They were six hours east of Hillhome on the mountainous Passroad. The hill dwarves were headed toward Newsea to ambush the derro wagons that had left Hillhome the night before. None of them knew how far beyond the pass they would find the derro waystation. Soon they would be out of the mountains and into the plains just west of Newsea, and that would make for quicker travel. Sooner or later the light wooden beerwagon, with its single hitch, would catch up to the iron-bound freight wagons of the derro, even with their four-horse teams.
The hill dwarves looked anxiously at the sun as it sank into the western sky. They had to reach the derro camp between Hillhome and Newsea by sunset, or else their quarry would start for the sea. A hundred more weapons that could be used to defend Hillhome would then be lost.
“How much farther do you figure it is?” asked Turq Hearthstone, popping his head up from the box behind Basalt and Hildy. A heavily muscled lad, he propped his chin up on the edge of the wagon.
“I don’t know,” Basalt admitted. “But it’s got to be close enough that the Theiwar can get there in one night’s travel from Hillhome. We know from Mayor Holden that they get off the road again by daylight.”
Another hill dwarf, Horld, also looked up out of the wagon. “How many of the white-bellied scum do you think we’ll find there?”
Basalt thought for a moment. “Three per wagon, two wagons coming and two going.… My best guess is there’ll be about twelve of them.”
Horld counted for a moment. “Against seven of us,” he calculated.
“We’ll have the element of surprise on our side,” Basalt encouraged, adding a silent “I hope.” Horld settled back, apparently satisfied with the answer.
Basalt saw that the others were looking to him for leadership now. Horld had always been one of the more prominent of the younger generation in Hillhome. In some ways he’d been sort of a bully, and Basalt usually tried to avoid him. Now here he was, asking Basalt’s opinions.
“Couldn’t you use that ring to go there, find out for sure?” asked Turq, gesturing to the intertwined steel bands on Basalt’s finger.
Basalt shook his head. “Magic is strange, I guess. I can only use the ring to go places that I’ve seen and can picture in my mind. I don’t know where the derro stop is; they might take shelter anywhere in a cave or the forest.” He shrugged helplessly.
The heavily breathing Grayhoof lumbered through the saddle between two looming hills that marked the summit of the Passroad; it would be downhill from here to the sea. “Giddap, now, boy! Run for it!” Hildy cried.
Sensing the lightening of his burden, the horse broke into an easy trot. The wagon rumbled and jounced behind, and in places Hildy had to rein Grayhoof in a bit just to keep the wagon from hurrying the horse. Traces squealed in protest, wheels and timbers creaked, and the noise of their descent precluded anything less than shouted conversation.
Basalt hung on for his life as they rocketed down the narrow, twisting road. He looked over at Hildy, saw her eyes locked on the horse and the route before them, her face fixed in an expression of fierce, teeth-gritting determination. He thought about the five harrns in the back of the wagon, and began to feel all confused again.
What should we do? They expect me to decide—but I’m no adventurer! I can’t do this! Now that we are nearing our goal, the whole plan seems hare-brained. My foolhardy idea is risking the lives of six others, as well as my own!
Then Basalt remembered his Uncle Flint’s words of inspiration. Maybe together he and his comrades could meet these mountain dwarves and best them. They were seven young hill dwarves, all strong, all well-armed. He sneaked another look at the sun. If they were lucky, they would reach the derro in daylight—and gain a significant advantage over their subterranean-dwelling cousins.
Dark pines grew to each side of the rutted track. They passed an occasional farm or forest cottage, inhabited by a few of the hill dwarves who had emigrated over the pass years before. Basalt and Hildy both examined every one of them closely for signs of derro, but saw none. As the lengthening shadows of the trees stretched over the road, Basalt began to fear that he and his crew would be too late to find the derro before dark.
“I see something there!” Hildy whispered suddenly, pointing to a dirt track, deeply rutted, that branched off from the road. At the end of it, some fifty yards away, was a large, dark brown barn of heavy logs. The windowless structure had a large opening on one side, sheltered by an extending, overhanging portion of roof. Four heavy derro wagons, their iron-spoked wheels towering higher than any of the dwarves, stood in the yard. One black-armored derro, standing in the shade beside a wagon, squinted at them as they rolled by. None of the horses was around, and only the single derro was conspicuous, performing a listless circuit of the wagons, obviously bored.
