But in her dreams a voice like distant thunder, silent beyond her own ears, spoke. Your magic is of this world, Verden Leafglow, just as you yourself are of this world. The thing you must defeat is not. Prepare yourself, Verden Leafglow. Your test is at hand.
Deep inside she knew that whatever was going to happen, whatever task the god had set her to do, it would come very soon. It had already begun. Spreading gold-brown wings, her rear talons thrusting with huge, powerful grace, the dragon launched herself once more toward the battered fortress of Tarmish.
* * * * *
In the deepest caverns beneath Tarmish, the combined clans of Bulp were settling in. Foragers had found a seep that provided an adequate water supply, and there were miles of crevices, tunnels and vermin-infested sumps to be explored, not to mention the most productive pyrite mine any of them could recall having seen.
Nobody knew why the Aghar were so enchanted with pyrites. The sulphur-colored iron nuggets, found here and there in old limestone formations, were useless as far as any other race of people knew. The metal melted poorly, tolerated little stress and had few of the qualities of good iron. But it was yellow, it was shiny and to the gully dwarves it was a fine treasure.
While various members of the clans foraged for food, all of which went into a new batch of stew that some of the females were brewing in makeshift pots over a central fire, others continued to clamber here and there on the west wall, gouging out chunks of pyrite-laden stone to be delivered to the former Highbulp Glitch, who was happily embarked on his new career as Keeper of Shiny Rocks and Other Good Stuff.
Everybody in the place knew where Glitch was. He was where the shiny rocks were being assembled. But when Sap descended from places above, looking for him, he couldn’t find him.
Even the Lady Lidda, pulled away from supervising the stew by Sap’s complaints, was a bit mystified. Glitch should have been right there with the shiny rocks. That was where she had last seen him. But now there was no sign of him.
Within a few minutes, every gully dwarf in the immediate vicinity was busily searching for the ex-Highbulp, peering into every corner, crevice, crack and shadow in the area. As minutes passed, some of them wandered off, forgetting what they had been doing.
But others kept up the search at the Lady Lidda’s insistence. Having her husband retire from being Highbulp was one thing. Having him simply disappear was another, and she was becoming very concerned until she noticed that the largest pile of fresh pyrite was quivering. She stepped close to it, scratching her head in puzzlement as its top shifted slightly and a few bits of stone rattled down its slopes.
Then, distinctly, she heard a snore. It was a snore she recognized, and it came from the pile of shiny rocks.
“Bron!” she called. “Get over here!”
When Bron was at her side, she pointed at the pile of stones. “Dig,” she said.
“Okay,” Bron said. Using his broadsword like a spade, he began to dig, flinging pyrite pebbles this way and that. He had reduced the pile by a third when the remaining top of it shivered, parted and a disheveled head poked through from beneath.
“What goin’ on here?” Glitch demanded.
“Ol’ Dad!” Bron pointed at the head, then squatted for a better look. “What you doin’ in there, Dad?”
“Dunno,” Glitch admitted. “Sleepin’. I guess.”
Hearing the patriarch’s voice, Sap hurried over from across the cavern. “There Highbulp,” he pointed.
“That not Highbulp,” the Lady Lidda corrected him. “That jus’ Glitch.”
“Glitch not Highbulp?”
“Used to be Highbulp.” Glitch struggled free from the piled pyrites and stood atop them. “Quit, though. Too much responsi … resp … thinkin’. Dumb job. Let somebody else do it.”
“Oh.” Sap thought this over, then asked, “Then who I tell Highbulp stuff to?”
“Got ’nother Highbulp now,” Lidda said. “Go tell him.”
“Okay,” Sap said. He turned away, then turned back. “Who is Highbulp?” he asked.
Several of them scratched their heads, trying to remember, Then Bron snapped his fingers. “Ol’ what’s-’is-name. Uh, Clout. Clout Highbulp now.”
Sap frowned, truly perplexed. “Then how I tell Highbulp ’bout Clout, if Highbulp is Clout?”
“Might write it down,” Scrib offered, but the others ignored him.
“Dunno,” Bron said. “That a real problem. Lotsa luck.” Shouldering his broadsword, the designated Hero wandered off in the direction of the stew.
