When Dragons Sleep

"I can go along with that. It may be best if we attack tonight. Maybe we can catch it asleep and get the jump on it," Reming said.

"What time did you try to attack it with your men," Bishop asked.

"We tried to go in the early morning, right at dawn. We arrived to the cave at night and circled the area until morning. We had to wait until there was light so that we didn’t stumble upon anything unexpected." Reming paused for a couple of seconds, then said, "But it didn’t work."

"So you think it would be best to go in while it’s still dark," Thormir asked.

Bishop shrugged his shoulders. Going in at night wasn’t exactly what he had in mind, but he figured it would be the best alternative. He knew that the elf and dwarf have an exceptional ability to see well in the dark, at least better than any human can. That put them at an advantage, but what about him? What about Reming? Two humans stumbling around in the dark wouldn’t be much help at all. They’d be better off waiting outside while the dwarf and elf went in, but what good would that do? He decided to voice his opinion, even though it was an admission of fear. He’d rather be scared than dead.

"Wait a minute. What about Reming and I? We can’t see in the dark like you two can," Bishop said.

For some reason, it appeared that the thought hadn’t yet occurred to Reming. He quickly came up with a plan.

"I’ve got it. Thormir and Dinbilgar can go in and scout ahead of us, while we stay back with a light source of some kind. My group used torches when we went in, but I noticed the cleric has some magical ability. Do you know that one where you can make things light up? You could cast it on a rock and then we can conceal it under a cloth so that it won’t shed light too far away. That way, we can at least see where we are going," Reming said.

"Yes, Reming, I know that one," Bishop said.

Dinbilgar wasn’t too keen on the idea of having nothing but an elf backing him up. He said, "Just how far ahead do me and this elf have to scout ahead?"

"Actually, it doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea. We can go ahead about fifty or sixty feet. We’ll be ok so long as we never lose sight of each other," Thormir said.

"This cave is huge on the inside, and it doesn’t wind around too much, so that shouldn’t be a problem. You could probably stay ahead 100 feet and still be able to see us," Reming said.

Bishop quickly replied, "I think 50 feet will be just fine."

Thormir said, "So that’s out plan. Good. We have about half an hour of light left. Should we just sit tight and wait until the sun is fully down?"

"Yeah, might as well. We ought to take this time to rest up a bit. Maybe we will see some activity in the cave before we go in," Reming said.

With that, the group moved to about 200 yards away from the mouth of the cave, stretched out, waited, and listened. About an hour after the sun fully disappeared from the horizon, Thormir saw some movement near the opening of the cave. He gestured to the group in order to silently tell them not to make a sound, then moved in a few yards closer to get a better view.