“Everyone, this is my friend Wyll Underfoot.”
Using a single crutch, Wyll hobbled into what appeared to be a series of rooms that were beautifully hewn from rock and softly illuminated by an unknown source. The Dwarves had mastered the art of finding and deflecting light underground, as Orli had told him, much of it coming from blazing crystals deep in the earth.
The rooms were warm, too— another Dwarf innovation—this time from subterranean heat vents and water flumes. Despite being perhaps a mile under the mountain, Wyll found the surroundings very comfortable and livable—no wonder Orli missed it so much.
The Dwarves rose to greet Wyll, and many of them bowed deeply. They had never seen a Halfling before and weren’t sure if they spoke the Common Tongue or had any intellect at all.
“Good morning and thank you for welcoming me into your home,” said Wyll as graciously as possible.
“And we welcome you, Wyll of the Halflings,” replied a female whom Orli identified as his Aunt Rosamunda, Magpie’s wife. “We know you have journeyed far and been injured, so please sit and share our food.”
As they sat and fed him some savory meats, breads, and sauces, the Dwarves also peppered Wyll with questions about his folk and the village of Thimble Down. They were most interested in the concept of burrows and asked him what it’s like to live in a mud hill.
“Actually, they’re quite comfortable—there are proper floors, walls, and ceilings, as well as windows and fixtures,” noted Wyll. “My Uncle Dorro’s burrow is the nicest in the entire village and has running water.”
Aunt Rosamunda laughed haughtily.
“We’ve had running water for centuries, as well as light and heat. Your kind is younger than ours, so we must accommodate the quaint advances of your people.”
“Actually, Auntie, all us guest workers live in a burrow and it’s grown upon us,” added Orli. “Granted, it’s not as magnificent as our caverns, but we like it.”
Rosamunda was not impressed and hid it poorly, so the Dwarf boy took advantage of the moment to extricate Wyll from his relatives and continue their tour.
He showed his Thimble Down friend the grand assembly halls, with stairways cut right out of rock face. There were structures within the caverns—some of them quite impressive—for either use by families, workers, or ceremonies. Families seemed to have all dug out their own spaces, usually just tunneling into a sheer rock face and burrowing out the requisite number of rooms.
As for labor, there were endless tasks for the Dwarf folk, from digging and excavating (their specialty) to cooking and sewing, and protecting and serving the wider community.
“Of course, I’m savin’ the best for last—the great caverns where gems, metals, and precious rocks are harvested.”
Carefully, Orli brought Wyll to a ledge overlooking a vast column of space, maybe a quarter mile wide and a full mile up and down. It was the biggest space the Halfling boy had ever seen, and as Orli explained, it had been hewn from solid rock over several centuries by powerful hands and tools.
“This, Wyll, is the secret of the Dwarves’ vast wealth. Every one of our colonies is built around a mine of some sort, whether gold and silver, diamonds, rubies, or various metals and ores. Even the black stones that fuel ol’ Bindlestiff’s forges are a kind of wealth to us—a burnable rock used in trade and commerce.”
“Where do you grow your food, then, or keep your livestock?” Wyll couldn’t see how this lifestyle sustained itself.
“We have a vast network o’ traders who fan out across the many lands and bring us food and goods we can’t produce here,. There are some Dwarf farmers, but ain’t many. We have more herders that keep goats and sheep on mountainsides, and give us fresh meat, milk, and wool.”
“How many Dwarves live here?”
“In Gildenhall? Oh, I dunno—ten thousand or more. The city is vast and stretches for many miles in any direction. You could live here and never see sunlight, which is fine by us. See down here? Down there, deep in the shaft, is where the miners toil, bringing up our wealth day after day. Sometimes they’re asked to slow down, so as not deplete our resources. If you look just over there …”
Wyll leaned over to see where Orli was pointing, but overcorrected on his crutch and, in a heartbeat, fell. One second he was talking to his friend, and then next he was clinging to the edge of a precipice for his life.
“Wyll! Hold on!”
The Thimble Downer had fallen about ten feet and was holding onto a rock face and scrabbling to find a foothold. Orli reached as far as he could, but was still some distance away. If Wyll let go, he would drop for several minutes and there would be no saving him. The Dwarf boy looked around frantically and saw his salvation—the crutch!
“Grab this, Wyll!” He lowered the crutch slowly and upside down so Wyll could grab the broad end. “Reach for it!” The boy reached out his hand and got a quick grip, but then lost a few more inches with his other hand and instinctively grabbed the rock face again.
“I can’t hold on, Orli! I’m going to fall!”