“What ’bout Clout?” Lidda asked.
“What?”
“What Sap wanna tell Highbulp?”
“Bout Clout,” Sap repeated.
“What ’bout Clout?”
“Nothin’ much. Jus’ know where he is, case anybody want him.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs. Way up high. Heard him.”
“Why Highbulp not in This Place?” a passing gully dwarf wondered. “This place not This Place ’thout Highbulp here.”
“This not This Place?” another said. “Then where This Place?”
“Someplace else, I guess,” Sap reasoned. “Maybe upstairs, where Highbulp is?”
A dozen yards away, thunder erupted and dust rolled as a great gout of loosened stone fell from the vaulted ceiling. Among the rockfall were various screeching miners. All around the shattering blast, gully dwarves scampered for safety. Several of them ran right through the new cook fire, spilling the stew and kicking coals in all directions.
Near the grand column Scrib turned, and ducked back as shards of rock whistled past him.
Out of the roiling dust, disheveled gully dwarves emerged, Glitch among them. “ ’nough minin’!” the ex-Highbulp grumbled. “No fun anymore.”
“Stew all gone,” a gully dwarf lady announced. “Fire, too.”
“This place a mess,” several chorused. “Not fit to live in right now.”
“So what we do now?”
“Better find Highbulp,” the Lady Lidda said. “Highbulp decides stuff like ‘what now.’ ”
Old Gandy, the Grand Notioner, hobbled up, leaning on his mop handle staff. “Guess everybody better pack up,” he sighed. “Highbulp not here, we better go where Highbulp is.”
“Clout only been Highbulp since today,” Scrib the Scholar complained, unhappy at having to leave his squiggles. “Jus’ one day, an’ already gettin’ be a twit. Maybe oughtta have different Highbulp?”
Gandy shrugged philosophically. “One Highbulp jus’ like ’nother. All real nuisance. Anyway, gettin’ hard to keep track of who Highbulp is. Too many Highbulps lately.”
“Always hard to keep track of who Highbulp is,” someone observed. “Who cares, anyway?”
“Prob’ly oughtta write it down,” Scrib said, thoughtfully. All around him, gully dwarves were preparing to migrate.
“Kinda bad upstairs,” Sap warned. Talls havin’ a war or somethin’.”
“No pro’lem,” Pert said, proudly. “Bron take care of us. Bron a hero.”
Bron blinked, considering the enormity of it all. He didn’t want to be a hero anymore. But there didn’t seem to be any choice in the matter. Unhappily, he shouldered his broadsword and headed for the “stairway” to the world above.
“Yes, dear,” he muttered.
The Lady Lidda looked after her son, her head tilted thoughtfully. Little Pert was showing real skill at the care and tending of numbskulls, and it occurred to Lidda that Pert might make a fine consort for a Highbulp. The only problem was, Bron wasn’t Highbulp. Clout was. But Bron had all the makings of a good one. At Pert’s direction, he was leading the tribe.
Gandy was right, Lidda decided. There were too many Highbulps right now.
Chapter 23
Into the Dark Tower
Lord Vulpin encountered unexpected resistance in withdrawing the Fang of Orm from the broken cabinet. He pulled the thing halfway out, then blinked and caught his balance as the thing
recoiled back into the shadows with unexpected strength. Somebody inside there, someone unseen, was trying to pull the ivory talisman out of his hand.
With a muttered oath, the lord of Tarmish braced himself, firmed his grip and heaved. In an instant the Fang was his, clenched in his steel-gloved fingers. But swinging from the end of it was a babbling, struggling, ugly little person half his height, a raggedly-clothed creature that vaguely resembled a diminutive human but distinctly was not.
“Gully dwarf!” the warlord rumbled. With a vicious shake he dislodged the little creature from his prize. The gully dwarf went tumbling into a corner and Vulpin lashed out with a steel-shod foot, barely missing the creature. The gully dwarf skittered aside, shrieked and dashed back into the sanctuary of the broken cabinet.
“Vermin,” Vulpin muttered, then dismissed the imbecillc little creature from his thoughts. Gully dwarves weren’t worth thinking about, beyond a mental note to have exterminators scour the premises when the present task was completed. He held the Fang of Orm high, gazing at it, his eyes glowing with a triumphant light.
