Darkness was around him as he continued on his path through the pass. He had never been here before and it showed. He didn’t expect that it would take three days to move through it but he just started on his fourth. There still wasn’t any sign of skeletons anywhere. A day ago, he had started to think that perhaps there was another hidden way that the skeletons had found to go from their land to the Forest Gruge.

  They had taken over the Artifact Gruge so who was to say that they also didn’t take over the dwarves. Who was to say that with both clans being gone that they didn’t try to combine their powers to create a portal.

  Lehtern was wearing a brown cloak as he traveled into the night. In the forest, it wasn’t really a great option but since it was dark now and the ground barren except from the occasional big rock, it would do well to hide him.

  His eyes were scanning forwards, trying to see if he could find any proof of some lookouts on the skeleton side. Due to his eyes being glued in the distance, he wasn’t looking at how close he was to the wall. He had his hand on the mountain, letting his fingers trace along the edge. Nobody ever managed to climb this mountain but the dwarves which was a bit surprising seeing their height.

  As he continued on his way, his fingers suddenly lost contact with the mountain. He stopped for a second to readjust if needed, trying to get closer, eyes still focused on distant possible movement.

  Once again, his paranoia wasn’t rewarded as nothing happened. As he still didn’t find the mountain again, he would look. He had come across what looked like a very well hidden pathway, a cave going into the mountain. He had seen multiple of these but never really gave it much thought.

  Looking back forwards, he would continue, pulling the cloak tighter around him. A cold wind slowly started to appear, cutting through the pass as it was being guided by the mountains on both sides. The path was on the smallest parts around eleven meters wide, wide enough to march through.

  He looked at the other mountain as he finally started to lose his concentration. How long would it take to march all of the skeletons through here? There were three days needed for him to travel on his own and he was traveling light and alone.

  “Focus, that’s something for later.”

  He shook his head, looking back forwards as finally something seemed to happen. A couple of flickering lights in the distance seemed to be getting closer fast. Seeing this made him stop. He slowly went down to the ground, rolling up in a ball and pulling the cloak tightly around him.

  The sound of hooves echoed through the pass as whoever it was came closer fast. He pulled the hood further over his head as he put his head on the ground, only one eye exposed to look at who it was.

  It took a bit longer than he thought but eventually the group passed him. It was around twenty skeleton centaurs. Seeing their bone structure as they passed was a weird sight, even for him.

  When they continued, he would slowly get back up. Their sounds slowly disappearing in the dark. These were probably scouts. If that was indeed the case then there were two possibilities.

  He should be finding the enemy army sometime soon so either these were scouts that were a couple of days ahead from the army to come back once they met any type of enemy force or they were an evening scout, riding ahead from the army camp to look out for any possible enemies.

  The more he thought about it, the more one answer seemed to make more sense. They only had torches with them and some swords. If they rode ahead, they had no way to camp and skeletons were able to get cold. Nothing would protect them from hyenas when they rested so this was probably an evening scout.

  Just to be sure, he would slowly go back to the cave that he had found. Once he got in it, the darkness quickly surrounded him as he slowly sat down, leaning against the wall. He was going to sit here for a bit, either to see if they came back or if they continued to be gone.

  As he sat down, he couldn’t hold back a yawn. He hadn’t slept a lot the last couple of days, needing to go to sleep late and wake up early just in case that there was anyone nearby. Now that he was out of the light of the moon and the stars and in the darkness, he started to feel his eyes getting heavy.

  Being experienced with the feeling, he would blink quickly, taking in deep breaths. It helped for just a couple of second before he already started to fall asleep again. He wasn’t going to last and he knew it, yawning once more.

  “Screw it.” He lie down, his stomach growling as he was hungry as well. He went underneath his cloak, grabbing a back of dried food and some water. Before he started to eat, he looked at what he had left. He had expected to find something by now so he was running out of both. “Maybe I should try and go back.”

  He sighed as he started to finally eat. Doing this allowed him stay awake for a bit longer, listening to the hooves of the centaurs in case they would come back.

  After having finished his food, he would slowly start falling asleep again. Each time did he try to stay awake, just to get that extra information of them coming back or not? Eventually, nature won. He closed his eyes and doze off, his warm cloak helping him to not wake up when he fell back from his seated position.

