“How’s it going?” Feldspar asked when he heard Feril’s sharp intake of breath. “Are you all right up there, Dawnspringer? ”
Feril couldn’t be bothered with answering him. Her arm had stretched as far as it could inside the gap in the rocks. Her fingertips had passed over chips and flakes in the scale that might have been caused by battle or by the rocks, and they were now feeling a split in the scale that covered several inches.
“Ruined,” she said with dismay. “You were right, Obelia, it is damaged.”
“What? Are you all right? Who’s Obelia? Mine name’s Feldspar!”
“Yes, yes, I’m all right,” she said finally, holding back the tears that had settled at the edges of her eyes. “I came so damn close and for nothing.”
“It’s no good for ya, that scale up there?”
She shook her head and released the spell she’d been concentrating on. She withdrew her hand. The stone hardened again.
“Then let’s get out of here, Dawnspringer, the faster, the better. I won’t charge you for all the fuss. I bet dinner’s on, and I’m as hungry as an urkan worm. You and that sivak are welcome to join us…if it doesn’t eat too much.”
“All for nothing.” No, she corrected herself. She’d spotted other black scales when she scryed with Obelia. This particular venture had proved fruitless, but there were additional shed scales to be found and examined in the swamp.
“C’mon, hurry. Shouldn’t be in here now, anyway. Not with all the…”
Just then a great rumbling resounded through the cavern. The walls shook. Rocks broke loose from the ceiling and clattered to the stone floor. Feril was caught between shifting stone and cried out in pain, the sound of her voice lost in the increased rumbling and the great cracking noise of the ceiling of the cavern.
She heard support beams snapping from the tunnel beyond, more rocks falling everywhere, and the final desperate words of her dwarf companion.
“By Reorx’s bushy beard! The mountain’s coming down on us! Fool, fool elf!” Feldspar called. “Fool me! Now we’ll never get out of…”
His light went out. She heard Feldspar scream, his voice trailing off into nothingness. The cavern seemed to explode, huge chunks bursting from the walls and ceilings. She couldn’t see anything anymore. Everything was blackest black. The ground beneath her gave way, stone dust enveloping her, so she could barely breathe. She was falling. Feldspar was surely dead, and she would be next.
19
“Couldn’t mind your own business, could you?” The dwarf nicknamed Campfire shook a stubby finger at Ragh. “Couldn’t stay out of our tunnels. Couldn’t stay away from our property!”
“Look, you little hairy nuisance, you don’t own these mountains,” Ragh sneered, “and this pool is…”
“Priceless, and all ours,” Campfire continued.
“It’s nothing I’m particularly interested in at the moment,” Ragh returned. At the back of his mind the sivak wondered if Dhamon might be interested, though. Those ceramic jars filled with dragonmetal would be a prime addition to the lair. “I don’t care about your dragonmetal. I’m looking for Feril.”
“I don’t believe you.” Campfire waved his pick menacingly. “This pool, it’s not the only little pool of dragonmetal in these mountains. There are two more similar nearby. Nearby and mapped out by us, ready to drain—when we’re all done with this one.” He thumped the haft of the pick against his callused palm. “We just gotta be getting us some more jars is all, but we’ve ordered them, and they’re coining. See, we have another partner, and he’s bringing jars, a wagon and bearers right now. The bearers are for the jars that won’t fit on the wagon. Got us a buyer, too. We’re going to be richer than anyone could possibly imagine, so much wealth we won’t live long enough to spend it all. That’s what Feldspar says, and we don’t intend to share a bit of it with a sivak and a Kagonesti.”
Ragh gauged the dwarf as an easy mark because of his small size and relative youth—likely he was inexperienced with fighting. The sivak knew he could take the dwarf easily, but what about Feril? What was happening to her? Better to stall a little; meanwhile, he could get some more information out of the dwarf, information about the dragonmetal. Because no matter what he told the red-haired dwarf, Ragh was very interested in the dwarves’ discovery.
“Tell me this, Campfire. How did you stumble on this great discovery, just plain luck?”
The red-haired dwarf beamed. “Feldspar and Churt, they are the real geniuses. They were mining these mountains elsewhere and found an old, old map. Feldspar’s awfully smart, and he managed to translate some of the ancient writing on it. That led us here, to this old, old castle, sunk into the hills. The map said the dragonmetal was hidden in chambers below. It took some looking and digging, but eventually we found it. The map was right.”
“So this was once a Solamnic stronghold, is that it?”
Campfire shook his head. His eyes were wild and suspicious, and his knuckles were gripped white against the pick handle. “Nah. Older than the Solamnics, and it’s dwarven construction to be sure. Priceless, these pools are, and a secret you won’t be sharing with anyone. Dead sivaks can’t talk.”
He rushed at Ragh. Effortlessly wielding his long-handled pick, the red-haired dwarf darted in and out, chopping at the draconian. One of his first swings struck Ragh, the tip of the pick sinking into the draconian’s arm. The sivak cursed. Crouched over, the sivak had a hard time maneuvering in the cramped chamber.
“You filthy stump!” The draconian spat fiercely, edging around. “Dirty little lump of flesh.” The pick was hard and sharp and had cut through to bone—a painful wound to be sure. “I didn’t want to hurt you, dwarf! Now I got no choice.”
“Hurt me, hah! Who’s hurting who?”
“No, I had no real reason to before, but I’m going to kill you now!”
The dwarf laughed. “Here’s some more reasons!” Young and nimble, Campfire skittered away from Ragh, who was shuffling awkwardly, darting in again, swinging. Again he struck the draconian, this time only grazing Ragh. “I’ll be the one who’s doing the killing, just like Feldspar is probably busy finishing your elf-friend—wherever they are. There’s no way he’ll let her live. Can’t risk it. Can’t share this. Hope he hasn’t found her yet, and that he needs my help. I’ll enjoy killing the both of you. We’ll let your bodies rot in the upper tunnel and keep our secret safe. We’re not sharing this precious dragonmetal with anyone.”
Ragh growled. “You have no idea what you’re playing with, dwarf!” The sivak glanced at his shadow, inky black and shimmering in the light from Ragh’s blue globe. The shadow had started to flow away from him. He glanced around the small chamber, knowing that in his dragon form Dhamon couldn’t fit inside the small place and wondering what was going to happen. “You’ve no idea what you’ve started! Campfire, you have no…oh, wonderful. Wonderful timing.”
The quaking of the mountain started again, fiercer than before, the rumbling loud. Ragh could hear support beams splintering. There was a horrible scraping of stone against stone as huge slabs of granite shifted and slid around.
“We have to get out of here, you stupid lump!” Ragh screamed at the dwarf.
The single-minded Campfire showed by the set of his jaw that he was intent on slaying the sivak. “Our mine will hold!” he hollered, swinging his pick again and again, ignoring the stone and dust raining down and churning up everywhere. “We’ve braced it well here. Not even the gods could bring it down!”