Dragons of the Fallen Sun

Chapter Seventeen Gilthas and the Lioness

Gilthas, Laurana’s “worthless son,” was at that moment resting his quite adequate backbone against a chair in an underground room of a tavern owned and run by gully dwarves. The tavern was called the Gulp and Belch—this being, as near as the gully dwarves could ascertain, the only thing humans did in a tavern.

The Gulp and Belch was located in a small habitation of gully dwarves (one could not dignify it by terming it a “village”) located near the fortress of Pax Tharkas. The tavern was the only building in the habitation. The gully dwarves who ran the tavern lived in caves in the hills behind the tavern, caves that could be reached only by tunnels located beneath the tavern.

The gully dwarf community was located some eighty miles straight as the griffon flies from Qualinost, longer—far longer—if one traveled by road. Gilthas had flown here on the back of a griffon, one whose family was in the service of House Royal. The beast had landed the king and his guide in the forest and was now awaiting their return with less impatience than might have been expected. Kerian had made certain to provide the griffon with a freshly killed deer to make the long hours of waiting pass pleasantly and to ensure that the beast didn’t dine on any of their hosts.

The Gulp and Belch was surprisingly popular. Or perhaps not surprising, considering that the prices were the lowest in Ansalon. Two coppers could buy anything. The business had been started by the same gully dwarf who had been a cook in the household of the late Dragon Highlord, Verminaard.

People who know gully dwarves, but who have never tasted gully dwarf cooking, find it impossible to even imagine eating anything a gully dwarf might prepare. Considering that a favorite delicacy of gully dwarf is rat meat, some equate the idea of having a gully dwarf for a cook with a death wish.

Gully dwarves are the outcasts of dwarfdom. Although they are dwarves, the dwarves do not claim them and will go to great lengths to explain why gully dwarves are dwarves in name only.

Gully dwarves are extremely stupid, or so most people believe.

Gully dwarves cannot count past two, their system of numbering being “one”, “two.” The very smartest gully dwarf, a legend among gully dwarves, whose name was Bupu, actually once counted past two, coming up with the term “a whole bunch.”

Gully dwarves are not noted for their interest in higher mathematics. They are noted for their cowardice, for their filth, their love of squalor and—oddly enough—their cooking. Gully dwarves make extremely good cooks, so long as the diner sets down rules about what may and may not be served at the table and refrains from entering the kitchen to see how the food is prepared.

The Gulp and Belch served up an excellent roast haunch of venison smothered in onions and swimming in rich brown gravy. The ale was adequate—not as good as in many establishments, but the price was right. The dwarf spirits made the tavern’s reputation. They were truly remarkable. The gully dwarves distilled their own from mushrooms cultivated in their bedrooms. Those drinking the brew are advised not to dwell on that fact for too long.

The tavern was frequented mainly by humans who could afford no better, by kender who were glad to find a tavernkeeper who did not immediately toss them out into the street, and by the lawless, who were quick to discover that the Knights of Neraka rarely patrolled the wagon ruts termed a road leading to the tavern.

The Gulp and Belch was also the hideout and headquarters for the warrior known as the Lioness, a woman who was also, had anyone known it, queen of Qualinesti, secret wife of the Speaker of the Sun, Gilthas.

The elven king sat in the chair in the semidarkness of the tavern’s back room, trying to curb his impatience. Elves are never impatient. Elves, who live for hundreds of years, know that the water will boil, the bread will rise, the acorn will sprout, the oak will grow and that all the fuming and watching and attempts to hurry it make only for an upset stomach. Gilthas had inherited impatience from his half-human father, and although he did his best to hide it, his fingers drummed on the table and his foot tapped the floor.

Kerian glanced over at him, smiled. A single candle stood on the table between them. The candle’s flame was reflected in her brown eyes, shone warmly on smooth, brown skin, glinted in the burnished gold of her mane of hair. Kerian was a Kagonesti, a Wilder elf, a race of elves who, unlike their city-dwelling cousins, the Qualinesti and the Silvanesti, live with nature. Since they do not try to alter nature or shape it, the Wilder elves are looked upon as barbarians by their more sophisticated cousins, who have also gone so far as to enslave the Kagonesti and force them to serve in wealthy elven households—all for the Kagonesti’s own good, of course.

