Sniffing at it, Willow was surprised that it had the sweet smell of freshly turned soil. Putting the end of the root to her lips, she took a tiny nibble and smiled as her teeth broke through a hard outer layer and a sweet sap spilled onto her tongue.
Willow held the stick up and tilted her head back, letting the sap drip into her mouth. She wondered if she’d ever tasted anything that sweet.
As Willow bit into a second root, she felt her fatigue waning and a warmth began gathering in her limbs as the sugar infused her with energy that she’d desperately needed. Tilting her head back, she waited as the honey-like sap from the second stick dripped into her mouth.
It took a full five minutes before she’d drained the last of the sap. As she lowered her gaze, Willow gasped, scrambled backward and hit her back against the stone wall behind her. Her heart thudding loudly in her chest, she panicked as a creature stepped closer and tilted his head.
It pointed at itself and made a hissing sound that sounded like “Raz” and pointed at the pile of sticks. “Eech ... eech.”
Staring, Willow had no clue what the creature was trying to do. It stood barely over four-feet tall, had long spindly arms and legs, and pointed ears with sharp claws. It was a wildling, but this one remained surprisingly calm. It didn’t seem to be making any sudden movements. Willow watched as it picked up one of the roots and held it out for her. It repeated the word, “Eech.”
Willow’s body was tense with uncertainty and she crouched on the balls of her feet. She slowly extended her hand toward the stick and the creature stretched closer, laying the tip of the root within her grasp.
“Eech!” The creature seemed insistent. It grabbed one of the sticks and crunched on it, chewing the fibrous root with gusto as the sap covered his lips and chin.
Staring at the creature as it ate, Willow couldn’t help but be fascinated as she watched the mess it was making of itself. The sticky sap was all over its face and as soon as it was done with the root, it began to fastidiously lick all of the sticky parts of his hands. As he cleaned himself, the creature pointed at the root in Willow’s hand. “Eech!”
She got the hint. It wanted her to eat.
Willow bit at the end of the root and chewed, this time not letting the sap drip out. Surprisingly, the root was fibrous, but seemed edible as well. The creature scurried away only to come back moments later with another handful of the roots, dropping them at her feet.
“Did you bring these here for me?”
The creature tilted his head again and grinned a toothy grin. Surprisingly, it nodded.
Willow’s eyes widened. “Thank you.” Evidently, the wildling understood what she’d asked. “Do you have a name?”
“Raz.” It pointed at itself and then pointed at Willow. Raz made a clicking sound in its throat and asked, “Raz wonders who you are.”
“Uh, I’m Willow.” Her mind reeled with the realization that she was having a conversation with a wildling. These were monsters, she’d seen what they’re capable of. Pure evil.
Raz shook his head and pointed at her.
“What?” Willow wasn’t sure what he was pointing at. She spoke very slowly, “My ... name ... is ... Willow.” The creature still looked unhappy with her response and she pointed at herself and simply said, “Willow.”
Raz shook his head and moved a little closer and pointed at the wisps of hair he had near his pointed ears and then pointed at her.
Willow touched her hair.
“Flower. Raz thinks you’re pretty, like a flower.”
Her mouth dropping open with shock. It was the last thing she’d have expected from the odd little creature. Had she just gotten a compliment?
Raz shuffled backward and waved for her to follow. “Raz thinks Flower needs to come. Must meet the longbeards. They sent ... you’re needed. Food ... safer. Come with Raz.”
Willow stared at Raz as a storm of different emotions raced through her. Only Grandpa Lin had ever called her Flower, and he didn’t even exist. Was it some kind of bizarre coincidence?
Willow looked back toward the shelter and knew that there wasn’t a way out from that direction.
Raz stepped further away from the shelter and motioned for her to follow.
Gulping away the trepidation she felt, Willow took a step away from the shelter and toward Raz. The creature nodded, turned and began shuffling away.
As Willow slowly followed Raz, she could only wonder what turn her life was taking. She had no idea what Raz’s true intentions were, but she didn’t have much choice at the moment. However, the promise of food and safety were something she couldn’t ignore.
