The Northern Approach by Jim Galford Page A

entrance to the open area, but they vanished before he could be sure. The thing following them was close. On the surface, he would have attempted to guess at the type of creature, given what little he had seen and heard…below ground, it could be almost anything.
    They had gone little more than a quarter of the way up when Raeln realized the switchbacks in the staircase curved over top of the previous section, allowing defenders to fire down on the stairs directly beneath them. They likely could even use rolled stones to clear the area where approaching forces would need to turn around to continue up. Those thoughts made his fur stand on end, and he looked up to see if there were people above them that might be planning that very attack. Though the walls were faintly visible, the design of the stairs allowed him to see down easily but not up past the section they were on until he was close to the next switchback. There could have been thousands of dwarves glaring at him and he would have no way of knowing. Adding his mild fear of heights to the mix, Raeln was afraid to look up or down. The only safe direction to look was at the steps directly in front of him.
    On the third switchback, On’esquin slipped on the narrow steps, nearly falling. He came down hard on his knees, catching himself before tumbling backward into Raeln and pulling them both off the end of the section of steps. Softly muttering something in a language Raeln did not know, On’esquin steadied himself before moving.
    “Brilliant design,” On’esquin muttered, trying to stand back up without anything to grab hold of. Giving Raeln and Yoska an apologetic look, he added, “Terrifying and infuriating, but brilliant.”
    The clattering down below warned Raeln that whatever had followed them was well into the courtyard. Despite his own reservations about looking down, Raeln pressed himself against the wall and began slowly searching the courtyard. He could see nothing down there, but he could feel its eyes on them. Judging by its pace, whatever was down there might reach the steps in another few minutes. Once, he thought he saw movement, but if he had, it was fast and darted into the next set of shadows before he could see any details.
    The last two switchbacks passed with more tension but no more mistakes by the climbers. At the top Yoska waited inside a large open gate for the others to pass him before he came through the walls with them. Almost as an afterthought, Yoska pulled shut the heavy wooden doors and brought down a bar to block them. If nothing else, it would slow whatever was pursuing them. Raeln knew it could likely come in the other entrance to the fortress, but it would need to backtrack to the ground and back up, costing it easily an hour in trying to reach them.
    The dwarven fortress certainly lived up to the title in Raeln’s mind as he cleared a low portcullis that forced him to stoop his head in passing, several feet inside the outer doors. Streets that appeared more like tunnels carved from smoothed stone ran in all directions, with doors set into walls here and there that reminded him of shops or homes. Unlike a surface city, he could not look up to see past the buildings around him, but if he kept his eyes down, he could have forgotten he was underground and thought it was merely nighttime. The whole place was beautiful in its own way.
    “Where is the light coming from?” On’esquin asked as he squinted and put a hand to the wall, as though he had to reassure himself that he knew where anything was in the dark. “I expected to be even more blind in here than I am.”
    “Is magic of some sort,” said Yoska, giving On’esquin’s armor a tug to guide him. “My friend believed they would put out the light when attackers came and wait ’til they were close before making it light again to scare or blind them. Dwarves would be blind too, but they know their way. Attackers might not. Is one of few kinds of magic dwarves let their