily through the crowd; eager to see what the approaching high-born personage might look like, people fell back to let the herald pass.
Following the herald came an arrogant figure wearing what were surely priceless robes; he wore a conspicuous blue hat sporting three feathers and held a silver-headed cane in his hand. A goatee beard suited his aristocratic visage well and the long dark brown hair rested on the collar of his mantle. He waved to all sides majestically; to emphasize the royal gesture he had fastened a white silk cloth to the ring on his middle finger and it fluttered like a miniature standard.
“May the gods love you and protect you, people of Storm Valley!” He walked to this side and that, and even risked a smile to a young woman. “Especially you, my lovely child. If the gods do not comply, call for me and I will gladly take on the duty myself.” The girl blushed and some in the crowd around her laughed out loud.
Arriving at the center of the marketplace, he jumped up onto the rim of the fountain.
“Now, come, honored spectators! Come and see for yourselves in my traveling collection of curiosities the most wonderful adventures ever witnessed in Girdlegard. It will be as if you had been there in person,” he enticed them. He ran round the low circular wall of the fountain, the buckles on his shoes clinking as he did so. “The battle with the orcs, the fight against the eoil and the avatars, the cruelty of the unslayable siblings that governed Dson Balsur-you will see it all with your very own eyes. Heroes, villains, Death and Love. I, the renowned Rodario, whom once they called Rodario the Incredible and Lover of the Maga Andokai, shall tell you of grand deeds. I have tales to tell of why Andokai was also known as the Tempestuous One.” A few laughed at this innuendo. “And I fought side by side with Tungdil Goldhand in combat with the eoil,” and here he swished his cane through the air in imitation, “until the mist-shape lay dead at our feet!” He stood up at his full height and stretched out his arms. “For I, myself, cherished spectators, have lived through these very events. Can there be another such who could recount in more detail, with more verisimilitude? Who could report to you with greater honesty than I?” Blue and gray flames shot from his fingertips, to the shock and surprise of the bystanders. “This was merely a foretaste,” he promised, looking at a young boy. “You will have to cover your eyes during the show, little man, to stop them jumping out of your skull,” he said in a conspiratorial undertone.