Tunk nearly fainted from fright when the Tall girl confronted him. He gulped, went pale and trembled violently. The chattering of his teeth almost drowned out the frantic, muffled whisper just below: “Tunk! Get foot out of my mouth!”
“Well, are you?” Thayla repeated. “Are you a hero?”
“Nope, don’t think so,” Tunk managed. With a sickly, placating grin he pointed toward a rosebush. “Maybe better see Bron ’bout that. Bron might be one.”
Thayla stepped to the rose bush and walked part way around it, peering. Just beyond it, soft, scurrying sounds told her of someone moving, trying to stay out of sight. She paused, then turned quickly and went around the other way. The one with the ivory stick was there, gawking up at her, nose to locket.
“Are you Bron?” she asked.
“Yep, guess so,” he quavered. “Pardon, just passin’ through.”
“You’re the hero, then,” she decided. Somehow she had expected heroes to be larger, and maybe better-dressed. And it had never occurred to her they might be anything other than human. But she was in no position to quibble over details. “How did you get here?”
“Beats me,” he admitted. “There we were, jus’ mindin’ own business, lookin’ at Talls. Then …”
“At what?”
“Talls,” he repeated. “Like you.”
“Oh,” she said, not understanding at all. A suspicion tugged at her mind. “Did Lord Vulpin send you here?”
“Th’ Highbulp send us,” Bron explained. “Highbulp say, ‘Bron, go look at Talls. See if Talls up to somethin’.’ So here we are. You folks up to somethin’?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. Uh, you said the … ah, the Highbulp sent you?”
“Yep. Glitch th’ Most. Th’ Highbulp. Real famous person. Ever’body know him.”
It sounded just bizarre enough to be true. No one had ever mentioned where heroes came from, but they must come from somewhere. Somebody must send them. “Then are you here to take me away?”
“Dunno,” Bron admitted. “Highbulp didn’ say.”
“You probably are,” Thayla decided. “You are my hero, here to rescue me from captivity.”
“Oh,” the gully dwarf said. “Okay, if you say so.”
“It won’t be easy,” Thayla reasoned. “How many are with you?”
Bron glanced around at the thoroughly populated balcony. Every conceivable hiding place was occupied by gully dwarves. He had no idea how many there were, but he gave her his best estimate. “Two,” he said.
From their encampments in the hills, Chatara Kral’s forces moved down into the valley, assembling at staging areas north and west of Tarmish Castle. Most of the commanders and approximately a third of the gathered warriors were Gelnians. The rest were men from many lands, set adrift by the great turmoil of recent years.
By the dozens and hundreds they had come, drawn by the promise of cash and the lure of loot. Companies of barbarian horsemen, squadrons of varied infantry and several entire armed brigades of once Imperial troops answered the call, as well as several platoons of Solamnic heavy cavalry and countless individual warriors of many breeds.
With the end of each new war in the decade of darkness, many had returned to their homes and taken up their plows and their hammers. But many more had not. Mercenaries of all kinds roamed the lands these days, seeking employment or loot, whichever came first.
A lone, armored horseman and his squire paused at the verge of forest fronting the Tarmish fields, and studied the panorama just ahead. By his armor, weapons, the magnificent dark war-horse on which he rode and the practiced ease with which he sat his saddle, the plated one might once have been a knight of one of the great orders, or, more likely, a free-lance candidate for knighthood who had chosen a solitary road instead. No banner flew upon his ensconced lance, and no device of heraldry adorned his attire. But he was no less a formidable figure for all that.
His “squire,” afoot, was a lithe, cloak-wrapped dandy with a trimmed, pointed beard and dark hair that curled in little ringlets above his hooded eyes. His manner, as he attended the reins of his “master,” was brusque and curt, noticeably lacking in subservience.
Dartimien the Cat had played many roles in his time, but this was his first experience as a knight’s steward.
At the forest’s edge he knelt, studying the ground. “They came this way,” he said. “It looks as though they went right into that encampment. Would gully dwarves do that?”
