The Grand Notioner was preoccupied, trying to repair the bindings on his feet after a long day's walk. "What about?" he grumbled.
" 'Bout how get Highbulp an' all away from Talls! Pay attention."
"Oh." He thought about it for a while, then shrugged and pointed at the stick in her hand. "Use bashin' tool, I guess."
"For what?" Drule looked at the stick.
"For bash Talls," he explained.
To the Lady Drule, that didn't sound like much of an idea, but when several long minutes of fierce concentration didn't produce a better one, she resigned herself to it. Bashing Talls, in her opinion, was a very good way to get into a lot of trouble, but maybe it was worth a try.
"Anybody wanna bash Talls?" she asked around, hoping for volunteers. There were none. She would just have to do it herself, then.
Nearing the foot of the ridge, Drule suddenly was aware that Krog was right behind her, mimicking her stealthy approach. She turned and raised a hand. "Krog wait," she whispered. "I got somethin' to do."
In a rumbling whisper, the big creature asked, "What Mama do?"
She pointed toward the pen, where a guard was sitting on a rock. "See Tall there? Gotta bash him. Now be quiet."
"Oh," Krog said. "Okay."
With Krog silenced, the Lady Drule crept on down the slope toward the guard. Even sitting on a rock, the man was taller than she was, and his ready sword glinted in the starlight.
Trembling with dread, Drule crept up behind him, raised her rat-bashing stick, and brought it down on the back of the man's head as hard as she could.
"Owl" the man said. His hand went to his head. "What th' — " He reached for his sword.
The Lady Drule tried to run, but tripped over her own feet and fell.
The raider guard spied her, spat. "Gully dwarf!" He grasped the hilt of his sword… then raised his eyes to see the last sight of his life — a massive club descending on his skull.
The Lady Drule got her feet under her, started to run again, then saw the squashed body of the man sprawled across the rock. Krog stood to one side, disinterestedly gazing out over the fire-lit camp.
"Wow!" Drule breathed. Raising her rat-stick, she stared at it in amazement. "Pretty good bash!"
Quietly, then, she crept toward the pen, bright eyes looking for other Talls to bash. Somewhere nearby, a rumbling whisper said, "Ones with weapons first,D Mama."
That, she realized, made pretty good sense. She wondered how Krog came to know such sound strategy. At the bottom of the slope, she began to circle the slave pen. The gully dwarves were all crowded into one comer of the wooden cage enclosure, spumed by the humans inside.
As Drule neared that comer, a voice whispered, "There Lady Drule! Hi there, Lady Drule." Another voice whispered, "Highbulp! Wake up! Lady Drule here… Highbulp? Highbulp sleepy oaf. Wake up, Highbulp!"
Drule said, "Sh!" and went on. Behind her, a giant shadow moved, but those inside were too busy watching her to notice it.
Just beyond the comer of the stockade, a man stood leaning on a spear staff. He yawned, and a stick smacked him sharply across the buttocks. "Here now!" he started to say, but only part of it was ever said. The club that smashed into his skull put an end to it.
"Wow," the Lady Drule muttered.
Another guard stood at the next comer, and just beyond him burned the coals of a cook-fire. Other men lay in sleep, their weapons at hand. Quietly, Drule approached the guard, raised her stick, and whacked him on the back. The man said, "Ow!" and spun around, raising his spear. "Gully dwarf," he said. "And a female one. Where did you come from?"
"Woop," Drule shouted. She raised her stick and struck again.
The stick whacked across the man's knuckles, and he dropped his spear. His eyes narrowed. "Why, you little snake," he hissed. "You'll pay for that." He drew a long knife from his boot and lunged at the gully dwarf, who dodged aside, tripped, and fell.
The slaver aimed another thrust, then stopped. A chorus of shrieks sounded from inside the pen. Some of the slaves had just noticed Krog stepping into the light of the fires. Crashing, thudding sounds erupted. Thuds, rending snaps, and a high-pitched scream abruptly silenced.
The guard turned, gaped, screamed, "Ogre!"
He started to run, tripped over the Lady Drule, and sprawled facedown.
A stick whacked him on the back of his head, and a voice said, "Take that!" Then, "Don' know what wrong with this bashin' tool. Used to work real good."
As the man got to his knees, Drule decided she had done enough bashing, and ducked away. The area around the nearby campfire was a shambles — sprawled bodies everywhere, dropped weapons lying here and there… and blood, lots of blood. Krog had finished there and gone on to the next fire, unleashing havoc. There were screams of fear, screams of agony, the rhythmic thudding of a huge club against flesh and bone.
Like huge death, Krog strode around and through the sleeping-fire, a growling, implacable horror with rending fingers, ripping teeth, and a great club as tireless and relentless as a harvester's scythe. Wide-eyed, terrified slavers came out of their blankets, grabbing up weapons to confront him. Some never even got to their feet before the heavy club flattened them and great feet trod across their bodies. Others tried to regroup and fight, and were splattered with their companions' blood even as their own blood splattered others.
A man with an eye-patch rolled aside, hid for a second in shadows, then sprang to his feet, aiming a heavy sword at the marauder's backside. He swung — and the sword thudded into hard wood, embedded itself, and was torn from his grasp. A huge hand closed around his helmed head and squeezed, and the iron helm collapsed, crushing the skull within. Krog flung him aside and went on, growling his pleasure.
Somewhere, deep in Krog's mind, a glimmer of memory awakened — memory triggered by the violence and the smell of fresh blood. Rampant and towering in the remains of the sleeping camp, Krog raised his club toward the sky, and a growl sounded in his throat — a growl that became a roar that echoed from the hillsides, a roar of challenge and of pleasure, the cry of a rampaging ogre.
Ahead of him were other fires, where men with weapons scrambled in all directions, and his eyes lit with pleasure.
But then, behind him somewhere, a voice called, "Krog! 'Nough foolin' 'round! Got better things to do!"
The glimmer of memory held for a moment, urging him on, then became tenuous and faded. Feeling a disappointment he didn't understand, Krog turned and headed back, pausing only for a casual swat that brained a panicked, fleeing slaver. "All right, Mama!" he thundered, his lower lip jutting in a huge pout. "Comin'!"
The ladies of Lady Drule's retinue, and the few males with them, had followed Drule and Krog as far as the pen. Not finding a hole in the cage, they made one. Using the edges of burnished iron stew tureens, they chipped away enough sapling bars and lashings for the gully dwarves to come tumbling out, and a flood of crouched Talls right behind them. Pushing past and through the gully dwarves as though they were not there, the Talls grabbed up fallen weapons and launched a murderous attack on the stunned and disorganized slavers.
The minute Gorge III, Highbulp of This Place and Those Other Places Too, was free of captivity, he threw back his shoulders, donned his most regal pose and issued the orders of a true leader. "Everybody run like crazy!" he commanded.
It was many hours later, and broad daylight, when the reunited Clan of Bulp paused on the devastated lower slopes of the Khalkist Mountains to regroup. Through night and morning they had fled, each and severally. But now Gorge remembered that he had sore feet and decided it was a good time to stop and reassert his authority. He proclaimed a temporary This Place, and by threes and fives they gathered around him.