Free Cloak & Dagger: Book II of The Dragon Mage Trilogy by Carey Scheppner

king had said. Yet there wasn’t even a sign of a goblin or orc, let alone any lizardmen. She gently stroked the pendant around her neck. It was a magical item her Uncle Horst had given her to help her on her journey. It was intended to vibrate when something or someone magical was nearby. As yet, it hadn’t done a thing, and Rebecca wondered if it even worked at all.
    Now the dwarf paused and pulled out her large chunk of parchment revealing her new map. She scratched her head for a moment before carefully drawing an addition to it. There was a fair amount of drawing to be done to compensate for the past half hour or so, but her memory was good enough to correctly draw out details and distances. She had passed only a few tunnels branching off in different directions, and was sure to mark their locations. She could have investigated and mapped out where they led to, but chose to stay in the main tunnel. It seemed to send her deeper into the mountain and farther away from the dwarven realm, where she decided it was more likely to lead her to a potential lizardman lair.
    After finishing the map, she folded it up and tucked it back into her packsack to join her crossbow pistol and other belongings. She chose to carry a crossbow pistol because it was light and handy for shooting small rodents for food. A battle axe was a little too cumbersome for traveling long distances.
    The dwarf hoisted the pack over her shoulder and slipped her stout little arms through the straps. With the pack secure on her back, she reached up and ran her chubby fingers through her short jet black hair. Some faint glimmering minerals above her in the ceiling momentarily reflected off a unique strip of silver in her hair. At first glance, one would think that Rebecca had a silver brace angled from front to back to hold her hair in place. That was not so. The silver ‘brace’ was actually a thin strip of silver-white hair that she had sported since childhood. It grew naturally that way, and she was always proud of it.
    Rebecca looked up at the glittering ceiling and sniffed. “Fools gold,” she muttered. Instantly, she was on her way, bouncing along the path without further ado.
    The dwarf traveled for only about ten minutes before almost stumbling past a narrow opening on her right. Another useless passageway, she thought, momentarily sticking her nose into the tight cavity. She was about to draw back into the main tunnel when a strange feeling on her chest made her gasp. She reached for her pendant and was surprised to feel it vibrating in her hand.
    Rebecca stepped back into the main tunnel and the vibrating stopped. Whatever had activated the pendant was inside the narrow opening! Now Rebecca was excited. Something magical was in there!
    Then a sobering thought hit her. What if there was a lizardman hiding in there? She reacted instinctively, drawing her lightweight fighting axe from the holster at the side of her backpack.
    After standing perfectly still for several moments, Rebecca relaxed. If something was hiding in the opening, it would have gotten her by now. She would have to go in and see where the opening led. She had to. It contained magic, so it either led to magic wielding lizardmen, or something down there was magical. Considering it was the only thing of interest to happen in two days, it was certainly worth investigating.
    Holding her axe in front of her, Rebecca squeezed herself into the opening. The going became more and more difficult, and the dwarf finally had to sheath her axe to free her hands so she could literally crawl along the tunnel floor.
    First, the tunnel became nearly flat, and then it became extremely narrow and tall. All the while, her pendant vibrated more and more against her chest. Still she pressed on, determined to find the source of the magic.
    It seemed like hours before the little dwarf squeezed through the final slit in the tunnel to arrive at a wider, room-sized area. The rocks in this location were almost