The Misadventures of Eric

Durgin and his silent companion, Axeshaft, trudged through the mines under Mt. Cattmahrandah in the Shady Mountains. Typically they would have had a few barrels of gems by now, but for the past few weeks they had found nothing in the rock, and were feeling glum because of it.

“Grr!” Durgin grumbled, and he stomped the ground in front of him. He kicked at an empty wheelbarrow to his side with a heavy boot, and threw his pickaxe at the rock wall.

“GRRRR!”

Axeshaft stuffed his forked, red beard into his ears to block out the screaming and grumbling and general ruckus his fellow dwarf was causing. He understood why Durgin was so upset, and felt much the same way. But he was unlike the other dwarves he knew—he didn’t get loud and grouchy when he was angry.

Durgin cast Axeshaft a sidelong glance, and backhanded his companion in the chest. It was a hard hit, but it didn’t hurt the sturdy dwarf much.

“Whaddya think you’re doin’ there, standin’ all dumblike? Do somethin’, woodya? If ya ain’t gonna grumble with me, ya might as well try t’ find somethin’ in the rocks! Dig about, willya?"

Axeshaft looked offended long enough for Durgin to start an apology, but then the silent companion winked and smiled at his grouchy friend. Axeshaft shouldered his shovel and pickaxe, and trekked off down a seemingly-empty tunnel.

Durgin sighed and shook his head, his bushy black beard wagging with it. He couldn't ask for a better friend than Axeshaft. Durgin had known his friend for all of his life, even before Axeshaft had his tongue removed by a goblin. And the two had gotten significantly closer after Durgin had cut off the goblin's head in revenge. Together they had learned to cope with Axeshaft's newfound silence, and they had developed an intricate method of reading body language and facial expressions to communicate with each other. They were like brothers, and if either one lost the other...

Durgin didn't have time to finish the thought. At that moment, the tunnel Axeshaft had just wandered down collapsed.

*****

"Collapse! Dwarf down!"

The call rang out through the tunnels under Cattmahrandah, and everydwarf ceased what he or she was doing to assist in the inevitable rescue mission. It is true; dwarves are not noted for their love of any race. It was often said that dwarves didn't even like dwarves! But once it was learned that the astonishingly-popular Axeshaft had been buried beneath the debris, the dwarves put aside their disgruntled dislike of most things unshiny to help.

In teams of several, the dwarves went into action. Some shoveled the dirt and debris from the pile in the tunnel into wheelbarrows, others wheeled the dirt away. Other dwarves unhappily sat and waited for their time to jump in and relieve the rushed and already-weary rescuers. Everydwarf was committed, no matter how fatigued they had been from the regular day's work, to getting Axeshaft out of the caved-in tunnel—hopefully alive.

Twenty long, painful minutes went by without much progress, and the minutes soon became hours. The front-line dwarves were shoveling by the second, new wheelbarrows appearing quickly to fill in the empty spot where random bits of debris and dirt and rocks would surely be thrown, regardless of the wheelbarrows' presence. Durgin, bent over double with the effort of digging, was at the front-most point of the expedition. The dwarves had tacitly decided to make a cone-shaped depression in the collapsed rubble, which made it both easier to get farther down the tunnel, and harder to make sure they weren't missing their target closer to either side. Wherever possible, a team of dwarves would move in front of the diggers to set up support beams, ensuring that another cave-in would not occur. At this point Durgin would get frustrated at the lack of progress, and scream that he was sitting around while his friend was dying.

All of a sudden, someone else screamed.

“A foot! I’ve found a foot!”

A team of diggers, including Durgin, ran over to the dwarf that had made the discovery. There was a single, solitary, naked foot, with wooly hair pasted to the top and a plump leg attached at the ankle.

“That ain’t Axeshaft’s foot!” Durgin said.

But if it wasn’t Axeshaft’s foot... whose was it?

Another dwarf appeared at Durgin’s side. He saluted, as was typically customary when greeting fellow dwarves, and began to tell Durgin he was there to relieve Axeshaft’s tired, confused and relatively hopeless companion.

“Like hell ya are! I ain’t leavin’ ‘til Axe is outta there!” Durgin politely replied. And he added to himself, even if it means I gotta bury him again.

In a renewed frenzy the dwarves went back to work. Somedwarf had tickled the small foot sticking out of the pile, and it twitched. The creature was still alive. The bearded dwarves then decided that if they couldn’t get to Axeshaft, the least they could do was kill the invader properly, so they began digging it out. Soon after the discovery was made, the creature lay off to the side, completely uncovered and capable of breathing by itself, though unconscious. The dwarves found the creature very peculiar—it was shorter than they were (which said a lot) and it was rounder and softer in the middle than a dwarf was. It had no hair on its face, and it apparently traveled with even more peculiar companions; buried near the creature were two dogma—small, semi-intelligent humanoids with canine facial features and thick fur covering their bodies.

Many a whisper of “what the -” was left on the lips of the relatively-speechless dwarves. They didn’t have much time to ponder the newcomers, however.

Axeshaft was still buried.

Shortly after the invaders were discovered, Durgin and his diggers found a wisp of red beard sticking out from under a pile of rocks. That could only mean one thing - that was where Axeshaft was buried. They went at it furiously, carrying and tossing the boulders away, though many of the rocks were simply too heavy to lift under normal circumstances. Durgin was a superdwarf—he had found his companion and was dead-set on getting him out, even if that meant he would die in the process. He would lift two rocks at a time, sometimes three, and would move them more quickly than two dwarves could carry one of the boulders away. The other dwarves were concerned for Durgin and the recklessness he was displaying, but not a one would say anything to him—displaying this kind of strength, Durgin was simply too frightening right now to reason with. Plus, they didn't like him as much as Axeshaft.

Soon enough most of the rocks were thrown off to the side, and Axeshaft was visible to the dwarven community. Durgin tossed the last of the rocks to the side and knelt by his friend, a small stream of tears held back by the dam of his eyelids. Axeshaft hadn’t moved, and his eyes were closed closed. Durgin listened for a breath (dwarves can hold their air for a long time, so there was hope for Axe,) but heard nothing.

“He’s—”

Before Durgin could finish announcing the death of his friend, a younger dwarf pointed to Axeshaft’s throat. It was abnormally swollen, and Durgin’s friend was turning blue in the face.

“He’s chokin’ on somethin’! Reach around in his throat!”

Durgin did precisely that, opening his friend’s mouth and reaching down into the esophagus. It was difficult to keep his dirty hand in his dying friend’s mouth - it felt strange without a tongue in there. And besides that, sticking his fist in his friend’s face wasn’t on his list of priorities, unless they were fighting each other, and even then it would probably be on the surface of Axeshaft's nose.

But sure enough, there was something stuck in Axeshaft’s throat. It was hard to the touch, and awkwardly large, so it was difficult to get a grip on it. But not too late, Durgin pulled the object free, and with a rush and a gasp, his friend was breathing once again. Axeshaft’s eyes snapped open as he took large gulps of fresh air, but strangely Durgin was not looking at his friend. He was looking at the object in his hand.

It was a gemstone... A shiny gemstone.

Axe, me friend, he thought, as he looked and smiled at his now-breathing companion, today’s your lucky day.