Clouds coated the sky in mottled patches of blue and grey and weighed the air with moisture. His fingers dug into squishy soil and brought back a handful of the earth. It slid over his palm, black and heavy and woven with grassy roots. He smelled the dirt and snorted, then tipped his hand and watched the mud plop onto the ground.
Grump thumbed a wide leaf. He shielded his eyes with his wide hand and squinted at the rumbling storm clouds. Somehow, between the plants and the clouds, he survived the sunlight. For now, Grump would continue on with life, his time not yet come to join his ancestors in the starry sky.
He rolled his shoulders and raised a hand before him and frowned as he wagged his fingers. Despite the echo of an ache and a stiff back, no trace of his fall remained. No scratches. No gashes. No cuts or bruises. Hunger healed trolls much faster than others, but not this quickly. What was this place?
Grump grunted as he rolled to his knees and struggled to his feet. The arm he thought broken bent without a hint of pain.
"We made it, Bah." An uncontrollable laugh blossomed deep within him. He embraced his goat and spun around, dancing in a sloppy circle. “We’re alive!”
Once the laughter faded and the canyon grew quiet, he remembered where he now stood, and his smile slipped. "Farlain."
Grump carefully scanned his sanctuary, his steady gaze lingering in the trees and bushes searching for sign of elves and men. The gorge ran east to west, so once the storm cleared, it would receive ample sunlight. Each granite wall rose a few hundred feet. Unlike the grey stones of the swamp, this granite had a pinkish hue, like a freshly-pinched cheek. Rainfall stained long lines on the smooth cliff face, and every so often a bush or scrawny tree sprouted from a crack.
A stream gurgled through the chasm floor, running in little bends and curves around boulders and elms. Tall grasses swayed in the breeze, tickling his legs.
When Grump turned around, he noticed something unfamiliar to a troll reared in murky swamps. Plants sprouted in neat rows, each line containing a different leaf or flower than its neighbor. He had landed in a row choked with leaves as wide as his splayed hand. Beside those plants, taller, thinner stalks grew. And beside them, squat ferns barely higher than his ankles.
The rows continued on and on, the plants strange and unfamiliar to his eye. Now that he noticed them, he noticed their scent, too. Grump went to a knee and sniffed a blade, savoring the rich, clean aroma coming from the emerald leaves.
Bah pranced down the row and attacked another plant. He chuckled and stood, wiping his palms. "You better slow down or you'll choke. If you die on your own food down here after what I did for you, I swear I'll chop you up and make you stew myself."
She ignored him and continued her feasting. Grump frowned and cradled his chin. He certainly made a mess of some of these plants. "Least I could do is tidy them up before...."
His thoughts trailed off. Before he returned to the blackwoods? And then what, battled Crush? The thirdborn thought Grump dead and no doubt so did the others. Crush would become secondborn and plot to kill Thorn, and Grump would be free.
"Free," he whispered. He lowered his hands and looked at his knuckles. Veins ran in forked rivers beneath his skin. He raised a hand to the clouds and spread his fingers. A smile stretched across his cheeks. That smile became a snicker. That snicker burst into a laugh. That laughter exploded into a joyous roar.
"Free!" He bounded over to Bah. She jumped and trotted away, spitting at him before prancing behind another leafy green.
Grump exhaled and spread his arms. He turned in a slow circle and closed his eyes. "I am finally free."
With that, he went to work on tidying the messy rows of those strange plants, his grin never fading.
CHAPTER SIX
A Different Kind of Clan
Boil and Ember ate away at the hot, tasteless rock each torch fall, slipping from their hovels and sneaking through the mines to their secret meeting place. Once the torch light came, they'd both be useless diggers thanks to the exhausting hours spent either gnawing through wall or chatting with old Urt so the greenskin's snide comments didn’t drive them insane.
After days and days of chewing interrupted only by the occasional mouthful of squirming grubs or sweaty chit-chat, they finally broke through the dark wall. Boil's fingers ached from clawing at the stone. His teeth throbbed from biting at unyielding rock.
