Dragonlance 15 - Dragons Of A Fallen Sun (50 page)

solid rock? I know the dwarves are master stonecutters," Gilthas

said, "but I must confess that this astounds me."

"As I said, we had already started working. And we have

help," said Tam. "Have you ever heard of the Urkhan? No? I'm

not surprised. Few outsiders know anything about them. The

Urkhan are gigantic worms that eat rock. We harness them up,

and they gnaw through granite as if it were fresh-baked bread.

Who do you think built the thousands of miles of tunnels in Thor-

bardin?" Tam grinned. "The Urkhan, of course. The worm does

all the work, and we dwarves take all the credit!"

Gilthas expressed his admiration for the remarkable worms

and listened politely to a discussion of the Urkhan's habits, its

docile nature, and what happened to the rock after it passed

through the worm's system.

"But enough of this. Would you like to see them in action?"

Tam asked suddenly.

"I would, sir," Gilthas said, "but perhaps some other time. As

I mentioned earlier, I must return to Qualinost by morning

light-"

"You shall, lad, you shall," the dwarf replied, grinning hugely.

"Watch this." He stomped his booted foot twice on the floor.

A momentary pause and then two thumps resonated loudly,

coming from the ground.

Gilthas looked at Kerian, who was looking angered and

alarmed. Angry that she had not thought to investigate the

strange rumblings, alarmed because, if this was a trap, they had

just fallen neatly into it.

Tam laughed loudly at their discomfiture.

"The Urkhan!" he said by way of explanation. "They're right

beneath us!"

"Here? Is that true?" Gilthas gasped. "They have come so far?

I know that I felt the ground shake-"

Tarn was nodding his head, his beard wagging. "And we

have gone farther. Would you come below?"

Gilthas looked at his wife. "In all the rest of Qualinesti I am

king, but the Lioness is in charge here," he said, smiling. "What

do you say, madam? Shall we go see these wonderful worms?"

Kerian made no objection, although this unforeseen turn of

events had made her wary. She said nothing outright that

might offend the dwarves, but Gilthas noted that every time

she encountered one of her Wilder elves, she gave him a signal

with either a look, a tilt of the head, or a slight gesture of her

hand. The elves disappeared, but Gilthas guessed that they had

not gone far, were watching and waiting, their hands on their

weapons.

They left the Gulp and Belch, some of Tam's escort departing

with every show of reluctance, wiping their lips and heaving

sighs laced with the pungent smell of dwarf spirits. Tam walked

no trail but shouldered and trampled his way through the brush,

thrusting or pushing aside anything that happened to be in his

path. Gilthas, looking back, saw the dwarves had cut a large

swath through the woods, a trail of broken limbs, trampled grass,

dangling vines, and crushed grass.

Kerian cast a glance at Gilthas and rolled her eyes. He knew

exactly what she was thinking. No need to worry about the

dwarves hearing some trace of sound from shadowing elves. The

dwarves would have been hard put to hear a thunderclap over

their stomping and crashing. Tam slowed his pace. He appeared

to be searching for something. He said something in Dwarvish to

his companions, who also began to search. -

"He's looking for the tunnel entrance," Gilthas said softly to

Kerian. "He says that his people were supposed to have left one

here, but he can't find it.

"He won't, either," Kerian stated grimly. She was still irritated

over being hoodwinked by the dwarves. "I know this land. Every

inch of it. If the:re had been any sort of-"

"She stopped, stared.

"Tunnel entrance," Gilthas finished, teasing. "You would

have discovered it?"

They had come to a large outcropping of granite some thirty

feet high jutting up through the forest floor. The striations on the

rock ran sideways. Small trees and patches of wild flowers and

grass grew between the layers. A large mass of boulders, parts of

the outcropping that had broken off and tumbled down the side,

lay at the foot of the outcropping. The boulders were huge, some

came to Gilthas's waist, many were larger than the dwarves. He

watched in astonishment as Tam walked up to one of these boul-

ders, placed his hand on it, and give it a shove. The boulder rolled

aside as if it were hollow.