As they stalked along the dark tunnels in the strange underground world of the Forbidding, Willow silently wondered who or what these longbeards were that Raz thought she needed to meet.
The Longbeards
It took all her concentration to follow her strange companion, who raced ahead, oftentimes bending over and scrambling almost like a spider. The glowing mushrooms grew more sparsely the farther Willow went, until she could barely see the walls of the tunnels. After nearly thirty minutes, Willow had taken what seemed like countless turns, loopbacks, dips and she’d crossed at least three underground land-bridges that sent her heart racing. Throughout their meandering in the vast underground world, Raz chattered incessantly. At first, his strained squeaky voice was hard to understand, but after a while, Willow got used to his strange babbling.
As Raz scrambled across a land bridge over what seemed to be a bottomless crevasse, he slowed and veered toward the edge, motioning for Willow to come closer. “Raz asks Flower to come and look. Life is blooming ... even in the darkness.”
Willow approached cautiously, her knees felt like rubber and her stomach lurched as she neared the edge. She couldn’t see a thing from her vantage point and she knelt, slowly crawling toward the side of the land bridge, making sure she was out of arm’s reach of the strange wildling.
Kneeling at the edge of the bridge, Raz pointed down with a toothy grin. “Raz wonders if Flower cans hear it? Megapedes are spawning.”
Hearing the sound of something breaking below, Willow hoped it wasn’t the stone archway that she was crawling on that was cracking. Straining to see what Raz was pointing to, she followed his finger and noticed a dark cave with a ledge some twenty below. As Willow stared down at the ledge jutting out from the side of the crevasse, she clenched her jaw and controlled the panic she was feeling. The darkness below made it impossible for her to see how deep the crack was, and for all she knew, it was bottomless.
The ledge happened to have a single luminous mushroom growing from it and surrounding the mushroom were roughly a dozen round rocks.
Suddenly, one of the rocks split ... no ... it wasn’t a rock. It was an egg.
Raz pointed excitedly and made a clicking noise. “The babies. Raz sees the babies.”
Slithering from the cracked shell came a many-footed armored creature. It was too far for Willow to see it clearly, but it looked like a centipede. However, the centipedes she was familiar with were no bigger than her hand. Judging by the distance, this one was easily three times that size.
“It’s so tiny!” Raz croaked and glanced at Willow. “Raz wonders if Flower can see the baby megapedes?”
Willow nodded as she watched another of the eggs crack open. She couldn’t help but wonder, “If those were babies, how big are they when fully grown?”
As quickly as Raz stopped to show her the underground fauna, he turned from his vantage point and scampered across the bridge toward another tunnel.
Willow backed slowly away from the edge and with a sigh of relief, soon found herself off the precarious land bridge and jogging through the dark twisty tunnels of the underworld.
Eventually, Raz led Willow through a set of tunnels that she noticed had empty sconces set on their walls. Sniffing, she detected a scent in the air that reminded her of a campfire. Was something actually burning deep in the underground maze? All Willow knew for
certain was that if she lost track of Raz, she’d never find her way back out.
“Raz misses the aboveworld. Not seen sun in sixteen years....” He turned back toward Willow, and his eyes flashed eerily in the darkness as his ears tilted lower. “Raz wonders, is the sun still there?”
With a lopsided grin, Willow nodded. “The sun hasn’t gone anywhere, Raz. How much further are we going?”
Raz sniffed and pointed to his nose. “Raz smells the longbeards and their fires. They light fires for the lights and cooking.” He waved for her to follow and scurried rapidly through the stone passage. “Flower, come with me. It isn’t far away.”
Even though the tunnels were just tall enough for her to stand up straight, Willow kept her head low as she jogged after her scrambling companion. After only about two minutes, Raz slowed and Willow noticed that the far end of the tunnel was significantly brighter than anywhere she’d been so far.
As she walked forward with Raz by her side, he warned, “The longbeards are grumpy but they’re harmless. Don’t be afraid, okay?”
