Барб Хенди - Of Truth and Beasts

“Wynn ... ?” Ore-Locks called from somewhere.

She could not see him.

“Wynn, come up!”

He rarely used her name, and she’d never heard him sound quite so agitated—or perhaps animated. Looking around, she spotted him to her right, partway up the base of the mountain.

“What is he doing?” Chane asked.

Shade rumbled softly.

Wynn jumped from the wagon’s back and scrambled upward after Ore-Locks. Chane rasped something after her, but she couldn’t make it out. She was too busy climbing as quickly as possible, sending small stones downward with her feet. Shade dashed up after her, and then she heard Chane cursing, as he only had the horses partway unharnessed and couldn’t leave them in a tangled state.

“What?” she panted upon reaching Ore-Locks. “What is it?”

“Look,” he said.

Pulling a cold lamp crystal from her pocket, she rubbed it and held it out. The light illuminated fragments of what appeared to be cut stone lying against the slope.

Wynn’s heart began pounding from more than exertion.

“What are you doing?” Chane asked, coming up behind them. “I had to leave both horses loose down there!”

Wynn leaned slightly forward holding out the crystal. “These stones aren’t natural.”

“There,” Ore-Locks said, moving up and to the left. “More of them.”

Shade rumbled again, and Chane now appeared more unsettled than angry. Ore-Locks climbed further with surprising speed.

“And here,” he said, pointing.

Wynn hurried after him, spotting more fragments of cut stone along the way. Soon the fragments became slightly larger, and then ...

She glanced back and saw the pattern. It might never have been noticed if she hadn’t first spotted them one by one along the way. There were two lines of those barely noticeable stones with open ground in between, as if ...

“A path,” she whispered, willing herself not to hope too much. “Are we walking an ancient path?”

Ore-Locks didn’t answer. By the crystal’s light, his eyes were wide and intense as he scanned the slope. He went onward and upward, and Wynn hurried after, barely aware that Chane and Shade came behind.

“I left the horses loose,” Chane repeated.

“Then go down and tie them up,” she said without looking back.

She didn’t hear him turn back as she kept climbing after Ore-Locks.

The path began to curve and snake. Occasionally Wynn lost sight of any stones with telltale signs that they weren’t natural. Ore-Locks would wave her and the others to a stop and begin clambering over the slope, searching. Again and again, he finally straightened up and waved Wynn onward. Soon they were passing through wind-bent trees, jagged outcrops, and rougher terrain. Pauses became longer, but Ore-Locks always continued.

“How far will we climb?” Chane asked.

Again, Wynn didn’t look back. “To the end.”

Shade growled, but kept on as they made their way out onto the crumbled base of a cliff. It was covered in heavy brush that had grown so tall it reached above Chane’s head. Ore-Locks stopped, his gaze searching the rocky ground and the sheer rise of rock above them.

“I’ve lost the path,” he said. “It just leads into the brush.”

“It must go farther,” Wynn returned, peering around at the heavy brush covering the cliff’s base. “It wouldn’t just stop here unless ...”

She whirled around but pointed into the brush. “Shade, search! See what is behind there.”

Shade’s ears flattened.

Wynn didn’t understand her reluctance, but as back in the foothills, neither did the dog refuse. She trotted to the thick brush, sniffing at its scraggly branches. Ore-Locks went to try to bend some of it out of Shade’s way and looked to Chane.

“Help me.”

Chane strode over, and with one final pause, dropped down to grip handfuls of the thick brush, bending it aside so Shade might crawl through.

“I do not know what you expect to find,” he rasped. “We are wasting more time.”

Wynn ignored him.

Shade crawled through the underbrush toward where the cliff’s face must meet the slope behind the brush. Unable to stop herself, Wynn closed the crystal in her hand and dropped to all fours to follow Shade.

“What are you doing?” Chane asked in alarm, almost letting go of his branches.

Wynn scrambled in before he could stop her, keeping her eyes on Shade’s tail ... until she realized Shade should’ve reached the wall of the cliff by now. She raised the crystal, but all she could see was Shade’s haunches.

“What do you see?”

—Dark—

Darkness, and that was all? Shade wormed into the brittle branches to one side, and a strange, soft shift of stale air blew over Wynn. She crawled into the space Shade had left and found herself in a barren area beyond the brush. Wynn held up the crystal again.

Light shone upon a stone archway directly above her. She stood and her head almost touched the top. Shade stood beside her, and Wynn turned around, holding the crystal forward.

Wynn almost couldn’t believe what she saw. They were in the mouth of a tunnel, and every stone in the walls was perfectly set without a trace of mortar.

A short while later, Chane crawled into the tunnel after Wynn—with a knot in his stomach. In addition to his packs, he now carried heavy burdens of water, three blankets, and their remaining food supplies. They had abandoned the wagon and their travel chest, and let both horses go.

During the busy moments of final packing, when no one was looking, he had gulped down the last of the red-black life in his final brown bottle. After a moment’s hesitation, he also took another dose of the violet concoction as well.

Shade was now leading the way, and Ore-Locks brought up the rear. But once through, Chane could not stand fully erect and had to hunch in the tunnel.

“It was foolish to abandon the horses and trust this passage to take us through,” he said. “We do not know where it leads.”

Wynn turned her head and gave him a resolute look he had come to know well. She carried her staff in one hand and her cold lamp crystal in the other.

“Ore-Locks says it is common for his people to build a back way out of their seatts,” she said. “Though this one would be much longer than any he’s heard of. Why else would this tunnel be here in the middle of nowhere?” She turned back around. “No, this tunnel has to lead to somewhere else.”

The knot in Chane’s stomach tightened, as he could not fault her reasoning. Why else would the dwarves build a tunnel that led to the foot of the Slip-Tooth Pass?

Wynn pressed on behind Shade, and Chane began to wonder how long he could walk stooped over like this. Then an opening appeared ahead in the light of Wynn’s crystal, and they all emerged into a large, open area.

“What in the ... ?” Wynn began, and she quickly pulled out the spare cold lamp crystal, warmed it, and handed it to him.

Chane held up his to match hers and he saw openings in the walls at ground level. The knot in his stomach eased slightly. As his light shone on Wynn’s face, he could see doubt and even fear in her eyes. This was clearly not what she’d expected to find.

“Ore-Locks?” she said, her voice wavering. “What is this?”

The dwarf stepped around her. “I do not know. It looks similar to the entrance chamber at Cheku’ûn Station, in my seatt, but ...”

Ore-Locks pointed up.

Chane followed his finger to see large dead crystals embedded high on the walls. In his mind’s eye, he envisioned the rushing, busy entrance caverns that he and Wynn had visited at Dhredze Seatt, with glowing orange crystals offering warmth and light. Vending booths had filled the cavern air with the scent of sausages, smoke, and livestock amid the sounds of dwarves in avid barter.