It took Caewen an hour to recover enough to walk. Even then, she was pale and had difficulty moving forward without frequent rests. The tunnel they followed was mostly carved out of the sleeping rock of the mountains, and the arches and stonework were so close-fitting they needed no mortar. Graven stone sconces decorated the walls, but they were long disused it seemed, dusty and cobwebbed. Weirdly, the ash on the walls was still shiny and looked recent. Presumably, water and wind never ran through the tunnel, so the ashy stains remained where they had always been.
Eventually, the tunnel expanded, until it was large enough that Caewen and the boy were able to both climb up on Dapplegrim’s back.
Riding together, they passed smaller doorways that shot off to the left and right, but all of these were too small for Dapplegrim to squeeze into. And besides, the occasional far-off echoes of odd little noises that came from some of the passages was enough to dampen curiosity. The air grew into a stillness: until it seemed so dead and so cold it was difficult to image anything warm-blooded living down here in the darkness under the mountain.
“Who do you think built this?” said the boy, after growing tired of hearing nothing but their own breathing and footsteps.
“Seems like Dwarghe work,” said Caewen. “Much like the town. But they aren’t here now. Dwarghe like heat, and they enjoy their comfort. All these torches would be brightly fuelled if that folk were about. You met a dwarghe in the ruins, didn’t you? I bet he was plush with the best things he could get.”
“Yes, well, sort of…” He replied, “but he was just a leftover bit of a person really. There wasn’t much left of him, or his kinfolk. Leastways, not as far as I could see.”
At length they came to a place where there was writing in chipped rune-letters above an archway. A coiled serpentine dragon carved from stone unfurled itself across the whole arch and two statues flanked it. The statues were of short beings, hunch-backed, hairy-looking, bulbous-nosed and squint-eyed. If they were alive, the boy wouldn’t have trusted them to sell him dried fruit. They looked very much like younger relatives of the old dwarf king and his retainers. As he stared at the faces, drenched in feeble shadows, he thought about all the peoples and lands he didn’t even know existed. There were a lot of strange peoples in the world. His little home village of Wurmgloath was not much visited by any of them it seemed.
Caewen paused a moment under the writing and said aloud: “The Halls of Nuallaich.” She eyed the statues too. “They certainly look dwarfish. I suppose these halls were abandoned during the last of the great wars with Sorthe?” She hummed to herself. “Weren’t there Fane kingdoms too, hereabouts?”
“I queendom, if I remember right,” said Dapplegrim. “Swept away by war long ago. Hur. Hurm. It’s mostly just wilderness south of the mountains these days.”
They pressed on. The long straight path they were following kept on burrowing into the rock of the mountain’s roots. After a while, it became noticeable that there was a very slight upward slant, but they probably weren’t making much ground ascending. Given the cliffs and foothills above them, they must be a long way underground by now.
In a little while Caewen had to light her second candle and not long afterward they heard the first sounds of water since the waterfall. They saw a gleam of reflection, sparkling in the shadows ahead of them: black and flickering, casting small ripple-reflections back at their candlelight. It looked like gold chips on a field of polished jet. When they arrived at the water’s edge they found an underground rivulet cutting across them, coming out of one cave-mouth and going into another on the other side. It might even have been a part of the same watercourse that eventually merged with and joined the stream they’d been following in the valley outside. There were some remnants of a bridge but little was left of it besides a few massive blocks on either bank of the underground stream. It didn’t look very far across, and it didn’t look very deep, though it was hard to tell given the inkiness of the water.
Caewen dismounted and looked at the water, holding her candle low to the surface. A few dead-white flashes of minnow-sized fish sped away from the light. “Seems shallow. Shall I go across first?”
“I don’t swim well,” said Dapplegrim, craning his neck around and talking to the boy by way of explanation.
“Couldn’t you jump it?”
“Maybe.” He seemed to consider this. “The ceiling is a bit low. Better to walk across, assuming it’s not deep. Hurm.”
“Here…” Caewen held out the candle for the boy to take. He reached down and clutched it in his fingers. It felt a little bit terrifying to have the responsibility of holding their only light-source and he wished Caewen had lit another candle for herself. Instead, she laid a hand on the hilt of her sword and edged into the water, tapping her feet as she went. The water reached her knees and then her thighs but that was as deep as it got. She reached the other side no worse than wet–although in the chilly air, maybe wet was bad enough for her. She still looked an unhealthy grey.
“It seems safe.” She looked back and forth along the water. “The bottom is sand and there don’t seem to be any drop-offs.”
“Alright, but I hope you don’t mind if I’m still cautious.” He turned to look at the boy. “You might as stay in the saddle, little one. Shine the light low so I can see where I’m walking. Hurm.”
Dapplegrim walked forward, sloshing and foaming into the water. The river hardly even reached Dapplegrim’s hocks. It was seeming as if they would make it across without any difficulties when the water churned into a sudden froth. Something large boiled out of the tunnel, and immediately churned up the water around them.
“What’s that?” yelled Caewen. “Look out!”