The Elder Gods (The Dreamers 1)

“Now!” Longbow said sharply as the shuddering of the earth beneath their feet subsided. “Run before it starts again.”

With Hook-Beak in the lead they splashed through the shallow stream to the other side of the river, even as Commander Narasan and Red-Beard scrambled up the riverbank toward the south bench.

“Rabbit!” Sorgan said sharply when they reached the north riverbank. “Scamper up to the bench just as fast as you can and tell all those men who were following Ox to get up to the rim of the ravine before the sides collapse and bury them alive!”

“Aye, Cap’n,” Rabbit replied, already running.

Hook-Beak, Keselo, and Longbow had just reached the north bench when the ground began to shudder violently again.

Longbow looked up the slope. “This way!” he told Hook-Beak and Keselo, already running toward a large boulder jutting up out of the center of the bench.

Rocks were rolling and bouncing down the north side of the ravine to spill across the bench in a thunderous landslide. The three men huddled behind their protective boulder, listening to the sharp crashing sound of large rocks slamming into the other side of their shelter.

“What were Veltan and Red-Beard talking about, Longbow?” Hook-Beak demanded. “What’s a fire mountain?”

“It’s a mountain that spews out melted rock,” Longbow explained. “I’ve seen a couple of them up in the lands of Old-Bear’s tribe.”

“Rocks don’t melt, Longbow,” Sorgan scoffed.

“They will if the fire under them’s hot enough,” Longbow disagreed, “and melted rock will run downhill just like melted ice will.”

The trek up to the rim of the ravine involved a series of short dashes from one slightly protected spot to another, with short pauses during the recurring earthquakes to permit the accompanying landslides to rush past.

Keselo was winded by the time they reached the rim, and he paused to catch his breath.

“Great gods!” Sorgan gasped, staring toward the east in stunned disbelief.

Keselo turned and saw dark smoke boiling up out of the twin mountains that formed the gap. Then there came another earthshaking explosion, and sheets of flame came spewing out of the two peaks in twin geysers of liquid fire, reaching up and up toward the sky and spattering the sides of nearby peaks with globs of molten rock.

“Run!” Sorgan bellowed to his men. “Get back away from the edge!”

The Maags were all gaping at the explosion at the head of the ravine.

“I said run!” Sorgan roared. “Run or die!”

Keselo leaned out over the edge to look briefly at the ancient ruin just below. A fountain of fire came spurting out of the hidden cave mouth, and it blasted the walls and towers far out over the river. The molten rock poured down the steep slope, and a vast cloud of steam boiled up into the air when the liquid rock reached the brook.

Keselo bolted, running as hard as he could toward the nearby mountains.

The twin eruptions continued for the rest of the day and on through the night. Hook-Beak’s forces gradually gathered together on the steep north slope of a nearby mountain, quite obviously in the hope that the mountain might shield them from the molten rock still spewing out of the twin mountains at the head of the ravine. Along toward morning, Ox, who’d been out gathering the straying Maags who’d survived the encounter with the snake-men and the sudden violent eruption, came wearily up the slope. “This was about as many as I could find, Cap’n,” he reported. “I’m pretty sure there’s more of them, but they’re probably way back in the mountains by now.”

“Did you come across any of the snake-men?” Sorgan demanded.

“Not so much as a single one, Cap’n,” Ox replied. “Since they ain’t none too smart in the first place, I’d say they probably tried to hide out in them nice safe caves and tunnels and burrows, and those are the last places anybody with any brains wants to be along about now. I’d say that the war’s over, Cap’n. All our enemies just got theirselves tossed into the cooking pot.” He frowned slightly. “I really hate to see all that fresh-cooked meat go to waste, but I don’t think I’d care much for fried snake.”

“I could probably get along without it myself,” Sorgan agreed with a grin. “Look on the bright side, though, Ox. As hot as rock has to be to start melting, all those dead snakes are probably way overcooked.”

“There is that, I suppose,” Ox conceded.

Longbow was standing off to one side, and he motioned to Keselo and Rabbit and led them some distance away from Sorgan and Ox. “Zelana wants to speak with us,” he told them quietly.

“It’s quite a long way back to Lattash,” Rabbit protested.

“She came up here,” Longbow explained. “She’s waiting back in the forest just a little ways.”

“How did she get word to you?” Keselo asked. “You’ve been right out in plain sight ever since we came up out of the ravine, and I didn’t see a sign of her.”

“Longbow and Lady Zelana can talk to each other without anybody else hearing them,” Rabbit explained. “A lot of that was going on in the harbor at Kweta when Longbow and I killed off some Maags who were trying to steal the cap’n’s gold blocks. That was a wild night, let me tell you.” Then Rabbit looked sharply at Longbow. “How far down the mountains will that melted rock go?” he demanded.

“Probably all the way down to Mother Sea. Why?”

“Won’t that destroy Lattash?”

“Probably, yes. I think Chief White-Braid’s tribe might have to find someplace else to live.”

“Probably so, but Lady Zelana has her gold stacked up in that cave just outside of town, and if this liquid rock happens to run into her cave, the gold will melt and get all mixed up with the rock, and the cap’n won’t get paid, will he?”

“Quit worrying so much, Rabbit,” Longbow said. “Zelana’s probably already moved her gold,” He looked around. “She’s right over there in that clump of trees. Let’s go see what she has to say.”

Zelana and Eleria sat side by side on a moss-covered log in the center of a clearing in the middle of the grove. “Is everybody all right?” Zelana asked as Keselo and Rabbit followed Longbow into the clearing.

“As far as we know, they are,” Longbow replied. “Did your younger brother happen to remember to warn Sorgan’s cousin Skell? Sorgan’s been worrying about that since yesterday.”