Page 55 of The Dungeon Book

In the last day of the Elder Empire there was war between the sorcerer-kings, and many terrible things were done. A dreadful word was spoken, and the city atop the mountain was no more. Earthquake swallowed it, and darkness took it forevermore. Now nine out of every ten in the city perished, or even ninety-nine out of every hundred, but there were a few who survived that first cataclysm.

One of those survivors was an apprentice mage. He awoke amid the dust and ruin and dark, and found he was all alone. His master was dead, and he feared he would die, too. He fumbled among the fallen stones until he found his master’s book and a stub of candle. He lit the candle, and by its failing light he read the book of magic, searching for a spell that might save him. He found none at first – but there were pages in that book closed with a wax seal marked with the Forbidding Rune.

He broke the seal. Haltingly he read a spell far beyond his wisdom, if not his talent.

Voices spoke to him from the deep, saying: we will show you a way to live down here. We will make you a creature of the underland, and you will never die – if you serve us.

The unwise apprentice agreed.

The candle guttered out. He found he could see in the dark.

There was nothing to eat. He found he no longer needed food.

He was alone. He sought out the other few who’d survived the fall of the city – and they found him ghastly.

They drove him away. Down he went, down and down, into unknown levels. The spell continued to warp him, as the voices had promised. We will show you a way to live down here, no matter how deep he went, no matter how perilous the way became. There are caves where the air is foul, caves infested with toxic mushrooms or venomous insects, caves where the stones burn. The ghast became all those things, and yet lived.

In time he found —

*

—But I was interrupted before I got to the really gruesome part. The Dungeon shook. Plaster flaked from the walls, dust and spikers rained from the ceiling. Thunder boomed in the deep, and the dragon’s roar echoed through the corridors. It was a roar of triumph, but ragged with pain.

Something had hurt him. Only-Sister tensed as if ready to spring.

“MORTAL CHILD?” Nithscalpa’s voice rumbled from somewhere close below. The Chasm Hall, by the sounds of it. “MORTAL CHILD, I’VE TAKEN YOUR NAME. I’VE TAKEN YOUR NAME AND GIVEN IT TO ANOTHER.” A horrible slithering chuckle. “COME AND SEE.”

We ran to the Chasm Hall, the three of us. The limping manticore, the limbless skull and the mortal girl who outdistanced us both.

The Chasm Hall lay in ruins. The walls cracked, the ceiling shattered, the giant crevasse in the ground . . . well, it was still a giant crevasse, but it was drenched with steaming blood. The dragon had bled there.

A broken axe lay in the middle of the hall, its blade shattered and half-melted.

Next to it was a single silver coin.

Bait.

Soon after, Bait left the Dungeon.

She did not take me with her.

CHAPTER NINE

Sir Rudyard’s autumn began badly, and got worse.

Indeed, the highest point of the season, the absolute apex of accomplishment and satisfaction, had been the discovery that the new cook knew how to poach an egg. Mistress Clove’s only experience of poaching was the sort you hang thieves for; there was nothing she liked better than sitting at the foot of a gallows giving mordant commentary. And Sir Rudyard hadn’t even got to enjoy the egg; his breakfast had been interrupted by the return of the dragon.

A dragon! The thought was . . . well, by definition it was not unthinkable, but neither was it easily thought. Encompassing it in his mind required serious mental effort, stretching the sinews of his brain around all its terrible implications.

He rode out to survey the afflicted region. As he rode, he ruminated. In the old days, Dunshelm Keep marked the very edge of the frontier and there was nothing beyond but the wild, and they leave the edge of the map blank and ignore it. But now the kingdom had pushed beyond its old borders, and there were people living outside the protection of the keep . . . not that the keep could have offered much protection. Wood-witches and goblins – he had been instructed on how to deal with such things. You ordered scouts and hunters to search the woods, you stationed sentries in the villages, you lit torches to drive away the dark. For such perils, there was a plan.

But a dragon? No scout or hunter knew the way to the dragon’s lair. Sentries in the village couldn’t drive a flying dragon away. And lighting fires was definitely not helpful.

Sir Rudyard rode past scorched fields, cottages blasted to skeletal ash, whole herds destroyed. Like a fox in a henhouse, Nithscalpa had been indiscriminate in his slaughter. Once he’d eaten his fill, he’d kept killing for the hot joy of it, for the perfumed smoke and sizzle of roasting flesh. Terror was his delight, and the dragon’s autumn had begun very well indeed. Sir Rudyard’s got worse with ever step.

The surviving peasants approached Sir Rudyard, and in hollow voices asked what was to be done. He’d looked out over the smouldering fields, over the fire-blasted carcasses of precious milk cows, over the incinerated hopes of all those people, and the only answer that sprang to mind was “. . . roast beef sandwiches?”

In his defence, first, he had missed breakfast, and, second, he had sense enough to know that it was a thought that should remain unvoiced. He muttered platitudes about courage and resilience and the necessity of avoiding undue emotion. Weeping would not bring the fields back to life; wailing would not stir fire-blackened bones. What was needed now was discipline and order. He commanded that the castle’s storehouses be opened, that the grain and cheese and salted beef be distributed to those who would otherwise go hungry.