Page 51 of The Dungeon Book

The goblins, too, were old friends of Bait. Pinshriek and the rest came to the Levelling, but I could not help but notice they never strayed far from the door, all twitchy and ready to flee in a heartbeat – all except old Clickglee, who sat next to Bait and crossed his ape-like arms defiantly, no glee on his face at all.

Denizens of the upper levels also attended. The troll clans, led by Marrowbreath, appreciated Bait’s gifts of surface meat. Trolls turn to stone in direct sunlight, so they valued scraps of venison or rabbit above pearls. The nixies of the Buried River – they are creatures of still water, born of reflections and mirrored images, and so they are unutterably vain and delight in adornment and novelty. Bait brought them gossip and trinkets back from the surface lands, and so they liked the thought of having a pet human in the Dungeon who might fetch them other delights in future. Wraiths gathered like a shroud, clustering on Bait’s side of the cave.

On the other side of the cavern was a brigade of chittering kobolds, all daubed in paint that resembled the golden-red scales of Nithscalpa; a brood of harpies from the heights, eerily silent; giant spiders from the nearby caves, who brought with them a wriggling bundle wrapped in silk that they passed around like a wineskin, until the wriggling stopped. The dragon’s loyalists.

Both factions, though, were heavily outnumbered by the neutral Denizens who had not declared for either side. Some came out of curiosity. Hundreds of eyes – on stalks, glowing with unearthly light, multifaceted, or hungry – stared at Bait as she prepared herself. She’d girded herself in what piecemeal armour she could assemble, and carried all the weapons she’d gathered. To this ragged array she’d added the skull of a deer as a facemask (her initial thought was to use me, but I demurred). Anything to look less human than she was.

Some came out of fear of the dragon, fear of fire or fear of the chaos Nithscalpa would stir up. The average Denizen can brood and lurk in the dark quite happily for countless centuries; unless roused, they are not troubled by hunger or dissatisfaction. But dragons – dragons are only happy when they sleep and dream, for in their dreams they pile conquest on conquest, kill on kill, gold on gold. The waking world gnaws at them with countless dissatisfactions, stoking their flames ever hotter, until they exhaust themselves in paroxysms of destruction or win some victory that sates their hunger long enough for them to fall asleep once more.

A wakeful dragon is catastrophe in motion, desolation in waiting.

The other Denizens feared the dragon, but none of them had the strength to counter him. Not the ghast, luminescent green with its bloated belly and horned head. Not the grey-capped mushroom men, nor the mushroom giants that accompanied them, and whether those giants were servants or masters of their smaller kin I do not know. Not the ratlings who came chittering out of the long ways that run all the way under the human lands. Not the hellkin, whose forms were flickering flame, beautiful and terrible.

Maybe not even Old Throte the gargoyle, who came down from his perch atop the tower. I sent one of the goblins up to Throte with the scorched remnants of the door guards. True, adventurers killed those gargoyles, not the dragon, but Old Throte had spent the last eight years sitting atop the Master’s Tower, so I hoped the gossip might not have reached him yet. And he’d saved Bait before, so there was a good chance he’d speak for her, and his word carried weight. I’d put a lot of my hopes on Throte.

Bait, though, kept looking over at the entrance to the cave, hoping for some other saviour to arrive.

None came.

*

The Squinter levitated above the crowd. “Fellow Denizens – now look to his unquestionable majesty, terror of the world and vanquisher of armies, breaker of shields and bane of cities, flame eternal and unendurable, dragon of the Dungeon – Master Nithscalpa!”

“No master o’ mine!” jeered Clickglee.

“Nor mine!” roared Second-Sister. She flicked her spiked tail at Squinter.

“Only a human can claim the tower!” blustered the bloodbeast. “It’s in the Rules. Tell that whippersnapper of a wyrm to have respect for tradition.”

Throte cleared his throat, spitting out a mouthful of dust. “Peace,” he said. “This is a Levelling. No fighting. No fighting.”

The ghast chortled. It was not a pleasant sound.

“Nithscalpa,” continued Throte, “you called this gathering. You may address it.”

Hot smoke billowed from the eastern entrance, and the ground shook as the dragon dragged his massive bulk through the narrow tunnels. He was too big to enter the cave, but he stuck his eye to the cave mouth and glared at us all.

“The kill is mine,” he purred. “That human. I will eat her.”

“Only if the Levelling agrees that the kill was made in accordance with the Rules,” said Throte, and the dragon’s furious gaze flashed upon the gargoyle.

“You of all people shall not gainsay me, old stone! All this is your fault, is it not? Were you not commanded by the Master to bring me the human child once he was done with her?”

“That is not relevant to this Levelling,” said Throte faintly. He hunched under the withered remnants of his wings, as if embarrassed.

“And it wasn’t me!” shouted Bait. “That was the princess, and I’m not her. I’m not even human.” She spat the last word.

Throte shook his head. “I assure you, child, it was you I carried down from the tower. That matter is not for debate.”

Bait hung her head and listened as older and greater powers argued where she belonged and whether she might live or die.

The ghast leaned forward, adding its hideous stink to the sulphurous dragon-smoke. “Is it so, Throte?” Its voice was horribly soft, like something rotten. “Did the Master give this kill to Nithscalpa?”

“There was no kill,” replied Throte. “The Master employed the dragon to fetch the human child from the surface.”

“Not human,” interjected Bait.

“For this service, Nithscalpa received recompense.”