The younger brother shook his head as Nailer went on. “And he’s got-he had-black hair. That marks him as maybe a Theiwar or Daergar, maybe a Klar. But he certainly wasn’t a Hylar.”
“No, not a Hylar,” Brandon agreed.
“Then he’s not even a dwarf of our clan. Let’s leave him for his own kin to lay to rest. If it makes you feel better, we can report the finding to someone once we get back to Garnet Thax.”
His brother was right, and in fact, Brandon only then reflected on how hard it would be to dig a grave in the solid bedrock. It could be done, of course-they were delving dwarves by nature-but it would take an awful lot of work. And the sounds of the digging would be sure to attract attention, he realized with a shudder.
“So do you think it’s true? That these caves are haunted down here?” he asked tentatively.
“Does it look to you like he was done in by a ghost?” asked Nailer, back to his old sarcastic self.
Brandon winced, not wishing to consider the question. “I guess not. Anyway, we’ve come pretty far below the Zhaban Delvings. It seems like we might be in the right cave. At least there used to be something in here that discouraged exploration.”
“Used to be?” Nailer snorted. “I’d give good odds that this poor fellow was done in by a cave troll and even better odds that the damned thing is still down here.”
Brandon tightened the chin strap of his helmet and gripped the haft of his venerable axe in both hands, trying not to let his excitement show. He had battled goblins before and even-with Nailer and his father-taken on a bull ogre in its mountain lair. But a troll was fiercer, shrewder, and meaner than any of those foes. A troll would be very exciting. He sincerely hoped they’d have a chance to find it, kill it, and bring its head home as a trophy for the king. That would get his family noticed at the royal court!
“You’re not so stupid that you want to meet a troll, are you?” Nailer asked in contempt, eyeing his brother warily.
Brandon bristled resentfully. “What if I am? We could take it, you and I.” With his axe head, he indicated his brother’s strong right arm, the hand that held the warhammer Nailer had recently purchased with its chiseled head of Kayolin steel. The length of that weapon’s mighty hilt was impressive, half Nailer’s height. Nailer had been carrying it in a sling across his back for most of the long weeks of their mission. Brandon saw his brother lift the hammer from its sling and hold it at the ready, easily balancing the heavy weapon in one hand.
“Wouldn’t that just be the Bluestone luck?” Nailer snorted again. “Why not make it three cave trolls?”
He drew a breath, clearly trying hard to contain his exasperation as he fixed his younger brother with a stern glare. “Listen, you fool of a lad. We’re down here because all the tests, every other cave we’ve explored, suggests there might be a true vein of gold in this rock. A real treasure, which would bring real rewards to mother and father-and to all of us. If we have to fight some cave troll to find it, so be it. But Reorx take my tongue if I’m going to go looking for the monster or let it distract us from our purpose.”
“Yeah, I know,” Brandon conceded. He adjusted the straps of his heavy pack and followed his brother as Nailer stepped past the decayed corpse and continued into the darkness. Still, the younger dwarf couldn’t suppress another rush of excitement, and his knuckles whitened around his weapon as he stared into the shadowy niches to either side of the descending cavern. “But did you ever think that, just maybe, winning a fight with a troll might start to change the Bluestone luck?”
Nailer ignored him, and Brandon followed him along, feeling surprisingly cheerful. Exploration was a far cry from the grinding tedium of the king’s court. He felt more at home exploring the dangerous passages with his brother than he ever did negotiating the banquets and ceremonies that attended the great throne room in Garnet Thax. There, he was keenly conscious of his role as a very insignificant member of a very insignificant, and notably unlucky, noble family, surrounded by swaggering wealthy merchants and captains, rich mine owners and shrewd traders.
Of course, his family had not always been insignificant, but if anything, that knowledge served only to aggravate his awareness of their current status. The Bluestone luck, dating back to the Cataclysm more than four centuries earlier, had ensured that the house had been unable to prosper.
