Chương 18: Chapter 17

At the gates of Erem Gravelbrook Dura"DURA!" The great rumbling roar of her father called out from the grand gates of Erem, making her turn from her anxious fidgeting and towards him. There he tramped, at the head of a mighty stampede of familiar trolls and dwarves, his fuzzy red beard still trimmed short from the forge-accident and his great horns capped in gold. His fine tunic and leathers accompanied by the grand fluffy collar mother had made for him some years prior.

Dura, torn between worry for her friend and relief at seeing her family again, couldn't help but burst into wobbly-faced tears and hold her arms up. Trollguard Thorin held her up and out in a most respectful manner, allowing her to jump from his palm and crash into her father's own immense hands. He wasn't quite as old as the Trollguard, only eight feet tall or so, but he was more than large enough to toss her about like a child.

"PAPA!" she cried out, face wet. She was finding it hard to deal with all these conflicting emotions at the moment. He hefted her into the air, laughing with great relieved bellows before pulling her in to hold her tight against his chest. Her arms, much too small to actually hug, did their best to simply spread out and cover as much of his front as she could, like some kind of daughter-shaped moss clinging to a father-shaped boulder.

"Dura!" her mother cried out with an equally tearful face, her smile wide as she engulfed father in a hug and squeezed her between the two of them, chins tucked closed, hair fuzzled about and voices giggly. Dura took a moment to simply bask in the all-encompassing embrace, before gasping, eyes widening, and slapping her hands urgently on their shoulders. They pulled back somewhat, holding her between their chests with loving eyes and loving rumbles. She wanted to melt there for a bit, but she had responsibility!

"Mallorn is in trouble!" she spoke urgently, head flipping back and forth between the two of them, not really sure who she should be looking at.

"We have to help him!" Papa blinked, loving expression smoothing out under a new responsibility arising and a great uffish raising of his brows. Mama reached up to lay some delicate and comforting fingers on her shoulders as Dura took rapid breaths.

"Mallorn? Little gem, who is that? Where have you been?"

"I was kidnapped by goblins, and brought all the way over to Lullbridge!" Dura started with tears beading up in the corners of her eyes, bringing her hands up to emphasize their goblin-ness, and waving to the side to emphasize the location. Father's eyes narrowed in a serious manner, his pupils all hard and flinty and his nose all scrunched up when he was worried about something.

"And then I was saved by a scary elf, who promised to bring me home, and his name is Mallorn, and he's not scary he's just a huge goof!" She struggled to figure out what to say next, her hands wiggling about furiously, before gesturing towards the road.

"And we were coming up the road, and there were goblins attacking, and he told us to run while he and that Goblinwrangle girl held them back, and we ran on Bastard's horse, and-" She stopped, tears building as she started and stopped her sentences a few times.

"-and the- the- has to-." Eventually just giving up and throwing herself forwards on Papa's chest and wailing to summarize the situation.

"He's a big dumb idiot goof and he's gonna die!" Mama's fingers rubbed against her back in a comforting manner, and she made little comforting hums as Dura tried in vain to put the floodgates back on her emotional outburst.

"Trollguard?" Papa rumbled out, holding her up against his immense chest with one hand.

"She came up on a horse, with a human and a dark elf," Trollguard Thorin rumbled some distance away, almost as large as Grandfather and clad in great clinking chains.

"I sent Trollguard Uthn back with them, to investigate this goblin business. He should be back sooner or later now."

"Hmph," Papa rumbled in an agreeable and understanding fashion.

"I'd ask to remain here, waiting for their return then. If it's not too disruptive to your work."

"By means," the Trollguard rumbled.

"I've no issue with it, Shepard knows I'd be the same with my little ones." Mama pulled back, reaching down to heft up her siblings. Normally, Dura would call them annoying and think about tugging their stupid hair. Currently, she was just too happy to see them again. Her face wobbled again, her heart pounding like an overjoyed drum. She pulled back from her moss impression and tossed herself at brother and sister, who embraced her with equal vigor.

Sister was crying as she squeezed, horns knocking against each other as they embraced. Their heads shook about rapidly, making the horns click together again and again in a delightful, loving embrace. Brother was silent, hugging the both of them tightly.

