Gully dwarves clustered around Ashtaway, clinging to his leggings, grasping for his hands. The little creatures stared upward, horrified, at the snorting horses and grunting, cursing knights, who tried to dismount in the utter darkness of the tunnel.
'Why you bring them here?' Toofer asked in a hoarse whisper-a voice loud enough to resonate through the enclosed tunnel.
'These are my friends-and yours. You helped save them,' the wild elf explained.
'But horses, too?'
Ashtaway wasn't listening. He saw Sir Kamford, numb with shock, staring at the huge doors, where the faintest trickle of light spilled through the crack in the center. Somewhere behind the elf another knight groaned as two comrades worked to set his broken arm.
The Pathfinder stepped to Kamford's side and, hesitantly, laid a hand on the man's shoulder. The knight sighed, shook his head in resignation, and turned away from the heavy iron doors.
'Our fight will make the lords proud,' declared Sir Kamford wearily.
'And you? Should it not make you proud as well?' asked the wild elf.
'Aye, my friend, but with the pride comes a weighty measure of grief.'
'Was this a victory against the Dark Queen?' Ashtaway asked, remembering the great fires, the scattered livestock-and the fallen knights.
'A bloody fight, but a victory indeed,' Kamford agreed. He blinked, trying to see into the depths of the stygian tunnel. 'At least, a victory if we can get out of here. Do you know? Are we in a trap or an escape tunnel?'
'Come over here. There's someone you have to meet. I think he can show us the way.'
Chapter 20
'Go out here,' Toofer said, pointing to a pair of large iron doors blocking the end of the roughly carved tunnel. The gully dwarf halted in his tracks, arms crossed firmly across his chest, as if he couldn't wait for the elf and his human companions to be gone.
Ashtaway stepped forward, Sir Kamford at his side. The knight held aloft the last of the sputtering torches that had illuminated their world during the long, often confusing march through the tunnels under the great mountain.
The portals before them resembled strongly the doors Ashtaway had discovered in the valley above Sanction- though the elf sensed that their long subterranean march had carried them well south of that dark and smoldering city. They had been underground for approximately three days, Ash guessed, though they had seen no glimpse of the sky in that time and thus had no real grasp of the duration of their sunless trek. The wild elf also deduced, based on long stretches of gradual downhill slope, that the war party had descended a considerable distance from the entrance on the mountainside.
'Go on. Git,' urged the Highbulp, all but pushing the knight toward the door.
'What's outside?' Ash asked suspiciously.
'Usual stuff. Air, mountains, sky. Ground where horses can poop and not stink up tunnel.'
The latter concern, the elf thought with a smile, was strongly on Toofer's mind. Though the gully dwarves had displayed a remarkable lack of fastidiousness in all aspects of their lives, the presence of the knights' mighty steeds in these enclosed tunnels had apparently proved too much for even their less-than-delicate sensibilities.
Sir Kamford called several of his men forward to work the door-opening mechanisms-capstans, he called them. The first glimmerings of daylight soon crept through the opening portals, causing the men to blink and shield their eyes until they could adjust, once again, to bright illumination.
'Your help has been very valuable,' Ashtaway said to the gully dwarf Highbulp, who had begun to tap his foot in agitation.
'Never mind about that. But t'anks for killin' ol' No- Teeth. We never liked him so much.'
'You're… welcome, I think,' Ash said with a grin. 'But to be on the safe side, I wouldn't go right back to Sanction if I were you. No-Teeth might have had some friends, and I bet they're not too happy right now.'
'No friends. But still, we go to different tunnel for a while. Was getting boring, just 'open door,' 'close door' alia time. Toofer real Highbulp, gonna get me a tribe. Maybe even make a army, like you got. No horses, though.'
The gully dwarf wrinkled his face and held his nose as one of the great warhorses made another contribution to the floor of the tunnel. 'Canya open that door faster?' he asked.
The knights ignored him, and in truth the iron portals swung open fairly quickly. No doubt, Sir Kamford's men were as eager to get outside as the gully dwarves were to see them go. Against the brightness of a cloudless day they saw tall, leafy trees, the edge of a forest beginning a few paces beyond the tunnel doors.
'You've been a true ally,' Ashtaway solemnly told Highbulp Toofer. 'Among my people, we have a term of honor. We bestow it on some of our great warriors, and those leaders who have an impact on our history. We call such a hero 'Pathfinder.''
The Kagonesti took a tiny feather from his belt pouch, a tuft of ruby-bright crimson fading into an iridescent green. He placed it behind Toofer's ear, entangling it in the loose curls of oily hair.
'Highbulp Toofer of the Smoking Mountain, I name you'Pathfinder.''
The gully dwarf blinked in surprise. His chest puffed outward as he stood up to his full three-foot height, beaming.
'No worries about ogres chasin' you,' he said. 'Highbulp Pathfinder gets 'em going on the wrong way!'
'Thanks, my friend.' Ashtaway was touched by the little fellow's heart.
'And our thanks, too.' Sir Kamford joined them as the knights, leading their horses, began to file out of the doorway. No more than sixty of the original hundred had survived, but they knew that-without the discovery of the tunnel-all the knights would have perished beneath frost and lightning or fang and talon. 'Sorry about the mess. I suggest you leave it for the ogres to clean up,' he suggested with a chuckle.
Toofer brightened still further. 'That's a good idea,' he agreed before turning to the dozen members of his clan who had watched, awestruck, the bestowing of the colored feather.
'C'mon, you louts!' he shouted, pulling a forked stick out of his voluminous pouch. A string of rubbery, flexible sinew linked the two split ends 'We got new game wit' ogres. Everybody got a flinger?'
The Highbulp commenced describing what promised to be a very elaborate tactical plan as Ashtaway and Sir Kamford finally passed through the doors. Breathing deeply of the fresh air, the elf looked up and saw close- pressing ridges, thickly covered with broad-leaved trees. A waterfall streamed, a plume of white mist, into the head of the valley, and nearby they could hear the splashing of a shallow but fast-flowing brook. The smells were summery and the air thick enough to confirm that they had indeed descended far from the mountainous heights.
'We must be very near the plains,' Ash guessed. 'If you follow the stream down from this valley, I suspect you'll be out of the foothills by the end of the day.'
'Then westward, toward Solamnia,' Sir Kamford agreed. 'I need to learn how Huma's campaign fares- and let the lords know of our success.'
'Was it worth the cost?' Ashtaway wondered. Throughout the long, dark march, his mind had replayed the glorious images of the charge. He remembered the inexorably precise advance, the way that no ogre or human could stand in the face of those raging horses.
Then had come the fires, when so much of the enemy's stockpiles had burned. This still seemed, to Ashtaway, a curious way to fight. It made sense when the knight described it-the Kagonesti could understand that the weapons and food would benefit the Dark Queen's army for some months-but it was not the kind of thing any wild elf chieftain would try to do. After hours of subterranean meditation, Ashtaway had finally understood why: When the Kagonesti went to war, they expected to win or lose on the day the battle was joined. This planning for
