A Match of Monsters

Chapter Twenty-Six

"The gates have opened."

The harsh grumble echoes through the darkness, the words sliding clearly through the stone that encompassed the tunnel. Smooth carvings giving way to muffle no noises.

They had been spoken in a dwarfish language, but not the more common Dyrac. Rather the much more exclusive tongue of Storim, used mostly by dwarven soldiers and leaders for private, strategic and political conversations they didn't want overheard. That it had been spoken at all gave Elain a pretty good guess as to who as what were headed towards her to investigate the opening of the doors.

The voices had sounded distant, but the following footsteps were not. They pounded quick and heavy on the flat stone, at as fast a pace as a run but with too even a count to be anything other than a walk. The men all moved with such perfect synchronization that she could not figure out if the racket they made was because there were many of them coming, or just a few with great force behind their steps.

Either way, she had only moments before they would be upon her.

She had felt the tunnel's curving walls, keeping one hand drifting along the rock as she'd walked. Now all of her fingers were stretched out desperately and her palms pressed firmly into the hard surface as she moved them all about her in search of a side passage. She did not know if these people would want to help or hurt her, and she was too tired to be able to defend herself from an attack – she had to find somewhere to hide until she was sure of their intentions. She could not find one.

They were nearly here, she could see the way the light from the torches they carried danced on their features. The firelight danced between gleaming flesh, course hair and sturdy clothing. Metal weapons glinted where the flames were near them, but almost none of the men had any form of iron armour. There were a few leather breastplates and guards, but nothing more.

Only one man shone with steel, and even then he only wore it on half of his body. A long shirt of chainmail, guards on his shoulders, forearms and shins, and his head was covered by a Monion helmet that curved to a peak above his head and left his face and neck open to the elements. Everything else was leather or heavy cloth.

The squat man lead all of his fellows straight towards her at a steady pace. In one hand, they each held the long handle of a lit torch above their heads and to the side so that they wouldn't be blinded by the light they were handling. The other hand hovered lower over their hips, just barely touching the handles of their swords, all of which except their leader's were estocs or claymores. At his waist lay only a sax, his other blade a great bastard sword, the weapon was a two handed mix between a broadsword and longsword. It was so large that it reached from where she could see it over his shoulder to where the end of its scabbard almost brushed the back of his knee with every step.

They were close enough now that the flickering firelight would be able to reach her figure. She had wrapped her cloak once more around her shoulders after she and the kit and gotten out of the snow, and the dark cloth obscured her identity from sight until all that the approaching men would be able to see of her was indistinct shadow, if even that. Right now, she was a shadow.

It was the kit that gave them away, with his shining silver scales that never dulled and reflected even the faintest of light. One of the men shouted and pointed at her, at the hatchling's hide that he likely believed to be a drawn blade. In a way as immediate and perfect as a wave on the water, the rest of the men drew short, stopping in neat ranks that intimidated Elain with their swords half drawn and ready to attack. Front and centre stood their leader with a grim expression and heavy sword held out ahead of him. The delicate braids that formed his thick beard still swung in delayed motion from his run here and forceful sword as his pale eyes scanned the darkness in front for whatever had alerted one of his men.