3
Humble proportions marked the space below; no soaring Mines of Moria halls here. Low ceilings; curving packed-earth walls neatly fitted with cut stones; rounded walls and sloping floors; all marked the caverns beneath Sheep Island as a gnome habitation.
Jay and I stepped, with great caution, into a central hall with three arches leading into shadow-darkened chambers beyond. We kept our backs to the wall, alert for further sounds of the lindworm’s approach.
Nothing moved.
‘Any of those arches could be the gateway,’ I said to Jay in an undertone.
‘How do you tell?’
‘You don’t. Well, you do, but only by what you might call the “reckless” way.’
‘Step through and hope?’
‘Yup.’
Another dry rasp of scales against stone interrupted my thought, and I froze. Seconds passed as those sounds