And why should money matter so much, anyway? Well, in truth, it didn’t, Brandon admitted to himself with a secret chuckle. Perhaps it made all the difference to the rich themselves and to the swaggering young men who dressed in finery and tried to impress the girls with family money. But it didn’t matter all that much to the girls, really, not in his experience. He recalled very fondly the attentions of several noble young females. Buxom and blonde, always ready to enjoy a high-kicking dance or a tall mug of ale, those ladies seemed more than happy to spend time with Brandon and his brother rather than with the fancy-dressing, smug scions of the great merchant houses. One, a lass named Rona of House Darkwater, had been his regular lover for most of the past year. Their open romance had sparked more than one brawling encounter in which the Bluestone brothers were often outnumbered, occasionally taunted, and sometimes sucker-punched or jumped from behind by jealous rivals higher up the social scale of the elite.
The brothers won more fights then they lost, and even when they lost the fight, they usually won the girls. All in all, it wasn’t a bad life. In truth, Nailer was a tall, handsome dwarf with flowing blond hair and a yellow beard. And Brandon, whether he knew it or not, was even taller, and more handsome. He had his brother’s strapping shoulders, sturdy legs, and strong hands, but he also possessed a guileless face and a winning smile that had, all of his life, allowed him to make friends quickly.
“Hey, where are you? Back at the Cracked Mug?” Nailer asked, jolting him out of his reverie.
Brandon had, indeed, been recalling a certain barmaid who worked at that very tavern, the lovely Bondall. He blushed, realizing that his brother had halted a few paces ahead of him and was impatiently waiting for him to catch up.
“Sorry,” he said, turning his attention back to their surroundings.
It was a natural cave created by the erosive action of flowing water, the two dwarves knew. The curves in the wall were rounded, and stalactites dangled from the ceiling above, pointing to stalagmites rising from below, in some cases merging into staunch columns that gave the cavern a sense of majesty, almost like the great hall of the king himself. The water had long vanished, leaving a floor that was strewn with rubble, rounded rocks that, like the walls, showed the smoothing effects of long erosion. In many places passageways, some narrow and others wide as a royal hallway, extended to the right or left. But the two brothers, long accustomed to the subterranean landscape, could see by the deep channel and the steadily descending grade that they were following the main branch of what was proving to be an exceptionally extensive cavern network.
The surrounding rock was limestone, typical of such a cave and not the type of rock that would normally contain a vein of any heavy metal, let alone gold. But their explorations had shown them that the stratum of limestone lay atop a much heavier, older layer of stone. That harder bedrock had already yielded indications of iron deposits and ore containing aluminum. Just a few intervals earlier, the brothers had located, between the stratum and the stream that flowed there, a shelf that bore definite traces of gold-flakes and tiny nuggets of exceptional purity. Making an estimate based half on long experience and half on an intangible hunch, Nailer had led them to that cavern, and-despite the old legends that the caves were haunted by some unnamed horror-they had been delving deep into the bedrock, seeking the source of the tantalizing bits of gold.
Until they had encountered the body of the long-dead dwarf, the place had looked promising. Every so often the tougher bedrock under the layer of limestone came into view, and the two dwarves nursed every hope that the next time that happened they would spot a vein of precious yellow metal intermingling with the dull stone. Conserving their precious supply of lamp oil by keeping the flame low, they took turns carrying the light and carefully probed their way deeper into the caverns.
But for the moment, everywhere was soft bedrock and shadows that gave it texture and mystery. It was Nailer’s turn to carry the lamp, and he held it high in his left hand, keeping the hammer ready in his other. Brandon looked to the right, where the cavern ceiling sloped into the darkness, meeting the rubble and dust of the floor in a crease that might have ended in a foot’s drop or continued for a hundred miles. To the left was a series of columns, arrayed almost like a drapery, with rippling edges and articulated spires-still, eternal, and almost lifelike.
Then one of those columns moved.
It had appeared as immobile as a cliff, a tower of pale gray, until a great club of an arm shot out, a mighty fist driving toward Nailer’s shoulder.
“Look out!” Brandon cried. Even before he finished the shout, he reacted, unconsciously. He hoisted his axe and brought it down, backed by all the strength of his broad shoulders and sturdy, muscular arms, directly into that striking limb.
