“I always wondered why there was a raised mound here,” whispered Anya as they reached the corner of the meadow.
Ardent didn’t answer. He climbed to the top of the low mound, grasped a hidden ring in his powerful jaws, and lifted a cunningly disguised trapdoor that looked just like a square of turf. Beyond it, Anya could see the beginnings of a ramp, leading down into complete darkness.
“Best let us go first,” whispered Sygror gruffly. “Dark underground is dwarf business, to be sure. We’ll light a lamp for you once we’re well under and the hatch closed behind.”
“I’ll close it,” said Sir Malorak. “Good luck. Keep the Frogkisser safe!”
Sygror spoke a few quiet words in a sharp-edged tongue Anya didn’t know but presumed to be Dwarvish, before he descended into the darkness. One by one the other dwarves followed him down the ramp.
Ardent went next, Anya holding his collar, then Smoothie, and finally Shrub, who scuttled in just before the trapdoor was closed by Sir Malorak, as if the newt couldn’t decide where he wanted to go.
It was too dark for even Ardent to see anything, but they edged along for a few steps, the dog sniffing loudly as he went. Anya could hear the dwarves moving, and soon there was the whir and click of a clockwork firestarter, and then the bloom of light from a candle, shortly magnified by a lantern glass.
In its light, Anya saw that the tunnel they were in was lined with many small yellow bricks, quite unlike anything else in Trallonia Castle. They were mortared very tightly together, and as a consequence the tunnel was dry and well kept. It was wide enough so two dwarves, who were not narrow-shouldered, could stand abreast, and it slanted downwards quite steeply, presumably so as to pass safely under the moat.
“Onwards!” said Sygror, hefting his axe. He smiled, and the other dwarves smiled back. They seemed pleased at the prospect of battle, but Anya could only feel a twisted knot in her stomach and a kind of unpleasant fluttery feeling in her heart. She supposed this was fear, and tried to ignore it, which was a lot easier to think about than actually to do in practice.
They tramped down the tunnel, the dwarves constantly looking up, down, and to each side, as if the bricks might hide secret doors or murder holes.
Possibly they do, thought Anya, who started looking herself, nervously twitching her head from side to side and up and down.
Ardent stayed near Anya, sniffing the air constantly, but not saying anything. Smoothie came up close behind, the narrow, dry tunnel not to her liking. Shrub brought up the rear, waddling along ten paces back.
A hundred paces on or thereabouts, there was some water dripping from the ceiling. Sygror paused there, and reached up to tap the bricks. He whispered something to Gramel, who turned to whisper to Danash behind. Then Danash passed this on to Erzef, who repeated it to Anya.
“It is nothing to worry about. We go under the moat, and the tunnel is very old. But strongly built.”
“I could have told you that,” said Ardent indignantly.
Erzef smiled, turned to face the front, and continued.
“We’ll be at the lower kennels soon,” said Ardent a little later. He sniffed the air again. “I think … I think—”
There was a sudden bark up ahead, echoing through the tunnel. The dwarves stopped, axes raised.
“Who goes there?” growled a dog.
Anya recognized the growl. It was Gripper. All of a sudden she knew where the royal dogs had gone. Or rather where they hadn’t gone. They’d never left the castle, not really. They’d simply retreated to their deep, secret kennels, to wait.
To wait for her to return.
“Gripper!” she called out, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. “It’s me! Anya, with Ardent, and friends!”
“Pause, friend, be smelled and enter!” barked Gripper, in the traditional greeting of the royal dogs.
*
Ten minutes later Ardent was momentarily submerged by a roiling mass of his siblings and cousins, and Anya was hugging Tanitha in the center of a huge cave that was absolutely full of dogs. Magic lanterns like the ones in the Wizard’s house hung from the ceiling, burning with their cool, long-lived flames, casting their light across the natural spaces and the rough-hewn edges where long ago the cave had been expanded and made more suitable for the dogs.
“We don’t have much time,” explained Anya to Tanitha. “These are the Seven Dwarves, the famous ones—”
“I know,” said Tanitha, licking Anya’s face. “We’ve met before.”
“Indeed,” said Sygror. All the dwarves bowed, the ingenuity of their armor displayed by the fact that they could easily bend in the middle and rise again, all with only the slightest clank of metal. “It is good to see you again, matriarch.”
“Oh,” said Anya. “Well, that’s Smoothie, of the Yarrow River otters, and Shrub, who’s being strange but is a transformed good thief. We’re on our way to seize the gatehouse and let the army of the All-Encompassing Bill of Rights and Wrongs in—”
She paused, noting the reaction of the dogs as she mentioned the Bill. The mound centered on Ardent collapsed, and they were all drawing themselves up as if a rabbit had suddenly appeared before them, and there was that long second before a pursuit would either begin or not.
“Yes,” said Tanitha. She licked Anya again. “I know. We have had reports. The cats and some of the ravens, you know. Everything is in readiness.”
“In readiness?”
“Yes,” confirmed Tanitha. “Frosty will lead the troop to help seize the gates. Kneegnawer will take a troop to protect Morven. Jackanapes will take another to destroy the Duke’s study and any potions or suchlike there. The rest of us will wait to attack the weaselfolk in the rear when your army enters the castle.”
“It seems you dogs could do it all on your own,” said Sygror, his mouth quirking into a smile.