“Stay down!” Basalt hissed to the dwarves in the back. They drew even with the path. “Go past,” Basalt muttered to Hildy, his heart pounding. “Let’s not show we’re unusually interested.”
Without missing a beat, the frawl urged the draft horse along. The small wagon rumbled past the track and was once again surrounded by dark, towering pines.
“Okay, stop here,” Basalt ordered after they had rolled several hundred yards beyond the muddy trail. Grayhoof lumbered off the road, pulling the wagon under the thick branches of several overhanging boughs. “Everyone out! Hurry—the sun’s already dropping behind the trees.”
The six other hill dwarves piled out of the wagon, hefting their weapons and standing in the darkness beneath the trees. For a moment no one moved, and then Basalt realized that they were waiting for him to give the orders.
“Okay,” he offered, his voice a hoarse whisper. “We’ve got to move quietly. We’ll sneak through the woods until we get to the edge of their barn. Then we take them by surprise.”
Holding their axes and daggers firmly, the hill dwarves advanced in a file through the woods to the left of the barn, Basalt leading the way to the clearing.
Suddenly Basalt squatted. His companions followed suit.
“There’s still just the one guard, so the others must be inside,” Basalt whispered. “And the horses. I’ll get the guard quietly. As soon as I do, rush the barn.”
The others nodded acceptance of his plan, and Basalt flushed when Hildy kissed him quickly on his freckled cheek. “For good luck,” she said.
He crawled forward until he crouched among the last branches of the pine trees before the clearing, watching the listless derro perform his circuit. Finally, the fellow turned away from Basalt, stepping around one of the wagons and disappearing from his sight.
Instantly Basalt started forward, trying to run in a crouch. He winced with each footfall, but soon reached the wagon where he had last seen the guard. Clenching his axe in both hands, he looked toward the barn. No alarm, yet. No sunlight reached the floor of the clearing, but the sky overhead was still bright. He hoped that would be enough to impair the derro.
Resolutely, Basalt stepped around the corner of the wagon. Before him, with his back to the hill dwarf, was the derro, not ten feet away. Basalt tried to creep soundlessly, but his foot made an audible thunk as he lowered it into a muddy patch of ground.
The derro whirled in surprise. Basalt saw the fellow’s wide eyes blink in confusion, and then the mountain dwarf squinted. “Eh?” the Theiwar began. “Is it time, already?” In the bright light he mistook Basalt for one of his own comrades.
“It’s time,” grunted Basalt. Suddenly all the tragedy, all the frustrations and humiliations inflicted by the mountain dwarves, was focused onto this derro in front of him. Basalt’s silver-bladed axe flew forward, biting into the side of the unsuspecting Theiwar’s neck. Soundlessly the dwarf dropped to the ground.
For a moment Basalt froze, listening and thinking. He tried to detect some kind of revulsion or horror in himself. He had never killed anyone before; shouldn’t he feel some remorse? Yet the slaying of the derro seemed like any other task, difficult and dangerous perhaps, but v
ery necessary.
“That was for Moldoon,” he whispered to the corpse. Then he stepped back around the wagon and gestured to the others.
The six hill dwarves rushed from their concealment. Basalt leaped forward to join them, and the whole band charged through the gaping door into the darkness of the barn.
Their eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden change in lighting. They heard the mountain dwarves cursing, smelled the presence of the heavy draft horses.
Basalt could see several derro, who had been squatting around a low cookfire, leap to their feet and snatch up weapons. Several others were still wrapped in bedrolls. Now they struggled awkwardly to escape, taken unawares.
Basalt cracked his axe down, hard, against the parry of a derro’s short sword. The mountain dwarf staggered back, thrown off balance. Basalt swung again and again, driving him farther back. He attacked with a reckless savagery that surprised even himself.