Kerian had been a slave in the household of Senator Rashas.

She had been present when Gilthas was first brought to that house, ostensibly as a guest, in reality a prisoner. The two had fallen in love the first moment they had seen each other, although it was months, even years, before they actually spoke of their feelings, exchanged their secret vows.

Only two other people, Planchet and Gilthas’s mother, Laurana, knew of the king’s marriage to the girl who had once been a slave and who was now known as the Lioness, fearless leader of the Khansari, the Night People.

Catching Kerian’s eye, Gilthas realized immediately what he was doing. He clenched the tapping fingers to a fist and crossed his booted feet to keep them quiet. “There,” he said ruefully. “Is that better?”

“You will fret yourself into a sickness if you’re not careful,” Kerian scolded, smiling. “The dwarf will come. He gave his word.”

“So much depends on this,” said Gilthas. He stretched out his legs to ease the kinks of the unaccustomed exercise “Perhaps our very survival as a—” He halted, stared down at the floor. “Did you feel that?”

“The shaking? Yes. I’ve felt it the last couple of hours. It’s probably just the gully dwarves adding to their tunnels. They love to dig in the dirt. As to what you were saying, there is no ‘perhaps’ about our ultimate destruction,” Kerian returned crisply.

Her voice with its accent that civilized elves considered uncouth was like the song of the sparrow, of piercing sweetness with a note of melancholy.

“The Qualinesti have given the dragon everything she has demanded. They have sacrificed their freedom, their pride, their honor. They have, in some instances, even sacrificed their own—all in return for the dragon’s permission to live. But the time will come when Beryl will make a demand your people will find impossible to fulfill. When that day comes and she finds her will thwarted, she will destroy the Qualinesti.”

“Sometimes I wonder why you care,” Gilthas said, looking gravely at his wife. “The Qualinesti enslaved you, took you from your family. You have every right to feel vengeful. You have every right to steal away into the wilderness and leave those who hurt you to the fate they so richly deserve. Yet you do not. You risk your life on a daily basis fighting to force our people to look at the truth, no matter how ugly, to hear it no matter how unpleasant.”

“That is the problem,” she returned. “We must stop thinking of the elven people as ‘yours’ and ‘mine.’ Such division and isolation is what has brought us to this pass. Such division gives strength to our enemies.”

“I don’t see it changing,” Gilthas said grimly. “Not unless some great calamity befalls us and forces us to change, and perhaps not even then. The Chaos War, which might have brought us closer, did nothing but further fragment our people. Not a day goes by but that some senator makes a speech telling of how our cousins the Silvanesti have shut us out of their safe haven beneath the shield, how they want us all to die so that they can take over our lands. Or someone starts a tirade against the Kagonesti, how their barbaric ways will bring down all that we have worked over the centuries to build. There are actually those who approve of the fact that the dragon has closed the roads. We will do better without contact with the humans, they say. The Knights of Neraka urge them on, of course. They love such rantings. It makes their task far easier.”

“From the rumors I hear, the Silvanesti may be finding that their vaunted magical shield is in reality a tomb.”

Gilthas looked startled, sat upright. “Where did you hear this? You have not told me.”

“I have not seen you in a month,” Kerian replied with a touch of bitterness. “I only heard this a few days ago, from the runner Kelevandros your mother sends regularly to keep in touch with your aunt Alhana Starbreeze. Alhana and her forces have settled on the border of Silvanesti, near the shield. They are allied with the humans who belong to the Legion of Steel. Alhana reports that the land around the shield is barren, trees sicken and die. A horrible gray dust settles over everything. She fears that this same malaise may be infecting all of Silvanesti.”

“Then why do our cousins maintain the shield?” Gilthas wondered.

“They are afraid of the world beyond. Unfortunately, they are right in some instances. Alhana and her forces fought a pitched battle with ogres only a short time ago, the night of that terrible thunderstorm. The Legion of Steel came to their rescue or they would have been wiped out. As it was, Alhana’s son Silvanoshei was captured by ogres, or so she believes. She could find no trace of him when the battle was ended. Alhana grieves for him as for the dead.”

“My mother has said nothing of this to me,” Gilthas stated, frowning.

