“Mousehole will be our home and I want to see it, and my family, safe and wealthy. We will need money, and earlier on we didn’t settle exactly how we would all share in the mine and the other wealth that is already there. This land outside might be what we need. I was waiting until we got back to pin it all down as I thought it to be of no use trying to think of these things when we don’t even know if we will still be alive.”
They went on further that night. The travel was a repeat of the previous night, except for the scouts finding a bear off to the right and carefully steering the main group around it and stopping Theodora from wanting to see its cubs. Toward the end of the night Astrid came back.
“Somewhere around here should be our turnoff into the mountains. We are fairly certain that we have not passed it yet. From the ridge, ahead we can see a major rivulet. It should be the headwaters of the Tulky Wash. This means that our path lies along this slope…somewhere. I want to lie up until it is daylight and then we will look for it. This time we will take Verily with us.”
Verily looks surprised. “I know more about finding loose money rolling around on the floor than I do about finding tracks.”
“Yes…and the three of us will find the track. We need you as we have no chance of finding a spell that would tell the Masters that we are on the way. If we can think of putting an alarm on the road from the falls, they can do the same to something that leads to their front door. You should at least have a chance of sniffing it before we put our foot on it.”
Rani nodded. “Good idea. Off you go.”
“By the way, watch the sky.” She pointed far to the east where the bulk of a huge mountain could be seen outlined against the growing daylight. “Aziz tells me that there is a dragon living in that mountain you can see at the start of the Tulky. We didn’t tell him much of what we planned, or he would have mentioned it.”
“His people live directly beyond it in a valley. Like all that are of that race, the dragon is not often seen, but if the Masters can rouse the Hobs, they might be able to rouse it as well. Theodora might be powerful, but I doubt that she can take that on, and unless she has better magic arrows than those that you have given us so far, I know that I cannot.”
“A dragon?” asked Rani and looked at her partner.
“Umm, yes” said Theodora. “I seem to remember something about that. It is one of the reasons the hill forts are so solid and largely made of solid rock. Still, sometimes Darkreach loses one and it has to be rebuilt, but generally the soldiers can shelter inside if it passes.”
“What type is it?” asked Rani.
“Red” said Theodora and Astrid at the same time, naming the largest and most violent of the fell beasts. Luckily, they are also supposed to be the rarest of them all, not that most people ever get to see one of any type.
“Keep good watch,” said Rani. “That might be one of the reasons that there are no grazers left in the top meadow at Mousehole. How did we get the good fortune to have an eater of armies right next door?” I notice that no-one has an answer to that.
Astrid
33rd December
Once it was day, the path into the mountains was easily found. Dharmal had written of a marker on the main path, a rock with old carvings on it in a Dwarven script that he could not read. Aziz found it and called Astrid over. She looked at the flat stone. It is covered in leaves left over from last year. She gently cleared these off and looked at the stone.
It is a pace across and three paces long. One third of it is blank. Another third is covered in writing in Dwarven script. She looked at it: “Damn. It sort of isn’t from the Dwarves at all.” She called Thord and Basil over. “Can either of you read this?” Both shook their heads. “How do you write then?” she asked Basil, and without waiting for an answer she continued. “Anyone else read this?” They gathered around to a shaking of heads.
“This is how we write at home. It is in Darkspeech, not in Dwarven.”
“No, it isn’t.” said Theodora.
“Yes, it is. At any rate, it is proper Darkspeech…how we write it at home. It says: ‘If you pass by this spot you enter the land of the Dwarves. Abide by our rules or accept that we will punish you. Do not touch the rocks or leave this path without...’ part of that word is gone, but I think it says ‘permission.’ ‘We watch anything you do from here on, and you will answer for your deeds. If you come in peace, we welcome you. If you do not, then beware of our justice.’ I think this used to stand in the ground so that all could read it.”
Thord cleared the rock better and looked at it: “I t’ink t’at you ’re right. Look at t’ base. It has been broken. T’is used to stand in t’ air.” He looked to the side. “See t’ rock here is an old road. Not just a path. T’ese ’re t’ remains of cobbles, hundreds of years old perhaps ’n’ buried ’n’ disturbed by roots.
“All we ha’ to do is follow t’is ’n’ we’ll find Dwarvenholme. It’ll take us straight t’ere. T’is looks far older t’at what we have previous t’ought. T’at would be why no-one has reported finding it. Most of it must be buried or destroyed.” He started striding along the ancient road. “Here is t’e first Dwarf to rightful pass t’is way in cycles of cycles.”
“Stop!” called Verily. “Oh too late. I didn’t smell it until it triggered. Either I wasn’t concentrating or else I guess I cannot smell traps. I think that the Masters now know that we are on our way.”
“In that case,” said Rani, “we will press on hard until we have a defensible position with some overhead cover before we stop for a long break.”
Astrid nodded and waved to the other two with some hand gestures and they ran forward. I am glad that I have been teaching them how to talk without noise between them. It may be important.
“Sorry,” said Thord, contritely “I was excited.”
