The Gully Dwarves

by Dan Parkinson

  “Kill me,” Clonogh hissed. A wavering, bony finger pointed at Vulpin’s blood-stained sword. “I want nothing more than death.”

  “It is no matter,” Vulpin sneered. “The Fang is here. I saw the creature that brought it. But no clean death is yours, master mage.” From his tunic he withdrew a little, glassy sphere, holding it casually between finger and thumb of a gauntleted hand. “Your soul, old man,” he purred. “I said I would return it one day. So here it is.”

  “The Fang is no good to you without a wishmaker,” Clonogh spat, struggling to arise. “An innocent. Where will such as you find an innocent, now that your captive girl is gone?”

  “Gone?” Vulpin grinned, barked a command and a huge, armored brute stepped out of the stairwell into daylight. One of Vulpin’s cave-vandal guards carried a struggling girl under his arm as casually as a smaller man might carry a puppy. The girl was Thayla Mesinda. “I found her just below,” Vulpin said. “Apparently she and some others had been hiding in the cellars beneath this place. She will speak the wish I want, Clonogh, the wish that will rid me of all annoyances.” With a sneer, Vulpin stepped to the precipitous edge of the broken tower and raised the glassy bauble in his fingers. “You have earned your reward, Clonogh,” he said. “The return of your soul. Here it is. If you want it, go get it.”

  With a chuckle, Vulpin tossed the glass sphere outward.

  “My soul!” Clonogh shrieked. With the last of his strength he darted past Vulpin and dived outward, trying to catch the falling sphere. It was falling free, at the limit of his reach. With his last strength he reached for the little sphere, and with his last breath, as he plummeted toward the cobbled courtyard, Clonogh voiced a spell. It was his last, and now the ravages of it no longer mattered. He put into it every shred of his energies, every trace of his hatred, and the arcane words still echoed above the tumult of battle as the old magician’s fingers closed around his falling “soul” and his withered body shattered upon the stones of the court. “You will never leave this place,” the echoes seemed to say.

  A thin, dark cloud might have floated for a moment above the gore of the splattered corpse, then swirled and wound around the standing tower, darkening the stones. It might have, or it might have been no more than a trick of light and shadows.

  Inside the telescope cabinet, Clout was sipping stew from a huge vat of the stuff that had suddenly, for no reason he could understand, appeared there beside him. The gully dwarf was aware of a great deal of commotion just outside the cabinet. There were Talls out there, arguing and shouting. But it meant nothing to Clout. He had wished that he had some stew. Now he had stew, a whole pot-full of fresh, hot stew, and the pot itself seemed to be none other than the legendary Great Stew Bowl of the Bulps.

  Another person, even some other gully dwarves, might have found all this puzzling. But Clout had never been one to wonder about things beyond his understanding, and thus he rarely ever wondered about anything at all. The stew he had wished for was here, and he was hungry. Lacking any other utensil, he dipped in with both hands, then stuck his bearded face into the mess to lap at the juices.

  He had just come up for air, belching happily, when the great, helmet-framed face of a fire-eyed human filled the broken panel beside him and the man’s voice said, “Ah, there it is.” A large, armor-clad arm reached into Clout’s hiding place, swatted the gully dwarf casually aside, and gauntleted fingers closed around his bashing tool.

  “Here, now!” Clout shrieked as the white stick was pulled away from him. With a lunge and leap that almost cleared the stew pot, but not quite, the Chief Basher of Clan Bulp caught his receding bashing tool and hung on. Half-submerged in noisome stew, he grasped the stick with both hands and clung to it. “My bashin’ tool!” he wailed at the top of his lungs. “How come ever’body tryin’ steal my bashin’ tool?”

  Chapter 22

  Highbulps Lost and Found

  “I thought you were watching her!” Graywing’s Feral eyes blazed with fury. He towered over Dartimien the Cat, hovering in rage to confront the smaller man nose-to-nose. “I turn my back for a moment, only for a moment, and you lose her!”

  “Back off or you’ll lose that yammering tongue, barbarian!” the Cat snarled, not giving an inch of ground. “Don’t blame me if you can’t keep track of your women. I was busy looking for a way out of this place!”