Despite the pain and weariness, he smiled as he watched the barrier crumble like dried clay bashed with an iron hammer. A hole just barely large enough for a digger revealed a room cloaked in shadows and layered in dust grey as old bones. Fancy pillars carved into the rock supported a smooth ceiling studded with shiny black tiles like the slick scales of the worm snakes that slithered through the mines during the summer months.
Obsidian skeletons lined the walls between the columns, frozen figures laughing, grinning, pointing, and dancing, all half-buried in rock. Even though their hollow eyes gazed out at nothing, Boil shivered at their empty stares. He just couldn't shake the feeling those bones would leap from the walls at any moment and ask how diggers tasted.
Ember muscled past Boil and tripped into the room, spilling inside in a puff of grey that sent her into a coughing fit. She waved dust from her face and danced to one of the skeletons. "What is this place? These things are so ... strange. They're not even greenskin skeletons. Too long and lanky, don't you think?"
Boil squeezed in after her with a humph and brushed the dust and dirt from his belly like he was some mighty high clan noble. Like the room in the east belly where Boil unearthed his book, the air in this place tasted different than the rest of the mountain. He licked his lips and shrugged. "I figure they're human bones since they're not shaped like high clan greenskins, either."
He swallowed, searching the scaly ceiling. Not long after he dug through the other room, the east belly collapsed, burying countless diggers going about their day and nearly killing him. Maybe the west belly would collapse now, too, and if he and Ember survived, they could find their way out of the mountain together.
"I don't like it," Urt said.
Boil rolled his eyes. And Urt.
He cleared his throat and beamed a smile at the digger. "Urt, you've got yourself a little palace here. Most diggers would kill to sleep in their own room like a high clan mine master."
Urt had fashioned a makeshift splint for his crushed leg and hobbled into his new home, grimacing each time the mangled leg bumped against the stone. His face paled as he slowly gazed at the skeletons. They would be his only companions whenever Boil and Ember left for higher tunnels, and the thought appeared to bring him little comfort. "I'm supposed to stare at these ... these things from torch light to torch fall until what, I turn in to one of them? I'll go insane in here!"
"Mine master Skar will be in a bad mood if you show up at the hovel again. He knew your name, remember? It's never good when they know your name. He gets one look at you and you'll be wishing you were back down here with a few funny skeletons."
The old greenskin muttered something unpleasant under his breath. He found a black arch carved into the wall free of any skeleton and plopped against it. It framed him like the mouth of a giant monster rushing from the deep to swallow a gangly tadpole.
"He's right though," Ember told the old goblin. She kept her eyes locked on the figures, her hand slowly brushing over bones and jaws and teeth jutting from the rock. "You'll never be able to go back to the hovels."
"Then what do we do now?" Urt snapped. He crossed his arms and dipped his chin. "I'm stuck down here in the dark. There's no escape. No food. No company. You might as well kill me now and get it over with."
Boil kept his eyes from rolling a second time and lit a torch. "I'm not going to kill you after I stole all that food for you and dug through this nasty rock for torch fall after torch fall just to keep you safe. You're not giving up on us that easily."
"Then what's the brilliant plan, Boil? You're the young one with all the fancy ideas and adventures.
You tell this old crippled digger what exactly he's supposed to do now aside from waiting for his death—or yours."
"Fine. It just so happens I do have a plan, and it'll save not just you, but me and Ember, too."
That got their attention. Ember peeled away from the wall while Urt leaned forward. Boil puffed his chest and addressed his new followers in his most commanding tone. "We're going to dig our way out of the mountain."
Ember blinked. Urt pinched his nose and sighed.
"What's wrong?" Boil asked, his chest deflating.
A snotty chuckle tumbled from the old greenskin's lips and rolled into a full-throated cackle that bounced around the room. When Boil noticed Ember fighting down her own smile, he felt small enough to fit in a thimble. "But we can leave the mountain. The high clans do it all the time when they go raiding."
"They're high clans, Boil." Urt swallowed the last of his laughs and shook his head like he spoke with a true fool. "We're diggers. Diggers don't go up. We go down. That's our lot."
