Direchasm by Graeme Lyon

Author:Graeme Lyon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Library
Published: 2020-11-03T09:15:52+00:00

THE RAGE OF

THE MOUNTAIN

Danie Ware

‘’Ere!’ Stabbit jabbed a rigid green finger into Mean-Eye’s fur-clad back. ‘We wuz told by the boss. The pit was s’posed to be at the bottom of the cavern!’

Mean-Eye hissed over his shoulder, baring dirty yellow fangs. ‘Bottom’s all seepin’ wiv amber, it’s runnin’ down the walls. We dig a pit down there, an’ it’s goin’ to fill up. What kinda trap’s that?’

‘The kind we got told to dig!’ Stabbit jabbed him again.

Mean-Eye came to his feet, waving his pickaxe and glaring at his gang-mate. ‘Don’t you poke me.’

Stabbit snarled back, daring him. ‘Or you’ll do wot…?’

The growl of their leader, Rippa, was followed by a hand in each scruff, dragging them apart. The grot boss looked from face to face, his red eyes narrow and dangerous. ‘You two stop that, you ’ear me? They’re comin’. So I want that pit dug good, or you’re goin’ in the next one!’

Grumbling, they went back to work.

Under his breath, Stabbit muttered, ‘May not get ’ere any’ow. Not in these tunnels.’

Rippa kicked him in the backside, and he continued digging without further comment.

Stabbit had a point though, the grot boss figured. In fact, he had two. Not only was the flowing amber of Beastgrave’s innards likely to overflow any carelessly dug trap, but the crazed labyrinthine tunnels of the mountain’s depths did move, knotting about themselves like twisting guts. Rippa was smart, and his brindled snarlfang had the best damn nose in Ghur, but even they got lost sometimes.

And you didn’t get lost. Not if you were clever. Because getting lost was when the mountain gobbled you up. And then, when it spat you back out again…

He shuddered – that was not something he wanted to think about.

Gripping his trusty loppa, he instead cast a careful eye round the low-ceilinged cavern. It was a good choice for an ambush, sloping roughly downwards and rich with the amber’s gleam. That deep orange glow eased round rocks and down gulleys, shining with menace and with the death and the riches that its slow, remorseless flow had swallowed. Above it, the cavern’s walls glittered with sigils, their origins and meanings long lost. Rippa couldn’t read them and he didn’t want to. Strange things happened if you tried, or so they said.

Strange, spiny, angry things.

With teeth.

He looked away. At the cavern’s upper entrance, his snarlfang was standing guard, nose pointed out and down the tunnel. As Rippa looked at him, he shook his head, his ears and jowls flapping.

He was waiting, watching for the incoming adventurers.

And for the weapon they bore.

Stabbit and Mean-Eye were digging the pit, still squabbling, but Rippa ignored them, almost jumping up and down with glee. That loppa! He’d dreamed about it, all shiny-shiny! He longed for it, needed it! With it, he’d carve his way through the denizens of the mountain, hacking them to fleshy gobbets, spilling their steaming, scarlet blood upon the glowing rocks! With it, he’d chop ’em down, one after another, and he’d howl his

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