by Amy Green
Silas and Jesse followed, and Jesse stretched, grateful to be able to stand up straight.
Then he looked around, and almost gasped too. Here, the narrow tunnel exploded into a huge cavern, high enough to allow six Patrol members to stand on each others’ shoulders, and large enough to fit….
A small village. “This must be Urad,” Jesse said in awe.
“Yes,” Bern agreed. “The ruins of it.” Perhaps because they had no weapons, or perhaps because they made no move to run back the way they came, Bern lowered his spear and let them gape at their surroundings.
A second glance showed the extent of Urad’s destruction. As if they had been thrown about at random, piles of the glowing rocks illuminated the sad remains of charred buildings, broken pottery, and scattered straw.
“No one from Above-ground has seen this place since the Fall,” Bern said softly, almost as if he might disturb some sacred relics.
Rae ran over to one of the homes, picking up a half-burnt piece of wood. She studied it for a second. “Black pine,” she said. “From the forests of District Three.” Her voice sounded almost wistful, and Jesse suddenly realized she missed her home as much as he missed his.
“Come back,” Bern said, sounding a bit unsure, as if he was afraid Rae would run off.
“I’ll stay behind,” Jesse volunteered. Bern must know more of the story than Silas did.
Bern nodded at Rae and Silas, and Jesse sat down beside the archway, leaning against the cold stone. Bern remained standing, spear at the ready and eyes fixed straight ahead.
Jesse took the time to get a good look at their captor. His face was normal, except for the eyes, which were buried in wrinkles. He looked like a person used to squinting in the dark. Although the rags he wore were torn and frayed, they were clean, as was Bern himself. Somehow, Jesse had pictured the Roarics as being filthy, rough cave dwellers, but Bern’s face was washed, his beard neatly trimmed, and his boots shined. He probably looks better than we do.
Jesse decided to break the silence. “This ‘Fall’ you talk about,” he began, “when did it happen?”
“A long time ago,” Bern replied, still staring at the city.
He didn’t volunteer any more information, so Jesse continued, “What happened here, Bern? Who destroyed Urad?”
There was a pause. “I cannot say,” he replied. “When we get to New Urad, you may ask the History Keeper. That is his burden to bear.”
The History Keeper? Jesse shook his head. That means there is at least one other survivor, probably more.
“We must continue to the mines,” Bern called. Once Silas and Rae rejoined them, he led them to the opposite side of the cavern.
Jesse felt strange walking through the city ruins. He saw shards of shattered glass, burned furniture, pieces of stone and wood and pottery. It’s like walking on broken fragments of lives.
One thing he didn’t see were the remains of victims of the Fall. “Why aren’t there any bones?” Jesse asked.
Immediately, Bern stopped in the path. “They were buried,” he said, his voice sounding distant and without emotion. “After the chaos had died down, the survivors came up and buried them, laying them in crypts in the deepest parts of the mines.”
Jesse shivered and hoped they wouldn’t go to those tunnels. He didn’t want to be greeted by Roaric skeletons staring out at him from the dark.
Bern turned to face him, slowing down a little and letting his spear drop. For the first time, Jesse saw emotion in his deep, squinting eyes: pain. “There were so many who died.…”
Then, Bern gave an abrupt shake of his head, and his eyes again became blank. He began to walk again, this time faster. “But it is not my burden to bear. It happened long ago. It does not matter now.”
One thing is sure, Jesse decided as he stepped over a pile of rubble, I will have many questions to ask this History Keeper.
Bern stopped as they were almost to the edge of the ruins, tilting his head back where they came. “I hear voices,” he said simply.
Though he heard nothing, Jesse’s eyes widened. Captain Demetri. It has to be.
“There are others,” Jesse said hurriedly, his words slurring together. “Other humans. Evil ones. They’re following us.”
Bern just grunted and held his spear high, toward Rae again. “No, you fool,” Rae snapped. “This is no rescue party–they wouldn’t care if you threatened me.”
