“What do you mean, get out of here?” Bradok asked, surprised.
Rose smiled genuinely. “When we get out of here,” she repeated. “When we finally reach the surface again. Then what?”
Bradok hadn’t given it any thought and he said so.
“What if Much is right?” she prodded. “What if we’re the only dwarves left alive? What if all the towns are gone?”
“I suppose we’ll have to start over ourselves, then,” he said, wishing she would switch to a more pleasant topic.
“All right, so let’s say you’re starting all over fresh,” Rose said. “What would you want to do?”
Bradok laughed. He realized that she was doing a good job of distracting him and the others from their fears as they continued to explore the area for any signs of the dread killer insects.
“Hmm, I see what you mean,” he said. “There won’t be much use for a jeweler anymore. But I’m good with delicate metalwork. I suppose I could be a tinker; you know, make pans, hinges, locks, and such. You?”
Rose shrugged. “My family have been merchants for six generations,” she said. “I think I’d like to be a rancher and raise cows and pigs and goats. Assuming we can find some left alive.”
Bradok chuckled.
“Your friend here wants to be a builder,” Rose said, nodding in Much’s direction.
“A builder of what?” Bradok asked skeptically.
“Everything,” Rose said. “He said he helped rebuild Ironroot’s ventilation and water systems when he was young. I bet he could build a mill and set up irrigation for farming.”
Bradok had trouble picturing Much working on millwheels and aqueducts. What his friend really liked to do was drink and talk.
“I want to be a brewer,” Corin’s voice came from behind them.
They turned to find the Daergar a few paces behind them.
“All those years in the penal caves made me quite a connoisseur of rotgut. I’d like to try my hand. It would be nice to drink something that wasn’t made of boiled mushrooms.”
Rose chortled. “It sounds like what you really want to be is an innkeeper,” she said.
Bradok was only half listening. Up ahead, the passageway forked. Automatically he pulled out the compass and flipped open the lid. Glowing smoke rose up out of it and coalesced into the form of the Seer. When Bradok reached the fork, she extended her spear, pointing left.
“This way,” Bradok said.
He’d scarcely put the compass away when they came to a second fork. The spear pointed right. Then another fork, and another, and another, each time the spear telling them which way to go.
“It’s like a maze,” Corin said an hour later.
“It reminds me of something I saw once,” Rose said. “Some humans put two pieces of glass together with dirt between them. Then they put ants inside and watched them dig. They called it an ant farm.”
“What are ants?” Omer asked, curious. He was walking up front with the lead dwarves, clutching his rag doll.
“Insects,” Rose said.
Bradok shivered involuntarily at the word, thinking of the dead Disir.
Corin stopped abruptly. “You mean these tunnels remind you of ones dug by insects?”
Rose shook her head. “I just meant that they twist and turn a lot,” she said. “Then again …”
Bradok had slowed and Rose bumped into him.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
The faint light of the open compass illuminated the passage for several yards ahead. Just at the edge of its light lay a glossy black body. Bradok froze. Willing his limbs to move, he lurched forward, holding the compass high.
The light washed over the body on the ground. It had a hard, outer shell with a segmented body and four walking legs. The torso and head, however, were different from the Disir skeleton in Starlight Hall. It was decidedly female, with a line of eight breasts running down its front. The head had a much smaller mouth, and its arms ended in hands with three long fingers. The body was smaller than the other, perhaps a little shorter than the average height of a human. All over the creature’s outer shell were thousands of little cracks, as though it had come under tremendous pressure and tried to shatter but couldn’t.
Bradok felt his arm going numb then realized that Rose had it in a death grip.
“Is it dead?” she whispered.
“Yes, thanks be to Reorx,” Bradok said, seeing the stain left by the vital fluids that had leaked out from the many cracks.
“What happened to it?” Corin said, edging closer.
Bradok kicked the dead Disir with his toe, but it didn’t budge. “I don’t care,” he said, checking the direction of the Seer’s spear. “Let’s just keep moving.”
“Quietly,” Rose said.
“Right,” Bradok said, turning to Corin. “Pass the word: less talking, everyone.”
The sandy passage grew wider and wider until it became a broad avenue. On either side, Bradok could see the bulbous protrusions of eggs buried in the sandy dirt. Each looked about the size of a man’s head. Several of the eggs had broken open, but there were no signs of any young. Two more shattered insect bodies lay at a juncture to a side passage, but there was nothing else.
Bradok could feel his skin crawl as he walked on in silence. Everyone carried weapons but nothing came rushing out of the darkness to meet them. Still, with every step they took, Bradok could feel the tension growing inside of him. He began to think it would be better if they were attacked. As formidable as he imagined the Disir to be, he was afraid of the tricks his terrified mind might play on him.
At that precise moment, a horrible nightmare appeared out of the darkness. In his overwrought state, Bradok cried out in alarm and fumbled for his sword.
“Stop,” Corin commanded, putting a restraining hand on his shoulder. “That one’s dead too.”
The body of a Disir warrior stood there, leaning against the wall of the tunnel, giving it the illusion of life. Its massive jaws dangled open as though it were ready to eat the next thing foolish enough to come near it. The long, wicked blades that made up its arms hung loosely at its sides, dragging in the sand.
Like the others, the Disir warrior appeared to have been shattered by some strange pressurized force.
“What could have done this?” Bradok asked, running his finger along one of the long fissures in the creature’s body.
“Could whatever destroyed Ironroot have struck here as well?” Rose asked.
“I’m grateful for it, whatever it was that killed these nightmares,” Corin said. “We’re among the nests of these creatures, can you imagine what they’d do if they caught us here?”
“I prefer not to think about that, if you don’t mind,” Bradok said. “Let’s go.”
Several hours later, just when Bradok was ready to call a halt, he detected the faint smell of fresh air drifting down from somewhere up ahead. Twenty minutes later, the cavern opened up into a massive, empty hole. The roof of the new cavern extended well beyond their meager light, hiding above in impenetrable shadow.
Without any encouragement, the dwarves staggered out of the tunnel and dropped down on the rocky floor. They hadn’t had much of a rest for the better part of a day. The stretcher with Lyra arrived, and the dwarves carrying her set her down gently before collapsing nearby.
Xurces followed the stretcher, carrying the sleeping form of Lyra’s daughter, Jade. He reverently deposited the girl beside her mother then staggered off to find a place of his own to rest.
“We can’t stay here,” Urlish Hearthhome said in a hoarse whisper.
“Why not?” Corin asked, sitting with his head on his knees.
“Haven’t you fools ever seen an anthill or a beehive?” she demanded.
Bradok and Corin exchanged blank looks, but Rose went pale.
“She’s right. I’ve been thinking the same thing. This must be the core.” She gasped. “The center of the hive.”
The men leaped to their feet, their weapons in hand, and stood there, sweating, straining their ears for a sound, any sound.