  The stairs Dartimien had found, leading upward from the great catacombs beneath Tarmish, had brought them into a labyrinth of interlaced tunnels—sewers and storm drains for the city above. It was a maze of buried pathways, some wide and some narrow, most dark and winding, many rambling aimlessly, and all ripe with the accumulated refuse of generations of Tarmish history.

  A gaggle of gully dwarves had followed the three humans up from the catacombs, it seemed the dim little creatures were everywhere, and these scampered here and there, exploring. Normally, the dim-witted little people were terrified of humans. The gully dwarves were, in fact, terrified of nearly everything, at first sight. But they were as adaptable as they were dense. Once having become accustomed to someone or something, anyone or anything, and accepting its presence, they merely assumed that it had always been there and was simply a part of the mysterious world in which they lived. Gully dwarves had been known to tolerate the presence of humans, goblins, turkeys, an ogre or two and even, now and then, a dragon, once they became accustomed to its presence.

  For their part, humans generally paid no more attention to gully dwarves than they would to any other vermin. They were, after all, only gully dwarves—a nuisance, but seldom worth worrying about.

  The tunnels wound and intersected, lighted only by occasional small grates, iron-barred and opening into the courtyards below the tower. There in the daylight, beyond the stone-bound slits, armed men marched and scurried, some of them searching for others, some locked in combat with those they had found. Gelnians and Tarmites, the warriors of the Vale of Sunder seemed oblivious to all but their ancient feud. Here and there, the seeps from above were red with fresh-spilled blood. And beneath it all, the sewers wound here and there in reeking gloom.

  In such surroundings Graywing the Plainsman—skilled tracker and pathfinder of the wild lands—was hopelessly confused. His was a world of open skies and long winds. The cluster and stench of cities left him disoriented. So the city-born Dartimien, to whom sewers and rancid alleys were second nature, had taken it on himself to chart a path that might lead to an exit.

  But at an intersection of several tunnels he had paused to read the markings on a wall (accompanied by an interested gully dwarf or two) trusting to the sound of the plainsman’s boots to lead him to the others. He had followed the sound, and found Graywing. But the plainsman was alone. There was no sign of Thayla Mesinda. They realized simultaneously that the girl was missing, when each discovered that she wasn’t with the other. The two warriors faced each other angrily in the dim light of a sewer channel, while here and there frightened gully dwarves scurried for cover.

  “I should put my blade through you, alley cat,” Graywing blustered.

  “Shake that fist in my face again and you’ll pull back a bloody stump,” Dartimien purred, razorlike daggers appearing in his hands.

  “First you’re hovering around her like a starved hound at a feast, then the minute I turn my back you lose her!”

  “Who was hovering? Me?” Dartimien’s tone was scathing. “From the minute you first saw that girl, you haven’t had your wits about you! I never saw anything so pathetic!”

  “I told you to look after her!”

  “You ordered me to leave her alone!”

  Among the nearby shadows, small voices whispered among themselves. “Why Talls hollerin’ on each other? Gonna kill each other?” “Who knows?” “Who cares?”

  Growling like feral beasts, the two men glared at each other, then lowered their gazes. “This isn’t doing us any good,” Graywing said. “Where could she have gone?”

  “Obviously not where we did,�
�� the Cat admitted. “Back where the tunnels met, when you came this way, was she with you?”

  “Of course she was! She … well, I thought she was, anyway. She was chirping about seeing light down one of the corridors, but …”

  “But you weren’t listening,” Dartimien sighed, turning away. “You never listen!”

  “I was so listening! She has a lovely voice! But I assumed she was talking to some of these Aghar.”

  Dartimien sneered. “You were listening to her voice, and paying no attention to her words? Well, she’s gone now, and that’s that. Too bad, but those things happen. I think there’s a main outfall ahead a few hundred yards. We may have to bend some bars, you ought to be useful there, at least, but it’s worth a look.”

  “We’re going back,” Graywing said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous! That girl could be anywhere by now. She’s probably been caught and killed.” Bits of grit cascaded from the roof of the tunnel, and the paving above thundered with the sound of many running feet. Distantly, there was the clash and clatter of a full-scale battle being waged. “We have to get out of here. Come on, now. Let’s find that main grate.”

