“Stop that!” She slapped at the boot.

The boot tapped more gently on her head. “Bolin. Go on. Please.”

“Damn it, stop that!” She felt like a fool arguing in the dark with only two ways to go, and reached with her foot for the next rung.

She shook her head as she descended. I swear, the world beyond Dolgallu is beyond my grasp. She’d thought she understood a thing or three about the world. She’d always felt superior and impatient with people, especially her mother and all the other ignorant, conniving, destructive women like her. Father had always encouraged her, made her feel competent.

But since she’d left her home, she felt crippled: traveling in disguise, or in a narrow, closed carriage. Insulted and looked down on. Defended by others, kept from one fight after another for fear she’d shatter like some fragile porcelain doll.

She felt around in the tight darkness for the next stile. I don’t have Father’s ear now, do I? And what did he ever really give me anyway? A false sense of importance, that’s what. Lot of good that’s done me.

Longing rushed over her, for recognition, for satisfaction. For even a damned moment’s rest.

She thought then of Eowain, of all the grief and trouble she’d been to him. Of all the taunts and threats and angry words she’d had for him.

I don’t really know how to care for anyone, do I? She wasn’t sure she’d ever had the chance to learn. When Eowain offered his protection, all I did was insult him.

She kicked at the next iron rail and stepped down. The air seemed to change and her questing boot found a floor, closer than she expected. She reached into the darkness. Some sort of opening in the shaft? Then her hand recoiled from slimy, wet, rough-hewn natural rock.

A boot came down on her head.

“Gods damn it all, stop that!” She put her hand to the slimy wall, stepped from the shaft, and stopped.

Something gripped her arm.

She jumped.

“It’s me, mum.”

Tommalt, in the dark. Damn it. She put her hand on his. “Sorry. Where’s—?”

“It’s dark down here!”

And there’s Talwyn. At least she hadn’t run off into the dark. “Talwyn, you need to stay with me, you understand?”

“I ain’t scared. I’m a Cockam, I am! An’ I ain’t gonna hold yer hand, neefer.”

The bodies of the little men moved around her in the dark. There was a click, then a clack, then a spark in the darkness. The first little man’s face, with his tawny hair and beard, came into sight as he coaxed a flame to life. He lifted the fledgling flame with a thin stick and she marveled at the sight of a small box that seemed to be framed with iron but walled with red-tinted glass.

He set the oil-soaked wick inside the box a-flicker, and the fire caught, grew, and steadied. The little man closed the glass box, lifted it by an iron ring at the top, and shook away the flame that still clung like a stubborn worm to the stick.

Around her, a rocky chamber came into view, its walls slick with draperies of white flow-stone. She had room enough to stand upright, but it was neither so tall nor so wide as to relieve the oppressive sense of such a tight space.

The second little man glanced up the shaft behind them with his pale blue eyes, then hefted the mighty crossbow in his hands and pointed it, cocked with a fresh bolt, into the blackness ahead.

Eithne drew her short sword and pulled the dagger from her belt with her other hand. Tommalt beside her did the same, and even little Talwyn produced a wicked-looking knife from under her hooded cloak.

Dwo took a steel headed hammer—blunt at one end, spiked at the other—into his hand, then raised the lantern,gestured with the hammer at the darkness and tapped the head of the hammer against his chest. “Thrógimaim? You understand?” He pointed up the shaft again. “That way’s no good.” He shook his head. Then he pointed into the blackness—“This way?”—and tapped his chest again. “This way is good.”

Kilim shook his head. “Eithne thrógimaim bolgimbímalk.”

Dwo scowled at him. “Bofedéboldal thrógimaim Avac ovar morlode babolain… bukilar… daim… baleovatek.” He enunciated slow and clear, exaggerated the care he took with his words.

Kilim grunted with what might have been a laugh.

“We’re standing right here, you know.”

Dwo pointed with the hammer into the blackness once more. “This way. Come on.” Then he shrugged and tapped Kilim on the back with the hammer head.

Kilim turned and, crossbow aimed from the shoulder, set off into the dark.

He shrugged, lifted the lantern, and went off after Kilim. The red light went with him.

“Ooo, I wanna go!” Talwyn skipped down the tunnel after them.

Tommalt seemed dubious. “Mum?”

The dark closed in around Eithne. Her skin crawled as the tight space and the absolute blackness overwhelmed her. With a last look up the dark shaft—“Damn it all”—she followed the light of Dwo’s lantern. Tommalt came along behind her.

The red light bobbed left and Eithne found that the way jogged there and opened into a larger chamber. The glow receded down a passage from the chamber. As she followed, the shadow of short little Dwo and Talwyn disappeared around a corner to the left.

Eithne quickened her pace and went around the corner with sword and dagger at the ready.

Dwo’s silhouette was still ahead with the lantern. He raised a bushy eyebrow at her and shrugged. Talwyn was wide-eyed, her fingers trailing over the rock walls.

With their longer legs, Eithne and Tommalt soon caught them, but Kilim and his crossbow were nowhere to be seen in the pool of red lantern light.

Dwo tapped at the wall on their right gently. “Careful. It’s unstable here.”

Ahead on that side, a tumble of rock not yet coated with slime and flow-stone blocked the way.

Dwo led her left.

She ducked at the last moment under a round shield of stone that dripped with stony spikes.

“Oh.” Dwo put the hammer to the side of his head. “Mind the ceiling.”

Eithne scowled at him. “Thoughtful of you, thanks.”

Dwo shrugged. He led her around to the backside of the obstruction. The way, rough and twisted, widened and narrowed at random, and—Ow! Damn it!—the ceiling height continued to vary.

Tommalt’s voice quavered with unease. “Mum. Who are they?”

Eithne’d been wondering that herself. “Old stories come to mind. Stories about an ancient race that lived here long before Men—or even Shynn—came across the seas. Short, stunted little people called, ‘Avacs,’ who lived beneath stony-headed hills and built the ancient stone monuments.” She pointed up toward the hill that loomed over them. “Like the circle of menhirs on the hill.”

Tommalt’s eyes darted toward the little man with the red lantern. “You really think they’re Avacs, mum?”

She couldn’t think of a better explanation.

Dwo led them into a cross-way. Kilim came back into the lantern light from the straight path before them and shook his head. “Boforthorim.” He shivered and held one of his hands about a foot apart from his crossbow, then wriggled his fingers like many little legs. “Belim bofónalin boforthorim.” He nodded to another passage—“Thorin gilaim”—put his bow back to his shoulder, and led them into the dark.

Dwo shrugged—“Kilim doesn’t like centipedes.”—then went on after his mate.

Something in the darkness chittered and clicked. “I’m sure,” said Eithne, entirely unsure that she was. She kept a cautious distance, and her sword and dagger ready.