“Mine,” he said. “The Wishmaker is mine, and the world is about to be.”
“Mine!” the broken cabinet argued. “My bashin’ tool!”
Ignoring the objections from the furniture, Vulpin strode to the shattered wall above the inner courts. Below, a melee of armed men swept this way and that. Tarmites and Gelnians raged and strove, howling their bloodlust. From above it was impossible to tell one force from another. They all looked the same. Here and there, on the battlefield, the fallen lay in pools of gore. But these were relatively few. Vulpin’s helmed face twitched sardonically. For all their ancient hatreds, the combatants were not very capable fighters. The battle raged, but it produced more noise than blood.
There were exceptions, though. A mismatched pair of warriors, neither Gelnian nor Tarmite—one looked like an urban alley-dweller, the other a tall, rangy plainsman—were making their way through the fray, slashing and countering, scattering combatants like wind-blown leaves. Vulpin recognized the plainsman, and he heard the cry of his prisoner as the girl saw those below. “Graywing!” she called, her cry a plea.
“Graywing,” Vulpin sneered. A Cobar, with that code of honor that the plainsmen cherished. The other man below he did not know, but he knew the type. Thief or assassin, the smaller man was lithe as a cat, quick and deadly. A dagger-wielder. Vulpin peered downward, where the two were headed. At the base of the tower, a pair of axe-wielding icemen held both Gelnians and Tarmites at bay. Those would be seasoned mercenaries, Vulpin realized, part of Chatara Kral’s personal guard. Which meant that Chatara Kral was here, in the tower.
“Your timing is perfect, little sister,” he rumbled. “Come up. Come up now and face your destruction.” To his guard he snapped, “Give me the girl.”
Thayla Mesinda was shoved forward roughly, and Vulpin closed steel-sheathed fingers on her arm. “You have been well-treated, girl,” he said. “You have been fed, made comfortable and protected. Now—”
“You kept me prisoner!” Thayla snapped, then gasped as his iron fingers tightened cruelly on her arm.
“I have kept you safe and pure, for a purpose,” Vulpin said. “Now it is time to pay your debt. I require only one thing of you. You must make a wish.”
“I wish you’d let me alone!” Thayla shouted at him.
“A wish,” Vulpin growled. “But it must be my wish, and no other.” With a sudden movement he released her arm and his steel fingers closed around her throat. “I will tell you what to wish. You will wish exactly as I tell you. If you alter my wish, even in the slightest way, in that instant I will snap your neck. Do you understand?”
She struggled and fought, but to no avail. The man was incredibly strong. Her flailing little fists, her soft slippers and her clawing nails met only metal armor. She saw the light dimming, like a tunnel closing in around her. She could not breathe.
Dimly, beyond the armored lord, Thayla glimpsed movement. A gully dwarf darted furtively from the broken telescope cabinet and peered over the outer wall, waving.
“Hey, ever’body!” the little creature called. “Could use some help up here!”
Vulpin’s fingers relaxed slightly and Thayla gasped for breath. Her throat throbbed and ached.
“Do you understand?” Vulpin demanded.
Defeated and barely conscious, the girl gulped air into her burning lungs. She nodded, trying to speak. “Yes,” she whispered.
Still holding her by the neck, Vulpin raised the Fang of Orm before her eyes. “Do you know what this is?”
“No,” she breathed, unable to use her voice.
“This is the Wishmaker,” Vulpin said. “When I tell you, you will hold this in your hand, and you will speak a wish. You will wish exactly what I say. No more and no less.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will wish as you say.”
Violent sounds erupted from the stairway. Steel rang against steel and voices clamored. Among them was a woman’s voice, deep and angry.
“Chatara Kral comes,” Vulpin smirked. He gestured to his cave-assassin guards. “Stop them.”
As one the guards turned, drew their weapons and raced through the stairway portal.
“Now I will tell you what to wish,” Vulpin told the barely-conscious girl. “Listen closely, if you want to keep breathing.”
* * * * *
Graywing headed for the battered tower, his sword slashing this way and that, barely visible as it wove a bright pattern around him. Thrust and parry, cut and recover, disarm, slash and stab, the plainsman’s blade was a crimson-and-steel kaleidoscope, opening a path through the throng of howling warriors surging about the lower court.
