Now that the dragon was out of sight, the humans had reorganized their forces and the battle of Tarmish had begun.
I could put a stop to all that, she thought, sleepily. It would be easy. I could …
Of course you could, the silent voice within her agreed. But then nothing would be resolved, only interrupted. Only through their free will, unfettered, will they fulfill their destinies.
Even as Verden dozed, the scanning image in her mind roved the valley below, showing her detail after detail of the puny doings of the lesser creatures. Twice she was roused by surprise, and bitter old memories, memories almost forgotten, came to life again. When the vision scanned the tower keep of Tarmish, she saw the face of Lord Vulpin. And again, when her view roved the trundling ranks approaching the fortress, there was another face, that of Chatara Kral. Thus Verden understood the darkness of the evil that had befallen this embattled realm.
Both of those faces were familiar. Though she had never seen them before, she knew them. Faces of evil reincarnate, they bore the features of their common sire.
“Verminaard!” the dragon hissed.
The dire memories were so livid, it was as though no time had passed at all, as though the dread days of the War of the Lance lived again, and Verden was part of it, as she had been then. Verminaard! Dragon Highlord, liege lord of all the forces of the Dark Queen, next to her the very symbol of evil.
Chatara Kral and Vulpin, the heirs of that evil. But there could be only one heir supreme. So that was what this puny conflict was all about. The children were in contest on this field, to determine which of them should don the mantle of their father. One would live and one would die, and from the victor would spring new evils yet unimagined.
Verden was fully awake now, and in her dragon mind an idea grew. It would be fitting, almost poetic, if both betrayers succeeded, and in succeeding, failed.
Destiny, the voice within her whispered. You have a destiny, too, Verden Leafglow.
Rested now, she studied again the armies in the valley below, and the castle that was their objective.
Infiltration and subversion, she mused, her great, green eyes glowing slightly. Throughout her service to the Dark Queen, these had been the skills of her specialty. In a dozen campaigns with the Dragon Highlords, Verden had become adept at the furtive talents. She had become something of a specialist in infiltration. She had served as a saboteur.
Wouldn’t it be interesting, she mused. And a voice within her—a voice not her own, repeated, destiny.
Chapter 16
The Breakout
Pert, Lady Lidda and a gaggle of other females had begun a forage of the big pavilion, where interesting bales and crates were stacked along the walls. But the expedition was cut short when the Lady Tall with the bright attire returned, along with a lot of her followers.
“Prepare to break camp,” she ordered. “Our next sleep will be at the gates of Tarmish.”
Suddenly the pavilion was full of busy Talls, hurrying about, poking here and there, moving packs and bales. The Lady Lidda decided it was a bad time to visit. “Everybody scat,” she whispered. The command was relayed among those behind her. Within moments a dozen gully dwarves had burrowed out, under the sides of the pavilion, and were scurrying through the brush, back to where the tribe waited.
“Lotta good stuff back there,” Pert noted, sadly. “Might be spices an’ corncobs an’ yard goods … an’ maybe shoes an’ ribbons an’ stuff.”
“An’ maybe a comb,” the Lady Bruze mused. “Could use a good comb. Clout been gettin’ fleas a lot lately. Shoulda’ stayed longer.”
“Easy come, easy go,” Lady Lidda said. A troop of mounted Talls thundered past, shouting and pointing, almost on top of them, and the Aghar ladies dived for cover beneath spreading brambles. “We better do our shoppin’ later,” Lidda decided. “After th’ rush.”
At the dugout bank, gully dwarves were bustling around busily, gathering up whatever came to hand—sticks, used bird nests, pieces of fabric, bits of gravel, a surprised tortoise. Pert glanced around, bright-eyed, and asked, “what goin’ on?”
Most of those around her ignored the question, having no answer to it, but two or three paused. “Highbulp say pack up,” one explained. “Didn’ say what to pack, though.”
“Highbulp say time to leave here,” another added. “Say, all these Talls aroun’ here, neighborhood gone to pot.”
