Dwarven Road
Hurry!” Caelith called out. “Keep moving!”
The torusk bellowed, its trumpeting sound nearly swallowed up in the roar of the rushing waters nearby. The beast was confused and unnerved by the urgent, frantic activity all around it. Anji did her best to keep the creature calm, raking its tusks with her guide-stick and rubbing its jowls soothingly.
Little, however, could dissipate the near panic that surrounded the creature. The humans swarmed around its flanks and sides, unloading the packets and canvas sacks mounted across its wide back as quickly as the ropes could be loosened. The provisions were then whisked to the side and set or hastily tossed onto the flat surface of the ancient barge, where Lucian and Eryn did their best to keep up and at least attempt to secure their cargo to the warped and weathered deck.
“Lovich!” Caelith shouted. “Where are they?”
“They’ve crossed the lake,” Lovich called back, his voice breaking slightly. The young raider had obeyed Kenth’s instructions and climbed up the low ridge at the head of the road ascending the mountainside. It was a good position from which to observe the plain below and the ruins of Segathlas in the distance. “I can see—all three of them are coming directly toward me. It’s hard to see, the sun is in my eyes.”
“This is insanity,” Jorgan groused over the rumble of the rushing waters nearby.
“I thought all mystics were insane by definition,” Caelith replied, grabbing another sack from the back of the kneeling torusk and swinging it onto the deck of the barge. The sky overhead was deepening into a salmon color, the sun now completely hidden by the western peaks. “What’s the point of being crazy if you can’t do something lunatic now and then? We need to hurry and get everything loaded before we lose the light.”
“Lose the light?” Jorgan’s voice broke. “You want to drag us down a river that flows under a mountain and you’re worried about the sun setting? If you’re afraid of the dark, then you’re taking the wrong path!”
“I can’t get these knots loose,” Warthin growled from behind clenched teeth.
“Just cut them,” Caelith replied, pulling another canvas wrap free of the beast. “Never mind the harness!”
Lucian stood on the deck of the barge, adjusting the load, but even as he worked there was an element of tension in his voice. “Caelith, old boy, maybe Jorgan is right. We should find cover in these ruins. There may even be another path out of here. A good night’s rest might make our course, well, a little brighter in the morning? Maybe some nearby caves we can hide in?”
“No!” Caelith said with a vehemence that surprised even him. He took in a deep and considered breath before he continued. “Now listen, all of you. We have to leave tonight—right now. I can’t explain it, it was something in the dream, but this is the way we must go; there is no other cover and we cannot wait out the night and survive.”
“The snakes?” Eryn asked loudly.
“You were there—in the dream?” Caelith asked quickly, tossing a bundle of cake rations onto the deck.
“In the wings, watching.” Eryn nodded, and then spoke quickly to everyone else. “This—I think this is the way. In the dream it was snakes, but it must have been a metaphor for the dragons and Caelith escaped by falling down some sort of well. By the gods, Caelith, where are you taking us?”
“Nonsense as er is!” the dwarf huffed. “Safe as er is the Dwarven Road!”
“Nonsense or not, we’re about to see the handiwork of your ancestors firsthand,” Caelith said, tossing the last of the packets onto the barge. “Cephas: you, Tarin, and Warthin help Lucian with that far runner. Margrave: you’ll help Kenth, Beligrad, and me push this near runner with Jorgan. Eryn?”
“Yes?”
“You get Anji up on the barge while I untie these ropes. We’ll push it down this ramp and climb on as it hits the water. You take the rudder in case something happens.”
“Like what?” Eryn snapped.
“I don’t know . . . anything,” he shouted angrily.
“Great,” Eryn groused as she climbed onto the barge. “Fine time to learn how to sail.”
“Excuse me,” Margrave said as he stepped uncomfortably close to Caelith, “but what about the torusk?”
Caelith looked over at the huge, long-tusked beast. Stripped of its burden, the mammoth creature had stood and wandered several yards away, taking interest in a tall clump of highland grass.
“Not now, Margrave,” Caelith snapped.
“Well, how does he ride with us?” Margrave asked.
“He doesn’t,” Caelith grunted, having no success undoing the ancient knot wrapped around the rusting cleat. He drew his sword and neatly cut through the dry, splintering rope. “We’re going on without the torusk.”
“But, my lord!” Margrave said with shock.
Caelith straightened, crossing the ramp leading down to the rippling surface of the water before the cliff. “He’s a foraging animal, Margrave; he’ll be just fine.”
“But what of us?” Margrave whined. “We may need the beast again at the other end of the majestic and mysterious Khagun-Mas—and consider Anji; she is absolutely beside herself with concern!”
Caelith glanced over at the waif. Her expression reflected the same blank, silent resignation as always.
“Yes,” Caelith said dryly, “poor kid. I can see she’s overcome with grief. Look, you’re the one who led us up here—who said this road would lead us to Calsandria. Does it or doesn’t it?”
“Well, of course it does.” Margrave’s laugh was colored by a tint of uncertainty. “I mean . . . eventually . . . no, it does.”
“And you can lead us down this road, can’t you?”
“Certainly!” Margrave asserted.
“Then we cannot stay here any longer.” Caelith raised his sword once more, swinging it down quickly. The blade sliced through the wide braids of the rope, severing it at once. The cable, released from its tension, sprang back slightly as it fell to the ground, a thick coating of dust exploding on impact.
“Lovich!” Caelith yelled toward the ridge. “Get back here now!”
“I’ve lost them!” Lovich called back, his right hand trying to shield his eyes against the low, burning light of the sunset. “I can’t see them!”
The hull of the barge groaned.
“It doesn’t matter!” Caelith shouted.