“According to Kelevandros, Laurana fears Marshal Medan’s heightened watchfulness. She trusts only those in her household. She dare not trust anyone outside it. Whenever the two of you are together, she is certain that you are spied upon. She does not want the Dark Knights to find out that she is in constant contact with Alhana.”

“Mother is probably right,” Gilthas admitted. “My servant Planchet is the only person I trust and that is because he has proven his loyalty to me time and again. So Silvanoshei is dead, killed by ogres. Poor young man. His death must have been a cruel one. Let us hope he passed swiftly.”

“Did you ever meet him?”

Gilthas shook his head. “He was born in the Inn of the Last Home in Solace during the time Alhana was exiled. I never saw her after that. My mother told me that the boy favored my Uncle Porthios in looks.”

“His death makes you heir to both kingdoms,” Kerian observed. “The Speaker of the Sun and Stars.”

“Which Senator Rashas always wanted,” Gilthas said caustically. “In reality, it seems I will be nothing more than the Speaker of the Dead.”

“Speak no words of ill omen!” Kerian said and made the sign against evil with her hand, drawing a circle in the air to encompass the words and keep them trapped. “You—Yes, what is it, Silverwing?”

She turned to speak to an elf who had entered the secret room.

The elf started to say something but was interrupted by a gully dwarf, who appeared to be in a state of extreme excitement, to judge by the smell.

“Me tell!” the gully dwarf cried indignantly, jostling the elf.

“Me lookout! Her say so!” He pointed at Kerian.

“Your Majesty.” The elf made a hurried bow to Gilthas, before he turned to Kerian, his commander, with his information. “The high king of Thorbardin has arrived.”

“Him here,” the gully dwarf announced loudly. Although he did not speak elven, he could guess at what was being said. “Me bring in?”

“Thank you, Ponce.” Kerian rose to her feet, adjusted the sword she wore at her waist. “I will come to meet him. It would be better if you remained here, Your Majesty,” she added. Their marriage was a secret, even from the elves under Kerian’s command.

“Big muckity-muck dwarf. Him wear hat!” Ponce was impressed. “Him wear shoes!” The gully dwarf was doubly impressed. “Me never see dwarf wear shoes.”

“The high king has brought four guards with him,” the elf told Kerian. “As you ordered, we have watched their movements ever since they left Thorbardin.”

“For their safety, as well as ours, Your Majesty,” Kerian was quick to add, seeing Gilthas’s expression darken.

“They met with no one,” the elf continued, “and they were not followed—”

“Except by us,” Gilthas said sardonically.

“It never hurts to be cautious, Your Majesty,” Kerian said.

“Tarn Bellowgranite is the new high king of the clans of Thorbardin. His rule is secure among his people, but dwarves have traitors living among them, as do we elves.”

Gilthas sighed deeply. “I wish the day would come when this was not so. I trust the dwarves did not notice that we were dogging them?”

“They saw the starlight, Your Majesty,” said the elf proudly.

“They heard the wind in the trees. They did not see or hear us.”

“Him say he like our dwarf spirits,” Ponce said importantly, his face shining, though this might have been due to the fact that it was smeared with grease from the goose he had been basting.

“Him say we make fine dwarf spirits. You want try?” he asked Gilthas. “Put hair up your nose.”

Kerian and the elf departed, taking the gully dwarf with them. Gilthas sat watching the candle flame flicker with the stirring of the air. Beneath his feet came that strange shivering in the ground, as if the very world trembled. All around him was darkness. The candle’s flame was the only light, and it could be extinguished in a breath. So much could go wrong. Even now, Marshal Medan might be entering Gilthas’s bedroom. The Marshal might be ripping up the pillows from the bed, arresting Planchet, demanding to know the whereabouts of the king.

Gilthas was suddenly very tired. He was tired of this duplicitous life, tired of the lies and the deceptions, tired of the fact that he was constantly performing. He was always on stage, never allowed a moment to rest in the wings. He could not even sleep well at night, for he was afraid he might say something in his sleep that would bring about his downfall.

Not that he would be the one to suffer. Prefect Palthainon would see to that. So would Medan. They needed Gilthas on the throne, jerking and twitching to the strings they pulled. If they found out that he’d cut those strings, they would simply reattach them. He would remain on the throne. He would remain alive.

