"Then how did the dragonkin get in?"
"It, uh…" Frivaldi shrugged. "It teleported?"
Durin stared at the floor, muttering to himself, "By. the scatter of the coins… yes. There."
He slipped the hematite ring onto his finger, then stepped into the room. Hoard beetles skittered off the pile of coins and threw themselves at his feet and legs, slashing holes in his trousers and boots. They bounced off his skin and clattered to the floor. Durin ignored them.
"What are you doing?" Frivaldi asked.
The glow of the faerie fire was starting to lessen. He could almost see normally again.
Durin examined a section of the rear wall. He pressed his palms against the stone and pushed. With a squeal of rusted pivots and a low grumble, a door-sized section of wall rotated open, revealing a corridor.
"Standard delving procedure," Durin said. "STOP: Secret Transits Ought to be Perused."
He braced his shoulder against the door, which seemed to be straining to shut itself again, and fiddled with the ring on his finger.
Waiting.
Suddenly Frivaldi understood. It was a test of his abilities. A challenge-just like picking a lock.
He eyed the pile of coins. The hoard beetles that had been flinging themselves at Durin had given up and crawled back to their fellows, but several were still moving restlessly on the pile. And the pile was directly in front of the rotating door. He glanced at the dragonkin corpse-at the dozens of coin-sized lacerations in its flesh-then back at Durin, who was still twisting the ring on his finger.
Frivaldi grinned, took a deep breath, and sprinted for the door. One step, two-the horde beetles skittered off the pile, swarming toward him-then he leaped. He hurtled past Durin, knocking him down. Behind them, the door sprang shut with a scraping thud. Something metallic rolled across the floor: the stoneskin ring.
Durin shoved Frivaldi off and said, "By Moradin's beard, boy, must you always be so impatient?" He scooped up the ring and shoved it into a pocket. "It was stuck on my finger."
Frivaldi picked himself up.
"You were going to toss the ring to me?" the younger dwarf asked. "I thought…"
Durin met his gaze and said, "What? That I was unwilling to take a calculated risk that the horde beetles wouldn't attack me a second time, in order to see an apprentice safely through a dangerous spot?" He tossed his beard over his shoulder. "You don't know me very well, boy."
Durin took off his backpack and pulled from it an iron rod as long as his forearm. One end was wrapped in worn leather, like the grip of a frequently used sword. The other end had a small knob shaped like the face of a hound.
"What is it?" Frivaldi asked.
"Something that will tell us if there are dragonkin ahead."
Frivaldi dredged up the acronym: "FLEE, right? Flank, Locate, Eradicate Enemies. We're going to make sure the dragonkin don't steal up behind us."
The faerie fire had at last worn off, and he could see Durin's face clearly.
"Not quite," Durin said, his eyes glittering like mica.
"The stronger the dweomer, the more dragonkin feel its pull. They're drawn to artifacts like a hoard beetle to warm flesh. If we find other dragonkin…"
Frivaldi grinned and finished, "We find the Bane of Caeruleus."
The rod quivered in Durin's hand, indicating hostile creatures ahead. Pressing a finger to his lips, he made a stern motion, indicating that Frivaldi should remain where he was, then he crept forward along the corridor. It opened, just ahead, onto a gallery that ran along one side of a large hall. From below Durin could hear the sound of half a dozen to a dozen guttural voices. He recognized the language as Draconian by its hisses and clicks, but the voices were pitched too low for him to make out the words.
The low wall of the gallery had been carved in a pattern as delicate as lace. Sadly, it had suffered. Large pieces had been smashed out of it and a rusted spearhead was wedged in it. Creeping forward, Durin peered down through what remained.
What he saw in the hall below made his eyes widen. He'd half expected the clutch of eight dragonkin, but the figure they were kneeling in front of sent a chill through him. A dragon! And not just any dragon. The monster was just at the edges of Durin's darkvision, but even so he could see the frilled ears and a single, forked horn jutting out of its forehead that were the distinctive traits of a blue.