'Thinking he's too mature for all this!' She headbutted him with a tearful giggle. He grumbled and squeezed her tighter. Dura was starting to get frustrated by all these stupid tears, getting in the way of her happy reunion. She'd be feeling vengeful about this for decades to come.

"They're coming back up the road now, I see," the Trollguard rumbled, making Dura gasp and extract herself. Pushing away the hugs and hands of her siblings and rolling off her father's palms.

"Oomph!" she grunted, hitting the ground before pushing herself up again and running over to the leg of the Trollguard. She tapped her boots nervously on the ground, jittering in place as she looked out towards the road. There in the dim moonlight, she could see the two great lanterns of the returning trollguard moving at a steady pace back towards them. She swallowed nervously as they came further into the great lights of Erem's doors.

That goblinwrangle girl was there, carried in the other Trollguard's crooked arm. The human and the dark elf clung to his shoulders, looking grave and hateful respectively. Her heart started to sink, and her breath caught in her throat. The human locked gazes with her from his perch, and shook his head a sad 'no'.

"He's been taken- by the goblins," the dark elf yell-hissed over the clank-clank of the walking Trollguard.

"You weren't the target, Dura! He was!" She didn't know what her face looked like at the moment, and for the next few minutes of rapid thrashing and yelling, she wasn't sure what she was saying either. It wasn't until Mama picked her up again and squeezed her tight that she realized how tired she was, and how drenched her face was. —"POPS! WAKE UP! YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER'S BACK!" Papa roared as they entered the Gravelbrook under-halls again.

They were built around one of the outer-edges of the mountain near the aquifer layers and decorated in reasonable and robust carvings along the walls and doorways. Their centermost chamber was thirty feet high, and the central fireplace contained hot and barely-smoking coals. Before the central fireplace were the two great chairs of Gravelbrook, immense stone-carved things with angled backs.

From these great and well-cushioned chairs the younger elders of the clan could sit eye-level with the second terrace sub-halls. There, in one of the chairs, slumbered the immense form of Grandfather, leaned back in the massive chair and swaddled in his grandchild-engulfing beard and a great lap-blanket. Papa's shout echoed through the great central chamber, making the immense, sixteen-foot and long-horned form of her grandfather grumble and shift about.

Grandfather raised one great calloused hand to his face, rubbing at his eyes and making rolling uffish noises as they moved to the side of the chamber to ascend the stone stairs to the second story and over to the kitchen-dining subhall, set directly above the fireplace. Well, Papa, Mama, and the others were walking up the stairs. Dura was too sluggish and drained to do much except lay back and listen to Papa's steady thump-thump heartbeat.

Aunts, Uncles, and all manners of cousins and nieces and nephews poked curious heads out of the subhalls, seeing her return and quietly shuffling out to greet her in properly reserved fashion. A small army of family that she had no energy to greet with at the moment, so instead she groaned. Papa understood at once, raising a hand and silently waving off extended family on their way towards the smoke-hall.

"So I see," Grandfather grumbled, voice like thunder even as a whisper, squinting through the dim lamplight of their homehall at them.

"I see also… An elf, a drake, and a man, in my ancestor's halls." He leaned forwards in his immense seat, angling his eyes to more easily see them as they walked along the edges of the chamber and finally made it to the dining hall. Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators! All the public subhalls were open to the central hall, to allow the younger elders to more easily converse with the older young ones.

The older elders were too big even for this, and lived in the grandhalls in the center of the mountain.

"They helped her return to us, with the aid of another," Papa explained gruffly, holding ground against Grandfather's squinting and grumbling.

"They've earned hospitality enough for that."

"Hrm," Grandfather rumbled and huffed, reaching up with an arm and tapping it on the dining-floor. Thoom-thoom.

"Well then, speak up! I'll know the names of the shathur in the halls of my grandfather!"

"The Uznarag is unconscious from injury- goblins," Papa grumbled, laying her out on the floor and allowing some of her aunts to shuffle forwards and inspect Drana.