Planchet would die, tortured until he was forced to reveal all he knew. Laurana might not be executed but she would certainly be exiled, deemed a dark elf like her brother. Kerian might well be captured, and Medan had proclaimed publicly the terrible death the Lioness would suffer should she ever fall into his hands.

Gilthas would not suffer, except that he would be forced to watch those he loved most in the world suffer and know he was powerless to help them. That would be, perhaps, the greatest torment of all.

Out of the darkness crept his old companions: fear, self-doubt, self-hatred, self-loathing. He felt them lay their cold hands upon him and reach inside and twist his gut and wring the icy sweat from his shivering body. He heard their wailing voices cry to him warnings of doom, shout prophecies of death and destruction. He was not equal to this task. He dared not continue this course of action. It was foolhardy. He was putting his people at risk. He was certain they had been discovered. Medan knew everything.

Perhaps if Gilthas went back now, he could make it all right. He would crawl into his bed and they would never know he had been gone. . . .

“Gilthas,” said a stem voice.

Gilthas started. He looked wildly into a face he did not know.

“My husband,” Kerian said gently.

Gilthas shut his eyes, a shudder passed through his body. Slowly he unclenched the hands that had tightened to fists. He made himself relax, forced the tension to ease from his body, forced himself to quit shaking. The darkness that had momentarily blinded him retreated. The candle’s flame that was Kerian burned brightly, steadily. He drew in a deep, shivering breath.

“I am well, now,” he said.

“Are you certain?” Kerian asked.” The thane waits in the adjacent room. Should I stall him?”

“No, the attack has passed,” Gilthas said, swallowing to rid his mouth of the taste of bile. “You drove away the demons. Give me a moment to make myself presentable. How do I look?”

“As if you had seen a wraith,” said Kerian. “But the dwarf will not notice anything amiss. All elves seem pasty-faced to them.”

Gilthas caught hold of his wife, held her close.

“Stop it!” she protested, half-laughing and half in earnest.

“There’s no time for this now. What if someone saw us?”

“Let them,” he said, casting caution aside. “I am tired of lying to the world. You are my strength, my salvation. You saved my life, my sanity. When I think back to what I was, a prisoner to those same demons, I wonder how you ever came to love me.”

“I looked through the cell bars and saw the man locked inside,” Kerian replied, relaxing in her husband’s arms, if only for a moment. “I saw his love for his people. I saw how he suffered because they suffered and he felt helpless to prevent their pain. Love was the key. All I did was put it into the door and turn the lock. You have done all the rest.”

She slid out of his embrace and was, once again, the warrior queen. “Are you ready? We should not keep the high king waiting longer.”

“I am ready,” Gilthas said.

He took in another deep breath, shook back his hair and, walking straight and tall, entered the room.

“His Majesty, Speaker of the Sun, Gilthas of the House of Solostaran,” Kerian announced formally.

The dwarf, who was enjoying a mug of dwarf spirits, placed the mug on a table and lowered his head in a gesture of respect.

He was tall for a dwarf and looked far older than his true age, for his hair had gone prematurely gray, his beard was gray streaked with white. His eyes were bright and clear and youthful, his gaze sharp and penetrating. He kept his gaze fixed on Gilthas, seemed to bore through the elf’s breastbone as if he would see straight into his heart.

“He has heard rumors of me,” Gilthas said to himself. “He wonders what to believe. Am I a weak dish rag to be wrung out by every hand? Or am I truly the ruler of my people as he is the ruler of his?”

“The High King of the Eight Clans,” said Kerian, “Tarn Bellowgranite.”

The dwarf was himself a half-breed. Much as Gilthas, who had human blood in his veins, Tarn was a product of a liaison between a Hylar dwarf—the nobles of dwarfdom—and a Daergar, the dark dwarves. After the Chaos War, the Thorbardin dwarves had worked with humans to rebuild the fortress of Pax Tharkas. It seemed that the Thorbardin dwarves might actually once more begin to interact with the other races, including their brethren, the hill dwarves, who, due to a feud that dated back to the Cataclysm, had long been shut out of the great dwarven kingdom beneath the mountain.