Astride the great horse, Graywing raised the heavy visor of his borrowed helm and scanned the assembling army ahead. “Not if they could help it,” he said. “But maybe they got here first. This is a new camp.”
“Well, if they did,” Dartimien stood, brushing leaves from the knee of his immaculate, dark britches, “they’re up to their necks in humans now. There must be two legions out there.”
“Then I suppose that’s where we must go, too,” Graywing sighed. “I don’t like it much, to tell you the truth. What do you think?”
“Your decision,” Dartimien said, gruffly. “You’re the one with the horse.”
“And three hundred pounds of itching armor,” Graywing snapped. “Remember, you had your chance to be the knight, here. I offered.”
“Some offer,” the Cat sniffed. “You know I can’t stand horses.”
Somewhere behind them, on the slopes above, a confused Solamnian mercenary, naked except for his stained linen undergarment and destitute except for a carefully-written receipt on a scrap of tanned buckskin, was nursing a bump on his head and trying to find his way out of a deep cleft in the rocks. The last thing he remembered before awakening in this predicament was pausing to relieve himself in a laurel thicket. The buckskin receipt itemized all of his belongings and promised their return at some unspecified time.
Neither Graywing nor Dartimien bore the wayward knight-errant any ill will, but they had decided they truly needed his horse, armor, weapons and trappings far more than he did at the moment. A visored knight and his squire might attract less attention in this valley of warriors than two mismatched individuals without credentials.
“There is a little canyon running through the camp,” Graywing pointed. “It isn’t much more than a ditch, but gully dwarves might hide there.”
Dartimien squinted, peering into the distance. His city-bred eyes could read the trail of a beetle or follow the flight of a bee, but he had learned that the Cobar’s sight was far superior when it came to distances. Dartimien’s eyes were like a cat’s eyes. He saw intensely what was near, and his night vision was excellent. But Graywing, the plainsman, had eyes like a hawk. What seemed too far to see, to Dartimien, Graywing saw clearly.
“I’ll take your word for it,” the Cat conceded. “What’s the best way to get there?”
“Straight through the encampment, I’m afraid,” Graywing said. “There’s a worse problem, though. The gully runs directly behind that big pavilion with the banners atop it. There. Do you see it? Where the lone oak tree stands. That’s probably the tent of someone important.”
“You might say that,” Dartimien sighed. “That’s Chatara Kral’s headquarters.”
The “gully” was actually a fan of little canyons, most of them only a few feet deep. Eroded by years of seasonal rainfall, they carried the rivulets that drained this entire quadrant of the valley, carrying waters away to a little creek that wound across the valley like a meandering ribbon among tilled fields.
Brush and scrub forest screened the gully, with larger trees standing here and there along its shoulders. Beneath some of these, decades of runoff from the fields had eroded away the soil, leaving hidden caves among the roots. The burrowing of animals over the years had enlarged some of these into sizeable holes, and it was in one such opening that the wandering tribe of Bulp had stopped to rest.
Now Scrib and Grand Notioner Gandy peered from screening brush as hordes of grim-looking Talls swarmed as far as they could see. Men tended stock, set stakes, hauled wood and
gathered around countless breakfast fires. Teams of foresters and ox-drivers shuttled from the nearby forest, bringing timbers for the shaping of rams and the building of siege engines.
“Where they all come from?” Gandy quavered, clutching his mop handle staff. “Not here last night.”
“Dunno,” Scrib shook his head, then sighed, trying to stretch the aches out of his spine. Trying to see everything that was going on beyond the brush, was becoming a pain in the neck. From his shelter he could see a dozen other gully dwarves (or parts of them) through the matted brush. Fully half the tribe seemed to be awake now, and coming out to gawk at the altered scenery.
But not everyone was awake. Despite the noise of the human encampment all around their hiding place, they could distinctly hear the muffled snores of Glitch echoing from the burrow below them.
“Somebody better pop a gag in Highbulp’s mouth,” Gandy muttered. “Be jus’ like that twit to wake up hollerin’.”
