A Bard's Story: Here There Be Dragons

Chapter Thirteen

It doesn't take long for Leyha and Kehdem to be packed, although they wait most of the two hours for Jes and Ash to return for them. After a cursory inspection of the room, which Leyha and Kehdem returned to the state they found it in, they head off to the kitchens for food and water and then the unlocked door to the labyrinth.

Kehdem's reaction to the impressive underground structure is fairly similar to Leyha's, although he manages to keep his It's so big inside his — and Leyha's — head. Still, she takes the opportunity to give him a lopsided grin.

Any other profound knowledge you would like to share, O Master of Words? she teases. He shakes his head, then turns to their dwarven companions.

"So what are we doing here?" he asks.

"The yelet have sent us to check on the heart of the mountain," Ash says.

"I thought you said we were going outside," Leyha says.

"We are," Ash says. "The heart of the mountain is outside."

"Oh," Leyha says. She had imagined the heart of the mountain as something in the deepest depths, not something that would require leaving the mountain. "Is it very far?"

"It will take us twenty-five cycles to go through the labyrinth."

Leyha doesn't know how to translate cycles to days, but that sounds like a lot. "Why are we going there?"

"Jes and I have been telling yelet that the dragons have returned for a long time," Ash says.

"Why bother? If they already think that the dragons are out there?"

"Because they think that the tricks we used to hide in the mountain will work forever," Ash says. "They don't know that there are many wards which have not been checked in very many years."

"What's so bad about that?"

"It is... difficult," Ash says. "One of the duties of our tezet is to protect the dwarves," he says, "even if the yelet do not like what we have to do. The yelet think we are safe, that the dragons cannot find us. But we made the labyrinth big because the dragons found us before, and then we fought them. We fought them all the time and we knew how to protect us. But only our tezet fought, and no one else. Now there aren't enough zözeen to protect everyone."

"I still don't understand," Kehdem says. "Why are all four of us here?"

"Ash said to the yelet, 'Dragons hunt us,'" Jes says. "'We prove they can get inside the mountain.' The yelet said, 'Go far away and take the humans.' We are all here."

"I'm sorry for opening that door," Leyha says.

"It is alright," Jes says. "They did not send us away because of the door."

"I know," she says. "But now they'll never agree to removing the marks."

"We do not need them to agree when there is Dragon War," Jes says.

"What do you mean?" Kehdem asks.

"We need special runestones to remove the marks," Ash says. "Now, we cannot use those runestones, but we need them to fight the dragons."

"So if we helped you guys start a war, you'd remove the marks?" Leyha asks.

"Yes," Ash says.

Leyha turns to Kehdem, her eyebrows raised. He shrugs. At least it'll be easy to say who's in the wrong on this one, he thinks, intending for her to hear.

You say that now, she says, half teasing but half concerned. "Well, then," she says. "Let's get going."

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