Brynn bent low and picked one up, holding it for the other two to see.
on one side, as if some intense heat had blasted across it ndous force. Likewise, one wall of the room was blackened and with the war engine could have done this?" Juraviel asked.
wurm," came a quiet answer from Cazzira a few moments later, both Turaviel and Brynn looked at her directly, she added, aeon?" Brynn echoed, and she looked to Juraviel, her expression full Turaviel's look dispelled those doubts, for he was nodding in agreement.
"P rhaps they dug too deep," Cazzira remarked. ?Perhaps they uncov-ered that which should have been left undisturbed."
"Do you notice that something is missing?" Juraviel asked, and the other two looked at him curiously.
"Their weapons," he explained. ?Their armor. All of their treasures. The entire city, as far as we have seen, has been picked clean."
"By centuries of pillagers," Cazzira reasoned, and they left it at that and went back to their searching.
By the tunnel opening of the anteroom, Brynn found the next surprise. ?This was no powrie," she said, holding up a longer and narrower fe-mur, charred on one side. Several other larger bones, human bones, they seemed, were about it, some crushed, others just burned.
"Humans and powries did battle in here?" Cazzira asked.
"Why would they leave only one set of human bones, then?" Brynn asked. ?A traitor, perhaps, who betrayed his clan to the dwarves?"
"You assume too much," said Cazzira, but her scolding was cut short by a cry of surprise from Juraviel, who had exited the anteroom to inspect the beginning of the tunnel beyond. He emerged from that shadowy place holding a piece of wood as long as his arm. What is it?" asked Cazzira.
Darkfern," Brynn answered as she inspected the piece, to see the silverel lines encircling it. ?That was part of a bow, a Touel'alfar bow! ?
She turnedt over to reveal a tiny signature near the tapered end.
the mark of Joycenevial, my father," he explained. ?This was the bow ranger - of that ranger," he said, pointing to the human remains. He isidered the piece of the bow and the mark and searched his distant memories.
-mhem Dal," he decided a few moments later. ?Bow your head, Brynn what does it mean?"
1 means that he never made it home," said Cazzira.
"And that his sword, Flamedancer, was lost here," Juraviel added. He looked at Brynn, his golden eyes narrowing with determination. ?Are you ready to find and earn your ranger sword, Brynn Dharielle?"
The woman stared back at him hard, then nodded grimly.
"If the dread wurm has it, then you'll not likely get it back," Cazzira was quick to put in. ?Behold the devastation of the beast." She swung her arm about at the piles of charred and crushed bones as she spoke. ?Behold the fate of the last ranger who stood before the dragon!"
"That was hundreds of years ago," Brynn put in. ?Can the dragon still be alive?"
"We shall see," was all that Belli'mar Juraviel replied, his tone more grave and angrier than Brynn had ever heard it before. Clearly, the sight of the re-mains of Emhem Dal had unsettled him.
Cazzira suggested that they should return to the city to search for more clues, but Juraviel pushed on down the tunnel, his pace strong.
They followed their instincts, they followed the heat they could feel puls-ing beneath their feet, then they followed the smoke, wafting through cracks in the floor on hot updrafts.
After three long marches, with only short rests in between, they came to a huge and broken chamber, with a shattered stone bridge that had once crossed a deep gorge. Far below, they saw the orange glow of fire, the heat radiating up to flush their faces.
"If the dragon remains, it is down there," Juraviel said. ?If Flamedancer remains, it is down there."
"You cannot know that," said Cazzira.
"I feel it," was all the answer she was going to get.
Juraviel stood up straight, peering across the way. ?We can work our way to the entrance of the tunnel."
"Or we can go down there," said Brynn. She spent a long time staring down into the gorge, then looked up at Juraviel, whose gaze led her to Cazzira.
The Doc'alfar chuckled under the intensity of those two looks. ?What is life without adventure?"
she asked at length.
And so they descended even farther, so far that they had to set their hun-dred foot rope several times. Sweat stung Brynn's brown eyes as she hand-walked down rope