Stonus had no cave, and the dwarf was close. He was a stoneback basilisk, and stone spoke to him. It told him where things hid, where things were buried. Right now it told him nothing useful, because he stood in the open on bare rock, and open rock did not shelter anyone. He needed a hollow he could hold. A cavern deep beneath Ironholt, walls at his back, one mouth to guard. Rule it, and no hunter could corner him again. Find it, or die on the flat. Behind him, brush snapped. Borin came through the scrub with a blade on his belt. The dwarf had tracked him six weeks by sound and smell. His father's tanning knife rode at his hip, and Stonus knew what a basilisk pelt was worth. Enough to buy a dead man's shop back. Enough to keep coming. Stonus ran. He pressed his claws to every rise of stone and asked it what lay below. Solid. Solid. Then, under a broken slab, a gap. The rock's memory showed him a hollow beneath, narrow-mouthed, deep. His cavern. But something already breathed inside it. He squeezed through the crack. Two yellow eyes turned toward him in the dark. Another stoneback basilisk, older, mirrors strapped to both wrists so he could look without killing. Granite. The old one's tail curled over a stack of gathered roots and dried meat. "Occupied," Granite said. "Mine for the winter. Merchant sold me these mirrors so I wouldn't blind myself. Charged me double." He tilted a wrist. The mirror caught Stonus's face. "You're young. You'll want it. Everyone wants what I have and takes it cheap." "A dwarf is behind me," Stonus said. "He has a skinning knife. He wants a pelt." Granite went still. "Two of us. One knife." Borin's boots scraped at the crack above. Grimtooth's blade slid in first, feeling for flesh. Stonus flattened against the wall. Granite turned his wrist, found the dwarf's shape in the mirror, and lifted his head into the gap. Borin's eyes met the basilisk's gaze straight on. The dwarf stopped mid-reach. His arm hung out. His breath quit. Stone climbed his skin from the wrist down, gray and hard, until a statue filled the crack where a hunter had been. Granite lowered his head. "He's sealed the mouth. Nobody else fits past him now." Stonus set his claws to the wall and read the hollow. One entrance, blocked by a stone dwarf. Solid roof. Deep enough for two. His, if he stayed. "I don't share," Granite said. "But you found the dwarf first. Winter's long." He shifted his roots aside. "Take the back. Cross me and I won't need a mirror." Stonus crawled to the deep end and put the wall against his spine. He had a cavern now, and a mouth no hunter could pass. He also had a housemate who could turn him to rock with one glance.