The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [124]
“Riders. We must be near the fortress.”
Leejak murmured the news to the others in the Dwrgi tongue.
Late that night, under the light of the Starry Road and a half-moon, Kov saw the Long Barrow for the first time. In their new-found tunnel the Dwrgwn found a ventilation shaft, crumbling and filled with dried leaves and the like, but easily cleaned and repaired. With the aid of the makeshift ladder Kov climbed up and stuck his head and shoulders into the fresh air. Not more than a quarter mile ahead, possibly a bit less by his estimate, he saw orange campfires, glowing among the dark silhouettes of tents. Although he couldn’t spot them, he could smell horses and their manure.
Beyond the fires and the tents rose a long dark mound, some sixty feet high. At the top, jagged shapes against the starry night appeared to signify walls made of rough-cut logs. Beyond them he could just discern the uneven roofs of buildings. None of the structures appeared true to the vertical, but whether was because of sloppy building or the mound settling, he couldn’t tell. He climbed back down and told Leejak what he’d seen.
“You got good eyes for dark,” Leejak said.
“All of my people do,” Kov said. “Now, what truly matters is what we find underneath the mound. Let’s hope this tunnel runs all the way.”
“Tomorrow we send scouts. Find out. Eat, sleep now.”
In the morning the scouts came back with good news. The ancient tunnel ran another quarter of a mile, and as it ran, it rose, aiming perhaps for the middle of the mound. It ended in a crumbling wooden door, obvious Dwrgi work. They’d refrained from opening it for fear of making too much noise.
“Did you hear people moving up above you?” Kov said.
“We did,” the head scout said. “Clomp clomp. Hollow like dead log.”
“Splendid!” Kov rubbed his hands together. “I’ll wager that means the door opens into a room of some sort. I’m going to risk taking a look. Better to do it now than wait till everyone’s asleep and quiet.”
Leejak and Jemjek went with him. They hurried up the steep length of the tunnel, which rose, by his well-trained dwarven estimate, some twenty-five feet above ground level. Leejak confirmed that the original diggers must have been aiming for the middle level of the barrow, where gathering parties usually found the burials and their treasures.
The door turned out to be made of planks, mossy and moldy with age, that tore apart under Kov’s bare hands like old cheese. As silently as he could, he dug out a spyhole toward the bottom of one plank, then squatted down to look through. Glowing blue fungi grew in profusion in the chamber on the far side. By their light he could just make out that the walls of this room had been made of timber, whole logs, most likely, judging from the regular pattern of vertical billows under the thick crust of fungi.
He could also hear the footsteps that the scouts had described, a hollow clop clop, as if someone were walking back and forth in wooden clogs. What that person was doing escaped him—pacing the floor, cleaning something—they could have been engaged in any number of tasks.
“Anything to gather in there?” Jemjek whispered.
“I doubt it.” Kov got up. “You can take a look, but be careful!”
Jemjek knelt down, leaned forward, and inadvertently nudged the rotted door with his elbow. With a pulpy, squishy sort of noise, it pulled free of the rusted hinges and fell in a rain of moldy splinters to reveal the further room, thick with fungus and rotting logs. Everyone froze as the footsteps above halted. A woman’s voice called out—something in a language Kov didn’t know, but it sounded like a question.
The footsteps began again; the voice repeated the question. Kov waited, half-afraid to breathe, and prayed that none of the Dwrgwn would break and try to run or call out. From above a rough man’s voice murmured. The woman answered, and this time she sounded afraid. Footsteps again. They slowly retreated; then silence.
Kov let out his breath in a soft sigh. “We’d better work fast,” he whispered.
Kov got up, motioned to the others,