Had Caeruleus survived, all those centuries?
No, a blue might live two thousand years, but not seven. The dragon below must have been one of Caer-uleus's descendants. What a bitter irony-that it had chosen Torunn's Forge as its lair.
The dragon was crouched, unmoving, at the center of the great hall. Standing, it would have been as tall as the gallery. It must have been fully thirty paces long from snout to tail tip. The dragonkin seemed puny in comparison. They groveled next to it, snouts to the ground and wings folded, as if worshiping it. The dragon was oblivious to them. It seemed to be sleeping.
Durin glanced around the chamber. It was the Hall of Hammers-that much was clear by the pillars that had been carved into the walls, each topped with a stylized hammer head. At the left end of the hall was the massive forge that had given Torunn's stronghold its name. In front of it was an anvil the size of a feast table and a waist-deep hole in the floor that once would have held water for quenching. The wall to the right was rough, unfinished stone.
Durin peered around the hall, searching for the Bane of Caeruleus. According to the saga, it had been newly forged and imbued with magic when the goblin attack came. Even after seven thousand years it still should have been polished and bright. But the only weapons Durin could see were ancient and rusted. Some were dwarven great axes and urgoshes, some were cruder goblin weapons, but none was the Bane of Caeruleus.
Had the dragonkin simply carried the Bane away?
No, Durin didn't think so. Judging by the fouling of the floor, the dragonkin had made the Hall of Hammers their home for several months-though strangely, the air smelled fresh. There was even a tang of rain-fresh rock in the air. Perhaps it was some magical effect, designed to waft away the soot and smoke of the forge.
The answer to the riddle came a moment later, when a ninth dragonkin seemingly emerged from solid stone, wings flapping. The rough stone wall was an illusion.
Durin tensed as the dragonkin wheeled once around the gallery, but the creature didn't appear to have seen him. It landed next to its fellows on the floor with a scrape of talons on stone, then crouched, folding its leathery wings against its back.
Something brushed against his foot, startling him. Turning his head-he would make no sudden moves that would alert the creatures below-Durin saw that Frivaldi had disobeyed him once again. The boy had crawled forward and was staring, goggle-eyed, at the scene below.
"Is that-"
Durin slapped a hand against the young dwarfs mouth, staunching the whisper.
Once the boy was quiet, Durin returned his attention to the hall below. The dragonkin were rising to their feet. Five of the nine unfolded their wings and launched themselves at the illusionary wall, disappearing through it. The remaining four seemed to be holding a conversation-one that turned ugly a moment later when one of the dragonkin yanked something out of another's hand. A shoving match ensued and the object-a wand-clattered to the floor. The other two dragonkin both dived for it at the same time, tugging the wand back and forth between them.
Belatedly, Durin realized Frivaldi had started crawling along the gallery toward the staircase that led below. Durin smacked his forehead. By Moradin's beard, why had he been saddled with such an idiot? The dragonkin would probably leave once their quarrel concluded-didn't Frivaldi have even a thimbleful of patience? Standard delving procedure dictated precisely the steps to take, when faced with superior numbers: SWAT: Sit and Wait for Appropriate Time.
Furious, Durin crawled after the boy and yanked him back.
Frivaldi slipped, his hands going out from under him. His shoulder slammed against the rail, dislodging a chunk of it. For the space of one heartbeat, two, Durin held his breath. Then he heard the clatter of it landing below.
As one, the four dragonkin whipped their heads around to stare at the spot on the floor. Then, slowly, they looked up. One of them pointed at the spot where Frivaldi and Durin were hiding. It let out a chattering hiss, and launched itself into the air. The other three leaped after it.
"Run!" Durin yelled, scrambling to his feet.
"Right!" Frivaldi shouted, yanking the leather sheath off the blade of his axe. "'Retaliate Until Neutralized'."
"Not RUN," Durin said, exasperated. "Run!"
Frivaldi turned and grunted, "Huh?"