The word was passed back, from gully dwarf to gully dwarf, and abruptly the snoring below went silent. The scuffling sounds that followed were far less intrusive than the Highbulp’s snoring had been.
The Lady Lidda crept up between Gandy and Scrib, followed by a younger female, the one called Pert. They peered with dismay at the countless Talls beyond. For a moment they were as stunned as everyone else had been, as anyone would be, awakening to a world that suddenly swarmed with humans. But then the details of the scene began to fascinate them. So many Talls, with so much armor and so many ominous-looking weapons!
Like all female gully dwarves, they immediately began to think in terms of forage.
Somewhere a trumpet blared, and men near its source formed themselves into rows and ranks, long spears gleaming in the morning sun. Not far from the verge of brush stood a huge, bright-colored structure of seamed fabrics, held upright by ropes and poles. Guards with spears and pikes surrounded it. Just beyond it, men in bright livery paraded great horses in a roped-off enclosure, while other men came from lean-tos, carrying huge loads of varied contrivances of leather and iron.
“Wow!” Lidda breathed. “Lotsa good stuff.”
A flap in the pavilion was opened, and Talls set poles to hold it up, forming a roofed entry. From this issued more Talls, dozens of them all wearing the same bright colors and all carrying wicked-looking blades. They ranked themselves in two lines outside the entrance, all facing outward. Behind them came a coterie of servants, followed by a magnificently-garbed woman whose brilliant robe and kilt were outshone by the exquisitely-polished, embossed steel armor of her bejeweled helm, breast plate, buckler and shin plates. At her side hung a businesslike short sword with gem-encrusted pommel and guard.
“Look,” Scrib whispered. “Lady Tall.”
Nearby, Gandy blinked rheumy eyes and turned toward him. “How you know that a lady?”
Scrib had no good answer for that. “Shape like a lady,” he said finally.
“Rats,” Gandy allowed.
Which reminded them all of breakfast.
The Lady Lidda pursed her lips and squinted, deep in thought. “Wonder what they got in there?” she whispered, pointing at the great pavilion.
“Might be some stuff they don’ need,” Pert said. She edged aside, trying for a better view, and stopped. There was a large, sandaled foot in her way. She gaped at the foot, and turned slowly, looking upward. Beyond the foot was another foot, and just above them the fringes of a dark robe, which extended upward to a shadowed cowl.
A human! An old Tall in a dark cloak, standing right there beside her!
“Uh-oh,” Pert breathed. “Ever’body! Run like crazy!”
In an instant, the brush was full of running, tumbling gully dwarves, scrambling in all directions. Guards near the pavilion gaped at the sudden turmoil, then advanced on the run.
Pert, scuttling away from the old Tall in the cowl, scurried between the legs of a confused piker and dived for cover under the fringes of the pavilion. Several others were right behind her.
Somewhere the Grand Notioner squealed.
“Gully Dwarves! A whole swarm of them!” shouted a deep voice.
“Caught one!” another shouted. “Let’s take ’em … Ow!”
“What happened?” some other human called.
“Little bugger hit me on the nose with a stick! There it goes! Catch it!”
“Well, this is no gully dwarf!” the first voice growled. “You! You in the hood! Let’s see some identification!”
“They’re hard to catch!” a man swore, crashing through a thicket. “Pim! To your left! There goes one!”
“Forget the cursed gully dwarves!” the first voice commanded. “Reassemble. We have a prisoner here!” There was a pause before the same voice began asking questions. “Who are you? What’s your name and how’d you get past the sentries?”
“Clonogh,” a wheezing, ancient voice said. “Please, sir, I’m only a poor traveler. I’ve lost my way.”
“Traveler, huh? Well, we’ll just let the captain of guards decide what to do with you. Come on, move!”
“Would you look at that?” a guard noted. “There were gully dwarves all over, and now there isn’t a one in sight! How do they do that?”
“Forget the gully dwarves, I said! Reassemble! Move this prisoner out of these weeds!”
“Some prisoner,” another guard spat. “That shuffling old geezer is eighty if he’s a day.”
