They left only a few guards when they settled down for the night. They were still in more or less civilized territory, and so had little fear of being ambushed by evil creatures. Thomas watched the smallest moon speeding across the sky for a few minutes and thought of what the trog had told him. He'd more or less assumed that the fall of Agglemon had been solely a human tragedy, that the other civilized races had been unaffected and had carried on throughout the human dark age just as normal, but now he knew that they'd been affected as well, although maybe not as badly. There's so much we don't know about each other, he realised. There should be more contact between humans and the other races, so we can grow to understand each other better. These were his last thoughts before falling asleep.

     Early the next morning, they broke camp and prepared to leave. The three young wizards spent a few minutes scanning through their spellbooks, looking for spells that had changed overnight and memorizing the new words. Then Lirenna went with Diana to the grove of trees so they could answer their calls of nature in each other's safe company, while Connery kept a protective watch over them from a distance. While they were gone, Thomas asked Jerry "How long do you think that spell she put on him will last?"

     "Well, he's not too bright," said the tiny nome speculatively. "A few weeks, at least. Long enough to last for the duration of this little adventure, anyway."

     "We hope," said Thomas, frowning unhappily. "You know how unpredictable that particular spell is. What if it wears off early? He's likely to be a little bit annoyed, to say the least." He discovered that the thought of something bad happening to the demi shae caused him more unease than he would have expected, than if it had been Jerry in that situation, for instance. She seemed to bring out the protective side of his nature. It was her beauty, of course, and the slender frame of her body, giving her the appearance of fragile delicacy, as if she might snap at the slightest rough treatment, like a slender reed. Thomas was bright enough to realise he was developing a crush on her, and to know how hopeless such feelings were. The shae folk, even demi shae, almost never became romantically involved with those of other races, something that bolstered popular opinion of them as aloof and contemptuous of others. He would just have to be content with worshipping her from a distance.

     "We'll worry about that when it happens," said Jerry, suspecting nothing of Thomas's secret feelings. "She can always put the same spell on him again, if the worst happens."

     "If she hasn't already used up all her magic that day," said Thomas. "I'm going to be keeping a very close eye on that character, and his two friends." He meant it, he was surprised to find. He, and his single spell, would stand between Lirenna and all three of the ruffians if it should come to that. His own safety was nothing. Hers was everything.

     "Yeah, me too," agreed Jerry. They stopped talking and Thomas breathed a sigh of relief as the women returned, this time without incident, and a few minutes later, just as the yellow sun was showing itself through a gap in the mountains, they saddled up and moved on.

     About midday the road began to climb the sloping side of the valley, and soon a steep drop had opened up beside them, giving them a splendid view out across the wide valley. The trogs strode confidently up to the edge to look out, as did Lirenna, her elfin face bright with delight at the beauty and majesty of the scenery, but Jerry and the humans huddled close to the reassuring bulk of the mountain rising behind them. "This is the road to Dermakarak," said Shale with satisfaction. "It's just a few hours ahead now. We'll make camp a couple of miles from it and move in tomorrow morning."

  
     "What's at the other end of this road?" asked Shaun.

     "It leads to the city of Tal-Zakka, about sixty miles west of here. Not a very large city, as our cities go, but an important trading centre. It's where we sold all the valuables we got from the mine. We were going to dig a tunnel to it. Much safer than moving about on the surface, but the gold ran out too soon. Maybe we'll do it this time."

     They followed the road as it climbed higher up the side of the ridge, eventually reaching the top in a gap between two mountains and descending on the other side into a smaller, narrower valley. They crossed two other ridges that day, each one higher and steeper than the one before, and the mountains grew larger and scarier around them as they went, their upper reaches sheeted with ice that glared blindingly with reflected sunlight.

     At the top of the ridges the air was thin and cold, and they found themselves shivering and gasping for breath. Thomas thought enviously of the time they had cruised effortlessly over mountains similar to these on their flying carpet, and wished they had it now. It was hard to appreciate the beauty of one's surroundings when one had to cross it the hard way. Still, he consoled himself, at least they had a road to follow. He tried to imagine how the trog prospectors had managed it before the road had been carved and could only shake his head in admiration. Some of these mountainslopes were almost sheer, they must have been climbing by their fingernails!

