They were picking their way down the side of a mountain, Dhamon and Rikali following Maldred and Fetch and trying, save for Riki's mumbled complaints, to be reasonably silent. The footing was quite precarious, with jagged rocks stretching up like crooked fingers everywhere and abundant patches of loose gravel that threatened to send them sliding to the bottom. It was dark, well past midnight. A touch of gray in the east alluded to dawn being only an hour or so away.
"By my breath," Rikali persisted in her hushed voice, "this is idiocy, Mai, worse scheme you've ever come up with. First Dhamon steals all of the treasure kept at a hospital and then makes it clear it's not to be properly split- a "door opener," he calls it. Must be some helluva door. Where's the door, I keep askin'."
"Where are we exactly?" Dhamon repeated, raising his voice.
"Shh!" Maldred and Fetch warned practically in unison.
Dhamon paused, watching the three thread their way down the mountain. It looked like they were heading into a great, black pit of the Abyss at the bottom of the vale. Through the soles of his procured boots, he could feel the summer's heat baking the land. Still, he felt better than he had in quite some time. He'd had no episodes with the scale for the past several days, and his spirits were high- too high to continue to put up with Rikali's grumbling and this mystery. "Tell me exactly where we are, Mai, or I'm not taking another step."
Maldred continued down the mountainside, oblivious to Dhamon's threat. Fetch shrugged and followed the big man. But the half-elf stopped, huffed, and put her slender hands on her hips. She cast her head over her shoulder again, her mass of silvery-white hair fluttering, and she glared up at Dhamon. "We're just south of Thoradin, in the heart of dwarf lands. Satisfied?" Then she started down again, motioning for him to follow.
"I know that much… dear."
"The Vale of Chaos," she added, still talking so softly he had to strain to hear her. "Smack in the middle of the Vale of Chaos."
When Dhamon finally caught up to them, Maldred signaled they'd made it halfway down the mountainside, and he directed them behind a massive boulder.
"Never heard of it," Dhamon muttered. "This Vale of… Chaos?"
"That's ‘cause you never lived around here," Rikali said. "That's ‘cause before your head was always filled with notions of Knights and dragons and honor and such. And with… what was that lady's name… Fiona." She spat at the ground and cut Maldred an evil look. "Gonna all die, we are. Gonna die right here in this damnable Vale of Chaos."
Fetch looked nervous, but kept silent, his small hand clutching a pouch of tobacco.
"Ruled by dwarves, this place is," she continued, her voice even lower. "It don't make sense to seek out dwarves after Ironspike."
Jasper Fireforge, Dhamon thought, meeting her gaze. That was a dwarf Dhamon had considered a friend.
"Pigs, but this place is supposedly patrolled by an army of them stubby, hairy men."
"There are patrols," Maldred finally spoke, his voice low. "But it's not an army. And they can't be everywhere. The valley's too big for that. And the dwarves don't own the land, they just claim it."
Dhamon gave him a look that said, what's the difference?
The big man sighed and glanced around, ran his fingers through his hair and considered his words. "Dhamon, Thoradin is always skirmishing with Blode…"
"The ogres," Rikali cut in.
"… over ownership of this vale. It is a struggle with a long history, made more bloody in recent decades."
"All ‘cause of the Chaos War," the half-elf added.
"The ogres have a legitimate claim, since they roam freely over the rest of these mountains. The vale truly should be theirs."
"Tell that to the dwarves, Mai," Rikali whispered.
"But the ogres don't care to press the issue at the moment. They can't. They must direct their efforts against spawn and draconian and other minions of the black dragon who constantly encroach upon their time-honored territories."
"Why is this valley so damned desirable?" Dhamon asked.
"Wait until the sun comes up, lover," Rikali said. "You'll see, or so the tales say. All of us will see. And then all of us will die."
When they lay down, Rikali snuggled against Dhamon and rested her head against his chest. She told him to wake her at dawn if the dwarves hadn't found them before then. Maldred closed his eyes, too, but Dhamon could tell the big man wasn't sleeping. The knob in his throat was going up and down, his teeth softly clicking together, his fingers tracing intricate patterns in the dirt. Fetch glanced back and forth among the three of them, and occasionally, very nervously, poked his head out from behind the boulder. Dhamon dozed fitfully and briefly, keeping an eye on Mai and Fetch. When, hours later, the sun struck the top of the canyon walls, the kobold was the first to see and gasp in amazement.
