by P D Dennison
“We thought we’d lost you there for a second, lad. You’re quite a sturdy young fellow takin’ a hard knock on the noggin’ like that!” He gave Kaldrinn a pat on the back and helped him with the boot. The Ranger had a bit of a limp, but he seemed well enough to go on.
They now faced the second drawbridge and it too remained closed.
“No worries, my good friends! This one shall be a sight easier to traverse than the first,” Kaldrinn said, far too cheerily for a man who’d just all but lost a toe and was running about with a hole in his boot.
He trotted back into the first gatehouse and up to its heights. They saw an arrow with a length of rope attached to it whiz from the window and lodge itself somewhere within the window of the inner gatehouse tower across the moat. Before they knew it, out came Kaldrinn scuttling under the rope hand over hand. He was making surprisingly good time too. After only a few short minutes, he traversed the gap. He lowered the bridge and within two shakes of a lamb’s tail, all three within the courtyard proper of Dragon’s Maw Keep.
Chapter 17
The Fulcrum Orb
“It’s unimaginable,” exclaimed Rostioff as he wheeled about with his head held high, taking in all of the mosaic stonework and the awesome architecture of the ancient and fabled Dragon’s Maw Keep.
“My people are fine craftsman,” Postgaar said nodding in approval with his arms crossed as he surveyed the sights and heights of the inner keep.
“It’s all very splendid, but we mustn’t doddle,” stated Kaldrinn very flatly.
They took note of the black dragon remnants on the ground and examined the carcass carefully for a few moments. None of them had ever seen a dragon in their lifetimes, save Postgaar, and he’d never been inclined or in a position to take a long look at one up close until now. After they were done ogling and poking at the carcass, which was all but picked clean by the carrion birds, Kaldrinn went back to looking around for a possible entry. He caught sight of the open pit at the center of the courtyard with its massive wrought iron railing now overgrown with ivy and weeds.
He had a terrible feeling as he approached the pit, like he should be running in the other direction, but swallowed his apprehensions and walked on slowly. Postgaar saw him and walked over, equally as curious. The two leaned over as far as they could and peered down into the blackness of the seemingly bottomless hole. Postgaar had a terrible view due to his height, but Kaldrinn could see all the little cave mouths and even saw the cave that Graxxen had resided in. They saw the light and heard the faint whispering of voices followed by regular and even paced hammerings as if great timbers were being smashed into place. The booming echoed up the walls of the cavern ominously and sent chills up Kaldrinn’s spine.
“What is all that banging? Blasted! I can’t see for nothin'! Why did they have to make these damned railings so tall?” Postgaar was cursing and cussing, trying to get a foothold into the railing so he could get up higher and peer over.
“Be quiet, dwarf! You’re about as stealthy as a river yak in heat! Can you not do anything without cursing yourself blue in the face? We might know more if we could hear over your grumblings! Now be quiet!” Kaldrinn scolded him gruffly and then felt sorry for the little fellow, picking him up by the armpits and allowed him to lean fully over the railing to see down into the depths.
“There are at least three of them down there and judging by the voices, I’d say it is our young apprentice and her two companions. It sounds as though they’re discussin' a way out before the door to their chamber is overtaken.” He scrambled back out and put his feet on the ground looking somewhat shaken.
“Overtaken? By who? There’s no one else here, is there?” asked Kaldrinn.
“Ghouls,” came Postgaar’s shaky reply.
“Up here, you lot!” Rostioff stood up on one of the many stairway landings waving with both arms down to them. “I’ve found one that’s open!” He’d shouted to get their attention and his words echoed down the great pit walls over and over.
“Shhhh! Did you hear that?” Ravak asked with his hand raised to hush them.
“I didn’t hear anything, old boy. I think you’ve gone mad with fear.” Turynn slapped him on the back and turned back toward the door shaking his head and trying to devise a way through the ghouls or around. He went over to the cave mouth leading up to the pit above and lay back on the ground with his head dangling over the edge, looking up at the rock face to try and find a route to climb out. It was no use. The walls were smooth and sheer and the pit mouth expanded outward as it descended into the earth in a conical shape. It was purposely designed to keep intruders out and to keep dragonlings from scaling the walls and climbing out before they could fly. He took note of the close proximity of the next cave mouth set into the wall to the left of theirs. It couldn’t have been more than fifteen feet and a good toss with a climbing claw might get a rope around that corner and hooked into the stone.
“I think I have a plan.” He wheeled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows, quite relaxed and grinning at his very poorly thought out escape route.
“What might that be?” Manya looked at him suspiciously as she knew all too well that Turynn’s plans usually involved some level of daring not very becoming of a lady.
“We’ll simply toss a line over to the next cave and swing to safety. Nothing too complicated and quite safe, I might add. I’ll go first, then Ravak and I will guide you from each side to ensure your success, alright?”
“Alright, I’m ready when you are. I’ll catch you, I swear it. You’ve got nothing to be frightened of.” Turynn had already made his swing, which almost ended in tragedy as he had banged his way along the wall with the rope twisting and turning as he went. He managed to scamper up on the next opening in the end, if not a little bit banged up from his rash decision to swing like a wild man along a sloped and rounded wall. He had made an adjustment once inside the next cave and had refastened the climbing hook to a ledge inside the top of the mouth of the cave so as to allow a swing over open air and directly into the cave instead of a swing down along the wall, which he was sure his sister could not do.