     Finally Shale called a halt, and they made camp in a place where the road widened to form a broad, flat plain approximately a hundred feet long. Fifty feet or so to their right the ground sloped up into a mountain, its snowline a mere hundred yards of so above them, and thirty feet to their left a wide crevasse opened up, the Gods alone knew how deep. A cold wind began to blow, and they hurried to pitch their tents before the yellow sun went down.

     They all crowded inside as a light shower of snow began to fall, whipped up by the wind, except for Shale and three other trogs who scouted ahead to have a look at Dermakarak itself, which now lay just the other side of a low ridge. Thomas and Jerry shivered miserably in their shared tent and clutched their blankets close around themselves in a vain attempt to avoid the freezing draughts that howled in through gaps in the smelly, motheaten fabric. Before long, they heard the hearty snores of others who'd somehow managed to get to sleep, but it was a long time before the wizards managed to follow them. "Remember our first year dorms?" muttered Thomas between chattering teeth.

     "What about them?" came Jerry's muffled voice. Only the top of his head was visible among the blankets.

     "At the time I hated them. Hard, uncomfortable beds, but I'd give anything to be back in one of those awful rooms now. At least they were warm." Jerry chuckled and pulled the blankets tighter around himself.

     When morning came, the wind had died down and the road was covered by six inches of snow. As they prepared to leave, they left the camp as it was, intending to return to it that night. It would be sheerest madness to remain in Dermakarak overnight until it had been thoroughly cleared out, and it might be several days before they could be sure that the last of its unwelcome residents had been removed. The camp was a place of safety to which they could return to rest and recover in relative safety, although even here there was the danger that other mountain creatures might appear and cause trouble. It was even possible that the denizens of Dermakarak would emerge during the night and launch an assault on them. That was a possibility they were prepared for, though, a chance they were prepared to take. Half a dozen trogs would stay in camp to guard it while the rest of them were in Dermakarak, and they would also form an emergency rescue squad in case the worst happened.

     Shale gathered them all together. "We had a look at Dermakarak last night," he said. "The main door is missing, but otherwise it seems to be pretty much as we left it. We didn't go in, of course, as we didn't want to let them know we were coming, but from certain signs we found, we estimate there to be between thirty and forty buglins present, plus a few goblins and maybe a sholog or two. With the element of surprise we should be able to handle them easily. Any questions?"

     Thomas, Shaun and Matthew glanced at each other, each thinking of questions they would have liked to ask, but none of the other mercenaries spoke up and so they kept quiet also, afraid of appearing foolish if they asked something that everyone else already knew. They decided to slip their questions carefully in amongst casual conversations with the trogs during their march to the subterranean town, therefore, so that only the person they were speaking to would discover the appalling depths of their ignorance.

     That done, they prepared to leave. They left their mounts behind, in case the noise they made gave them away, and travelled on foot. The ridge wasn't steep, but the recent snowfall made it slippery and they had to be careful as they made their cautious way up. The other side, however, was bare of snow, and much easier to walk on.

     As they walked, Thomas noticed that one of the trog clerics occasionally took a book out of a pocket. He would search through it for a particular page, look up a reference, and put it away again. Probably a holy book, he thought, but his curiosity led him to peek over his shoulder the next time he did it. To his surprise, he saw that the page was covered with diagrams. Mainly triangles and circles, with extra lines added and with letters and symbols written around them. The cleric noticed Thomas watching in bewilderment, and smiled at him. "The Book of Axioms," he said, as though that explained everything. Thomas nodded in bafflement, and fell back to his usual place in the marching column.

     Finally they arrived, and had their first look at Dermakarak itself. They had to search carefully to find it, but finally Thomas saw a small rectangular opening in the side of the mountain. "If the door was still in place, we’d have had a hard time getting in," said Shale proudly. "They’re as strong as the mountain itself. That's trog architecture for you."

     "So how did the Goblins get in?" asked Shaun.

     "It would have taken them a long time," said Shale. "I suppose they just wore away at it over months or even years. With no-one inside to oppose them they could have taken as long as it took."

     A short distance downslope of the entrance was a large pile of excavated rock left over from when the village had been dug out. It formed a conical pile on which a few scrubby plants grew, and they also noticed a lot of rubbish on it, thrown there by the buglins. They quietly crept down the ridge and approached the entrance.

     The trogs drew their weapons, as did the five human fighters. The four wizards and the three clerics hung near the back of the attacking force, ready to cast their spells over the heads of the fighters. The same thought was in all their heads. This is it, the fighting could start any minute now.