Block looked around at the water and the cracks. He had been in the tombs of great dwarfs far older than this one back in Garak-Tor, but he had never before seen the least sign of wear or damage. Those places of course had been meticulously maintained by the descendents of those buried there. There were no living Baltazarians of Yagnarok, and this tomb was going to come down in time. Block judged it would not be coming down tonight, and so he entered.
He walked slowly around the pools, so shallow and still that they seemed but a film on the hexagonal flagstones. He approached the central pyramid upon which three lines of writing in the old dwarven script were cut deeply, plain characters carved with great care. The first, at the top, was a name. Baltazar II. The two at the bottom were a linked couplet which Block had read before, long ago, in similar places.
As I was once, so now are thee.
As I am now, so shall thee be.
Baltazar II was the son of Yagnarok’s founder, and the father of the monster who had brought the Yellow Mountain to its tragic end. Block stared at the name and something very old and deep and dwarven gave him an urge to spit on it. Before he had decided one way or another, a woman’s voice behind him shouted “Move!” in Miilarkian.
Block did so, not as spryly as he would have a century before, but just enough. He threw himself sideways to the hard floor and rolled through a puddle that tasted dirty and bitter. Before the taste had even registered a stalactite sharp as a spear and almost as tall as Block crashed to the floor on the spot he had just vacated.
“Captain!” Tilda yelped, bounding down the last few stairs and running into the chamber with her hair loose and the long gun in her hands. The crash of the stalactite echoed off the walls and almost seemed to hum from the smooth ceiling. Still prone, Block stared at the stalactite lying on its side and with the point broken.
“That thing almost spitted you like a…”
Tilda slid to a halt in her socks and her eyes, which were already huge, widened further as two thick, fat tentacles with a texture like rotted fruit emerged from the fat end of the fallen stalactite. Tilda swore and raised her gun to a shoulder, but the tentacles moved slowly and did not extend very far. They touched the floor with a sucking sound then bunched up as they dragged the stalactite away, maybe an inch at each pull.
“Don’t bother with that one,” Block said. “Aim up.”
Tilda snapped her eyes and gun to the ceiling above, where another score or so of stalactites hung, motionless and silent. Block rose with a grunt and moved out from beneath them while keeping his eyes riveted on them, but seeing no sign they were anything but natural.
The one on the ground moved another inch, scraping loudly. Tilda swung the gun toward it, then back to the ceiling, then back to the one on the ground. Back to the ceiling. Her loose hair swung across her face and she shook it back.
“What in the Names of the Nine Gods is that?” she asked in a voice that only sounded slightly hysterical.
“Piercer,” Block said, backing away for the stairs while keeping his eyes high. “Sort of a cross between a slug and a hermit crab. They burrow into rocks on high ledges, or stalactites, as their spit dissolves stone. Reckon you can tell how they hunt. And probably figure out how they feed.”
Tilda fell into stride with Block, and both backed to the stairs through the puddles, leaving wet footprints and dampening their socks though that bothered neither of them at the present moment. The piercer on the ground went on making its laborious way back toward the wall. At the base of the stairs beneath an empty ceiling, Block turned to Tilda.
“You followed me?”
Tilda still kept the gun on her shoulder pointing back into the room, and only glanced for a moment down at her Captain. He saw a not wholly unfamiliar flash in her dark eyes.
“Follow you? No, of course not. I wandered off alone into the dark, beasty-filled, godless ruins. Off the path where I was specifically warned not to go, because I am addled. Because I am soft in the brain. Captain.”
Dugan’s voice calling both their names boomed from the room above them, echoing down the stairs. Tilda jerked and nearly cracked off a shot. The crash had plainly woken everyone above and Block cupped his hands to his mouth to shout back.
“Stay where you are! We are returning!”
“Piercers,” Tilda muttered over her gun. “Stirges. I hate this stupid continent.”
“Matilda,” Block said quietly and put a hand on her elbow. His scant avoidance of impalement had almost been enough to make him crack a smile, but his customary frown and scowl returned as Tilda met his eyes uncertainly. He spoke rapidly, close to a whisper.
“This situation with Dugan is intolerable. He could have been gutted by the knight Procost rather than the other way around. Any one of us could die at any instant. If it were him to go, then you and I would be left with no idea of where to seek John Deskata.”
Tilda’s eyes kept flicking back to the crawling piercer, until Block finished.
“When we are out of this place and the three of us are next alone, you watch me for a signal.”
“A signal?”
“A signal.”
With that, Block turned and mounted the stairs. It was a moment before Tilda followed, then both hurried back to the safe room with their cold and wet feet slapping against the ancient stones.
Chapter Eleven
Fitzyear Coalmounderan was cross with the two Miilarkians for having wandered off, but it did no good to return the dwarf’s perpetual scowl and the girl Matilda was too pretty to stay mad at for very long. The gnome grumbled as everyone settled back into bedrolls but in the morning he said nothing more about it.
The second safe room was bathed in sunlight with the dawn and the spirits of Fitz’s men were high. It was not much farther to the Daulic side of the mountains where most of them were from. After a quick breakfast the group headed down the hallway toward the concealed door the dwarf had uncovered, which Fitz had closed after Block and Tilda‘s return. The gnome had of course noticed the door a long time ago but had never felt the urge to explore what might lie beyond. That was the reason why the Trellanes and the Dauls typically employed gnomes as guides on this subterranean connection. Dwarves, the Mountain Folk, lived their long lives almost completely underground, and had little sensible fear of the things in the world’s secret places. Gnomes, the Hill Folk, lived above ground as much as they did beneath it, and as a people they tended to have more appreciation for the sun and the sky. Gnomes went below ground so that they could come up again, and that was enough.
Fitz led the way past the hidden door and down the passageway to the right. For the next several hours the group traveled in their accustomed silence through what had once been heavily inhabited tunnels back when Yagnarok was a thriving city. The passages were all wide and evenly floored, connecting what had been large storage chambers and bunkrooms which now held only refuse as all potential valuables had long since been cleaned out, or else rotted away. Several shorter stairs connected descending levels so that by the time the group drew near the southern exit they were almost back to the same elevation as the wide thoroughfare they had taken for most of the second day, though not quite.
Their point of egress was not the actual aperture which had led into Yagnarok in its heyday. The ancient doors of the grand entranceway were presently buried under yards of dirt and yellow rock, the legacy of a long-ago landslide on the Yellow Mountain’s southern face. The present exit was located above the old one and had probably been part of the defenses as it would have given access to a walkway above the old gate. Fitz led the way through large storage rooms where siege engines once waited to be wheeled outside, but abruptly stopped and held up a hand. His men stopped instantly behind him, and after more than two days of similar such halts the travelers did as well. They remained silent save for the dwarf Block, who grumbled.