“Oh, hush!” Thayla said. “They can’t hear you. They’re not here. They’re way out there.”
“Oh,” Bron subsided, his grin fading. “Not here, huh?”
“No, they’re not here.”
“Wish they were,” Bron said.
In his hand, the “bashing tool” glowed faintly.
Dartimien leaned over the loaded shield-sled and pulled back a flap of blanket to peer at the shriveled face of Clonogh. “Is he still alive?” he asked.
“I don’t know how, but he is,” Graywing said. “But I guess we don’t need him anymore. It looks like the Fang of Orm is lost for-”
As though a curtain had been drawn, the world around them winked out and they were in another place. Stone walls framed large, open portals, overlooking broad fields beyond. And the place was packed with gully dwarves. The horses went wild. “What the blazes?” Graywing stepped back, drawing his sword, then gaped as his eyes fixed on the most stunning young woman he had ever seen-fixed, but only for an instant. For standing next to her was a gully dwarf, holding the Fang of Orm. There seemed to be gully dwarves everywhere.
“There it is!” Graywing hissed, focusing on the Fang.
“That’s it!” Dartimien said.
“Run like crazy!” a gully dwarf shouted.
Someone was pounding at a heavy door, but now the rending of timbers and the rasp of parting hinges were drowned in bedlam as a room full of gully dwarves ran for cover, bounding and leaping, tumbling and rolling in a packed chamber with nowhere to run.
Graywing saw Dartimien go down beneath a tumbling pile of Aghar, and leapt aside as a tide of terrified little people swept past. He reached the human girl, got an arm around her and lifted her just as a tumble of flailing gully dwarves boiled beneath her. With a leap, the plainsman gained the top of a tall, teakwood chest, and from there the saddle of a pitching, kicking horse.
Leaning to gather the beast’s reins, he hauled the girl up behind him, just as the heavy door ahead of him burst open. Beyond it were armed men, crouched to enter, but he saw them only for an instant. They were bowled over and swallowed up by a bounding tide of gully dwarves spilling out the door and across the landing beyond.
Somewhere near, Dartimien shouted, “Get off me, you little dolts!” A pile of gully dwarves erupted upward. Graywing tried to hold the horse, but it shrilled in terror and charged the open door, and all he could do was hang on. Behind him, the girl clung like a monkey, her arms wrapped around his middle. A second horse, riderless, was just behind them.
In the space of a heartbeat they were pounding across the plank landing and down a steep, curving stairway, engulfed to the hams in a rising tide of fleeing gully dwarves, bits of armament and tumbling, inverted Tarmite soldiers.
Somewhere behind him, the plainsman heard Dartimien’s angry shout: “Graywing! Get back here, you barbarian! I saw her first!”
Somewhere on a distant plane, Orm blinked huge, slit-pupiled eyes and hissed in frustration. Again the lost fang had called, but again the call had lasted only an instant.
Great, scaled coils writhing in serpentine irritation, Orm waited. The call had come. It would come again. Sooner or later there would be a long moment of life, stimulated by someone’s concentration. It would be enough. Orm needed only a moment, a lingering, consistent moment of wishery by whoever held the fang. Then Orm would have the path across the planes. Then Orm would strike.
Frustrated and seething with dark anger, the great serpent waited.
When Bron crawled out from beneath the Tall chair, everything seemed relatively peaceful. There were gully dwarves scattered here and there, picking themselves up and staring around in puzzlement, but most of the sudden crowd seemed to have gone somewhere else.
Bron took a deep breath, shook dust out of his hair and his clothing, and picked up his bashing tool. “Wow,” he muttered.
Somewhere above him, Tunk said, “That some kin’ party, Bron. Didn’ last long, though.” The chubby Aghar extracted himself from the chair’s cushions and stood up, jumping on the seat. “There what’s-’is-name,” he pointed. “Th’ Highbulp. Hi, Highbulp.”
A cabinet drawer hung open across the room, and Glitch the Most peered out of it, rubbing his eyes with a grimy fist. “What goin’ on?” he grumbled. “What kin’ place this?”
Nearby, a fallen tapestry seemed to be coming to life. Its folds twitched, humped and muttered. An edge of it lifted, and the Lady Lidda crawled out, followed by Gandy and several others. The last one to appear from there was Pert, who gawked at her surroundings, then smiled happily at the sight of Bron. “Hey, Bron,” she chirped. “Been lookin’ all over for you! Where you been?”
“Bein’ a hero,” he explained.
“Bein’ what?” Pert started to lean against a large, iron turtle, then jumped back as the turtle moved behind her. It was the legendary Great Stew Bowl, and under it was the dour Clout. He looked more unhappy than usual.
Bron helped Clout out from under the iron shield, and knelt to look the shield over, carefully. It seemed to be unharmed. As an afterthought he glanced around at Clout, who seemed unbroken as well. “Here, hold this,” he handed the ivory bashing tool to the Chief Basher, and raised the Great Stew Bowl by its leather strap. It was almost as big as he was, but he was used to carrying it around.
“This a pretty good bashin’ tool,” Clout judged, brandishing the ivory stick. “Where Bron get it?”
“Found it, someplace,” Bron answered, then turned abruptly as a groan sounded from a heavily-loaded metal “sled” resting aslant against one wall. Carrying his shield, Bron approached the object cautiously. On top of the rig rested a large, bright broadsword with strings tied to it. The bindings served as lashing for a blanket-wrapped package beneath, and it was this package that seemed to be groaning.
Curious, Bron untied some of the lashes and lifted off the broadsword. It was as long as he was tall, and quite heavy, but it fascinated him. “This a Tail’s bashin’ tool,” he told the others, who were gathering around him. “Talls call it ‘sword.’ ”
“Clumsy thing,” Lady Lidda pointed out. “Too big for rat killin’.”
“Maybe good thing for hero, though,” he lifted the sword high, panting at the effort. It was heavy, but Bron was strong.
“Good thing for what?” his mother asked.
Attracted by the repeated groans, Gandy hobbled to the blanket-wrapped package and pulled back a flap. Beneath it, a hairless old human blinked rheumy eyes and groaned again. Gandy whacked him on the head with his mop handle and dropped the flap. “Nothin’,” he muttered. “Jus’ a Tall.”
A thin shriek of anger grew beneath the blanket and they all backed away. The blanket sat up, fell away, and there was an ancient man there, rubbing his aching head and muttering curses as he glared around at them.
“Oops,” Gandy said.
“Maybe bash him again, with this?” Clout suggested.
The old human gaped at the gully dwarf’s bashing tool and lunged to his tottering feet. “That’s it!” he rasped.
“Right,” Glitch the Most declared. “That ’bout it. Ever’body run like crazy.”
Clonogh stood, aching, swaying and naked atop a travel-scuffed shield as the big room suddenly emptied itself. Before he could react, the gully dwarves were gone, out the broken door and down unseen stairs beyond.
Blinking and swaying, Clonogh stared around him. He recognized the big room with its stone-framed portals. It was Lord Vulpin’s tower chamber. “How did I get here?” he wheezed.
But just at the moment there was no one around to explain it to him.
The tower stairway, from loft to ground level, made three complete circuits of the tower and ended in a wide alcove lined with guard quarters and facing on the courtyard. All the way down, the great flood of fleeing gully dwarves had picked up speed, carrying the horses and riders along with them. As a result, when they reached ground level they shot through the alcove and burst out into the crowded courtyard like a flash flood, bowling over everything and everyone in front of them.