The crowd of survivors nodded their approval.
“Now let’s get some breakfast,” Bradok said. “We’ll want to put some good distance under our feet today.”
At the mention of the word breakfast, the gathered dwarves emitted an audible sigh of anticipation. Three days’ hard marching with no food once had seemed like an eternity. At that moment it was like a bad dream to be forgotten. Everyone sat, clustered together in groups of kin or friends and brought out chunks of mushroom to share.
Rose pointedly moved to sit among the other hill dwarves, though she cast a glance back at Bradok. He sat next to Much and was joined by the human, Perin, and Kellik and his sons.
Kellik was in a buoyant mood, showing his crooked teeth in a big smile and pointing to the biggest of his two boys, a burly lad whose beard had just begun coming in. “That’s my Rijul,” he informed Much; then, indicating the boy with his arm in a sling, he added, “I think you already know my youngest son, Hemmish.”
Hemmish smiled, a chunk of honey mushroom sliding around between his teeth, and Much grinned back.
“What happened to their mother?” Much asked quietly once the boys were engrossed in their breakfast.
A shadow passed over Kellik’s face for a moment; then he sighed. “She died last year,” he said in a subdued tone.
“I’m sorry,” Bradok said, although partly he was sorry that Much had asked such an indelicate question.
“It’s all right,” Kellik said wistfully. “It’s just that sometimes a year doesn’t really seem like all that much time.”
Anxious to change the subject, Bradok turned to Perin, “Tell us about you, Perin,” he said. “What brought you to Ironroot?”
The tall human smiled and shrugged. “The man who first taught me the cooper’s art died,” he said. “I still had much to learn. I heard that Silas was the best cooper for two hundred miles in any direction, so I traveled to Ironroot and had to practically beg him to take me on as an apprentice. Silas was a good soul.”
Everyone was silent for a moment, thinking of Silas. Bradok glanced over at Chisul, who wasn’t paying any attention to them.
“No offense, but most dwarves wouldn’t take on a human apprentice,” Much said.
If he felt offended by such frankness, Perin didn’t show it. He just smiled in an easy, knowing manner. “Silas wasn’t like most dwarves,” he said respectfully. “Besides, I think he wanted me around to kind of challenge Chisul to work harder, do better.”
“Did it work?” Kellik asked.
Perin shook his head, chuckling. “Quite the opposite,” he explained. “With me there, Chisul figured his father had someone to run the business once he retired. That left Chisul free to pursue his two favorite pastimes: beer and women.”
At the mention of beer, Bradok’s stomach growled angrily. “I wish you hadn’t said ‘beer,’” he said with a grimace. “It reminds me that I’m thirsty for something other than water.”
Much and Kellik laughed and agreed.
“Wherever we finally stop, we’d better have access to some ore deposits,” Kellik said as they began packing up.
“Why?” Bradok asked.
“Because I’ll need some copper and iron to make a decent still,” he said with a grin.
“That’s not all you’ll need,” a feminine voice said.
Standing over them was Urlish Hearthhome, a squat hill dwarf with a plain face and clever eyes. “You’ll need barley.”
Kellik stood and shouldered his pack, nodding sagely. “You’re right,” he said. “The barley will be harder to find down here than copper and iron. A still’s no good without something to put in it.”
It turned out Urlish was a farm girl from a long line of farm girls. There didn’t seem to be anything about planting or growing that she didn’t know. They fell into step together. Kellik spent the better part of the morning locked in conversation with her about the best way to set up a large-scale brewery one day.
Kellik and Urlish weren’t the only ones suddenly in good spirits. The children laughed and sang as they marched along, and Dallon, the wheelwright from Everguard, had clearly taken a shine to Starlight Anvil, the eldest of the Anvil grandchildren.
The most cheerful one, however, seemed to be the usually stoic Much. He wove through the crowd of marching dwarves, checking on Lyra, telling jokes, entertaining the children. At one point he passed Bradok, carrying Teal, the dark-haired toddler of the young couple who didn’t talk very much. Bradok told himself he really should learn their names, and the names of all the children too, but he had never been good with names.
Unlike their previous travels, they encountered several open chambers and side passages, though all of those were too narrow for the group to pass through. Finally they reached a chamber with two exits. One looked just like the fissure they’d been following; the other angled up from the top of the chamber.
“We’ll have to climb to reach that one,” Rose said to no one in particular.
“How do we know we should take that one?” Vulnar said.
“I wish you hadn’t lost that compass,” Halum said to Bradok.
He didn’t mean for it to be a rebuke, but it felt that way to Bradok.
“It’s getting late and everyone’s tired,” Much said, consulting his watch to break the tension. “Let’s stop here for the night. That’ll give us a chance to check both passages.”
Hours later, a thorough inspection of the two possible passages yielded nothing to recommend either of them over the other. Finally after much arguing and debate, the dwarves gave it up and resolved to explore afresh in the morning.
Somewhere around midnight, Tal nudged Bradok with his foot. “Get up,” he whispered, waking Bradok for his watch. Once Bradok had sat up, rubbing his eyes, he made his way to where his cloak lay, waiting for him.
Bradok stretched, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dimness. They had covered the glowlamps with a piece of cheesecloth, dimming the light significantly, during the night. He strapped on his sword and made his way to the mouth of the tunnel they’d come through. He still remembered the strange noise he’d heard the previous morning, and had asked that someone watch the path behind them. To his delight, he found Rose there, waiting for him. She smiled when he arrived, her teeth flashing in the low light.
“I see you drew the short straw,” she joked.
He nodded, leaning against the passage wall. “You too,” he said.
Rose shook her head. “I volunteered,” she said. “I like to sit and think when it’s quiet. I don’t get much chance to do that during the day.”
Bradok wanted to ask her about her life in Everguard but thought better of it. There was a very real chance that the village and everyone Rose had known were dead-all her friends, family, if she had family. He thought of a dozen ways of starting a conversation and rejected each in turn as awkward or inane.
An uncomfortable silence stretched out between them. Bradok cursed himself; he hadn’t had so much trouble talking to a girl since he was a lad. Finally he decided on an old standby. He pulled out his waterskin, took a long drink, then held it out to Rose.
“Buy you a drink?” he said with what he hoped was his most charming smile.
Rose chuckled; then her eyes went wide as a bright green light washed over both of them. Bradok dropped the waterskin and turned, jerking his sword from its scabbard.
A sight like he’d never imagined greeted him.
A glowing ball of light hovered over the floor, drifting back and forth as if caught in a current. It looked completely insubstantial, as though it were the stuff of mere light without form or body. As Bradok watched, a green patch appeared on the ground, and a second one oozed up out of the floor of the cave.
“What are they?” he whispered, amazed at the sight of the balls of light.
Rose shook her head. “I don’t know but they’re beautiful,” she said.
The second glowing ball hovered for a moment, like the first, then it shot upward without a sound, zooming around the ceiling of the cavern. The first light reacted instantly, giving chase.