Page 1 of The Dungeon Book

CHAPTER ONE

To begin at your beginning:

In the nightless dark, at a time beyond knowing, in the place called the Underhalls of Yrn Kyos by scholars, the City of Wonders by the dead and the Dungeon by everyone else—

—it was then and there I noticed a crack in the plastered wall of my tomb.

A hairline fracture, one might say, though it was a long time since I had the hair to make that comparison. The crack snaked between ancient hieroglyphs and runes of power. It was no wider than the breadth of a fingernail – but again, that was a measure I was ill-equipped to judge.

I watched the crack grow. Not by much, but the plaster flaked as the Dungeon shook. Something was afoot.

“Afoot”: a third thing I lacked.

From my perspective, that was how you came to the Dungeon.

*

Nithscalpa’s assault was swift and one-sided. Castle walls built to keep out armies are useless against a flying foe. Arrows cannot pierce dragon scales. The keenest sword cannot avert the hurricane.

Thrice Nithscalpa circled round Castle Uthgard. He scoured the battlements with flame. Men could choose: burn at their posts, or fling themselves over the parapet to break on the rocks. On another occasion, Nithscalpa might have enjoyed that. Dragons are not merely cruel; they delight in demonstrating their superiority, like a cat saying to a mouse, I won’t eat you if you can jump from this chair to that one. Look how easy it is!

The cat leaps with lazy grace. The mouse falls short and perishes.

The one difference is that dragons set the mice on fire first.

But Nithscalpa was not there for sport. Far he’d flown from his lair, and he’d flown with purpose. He landed and clung to the wall of the keep, claws digging into the masonry as he crawled about, peering in the windows.

A storeroom. No.

A stairwell. No.

A room full of archers. No. Absently, he spat flame through the arrow-slit.

A study, the walls lined with scrolls and books. No. He burned that, too.

The books weren’t about him.

A nursery.

Yes.

Nithscalpa tore at the wall. In a few heartbeats, the gap was wide enough to admit his head. He smiled a smile five feet wide, mirthless and razor-sharp.

In a corner was a child’s bed.

In the bed was a child.

Flame rose in the dragon’s throat. He swallowed it back down. This meat was not for roasting – not yet. Instead, his jaws gently closed around the fragile cot with its fragile contents.

He was exceedingly pleased with himself in that moment.

Then – out of the corner of his right eye, he saw a woman rushing towards him. She had a long dagger in her hand, desperate courage in her face, and then Nithscalpa would never see anything ever again from that eye.

Deep went the dagger – but not deep enough.

The dragon ripped his head from the tower, the bed still clutched in his jaws. He spread his wings and dropped, swooping low over the courtyard, catching the thermals from the burning outbuildings. Awkwardly – even for a dragon, it’s hard to be graceful when you’ve just lost an eye – he juggled the bed from mouth to forelimbs. Every instinct in him, from his soot-stained snout all down his serpent-neck, all down his bristling back through the furnace of his belly to the tip of his lashing tail – all demanded that he gobble up the little scrap of sweet-meat.

But Nithscalpa resisted the urge – for now.