Much to my dismay, the sun was setting. While the view of the sunset from The Outcropping was breathtaking, it also told me that even though we were so close, there was no way we would be able to get to Old Barrel before dark. It's a fools game to stumble around in the dark.
Kinderlings are many things, but nocturnal is not one of them. We are day-time forest creatures. When night time rolls around, Kinderlings hide in our secure, safe homes to sleep during the nighttime hours. Gorfs do not. While they do tend to be less active at night, that doesn't mean they are inactive. Until now, I had always assumed that Gorfs got around at night using their noses. Now I know that the surface Gorfs originally came from an underground race. Underground where day and night doesn't matter. Of course they would be more comfortable at night.
That's all assuming that Gorfs are the only danger in the night. They are not. There are a number of predatory beasts that roam the nighttime forest. Jaguars, Bears, Wolves. Higher up where we are at The Outcropping, we might come across the odd Mountain Lion. For Kinderlings, because we are small, even a hungry Racoon or Opossum can be dangerous.
What all that meant was that we would be spending the night up on The Outcropping.
I think Uncle Zon saw when the realization hit me.
"Yes Tandy, we won't be able to get to Old Barrel till tomorrow, early afternoon at best." Uncle Zon said, "But not all is bad. Come, let me show you The Outcropping Garrison."
Uncle Zon lead me to the garrison built into the side of the mountain. It didn't look like much from the outside, a solid metal-bound blackwood door, a few window openings shuttered in blackwood and bound to match the door. The building front was roughly quarried granite blocks of a more grey color than the blue-grey of the Outcropping stone. Not typical Kinderling work as it had little decoration. Kinderlings tend to try to make everything they create beautiful. This was not, it could best be described as serviceable.
The entrance was Kinderling sized, so only the smallest Gorfs would comfortably fit, and it came in the form of a tunnel twenty or so paces long. A Gorf the size of the one we met at the underground lake would have found it difficult at best to enter, and he would have had to crawl the entire way, if he fit at all. Uncle Zon lead the way with a lantern that he must have gotten from The Outcropping, because he certainly didn't have it with him.
The entrance tunnel opened out into a cavernous room. I found myself facing a curved fortification across the room, built of the same granite as the exterior of the building, only instead of being rough, it was finished smooth and bedecked in Kinderling Runes, some even inlaid with Kinderling silver. Anyone entering through that tunnel better be coming in peace, because they would be funneled down by the entrance to face the entire fortification, one at a time. A small garrison of Kinderlings in this place could hold against all the Gorfs in the forest until they ran out of arrows.
Uncle Zon must have guessed what I was thinking. "There are even murder holes in the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, and ways to pour boiling oil over anyone dumb enough to enter uninvited. There is also a way to watch the Old Trade Road from inside. There is a cistern that is fed from an underground spring and a mushroom farm that could feed an army of Kinderlings almost indefinitely. As soon as I am able, I am planning on bringing as many of the surviving Kinderling up here as I can. This place could house everyone."
"This place sounds perfect. Why hasn't Baot already started bringing people up here?" I asked.
"As far as I know, Baot does not know of this place. Very few people do." Uncle Zon explained. "Up until twenty years ago the garrison at this outpost was still being kept by a small force of Kinderlings. When the militia pulled out of the garrison here, a retired militia Captain and his wife asked to be allowed to stay on as caretakers. You'll like them. Until recently, Baot has had no use for the militia, but because his family is... was... a controlling faction on the council, he was able use their position to take over."
"Caretakers? You mean Kinderlings have lived up here for twenty years and nobody knows about them?"
"Not quite nobody Tandy." Uncle Zon chuckled, "I know about them, and I stop in as often as I can to check on them, and there are a few others; mostly older militia members who know about them and this place. Baot does not though, because he has never shown interest in actually running the militia. He has only been interested in the power he derives from being in charge."
"Like declaring martial law?"
"Yes, just so."
Uncle Zon looked uncomfortable with that realization. I can't blame him.
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