The Lady Lidda went in search of Glitch, while other ladies scattered here and there, becoming involved in the collection of whatever was being collected. The legendary Great Stew Bowl went trundling by, on its way to the pile of goods. Its trailing edge almost dragged the ground, and nothing but feet showed beneath it. Pert squatted to peer under it, then turned away, disappointed. She had hoped it might be Bron under there, carrying the big iron thing. But it was only a grumbling Clout. Apparently he had lost his best bashing tool somewhere, and he wasn’t happy about it.
Come to think of it, Pert didn’t recall seeing Bron lately. She wondered now where he was. Vaguely, she recalled Bron saying something about the Highbulp wanting him to go and look at Talls. Cautiously, she climbed a few feet up into a scrub tree and looked around. Just beyond the brush, on all sides, there were Talls everywhere—unimaginable numbers of them, doing all sorts of mysterious things. But she didn’t see Bron anywhere.
Directly below her, Scrib wandered by, carrying a shard of dark slate in one hand and a piece of soft limestone in the other. He had found that when one was rubbed against the other, it left an imprint. Now he strolled happily along, oblivious to anything around him, drawing squiggles on his slate. Pert came down from her tree and fell into step with him, staring at the incomprehensible doodles. “What Scrib doin’?” she asked.
“Makin’ a list,” he said absently.
“List of what?”
“Stuff,” he said, shrugging. “This,”—he indicated a squiggle—“a mushroom.” He pointed at a larger symbol. “This more mushrooms. An’ this a cloud, an’ this a stick, an’ this a whole lotta rats.”
“How much rats?”
“Two,” he explained. “Lotta twos.”
“You see Bron lately?” she asked.
“Nope.” He glanced upward, tilted his head in puzzlement, then drew an elaborate doodle on his slate.
“What that?” Pert wondered aloud.
“Dragon,” he said. Then he seemed to freeze in place. He dropped his slate and chalk, and his eyes bulged out. “Dragon? Dragon!” Scrib pointed at the sky. “Dragon! Ever’body run like crazy!”
Others echoed the alarm, and abruptly the brush was alive with scrambling, scurrying, colliding and tumbling gully dwarves. One glance was enough for Pert. She looked where Scrib had pointed, and her eyes went wide. There, coming across the sky, was a behemoth on mighty wings, a huge, sinuous creature that seemed to be looking directly at her. She chirped, fell, rolled and scrambled upright, then fled in terror.
The cavern beneath the tree roots was packed solid with gully dwarves when she got there, and more were trying to pile in, burrowing among those already there. The space within was obviously full. For each one who managed to push his way in, another popped out. As Pert skidded to a stop, the Highbulp, Glitch the Most, tumbled past her, head over heels down the sloping bank. Just behind him, the Lady Lidda shouted, “Glitch! Get back here, stupid!”
Pert was almost bowled over as Lidda raced past her, going after the disheveled Highbulp.
But now it was too late to run. On wide, gliding wings, the dragon loomed over them, its huge head swinging this way and that as it scanned the area below. More than thirty feet in length, with a wing-span of at least that width, the great beast cast a racing shadow that seemed to cover everything.
Glitch had just gotten to his feet and looked upward. The dragon looked back at him and a muted hiss came from it like an expression of disgust. Beside Glitch, the Lady Lidda stared at the beast, then grinned and waved at it. As though vastly annoyed, the dragon
turned away, banked majestically and zoomed off toward the west.
“That dragon our dragon,” Lidda told the Highbulp, who seemed to have frozen where he stood. “Glitch ‘member dragon?” Turning, she waved again. “Bye, dragon,” she called.
Pert might have been interested in all that, but she wasn’t paying much attention to them at the moment. She was standing next to the pile of collected goods, just inches from the Great Stew Bowl. And it seemed to her that the Bowl was humming softly.
* * * * *
With the unconscious Clonogh across his saddle, Graywing spurred the war-horse. The animal launched itself into a belly-down run that rained gravel upon the Gelnian guards closing in behind. For a moment, the plainsman thought he had escaped, but the feeling was an illusion. Behind him bugles blared, and ahead, several companies of troops turned, spotted him and began closing in.
