David Gaider - The Calling

The dust began to move. It swirled as a light breeze moved through the tunnel.

Maric sat up, waving at the dust and coughing some more. Duncan seemed fine, but he couldn’t see Fiona through the cloud. He scrambled to his feet and was relieved to find her lying on her back not far away. The mage had been blown back by the fireball, and was now choking and pale but otherwise seemed intact.

The pile of debris that had blocked the tunnel was gone. The walls and ceiling were scorched, and much of the upper portion of the pile had been blown out, somewhere beyond. It was pitch black, but fresh air was coming in. Lots of it. Nothing had ever smelled so sweet to Maric in his entire life.

“Fiona!” he laughed. “You did it!”

“Wonderful,” she groaned weakly. Maric reached down and helped her slowly to her feet. She was trembling. He suspected she had used up her entire store of mana on that blast. Good thing it had actually blown the rocks out and not, say, simply blown them in. Or reflected the fire back at them. Or …

He glanced up and saw severe cracks forming on the old masonry along the ceiling, none of which had been in particularly good shape to begin with. More dust and chunks were already falling.

“We need to get out of here,” Duncan muttered, limping toward them.

Maric waved him on up the pile. He wasn’t as small as Fiona was, but she was exhausted enough that she would need help through. The lad didn’t need to be told twice and scrambled up the rocks quickly. The space that had opened up at the top of the pile was not large, and he needed to slowly crawl his way through, digging his way past obstacles.

Maric and Fiona stood next to each other, watching nervously as rock after rock slowly tumbled down the pile behind Duncan. They could still see his legs; he wasn’t through. Meanwhile, more dust and debris shook down from the ceiling. He could see massive cracks forming along the walls, too. This passage was not going to hold itself together.

“My,” Fiona remarked, her exhaustion so complete she seemed more bored than frightened. “This could end very poorly.”

“You don’t say?” Maric grinned at her. Then he turned and shouted up the pile. “Duncan! Time is of the essence!”

He heard a muffled reply from beyond the legs, something that could have been an affirmative or an expletive. Either way, with one final wriggle Duncan’s legs finally disappeared. A new shower of smaller rocks was kicked out, scattering down the side of the pile loudly. A moment later, the lad’s head appeared out of the hole. “There’s a cave beyond!” he exclaimed. “A real cave. And it leads outside.”

Maric sent Fiona up next, helping her up until Duncan grabbed hold of her. As soon as she was out of his hands, Maric quickly began removing his armor. If Duncan could barely fit through, he would have even less chance—and wearing his bulky suit of silverite armor, it would no doubt be impossible. The breastplate clattered to the ground, and he worked with frantic haste to rip the rest of it off. Shame to lose such a fine suit of armor, but it had to be done.

As the staff disappeared into the hole, so did his only source of light. The white radiance grew dimmer and dimmer until all he was left were shadows and the slowly growing sounds of crumbling. Something enormously heavy crashed to the ground behind him. Maric found himself rather glad he couldn’t see what it was.

A muffled shout came from beyond the pile that sounded like “She’s through,” and Maric didn’t wait. He ran up the pile and threw his sword and his pack on through the gap, then jumped in after them. He didn’t get far in before the sound of collapse in the tunnel behind him became deafening, and a rush of dust poured past him.

For a moment he thought he would choke to death in that tiny space. He could see faint light through the dust ahead, and frantically tried to crawl forward as he coughed and gasped. It was almost too much. The weight of the ceiling felt as if it was pressing down on him. He became light-headed and slowed. He heard more collapsing behind him, cracking sounds so alarmingly loud that it sounded like an entire mountain was coming down around his ears. He screamed, and his scream was lost in the thunder of noise.

Then hands grabbed him. He felt himself being hauled through the gap. It was slow, and he tried to kick and wriggle as much as he could, but he was almost too large. Rocks poked painfully through his shirt, and he heard ripping. He felt scraping on his skin, and a sharp pain as his flesh was torn.

And then suddenly he was through. He was being pulled out the other side, and he half rolled and half fell down a rocky slope until he was lying flat and staring up into dust and hazy white light. Duncan and Fiona were coughing, as well; he could hear them but only saw vague shadows through the dust. Maric felt dizzy and nauseated, like the world was spinning around him.

“Let’s get him out of here!” Fiona shouted.

Both their hands grabbed him again, attempting to haul him to his feet. This time Maric did his best to help them, trying to get up and mostly doing a poor job of it. He saw his longsword lying on the rocks and snatched it up, and then he was being pulled in another direction.

He stumbled along, all three of them hacking and coughing. He got a definite impression through the dust that the cave was filled with ruins of some kind. He saw the remains of one of the great metal doorways the dwarves used to seal the entrances half blocking the cave passage, but this one was so rusted it was barely even identifiable for what it was.

It occurred to him to wonder that there was even a cave to move through at all. Shouldn’t that pile of rocks have come from the tunnel collapsing? Unless someone had piled those rocks there to seal off the Deep Roads. He had to wonder if that was something done from the outside or from within.

A cool breeze struck him in the face before he realized they were out of the cave and in the open air, standing on a rocky slope covered in snow. It was nighttime, with a cloudless sky overhead filled with a million stars and the silvery moon almost full. In that moment, as the three of them stood there, stunned, Maric thought it was the most beautiful sight of his entire life.

Fiona let him go and leaned against the rocks, wiping the sweat off her brow. The snow here was deep, going halfway up their shins. The freezing chill he felt through his boots was wonderful, and he reached down to scoop up some of the snow and smear it on his face. They were all coated in a chalky grey dust that sat on the skin like grit.

Duncan chuckled, and then looked around while he wiped at his face with the back of his hand. What ever vista was out there was mostly hidden by the rocks around them, but Maric could see a hint of trees in the distance. “Where are we?” the lad said out loud.

“I’m not sure,” Maric answered. “We’ll need to get higher up to see.”

“Wait,” Fiona sighed. She pushed herself away from the rocks and put her hands on his shoulder. Maric realized then that his shirt was mostly in tatters, and smeared with blood. He had several deep gashes in his chest, covered in dirt, and they were bleeding profusely.

She closed her eyes, summoning more energy even though she was still pale and weak. He stopped her and shook his head. “No, we can do that later.” She didn’t argue, which indicated, if nothing else did, just how depleted she was.

They slowly walked up the gentlest nearby slope, Duncan taking the lead and helping them both up. When they reached the top, Maric found that the bright moonlight allowed them to easily see the surrounding snowy countryside. They were in the foothills of the Frostbacks, with trees dotting the rugged hillside as it swept down before them into the flatlands and a thick forest farther out.