"That's what they say our lot is. I say we make our own lot. I say we dig up and out to the world beyond the mountain."
"And what if the mine masters catch us? What then? A crushed leg will look like a peck on the cheek compared to what Skar would do to us if he caught a bunch of diggers eating their way to the surface. If word got out we were hatching an escape, why, it'd spread like dysentery through the under mountain. They can't have other diggers thinking up is a good way to dig instead of down. They'd make an example of us."
"You're such a ninny. It's not like we'd go around talking about it anyway. It's a secret plan."
"I'm a digger, and a smart one at that. You think I lived to go grey because I had fancy thoughts of digging up and out? No, no, not me."
"Yeah, now you're just here with a bad leg and broken teeth and no hope."
Urt snapped his mouth shut. Boil stuck his tongue through his lips and turned to Ember. "What about you? Please tell me you want to dig up. We can do this, Ember. I know we can! I've done it before, and with the two of us, who knows how far we can go?"
She exhaled through her nose and turned to the hole they'd made. Her foot tapped the ground, disturbing the dust. "I don't know, Boil. It's awfully dangerous. We're risking a lot just by coming down here. My father told me a story of diggers finding rooms like this in the way back days. The high clans don't like them. They say they're full of bad mojo and that no glittering glitter will grow around them. Besides, Urt’s right about what the mine masters will do to us if they find out."
Urt flashed a retaliatory tongue and smiled like he had all the answers. A wick of anger lit in Boil's heart, and he clasped her shoulder, spinning her to him until their eyes met. "Remember how you told me how bored you are with digging?"
She nodded, slowly.
"Coming down here and helping Urt, that's not what a good, happy digger does."
"Maybe I'm not that good or happy a digger. So?"
"Ember, maybe you're not a digger at all. Maybe you're something more."
"Don't listen to his wild tales," Urt interrupted. "He'll get us all killed."
"Oh, be quiet, Urt," Boil snarled. "You're already dead anyway. What's your opinion matter?"
That shut him up. Boil fixed his attention back on Ember. "C'mon. Tell me you want to be a digger the rest of your days. Tell me you want to eat bitter rocks and sleep on smelly furs while everyone gets drunk and messy on spoilt beer."
She wriggled her lips and cast her gaze about the room. "Well ... I don't know...."
"Let me tell you about the world beyond the mountain then." Boil grabbed her wrists and took a seat, pulling her down with him. "In the mountain, there is no sky. There are only the ceilings, and even those aren't very high. But the world beyond the mountain has a ceiling you can never touch, and when the great torch of the sun falls, you can see the diamonds in the sky."
"A ceiling so high you could never touch it?" Her eyes widened with wonder. Urt snorted and swatted the air, but inched closer.
"Yes, it's true. The ceiling's so high not even the mountain's peak comes close. And the sun, the sun Ember, that's the most amazing thing in the sky. Nothing glitters more than it. Nothing shines near as bright. It warms the land but doesn't make the air heavy like the torches do down here. There's wind up there, and the air tastes as clean and fresh as polished marble."
Ember licked her lips. Polished marble was a treat indeed. "How big is the sun?"
"It's the biggest gem in the world."
Her eyes widened even more, and she leaned so close their noses nearly touched. Boil cupped her hand and smiled. "You want to see it, don't you?"
She nodded, hard. "I do. I want to touch it. I want to taste it. The biggest gem in the world must be the sweetest one, too. We might not ever be hungry again."
"If you want it, I'll get it for you. Come with me, and I'll make sure we taste the sun. All you've got to do is say you'll do it. That's all."
"This is crazy, Ember," Urt said.
"It is," Boil whispered, keeping his eyes locked with hers, "but so is staying here and doing nothing."
Boil squeezed her wrists. She bit her lip and squeezed back. "Let's dig up."
Urt groaned. Boil laughed. Ember lurched forward and wrapped her arms around him. Her heart thumped against his chest while his soared into his throat. After the longest, happiest moment of Boil's life, she pulled away. "Okay, so what do we do now? How do we dig up?"