In an instant, there were dozens, and then hundreds, of pikemen, archers, lancers and footmen moving to encircle the lone knight, and directly ahead of him a squad of Solamnic knights-errant spread in a solid arc of armor and lance points, waiting to receive him.
On a proper plains horse, light-geared and Cobartrained, and without all the heavy armor encasing him, the warrior might have eluded the trap. But, though his armor gave him protection from arrows and spears, he was no knight, and no match for those who were.
Still, he had to do something. Lifting his great lance from its saddle boot, he leveled it, braced himself for battle, touched the horse’s reins and charged.
He had no idea where Dartimien had gone, nor any time to worry about him. The Cat could take care of himself.
The sheer audacity of the charge caused the line of horsemen ahead of him to pause, and waver slightly out of position, but they corrected immediately. Faced with a madman, the Solamnians would deal with him as a madman. There was only one open way through the camp, and they wheeled to block it, forming a solid rank of iron men on iron horses, each with eight feet of deadly lance ready to impale their prey.
It was what Graywing had hoped for. With a shrill war cry he shifted his grip on his own lance, raised it and hurled it like a spear. In the same instant he veered his horse to the right, angling away from the open path, directly into the thickets along the draw.
It was a chance in a thousand, he knew, but it was the only chance he had. The instant he was shielded by brush, he swiveled around, lifted the inert Clonogh, slung him over his shoulder like a sack of seed, and threw himself to the side, diving out of his saddle. The horse thundered on, crashing through the brush, and Graywing lit with a mighty clatter of armor, and rolled into deep brush.
He didn’t know, or care very much, whether Clonogh was alive or dead. Breathless and aching from his fall, the Cobar worked frantically to shuck himself out of several hundred pounds of plate steel and binding pads. He slung his sword on his shoulder and straightened his belts. His sweat-soaked, leather-bound jerkin became a pack for the armor, and his long shield a sled. Onto it he loaded Clonogh, wrapped in his blanket like a caterpillar in its cocoon, with his extra sword—the knight’s sword—atop him to serve as a tie-bar for the strips of armor thong that held him in place. Towing the shield-sled with a hard fist, Graywing snaked through the brush, staying low, moving at right angles to the direction his horse had gone.
Only yards away now, men were crashing through the thickets in hot pursuit. Graywing let the first mob of them go by, then shifted his position, moving almost soundlessly—not through the brush, but under it.
He was nearing the bank of the nearest draw when horsemen thundered by, just a few paces away, and turned for another sweep of the brush. With a muttered oath, Graywing loosened his sword buckler and braced himself. Returning, they would be right on top of him.
Then he heard cries of terror, and the sound of horses running in confusion. For a long heartbeat he waited, listening. Then he raised his head. All around, searchers were fleeing in all directions, and a huge shadow swept across the brush. He looked up, directly into the face of an enormous dragon gliding across the sky, barely above the tree tops.
Seized by the instinctive dragonfear natural to all creatures, Graywing ducked into the screening brush, locked a fist into the “sled’s” towline and slithered deeper into the thicket. Just ahead was the bole of a big, stubby tree. Abruptly, the earth seemed to crumble beneath him. He fell on his face and his free arm shot downward into a warm, squirming mass of movement. Something—or someone—bit him on the finger and a muffled voice said, “Keep hands to yourself, clumsy!” He recoiled, and more soil sheared away, dropping him headfirst into a hole that hadn’t been there a moment before.
All around him were muffled, startled little cries of alarm and outrage.
“Somebody broke th’ ceiling,” someone said. “Who there?” another wondered. “Somebody clumsy,” still another decided. “Highbulp clumsy,” a new voice chimed in. “You got Highbulp there?” “Can’t tell,” the first said. “Dark an’ dusty in here.”
Choking and blinded, almost suffocated by the falling dust and the press of warm, small bodies around him, Graywing felt himself being hoisted and boosted from hand to hand as dozens of small hands hustled and jostled him toward a source of light.
“Pretty big somebody,” a voice in the darkness said. “Lot bigger than Highbulp.”
“Big no excuse for pushy,” another snapped. “Not ’nough room in here as is.”