This Theiwar wore metal armor and used his blade with skill, striking past one of the hill dwarf’s blows to scrape Basalt’s leg. But his experience was no match for the hill dwarf’s savage onslaught, and in another step the mountain dwarf backed into the wall of the barn.
The derro lunged once more, a desperate stab at Basalt’s heart. The hill dwarf skipped nimbly out of the way, and the enemy had no parry for his next blow. The battle-axe sliced into the derro’s forehead, driving deep into his brain. Soundlessly, the mountain dwarf toppled forward.
Basalt wrenched his weapon free, whirling to look around the barn. Several other derro lay motionless, and one of the hill dwarves writhed in pain, sprawled on the ground. He saw Hildy driving her heavy sword at another derro, and Basalt sprinted toward her. She ran the fellow through without any of his help, however.
The Theiwar who had finally struggled out of their bedrolls wasted no time in fleeing from the barn, casting frightened backward glances at the hill dwarves. In moments they disappeared into the surrounding forest.
“Let ’em go,” Basalt advised when Turq and Horld started after. “We’ve got the weapons we came for.”
Hildy knelt beside Drauf, the wounded young harrn. A chubby lad, he had been cut in the thigh, but the blade had not touched bone. Hildy bound the wound and stopped the bleeding, making Drauf more comfortable. “I’ll be okay,” he muttered, sitting up weakly.
“Good,” Basalt said, clapping him on the back. “Let’s be gone from this hole and get back on the road to Hillhome, then. There should be enough moonlight to guide us, but we can stop along the way if we must. We’ll take the two wagons that have weapons in ’em. Turq and Horld, go look underneath the boxes.” He described the compartment as Flint had related it to him. “We’ll leave the other two here.”
“If we take all of their horses,” Hildy suggested, “then even the wagons we leave are useless to the derro who ran away.”
“Good idea,” Basalt agreed. They identified and hitched up the two wagons that still held a great many weapons, tossing out the inferior plows on top to lighten the load. With the eight extra draft horses following along, tied to a single line, they started back to Hillhome.
The rest of Flint’s day was spent collecting the secret weapon of explosive sludge into every available glass and clay vessel in Mudhole. More than once, Flint was forced to dive and catch a jug that got knocked over, drag a smoking Aghar to the stream, or haul a frantic subject, kicking and thrashing, from the inside of the carrion crawler’s carcass. By the end of the day, his nerves and patience were completely worn out. Even the gully dwarves knew enough to leave him alone that night.
The next two days—all the time remaining to them—were devoted to drilling the gully dwarves in the maneuvers of war. Perian’s experience in this regard was invaluable. Unfortunately, the maneuvers and formations used by the House Guard were completely hopeless for the gully dwarves.
“Get in line,” screamed Perian. “Get in line!” Eyeing the ragged row of Aghar with disgust, Perian stomped up to the worst offender, who was standing a full four feet in front of everyone else, and walked a slow circle around him.
She stopped in front of him and stared into his eyes.
“What’s your name, citizen?”
“Spittul, O great and powerful Queen.”
Flint, seated at the end of the line, guffawed.
Perian glowered at him, then turned back to Spittul. “Are you really trying to be a soldier, Spittul, or are you playing games with me?”
Spittul’s eyes lit up. The queen was talking directly to him! “Oh, yes, Queen Furryend, I want be a solder real bad!”
“And that’s what you’re doing, Spittul,” shouted Flint. “Keep up the good work.” The hill dwarf roared at his joke, and roared twice as loud as the muscles in Perian’s neck bulged.
Through clenched teeth, Perian ordered, “Take two steps back and then don’t move.” She turned and stomped to where Flint lay in the moss, grabbed him by the belt, and dragged him out of earshot of the troops. “How do you expect me to get any kind of discipline into this rabble when you undermine my authority?” she hissed.
“It’s hopeless anyway,” chuckled Flint, wiping his eyes. “You can’t drill these tunnel apes like veterans. They’ll never learn. They’re just not made to stand in lines.”
Perian turned around to look at the assembled group. “So what do you suggest? We herd them into a pack and yell ‘charge!’ at the first opportunity? They’ll fry themselves with their own sludge bombs.”
