Sineater

Gaelun was in a bad mood.

He’d been sour since we’d met, but the fight with the large Wurm had clouded his mood even more. Thankfully, Vin was smart enough not to see the grumbling Dwarf as an easy target for goading and kept quiet while we walked. This did mean that we walked in near silence for about an hour before I heard the sounds of metal striking rock and the low hum of deep voices singing. It was another thirty minutes before we saw anyone, and that was more guards.

“CAMADT!” The pair of Dwarves in front of the closed door pulled out their axes and set their feet. The singing and mining noises vanished as the Dwarves behind the thick doors answered the alert.

I glanced over at Gaelun to see that the Dwarf was watching the entire thing unfold with what looked like glee.

“Gaelun?” I motioned at the guards. “Are you going to tell them to stand down?”

Our guide glared at me like I had just destroyed the fun he had been planning. “Gotta keep da boys on dare toes.”

“We’ve already had to make one detour, I’d rather not make another.” I rolled my shoulders. “It’d be nice to get some food before we see what we’re up against.” While I hadn’t been wanting to try the Wurm meat, a small snack wouldn’t have been that bad. We had a few rations, but most of our supplies were back with our Drakes. Since Starna could find water, we didn’t have to worry about carrying something to drink. We hadn’t brought much food, since we’d planned on buying that if our destination was too far from where we’d assumed we’d be staying inside the Dwarf city. Which meant basically all we had with us were our weapons and some money.

“Ya don’t want ta see how yer monster does against a real challenge?” Gaelun half turned to me.

There was a part of me that wanted to take him up on that. I had no doubt that the Dwarves would be more of a challenge than the monster had been, but I’d seen Vin tear apart a ship full of pirates with his bare hands. I had a feeling that our guide hadn’t seen Vin basically pinning the room sized monster in place or else he wouldn’t be interested in turning him loose on his comrades.

“We don’t have time for this.” I shook my head. “This isn't the only thing that the queen has for us to do. The only reason why you were our priority was because she felt like the Elves had been snubbing you, but if you don’t want our help, then we can go back home.”

“Bah! Yer no fun.” Gaelun held up his hands and started walking over to the guards.

“Starna.” I nodded towards the Dwarves. “Please go and make sure that he doesn’t try to make things worse. I’ll stay over here with Vin.”

Starna nodded, then took off after our guide.

The guards looked a little less eager to attack us, but they were still eyeing my brother while they talked to Gaelun and Starna.

“What do you think about it?” I sat down on the ground. We were over a hundred feet away and while the tunnels did carry sound, trying to listen in was only letting me hear the occasional word.

“Something feels off.” Vin sat down across from me. “That fight back there didn’t feel like an accident.”

I glanced down the tunnel the way we’d come, then back at my brother. “Which part? That odd group of rangers, or the wurm that a mining group would have never let get so large near their city?”

“The rangers were probably coincidence.” Vin scratched his chin with his upper left hand. “If they were assassins, they would have attacked us while we were fighting, not tried to help us…”

I thought about pointing out that they did more than try to help us, but I knew that my brother would only point out that the two of us would have been able to kill the thing by ourselves.

“The wurm went almost straight for us though. There would have been more collapsed tunnels or random holes if it had been in the area for long at all.” Vin sighed. “That wasn’t a random encounter.”

“You think he led us that way to try to get us killed?” I had a hard time believing that. Garm had always emphasized the importance of how all of us on the ship were a family and family looked out for one another. I couldn’t imagine that one of his blood kin would have a different philosophy.

Vin shrugged. “Maybe they just wanted to see what we were capable of, but I know that I’m going to be sleeping with one eye open for a while.”

I wanted to disagree with him, but even if it had just been a dwarven hazing, it had still been very dangerous. I had been excited to see the Dwarf town at first, but now, I was just hoping that we could get our mission over with fast. At least whatever mission came next wouldn’t be as disappointing as this one was quickly becoming.