“According to Urkhan’s calculations,” the delvemaster said, “there is a great natural cavern ahead. The one he called the first warren. It connects to other caverns beyond, and eventually to the subterranean sea.”
“I hope we break through above sea level,” Olim noted.
The delvemaster drew himself up, as one deeply offended. “Would you like to calculate the elevations yourself, Sire?”
“Of course not.” Olim smiled. “I trust your calculations above all others, Slate Coldsheet. Just keep doing the wonderful job you do.” He turned away, muttering to Gem Bluesleeve. “That’s the problem with delvers, Gem. By the time they are wise enough to chart a bore, their sense of humor has been drowned out by the ringing in their ears.”
Followed by some of his guard, Olim went forward to where the boring was in progress. The ring of hammers on iron drills, the splitting of stone as foot-wide slabs were broken away with prybars, and the clank of picks and mauls as the rubble was broken filled the wide tunnel with a chorus of sound. Beneath its tempo was the crunch of shovels, the low thunder of rubble raining into high-sided carts, and the ever-present, rhythmic tapping of mallets as spikes were set to steady the cart rails that followed along behind the dig.
The carts were wide, low-wheeled vehicles chained together by threes and fives, and a constant parade of them had been rolling back to the far side of Sky’s End for the past ten years to dump rubble. At intervals, where the tunnel was wider, empty returning carts were diverted to side-rails to make way for the full ones.
Working in shifts, with hammer drills and prybars, the Daewar delvers could extend their tunnel as much as fifty feet in a day’s time, even in the toughest rock. Now that the substance was softer, they were moving faster than that, though some additional effort was required for occasional shoring as they went. The first vertical fault they had encountered, a seep in soft, porous stone, had cost them a dozen lives and three days’ delay because of a cave-in. Now they took no such chances.
A lantern-bearer going before him, Olim Goldbuckle went all the way to the front, where a fresh layer of stone had just been levered away, adding another foot to the tunnel’s almost fifty miles of length. Drillers and drivers, cutters and prisers stepped back as the prince approached, and a sweating young Daewar with bulging forearms and whiskers of spun gold pointed at the new-cut face of the tunnel. “Softer by the minute, Sire. And we have sound.”
“We are that close?” Olim’s brow creased. “Let me hear.” He knelt at the sheer wall of the fresh cut and sniffed the stone, then pressed his ear against its surface. The young driver stepped forward, attached a string of bat-bells to the surface, raised his hammer, and delivered a smashing blow to the stone inches from his prince’s head. The bat-bells quivered and tinkled, and Olim counted his heartbeats, then grinned as a muted echo came back to him, ringing through the stone itself.
“Twenty feet,” he judged. “Not more than that.” He stood. “Gem, bring a company of fighters forward. I doubt if there is a Theiwar within miles. They don’t have the patience or the inclination to explore what is beneath their very feet, but let’s take no chances when we break through. If there happens to be anyone there, we don’t want reports going aloft just yet.”
“Yes, Sire,” Gem Bluesleeve agreed. “If they knew we were tunneling into their mountain, rather than building a city under ours, they might be rather upset.” Gem hurried back the way they had come to select his company of warriors. He would head it himself.
Olim followed him, away from the resumed clamor of the dig. He had a few hours to wait before the tunnel broke through into the first of the giant caverns charted by Urkhan and his band. He wanted to eat, and to rest, and to give some thought to what should be done once the tunnel was completed. He didn’t really expect to find anyone at the end of it. The Theiwar were not explorers, and who else could have stumbled onto Urkhan’s discovery?