“They’ve come to kill us,” Jesse said, “and then they’ll kill you too.”
That, at least, Bern understood. “To the mines,” he said, hurrying as fast as his short legs would take him through a second, smaller archway. This one was made of the same glowing stone that lined the tunnels.
Jesse followed, but Silas pulled the dwarf back. “We cannot run from them,” he said firmly. “They will not stop until they find us, even if they have to search these caverns for days.”
“And if you try to give us up to them, we’ll tell them about you and your people,” Silas said. “They are Patrol.”
Bern winced at the word. Clearly, he remembered something about the destruction of Urad.
“They will try to wipe you out again,” Silas continued. “Do you really think you can defend yourselves from them?”
Jesse began to feel nervous. Now, even he could hear shouts as the Patrol members found tunnels hidden in the shadows and called for others to join them. They were wasting precious seconds.
Silas must have known it too, because he spoke more quickly. “We have to block the tunnel somehow. Keep them from getting to us. It is the only way.”
Bern looked confused, glancing from Silas to the tunnel and back again. The voices got louder. “Yes,” he finally said. “Come.”
Bern led them into what Jesse guessed were the mines, although he didn’t see the deep pits he imagined were a part of mines. There were, however, mangled pickaxes and other supplies scattered about, and a few large, overturned carts. Bern began picking through the rubble, muttering to himself.
“Stay here,” Bern said tersely. Jesse noticed he was no longer holding his spear. Instead, he clutched a small barrel in one hand and the torch in the other. Without another word, he ran back into the tunnel.
Jesse started to follow, but Silas shook his head. “Let him go. He seems to know what he’s doing.”
Jesse wasn’t so sure, but Silas seemed confident enough, so he didn’t move. Rae paced the cave nervously, while Silas bent down and picked up Bern’s spear. He tested the point carefully. “Silas….” Jesse warned.
“Do you want to give it back to him?” Silas pointed out. “He was threatening to kill Rae.”
“Just don’t do anything foolish,” Jessie warned. Silas stiffened, but gave a slight nod.
A few seconds later, Bern came running back. “Under the Miner’s Supply,” he shouted, pointing at a thick steel overhang jutting out of the stone wall. A few wooden boards attached to framework hung like a mouth full of broken teeth. The rest was ash and debris. It’s a building of some sort, Jesse decided, or at least, it was.
Only the roof, welded to the rock wall and held up by a few metal supports, was still intact. Bern threw his torch to the ground and stomped it out, then ran to one of the overturned carts, pulling it under the steel overhang.
“You,” Bern said, nodding at Silas, who was closest to him. “Help me!” He saw the spear in Silas’ hand and froze, fear flickering in his squinty eyes. For a moment they stood there, looking at each other.
Then Silas threw down the spear and joined Bern at the cart. The strain on Silas’ face indicated the carts were heavier than they appeared. Jesse dropped his own torch to run over and push. Rae was soon beside him.
“What did you do, Bern?” Jesse demanded as they shoved the cart under the overhang.
Bern just shook his head. He grunted and lifted one edge of the car
t up, straining with effort. “Get under the cart.”
From his urgent tone, Jesse decided that now was not the time for questions. Silas fell to the ground on both knees, then scrambled over to the cart. Once underneath, he crouched and bore some of the weight on his shoulders. “Hurry,” he said, groaning.
Jesse let Rae go first, then crawled in after her, dragging his walking stick with him. Bern was last, and then Silas dropped the cart over them with one last grunt of effort.
With none of the glowing stones on the ground, it was pitch black under the cart. Rae’s boot jutted into Jesse’s back, and he could hear everyone breathing in the silence. How long will the air last under here?
Then, suddenly, the entire cave seemed to shake with a violent explosion. The ground rumbled underneath them, and a roar echoed in the cavern. Someone—Bern, Jesse guessed—moaned loudly.
They had asked Bern for a cave-in, and he had given them one. Almost without thinking, Jesse shot his arms out, bracing them against the side of the cart. As if that will help when hundreds of tons of rock come crashing down on us.
The entire world collapsed. At least that’s what it sounded like from underneath the cart. Jesse imagined the noise he heard was what it would sound like if a thunderstorm rained rock. The ground kept trembling, not a steady, even trembling, but one with punctuated jerks from the impact of the falling boulders.
And yet, only a few rocks bounced off of the overturned cart, and those hit from the side. Bern was muttering something to himself, but Rae and Silas remained silent, hardly breathing.
Jesse was slightly less calm. His trembling hands were still braced against the iron cart, and he felt like screaming at the top of his lungs. Since that would use up most of the air they had left, he settled instead for clutching his walking stick in a white-knuckled grip.
The roar gradually died away, becoming nothing more than a sifting of dust and pebbles plinking against the cart. “All right,” Bern said, after what seemed to be years. “We can go out now.”
Silas pushed the cart off of them, bearing the weight of the cart on his shoulders. “Go,” he grunted.
Jesse hesitated for a second, not wanting to be crushed by a stray rock the moment he crawled from the cart. And do what? Let Rae go first? Jesse scolded himself for being so timid and scrambled out.
The mines were in even greater disarray than they had been before. Stone cluttered the neatly marked path, and one large boulder had crashed down on a cart, denting it nearly to the ground. I’m glad we weren’t in that one.
Yet, the metal overhang they had been under still stood strong, though fallen rocks lay all around it. “Good Roaric metalwork,” Bern said, sounding satisfied.
Clearly, though, the worst of the cave-in had not occurred in the mines. Jesse saw the worst when he followed Bern to the tunnel. There, past the archway, a wall of stone blocked the way back.
“What did you do?” Jesse asked again, staring at the dwarf in awe.
“We have a powder that can blast through rock,” he explained. “That is how the mines were created, long ago.”
“Of course,” Silas said, nodding. “I have heard of it.”
Bern shrugged. “I am not of the miner clan. I did not know how much to use. So we hid under the cart.”
He could have killed himself and us, Jesse realized. If Bern was shaken by the cave-in, he didn’t show it.
“Come,” he said, turning back toward the mines. “The shaft is just beyond Miner’s Supply.”
“Maybe we don’t want to go with you,” Rae pointed out. “After all, you held a spear to my throat.” She glanced significantly at Bern, and the rest of her meaning was clear. The spear you no longer have.
“You must follow me,” Bern said simply, nodding at the heap of rubble that was once the way to the ruins of Urad. “You can’t go back now.”
Chapter 5
The shaft Bern had mentioned was just a rough hole in the ground that had been dug by Roaric miners. At least Jesse assumed they had dug it. Bern didn’t know what the shaft was originally used for—just that it now held the iron stairs leading to New Urad.
Jesse did not feel comfortable descending into the ground. But, like Silas had muttered to a very agitated Rae, “We have a better chance of survival by following Bern peacefully.”
Even though the glowing stones provided enough light to see the stairs, Jesse still tested each step with his walking stick. This deep in the mines, there might be pits and holes anywhere.
Then, abruptly, the stairs stopped. Jesse tried to imagine how far down into the ground they were, then shuddered. Focus on getting to the surface.
At the bottom of the stairs was a small archway, which Silas, at least, had to stoop to enter. “Welcome to New Urad,” Bern said simply, leading them into a small cavern.
A quick scan of the buildings of New Urad told Jesse the city’s population had shrunk drastically. Only two-dozen homes, all of them tiny and shabby, crouched against the rock. Jesse took a closer look at one nearest the path and saw burn marks scarring the wood.
They built their homes out of rubble from the original Urad, he realized.
No people were in the dwellings or sitting outside of them. Jesse got the strange feeling he was walking through another set of ruins, until Bern led them to the center of the city. Standing quietly in a town square of sorts were the Roaric dwarves of New Urad.