Graywing was unceremoniously ejected from the hiding cave, into the filtered light of the draw. He coughed, tried to get his breath, and opened dust-grimed eyes. He was lying on his back under a canopy of limbs and a tiny, ancient-looking creature stood over him, poking him with a stick.
“This not somebody,” the Grand Notioner Gandy announced, finally. “This just a Tall.” He peered down again at the choking, dust-covered man, then whacked him on the head with his mop handle.
With an oath, Graywing rolled away, trying to clear his eyes. All around him, gully dwarves, panicked at his sudden appearance among them, turned and scurried away. Several dozen of them climbed the brush-covered bank, started to flee beyond, then turned back when they saw the chaos of armed Talls just beyond. Graywing was just getting his feet under him when a flood of panicked Aghar poured from the bank, knocking him flat again. In a blink, he was awash in gully dwarves, tumbling over him, falling on him, almost burying him in their frenzy.
Glitch the Most recovered from his fear-freeze in time to see the swarming pile of his subjects tumbling around in the bottom of the draw. Entirely forgetting the dragon of moments before, he strode to the melee and demanded, “What goin’ on here?”
Most of those in the tumbled pile ignored him, but two or three glanced around. “Who want to know?” one of them asked.
“Me!” Glitch snapped. “Your Highbulp!”
“Oh, yeah,” several of them agreed. “That right. You ol’ Glitch.”
“Right!” he grumbled.
The tumble of gully dwarves began to sort itself out. “What Glitch want to know?” somebody asked.
Glitch pondered, trying to remember what he had asked. Then he snapped his fingers. “Oh, yeah. Why th’ pileup here? Have a fall?”
“No, thanks,” one of them said. “Jus’ had one.”
“Don’ go up there, Glitch,” another pointed at the dirt bank. “Talls ever’place up there.”
“Go down there, then,” Glitch decided, gazing down the draw. “Ever’body come on. Time to move out.” With an imperious gesture, the glorious leader of all Bulps started down the draw, tripped over his chief doodler and sprawled flat on his face.
“Glitch a clumsy oaf,” several of his subjects noted, selecting objects from the collection stack to carry with them on their journey.
Scrib, down on hands and knees searching for his slate and chalk, barely noticed that the Highbulp had tripped over him. He knew the utensils were here somewhere, and he wanted to recover them, to have a look at his picture of the dragon. It was the firs
t time he had ever seen a dragon, and he wanted to be sure he had it right. Searching, he crawled right into the remainder of the recent tumble, bumped his head against something solid, and looked up—directly into the angry eyes of a prostrate human.
“Oops,” Scrib said, backpedaling frantically. From a few feet away, he had a better view of the Tall. The man lay belly-down, with several gully dwarves just getting to their feet around him. Atop him, standing between his shoulder blades, Clout gazed around absently, then looked downward. “What this?” the Chief Basher wondered.
A few steps away, old Gandy leaned on his mop handle. “That a Tall,” he said.
It took a long moment for it to soak in, then Clout chirped, gaped and made a huge leap that landed him several feet away from the man, on the rim of the Great Stew Bowl. The big, iron shield rose, flipped and landed faceup, with Clout beneath it. Gully dwarves scrambled to lift the thing and get him out.
By the time they had completed the task, the fallen man, forgotten for the moment, was sitting upright in the sand, watching in amazement. Graywing had seen gully dwarves before, and heard about them. But he had never really believed most of what he had heard. It was difficult to imagine how creatures so thoroughly dim-witted could exist.
But he began to believe it now. They had evicted him bodily from a collapsed cave, rapped him on the head, then fled in panic from him. Then they had ganged up on him, knocked him flat and pinned him down, then literally forgotten all about him, and all in a matter of minutes. Now, as the little creatures turned toward him by threes and fives, gaping and gawking, he had the distinct feeling that it was about to start all over again.
“Just hold everything!” he ordered, raising a hand.
They gaped at him, and some turned to flee. “I said hold it!” he barked. “What in the name of all the gods are you runts doing?”
“Us?” It was a paunchy, gray-bearded little individual with a crown made of teeth askew upon his head. “Nothin’. Jus’ leavin’. Bye.”
The Gully Dwarves Page 13
