She turned away sharply and picked up the candle again. "Are you
coming, Romna?"
The bard nodded. He slung his harp over his shoulder. Beudag held back
the curtain of a small doorway far to the side. Starke went through it
and Romna followed, and Beudag went ahead with the candle. No one spoke.
* * * * *
They went along a narrow passage, past store rooms and armories. They
paused once while Starke chose a knife, and Romna whispered: "Wait!"
He listened intently. Starke and Beudag strained their ears along with
him. There was no sound in the sleeping dun. Romna shrugged. "I thought
I heard sandals scraping stone," he said. They went on.
The passage lay behind a wooden door. It led downward steeply through
the rock, a single narrow way without side galleries or branches. In
some places there were winding steps. It ended, finally, in a flat
ledge low to the surface of the cove, which was a small cavern closed
in with the black rock. Beudag set the candle down.
There were two little skiffs built of some light metal moored to rings
in the ledge. Two long sweeps leaned against the cave wall. They were
of a different metal, oddly vaned. Beudag laid one across the thwarts
of the nearest boat. Then she turned to Starke. Romna hung back in the
shadows by the tunnel mouth.