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 first 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.”
“Hold it!” Graywing repeated.
“Okay,” several of them said, readily.
“What Tall want?” a bright-eyed little female queried.
They were leaving, they said. Therefore, they might know a way out of this place. On impulse, Graywing said, “I’m going with you. Where’s Clonogh?”
“Where what?”
“Clonogh! Oh, never mind.” Standing, he stepped to the cavern entrance among the tree roots and peered inside. In the dim recess was half of a knight’s long shield, with half a shrouded load strapped on it. The other half of each was buried in gravel and topsoil.
Finding his towline, he heaved at it and brought out his “sled.” He scooped soil from it and knelt to listen. Within his blanket-shroud, Clonogh was still breathing. “Alright,” he said to the crowd of gully dwarves around him. “Which way?”
Before Glitch, or anyone else, could think of a good argument, they were on the move, working their way down the bottom of the dry slough. Graywing walked among them, towering over them even though he was crouched as low as he could to stay out of the sight of Gelnians and mercenaries just beyond the dense brush. Most of the gully dwarves, he had no idea how many there were of them, seemed to have either accepted his presence or forgotten that he was there. They trudged along in true gully dwarf fashion, going this way and that at random but generally following the lead set by their leader. Graywing had to be careful not to step on any of them, or trip over them as they scurried about their line of march. The Cobar’s sharp eyes roamed here and there, looking for any sign of the ivory stick he had seen so often in Clonogh’s hand, the Fang of Orm. But there was no sign of the artifact, nor of any container in which it might be hidden.
Still, each step was taking him farther from the hostile encampment of the Gelnian forces, and he still had Clonogh, or what was left of him. He hurried along, constantly on the alert, dragging the shield-sled after him. But he noticed, after a time, that it seemed to grow heavier with each step.
He turned, stared at his burden, and stifled a cry of anger. At least a dozen gully dwarves had crawled onto the sled, including the one with the big, iron shield. Several of them were now asleep back there, snoozing contentedly atop his loaded sled.
“Gods,” Graywing muttered, gritting his teeth. “How did I get into this?”
Chapter 17
In the instant when the dragon swept over Tarmish, Thayla Mesinda’s trio of guardians, carrying the day’s rations in trays and baskets, unbolted the door to her apartment. At the sound of the heavy door opening, Bron hissed, “Ever’body run like crazy!”
Thus it was that the first thing the three robed ancients encountered was a flood of scurrying gully dwarves, sweeping around and under them as they fled for cover. Before the guardians could react, they were bowled over, pummeled by scampering feet and tumbled back into the stairway corridor. Baskets and trays flew everywhere, and one of the guardians disappeared down the stairwell, a tumble of flailing arms, legs, bright robes and clinging gully dwarves.
When the other two got their wits about them and peered into the bright apartment, there wasn’t a gully dwarf in sight. But there was something else. Just past the outside portal, on the balcony, Thayla Mesinda-seeming to have some extra arms and legs now-crouched in terror. And just beyond, low in the sky, was a huge dragon, floating majestically on great, extended wings.
The two guardians goggled at the sight, then turned and fled, back the way they had come.
On the balcony, Bron had been trying to bolt for cover, but everywhere he turned the human girl blocked his way, trying to hide behind him. Cornered and desperate, Bron turned to face the dragon, brandishing his bashing tool.
But the dragon did not attack. Instead, it only looked at them for a moment, then wheeled and soared away.
“Wow!” Bron breathed, watching it go.
“Golly!” Thayla Mesinda echoed, then looked down at her designated hero with approving eyes. “You’re pretty good, for a … for whatever you are,” she said. “You scared it away.”
The dragon circled and wheeled above the amassed Gelnian hordes outside Tarmish, then flapped its wings lazily and soared away toward the forested hills.