  A sound pierced his mind. A falling rock, or perhaps the movement of clothes, something work him up. He opened his eyes, looking at the entrance. There were only two places from where it could come from seeing the tight passage he was in. As he turned around and looked deeper into the darkness, he couldn’t see anything.

  Slowly het got up, squinting his eyes to be able to see in the dark. When that didn’t work, he tried to look to the side, using the trick of seeing movement in the corner of his eyes.

  He indeed did see movement. It was closer than he expected and much more painful. A stinging pain hit him as something wooden and solid his him in the side of the head.

  There wasn’t a sound to be heard except the wood hitting his head before he dropped onto the ground.

  The next time he woke up, he was sitting in a dark room. Light was coming from underneath the door as one the other side something was casting it. Seeing the type of light, it was morning again. Not sure on where he was and how long he was passed out, he would stay quiet.

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  His hands were tied so he couldn’t grab anything. Using the little light that he had, he could see that he was in some kind of food storage room. It was rather small and not enough to feed an entire army. He didn’t think that this was an enemy storage building so maybe it was better to try and find out where he was.

  “Hello!? Is anyone there!?” For good measure, he would kick against the door.

  At first it continued to stay quiet. That was until he yelled for the second time. A voice on the other side yelled back at him. “I can’t let you out mister prisoner! Dad is out in the mines!”

  Even though he still was stuck here, hearing that made him sigh and smile. The small caves he had seen going into the mountain were probably paths created by the dwarves to go in and out. That’s probably also why they were so difficult to find in the first place.

  “Is there anyone else that I can talk to?”

  Once more it seemed to be quiet on the other side of the door. He once more had to ask it a second time before the kid answered once more.

  “No. There’s nobody here except me.”

  “Did your parents leave you alone in the house? How long have they been gone?”

  Every time he asked something to the kid, it took a bit before he answered. That was a bit odd but perhaps the kid was very young and had difficulty understanding everything.

  “I’m alone. They’ve been gone since they brought you in.”

  Lehtern didn’t know how long it was going to take until the parents got back but if he was going to be stuck here for a full day then things might become bad. If the army passed the cave entrance that he was probably pulled deeper in then there was no way he could sneak past to warn Berk.

  “Listen, is there anything I can do to convince you to let me out!”

  “…Are you evil?”

  While the question really only got one answer seeing as nobody sane would admit to being evil, it did show the age of the kid.

  “No I’m not evil.”

  “…Father said that he found you in the cave. Why… Why were you there?”

  “I was hiding from the bad people. The skeletons that had recently driven past.”

  “…Why are you this deep in the passage sir?”

  While the question might seem innocent, he still hadn’t actually seen anyone yet. Not wanting to reveal that he was a spy for the Forest Gruge, he would try something else.

  “I’m just a merchant.”

  “…Then where are your wares?”

  That question kind of stunned Lehtern. For a kid, that was a rather good question also because something wasn’t right.

  “Previously you had said to me that your father told you that he found me in the cave entrance. How do you know that I didn’t have anything with me?”

  It got quiet on the other side as child wasn’t saying anything anymore. Lehtern waited for a bit before trying once more. “Are you there?”

  The door flew open and before he knew what was happening, he felt something heavy hit him in the ribs. The light blinded him as he stumbled back, feeling one of the boxes hit him against his back legs. He fell down onto them, the wood creaking underneath him as a hand was suddenly wrapped around his throat and started to squeeze.

  A now much deeper and rougher voice could be heard while he was still trying to get used to the new light, yelling into his ear. “What’s your business here you elvish scum or I swear that I’ll kill you right now!”

  Lehtern started to trash around but with his hands tied behind his back, that was a bit difficult. His legs kicking as he lowered his chin to try and get away as a reaction. That obviously didn’t work, feeling the hand get even more pressure on him before finally letting go.

  He gasped for air, couching as he finally could see again. He saw a dwarf standing over him, hand still on his throat. The dwarf had a big beard, most of his face hidden due to a metal helmet used for mining and the beard. “Talk now before I choke you!”

  “Wait! Wait! I’m just a merchant! I swear!”

  The dwarf immediately grabbed his throat once more, choking him hard. Lehtern once more started to trash around, trying to get free. This time the choking didn’t seem to end as he tried desperately to get out of there.

