The Sword of Retribution

The Wyrmhole - Part 3

     Halfway through the day's march they came to another place where several tunnels came together. The slaver led them round corners, up and down slippery smooth slopes and past side turnings that led the Gods alone knew where. They passed through caverns so large that their walls and ceilings were lost in the darkness and around shafts that opened up in the floor, disappearing down into the darkness. The tunnels formed a maze of impossible complexity but the cthillian led them unhesitantly through the labyrinth, following the route he'd prepared the night before. According to Thomas’s body clock, their sleep period should have come while they were in the complex, whatever it was or had been, and they came across several large caverns that would have made fine campsites, but the slaver continued on, leading the travelers to speculate nervously about what the maze contained that their guide wanted to avoid.

     They felt a great sense of relief when they finally left the labyrinth behind, but the cthillian still wouldn't let them stop until they'd travelled several miles along the single, straight tunnel. Apparently, whatever danger the complex contained occasionally ranged some distance away from it. Thomas wondered whether they were safe even where they were and his fear disturbed his sleep, so that he was still fuggy and red eyed when they rose the next 'morning', but he was glad to put more distance between themselves and whatever it was that could scare even a slaver.

     After they'd been walking for a couple of hours, Shaun asked the slaver how much further the tunnel went, and was told that they would be leaving it after two more sleep periods. As it turned out, though, they left it much sooner than that when they came to an obstruction completely blocking the tunnel. A wall of rock looking a bit like sandy concrete that stretched from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling.

     “What in the name of hell?” exclaimed Shaun in puzzlement and surprise. “What’s this?”

     The two trogs looked at each other and went to stand next to the slaver, who was examining the obstruction curiously. Douglas ran his hand over the grainy surface of the rock, scratched at it with his great bullet fingernails and thoughtfully rolled the few grains that came off between his stubby fingers. “Madas-tradral?” asked Angus. Douglas shrugged. “Adralat,” he replied.

     “What’s that?” demanded Shaun. “Do you know what it is?”

     “I think so,” replied Douglas. “I’ve never seen anything like it myself, but I remember a tale my father told me when I were a smoothskin youth, about how a tunnel would sometimes be found blocked up like this.” He laid his hammeraxe against the wall, followed by Angus. “We’ll know for sure when we get to the other side of it. Stand back.”

     The slaver stood back a few feet as the two trogs unslung the picks they’d been carrying strapped across their backs and began attacking the obstruction. The sandy, grainy rock turned out to be a relatively thin layer, only a few inches thick, that rapidly fell away before the expertly swung pickaxes to reveal a much harder layer of black, glassy rock which would only give way one tiny shower of chips at a time no matter how hard the trogs attacked it. Angus and Douglas shared a meaningful look as they stopped to rest, and Thomas guessed that their theory, whatever it was, had been confirmed. He longed to ask them what it was, but didn’t want to disturb them as they returned to their task.

     The hard, black rock turned out to be over three feet thick and it took the two trogs several hours to get through it. The humans were impressed by their speed. It would have taken several times as long for a pair of humans to accomplish the same feat, and they gave a cheer as Angus’s weapon finally broke through and a warm breeze blew through the small hole. It took just a few more minutes for them to widen it enough to crawl through, and then Douglas stuck his head through to have a look.