“Turynn, if I fall, I swear I’ll crawl back up from the depths of that pit and kill you with my bare hands,” she said a she gripped the rope with panic in her eye. Manya was visibly sweating and couldn’t keep from looking over the edge down into the endless depths below her.
She’d been told by Krigaar and by Adder she couldn’t die until her service as the Drake Vardar was done, which for a brief moment calmed her shaking hands. Then the fear overtook her again and she considered what an eternity in a black pit she had no hope of climbing out of might be like and insisted to Ravak that she take Liv Givare with her in case she fell. At least then she could Transportal herself back out again in three days’ time once the staff had recharged itself sufficiently for travel. She had him fasten it to her back and she inched her way back to the edge. She looked over and almost fell when she realized the height over which she was standing. Manya closed her eyes and swung back around, back plastered to the inside of the wall in fright.
“Come on! Those ghouls will be a far worse end of you than a fall from this height! I’ll catch you! You’ll be fine! I promise!” Turynn waved her over while hanging out from around the corner of the next chamber.
Manya could hear the frustration in his voice at her hesitation. She could tell by how he’d waved to her that he was also getting frustrated with her.
“Listen,” Ravak’s voice came as he grabbed hold of her shoulders and looked her right in the eye to get her focused. Her eyes went wide as he spoke. “You have to get a hold on yourself. Do you think Krigaar would’ve chosen you as Drake Vardar had he not foreseen you making it through this and many other perils that lie ahead of us? If this is the worst thing you have to face before this is all over with, count yourself very lucky. I have no doubt you can do this. You survived a near death attack by a Swamp Troll Ghoul and have lived to tell the tale. Compar
ed to that, this is a walk in the meadow. Now go!”
He gave her a shake at the end to fire her up and it worked. She grabbed hold of him around the neck with both arms and kissed him right on the lips. She kissed him for a long moment, or at least it seemed like a long moment to Ravak. She stepped back, opened her eyes, took a long look at him, and smiled. Her cheeks flushed. Ravak stood there slack jawed.
Manya turned from Ravak and stepped out to the edge. She said nothing to her brother, but caught his eye and gave him a nod then she leapt out into the air screaming the whole while as she swung fully around and directly into the mouth of the cave as Turynn had predicted. She let go of the rope and he helped steady her landing. All was well.
Poor Ravak, on the other hand, had been left dazed and confused by Manya’s kiss. He didn’t know what to think of it. Manya was a strikingly beautiful woman, but he’d never imagined in his wildest dreams an educated civilized woman of the city would find him to be attractive. He shook it off and grabbed hold of the rope with his great leathery hands. He spat into them to ease the rope burn and swung out wildly running in mid air as he wound around finally landing on his rump on the cave floor. It was just then the great hinges of the chamber they’d just exited began to give way. Turynn quickly lit the rope ablaze and let it burn so the ghouls couldn’t use the same means to get to them and they began to slowly make their way to the door at the back of the cave.
Meanwhile, Rostioff and company were well within the dark and musty stairwells of Dragon’s Maw Keep headed ever steadily downward toward what they’d thought to be the dragon caves below. Unfortunately for them they didn’t listen to the wise words of their dwarven companion and they were headed in the wrong direction. While the route they’d chosen did in fact lead down, it lead to another part of the maze of caves and would take them far longer to reach Manya, Turynn, and Ravak than if they’d gone the direction the dwarf had suggested.
Postgaar could travel well ahead of them in the darkness and warn of any coming danger long before they were exposed by the light of Rostioff’s sword. Every so often he would trot back with word of the changes in the passage ahead and all the while grumbling that they’d gone the wrong way and should have listened to him. What did Rangers know about cave construction anyway; that sort of thing. They’d chosen to follow Kaldrinn’s sense of direction and since he was the Ranger it seemed to make a great deal of sense to Rostioff who was more or less in charge of the little company so that’s what they did, which worked out for the better anyway for all parties involved except of course for the ghouls, who might have locked the keep down better in their master’s absence.
“Where have ye led us, Ranger? You don’t seem to know yer arse from a hole in the ground, quite literally, so I’d like to know. Where in blazes are we?” were Postgaar’s less than cordial questions to Kaldrinn.
“We’re on our way up and around toward the location of the light we saw master dwarf.” He knew full well he’d led them astray a ways back and that they were now walking the full circle around the pit well below the level of the lighted cave with the voices.
“Indeed. By now Rostioff’s apprentice has been eaten by ghouls and we’re too late for the gathering of eggs or anything else for that matter!” He grumbled as they plodded on. It wasn’t more than a few minutes later that they saw a light ahead in the tunnel and the stench began to assail their senses.
“What’s that terrible rot?” Postgaar was gagging and heaving every few feet now and could barely go on.
