The cavern didn't shake, but still the rumbling and grating of stone on stone reverberated through the chamber. Beren smelled dust and stale air, and something unpleasant along with it. He placed the collar of his jacket over his nose, and Jocasta stepped behind him, holding her mouth so the free-flying particles would settle. The Dwarfs cheered, and there was something in their laughs and grunts that was very home-ey to Beren. Their deep, baritone voices were somehow wholesome, to him. 

Unfortunately it was short lived. 

Beren, Jocasta, and the cohort of dwarves peered into the darkness of the cavern. Gunir, his arm snug in the sling and his nose up, sniffed suspiciously. One of the dwarves gave a small wail of anguish, and Beren's eyes caught sight of what their dark-vision could make out. 

The tunnel was immaculately carved, at least for a dozen meters. The low ways were well known for being the cleanest, most safe roads in all the world at one point, due to the dwarf's minute attention to detail. One could still see the gold filigree along the outset of the halls, like veins in the mountain. Past that, however, was a gaping, jagged hole in the corridor that marred its ancient beauty. And along the floor and walls before it were skeletons and battle armor, rusted weapons in crusted, bony hands. 

Beren winced as the dwarves groaned, but he leaned in all the same. Osteoporosis and untold centuries without flesh had made the bones brittle and almost unbearably weak or cracked. Even the thick bones of dwarves. Beren had the misfortune of seeing dwarf skeletons in the past, and he could tell this was a fair number of the dead. However, unlike the stout, very human-like bodies of the dwarves with barbed arrows in their eye sockets or breasts, there were also lankier skeletons with a very alien look to them. He had seen these before too. 

"Gundarogs," he told the dwarves. 

A few of them cursed in their native tongue, Muragrim spitting on the ground. None of them seemed too surprised, but they were grim and sullen all the same. Radsvir and Muragrim gripped the handles of their weapons more tightly, and even Varin's hand moved closer to his broad short sword. Otar walked up and knelt by a fallen dwarf body, reaching down and brushing away the dust from a pendant the dead warrior had around his neck. 

"Clan Balgrund," Otar said. Beren did not recognize the name, but he decided he would ask of it later.

"Gundarogs? They really do exist?" Jocasta asked. Beren glanced at her, nodding. Rogs were a known race of barbaric humanoids in the world, a bit smaller than orcs but even nastier, with serrated weapons and misshapen, ugly faces. In Andred and the wider north, Gundarogs were thought of as an old myth with only some credible evidence. They were a subspecies of rog, even more numerous and adapted to the dark. Unlike rogs, they were keen craftsmen of cruel and malicious weapons and armor, and though individually not the most fell warriors, they had a savagery and insect-like ruthlessness. The dwarves knew they were all too real. Sometimes rogs followed exiled dark elf sorcerers, vampires, or some other powerful being of the dark, but they also had their own chieftans and kings. 

Luckily the bones of these gundarogs were long since decayed. But it was a small hope. The tunnel continued into darkness, and there was little telling what awaited them in the dark.