Once fortified, not even dragons or magic would be likely to invade such a place. Olim shivered slightly at the thought. He had never seen a dragon and never expected to. But there was magic in the world, and, like all of his kind, he considered magic an abhorrent thing, an evil that only humans or other lesser races would even think about exercising. Even the primitive Theiwar and dark-dwelling Daergar … even the wild-eyed Klar abhorred magic. There were legends, of course, of a dwarf who had become involved with magic in some way, but to Olim Goldbuckle the idea was unthinkable. Yet, there had been times of late when Olim’s dreams had been troublesome. Several times, in his sleep, when he dreamed of the great undertaking now at hand, a spectral, shadowy figure had been there in his dreams — a figure that whispered words to him. “The Daewar are chosen,” the specter said, “to carve out a place.” But then it added, “But others will come to guide your race.” Each time, Olim had awakened shaken and puzzled. What others? What did it mean?
As an attendant handed him a loaf and a bowl, Olim Goldbuckle’s gold-whiskered face contorted itself into a scowl. “Guide my race?” he muttered. “None but Daewar shall rule Daewar!”
“Sire?” The attendant blinked at him, startled.
“Nothing!” Olim growled. “Bring me ale.”
“Yes, Sire.” The attendant hurried away, and Olim perched on the wheel of a sidelined cart to have his meal.
Had he been human, or even elf, Olim Goldbuckle might have dismissed the dreams as something imagined … as something simply beyond understanding. But Olim Goldbuckle, prince of the Daewar, was a dwarf. And like most full dwarves, his practical mind had no use for the unintelligible nor any patience for things indistinct. He could not ignore the dreams or simply forget them. Especially not the latest one.
“You will know them when they come,” the phantom voice had added, this last time. “You will know them by the drum.”
Olim was still thinking about dreams when distant shouts echoed back along the tunnel, and messengers came running. “We’re through, Sire!” they shouted. “We have entered the first warren, just as Urkhan’s charts promised!”
“Send runners northward,” Olim ordered. “Withdraw all Daewar from Daebardin and start them this way. Prepare to seal this tunnel when all have passed through. We will establish residence and claim this place as soon as we have looked around.”
The warren was an immense natural cavern, softly lighted by a high ceiling that was, in some places, pure quartz. More than half a mile beneath the surface, it was as Urkhan’s explorers had described — a vast, elongated chamber almost two miles across at its widest point and four miles long including a narrowing, funnel-like “tail” that curved away to the east. Here and there, stalactites hung from the high ceilings, their shapes as varied and fantastic as candle-beads. Beneath each was a waiting stalagmite, tall sentinel spires like the bases of trees in a giant forest.
“Marvelous!” Olim Goldbuckle exclaimed as he led his guards through the new opening into the silent cavern. Faint echoes of his voice drifted lazily back to him, and in the distance something moved — something very large, slowly raising what might have been a head, to listen.
Some of the Daewar clasped their swords, but an old delvemaster hurried forward to thrust an unrolled scroll under the nose of his prince. “Tractor worm,” he said, pointing. “As Urkhan described. They are large creatures. Very strong. But slow, dull-witted, and docile. The explorers supposed that they might be useful, if they could be controlled.”
“Tractor worm,” Olim repeated. Quickening his stride, he hurried toward the movement, dozens of Daewar following him as more entered the cavern behind them.
The thing was huge, at least thirty feet in length, and it turned what appeared to be its head toward them as they approached. No eyes were visible, nor ears. Instead, its “face” was a cluster of waving tentacles surrounding an orifice that opened and closed rhythmically. Olim stepped closer, peering at the creature. He raised his shield and waved it from side to side. The creature did not respond. “It’s blind,” he said.
At the sound of his voice, the thing turned toward him, its tentacles quivering. “Ho!” Olim rasped. “It can hear me.”
Beside him, Gem Bluesleeve stepped aside and cupped his hands. “Ho, worm!” he called. Immediately, the raised end of the thing turned toward him. He stepped farther to the side and called again. Again the worm responded, turning to face him. “It hears,” he called to the others. “Watch!” Turning, he hurried away, quartering around the creature until he was off to one side of it. Then he called, “Ho! Worm! Here I am!”
Obediently, the thing turned toward him, this time moving its entire body in a slow, methodical arc to face him. The dwarf chuckled. “I have this thing’s full attention,” he called. “See? Now it is coming toward me!” He