Which, in fact, it was.

Tarn and his fellows cleared the boulder fall, revealing a large

and gaping hole in the outcropping.

"This way!" Tam bellowed, waving his hand.

Gilthas looked at Kerian, who simply shook her head and

gave a wry smile. She stopped to investigate the boulder, the

inside of which had been hollowed out like a melon at a feast.

"The worms did this?" she asked, awed.

"The Urkhan," said Tarn proudly, gesturing with his hand.

"The little ones," he added. "They nibble. The bigger ones would

have gulped down the boulder whole. They're not very bright,

I'm afraid. And they're always very hungry."

"Look at it this way, my dea4" said Gilthas to Kerian as the

passed from the moonlit night into the coolness of the dwarf-

made cavern. "If the dwarves managed to hide the tunnel en-

trance from you and your people, they will have no trouble at all

hiding it from the cursed Knights."

"True," Kerian admitted.

Inside the cavern, Tarn stomped twice again on what ap-

peared to be nothing but a dirt floor. Two knocks greeted him

from below. Cracks formed in the dirt, and a trapdoor, cunningly

hidden, popped open. The head of dwarf poked out. Light

streamed upward.

"Visitors," said Tarn in Dwarvish.

The dwarf nodded, and his head vanished. They could hear

his thick boots clumping down the rungs of a ladder.

"Your Majesty," said Tarn, gesturing politely.

Gilthas went immediately. To hesitate would imply that he

did not trust the high thane and Gilthas had no intention of alien-

ating this new ally. He climbed nimbly down the sturdy ladder,

descending about fifteen feet and coming to rest on a smooth sur-

face. The tunnel was well-lit by what Gilthas first took to be

lanterns.

Strange lanterns, though, he thought, drawing close to one.

They gave off no heat. He looked closer and saw to his amaze-

ment that the light came not from burning oil but from the body

of what appeared to be a large insect larvae. The larva lay curled

up in a ball at the bottom of an iron cage that hung from a hook

on the tunnel wall. A cage hung every few feet. The glow from the

body of the slumbering larva lit the tunnels as bright as day.

"Even the offspring of the Urkhan work for us," Tarn said, ar-

riving at the bottom of the ladder. "The larva glow like this for a

month, and then they go dark. By that time, they are too big to fit

into the cages anyway, and so we replace them. Fortunately, there

is always a new crop of Urkhan to be harvested. But you must see

them. This way. This way."

He led them along the tunnels. Rounding a bend, they came

upon an astonishing sight. An enormous, undulating, slime-cov-

ered body, reddish brown in color, took up about half the tunnel.

Dwarven handlers walked alongside the worm, guiding it by

reins attached to straps wrapped around its body, slapping it with

their hands or with sticks if the body of the worm started to veer

off course or perhaps rollover and crush the handlers. Half the

tunnel had been cleared already by a worm up ahead, so Tam

told them. This second worm came behind, widening what had

already been built.

The huge worm moved incredibly fast. Gilthas and Kerian

marveled at its size. The worm's body was as big around as

Gilthas was tall and, according to Tam, this worm was thirty feet

in length. Piles of chewed and half-digested rock littered the floor

behind the worm. Dwarves came along to shovel it to one side,

keeping a sharp eye out for gold nuggets or unrefined gemstones

as they cleared the rubble.

Gilthas walked the worm's length, finally reaching its head. It

had no eyes, for it had no need of eyes, spending its life burrow-

ing beneath the ground. Two horns protruded from the top of its

head. The dwarves had placed a leather harness over these horns.

Reins extended from the harness back to a dwarf who sat in a

large basket strapped to the worm's body. The dwarf guided the

worm from the basket, pulling the head in the direction he

wanted to go.