  “I’m going back,” Graywing repeated, drawing his sword. “Thayla needs me.” Without another glance he strode past Dartimien and headed back down the tunnel.

  “Fool,” Dartimien snarled. “Alright, so she’s pretty, but she’s just a woman. The world is full of women. You’ll just get yourself killed.… ” He let the words trail off. Graywing was already out of sight, around a bend. Dartimien shook his head. “Gods,” he muttered. “Why should I have to bend bars by myself? That’s brute work. That big oaf is better at such things than I am.” Cursing under his breath, he set off after Graywing.

  Behind him, a gaggle of gully dwarves tagged along, keeping to the shadowed places. They weren’t the least bit interested in tall people’s doings, but it was in their nature to follow whoever happened to lead. Right now the only people doing any leading seemed to be these incomprehensible Talls.

  Where tunnels intersected, Dartimien found Graywing crouched, studying patterns in the mud. “She was here,” the plainsman said, not turning. “I knew she was right behind me. But when I went this way”—he gestured back the way they had come—“she went off to the right. Up that rising tunnel over there.”

  “Stupid,” Dartimien hissed. “That’s only a storm drain. It leads right up to the inner courtyard, not fifty yards from where we found the opening down into the catacombs.”

  “How would she know where it leads?” Graywing snapped. “She followed it because there’s daylight ahead there somewhere. Look. You can see it from here.”

  “I can also hear the clash of weapons from here, and smell the stench of fresh-spilled blood.”

  Ignoring him, Graywing rose to his feet and headed up the tunnel.

  “That barbarian is crazy as a loon,” the Cat muttered. “You’d think he’d never seen a woman before.”

  “Sap’s runnin’,” a small voice beside him said.

  Dartimien scowled at the grimy little creature. “Butt out,” he snapped. “I don’t need an explanation of the facts of life, and certainly not from a gully dwarf.” With an oath he strode away, following Graywing.

  “What Tall say?” Pad asked, cocking a brow at the confused Blip.

  “Said he don’ want facks ’splained,” Blip said. “Was jus’ tryin’ tell him Sap ran off.”

  “Where Sap go?”

  “Prob’ly downstairs,” Blip answered. “Prob’ly tellin’ ever’body where Clout is.”

  “Where Clout?”

  “Upstairs,” Blip said. “Sap heard him holler.”

  With nothing better to do, the remaining gaggle of gully dwarves headed up the tunnel, where the humans had gone.

  At the top of the tunnel, Graywing peered out into the main courtyard of Tarmish from the shadows of a broken grate. Beyond, armed men slashed and hammered at one another, their cries blending with the ring of steel on iron. Thayla Mesinda had definitely come this way. There were distinct marks where her small slippers had climbed the last few feet of incline, and a small handprint in the grime of the tunnel wall where she had pushed through the gaping portal.

  He was bracing himself for a charge into the open when Dartimien came up to him. The smaller man looked past him and grunted in distaste. “I guess you’re planning to run right out there and join in,” he said.

  “Those aren’t real soldiers,” Graywing growled. “Just Tarmites and Gelnians, fighting one another. They always do that. They always have.”

  “So which side do you plan to be on?”

  Graywing ignored the question. “I don’t see any mercenaries out there. Do you?”

  “No, maybe they all left. Civil wars don’t pay very well. But there are some real hoodlums around somewhere. There were icemen in Chatara Kral’s camp. Those brutes are here if the Gelnians are. They don’t ever walk away from a fight.”

  “Vulpin has some personal guards, too,” Graywing added. “I saw them when we first arrived. They looked like cave vandals. Real elite killers. But I don’t see them now.”

  “They’re wherever Vulpin is,” the Cat said. “Look. Graywing, I hate to dash you with cold reality like this, but neither of us will profit from this mess. Whatever you were promised for bringing that magician here, you’ll never collect it. And I most certainly am no longer in Chatara Kral’s employ. The best thing either of us can do is turn around, find that outfall port, and get away from this place while we still have our skins.”