But with the coming of the great dragons and the death and destruction they brought, the dwarves had gone back underground. They had sealed up the gates of Thorbardin once again, and the world had lost contact with them. The Daergar had taken advantage of the turmoil to try to seize the rulership of Thorbardin, plunging that nation into a bloody civil war. Tarn Bellowgranite was a hero of the war, and when it came time to pick up the pieces, the thanes had turned to him for leadership. He had found a people divided, a kingdom tottering on the edge of ruin when he came to his rule. He had placed that kingdom upon a firm foundation. He had united the warring clans behind his leadership. Now he was about to contemplate another step that would be something new in the annals of the dwarves of Thorbardin.

Gilthas stepped forward and bowed deeply, with sincere respect. “High King,” he said speaking flawless Dwarvish, a language he had learned from his father. “I am honored to meet you at last. I know you do not like to leave your home beneath the mountain. Your journey was a long one and perilous, as are all journeys made in the world during these dark times. I thank you for making the journey, for undertaking to meet me here this day to close and formally seal our agreement.”

The high king nodded his head, tugging on his beard, a sign that he was pleased with the words. The fact that the elf spoke Dwarvish had already impressed Tarn. Gilthas had been right.

The dwarf king had heard stories of the elf king’s weak and indecisive nature. But Tarn had learned over the years that it was never wise to judge a man until, as the dwarves would say, you had seen the color of his beard.

“The journey was pleasant. It is good to breathe the air above the ground for a change,” Tarn replied. “And now, let us get down to business.” He looked at Gilthas shrewdly. “I know how you elves love to palaver. I believe that we can dispense with the niceties.”

“I am part human,” Gilthas replied with a smile. “The impatient part, or so they tell me. I must be back in Qualinost before tomorrow’s dawning. Therefore I will begin. This matter has been under negotiation for a month. We know where we stand, I believe? Nothing has changed?”

“Nothing has changed with us,” said Tarn. “Has anything changed with you?”

“No, it has not. We are in agreement then.” Gilthas dropped the formal tone. “You have refused to accept any payment, sir. I would not permit this, but that I know there is not wealth enough in all of Qualinesti to compensate you and your people for what you are doing. I know the risks that you run. I know that this agreement has caused controversy among your people. I guess that it has even threatened your rule. And I can give you nothing in return except for our thanks—our eternal and undying thanks.”

“Nay, lad,” said Tarn, flushing in embarrassment. Dwarves dislike being praised. “What I do will bring good to my people as well as yours. Not all of them can see that at this point, but they will. Too long we have lived hidden away from the world beneath the mountain. The notion came to me when civil war erupted in Thorbardin, that we dwarves might well kill each other off and who would ever know? Who would grieve for us? None in this world. The caverns of Thorbardin might fall silent in death, darkness overtake us, and there would be none to speak a word to fill that silence, none to light a lamp. The shadows would close over us, and we would be forgotten.

“I determined I would not allow that to happen. We dwarves would return to the world. The world would enter Thorbardin. Of course,” Tarn said, with a wink and sip of dwarf spirits, “I could not thrust such change upon my people overnight. It has taken me long years to bring them around to my way of thinking, and even then many are still wagging their beards and stamping their feet over it. But we are doing the right thing. Of that I am convinced. We have already started work on the tunnels,” he added complacently.

“Have you? Before the papers were signed?” Gilthas asked amazed.

Tarn took a long gulp, belched contentedly, and grinned.

“Bah! What are papers? What are signatures? Give me your hand, King Gilthas. That will seal our bargain.”

“I give you my hand, King Tarn, and I am honored to do so,”

Gilthas replied, deeply touched. “Is there any point on which I can reassure you? Do you have any questions to ask of me?”

“Just one, lad,” said Tarn, putting down his mug and wiping his chin with his sleeve. “Some of the thanes, most notably the Neidar—a suspicious lot if I do say so—have said repeatedly that if we allow elves to enter Thorbardin, they will turn on us and seize our realm and make it their new home. You and I know that will not happen,” Tarn added, raising his hand to forestall Gilthas’s quick protest, “but what would you say to my people to convince them that this tragedy would not come about?”

“I would ask the thanes of the Neidar,” said Gilthas, smiling, “if they would build their homes in trees. What would be their answer, do you think, sir?”

“Hah, hah! They would as soon think of hanging themselves by their beards,” Tarn said, chuckling.