“Try again—this time concentrate. You must, Wyll!”
Orli was trying to give his friend confidence, but time was trickling away.
Wyll reached again and missed. On the third try, he grabbed the crutch and held fast.
“Now the other hand, Wyll!”
Orli girded himself for the weight of his friend .
“No!” Wyll missed with his other hand, but forced himself to try again. Finally he grabbed the crutch with both hands, hanging in free space. It was all on Orli now.
Fortunately, Dwarves are built differently than Halflings and have a tremendous amount of upper-body strength. Lying flat on the ledge, Orli was able to start lifting the crutch hand over hand, inch by inch, while pining himself down with his legs.
A few others had seen the commotion and finally rushed over to help. One sat on Orli’s legs, while the other reached over the edge and grabbed the scruff of Wyll’s collar. In a second, the boy was hauled up, and everyone lay breathless on the ground.
Laying in a tangled clump with his friend, Orli looked up and grinned.
“Did you enjoy the tour, mate?”
* * *
In the evening of the second day of travels, the quartet of Dorro, Cheeryup, Crumble, and Aramina were camped by the side of a wide dirt track that curved through the forests and meadows.
According to his map, they were three quarters of the way to St. Borgo and would arrive the next day. It wouldn’t be too soon for him, either, as the concept of sleeping outdoors in tents completely eluded him; he much preferred the creature comforts of the Perch, and sadly, there were no charming inns along the route.
The rest of the troupe, however, was quite merry, sitting in front of a fire and eating fresh rabbit or ducks that Aramina had hunted down for them. Dorro noted how lethal this Malachite Molly was with a bow, axe, or knife; deep down, he was more than pleased she had accompanied them on this journey through the wild. He wasn’t sure Aramina was the best role model for Cheeryup, but then reflected on the child’s own fierce nature and decided they probably weren’t that far apart in the first place. The Battle Dwarf even let Cheeryup help gut and skin their dinners, which Dorro found absolutely repellent, but the girl dove into the task with gusto.
“Mr. Dorro, beggin’ yer pardon, what is your plan when we arrive in St. Borgo?” Crumble was happily munching on a crispy duck leg. “I bet there ain’t many Dwarves there.”
“I would agree, Crumble. I posted a note a few days ago to the Inn of the Yellow Swan and am hoping they have reserved rooms for us. It’s right near the college, so the following morning, we can begin scouring the campus for a scholar.”
“And you think you’ll find one so fast?” croaked Aramina, who was picking her teeth with a rabbit bone. “I can’t imagine there are many experts in Dwarf lore there.”
“I would agree with you, ma’am, but I brought a small bag of coins to help lubricate the process,” said Dorro slyly.
“I’m so excited. I can barely imagine a place where Halflings learn all day long,” chirped Cheeryup. “I wish we had a school in Thimble Down.”
“So do I, young lady,” frowned Dorro. “It’s been weighing on my mind lately. It’s been decades since we had a permanent teacher in the village, and despite the excellence of our library, it doesn’t cover the gaps.”
“I never went to school, young Miss, and I’m smart as a whip,” cackled Aramina. “Y’see, if I have five goblins comin’ at me, and I have only three arrows. Why it just takes a bit of arithmetic to figger out what to do.”
“Pray, illuminate us with your math skills,” snorted Dorro.
“I take one arrow and shoot it through the first goblin’s head, just to spook the rest of ’em. Then I take the second arrow and stabs another beastie with it before shooting it through the third. Then I take my last arrow and either do the same thing or try for a double-header, which is shooting two goblins sandwiched on one arrow. Them’s my favorites!”
Crumble and Cheeryup laughed and clapped, while Dorro restrained himself from being sick, so appalled was he at her barbarism. In the far distance, a pack of wolves howled in the night, causing the bookmaster to squeak and look about him in desperate fear.
“Wolves! We’re about to be attacked!”
This only made his cohorts laugh even harder.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Dorro. With Malachite Molly in your camp, you only have to worry about mosquitos. She can protect you from anything else.”
“Actually, I wish dem wolves would come sniff around closer,” said Aramina seriously. “I need a new jacket, and there’s nothing better than thick wolf fur. Maybe, Mr. Dorro, sir, you’d let me tie you to a tree and smear a little duck blood on your clothes? That would them wolves in a jiffy. It’s all for giggles, of course.”
“No!” huffed Dorro. “I am not going to serve as bait!”
At that he stood up and marched to his tent, which he tied firmly behind him. He pretended not to hear Aramina, Cheeryup, and Crumble howling uproariously behind him.