Teldin nodded the giff aside. “Gomja, you know more about fighting than I do, so you’ll have to take whatever’s hardest.” The farmer felt some shame at the statement, feeling as though he were putting his friend at unnecessary risk.
“Thank you, sir,” the sergeant said brightly. “That would be the main shaft. Lots of ways for the enemy to get down. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it, sir.”
“I know you will,” Teldin agreed, though he lacked the giff s confidence in their situation. The neogi were coming for him, and a lot of people were going to get hurt because of it. The farmer felt like a plague carrier, involuntarily spreading death wherever he went. “Where should I go?”
The giff wrinkled his brow in thought, more used to following orders than making plans. “The staircases, I guess, sir. See if you can block those so the enemy can’t get down that way.
“All right,” the farmer agreed. He was not at all certain how he would accomplish it. “Good luck, Sergeant Gomja.” The giff was already beyond earshot, herding his unruly band down the hail.
Grabbing Snowball and his troops, Teldin set off to the left, toward the supposedly “improved” staircases. Teldin tried to formulate a plan. All that seemed to come to mind was to gather the gnomes in the area and organize a barricade. The human explained his simple idea to Snowball, playing on the gnome’s vanity for cooperation. With a promised rank of second-in-command, the gnome eagerly helped work out the plan.
At the staircase, Teldin saw the improvements added by the engineers to “make the stairs faster.” The width of each step had been cut in half and replaced by a smooth, semicircular groove. The curling, circular staircase was now half stairs, half slide. Pistons could be triggered at each level to divert the slide into the hallway, where the descendee shot across the floor and into a thick wall of mattresses, hopefully to come to a safe stop. Even as he worked to organize the barricade, gnomes from the upper levels shot by and disappeared, shrieking into the distance. Teldin didn’t know if their screams were caused by the neogi or their hair-raising method of transport. Stopping as many as he could, the human, with Snowball’s assistance, pressed the newcomers into service. Two of his crew, sent hustling off to look for an armory, came back with a mismatched assortment of weapons: swords, axes, hammers, and things Teldin could not identify. The farmer had to break up several arguments over who got to wield which weapon.
As he questioned Snowball, Teldin learned there were four staircases on this level. With only one barricaded and guarded, there was little time to waste. The farmer took a random guess and appointed the most sensible-looking gnome of the lot to command this station. After carefully explaining what he wanted done, the human assigned a few of his crew to remain on guard, then gathered the rest, some of whom already had managed to wander away, and hurried to the next stair. From somewhere above, the booms and crashes of battle seemed to grow louder.
At the second staircase, the task was complicated by the discovery of a bizarrely built catapult, a ballista designed to fire ten bolts at once, so that they went “around corners, too,” according to one of the crewmen who dragged the device through the halls. The engineers had been wheeling it toward the center when Snowball had found them. “It’s just what we need!” the doorkeeper shouted, and, before Teldin could stop him, the artillerists were drafted to their cause. At the staircase, the yeoman tried to arrange it so the ballista was as far from everyone as possible, but the gnomes insisted on placing the device in the front lines. With grave misgivings, Teldin continued to the third staircase.
While they were in the midst of setting up defenses at the next station, a gnome, riding the slide from above, suddenly diverted to their level and shot through their numbers. Skidding across the floor, he slammed into the wall of mattresses with a loud phlooph! and a swirl of feathers. Once pulled from the padding, the refugee staggered back to the landing to inspect the slide. Teldin and the other gnomes, curious to see what the new arrival was looking at, packed themselves in the doorway. A trickle of water appeared from around the curve of the staircase and ran down the center of the slide.
“Oops,” the new arrival said, spotting the water. Ears perked up among the group.
“Oops?” Teldin asked. With his back to Snowball and the other gnomes, the human did not notice that those at the rear of the group had already turned to run. “Oops” was a universal danger signal for gnomes. Behind Teldin, Snowball and the few gnomes still remaining edged carefully away from the landing.
The gnome looked up. “Yep, oops,” the little fellow answered, nodding his head. “Looks like the Water Guild tried to flush out the enemy.” In the distance there was a faint rumbling noise. The trickle of water had widened a little in that time.
“Flush out? How?” Teldin asked, not understanding what the gnome meant. Snowball, the only gnome of Teldin’s crew that remained, quietly turned and ran.
“Well, I’m not a Water Guildsman, mind you,” the gnome began, his speech gradually increasing in speed, “but I would guess that they opened the main valves on the water mains from the big lake and now there are, let’s see-” The gnome stopped to make some calculations, wiggling his fingers as he thought- “a lot of water coming down! Bye!” Before the human could argue, the gnome leaped on the slide and disappeared.
“Wait!” Teldin shouted. “Do you mean that-”
“Yes!” echoed back the reply, almost drowned out by the growing rumble from above. That was enough for the farmer. Turning to warn his crew, he discovered they were all gone. “Snowball,” he screamed, “damn it, get back here!”
Then the flush-out hit. At first it was only a wave washing about Teldin’s legs. The staircase behind him had turned into a waterfall, water splashing down the steps and swirling down the coiled shaft. Most of the flood roared past to disappear farther down the stairwell. Then, all at once, the pressure became too great and the cascade became a solid blast. The algae-rich lake water burst through the doorway and slammed the farmer full in the face. Without a chance to even struggle for his footing, Teldin was swept backward down the hail. He floundered and struggled, trying not to drown, but the surging water bashed him from wall to wall, rounding corners in an endless rush. Teldin choked and sputtered and struggled to break the surface, but the hallway was filled. The current dragged him along the tunnel’s rough rock face, which ripped his shirt and skin on its sandpaperlike surface. His body hurtled into doorjambs and debris, battering the farmer nearly senseless.
Finally, half-drowned and scraped raw, Teldin broke the surface, gagging and sputtering. The crest of the flood had passed, but the current carried the limp human swiftly through the corridors. He was barely aware of what was happening and feebly clawed at passing projections, trying to stop his progress.
Then he heard an echoing roar, deeper than the high- pitched crash of the waves, a roar that came from somewhere ahead. Teldin turned to see the end of the corridor, where it opened into the central shaft of Mount Nevermind. The carrying flood swept out onto the ledge and plunged over the edge into darkness. Desperately Teldin tried to brace his feet on the bottom, only to have them swept out from under him. He splashing and clutched at a shape, but it was only a crate that bobbed underneath his grasp. Rolling around, the farmer saw he was only seconds from the edge of the chasm.
At the very edge Teldin saw a barrel-lift just to the left. He lunging outward, and his fingers grazed the wooden rim, then slipped away. With a frantic flail, his arm wrapped around a rope. The farmer clung to the slender line, his body swinging out over open space. Water from above battered the human, as if trying to knock him loose. A small body smashed against his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness.