Too bad he'd been saddled with a fool like Frivaldi. Durin should have kept his mouth shut when the order asked who would mentor a new member. Durin had pictured an apprentice who would hang avidly on his every word, who would learn. That was hardly the case with Frivaldi. The boy had a precocious talent for opening locks, it was true, but in truth, Durin would be better off searching for the Bane of Caeruleus on his own. Instead he was stuck with a boy whose beard wasn't even long enough to braid.
Realizing he'd reached the point where he'd begun his circuit, Durin halted and consulted his map. Had he missed something? He glanced back along the wall he'd just walked. Nothing. Just bare wall. All-Father's Hall was one of the main entrances to Torunn's Forge, yet the chamber had no exit other than the stairs. There could be only one conclusion: It wasn't All-Father's Hall. He hadn't found Torunn's Forge, after all. His head bowed and his beard slipped from his shoulder, onto the floor.
Frivaldi peered over Durin's shoulder.
He stabbed a finger at the map and said, "We're here, right?"
Durin jerked the map away and slowly rolled it up.
"I thought so," he said. "But I was…"
He couldn't bring himself to say it.
"And that rune at the end of the line leading southwest from All-Father's Hall…" Frivaldi continued. "It's Auld Dethek for 'hammer,' right?"
Durin grunted. He hadn't realized Frivaldi could read Auld Dethek.
Frivaldi peered around, stroking his pitiful excuse for a beard.
"Then the exit's got to be… there!"
He pointed toward the crack Durin had thoroughly examined earlier.
Durin shook his head.
"It's solid stone." he said. "Standard delving procedure revealed no exit."
Frivaldi snorted and replied, "Standard delving procedure doesn't allow for imagination. All of those stupid acronyms…."
Durin's fists clenched. He'd written the chapter on acronyms for the Delver's Tome. Belatedly, he realized he'd just crumpled his map.
Frivaldi tossed his head, flicking his hair back out of his eyes. The habit was an annoying one. It reminded Durin of an impatient pony he'd once ridden. The gods-cursed animal had bolted off with both his tent and bedroll.
"Here's a new acronym for you," Frivaldi said. "R-A-S-H." Durin scowled.
Frivaldi winked and said, "Run At SHadows."
Whirling, Frivaldi charged straight at the cracked wall. Durin winced, waiting for the thud of a body hitting stone that would signal the boy knocking himself unconscious a second time.
The sound of running footsteps abruptly stopped.
Durin turned. Frivaldi was gone.
"By my brow," Durin muttered. "It's an illusion."
Tossing his beard over his shoulder, he strode through the wall.
Frivaldi waited, bored, while Durin inspected the corridor on his hands and knees, peering at the floor. If he remembered correctly, the procedure was called CREEP, and had something to do with crouching and examining the floor every so many paces. Eleven, he supposed. That would be the second "E." It seemed silly to Frivaldi. The trigger for any trap was just as likely to be on the second pace, or the seventh, or the twelfth.
With his own dagger, he scratched at the wall beside him, carving his name into a mural fashioned from a natural vein of silver in the rock. In the centuries to come, when other Delvers explored the Forge, theyd see it and know that Frivaldi Loder had been there first.
Durin rose, tossed his beard over his shoulder, and counted off another eleven paces, then dropped once more to his knees for what must have been the hundredth time.
Frivaldi sighed. If he'd been in charge of the delve, they would have been exploring all of the tantalizing side passages and doors theyd seen since leaving the hall with the hacked-up statues. Like the one they'd just passed, for example. Similar to the door at the top of the stairs, it also had a shield-shaped lock. The door probably led somewhere important, but Durin had passed it by.
Frivaldi waggled his fingers. An apprentice was supposed to practice. Wasn't he?
This time, he thought, I'll know what to watch out for.
Walking back to the door, Frivaldi listened-nothing, looked-nothing again, and searched-no sign of a trap. Just in case there was a trap, he crouched to one side of the door as he extracted the prong from his ring and inserted it into the lock. The pins slid aside with only a minimum of effort. Frivaldi twisted his ring closed and flipped back his hair. He eased the door open a crack, half expecting a pendulum axe to swing out of the ceiling at any moment. None did.
He gave the door a shove. It stuck, hung up on something. He shoved harder, putting his shoulder into it. Something dragged across the floor-which, Frivaldi noticed, was discolored with what looked like dried blood.
Maybe he wasn't the first Delver to go that way.
He peered around the door and saw a body, long since dead. It was one of the oddest looking creatures hed had ever seen. Taller and heavier than a human, it had leathery wings and a mane of thick, matted hair. Its face was elongated-it had a snout rather than a mouth-and its jaw was studded with bony scales. A stubby horn jutted out from behind each pointed ear. The thing wore a motley collection of clothing: a torn cloak, leather pants that had split at the seams, and boots with the toes cut away to reveal long, curved toes that ended in talons. Around its neck was a leather thong that was threaded through three rings. The body wasn't as old as the goblin corpses. Judging by the lingering smell it had died only a few months ago, maybe a year at most. There were a dozen or more dagger-blade-sized punctures in its flesh. The creature had probably triggered some sort of trap.
The room was square and small, no more than two or three paces wide. Against the rear wall was a pile of coins that had spilled from a rotted wooden chest. The place must once have been a treasury. At the edge of the pile was a round blue gem-a sapphire shaped like a hen's egg. One side of it-the one tilted away from Frivaldi-was carved with an Auld Dethek rune, but he couldn't read it from where he stood. He crouched and reached for the gem.
"Don't touch it!"
Frivaldi leaped to his feet and exclaimed, "Durin! You startled me."
The older dwarf grabbed Frivaldi by the arm and yanked him out of the room.
"Never-ever-wander off on your own like that again."
Frivaldi shook off Durin's hand and said, "What's that? More standard delving procedure?"
"No," Durin growled. "Just common bloody sense. We're here to find the Bane of Caeruleus, not fill our pockets with gold."
"I wasn't-"
"Yes you were. I saw you reaching for those coins. If you'd touched them, you'd have gotten a nasty surprise."
"What do you mean?"
"Watch."
Durin fished a large copper coin out of his pocket and tossed it onto the pile. Dozens of the gold "coins" sprouted legs and scurried sluggishly about, filling the room with a metallic clinking sound. After a few moments they stilled, retracting their legs.
Frivaldi was intrigued by the tiny creatures. He'd never seen anything like them.
"What are they?" he asked, leaning into the room.
"Hoard beetles," Durin said. "They burrow into the flesh and head straight for the vitals. A swarm can take a man down in the time it takes to blink. They can lie dormant for centuries, waiting for something warm-blooded to touch them."
"Oh." Durin eased back out of the room. "So that's what killed him."
"Who?"
"Scaly face. The guy behind the door."
Durin unfastened the flap of one of the long, narrow pouches that hung from his belt-they contained his delving tools-and pulled from it a small silver mirror mounted on a short length of segmented rod. Cautiously, keeping one eye on the pile of coins, he extended the rod and used it to peer around the door. He grunted, nodded to himself, then collapsed the mirror rod and put it back in its pouch.