“Then, by the same token, we elves would as soon think of hanging ourselves by our ears as to live in a hole in the ground. No insult to Thorbardin intended,” Gilthas added politely.

“None taken, lad. I will tell the Neidar exactly what you have said. That should blow the foam off their ale!” Tarn continued to chuckle.

“To speak more clearly, I vow on my honor and my life that the Qualinesti. will use the tunnels only for the purpose of removing those in peril from the dragon’s wrath. We have made arrangements with the Plains people to shelter the refugees until such time as we can welcome them back to their own homeland.”

“May that day be quick to dawn,” said Tarn gravely, no longer laughing. He regarded Gilthas intently. “I would ask why you do not send your refugees to the land of your cousins, the realm of Silvanesti, but I hear that it is closed and barred to you. The elves there have placed some sort of magical fortress around it.”

“The forces of Alhana Starbreeze continue to try to find some way to enter the shield,” Gilthas said. “We must hope that they will eventually find a way, not only for our sakes, but for the sake of our cousins, as well. How long do you believe the work will take for the tunnel to reach Qualinost?”

“ A fortnight, not more,” said Tarn easily.

“ A fortnight, sir! To dig a tunnel over sixty-five miles through solid rock? I know the dwarves are master stonecutters,” Gilthas said, “but I must confess that this astounds me.”

“As I said, we had already started working. And we have help,” said Tarn. “Have you ever heard of the Urkhan? No? I’m not surprised. Few outsiders know anything about them. The Urkhan are gigantic worms that eat rock. We harness them up, and they gnaw through granite as if it were fresh-baked bread. Who do you think built the thousands of miles of tunnels in Thorbardin?” Tarn grinned. “The Urkhan, of course. The worm does all the work, and we dwarves take all the credit!”

Gilthas expressed his admiration for the remarkable worms and listened politely to a discussion of the Urkhan’s habits, its docile nature, and what happened to the rock after it passed through the worm’s system.

“But enough of this. Would you like to see them in action?”

Tarn asked suddenly.

“I would, sir,” Gilthas said, “but perhaps some other time. As I mentioned earlier, I must return to Qualinost by morning light—”

“You shall, lad, you shall,” the dwarf replied, grinning hugely.

“Watch this.” He stomped his booted foot twice on the floor.

A momentary pause and then two thumps resonated loudly, coming from the ground.

Gilthas looked at Kerian, who was looking angered and alarmed. Angry that she had not thought to investigate the strange rumblings, alarmed because, if this was a trap, they had just fallen neatly into it.

Tarn laughed loudly at their discomfiture.

“The Urkhan!” he said by way of explanation. “They’re right beneath us!”

“Here? Is that true?” Gilthas gasped. “They have come so far? I know that I felt the ground shake—”

Tarn was nodding his head, his beard wagging. “And we have gone farther. Would you come below?”

Gilthas looked at his wife. “In all the rest of Qualinesti I am king, but the Lioness is in charge here,” he said, smiling. “What do you say, madam? Shall we go see these wonderful worms?”

Kerian made no objection, although this unforeseen turn of events had made her wary. She said nothing outright that might offend the dwarves, but Gilthas noted that every time she encountered one of her Wilder elves, she gave him a signal with either a look, a tilt of the head, or a slight gesture of her hand. The elves disappeared, but Gilthas guessed that they had not gone far, were watching and waiting, their hands on their weapons.

They left the Gulp and Belch, some of Tarn’s escort departing with every show of reluctance, wiping their lips and heaving sighs laced with the pungent smell of dwarf spirits. Tarn walked no trail but shouldered and trampled his way through the brush, thrusting or pushing aside anything that happened to be in his path. Gilthas, looking back, saw the dwarves had cut a large swath through the woods, a trail of broken limbs, trampled grass, dangling vines, and crushed grass.

Kerian cast a glance at Gilthas and rolled her eyes. He knew exactly what she was thinking. No need to worry about the dwarves hearing some trace of sound from shadowing elves. The dwarves would have been hard put to hear a thunderclap over their stomping and crashing. Tarn slowed his pace. He appeared to be searching for something. He said something in Dwarvish to his companions, who also began to search.

“He’s looking for the tunnel entrance,” Gilthas said softly to Kerian. “He says that his people were supposed to have left one here, but he can’t find it.”

