The Doom of Kings_ Legacy of Dhakaan - Don Bassingthwaite [121]
Then the edge of the torchlight fell on the massive trees that reached up out of the pit. Ekhaas had described them to her before, but even a duur’kala’s description didn’t do the size of them justice. The trunks were as big as small towers. The thin moonlight that had given some illumination to the upper stairs vanished behind the unseen branches. Darkness closed in, with all the eerie silence and tension of the valley focused, it seemed, on the small pool of light that crept along the stairs.
“There are trees in the Eldeen Reaches that are almost this big,” Geth said, “and they didn’t get that way naturally. How much farther, Chetiin?”
“Not much.”
Just a little farther along, the wet canvas smell of trolls rose to meet them. On each side of the stairs, deep pockets had been gouged into the living wood of the trees and lined with an assortment of leaves and fern fronds. Chetiin gestured for them to keep going. “It’s the troll nest,” he said. “We’re almost at the bottom.”
Ashi studied the dens dug into the trees. Each looked big enough for one troll to sleep curled up inside, but there weren’t just nine pockets for the nine trolls. There were dozens, some disappearing into the shadows high above. The majority, however, seemed abandoned. They had no linings, and the scarred wood had long healed into puckers of bark. Makka had described the valley as being a cursed place since the mountains were young. Ashi wondered how long trolls had been living here.
Beyond the nest was the bottom of the stairs—and the bottom of the pit. The ground leveled out among the roots of the great trees in an expanse of dense, black soil. Somewhere else, Ashi might have called it a small clearing. Here it felt like a kind of void. On its far side rose a sheer rock face. Built against the rock was the front of a simple shrine, fashioned from the same gray stone as the stairs and carved with a band of the same twisting shapes. Through a narrow doorway, the interior of the shrine extended into the rock as the trolls’ dens extended into the trees.
“Aureon’s blue quill,” said Midian. “It’s in perfect condition.”
“Pre-Dhakaani?” Dagii asked.
“Pre-Dhakaani,” Midian confirmed. He stepped off the stairs and walked across the bare earth to hold his torch up before the structure. Illuminated, the carvings sprang into sharp relief. Ashi thought she could see animals in the swirls. Animals, plants, maybe even figures that could have been members of the goblin races. As the others came to join him, Midian frowned and stepped closer, examining the carvings up close. “This isn’t possible,” he said. “The grooves and edges haven’t weathered at all.”
“They’d be well protected down here,” Ashi pointed out. “And you said there was probably some preserving magic on the stone of the stairs. Wouldn’t it have been applied to the shrine as well?”
“Preserving magic doesn’t work that well. There was lichen on the stairs and some weathering, and I thought that was amazing.” He touched a carved swirl. “These are more than fifteen thousand years old, and they might have been carved yesterday.”
“It’s here, though,” said Geth, his voice excited. They all turned to look at him. He was standing in front of the shrine’s door, his eyes bright, and he held Wrath out in front of him with both hands, as if trying to keep a grip on the sword. “The rod is here, in the shrine. If you’re finished looking at carvings, let’s go get it!”
“It’s not going anywhere, Geth,” Ekhaas said. “We’ll go in when we’re ready.”
“Grandfather Rat, how much more ready can we be? Chetiin, Ashi, are you with me?”
Ashi—and Chetiin as well—glanced at Ekhaas before answering. The duur’kala’s ears stood up, but after a moment, she nodded. “You’re right. Let’s go. Just be careful.”
Chetiin went through the door first with Geth and Midian after him. Ashi would have followed,