PART 3
The Bulpian Chronicles
Chapter 15
Dragon Beholden
Accompanied by her bodyguard-a matched dozen frost bearded giants from the Ice Mountains-and by her Gelnian officers, Chatara Kral strode through her encampment. Tall, lithe and statuesque, with eyes as black as night and a great mane of raven hair that curled and flowed from the base of her lacquered helm, she was a striking figure. Everywhere she passed, men turned to stare in awe, then lowered their eyes. It was known that Chatara Kral brooked no insolence, and no man in his right mind was ready to face the wrath of the tundra giants who flanked her as she walked. Even an ogre, it was said, was no match for such men in combat.
New sunlight sparkled on the gems encrusting the ward-regent’s sword and visor, and cast patterns of reflection from her mirror-bright armor. Her flowing cloak was rich with color, all the heraldry of the royal house of Gelnia emblazoned in its weave. As ward-regent, Chatara Kral had proclaimed herself the voice and the will of the infant Prince Quarls, last survivor of Gelnia’s last great house.
In Gelnia, Chatara Kral’s word, even her slightest gesture and whim, was law.
After making the rounds of the encampment, where men labored to prepare an attack on the Tarmite stronghold, the regent led her assemblage to a log-walled little stockade at the western perimeter. Along its final hundred yards, the path was lined with gruesome trophies-the still, dangling forms of crucified men, and here and there tall, upright poles crowned by the severed heads of decapitated prisoners.
Some of these unfortunates were Tarmish warriors, captured in the hills. Others might have been spies, traitors or saboteurs, or simply Tarmish farmers caught in their fields when the Gelnians advanced. Most of them, in fact, were guilty of no greater offense than having displeased Chatara Kral. Nevertheless, at the hands of the regent’s Nerakan inquisitors they had gladly confessed to any and all crimes suggested to them.
Chatara Kral barely glanced at the trophies as she passed. She went directly to the little stockade and was admitted by bowing guardsmen. Inside the gate, the chief inquisitor bowed low. “Have you come to see the old spy, Excellence?” he asked.
“I have,” she said. “What have you learned from him?”
“Considerable,” the chief inquisitor said, grinning. “He is very old and has little strength. He required only the slightest prompting to talk to us.”
“And is he truly a spy?”
“Oh, indeed he is, Excellence. His name is Clonogh, and he was sent directly by the Lord Vulpin, in search of some rel
ic that has been lost.”
“Relic?”
“Something he calls the Fang of Orm. It seems this Clonogh attempted to deliver the thing to Lord Vulpin, but he somehow lost it, instead. He claims it is a thing of magic, Excellence.”
Chatara Kral’s dark eyes glittered beneath her visor. It was almost too good to believe. Vulpin did not have the Fang of Orm.
The chief inquisitor led her to a reeking cell and gestured. “That is the spy, Excellence.”
Chatara Kral looked at the feeble, old body stretched between the timber arms of a torture rack. “That man is ancient!” she rasped.
The chief inquisitor chuckled. “He swears his true age is thirty-seven,” he said. “He says he has been aged by magic.”
“He looks dead,” the regent observed.
“Very nearly so, Excellence. We are a bit surprised. A man so feeble should have perished an hour ago, yet he still lives. I inquired about that the last time he was conscious. He says he cannot die because the Lord Vulpin holds his life in contract.”
“My brother is still up to his old tricks, it seems,” Chatara Kral muttered. “Very well. Put this Clonogh into the cellar. If he can’t die, then he can rot there. But tend his wounds. He might be a handy pawn to play when we take the castle.”
She watched as burly Nerakans freed the bonds from the old man’s wrists and ankles, threw a noisome blanket over him and carried him out of the stockade. The “cellar” was a hole in the ground, a hundred yards away from the stockade. It was covered by slabs of stone, and its only access was a hinged iron grate in the top.
Outside the stockade, the ward-regent of Gelnia felt as though a weight had been lifted from her. Throughout her preparations for the siege of Tarmish, there had been the foreboding sense that Vulpin might turn the tables at any moment. With the Fang of Orm in his possession, there was magic he could use.
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