“He won’t, either,” Kerian stated grimly. She was still irritated over being hoodwinked by the dwarves. “I know this land. Every inch of it. If there had been any sort of—”

She stopped, stared.

“Tunnel entrance,” Gilthas finished, teasing. “You would have discovered it?”

They had come to a large outcropping of granite some thirty feet high jutting up through the forest floor. The striations on the rock ran sideways. Small trees and patches of wild flowers and grass grew between the layers. A large mass of boulders, parts of the outcropping that had broken off and tumbled down the side, lay at the foot of the outcropping. The boulders were huge, some came to Gilthas’s waist, many were larger than the dwarves. He watched in astonishment as Tarn walked up to one of these boulders, placed his hand on it, and give it a shove. The boulder rolled aside as if it were hollow.

Which, in fact, it was.

Tarn and his fellows cleared the boulder fall, revealing a large and gaping hole in the outcropping.

“This way!” Tarn bellowed, waving his hand.

Gilthas looked at Kerian, who simply shook her head and gave a wry smile. She stopped to investigate the boulder, the inside of which had been hollowed out like a melon at a feast.

“The worms did this?” she asked, awed.

“The Urkhan,” said Tarn proudly, gesturing with his hand.

“The little ones,” he added. “They nibble. The bigger ones would have gulped down the boulder whole. They’re not very bright, I’m afraid. And they’re always very hungry.”

“Look at it this way, my dear,” said Gilthas to Kerian as the passed from the moonlit night into the coolness of the dwarf-made cavern. “If the dwarves managed to hide the tunnel entrance from you and your people, they will have no trouble at all hiding it from the cursed Knights.”

“True,” Kerian admitted.

Inside the cavern, Tarn stomped twice again on what appeared to be nothing but a dirt floor. Two knocks greeted him from below. Cracks formed in the dirt, and a trapdoor, cunningly hidden, popped open. The head of dwarf poked out. Light streamed upward.

“Visitors,” said Tarn in Dwarvish.

The dwarf nodded, and his head vanished. They could hear his thick boots clumping down the rungs of a ladder.

“Your Majesty,” said Tarn, gesturing politely.

Gilthas went immediately. To hesitate would imply that he did not trust the high thane and Gilthas had no intention of alienating this new ally. He climbed nimbly down the sturdy ladder, descending about fifteen feet and coming to rest on a smooth surface. The tunnel was well-lit by what Gilthas first took to be lanterns.

Strange lanterns, though, he thought, drawing close to one.

They gave off no heat. He looked closer and saw to his amazement that the light came not from burning oil but from the body of what appeared to be a large insect larvae. The larva lay curled up in a ball at the bottom of an iron cage that hung from a hook on the tunnel wall. A cage hung every few feet. The glow from the body of the slumbering larva lit the tunnels as bright as day.

“Even the offspring of the Urkhan work for us,” Tarn said, arriving at the bottom of the ladder. “The larva glow like this for a month, and then they go dark. By that time, they are too big to fit into the cages anyway, and so we replace them. Fortunately, there is always a new crop of Urkhan to be harvested. But you must see them. This way. This way.”

He led them along the tunnels. Rounding a bend, they came upon an astonishing sight. An enormous, undulating, slime-covered body, reddish brown in color, took up about half the tunnel.

Dwarven handlers walked alongside the worm, guiding it by reins attached to straps wrapped around its body, slapping it with their hands or with sticks if the body of the worm started to veer off course or perhaps rollover and crush the handlers. Half the tunnel had been cleared already by a worm up ahead, so Tarn told them. This second worm came behind, widening what had already been built.

The huge worm moved incredibly fast. Gilthas and Kerian marveled at its size. The worm’s body was as big around as Gilthas was tall and, according to Tarn, this worm was thirty feet in length. Piles of chewed and half-digested rock littered the floor behind the worm. Dwarves came along to shovel it to one side, keeping a sharp eye out for gold nuggets or unrefined gemstones as they cleared the rubble.

Gilthas walked the worm’s length, finally reaching its head. It had no eyes, for it had no need of eyes, spending its life burrowing beneath the ground. Two horns protruded from the top of its head. The dwarves had placed a leather harness over these horns.