At his back, covering his every move, was the Cat—dark wrath with daggers for fang and claw.
The two barely slowed as they crossed the courtyard, right through the thick of battle, making for the base of the tower. From high above, Graywing heard the scream of a girl, and redoubled his efforts. Like a great dire wolf with a panther at its side, the pair fairly flew toward the tower’s base.
They were within fifty feet of the structure’s inner gate when the massed combatants parted ahead and they had a clear view of the shadowed opening. It was the same gate they had exited earlier, but now it was occupied. Two huge, glowering icemen barred the entrance. Their great axes dripped gore, and a dozen fallen Tarmites lay about them, hacked to death.
Dartimien grimaced as the plainsman at his side roared a battle cry and charged.
“Oh, gods,” the Cat hissed. “The barbarian’s in love.”
* * * * *
From the narrow grate leading into the courtyard, the scene outside was horrendous. There were Talls everywhere, running and dodging, striving against one another, slashing away with swords, shields, mauls, axes, clubs and scythes. Dead Talls lay among the live ones, and weapons were scattered all over.
“What Talls doin’?” Sap wondered, peering out wide-eyed.
“Fightin’, looks like,” Scrib suggested, looking over Sap’s shoulder.
“Wonder why?”
“Who knows ’bout Talls? Prob’ly ticked off ’bout somethin’,” old Gandy said. “Where Clout?”
Sap scratched his head, trying to remember. Then he snapped his fingers. “Up there,” he pointed, indicating the top of the tower.
“Clout really dumb,” Gandy shook his head. “Coulda picked better place than that to be.”
“Don’ matter,” Bron reminded him. “Clout Highbulp now. Highbulp can be anywhere he wants to.” He peered out at the melee beyond the grate. There were an awful lot of Talls out there, doing an awful lot of fighting. And they were between the gully dwarves and the route to the top of the spire, where the new Highbulp was. “Prob’ly could use a notion ’bout now,” he suggested to Gandy.
Gandy leaned on his mop handle staff, deep in thought. “Maybe better get ’nother Highbulp,” he said, finally. “That one not worth gettin’ to.”
&nb
sp; But Scrib was there, crowding others aside to gape through the opening. “Fling-thing,” he said, thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Fling-thing!” The doodler pointed off to one side, at the broken remains of a trebuchet near the west wall. “Talls use fling-things, throw big rocks an’ stuff. Ever’body gets outta way when big rocks come.”
“Maybe good notion,” Bron said. “Anybody know how use fling-thing?”
“Dunno,” a gully dwarf beside him said with a shrug.
With sudden resolution, he and another slipped through the grate, ducked into the shadows of stone rubble near the wall and scampered toward the trebuchet.
“Where Tunk an’ Blip go?” Lidda asked.
“See ’bout fling-thing,” Bron pointed. “Scrib got a notion. Can’t get to Clout, then throw rocks instead.”
“Okay,” Lidda said. She turned to a gaggle of ladies crowded behind her. “Gonna throw rocks at Clout,” she told them.
The Lady Bruze frowned. “Can’t throw rocks at Clout! Clout Highbulp now!”
“Nobody tol’ him so, though,” little Pert reasoned. “So maybe okay throw rocks.”
“Bad idea!” Bruze snapped. “Pert hush!”
“Go sit on tack, Lady Bruze,” Pert suggested.
Blip and Tunk were back, then, just outside the grate. Behind them they dragged a long, slender pole of pliant willow wood. “Fling-thing broke,” Tunk reported. “Devasta … smither … all busted up. Got piece of it, though.”
Ignoring the combat going on just beyond, several gully dwarves squirmed through the grate and studied the pole. The thing was nearly twenty feet long, shaped like a sapling with all its branches trimmed off. The remains of leather lashings hung from its ends.
“How this thing work?” several wondered out loud.
Gandy paced the length of the pole, studying it. “Maybe plant it,” he decided. “Then bend it over for throw rocks.”
“Plant it where?” Bron puzzled.
“Right there,” Gandy pointed at a mound of debris. “Where rocks are.”
The Gully Dwarves Page 21