The dwarves turned to look at the procession of strangers as they passed, but only the youngest began to whisper. The rest looked away and returned their attention to the platform, where a female Roaric stood, addressing the people.
“Kasha, of the ruling clan,” Bern muttered. He had straightened to attention and held his head high as he led them through the crowd to the platform.
“…Rations this month will be slightly smaller than last,” Kasha was saying. “Reports from the hunter clan show that….”
Bern cleared his throat, and the woman looked down at him. She expressed only the slightest surprise at seeing three ragtag Above-grounders with him and motioned him to join her on the platform.
“Go on,” Bern said gruffly, shuffling them up three short steps onto the platform. He stood back in the shadows, clearly not used to the attention.
Jesse, Silas, and Rae stood in front of Kasha, waiting for her to question them. Dozens of faces looked up at them. Although Jesse could see they were all different ages and had different features, they all had squinting eyes, just like Bern. And no wonder. Without torches, the only light came from the glowing stones that paved the streets of New Urad. I imagine the first Urad was the same before it was destroyed.
No questions came. Maybe it’s customary for strangers to introduce themselves first.
Apparently Silas thought the same, because he stepped forward. “Greetings,” Silas said, his voice echoing in the hollow cavern, “I am Silas, of Davior in District Two, and these are my friends Rae and Jesse. We stumbled into this cave by accident on a journey. Bern found us near the entrance. We are merely lost travelers who mean you no harm.” He paused, clearly not sure what else to say.
Jesse hoped Bern wouldn’t mention the cave-in and the Patrol members who were chasing them. That would be hard to explain after Silas’ story about “lost travelers.”
The Roaric woman, Kasha, stepped toward them. “It is good that Bern brought you here,” she said, nodding at them. “We have not seen one from Above-ground since the Fall.”
“And when was that?” Jesse asked, not able to help himself. Maybe she knows the history of her people.
She sighed, as if adding up the years took too much effort. “Twenty-six years ago.”
Jesse blinked. From the way Bern talked, Jesse thought centuries had passed since Urad was first destroyed. Then he cleared his throat. “Would you like to hear news of what has happened Above-ground during that time?”
> Kasha stared at him blankly. “It does not concern us.”
Jesse scanned the crowd in disbelief, but not one face looked eager to hear from the Above-grounders. Kasha was clearly not alone in her opinion. “But it might. A new king rules now, one who might not remember your offense…whatever it was.”
Jesse hoped that might prompt the leader to explain what had caused the destruction of Urad. Her hair, twisted into a coil at the back of her head, was gray. Surely she was old enough to understand what happened only twenty-six years ago.
But Kasha did not say anything. Instead, she stared at them, squinting in thought. At last, she sighed. “No one must know of this place, or the Fall will occur again.”
“We won’t tell anyone,” Jesse offered lamely. He looked to Bern for support, but the younger dwarf was looking humbly at the ground in the presence of his leader.
“No,” Kasha said calmly. “You will stay here with us in New Urad. We cannot risk letting you return to the surface.”
At that, Rae stiffened and looked to Silas. She couldn’t stand to be trapped down here for the rest of her life, Jesse knew.
“That won’t be necessary, Kasha,” a voice from the back of the crowd said. As if by magic, the Roarics parted to show a young dwarf, standing beside one of the dwellings. His face was different than the others in two immediately noticeable ways: he was clean shaven, and he wore a slight smile.
“We have nothing to fear from them,” the young dwarf said. Although he was talking to Kasha, he was looking straight at Jesse.
Kasha glanced at them, her squinting eyes cloudy. It seemed to Jesse that she was looking through them, or past them, instead. “But….”
“Kasha,” the young dwarf said quietly. “My father’s judgment never failed you, even through our darkest hours, though you may not remember. Trust me, I beg you.”
There was silence in the cavern for a moment. “Yes,” Kasha said slowly. She turned to Jesse. “You will go with the History Keeper. It is decided.” As one, all of the Roarics in the group, young and old, nodded their confirmation.