The Realms Thereunder

5

They made their way back to the big cavern. The journey was uneventful and embarrassing, and bad feelings still hung in the air. Freya only hoped that they could solve the riddle quickly so that they could get on with their journey and put the unpleasantness behind them.

After a time they were able to see the purple glow of Gegan’s lamp through the worming tunnel. They unslung their packs when they came to the mining camp and stood a fair ways off from the static gnome chief and his orbiting clansmen.

“So, what are we looking for, Freya?” Daniel asked. “We’re underneath Britain, wedged between solid rock-it has to be a tunnel.”

“We have plenty of tunnels, but we think that they’re here to distract us. So maybe it’s a tunnel that doesn’t look like a tunnel.”

“A hidden tunnel?”

Freya nodded. “Let’s start looking.”

The two of them, and after a short time the knights also, began hunting around the abandoned campsite. Daniel was searching the rack of lamps again to see if it concealed a hidden doorway, when, taking a step back, his calf bumped against a gnome. Startled, he flinched away and let out a surprised grunt. There were not one but four gnomes standing at his feet. “I nearly trod on you,” Daniel said. “What are you doing here?”

The gnomes just stood, looking up at him. “Freya? Ecgbryt?” he called. They turned to him and bumped into gnomes of their own. Swi?gar almost squashed one completely, except that he shifted his foot at the last instant.

“What do you want?” Freya asked the gnomes. They just stood looking vacantly up at her. “Guys?” she asked nervously. “What’s going on?”

Daniel and the two knights had begun to draw away from the corners they had been hunting in to stand closer together, and the gnomes followed their footsteps.

“Are you trying to help us?” Freya asked her gnomes, bending forward slightly as she slowly edged towards the others. “Are you trying to stop us?” The gnomes said nothing, just kept following.

Freya joined the others, who were trying to gently push the gnomes away with their feet. She looked up to the rest of the Gegan clan and saw that more gnomes were leaving the group and wandering towards them. Except for two.

Two of them were heading towards . . .

The well.

It all clicked into place for her at that moment. The Gegan gnomes’ chief did know where the exit was, and while its main thought was to keep them away, it couldn’t help also thinking about what it was keeping them away from-which was the well, another tunnel hidden, but in plain sight. Freya nudged Daniel and pointed. He looked at it for a moment before his eyes grew wide, and a smile flashed across his face. They silently communicated to the two knights, and they pushed through the growing circle of gnomes and collected their packs. They brushed aside the gnomes that were clinging to them or who had climbed on top of them.

They had just turned towards the well when they heard:

“Where are you going?”

“Where are you going?”

“Stay here.”

“Stay away from there.”

“Get ready, boys.”

They paused instantly, and then Swi?gar said, “Let us be swift, ??elingas-the gnomes are starting to turn.”

“Do they know?”

“They’ve twigged it.”

“But do they know?”

“They’ve figured it out.”

“Get them!”

As one, the gnomes leapt forward, gripping at their legs and climbing upwards.

“Run!” shouted Ecgbryt, booting a gnome halfway across the encampment. Daniel and Freya struggled forward, trying to shake the gnomes off of them. It was hard work, as their little pudgy hands gripped their clothes tenaciously.

“Slow them down!”

“Weigh them down!”

“Stab them!”

“Slit their throats!”

At these alarming cries, one of the gnomes that had swung onto Freya’s sleeve produced a knife from its belt. Its blade was only two inches long, but it looked very, very sharp. Whipping her arm away, she sent it flying, just as she heard Daniel cry out.

He reached down and clawed a gnome off of his shin and threw it away from him. More and more of the gnomes were producing knives. The well bristled with them now; the whole rest of the clan of gnomes was now lining its rim, waiting for them.

Daniel had an idea, though, and glanced across to the gnome chieftain, still atop the rock near his the purple lantern. He was standing, hands clenched at his sides, glaring at them in anger, but there were no gnomes around him, and none between the two of them. Daniel saw his chance and jumped towards the chief, clearing the heads of several gnomes around him.

The gnomes were fast and energetic, but no match for a boy running at top speed. In any case, it was only a dozen steps before Daniel had reached him. During that time, he had shaken the gnomes from him and drawn his sword.

“No!”

“Stop him!”

“Help!”

“Don’t!”

“Please!”

“Mercy!”

Biting down on his lip, Daniel brought his sword down and cleaved through Gegan, the chief gnome. The sword entered the gnome’s shoulder and sunk to his belly. A second later the small, rotund little creature was dead.

The gnomes exploded into a frenzy. The ones that were on either the knights or Freya let go and fell to the ground. The gnomes lining the well ran all different directions, bumping into each other and falling in and off the well itself.

They scattered, screaming and wailing into the darkness. Soon they were gone from sight.

Wincing, and trying not to vomit, Daniel shook the dead body of the gnome off of his sword. It fell to the ground with a plop.

“That was fast thinking, Daniel,” Ecgbryt said. “Well done.”

“You gave me the idea for it,” Daniel said, wiping his sword with a bit of his leather coat and sheathing it again.

“Let’s move on,” Swi?gar said. “Before the Ergan gnomes come back.”