Chaos Descending by Toby Neighbors Page A

firewood would need to be gathered. Cooking their dinner would be the biggest chore, and Zollin thought he had plenty of time to do that once he checked in on the dwarves. They might even be invited to stay and eat with the people under the mountains. Jute would be disappointed that Zollin didn’t have ale to share, but he guessed they would make do with some wine he had stashed in the oversized saddle bags.
    The clearing they were in looked exactly like it had on their last visit. The stump was just as it had been when Jute defeated Mansel in an arm-wrestling contest. The only thing that seemed odd was the lack of sound from under the mountain. Whenever Zollin had been in the clearing before, he had heard the rhythmic sound of dwarfish music, which was really a harmony of the constant pounding that took place among the dwarves who were either working iron, chiseling rock, or training with their war hammers.
    Zollin went to the rock that hid the entrance to the caves where the dwarves lived under the mountains. A wild, thorny bush hid the small hole perfectly, but it could easily be moved aside. He carefully took hold of one branch and scooted the bush to the side. The hole looked more like a small crack in the solid rock of the mountainside. Whenever Jute had used the entrance the hole seemed to grow larger, but now Zollin realized he would have to get down on his hands and knees to crawl down into the cave opening.
    “Hello!” he shouted. “I’m looking for Jute of the Yel clan. Can anyone hear me?”
    There was no reply, no music, not even the sounds of activity. Zollin couldn't help but feel that something was terribly wrong. The same sense of foreboding that had struck him when the strange, intelligent creatures had surrounded Zollin and Brianna on the trail home from Brighton’s Gate suddenly hit him again. It was more than just a bad feeling, almost as if his magical senses were picking up traces of evil.
    He conjured a flame. Brianna could have sent fire rolling into the tunnel or even melted the stone to make a huge opening. At one point in his life, Zollin could have conjured the flame without a second thought, but now it took solid concentration. He sent the flame, which was nothing more than a small flame from a candle, floating down into the tunnel. The light flickered on the stone walls, but there was nothing else to see. The tunnel angled down with no sign of stairs or dwarfish handiwork.
    Zollin stood up and looked around the clearing to make sure he was in the right place. Everything was familiar, except for the tunnel. Everything about the opening that led down to the dwarf kingdom under the mountains was foreign to him. Still, he knew he had to find out what was happening. The dwarves had risked their lives to help him in the Witch's War and he had to know what was going on with them. There should have been a village at the bottom of the tunnel, but now it seemed little more than a hole in the stone—just a cave formed by natural means.
    Zollin took a deep breath, got back down on his knees, and scrambled into the hole.
    ***
    Brianna’s first priority had been to gather dry wood for a fire. That chore had been quickly accomplished. The forest floor was littered with fallen branches. She didn’t need to worry about building a regular campfire. She had no need for kindling or straw that would catch a spark. She could have created a fire that burned no fuel using an act of her own will, but she wanted to set up a comfortable place where she and Zollin could relax.
    It was so good just to be out in the open again. She loved the mountains and liked their home, but nothing compared to the freedom of traveling across the kingdoms. She loved seeing different places and sleeping outside under the stars and meeting new people. Most of all, she loved not knowing what was going to happen next.
    She saw Zollin crawl into the hole and couldn’t help but feel as if something were terribly wrong, but she shook