The Lore of Clan Goran - Chapter 5 - The Wildlands

[Kane]

We left the clanhold during the night watch.  No one saw us off; our goodbyes were already said and there was work to be done.  We travelled for almost two days south and then slowly east before arriving at an old hunting route that had been sealed years ago.  The work crews had cleared most of the blockage and removed the final barrier as we arrived.  Every effort had been made to make the area look natural, with little to no sign that any of the walls had ever been worked. The crews would stay and seal the tunnel behind us.  They would make every effort to make it look like a natural rock fall had sealed an untraveled cavern. Deception was worth more then a dozen feet of the strongest dwarven walls.

The hunting route was a very narrow tunnel formed by the natural movement of the rock and water seepage. It was barely wide enough for me to pass, and Balten and one of the three brothers had to slide along sections with their backs to one wall as their shoulders were too broad.  For almost half the trip, I was on my hands and knees, dragging my supplies behind me.  There was dust and debris everywhere, and I had to stop and wet a cloth to cover my mouth and nose so I could breathe. It was obvious that nothing had been in the tunnel since it was sealed years ago.

Almost three hours later we finally emerged from the tunnel into a larger cavern. I was exhausted and was relieved when Meloc suggested we rest and get our bearings. Meloc was the last of our clan to use the tunnel, but that had been more then a dozen years ago and then only once. While we rested, I saw Ammos examining the nearby rocks.  After a few minutes, he asked for help moving several of the larger rocks into the tunnel’s entrance. When asked he said there would be no way to obscure our tracks in the tunnel, there was too much debris and we had dragged our bags behind us.  We had to disguise or fill the tunnel’s mouth to prevent the Shadow’s scouts from finding the route back to the hold.  Less then an hour later, Ammos had made the tunnel look like no more then a small crack in the cavern wall.

I had never been in this cavern but knew roughly where we were. The main route to Calador was still more then half a dozen days to the east if we could find a direct route.  The nearest clan hold was several days march to the northeast if it still stood. The cavern was well away from travelled areas, but even still it was eerily silent.  There were none of the normal noises of water dripping, small vermin, or the echoes of sounds from the depths.  The only noise came from our labors and the muted talk amongst the patrol.  It was if life had left this region, either fleeing before the Shadow or stripped by its ravenous hordes. We had come seeking a future for the clan and I had begun to believe that outside of our sealed cavern nothing survived.