  Eventually, the dwarf lifted him up by his throat before tossing him through the room into the living room. Not being able to use his hands to save himself, he hit his head onto the ground.

  While he was still busy groaning and trying to gather his bearings, he felt a food getting put onto his head before the pressure followed. “Talk pointy ears!”

  Seeing as he couldn’t betray why he was actually here or that the dwarf was never going to believe him, he stayed quiet, groaning softly.

  “Okay that’s it. Gibom son, get me my pickaxe. I’m going to start cutting off some limbs to see if that works.”

  Every person has that breaking point when it comes to torture. Hearing that sentence was the breaking point of Lehtern, starting to beg. “No… No please… Don’t… I’ll talk, just… don’t.”

  The foot was taken of his head as it instead went underneath his shoulder, being rolled over by it as he was now face up. He saw the dwarf grab a dagger before kneeling down, holding it up against his throat.

  “Will you now? Well, if I don’t believe you, you’ll lose some ear, maybe I’ll make it nice and round like how ears are supposed to look.”

  Lehtern needed to take a second, to take some deep breaths. That didn’t sit well with the dwarf, needing Lehtern to stay scared so he was more prone to speak the truth. He slammed the dagger deep into the wood, right next to Lehtern’s head, taking a bit of ear with him, causing him to start to bleed a bit.

  “Aah fucker! I’m a spy from the Forest Gruge! I came to see the skeleton progression! Damn it!” He moved his head away from the dagger as he was panting, breathing fast as he looked up at the dwarf. “I’m a spy…”

  The dwarf sighed as he grabbed the dagger and smiled at him, pulling it out of the wooden planks. “See? That wasn’t so hard was it?”

  He got off him, grinning and tossing his blade in the air, flipping it and catching it without any problems.

  Even though the dwarf was satisfied, Lehtern obviously was not, closing his eyes and talking to himself. “Oh fuck… You weak bitch…”

  “Hmmm? What was that?” The dwarf turned around, looking at him with a big grin.”

  “Nothing.” He let his head lie down on the ground, huffing with his heart still beating fast in his chest.

  Now that his life wasn’t being threatened, he would look around the room. Now he could see a young dwarven kid who had been watching with great pleasure and a woman whose face he couldn’t read. She seemed stern and disappointed or something, her eyes focused on Lehtern.

  “I’m not here to spy on you people. I swear that I just… I need to know how far the skeletons have progressed.”

  The dwarf turned around to face him again, looking at the stand of the sun. “Hmm… in about an hour, they’ll be passing the entrance you took to our home.” He came closer, once more having his dagger in his hands.

  Lehtern tried to move away from him but he was too slow and he couldn’t really go anywhere. He was grabbed and pulled up to sit as his hands were freed.

  Not much later, the woman would come closer, handing him a couple of small rags for his ear.

  A bit confused on why the dwarf would let a spy go, he would put the rags on his ear before standing up and asking. “Why’d you let me go? I’m a spy.”

  “Yeah well, we don’t like the skeletons going to war. And ever since they went through our territory… Let’s just say helping their enemies seems like something I won’t say no to.”

  Hearing this gave Lehtern some hope, having a smile on his face as he didn’t really move from his original spot seeing how he was almost killed. “Does that mean that the dwarves will help in the war?”

  To his disappointment, the dwarf would shake his head, sitting down at the table where his wife poured some red liquid in his mug. “No, we will not.”

  That upset Lehtern a bit, walking to the man and leaning on the table with one hand as he used the other to put the rags on his ear. “Why not? We can really use your help to thin them out. You guys have the height advantage, the knowledge of the mountains. You have home advantage.”

  To that, the dwarf seemed to get sad, taking a long swig from his drink. “The government has decided that we aren’t in the position to fight anyone and letting you all die means that it’ll take a while longer before the skeletons try to take us over.”

  That didn’t sit right with Lehtern, shaking his head as he then flinched in pain due to the cut in his ear. “Last time we talked to you, it was revealed that your population was bigger than ours. Seeing the defensive capabilities of your land, there’s a big chance that they can’t do anything.”

  To that, the dwarf seemed to think a bit, taking another sip. After a couple of seconds, he seemed to have come to a decision.

  “Government lies… that’s all that you guys have from us.”