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"But it wasn’t the stories that defeated hiround

"No, it wasn’t, it was us!" cried Sorrel, spreading her arons, the little human, the homunculus, the rat, the mountain dwarf A story to melt anyone’s heart!" She chuckled "Sad to say, you slept through the whole thing Like the motionless inside their stony skins Shi the ruins of his own stone shell, unable to take it all in

"What happened?" he asked softly "Tell on went over to hiently nuzzled his dusty flank "Does that feel like a dream? No, you’re awake The mountain dwarf there woke you"

Gravelbeard proudly thrust out his chest

"Will he wake the others, too?" asked Shirinned "Of course If we canfrom Ben’s shoulder "Exactly what I expected you to say, slate-brain A dwarf never does anything for free What do you want? Gold? Jewels?"

"No!" cried Gravelbeard indignantly "Nothing like that, you spidery-legged homunculus Like I said before, I want to stay in this cave and tap at its walls just a little Clean and polish up its beauty And maybe pick out a tiny little stone now and then That’s all"

Maia looked down at him with an ironic smile "You’ll pick out reedy All the saons"

Gravelbeard bowed so low to her that he had to hold his hat on

"I’ll wake them!" he cried "All of them, Your Silverness, all of them I’ll set to work at once"

And with his haain, he cli away as if his olddown his neck

Firedrake and Maia took the dusty Shi tunnel to the outside world, where he had not set paw for hts The black ravens had disappeared The three dragons flew over the valley in the light of the thin sickle of the waning moon, and Shimmertail washed the dust off his scales in the lake

The toad that had lent Nettlebrand its life sat on the bank, watching And with every ons, its dark memories faded

55 What Now?

At noon the next day, Firedrake was perched on a rocky outcrop high above the valley, unable to sleep Gravelbeard’s tapping and haht and war today Firedrake kept raising his head fro

After a while, Ben joined hion, and looked at him anxiously "What’s the ?"

"I can’t see?"

Ben shrugged his shoulders "Oh, nothing special Well, no one’s asleep Sorrel is getting Burr-Burr-Chan to explain the DubidaiShimmertail all about what happened while he was asleep Gravelbeard is tapping away, and Twigleg’s flying on a sightseeing trip with Lola"

"Really?" Firedrake nodded and then sighed again

"What are you going to do now?" Ben looked inquiringly at the dragon "I ht home to the north now that you’ve found this valley?"