The worm seemed not to even know the dwarf was there. Its

one thought was to eat. It spewed liquid onto the solid rock in

front of it, liquid that must have been some sort of acid, for it

hissed when it hit the rock, which immediately started to bubble

and sizzle. Several large chunks of rock split apart. The worm's

maw opened, seized a chunk, and gulped it down.

"Most impressive!" Gilthas said with such utter sincerity that

the high thane was immensely pleased, while the other dwarves

looked gratified.

There was only one drawback. As the worm gnawed its way

through the rock, its body heaved and undulated, causing the

ground to shake. Being accustomed to it, the dwarves paid no at-

tention to the motion but walked with the ease of sailors on a

canting deck. Gilthas and Kerian had slightly more difficulty,

stumbling into each other or falling against the wall.

"The Dark Knights will notice this!" Kenan observed, shout-

ing to be heard over the worm's rending of the rock and the

dwarven handlers' yelling and cursing. "When Medan's bed

starts to bounce across the room and he hears shouts coming from

beneath his floor, he's going to be suspicious."

"Tarn, this shaking and rumbling," Gilthas said, speaking di-

rectly into the dwarf's ear. "Can anything be done to quiet it? The

Dark Knights are sure to hear it or at least feel it."

Tarn shook his head. "Impossible!" he bellowed. "Look at it

this way, lad, the worms are far quieter than a work force of

dwarves going at it with hammer and pick."

Gilthas looked dubious. Tam motioned, and they followed

him back down the tunneL leaving the worms and the worst of

the commotion behind. Climbing the ladder, they emerged out

into a night that was far less dark than it had been when they

went underground. Dawn was coming. Gilthas would have to

leave soon.

"My thought was that we would not tunnel under Qualinost

itselL" Tam explained, as they walked back to the Gulp and

Belch. "We're about forty miles away now. We will run our tun-

nels to within five miles of the city limits. That should be far

enough so that the Neraka Knights have no idea what we are

about. Also they'll be less likely to discover the entrances.."

"What would happen if they did discover it?" Gilthas asked.

"They could use the tunnels to invade Thorbardin."

"We'd collapse it first," Tam said bluntly. "Bring it down on

top of them and, likely, on top of a few of us, too."

"More and more I understand the risks you run for us,"

Gilthas said. "There is no way to thank you."

Tarn Bellowgranite waved aside the words, looked uncom-

fortable and embarrassed. Gilthas thought it best to change the

subject.

"How many tunnels will there be altogether, sir?"

"Given time enough, we can build three fine ones," the dwarf

replied. "As it is, we have one this far. You can begin to evacuate

some of your people soon. Not many, for the walls are not com-

pletely shored up yet, but we can manage a few. As for the other

two tunnels, we will need at least two months."

"Let us hope we have that long," Gilthas said quietly. "In the

meanwhile, there are people in Qualinost who have run afoul of

the Neraka Knights. The punishment of the Knights for law-

breakers is swift and cruel. The smallest infraction of one of

their many laws can result in imprisonment or death. With this

tunnel, we will be able to save some who otherwise would have

perished.

"Tell me, Thane," Gilthas asked; knowing the answer, but

needing to hear it for himself, "would it be possible to evacuate

the entire city of Qualinost through that one tunnel?"

"Yes, I think so," said the High Thane, "given a fortnight to

do it."

A fortnight. If the dragon and the Neraka Knights attacked,

they would have hours at most to evacuate the people. At the end

of a fortnight, there would be no one left alive to evacuate. Glithas

sighed deeply.

Kenan drew closer, put her hand on his arm. Her fingers were

strong and cool, and their touch reassured him. He had been

granted more than he had ever expected. He was not a baby, to

cry for the stars when he had been given the moon.

He looked meaningfully at Kerian. "We will have to lay low

and not antagonize the dragon for at least a month."

"My warriors will not rollover and play dead!" Kerian re-

turned sharply, "if that is what you have in mind. Besides, if we