The young raider turned to face Caelith.
The ridge exploded into white dust and hurtling rock, engulfing Lovich at once. An instant later, the gigantic form of a dragon, its leathery wings clawing at the air, emerged as a terrible shadow against the reddening sky. The pale scales soared over their heads, clutching in the talons of its hind claws the screaming and struggling Lovich. The dragon’s wings pushed downward, its powerful force churning the waters of the small bay, its body climbing upward. It released Lovich just feet away from the cliff face, his body slamming against the carvings with a sickening, wet thud. A dark stain followed the limp and now silent body and it tumbled down the face and into the churning waters below.
“We’re leaving! Put your back into it, Margrave,” Caelith shouted as he grabbed the edge of the barge’s platform just above his head. “Everyone, now!”
With a shout, they all pushed against the barge. The river ship protested but Caelith could feel it shift. He called out again; once more they pushed and the hull moved a foot further. Emboldened, Caelith shouted out a third time; they all pressed against the hull and the barge began to slide down the slanting quay. The men and the dwarf continued to yell, pushing harder as the barge picked up speed across the slick stones. In moments, the bows of the twin hulls slid into the water, lifting the keel free of the ramp.
Caelith glanced up. The dragon was wheeling overhead, seeming to float for a moment in the air as it poised for another attack. In that moment, Caelith caught a glimpse of the empty harness on the dragon’s back—the Dragon-Talker’s position that had been empty since before he was born. It was Satinka, the Silent Dragonqueen.
“Now!” Caelith shouted. “Get on now!”
Lucian, Tarin, and Warthin clambered up one side of the hull. The dwarf was struggling, however, so Lucian reached down quickly and grabbed the puffing dwarf by his wide belt and hauled him unceremoniously onto the decking. Margrave and Kenth both managed the feat without assistance. Beligrad, however, slipped on the wet stones underfoot, faltered and fell in front of Caelith. Caelith stumbled over him, falling forward even as his hands clung desperately to the edge of the barge. The boat continued to move forward, dragging Caelith through the icy water, shocking the breath from his lungs. He thrashed about with his legs but they found no purchase. He tried to pull himself upward, but the water dragged him back as the ship rode forward. The churning water lapped into Caelith’s face, his nose, and down his throat. Still he hung on, gagging, feeling the panic well up within him.
Someone took his arms and pulled him up from the water’s grip. At last, wet and sputtering, Caelith flopped onto the creaking, ancient deck.
“Thank you,” Caelith sputtered.
“Don’t thank me yet,” Jorgan returned.
Caelith looked up in shock at his brother standing over him.
“Master!” Beligrad called out, as he staggered back out of the water to the ramp they had just left.
“We’ve got to go back!” Kenth demanded. “We can’t leave him here!”
A terrible trumpeting shattered the air. The Dragonking Ormakh, its ancient leathery wings beating dust of the ground, alighted on the ridge, its hind talons nearly crushing the rock beneath him with its grip. It craned its huge, terrible head downward, then leaned forward and, folding its wings, began deliberately to claw its way down toward where Beligrad stood.
“Caelith!” Eryn yelled.
The young mystic stood up, water falling off him to soak the aged boards underfoot. “What is it?”
“I—I can’t go back; I don’t know how this works!”
Caelith scurried to the back of the barge. He could see that the current had already taken them, drawing them with ever increasing speed toward the wide maw of the Dwarven Road.
Margrave moved to the front of the barge and struck a noble and tragic pose as he spoke. “So it was that the intrepid Heroes of the Lost City, after braving the terrors of the road, and battling the spectral ghosts of tragic Segathlas, came at last to the darkest part of their journey: the unknowable terrors of the forgotten—and cursed—Dwarven Road.”
“Cursed?” Lucian clucked. “I say, nobody said anything about a curse!”
Caelith stared helplessly back at Beligrad, who thrashed about in the water, unwittingly with his back to the approaching dragon. Ormakh’s clawed foot plunged down where Beligrad struggled, drowning the warrior in his own crimson stain.
“So the heroes bold and true sailed past the silent quays, devoid of well-wishers to send them on their great and tragic quest. No goods filled the docks; no songs rang from the streets. For the Dwarven Road of Khagun-Mas was a tomb, the stagnant vein of a dead empire.”
Caelith heard Satinka overhead, screaming with rage as she plunged, too late, toward them. The fallen towers and broken domes, their white marble stones stained by time, wind, and weather, were behind them now. Only the enormous face of the cliff filled their vision, the delicately carved figures staring back at them with stains streaking from their eyes and the black, enormous shaft of emptiness that drew them inward with increasing insistence and speed.
“Down the hole,” Lucian called out more to himself than anyone.
“Tell me you’re right about this, Margrave,” Eryn said, her face pale. “Tell me we’ll come out on the other side.”
“Have no fear, good lady,” Margrave replied, “fortune favors us through the darkest peril!”
“Just hold on,” Caelith said with more confidence than he felt. “And we’ll get through.”
The arch passed high over them. The water, constricted by the tunnel, suddenly pushed them forward with a speed that seemed more appropriate for arrows in flight.
“Fearlessly they raced into the depths of stone!” Margrave shouted, the wind blowing back his thick, long curls. “Companions in search of their past that they might find for themselves and those who follow after, a future as bright as the blackness they faced!”
The barge rushed onward, the red light of sunset quickly falling behind them. In moments the subterranean river turned and an impenetrable black engulfed them.
The last sound that escaped the darkness was swallowed up entirely by the rage of Satinka, who snarled once again at being denied her prey. Could it have been heard in the light of that falling day, it would have been Lucian’s plaintive and pained cry:
“By the gods, Margrave, could you please just give it a rest!”