Reins extended from the harness back to a dwarf who sat in a large basket strapped to the worm’s body. The dwarf guided the worm from the basket, pulling the head in the direction he wanted to go.

The worm seemed not to even know the dwarf was there. Its one thought was to eat. It spewed liquid onto the solid rock in front of it, liquid that must have been some sort of acid, for it hissed when it hit the rock, which immediately started to bubble and sizzle. Several large chunks of rock split apart. The worm’s maw opened, seized a chunk, and gulped it down.

“Most impressive!” Gilthas said with such utter sincerity that the high thane was immensely pleased, while the other dwarves looked gratified.

There was only one drawback. As the worm gnawed its way through the rock, its body heaved and undulated, causing the ground to shake. Being accustomed to it, the dwarves paid no attention to the motion but walked with the ease of sailors on a canting deck. Gilthas and Kerian had slightly more difficulty, stumbling into each other or falling against the wall.

“The Dark Knights will notice this!” Kerian observed, shouting to be heard over the worm’s rending of the rock and the dwarven handlers’ yelling and cursing. “When Medan’s bed starts to bounce across the room and he hears shouts coming from beneath his floor, he’s going to be suspicious.”

“Tarn, this shaking and rumbling,” Gilthas said, speaking directly into the dwarf’s ear. “Can anything be done to quiet it? The Dark Knights are sure to hear it or at least feel it.”

Tarn shook his head. “Impossible!” he bellowed. “Look at it this way, lad, the worms are far quieter than a work force of dwarves going at it with hammer and pick.”

Gilthas looked dubious. Tarn motioned, and they followed him back down the tunnel, leaving the worms and the worst of the commotion behind. Climbing the ladder, they emerged out into a night that was far less dark than it had been when they went underground. Dawn was coming. Gilthas would have to leave soon.

“My thought was that we would not tunnel under Qualinost itself,” Tarn explained, as they walked back to the Gulp and Belch. “We’re about forty miles away now. We will run our tunnels to within five miles of the city limits. That should be far enough so that the Neraka Knights have no idea what we are about. Also they’ll be less likely to discover the entrances..”

“What would happen if they did discover it?” Gilthas asked. “They could use the tunnels to invade Thorbardin.”

“We’d collapse it first,” Tarn said bluntly. “Bring it down on top of them and, likely, on top of a few of us, too.”

“More and more I understand the risks you run for us,” Gilthas said. “There is no way to thank you.”

Tarn Bellowgranite waved aside the words, looked uncomfortable and embarrassed. Gilthas thought it best to change the subject.

“How many tunnels will there be altogether, sir?”

“Given time enough, we can build three fine ones,” the dwarf replied. “As it is, we have one this far. You can begin to evacuate some of your people soon. Not many, for the walls are not completely shored up yet, but we can manage a few. As for the other two tunnels, we will need at least two months.”

“Let us hope we have that long,” Gilthas said quietly. “In the meanwhile, there are people in Qualinost who have run afoul of the Neraka Knights. The punishment of the Knights for lawbreakers is swift and cruel. The smallest infraction of one of their many laws can result in imprisonment or death. With this tunnel, we will be able to save some who otherwise would have perished.

“Tell me, Thane,” Gilthas asked, knowing the answer, but needing to hear it for himself, “would it be possible to evacuate the entire city of Qualinost through that one tunnel?”

“Yes, I think so,” said the High Thane, “given a fortnight to do it.”

A fortnight. If the dragon and the Neraka Knights attacked, they would have hours at most to evacuate the people. At the end of a fortnight, there would be no one left alive to evacuate. Gilthas sighed deeply.

Kerian drew closer, put her hand on his arm. Her fingers were strong and cool, and their touch reassured him. He had been granted more than he had ever expected. He was not a baby, to cry for the stars when he had been given the moon.

He looked meaningfully at Kerian. “We will have to lay low and not antagonize the dragon for at least a month.”

“My warriors will not rollover and play dead!” Kerian returned sharply, “if that is what you have in mind. Besides, if we suddenly ceased all our attacks, the Knights would grow suspicious that we were up to something, and they would start searching for it. This way, we will keep them distracted.”

“A month,” Gilthas said softly, silently, praying to whatever was out there, if anything was out there. “Just give me a month. Give my people a month.”