“Probably,” Flint confessed. “I think we need some new tactics, something more suited to their ability.”
“Be my guest,” snorted Perian.
Flint strolled back past the slowly mingling knots of Aghar. “The problem, as I see it,” he said to them, “is one of getting close enough to the bad guys to lob sludge bombs into them, without getting beaten up first. It’s obvious we can’t hope to do it as a big group. Maybe we can do it as small groups. Let’s try something …
“You harm over there,” Flint shouted, indicating a group of about ten gully dwarves who actually seemed to be paying attention. “I want you to move, all together in a bunch, over to the wall and then back here again.”
With a good deal of pushing and shoving, they clomped to the wall, turned, and elbowed their way back to where they’d started.
“Very good,” declared Flint. “Now we’re going to try it again, this way.” He positioned the gully dwarves so that those in front were holding their shields in front and those behind were holding their shields overhead, forming good cover.
“OK, walk to the wall and back, and keep your shields where I put them.”
The Aghar stumbled to the wall, turned, and jostled back. By the time they reached Flint, several shields had been dropped and the rest were all askew.
“That was pathetic,” Perian announced. “This is a dead end.”
Flint shook his head. “I disagree. By the time they returned they were all mixed up, but they reached the wall in pretty good order. I think that with some practice, they could do this.”
“Why bother?” Perian shot back.
“I’ll show you.” Flint turned back to his test group. “Everybody pick up a rock and then resume your positions.” General mingling, pushing, rock picking, and swapping broke out until Flint countermanded his order. “Hold it, let’s try one thing at a time. Everybody pick up one rock.
“Now everybody put your shield where I showed you.
“Now everybody walk toward where the monster came into the cavern and when I say ‘throw,’ everybody throw their rock at the wall.” The Aghar stumbled along a weaving path toward the wall. When Flint hollered, “Throw!” they dropped their shields and pelted the wall with rocks, then fell on the floor laughing, wrestling, and scratching.
Flint turned back toward Perian. “Maybe the hill dwarves should flee now, before it’s too late. This is hopeless.”
Perian stared at the tangled mob of Aghar on the floor. “Nonsense! I see lots of progress. W
hat do you call that maneuver?” she asked.
Flint sighed. “The wedge.”
The wedge—which the Aghar quickly renamed the wedgie—the Agharpult, and general target practice made up the bulk of their drills. Perian was cheered to discover the Aghar were excellent shots with a thrown rock or sludge bomb (a skill developed by stoning rodents for food, she discovered later). The Agharpult they enjoyed, and showed a natural proficiency for distance, if not accuracy.
But the wedgie, Flint was convinced, was their real strength. By the end of their training period they could cross the Big Sky Room in a tight clump at a run, hurl their dummy sludge bombs, and run back, all without being prompted with orders every step of the way.
Still, two days was only two days.
“Why king frown every time when we do our army stuff?” asked Nomscul. “Him look worse than old goldfunger lompchuter.”
Flint only glowered at the gully dwarf shaman. Gritting his teeth, unable to watch the ludicrous marching exhibition for a moment longer, Flint called out, “Listen up you frawls and harrns!” He clapped his hands. After much pushing, shoving, and eye poking, the gully dwarves stood in a mass, at what vaguely resembled attention.
“What you folks need is something to give your work purpose, some driving rhythm that synchronizes and unites you as an unstoppable force.” Perian giggled behind her hand, and Flint elbowed her in the ribs. He moved away to pace before them, arms linked behind his back, his eyes on the ground. “That is why I’ve decided to teach you a very special, sacred, royal dwarven song.” A hush fell over the crowd of assembled Aghar.
“King?”
Flint looked up in irritation to see Nomscul waving his hand above his head.
“We know good song,” the shaman said proudly.
Nods of agreement fluttered through the crowd. Before Flint could stop them, the gully dwarves launched into a raucous tune.
Big yellow sun,
No spit in eye,
Die all day,
Leafs up in the sky asleep,
Burning bugs,
Gray, gray, gray,
Flint the King Page 23
