Scream of Stone

60

23 Tarsakh, the Yearof Lightning Storms (1374 DR) The Canal Site

Hrothgar had never in his whole life felt himself shake so badly. It was as though his very bones quivered. His skin crawled, and the hairall of his hair, all over his body, and that was a lotstood on end. He was sure that his gums were peeling back from his teeth. His eyes watered and his head throbbed.

The force of any one of the explosions would have been enough to rattle anyone, even a sturdy dwarf like Hrothgar. A series of them, one after another, dozens upon dozens marching in a line nearly forty miles from the Nagaflow on the north end to the Lake of Steam at the south end, made Hrothgar think that Faerun, even Toril itself, was splitting in two.

But finally the explosions passed, lighting the sky at the far horizon, shaking the ground for a long time after the last of the shards of stone and wood had fallen, and eventually even the ground stopped shaking and the horizon went dark. The rain never ceased, though, and for once Hrothgar was thankful for it. The cool rain calmed his heat-nettled skin and made steam billow up from his scorched clothes and hair.

He fell as much as ran to Devorast’s side. The Cormyrean lay face down in the mud, and Hrothgar didn’t know if he was dead or alive. He grabbed the man by his torn and ragged vest and turned him over. The effort, which should have been nothing for the strong and hearty dwarf, nearly exhausted him. Devorast, limp and covered in mud and soaked to the skin, seemed to weigh a ton.

When his face was turned to the pelting rain, the human blinked and sputtered. While Devorast coughed Hrothgar laughed. Tears streamed down his bearded face to add their salt to the rain, and he put a hand on Devorast’s chest, to feel his heart beating. Lightning flashed overhead, and when the thunder rumbled behind it, Devorast opened his eyes. He blinked a few times before he finally made eye contact with the dwarf. Hrothgar stopped laughing, the smile melting from his lips.

Devorast put his hands over his eyes and clawed the mud off his face. He tried to sit up but winced and groaned in pain.

“Lay back,” Hrothgar advised him, but when the ground shifted beneath them, he changed his mind.

He’d thought it was over, but he was wrong.

“The hill is shifting,” Hrothgar said as he grabbed Devorast by the collar. “I’m carryin’ you outta here.”

“Void…” Devorast mumbled, then grunted when Hrothgar draped him over his broad shoulder.

“Void is right, by Moradin’s Beard,” Hrothgar said.

The explosions had opened a space in the ground beneath them, a void, and the heavy, wet ground was sinking to fill it. Hrothgar knew enough about mining, about digging, about holes in the ground to know that it would sink slowly at first, settling, trying to redistribute its weight, then it would collapse all at once, and anyone unlucky or stupid enough to be standing on top of it would be swallowed whole by Toril herself.

“Come, boy,” Hrothgar growled.

He dragged Devorast’s feet behind him, the human too tall for him to properly carry, but at that moment the dwarf didn’t care if he left body parts in his wake, as long as he got himself and his friend out of there before

The ground collapsed behind them and Hrothgar shouted a very old curse in his native tongue, one that should have brought either the mercy or the wrath of every god in Dwarf home.

Devorast stiffened and turned, falling out of Hrothgar’s grip. The dwarf bellowed his name, but his voice was lost in the thunderous crash of the collapsing hillside. Hrothgar, propelled as much by the wavelike motion of the muddy ground beneath his feet as his feet themselves, continued to run and though his mind had dropped into a primal panic, he was aware enough to see Devorast running under his own power, right next to him.

Side by side they ran for their lives.

Instinct and experience took them away from the canal, but one huge chunk of broken stone after anotherdebris blasted away by the explosionsturned them this way and that, and soon enough Hrothgar lost all sense of direction. He ran and ran, dodging smoldering wood, and fires still blazing even under the pouring rain. He bounced off a block of stone, tripped on something he didn’t stop to identify, grabbed Devorast’s arm to help him along, or was grabbed and helped along by Devorast.

When the shaking and the rumbling finally stopped again, the two of them stumbled in an effort to stop. The dwarf fell and slid, for a moment completely out of control, down a steep, muddy hill. He rolled to a stop only after tripping Devorast and the two of them ended up tangled together at the bottom of the incline, half-floating in six inches of standing water.

Hrothgar untangled himself from the human while he — coughed out half a lungful of rainwater and pawed mud from his stinging right eye. Devorast was breathing so hard he seemed to almost gasp for breath.

When lightning flashed again and lit them both Hrothgar was shocked by two things: how horrible they both lookedlike sea hags on the worst days of their livesand that they were still alive. They’d lived.

“What were the chances?” Hrothgar asked himself.

Devorast shook his head and struggled to his knees. The dwarf stood, knee-deep in water, and looked around. The lightning was fast moving to the eastern horizon, but the rain still fell hard and steady. He turned his face up to the black, unforgiving sky, and let the rain wash the mud from his face. If the dirt was mixed with his blood or

Devorast’s, Hrothgar couldn’t tell. He hurt all over, but he could breathe and he could stand. Any dwarf that could breathe and stand was just fine.

Devorast stood next to him and took a deep breath.

Lightning played along the horizon, outlining a jumble of broken stone and scarred earth.

“Don’t look at it,” Hrothgar said.

Devorast turned and smiled. The simple curl of his lips sent a shiver coursing through Hrothgar the dwarf was sure would finally shake him apart.

“I want you to promise me somethin’,” Hrothgar said, and though he found it nearly impossible, he looked the Cormyrean in the eye. “Promise that you’ll never, ever, should we both live for another ten thousand years, tell me why.”

The smile faded from Devorast’s lips and he nodded.

Hrothgar stepped away and busied himself with trying to get more of the mud off him. The rain let up a little, but the wind increased, which made the rain seem so much colder. Hrothgar’s teeth chattered and his toes went numb in his boots.

When Devorast placed a hand on his shoulder, the dwarf didn’t even have the energy to be startled.

He looked up and saw Devorast run away from him.

“Ivar?” he called after the human.

“Phyrea!” Devorast screamed into a wind-blown wave of rain.

“Phyrea?” Hrothgar asked the human’s receding back.

Hrothgar stood and thought for a moment, the cold making him think as slowly as he moved. Finally he started off after Devorast. The dwarf slipped a few times on his way around a bulge in the ground, and his ankle rolled painfully on a piece of broken lumber, but he eventually limped to Devorast’s side.

The Cormyrean kneeled in the mud next to what Hrothgar thought at first was the twisted remains of a scaffold or some other wooden structure. Though there was no shortage of that all around them, Devorast knelt before a body.

“Phyrea…” Hrothgar whispered. “She dead?”

Devorast shook his head and Hrothgar almost sobbed, but then the girl moved and he gasped instead.

“She’s alive,” the dwarf said, joining Devorast on the ground.

Phyrea lay face up in water and mud. Her left leg was twisted behind her, her hip shattered. Her left arm bent at an abrupt angle that made it appear as though she had two elbows. Blood clouded the standing water. She breathed, but only with obvious difficulty. Exhales came followed by trickles of blood.

“Phyrea,” Devorast whispered. “Why?”

“Come,” said the dwarf. “We need to make a stretcher, and tie her nice and tight to it.”

Devorast glanced at him and nodded, but he didn’t stand or show any sign that he was about to leave the dying girl’s side.

Hrothgar took a deep breath and went to work.