  “You go, then, if you want to.” Graywing barely glanced at the city man. “Thayla needs protection, and I mean to protect her.”

  “From everyone but yourself, I suppose. How chivalrous of you. Anyway, you don’t even know where she is.”

  “I’ll find her,” the plainsman growled. With a lunge and a Cobar war cry, he launched himself through the broken grate and into the thick of the fighting beyond.

  “Fool,” Dartimien sighed. His feral eyes narrowed as he watched the plains warrior cutting his way through the midst of battle. The barbarian’s sword was a bright blur, dancing around him as though it had a life of its own. Its blade flashed from bright steel to bright blood, singing its song of chaos as it clove through the packed combatants. Graywing’s flaxen hair and beard whipped in the wind as he dodged this way and that, making for the base of the tower. Beyond, in the shadows of the tall, tattered structure, figures appeared at a breach in the wall, paused for a moment, then filed out of sight, into the base of the tower itself.

  “Chatara Kral,” Dartimien muttered. There had been no doubt of identity. The Gelnian regent’s brilliant armor was like no other. And with her were four of her personal guards, hulking icemen with brass-bound shields and great axes.

  For a moment, in the intervening courtyard, the path behind Graywing was clear, swept clean by the ferocity of his charge. Then he seemed to be swallowed up in the crowd as howling Tarmites and Gelnians closed in around him.

  “The gods must love fools,” Dartimien hissed, filling his hands with daggers. “Otherwise there wouldn’t be so many of them.” With a snarl as fierce as any cat’s, he vaulted through the broken grate and into the fray.

  * * * * *

  Soft, slanting sunlight washed the wooded hillsides west of the Vale of Sunder, filtering through the umbrella of leaves to paint myriad, flickering patterns on the forest slopes beneath. Soft breezes in treetops made the patterns dance, a subtle, intricate kaleidoscope of tiny motion obscuring the huge, graceful movements of the creature beneath the high boughs.

  In her first life Verden Leafglow had shunned the daylight. A creature of stealth and deceit, she had preferred the dark hours to the bright. But now she found that the sunlight was a comfortable warmth, and the Tightness of it reminded her of how much she had changed in recent times. She was not the same dragon she had been, either in that past life or in the early portions of this one. Rippling scales that had once been emerald
green now were a rich brown in hue, iridescent across the warm spectra with overtones of scintillant gold.

  Little by little, the god Reorx had worked his magic upon her, always by her own choice it seemed but never with any clear options in that choice.

  In her dreams and her deepest soul the visage of Reorx spoke to her. Free will, it said. The poisons of evil remain, and the antidote lies not in the frozen serenity of blind good. The true enemy of evil is free will. They must resolve their conflicts in their own way, and you must wait.

  Your task is not the disorder of human minds, Verden Leafglow. Your task is greater. There is an evil beyond evil, an ancient grotesquery left over from other reckless games, long ago. That is your mission, Verden Leafglow. You will know when the time is at hand. You will have the chance to prove yourself.

  Prove myself to whom? Verden’s question raged in her mind, for a god to hear if he cared to. I have nothing to prove!

  Prove yourself to yourself, the dream-response came, quiet and sure. You chose to cast off your subservience, Verden. You rejected evil.

  Evil rejected me! I only accepted that.

  And craved vengeance, the dream-voice pointed out. As you still do. Crown your vengeance with wisdom, dragon. The true punishment of evil is its failure to succeed. You made a choice and a pledge, Verden. You chose free will, and rejected evil.

  I pledged it only to myself!

  Then you owe it to yourself, the voice said, seeming amused.

  Verden shook herself, chafing at the torment of the uninvited voice which goaded and guided her. Impatiently she stirred her great body on the forested hillside. But even as she spread her languid, lustrous bronze wings to catch the patterns of the forest sunlight, she growled deep within her mighty chest.

  I could just blast them all, she thought to herself, angrily. Those humans—those petty, soft things—I could kill them all without effort. Her huge fangs glinted at the thought, and her talons twitched. Deadly vapors trickled like foul smoke from her nostrils, and a powerful, devastating dragon spell formed itself in her mind.