“Here, chew this.” Rostioff gave him a piece of a dried root he had in a pouch inside his robe.” It’ll keep your guts down. What you smell is the rot of the dead walking these very halls. I do believe we are about to find out what has happened to my Manya and her two companions, now be very quiet so that we might take the ghouls be surprise if need be.”
They slowed to a crawl and crept on around the great passageway ever closer to the source of the light ahead and the sounds of the dead as they smashed, and crashed their way through the door to the chamber that Ravak and his companions were trapped behind just a moment before.
Rostioff doused the light of his sword and sent Postgaar up ahead to scout around the final bend in the corridor, but all he found was an empty passage way. The noises could still be heard faintly coming from what seemed like within one of the doorways along the great passage. The hall was round as most within the keep were. He crept around further still exposing himself should a ghoul appear out of one of the doorways on the inside wall. The noises grew louder and then his worst fear became realized as a ghoul came ambling back out into the passage looking right at him. It was stunned for but a moment and then cried out a warning to its fellows and set to pointing at the dwarf to sound the attack.
There were more thieves in the master’s halls and these would not escape so easily as the first. Postgaar cried out one word back to his companions;
“RUN!” Postgaar came back around the corner as fast a dwarf can possibly move before he finished speaking the word.
Rostioff and company were running around the passage way trying doors as they went but they were all locked fast and the ghoul horde gained on them. They could see the ghouls from time to time coming around the bends in the great passage. There must have been a hundred or more. Kaldrinn got so frustrated at all the locked doors that he simply put his shoulder hard into one of them a couple of times and broke it in. He pulled the other two inside just in time as the ghouls came around the bend in the corridor. They hadn’t seen the three men slip into the room and right past them in a blood frenzy seeking their prey.
“Back the other way!” He commanded them out into the hallway when the coast became clear. “Postgaar you have a chance to live up to all of your grumblings about how much better dwarves are at navigating underground than Rangers. Lead us out, and do it with haste or you’ll become the afternoon meal of those ghouls when they make their way back round here after realizing that we’ve given them the slip.”
They ran back down the hall and paused as they came upon the chamber door that the ghouls struggled with. It lay smashed open. Ghoul blood had spattered all about the door and frame. They’d nearly trampled each other trying to get inside.
“Let’s have a look,” said Kaldrinn as he drew his sword, stepped in, up and over the junk heaped in front of the door. There in the center of the chamber sat the dragon eggs.
“Those voices we heard must have been Manya, Turynn and their companion from the North,” stated, Kaldrinn as he surveyed the room. There are no bodies and the blood of no men has been recently spilled here so they must have somehow escaped.
Turynn worked the lock to the door of their chamber with little success. It proved to be much more stubborn than the one on the adjacent room. Seasons of corrosion in the mechanism had stiffened it.
“Hurry up, Turynn! What’s taking you so long?” Manya demanded of him, arms crossed and pacing behind her brother.
“Please just be quiet and hold that light steady. I need to concentrate.” He jiggled furiously at the mechanism with his picks, but it was stuck fast. The chamber had not been opened since the First Age and the lock was rusted tight.
“Give me some of that torch oil we have there, Ravak.” He slipped the tip into the lock and gave it a good squirt. The oil oozed its way into the lock and began to do its very slow work, which required patience.
Much longer and Ravak was bound to say something about the kiss and she didn’t know exactly how to approach the subject just yet.
Turynn turned and slumped himself back down back against the door, took a sip of the fine ale they’d taken from Krigaar’s cottage, and begin to fill his pipe.
“That’s it? You’re giving up? Just like that?” She walked over and raised her boot to give him a good kick but thought the better of it before she hoofed him. .
“No, I’m waiting.” He struck his flint and steel on his char cloth started the pipe up with a great flaring puff as he stared up
annoyed by his sister’s incessant caterwauling and then blew a great puff of smoke at her out of pure spite.
A terrible crash came from the next chamber as the door finally gave way and the ghouls all growling and gurgling in their rage and blood lust scrambled over the mounds in front of the door to get to their prey only to find that they’d somehow escaped. The frustrated cries of the undead in deep halls were nothing but blood curdling to all parties that heard them.
“What was that?” said Turynn, back against the door smoking his pipe leisurely waiting for the oil to do its work on the lock.
“Shhh!” came his command and he pressed his ear to the door. He could hear a great commotion of ghouls in the hallway spilling down the passage away from them.
“I thought I heard the voice of a man say ‘RUN!’ and then nothing but ghouls. You don’t suppose there are others about the keep and caves?”
“If there are, they’re in a great deal of trouble and we might have to try and help them.” Manya tried to turn the latch. It began to move stiffly.
“Help them? Help them how? Do you have any idea of the size of horde of dead things out there waiting to feed on our flesh? They have helped us by drawing those wretched corpses off our scent. We must help ourselves and make for the gates of this blasted keep. I only hope we never lay eyes on it again!”
He rose, handed the pipe off to Ravak, and went to work on the lock again. This time he felt it give. Not a clink or a clunk like a worked in lock, but to the skilled hands of a thief, the lock snapped just out of the way and he had a chance now. He stepped back and produced a long metal rod from inside his pant leg about twelve inches in length. Turynn slid the rod into the lock and took off one glove and wadded it up on the end of the rod sticking out.