“It doesn’t matter. You heard Verily. You had no way of knowing and she didn’t sense it, for that matter, neither did we…now lead us out. You keep watch at your feet for traps that are more physical. Hulagu, you go next and keep an eye on the three up front.
With us running ahead, the rest can follow slowly behind. We need to keep rotating so that we have fresh eyes at front and we keep to the left, the higher ground, to look for a place to lie up. The morning kept the same chorus and screech of birds. There were occasional glimpses of little hoppers, and once, some goats.
It is near to lunch and this is a good place to lie up. We have connected piles of stones with a tree growing up in the centre of them. Plenty of shelter. She sent Aziz off to bring the rest of the group. Astrid waited in the centre under the tree, where it pushed through one of the piles with Bryony just outside the stones. As they approached, Astrid made a circling motion and pointed at her eyes and then out. Aziz and Bryony nodded and ran off.
“What is that you are doing?” asked Verily, waving her hands around in the air in some vague imitation of what she had just seen.
“In Wolfneck, our few military for the village are our Rangers. We scout more than we fight, so we have to be quiet. I am teaching these two how we talk to each other in the field. Being quiet can mean your life.” She grinned. “It also helps when you are out hunting or when you want to chat in a crowded room.”
“Look around…this used to be a building. This tree,” she hit the trunk, “is old. We see these sometimes in the south of the area we patrol. It is a type of pine. We like to use them to build our ships when we can find them. They are rare. One this size is probably well over two thousand years old. It must have started growing here soon after the Second Age ended at Evilhalt.”
“That tells us how old these ruins are, and possibly even how long it is since this road was last used.” She turned to Thord. “No wonder your people have never found Dwarvenholme. They were looking for something lost only a short while ago.” She turned and went out of the ruins.
The hunters started to pre
pare for a break and eventually the scouts returned. “We think that we cannot be seen from above but, not being birds, we are not sure. It is all clear for a few hundred paces around,” said Astrid. “There is no recent sign of people that we could pick up.
“Now, seeing that you lot have been lazing around and we have been doing all of the work – you can keep watch during this stop and we will put our feet up.” Rani opened and closed her mouth. She may be used to military discipline on an expedition, but I’m not. I do it my way. Astrid made some more quick gestures and Aziz and Bryony grinned before going to Verily and Stefan and to get some food.
“You love having a joke, don’t you?” said Basil. “Did you teach them how to tell jokes first? What was that about?”
“Oh,” Astrid grinned and gave him a quick kiss, “I just said ‘too crowded to have sex here’. I hadn’t taught them how to say all that, but they guessed what I meant. I figure that one,” and she demonstrated, less quickly, “is pretty much the same everywhere.” She nodded towards Aziz and Verily. “Have you noticed that since she has discovered Aziz, Verily is actually behaving like a human being? She just smiled.”
Basil nodded. “Now she even talks sometimes without having to answer a question. It took one of us monsters to bring out the human.” He grinned and fed Astrid some food.”
“How can you tell the age of the tree?” asked Basil.
Astrid answered with a grin. “I cannot tell you that. You just have to learn how to ask a tree a question” she said and refused to be drawn further.
Rani had decided to wait there where they had some protection until the next morning. Now that they were known or suspected to be on the way, they may as well use daylight and travel both a little faster and a little safer.
At about dusk, when they would have been setting out, the forest around them suddenly went very quiet. Ayesha, who had been up on the ruins keeping watch came scrambling back down. “Everyone keep quiet and get close to the tree,” she said urgently. They all scrambled close and Rani went to ask a question. Ayesha put a finger to her lips. In a minute, the sky above grew darker as a vast figure went overhead. The wind of its passage rustled the leaves above.
Once it was passed, everyone huddled still for a bit. They were starting to move when Astrid shook her head and made motions at Aziz. He climbed up to where Ayesha had been looking out; his grey skin harder to see against the rock than the others would have been. He looked around and then made some more gestures and froze.
“Still and quiet,” hissed Astrid. Again, the huge shadow swept over them and down the track. This time there was a massive gust of wind from above and they could feel the wind push down on the earth as the dragon took a slow beat with its titanic wings. Aziz is holding his hand up to stop. Again, they huddled, silent. This time the dragon could be heard. It was beating its way back uphill. The last time it must have circled around, but this time it was coming directly up the road.
One more time it came back down the long slope and once more, now in full darkness, it flew up. Eventually Aziz gave a sign and Astrid announced that they could now move. Basil and I were hugging each other tight. I hadn’t noticed that before. She grinned and kissed him long and hard. “When you may die,” she said, “you hang on to that which is most precious to you.”
“Well, it looks as if the Masters may have some control over the dragon,” said Rani. One or two passes could have meant that it was looking for food. That many transits surely meant that it was looking for us.”
“When it beat its wings,” said Aziz, “they only just cleared the highest trees. Its head was moving around to look for movement or colour. It was looking for us.”
Sound slowly began to return to the forest and they set up for the night.
That is interesting. When we are stopped Aziz and Verily spend a lot of time with Christopher and Bianca and, while Verily talked to Bianca, Aziz and Christopher were head to head in an earnest discussion. My dear priest is in full teaching mode. Anyone can see that. Oh well…better the Hob than me.