Willow nodded and silently wondered what she was getting herself into.
As they approached, Willow could just barely see a flickering torch with dark silhouettes in front of it.
“Raz will tell them that you are here.” Raz shot ahead.
Willow’s heart thudded as she advanced toward the far end of the tunnel. She saw that the men Raz was interacting with were short, about Raz’s size if he actually stood completely upright. Both of them wore beards that covered the glint of metal armor.
Raz raced back toward Willow and motioned her forward. “Come. It’s okay. They are expecting you.”
Willow moved closer and discerned two heavily-armored men that were no taller than four feet. Despite their diminutive size, they both looked like soldiers, each of them wielded axes on long metal poles. Behind them, the tunnel narrowed.
One dwarf glanced at the other and spoke with a loud gruff voice. “Pluck my beard and call me a woman, Ramai was right! How the hell did that old bastard know some elf girl was going to show up out of nowhere this month?”
“How you know she’s an elf?” The other dwarf squinted at Willow as she stood at the edge of the torchlight. “You ever seen an elf before?”
“No, but what else could she be? She’s certainly not one of the wildlings,” the rightmost dwarf tilted his head in Raz’s direction and smacked the other on the shoulder. “Isaac, introduce yourself to her.”
The dwarf on the left grimaced. “Eli, you moron! You just did that for me already.”
“I did not ... and you’re the moron!”
Bewilderment washed over Willow as she watched the two bearded men yell and shove each other. She’d never seen two evidently grown people act like such children.
Raz scrambled up to Willow and gave her a wheezing laugh. “Raz told you they are grumpy. It’s just who they are.”
An older-looking dwarf jogged out of the dark tunnel behind the two and before Willow knew what was going on, he smacked the back of Isaac and Eli’s helmeted heads with loud metallic thunks and yelled, “What the hell are you two idiots yelling about?”
Isaac and Eli pointed at each other and renewed their arguing. The new dwarf roared, “Enough!” His voice echoed off the stone walls, carrying the power of unquestioned authority.
Isaac and Eli ceased bickering and for a moment stared down at their own armored feet with embarrassed expressions.
The older dwarf shoved the two younger ones aside and shook his head, his long beard wagging back and forth. He looked like an older version of the other two with his brown beard shot with strands of gray and nearly reaching his mid-thigh. He carried a crisscross of scars on his forehead and a large puckered scar running from his right cheek and disappearing into his beard. He carried himself with confidence and gave Willow a curt nod. “I apologize for my idiot sons. My name is Edmund Rockfeist.” He panned his arm toward the two dwarves. “The older one on the left is Isaac and the troublemaker on the right is Eli.” Edmund pointed at Raz and smirked. “I’m guessing you’ve met Raz, our resident wildling?”
Willow stared at the three short men and tried to make sense of what she saw. Could people actually live underground for years on end? Is that how they’d escaped the radiation, or had the radiation stunted their growth?
Willow met Edmund’s gaze and noticed that he had piercing blue eyes. He looked as if he was waiting for her to say something. “Sorry, yes, Raz and I have met ... I’m just shocked to find anyone down here. My name is Willow, Willow Park.”
Edmund made a rolling motion with his hand, extended his right arm and bowed; Isaac and Eli copied their father. “It is a pleasure to meet you Willow, we’ve long been expecting you.”
“Sir, how’s that possible?”
“Please,” Edmund gave Willow a sour look. “I’d prefer it if you simply call me Edmund. In the underworld, we don’t put on airs and strut about like some self-important fools.”
Willow felt taken aback as she stared at the odd gathering of characters. “I just don’t understand.” She hitched her thumb toward Raz who crouched silently on her right. “He’d also mentioned I was expected, but that can’t be possible. I fell down a hidden shaft into an old abandoned bomb shelter that looks like it was left over from the Great War. In fact, anyone who knew me in this world probably thinks that I’m dead. How could you have expected me?”
With an amused expression, Edmund nodded. “Trust me, we knew someone was coming. Did we know it was you specifically? Well, that I can’t exactly say. You’ll have to talk with one of our Elders. He’s the one who foretold your arrival, but before we get to that ... are you hungry?”
