Bradok stopped struggling, and they released him. “I must have dropped it,” he said ashamedly to Rose.
She put a reassuring hand on his shoulder and looked into his eyes. “Then we’ll just have to go by faith, won’t we?” she said gently. “Now let’s get these people moving. We want to put as much distance as possible between us and that mist.”
Erus, or Reorx, or whoever it was had given that compass to him for a reason, and he felt sure that reason still existed. But he had let everyone down by losing or dropping it. Some leader he was.
Bradok turned to the survivors. Anxious faces looked up at him. They had heard some of the discussion and were apprehensive about the loss of the compass. He tried to adopt a strong, stoic mask.
“All right, everyone,” he called out. “The danger is behind us, but we should probably make as much distance as we can today, so let’s get going.”
“Very diplomatic,” Tal whispered, falling in beside Bradok as the group began to move. “Just like a true leader.”
Bradok shook his head. “They know the compass is gone,” he said. “They’ll have to hear the truth sooner or later.”
The fight had taken a lot out of him. Bradok felt age and pain as they walked. He listened to the conversations around him. A young couple, whose names Bradok couldn’t remember, were taking turns carrying their toddler daughter, telling her all about the wonderful things they would do when they got to where they were going. Where was that? Bradok wondered silently. Where would they all end up? Had Reorx intended some destination for them? What if Tal was right and the whole world was gone? What then?
Seerten Rockhide, an armorer from Everguard, was exchanging forging tips with Kellik. Much was walking alongside the pregnant Lyra and fussing over her and her daughter, Jade. She must bring out the grandfather in his old friend, Bradok thought.
Everywhere around him, the survivors were walking and talking and letting some of the tension slip away. After two days of desperate hunger, it felt good to hear their voices again.
Several hours later, they emerged into a small, round cavern. With the exception of the hole Bradok had made in the wall, it was the only change in the long fissure since they had left the beach almost a week before. Much consulted his watch and pronounced it a good time to stop and camp and review their plans in the morning.
The chamber had a smooth, featureless roof and rounded sides, like a bubble of air in a sea of stone. Two passages exited the little cave, both appearing to continue on for some distance.
Everyone had eaten so much that no one felt particularly hungry. Instead, Chisul told everyone about the gory fight with the mushroom people. He had a rapt audience. Although Silas’s son embroidered his own bravery, he also gave credit to everyone else in the battle. Bradok found as he sat listening, cross-legged on the rocky floor of the cave, that he quite enjoyed Chisul’s version of the fight; it made them all seem heroic.
During the story, Rose and Tal sat next to Bradok.
“Was it really like that?” Tal whispered at one point.
“Pretty much,” Rose said, rubbing her arm where Tal had bandaged it.
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Let it heal.”
Everyone agreed that those who fought to protect them should be allowed to get an uninterrupted night’s sleep. Bradok had taken first watch every night since they started on their adventure, so he didn’t mind a little break. As the others continued to talk about the exciting events of the day, he quietly rolled himself in his cloak and almost instantly went to sleep, snoring softly.
By the time he awoke the next morning, Rose and Chisul were already up and arguing about which of the two passages that exited the little chamber offered the best prospects. Tal glanced meaningfully at the arguing pair as Bradok took a swig from his waterskin to wash the taste of sleep from his mouth.
“I think they need a leader,” Tal whispered.
Bradok stood and shook the dirt out of his cloak before wrapping it around his shoulders and hitching the metal clasp across his chest. Some of the dwarves had dug a small privy down the tunnel, just beyond the range of the light. Taking a deep breath, Bradok headed down the tunnel to relieve himself.
It took Bradok’s eyes almost a full minute to shrug off the darkness and find the privy in the empty tunnel. It had been dug far enough back along the tunnel that the argument still going on behind him had faded into incomprehensible echoes.
As he stood there doing his business, trying not to think about the decisions that lay ahead, he heard a strange sound. His senses tried to grab hold of it, identify it.
It sounded like a giggle.
Thinking that perhaps one of the children had followed him, Bradok turned his head back up the passage. Finding it as empty as he’d left it, he spun forward again. His eyes swept the black depths and, for a moment, he thought he spied something. Out on the edge of his vision, he could have sworn something shifted, melting back into the darkness as his eyes passed over it.
He stared, fixedly, at the spot, but it remained unchanged, just a blank face of rock that made up one side of the fissure. Still, Bradok couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen something move there, something that had retreated when he noticed it.
The memory of the cave spider skeleton lurched into his mind, and he shuddered, turning to go back. Bradok cursed and heard the sound again-a short, truncated giggle. Whatever he didn’t know about cave spiders, he knew they didn’t giggle.
“Is someone there?” he called nervously.
Only silence greeted him from the depths.
“I won’t hurt you,” he called.
Still, nothing responded.
His hand slipped around the hilt of his sword, and he twisted it loose in its scabbard. Straining his ears, he could make out only the continuing dull drone of the argument between Rose and Chisul. He took a few tentative steps down the passageway but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The more rational part of his brain warned him not to go too far, for if something did rush him from the darkness, he would be too far away to call for help.
At length, he shrugged. It had been a long and stressful week, and he was hearing things. With a sigh he turned back to camp.
The argument he’d been avoiding was still raging as he entered the little cave. It had escalated to shouting, and had everyone’s attention. The survivors looked at Bradok expectantly as he marched up to Chisul and Rose.
“And I’m telling you that way is the right way; it slopes up,” Rose was shouting, mere inches from Chisul’s face. “You remember up, don’t you, the direction of the surface?”
Chisul pointed at the opposite opening. “As far as I can tell, they all go up, and then later they go down. Up and down. Round and round. Back and forth. That’s where we’ve gone so far.”
“There you are finally,” Rose said, noting Bradok’s appearance. “Will you please tell this buffoon that I’m right, and-”
Chisul looked scornfully at Bradok.
Bradok held up his hand for peace, and amazingly, both Rose and Chisul stopped arguing. He walked to the tunnel that Rose had suggested. It did slope slightly upward and looked promising.
Undecided, Bradok walked across the cave to the other opening. All eyes in the chamber followed him as he went. That passage resembled the one they’d been following for the past week, ragged and straight. As Bradok stood there, he could feel the push of air against his face. There was good air in that passage.
“Chisul’s right,” he said, turning back to the group. “We should take this one.”
Rose looked taken aback and strangely hurt.
“I told you,” Chisul said, puffing up his chest. “I told her,” he said, addressing all the dwarves.
Bradok pointed up the passage. “There’s air moving down this passage,” he explained. “That means that somewhere up ahead, there’s a way out. I think it’s our best choice.”