"Goblinwrangle Drana," Dura called out, tired but forcing herself up off papa's chest to address grandfather.

"S-she helped me."

"Hmp. I know of that one," Grandfather grumbled with a slight but immense shake of his head.

"Some business about a zirac." Sword, her mind translated.

"And the other two?"

"Lucia. I'm not an elf though, I'm a dark elf," she still sounded quite irritated, but not enough to interrupt her manners. Grandfather huffed in a dismissive fashion.

"All that means is that you have brown skin, elf." They all paused at that, stopping short. Lucia clenched her hands into fists and glared down at the floor, Rayne grimaced. Dura let out a little whine.

"Mallorn said the same thing…"

"There was another, an elf, who saved Dura from the goblins that had captured her. He had escorted her diligently for some weeks of travel, before being kidnapped himself by goblins on the road to Duram-Mandom," Papa grumbled, rubbing her back with one great and gentle hand.

"I need not say that Clan Gravelbrook owes him service and a rescue in turn." Grandfather let out a long and low rumble at that, eyes closed and considering.

"There's another, small matter, I should remind," Rayne spoke up with a grimace.

"It's a great tragedy that Mallorn has been captured, but we've still three-hundred goblins marching en-route to Duram-Mandom." There were a long few moments of silence. Papa turned to look at the human, expression flat and stonelike. A great many aunts and uncles around the sides of the great-hall sucked in breaths and let low considering grumbles out. Lucia blinked, ears twitching.

"... Oh yeah," Dura muttered quietly, reaching up to rub her eyes.

"I forgot." Grandfather's attention was thoroughly captured at that point, leaning forwards and careful to not have his immense rack of horns crash into anything along the way.

"... Your name," he demanded quietly, eyes peeking out through immense bushy eyebrows and nose letting out little breaths that still stoked the coals at his feet.

"Rayne, greatsir." He nodded his head low.

"And while I'd certainly like to run off on a wild chase to get my friend back, I feel like my friends have forgotten a good part of why we're here. There's a band of goblins, at least three-hundred with gonnes, traveling up the road from Bandar and towards Duram-Mandom as we speak. Not sure who to warn about that- but anyone is probably the right choice."

"Gh-" Lucia growled.

"We can warn whoever and they can handle it just fine, as you just did. And while they handle it, we can search for Mallorn."

"Dark elf, you're not got half the nose that he did!" The man gestured at her and refuted.

"I'd certainly like to go help, but what are we going to do? Knock on the doors of every goblin-house in Duram-Mandom and ask if he's there? We've no way to track him down!"

"Yeah we do," Dura mumbled with furrowed eyebrows. Lucia stopped short, turning to look at her. Rayne seemed equally taken aback.

"... We do?" he asked.

"Yeah- you have that magic compass." She pointed at his bag. He blinked, having seemingly forgotten all about that.

"I- I do, don't I? It might still work…" he mumbled, reaching into his bag and shuffling around before withdrawing the little wooden and brass compass. He raised it, hesitantly at first, up for everyone to side, twisting his hand around to show the needle's diligence in pointing off at some random direction. He lowered the compass again, staring at it with furrowed brows.

"It still works…" he mumbled, sounding uncertain about how to feel about it.

"So we can find him!" Lucia shot forwards, poking the human firmly in the chest and making him stagger back with a brief cry.

"So we're GOING to find him!"

"And Gravelbrook will aid you," Grandfather rumbled, a declaration that rolled through the halls and silenced any potential opposition.

"That compass- it points north-east from here. The variance of your wiggling-it about was miniscule, I'd say a good hundred or two miles." Papa seemed to realize something before the rest of them did, sucking in a little breath as grandfather leaned forwards and raised his brows to stare at them more effectively.

"That's in Monster Country," he declared with a grave and stony tone.

"Goblins wouldn't take him that far, only something worse." He leaned back after a tense moment.

"We'll ready supplies for a war-expedition, and tell the Mountainguard about that goblin-business. They can handle that well enough. For the moment…" Grandfather reached forwards, delicately plucking her from Papa's arms and carrying her over, leaning back as he did so. Eventually he settled fully back in the great chair, dropped her on his immense beard, and shuffled in an uffish fashion.