Willow’s stomach rumbled and even though she’d saved some of the sweet roots that Raz had found for her, she salivated over the prospect of a warm meal. A smile stretched across her face as she sheepishly admitted, “I’m famished.”
With a loud clap of his chainmail-covered hands, Edmund bellowed, “Well, let’s fix that, young miss.” He pointed to Raz. “You, accompany our elf friend to the eating hall and show her the hospitality of Eer Ha’ehven.”
“Eer Ha’ehven?”
Raz tapped her on the elbow and she glanced at his pockmarked face. “Flower, its the longbeards’ great place. The stone city.”
Willow whispered incredulously, “An entire city underground?”
Edmund chuckled, “Of course. What ... did you think we lived for centuries in the underworld without having made it a proper home?”
Raz tapped at Willow’s arm and motioned her to follow as he scurried past the Rockfeists.
Edmund turned toward his sons and clapped his hands on their shoulders. “Boys, you have another four hours left before you’re relieved of duty.”
The brothers groaned as Willow edged past and wondered what they might be guarding against. That and many other unanswered questions danced in her head, leaving her dazed.
As the tunnel veered sharply right, Willow felt pleased to see torches set into metal sconces lighting her path. Her stomach growled as she hurried after Raz and replayed in her mind the conversations she’d just had with the dwarves. For the first time since being exiled, Willow’s fear had been replaced with a burning curiosity about what lay ahead in this dark underworld they called Eer Ha’ehven.
Willow stared wide-eyed as Raz led her into a large, well-lit room that bustled with activity. The room had at least a dozen long tables, each populated with ten or more people.
The cacophony of conversations ceased immediately as Willow entered the room.
Several men at the nearby tables stood, surprised expressions on their faces as Raz yelled with his squeaky voice, “She’s hungry and needs to be fed!”
Everyone stared at Willow, and a cold tickle of fear ran through her as the silence in the room echoed louder than anything. She half expected to be attacked. She took a step back, and one bearded man turned and yelled to someone, “What’s wrong with y
ou all? Ramai told us she’d be here, and so she is. Let’s feed the poor girl before she falls over. Show her some proper hospitality.”
Almost immediately a crowd of dwarves gathered around her. She felt like a giant amongst them as the tallest were at least a foot shorter than her. Most stared up at her with confused expressions, while the women seemed more friendly and welcoming. A crowd of women gently led her to an empty spot on one of the bench seats and a large steaming bowl was set in front of her.
“It’s mushroom stew.” Raz informed her as he squeezed onto the bench seat next to her. “Very tasty.”
The earthy smell of mushrooms coming from the bowl of thick brown broth made her mouth water. One woman sitting across from her nudged a spoon toward her.
Using the spoon, Willow put her lips to the hot broth and sipped. It was delicious. The spicy brown gravy left her tongue tingling with an unfamiliar assortment of spices and as she dipped the spoon deeper in the bowl, she dug out tiny mushrooms along with other diced root vegetables.
After a few spoonsful, Willow’s body warmed from the thick broth and she couldn’t help but sigh with relief. The looming fear of impending death had been replaced with a burning curiosity as she scanned her surroundings. “How could this place exist without anyone knowing?” Willow wondered.
As she continued eating, she noticed that the table had a strange striated pattern she’d never seen before. “What kind of wood is this?”
“Wood?” One of the women at the table asked. “Ain’t you never seen a slab of barrier fungus before?”
Willow tapped the brown table and it seemed as solid as wood.
Raz tapped her right arm and leaned closer. “Flower, they’ve never seen wood in the underworld. There are no trees down here.”
A middle-aged women sitting to her left asked, “Are you really from the aboveworld? Ramai said that would be so, but none of us believed it.”
Willow sensed everyone’s attention shift purposefully toward her. A woman at another table said, “You’ll have to excuse us, but other than Raz, we’ve never even seen someone who wasn’t from the underworld.”
Dispocalypse Page 19