Dust swirled around him as he launched to his feet and spun to Urt. The featureless black arch behind the greenskin dwarfed the geezer. Urt scowled at Boil, his lip protruding beneath his broken teeth. "What?"
"There was an arch like that one in the other room I found in my old belly. This tasteless rock is strange and hard even when we heat it first, but it'll break eventually. It took me some time, but I ate through the stone, and when I did, I found a tunnel leading up. I would've taken it, too, but the, uh, collapse and stuff kind of changed my plans."
Urt scrambled away from the arch. "There're more rooms after this one?"
"More than that I bet. There's a way out beyond this arch. We eat long enough and we'll break through to it. I didn't get a chance to take the other tunnel before the collapse, but if we dig through this one, we'll be free. I know it in my heart."
"Insane. Both of you are totally insane," Urt rasped.
"We're all a little insane. You're no normal digger either, Urt. Normal diggers don't get grey hair. They get buried. You're smarter than they are. You've always known you're different, haven't you?"
The greenskin sniffed and thrust his chin up. "Well, I heard my great aunt was from the high mountain. I've probably got their blood in me."
"Right." Boil barely kept his eyes from rolling for the third time that torch fall. Instead, he headed toward the hobbled senior. "Well, this is your chance to start a new clan, higher than even those high mountain jerks! Think about it."
Urt's lips puckered. Boil kneeled beside him and wrapped an arm around his shoulder, waving his hand in a long arc before them both. "Can't you see it? The Urt clan, first clan of the greenskins to live under the ceiling that can never be touched. We'll be famous. They'll have legends about us in the under mountain. The high clans will fear us. We might even come back one day and rule the mountain for ourselves, and it'll be your name carved into the golden throne. Wouldn't that be something?"
"My ... name...."
"Yes! Your name. Urt's clan. You're the oldest. Obviously, you're the smartest one here."
"Well, obviously. You two nincompoops wouldn't survive a day beneath this silly sky of yours."
"We'd probably get eaten up or skewered as soon as we stepped out. No good clan can survive without a strong chief. You could lead us, tell us where to go to set up our first hovels. Why, Urt, who knows, maybe this is the start of something that'll change the whole entire world!"
"I've always thought I could do that."
"I can see that. So what do you say? Ar
e you with us?"
Urt's lip curled. He grumbled something under his breath as he eyed Boil and Ember. Eventually, the greedy glint in his goblin eyes won out, and he nodded. "Fine. I'll lead your little clan. But only because you two are completely useless without me. And it will be my clan."
Ember squealed. Boil slapped Urt's back and laughed. "It will! Then that's that. It's official: We were diggers at torch fall. Come torch light, we're Urt's clan, the first greenskin clan to live beneath the untouchable ceiling."
"The sky," Ember said.
"The sky," Urt echoed.
"The sky." Boil planted his knuckles on his hips and stared at the black arch. Beyond it, all his hopes and dreams waited. Luck had an eye on him, and soon, he'd have an eye on the sun.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Teacher
The clouds over Farlain disbanded a few days later, and birds flocked to the sky in droves, their songs filling Grump's secret sanctuary with joyous melodies. He spent the previous days of near constant downpour tending to the odd rows of luscious plants with Bah by his side. No chanting elves tickled his ears, no giggling fae flitted into the chasm, and no wild men came crashing through the underbrush with their steel-tipped spears and poisoned arrows.
For the first time in his life, he was truly alone, and the peace of it filled him with a warmth he never knew existed. He and Bah had built a little kingdom for themselves, tucked in the forgotten scar of a great forest. She would mill about their home during the daytime hours while he slept in a shallow cave along the cliff, protected from the sun's harmful light. He would wake in the evening and tidy the land until his muscles ached and his skin stiffened at the sunrise.
Sunset gave way to twilight which in turn slid into a chirping night. Fireflies bobbed over the foliage, their intermittent blinks washing over the greens tickling Grump's legs. He dug his toes into the soft soil and stretched, surveying his work.
Between the thunderstorm and his body smashing onto the ground, many of these plants barely clung to life when he first began his work. But after long nights carefully replanting in the dark and wormy soil and clearing branches tossed into the chasm, some order returned.
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