"You interrupted my nap, granddaughter, you'll help me get back to it by sleeping safe and sound there for the rest of the night," he grumbled warmly. Dura, almost entirely engulfed in the warm and fuzzy beard and entirely too drained from the stress of the day, was already asleep. — Outside of Duram-Mandom Trollguard Uthn They had them set up along the road, with a few tipped-over barricades and wagons of gravel on hand to toss.

Goblins coming up along the road, three hundred of them or so according to the trusted words of a Gravelbrook Elder. Three hundred more goblins was not something that anyone needed at the moment, and the ruckus they would cause if they were here for a battle was not something anyone needed. Goblins were weak though, weak and fragile little things, a few handfuls of gravel thrown by good strong trolls and most of them would be dead.

The way Uthn figured, all six of them would throw a handful of pebbles twice and go stomp on the stragglers that remained. So there on the road they alternated between standing watches with greatshields and sitting down to sip their wineskins and throw dice. Much to his displeasure, his luck was poor today.

"Grmh," he grumbled, tossing another coin over to Galin, who rumbled with laughter.

"At this rate, I'll have enough coin to show up in Gabil Uznbad's records," Galin huffed, catching the heavy gold coin and letting it fall into his little lockbox.

"You'll need more than a Mountainguard's pay for the Shepard to notice you, Galin," Norman chuckled, his scalemail clinking and his lanterns wiggling with his amusement.

"It's certainly a start, I figure, with how much I'm taking from Uthn," Galin chuckled back.

"Shut it and bid, I can see the scales on your face," Uthn grumbled, sliding another coin forwards on the table. Galin chuckled and did the same, before taking up their dice and readying a roll.

"Stand at attention, Trollguard," Thorin grumbled at them from the otherside of the barricade.

"Something this way comes."

"Horns polished, good captain," Galin grunted, setting the dice down and pushing up from the stone bench, raising a hand up to raise his chain-veil and grabbing his trollaxe as he rose. Uthn glared at the dice suspiciously as he rose, reaching up to raise his own chain veil and placing a hand over the edge of the barricade. He squinted out through the bright sun, at the little-folk approaching at a steady jog towards their position.

"Are little-folk ought to having that many legs?" he grumbled a question, raising a brow beneath his visor.

"Nay. The glint of the armor on the other one. Mithril, I'd say," Galin grumbled, voice slightly muffled by the chain.

"Quiet now," Thorin grumbled from the front, hand resting on his trollhammer.

"HAIL!" he boomed out with a raised hand. The two little-folk caught sight of this, one raising her hand in greeting and calling back." HAIL!" Thorin gruffed, leaning back a tad and waiting for them to approach. The two little-folk were a queer couple, an elf in mithril accompanied by some half-spider. A servant, perhaps, from how laden she was with baggage. There was a bug that flew around the elf's ears and head, a little firefly or something by the faintest glow.

"Name and purpose, little-folk?" Thorin grumbled down in an official manner.

"Dame Titania, Teg, Dordi. Following the trail of my missing apprentice, Rasil Greenwood, son of the Lady Greenwood," she nodded in an official manner.

"I've no quarrel with any mountainfolk, at the moment." Thorin grumbled in an equally official manner.

"We've not heard of any missing Rasil of Greenwood, but we've no cause to delay you further. A moment though- We're stationed to watch for a warband of goblins, three hundred or so strong coming up along this road. Have you any news of them?" The elf considered that for a moment, before nodding.

"Two-hundred and ninety-eight," she declared.

"Not three-hundred." She made a half-turn before pointing down along the road.

"Two and a half leagues down the road, you'll find their remains. I apologize for any damages to the fields and road I left." With that, she kept walking along the road, face impassive and gait hurried. After a few moments, Galin grumbled.

"Uthn, I'll give you back everything you lost to me today if you bear the burden of walking that far." Uthn considered that for a moment, before groaning and grumbling and setting out.

"I'll be back in an hour or two, mayhaps," he declared, waving a hand behind him as he started out. Two and a half leagues… Inconsiderate elf.