Astrid
34th December
The next morning, they again hid under the tree and delayed their start and their patience was rewarded. Four times the dragon passes over us before heading off again. “Perhaps, if we can hide well, they will think that the warning was an accident or that we have gone another way. We shall keep off the old road as we move.” Her scouts nodded back and moved off.
If we have to cross it, we jump and, when we land, check that we have made as few marks as possible. Four days they travelled with the huge bulk of the mountain looming larger above their left. They stopped early and left late. Each night the scouts found a place that gave overhead cover.
For the first three days, they saw the dragon at dawn and dusk. It was on its last flight that Astrid saw where it came from…a huge cavern half way up the height beside them. It is titanic, bigger even than I had imagined in my worst nightmares. I have heard of the three greens to the east of Wolfneck in the mountains, but not seen them.
This monster…its wingspan is surely wider than the valley where the flocks graze just outside the wall of Mousehole below the mine. They must reach over a hand of hundreds of paces wide. Its head alone is at least forty or more paces long. If it finds us, we have no chance of defeating it. We will surely die, and we have to walk under its home. It gives urgency to our attempts to stay under trees and hidden. Now we truly are just like mice scurrying along and hoping to avoid the gaze of this vast creature.
Chapter V
Astrid
2nd Undecim
Five days in and we find it. Astrid came back to the rest of the hunters. “I think that we have found the main road from the north. It is at least as old as this one, but as we cross it, we are going to have to walk on it. We are going to keep to its right for a while. They had the last trap around a hundred paces along this road, so do not walk on it until I wave at you.
“By the way, Aziz’s old tribe live past the mountain up the valley ahead. We are going between the ridges to our right. I am guessing, but if I am correct, the little creek we camped beside last night may be the start of our river at Mousehole. We could probably get back to the valley by following it.” She grinned. “Of course, there may be a few cliffs in the way. I know that Aziz’s tribe did not follow it when they came down to raid us, although he does not know why.”
She went on, and eventually waved at them and then pointed across the road. There was a cliff a hundred paces away. Bryony was waving at them from under an overhang. “Verily, do you smell anything?” Verily shook her head. “To be sure, when you cross, run across there. We will wait for a bit before going on.” At least they do as they are told. Astrid stayed behind, anxiously glancing at the mountain. Now I get to cover their tracks.
When they were ready to head off again she said: “I think that we still have several days to go. The dragon might explain why some searchers did not come back, Aziz’s tribe explains others, and the Masters themselves will explain still more. Now that we know how old the track we are looking for is, and roughly how far it is that we have to go, we should have an advantage.” She headed off south.
That evening, when they stopped, Rani pulled out the map from ‘My Travels Over the Land and Beyond’ and pointed as she showed things. “We have found the road he talked about. The dragon must have been asleep when he passed. But he shows the mountain…and the valley that goes to your old village Aziz. Now that we know this we can see that those dots must mean that is where he thinks our river goes, so Astrid is correct. This mean that she was also accurate, if I am judging our travel times right, with how long it will take.”
“I wish that I had taken some classes in geography,” Astrid said. “I never thought that I would need them. It looks like I will be at school with Ruth when we get back as well. However, it also looks like this old Simon’s book is right in all tha
t it says. We need to carefully read more of it when we get home to see what else it tells us.”
Astrid
5th Undecim
Day follows day and now there are eight. We have the huge mountain range looming large on our left. We walk at least a thousand paces below its first row of lower peaks and hug the base of mountains and sometimes walk along the foot of cliffs. At any time, something could happen…we could be attacked. It is exciting.
To their right, a valley grew that was five hundred paces below them at its base. It came to an end where the road passed, but continued on, far smaller now, above the road. “I think,” said Ayesha, “that when I left the Caliphate, I flew over this valley. If we followed it up into the mountains, we would get to my old home.”
Around us is a forest clinging to the slopes and reaching above us…so different to those of home. The old, and almost invisible, road we follow lies a few hundred paces below us where trees give way to bushes and then to low shrubs rear us. Astrid stopped and looked around. The flowers of spring are well out now. The hillsides are covered in whites and muted mountain hues with the bright splash of poppies and other things.
She looked at a large flock of mountain rosellas making the sky noisy. We are seeing lots of birds. Small ones fly low and the large ones ride the thermals, seeking prey. Yesterday I even saw one of the flying furry-winged lizards doing the same, and following it with my eyes, saw it land and some others take off. There was an eyrie of them above us.
We must be close to our destination. I think that I will stop us early tonight and camp here. There is a safe spot against the cliff to hide. If we go on and find the gate, we could not be sure of a good spot to stop. We scouts will go on in the morning and search.
Rani agreed, and they set up a place to camp. Perhaps this will be our last night outside or, for some of us, the last night. If so, it is a lovely night. The breeze is blowing warmer from the south-west and there is little cloud. Both moons are nearly full, and the night is bathed in light. I have chosen well in finding a spot for us to stop. We are above the road and can see for a bowshot in all directions. The trees have been cleared for some distance by a massive fall of rock which extends in a talus slope down over where the road runs.
Clearing the Web Page 4
