"Come on you lazy maggots, let's see if this tunnel holds any secrets. When the wood huggers finely find something, we will already be drinking mead!"

The dwarves just smiled at their king, it had been a long time since any dwarf had the fortune of being under his command. They had missed him, that swearing dwarf in full adamantine plate mail gave them pride and hope. The council was not too bad, but greedy old men they were. Even if the king had given them the power to rule, he could take it back. Which kept them somewhat in check.

They had made their way down the tunnel and were about one mile from the third gate. If the maps they had were true, then they should soon arrive where the tunnel opens up into a relatively big area.

"Boys keep your wits about you, it will soon open up,"

Thorgrim and two more dwarfs made the front with shields, second row were also three dwarfs but they had crossbows and the two in the rear had greataxe.

They advanced slowly checking everything, if the darkelvs were in command of the attack, which seemed likely. Then there would probably be some kind of ambush or trap soon, they were after all famous for it. The cavern was dotted with columns, and they searched around every one. It was really slow going, after half an hour and no ambush where they finally finished with the cavern. They had entered from the west, and there were two tunnels to choose from. They could go east or southeast.

" Hunor you are the best tracker we have, take Yubrus with you and try to find where the orcs came from. The rest take five, we will be moving soon."

They sat down and waited, it was taxing moving around in heavy armor and being on edge. While they waited some of the dwarfs drank some water or chewed on some dried jerky. Hunor and Yubrus were back soon however.

"Thorgrim, they came from the eastern tunnel."

"Then that's where we need to go."

He turned to the small band of dwarfs.

"The break is over, let's move."

They took the tunnel heading east, when they had walked down the tunnel about half a mile, they started to hear some sounds. It was too low to make out what it was but it clearly came from up ahead, as they kept moving forward the sound became clearer, someone was constructing something.

When they were almost at the end of the tunnel Hunor held up a fist to stop. He pointed at the floor in front of them, it took the rest of them a moment before they also saw the tripwire. He slowly made his way forward checking where the wire led, he found that it was connected to a wand carefully hidden in the wall on the left side of the tunnel. If they touch the wire the wand would activate the spell it contained.

"Just step over the wire."

"You can't disarm it?"

"Sorry I can't, don't know anything about magic."

"Okay, mark this place, so we don't trigger it if we need to come back."

Hunor made a big mark in the wall opposite the wand. They moved forward and soon they had covered the last distance of the tunnel. The chamber that opened up before them was enormous. It was easley a mile to the other side, A stream crossed the chamber and divided it in two parts, they had entered the smaller western part. The tunnel exit was maybe 12ft up on the chamber wall, so they had a good overview of the cavern floor. The stream became a small lake in the southern part of the chamber. And on the eastern side close to the lake, construction of a small community was under way. The dwarves were surprised, this was not something they had anticipated. There were a lot of elves working and from what they could see there must have been at least three hundred dark elves. But they could not see any of the usual slaves. But the news was still dire, every dark elf was a combatant of some sort, a need because of the environment and the cruel society the dark elves lived in.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Aldrin is not going to like this"

-Elric-

Rychell had not said anything about the dragon when I joined him. He just gave my backpack a look of disgust, and asked if I was ready to go. I nodded and he took the lead. We had moved through the forest for about an hour, when we met my uncle.

"Elric, there you are."

He shouted as he ran over and embraced me.

The look of relief evident on his face.

"You sure gave me a scare boy, we found Wyninn's body outside the walls of the garrison. I thought the dark elves had taken you. "

"What, but he…"

I didn't know what to say, choked by the news. My mind raced through the memory's I had with ranger over the month. Tears started to form and it took me sometime before I was able to speak.

"He was going to warn you about hobgoblins, he helped me hide and…"

I was about to cry and my uncle laid his hand on my shoulder.

" It's okay Elric, you could not have helped him. Hiding you was the right decision."

"But if he had stayed…"

Aldrin nodded in understanding.

"He might have lived, but how could he know that? No one thought we would be attacked from the forest."

He then wrinkled his nose and looked at my backpack.

" But please tell me you are not going to keep, whatever that is."

He gestured with his hand towards it.

" Oh, I forgot, uncle can you please help me."

I took off my backpack and placed it on the ground, Before opening it. Showing Aldrin the egg.

"I got this from emy, well her real name is Ermidairth and I saved her. She is a…"

"Slow down Elric! And take it from the beginning."

So we sat down and I told him what happened.

I saw shock on his face when I told him about the dragon and he scolded me when I told him about the battle.

" So you have a dragon egg in that smelly bag of yours?"

I nodded, why was he all serious all of a sudden?

"Listen to me Elric and listen closely, what you have in that bag is worth a fortune. Do you know what people would do to get their hands on it?

The dragon was right, only someone like your father or prince Alexander can possess something like that and not invite trouble. And Alex can only have it through his position as prince."

"But she will come and take it back, emy told me she would."

Aldrin closed his eyes and gave a sigh.

"That's where she probably lied to you, dragons don't look at their offsprings like we do. They protect their eggs and would rather destroy them, then let them fall into the hands of someone they don't approve of. But when the egg hatches they only take care of the wyrmling for a couple of years, then they are on their own."

" But why didn't she destroy it?"

"She approves of you and knows that Thorgrim will protect you and the egg if you have it. So why destroy it. The wyrmling will now be born and not become a slave to some mad wizard. But we will speak more of this later, for now it's best if I teleport you home."

I was about to protest, but the look he gave me kept my mouth shut.

-Aldrin-

"Thanks for finding him."

Rychell was waiting for him when he returned, the man sure had patience. It had taken some time explaining to Helga what had happened and that they now might need to raise a dragon in the future. Aldrin really believed that the dragon had left the egg to Elric and would not return to claim it.

"Did you see it?"

"Yeah I did, it was a young adult. It was wounded, and the clearing spoke of battle."

"Well don't spread what you saw, it will only create trubbel for the boy."

"Of course, but what should we tell your parents?"

That was a good question, his parents were a part of the elven dukes court. And would probably have to report it if they knew.

"I will report it to them in a few years. Now what about the dark elves, have you found anything? "

Lucky it was Rychell who had found the boy, and he was part of Aldrin's house. Having been in their service for as long as Aldrin could remember. When his parents had asked Rychell to follow Aldrin on his first mission the elf had agreed right away.

"We found tracks of the hobgoblins and are following them, we will soon know where they came from."

Just before the end of the day, a ranger reported that they had found where the enemy had come from. The location was on the northern part of the island, no more than 400m from the sea. It was a deep vertical hole, and judging by it's almost perfect cylindrical form with a 10ft diameter, it must have been made with magic. Too bad they had not missed the island and dug straight up into the ocean, Aldrin thought. Not far from the new entrance to the maze were also the evidence of a campsite.

"So how deep is it?"

" We don't know yet, but it's more than 30ft I checked with my rope."

The ranger that had found the entrance answered him.

"Okay, find out how deep that hole is. We will leave half the rangers here as guards with Rychell in command. The rest of you will follow me back to the garrison, I will teleport us. Let's see what Thorgrim has found."

While waiting for the rangers going back with him, he started to consider things. The dark elves had to have planned this for a long time, only the magic to make that hole would be staggering, sure it was a low level spell but the drain on mana was awful. Not to mention levitate a small army out of it.

Soon they were all gathered and Aldrin cast the spell. The garrison had been cleaned up in his absence, but there were still some signs left of the battle. And the human soldiers on the wall seemed to stand a little straighter when they saw he had returned. Thorgrim was waiting for him outside the door leading to Aldrin's quarters.