Days of Blood and Fire - Katharine Kerr [195]
“Well, true spoken.” Enj looked doubtfully up at the cave for a long time. “Ah, ye gods, naught ventured, naught gained! Let’s go get candles and suchlike from our packs, and the ropes, and then up we go.”
“I’ll go first. If it’s waiting inside, it can have a quick bite on me and give you time to get away.”
“Get away? From a dragon so close at hand? A fine man with a jest, bain’t you?”
They both laughed, but quietly, lest they warn their prey.
Although the first thirty feet or so were slick and thus delicate climbing, once they got well above the caldera floor they found plenty of holds. Every now and then they found a long scratch graved right into the rock, as if an enormous cat had run its claws down leather. Apparently the dragon had searched for a while before clearing its entrance. Where the fissure narrowed, they could brace themselves and rest, but neither ever spoke except for the occasional whispered warning about some loose rock or suchlike. Even with the warnings, occasionally scree fell in a shower of dust and noise. Rhodry found himself wincing every time, but they never heard an answering clatter from within.
Finally, just when the sun had climbed to noon up the greater cliff of the sky, they reached the ledge, which overhung the face itself. By inching sideways and risking a fall, Rhodry managed to flop himself onto it belly first and scrabble forward to security, but the noise was horrendous, at least to his ears. He got to his knees and glanced into the cave. Mercifully it stretched a long way back into darkness, an entrance only, not a home. With a gasp of relief rather than a sigh, he helped Enj gain the ledge as well.
“Not eaten yet,” Enj said, a little too cheerfully. “I say we save the candles for a bit.”
“Good idea. Both of us can see in the dark.”
They stepped into the cave, letting their eyes adjust.From the entrance light filtered in, revealing two tunnels that led deeper, but only one was wide enough for a dragon to pass through. It was possible, of course, that the narrow tunnel wound round to join the wider at some safer place, but Rhodry and Enj looked at each other, shrugged, and took the broad. Its floor was swept clean of loose rock and debris, practically polished, in fact, by the dragon’s belly and tail. As they crept along, putting one quiet foot in front of the other, pausing often to listen, the light from behind them dimmed, and the smell rose in a chemical melange— the gagging reek of brimstone, certainly, but mixed with it was another scent, as acrid as sweat,
“The stink of wyrm,” Rhodry whispered.
Enj grinned and nodded.
As it sloped down the tunnel twisted, leaving the sunlight behind, yet it never grew completely dark to Rhodry’s half-elven sight. Here and there he saw streaks of some pale blue glow, veining in the rock walls. The usual dwarven fungus, he thought at first, then realized that since it had never been exposed to sunlight, it couldn’t be phosphorescent—dweomer, perhaps, placed by the dragon to light its way. He’d never heard of their being able to see in the dark, after all. If the beast would mark the way to its lair for all to see, then it must have been supremely confident of its safety. He began to hope that they might come upon it asleep, especially if it had indeed fed the day before.
The tunnel twisted down and in, farther and farther, for what Rhodry estimated as half a mile. The air grew hotter and hotter, stinking of brimstone. Rhodry felt as if the back of his throat were crusted with the stuff, making him want to retch. Far ahead he could just see a different sort of light, pale red like the glow from hot iron on a blacksmith’s anvil. He signaled for a rest, and they passed the waterskin back and forth. Though he said nothing, Enj was grinning like a berserker.
As it sloped toward the reddish glow the tunnel narrowed, until its sides and roof turned polished, too, as if the dragon forced a tight way through every time it laired. They walked slower and slower, placing each foot carefully on this slick surface.