Page 10 of The Dungeon Book

Obviously I have no way of knowing what it was like that night. Bait barely remembers it; it was like a dream to her. Crunchbone bore forward with ferocious speed. They passed through a crowd of strange things, so still that Bait could not tell if they were living creatures, or pillars holding up a distant grey ceiling. Bony tendrils whipped at her face, flakes of dried hide crunched underfoot and everything was such a dizzying distance away she closed her eyes tightly and hung on to the troll’s rank hair with all her might, and giggled with joy and fear.

On they ran, down the slope, until out of the night came the cry of a beast, and it terrified Bait to her very bones, for she could not understand it.

This beast did not speak the Dungeon Tongue.

Moo, it said.

In the valley far below was a castle – Dunshelm Keep, of which I shall say much more later. Most of the human settlements in this valley clustered around the keep like thatched limpets clinging to a craggy rock, but there were a few farmsteads in the foothills. Herdsmen, foresters, that sort of thing. Honestly, I have no idea what rustics actually do all day, except complain about bunions and sore backs. Fields weren’t my field.

Anyway, it was the task of soldiers from the castle to keep watch on the border, and ensure that nothing slithered down to trouble the surface lands. For many centuries the border watch had been a dumping ground for criminals, troublemakers, idiots and other inconveniences. (For my part, as a former border guard, I wear one title proudly, grudgingly accept a second, am forced by law to bear a third, and – in retrospect – must acknowledge the fourth.) The trolls had easily been able to steal past the sentries and devour an unlucky cow or two. However, since the dragon incident of a few years’ prior, a new and more diligent commander had been appointed to the castle. Now there were more guards between Crunchbone and the cows he hungered for.

The troll’s plan was simple: deploy Bait. Wait for guards to come looking for the wailing child. Slip past guards. Eat cow.

The plan failed on the first step. Bait was not a natural wailer. Even before she came to the Dungeon, she rarely cried, and years roughhousing with goblins and hiding from hagworms had taught her to ignore discomfort. So when Crunchbone dropped her and ran off into the night, she whimpered a little, then fell silent. No one rushed to her aid.

All around her, the lowing of cattle. The unfamiliar night-speech of bird and beast, the creak of branches. Even the breeze unsettled her; she assumed it was the breath of some unseen monster. Bait hid between tree roots, burrowing into the tiniest gap, and there she waited.

In the distance, she could see the lights of a farmstead, but nothing more. Little lights against the dark. She knew it was a human lair, and that fascinated her. She stared at it for a long time, wondering what it might be like. Her mind conjured strange imaginings; if goblins were born of the scrapings of church bells and the accumulated trash of the Dungeon, and kobolds hatched from eggs, where did humans come from? They seemed to crave light and company above all; she imagined them clustered round a fire, making offerings to the flame, huddled against the dark. Vague memories welled up of troll-tall shapes fussing over her, of low voices soothing her in a language she had forgotten, but by then they meant nothing to her.

Silence, for a while. Bait sat there running her fingers over the blue necklace, feeling the sigils carved into the stone, tracing every crack and imperfection.

Then:

Shouts. The flare of torchlight. Roaring. Spears and shields and troll-claws clashing. Alarmed mooing.

Then silence again.

After a while she grew bored and wandered off.

History sometimes turns on a coin flip. Had Bait gone down the hill, towards the settled valley below, she’d probably have been found by humans, and, oh, how different things might have been! None of us would be here – I’d still be lying in the mud, and you’d be . . . well, best not to contemplate it. And if she’d gone back up the slope, then I do not know if she’d ever have found the Entrance Hall. Crunchbone had carried her a long way at speed. She might have wandered for days amid the inhospitable heights, until vultures picked at her bones.

But Clickglee had taught Bait the Rules. And while “stray not from thy level, stay close to thy appointed place” is intended to mean something different, Bait followed the instruction literally. She walked a level path along the flank of the hillside, neither ascending nor descending. She tramped through muddy, new-tilled fields at the edge of civilisation, through underbrush, and this route brought her back into the sheltering eaves of the forest; she must have crossed the Buried River too, but did not follow it up the slope. She plunged deeper into the woods.

The trees grew thicker, branches arching and interweaving until they were like a tunnel overhead, and that comforted her. She clutched her necklace tight.

The air grew chill. Carved stone faces peered from the undergrowth, ruins like broken teeth.

That, too, comforted her. Bait was a strange child.

There are places everyone fears. The farmers of the valley whispered tales of a haunted dell; the goblins of the Arcade whispered of the perils of the Fifth Level and the ruined temple there. Both shivered at the thought of what waited there.

Bait was too young to fear such things. She followed the path through the trees until she came to the Wychwood Door, and beyond, the familiar, welcoming dark of the Dungeon. She ran in, rejoicing at the familiar texture of stone under her feet.

The Entrance Hall was not the only way into the Underhalls.

But it was by far the safest.

For Bait was not alone in the dark.

Bait did not know she was not alone. She heard no footsteps. Nothing breathed in the dark. Nothing spoke.

She walked for a long time, searching for a stairway that might bring her back to her level. The excitement of her unexpected jaunt wore thin; now she felt tired, and cold. The corridors of the Fifth seemed endless. Hunger gnawed at her, until it felt as though her belly ate itself and left an emptiness inside her. She was hollow.

Her feet grew numb. Her toes grew cold as ice, and she did not notice dead moss crunching like frost with each footstep.

Then her fingers. She could no longer feel the stone. She clutched the necklace so tightly its edges dug into her skin, but she felt nothing.

No light. No touch.