A rescuer - and more trouble

The hour back seemed even longer. We were hungry and tired.

We finally came to the branch.

“Do we go on, or do we rest?” Eomar asked.

Gimlitin looked down the new branch.

“We could find a way out.” He said. “Or we may find nothing.”

I looked at the faces of all my companions.

The looked discouraged.

“Let’s go back to the hole and rest,” I said.

We headed back until we came to the hole. We looked up.

“Maybe if just one of us could get up,” suggested Alosia, one of the elves. “He could go get help.”

“Do you think the sides of holes could hold?” I asked Gimlitin.

“I do not know. It is a risk.

“Staying here is a risk,” Eomar said. “Trying the tunnel that way is a risk.”

“Let’s see what we can do,” I said.

“We first tried throwing up a small pick tied to a rope, but it kept pulling loose and falling down. We had to keep jumping out of the way.

Then we first tried to make an elf/dwarf/human pyramid.

We just kept falling. And we were short of the hole anyway.

Then we heard a voice.

“Santa? Oh Santa.”

Dimis!

“Down here,” I called. “Get help.”

“Down whe … oohp!”

He came flying down, landing on a dwarf!

“Are you two all right,” I said, rushing over to them.

“I…I,” Dimis began.

But then he and the dwarf disappeared into the floor of the tunnel!

We all jumped back, trying to avoid the widening hole. But it was no use.

We fell into the tunnel below, which sloped steeply. We found ourselves sliding down.

We seem to slide forever until we crashed into each other – and a wall.

Our groans were interrupted by a scream of terror.


“Goblin!”

Sure enough, there was a goblin in the wall.

And behind him in the ice we saw more!