“No,” she breathed, unable to use her voice.
“This is the Wishmaker,” Vulpin said. “When I tell you, you will hold this in your hand, and you will speak a wish. You will wish exactly what I say. No more and no less.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I will wish as you say.”
Violent sounds erupted from the stairway. Steel rang against steel and voices clamored. Among them was a woman’s voice, deep and angry.
“Chatara Kral comes,” Vulpin smirked. He gestured to his cave-assassin guards. “Stop them.”
As one the guards turned, drew their weapons and raced through the stairway portal.
“Now I will tell you what to wish,” Vulpin told the barely-conscious girl. “Listen closely, if you want to keep breathing.”
Graywing headed for the battered tower, his sword slashing this way and that, barely visible as it wove a bright pattern around him. Thrust and parry, cut and recover, disarm, slash and stab, the plainsman’s blade was a crimson-and-steel kaleidoscope, opening a path through the throng of howling warriors surging about the lower court.
At his back, covering his every move, was the Cat-dark wrath with daggers for fang and claw.
The two barely slowed as they crossed the courtyard, right through the thick of battle, making for the base of the tower. From high above, Graywing heard the scream of a girl, and redoubled his efforts. Like a great dire wolf with a panther at its side, the pair fairly flew toward the tower’s base.
They were within fifty feet of the structure’s inner gate when the massed combatants parted ahead and they had a clear view of the shadowed opening. It was the same gate they had exited earlier, but now it was occupied. Two huge, glowering icemen barred the entrance. Their great axes dripped gore, and a dozen fallen Tarmites lay about them, hacked to death.
Dartimien grimaced as the plainsman at his side roared a battle cry and charged.
“Oh, gods,” the Cat hissed. “The barbarian’s in love.”
From the narrow grate leading into the courtyard, the scene outside was horrendous. There were Talls everywhere, running and dodging, striving against one another, slashing away with swords, shields, mauls, axes, clubs and scythes. Dead Talls lay among the live ones, and weapons were scattered all over.
“What Talls doin’?” Sap wondered, peering out wide-eyed.
“Fightin’, looks like,” Scrib suggested, looking over Sap’s shoulder.
“Wonder why?”
“Who knows ’bout Talls? Prob’ly ticked off ’bout somethin’,” old Gandy said. “Where Clout?”
Sap scratched his head, trying to remember. Then he snapped his fingers. “Up there,” he pointed, indicating the top of the tower.
“Clout really dumb,” Gandy shook his head. “Coulda picked better place than that to be.”
“Don’ matter,” Bron reminded him. “Clout Highbulp now. Highbulp can be anywhere he wants to.” He peered out at the melee beyond the grate. There were an awful lot of Talls out there, doing an awful lot of fighting. And they were between the gully dwarves and the route to the top of the spire, where the new Highbulp was. “Prob’ly could use a notion ’bout now,” he suggested to Gandy.
Gandy leaned on his mop handle staff, deep in thought. “Maybe better get ’nother Highbulp,” he said, finally. “That one not worth gettin’ to.”
But Scrib was there, crowding others aside to gape through the opening. “Fling-thing,” he said, thoughtfully.
“What?”
“Fling-thing!” The doodler pointed off to one side, at the broken remains of a trebuchet near the west wall. “Talls use fling-things, throw big rocks an’ stuff. Ever’body gets outta way when big rocks come.”
“Maybe good notion,” Bron said. “Anybody know how use fling-thing?”
“Dunno,” a gully dwarf beside him said with a shrug.
With sudden resolution, he and another slipped through the grate, ducked into the shadows of stone rubble near the wall and scampered toward the trebuchet.
“Where Tunk an’ Blip go?” Lidda asked.
“See ’bout fling-thing,” Bron pointed. “Scrib got a notion. Can’t get to Clout, then throw rocks instead.”
“Okay,” Lidda said. She turned to a gaggle of ladies crowded behind her. “Gonna throw rocks at Clout,” she told them.
The Lady Bruze frowned. “Can’t throw rocks at Clout! Clout Highbulp now!”
“Nobody tol’ him so, though,” little Pert reasoned. “So maybe okay throw rocks.”
“Bad idea!” Bruze snapped. “Pert hush!”
“Go sit on tack, Lady Bruze,” Pert suggested.
Blip and Tunk were back, then, just outside the grate. Behind them they dragged a long, slender pole of pliant willow wood. “Fling-thing broke,” Tunk reported. “Devasta … smither … all busted up. Got piece of it, though.”
Ignoring the combat going on just beyond, several gully dwarves squirmed through the grate and studied the pole. The thing was nearly twenty feet long, shaped like a sapling with all its branches trimmed off. The remains of leather lashings hung from its ends.
“How this thing work?” several wondered out loud.
Gandy paced the length of the pole, studying it. “Maybe plant it,” he decided. “Then bend it over for throw rocks.”
“Plant it where?” Bron puzzled.
“Right there,” Gandy pointed at a mound of debris. “Where rocks are.”
“Okay,” Bron said. With others helping, he lugged the pole to the top of the mound, and used his broadsword to force a gap between stones there. A half dozen gully dwarves raised the pole upright. It swayed this way and that.
“Other end up,” Scrib said. “Plant big end, not little end.”
“Okay.”
They turned the pole and thrust its butt into the hole Bron had made. It fit tightly, reluctantly, but with six or seven pairs of hands working on it, it finally settled in with a satisfying thunk.
Bron picked up a large stone, it was almost as big as he was, then paused, frowning at the tall shaft. “How fasten rock for throw?”
Scrib puzzled over the problem for a moment, then turned and grasped old Gandy by an arm and a leg. Unceremoniously, he flipped the Grand Notioner upside down and peeled off his robe. “Use this,” he said, holding the empty robe aloft. “Make sack. Rock sack for fling-thing.”
Gandy, naked now except for a tattered rag around his loins, got to his feet, muttering angrily.
With the robe and some bits of thong, Tunk started up the staff. It shivered and swayed, throwing him off. “Need a hand here,” he said.
Having nothing better to do, seven or eight gully dwarves began climbing the upright pole. Others, momentarily losing interest, wandered about the fringes of the battlefield, picking up whatever caught their eyes-a few knives and short swords, an axe of two, a leather boot …
Under the weight of ascending Aghar, the willow staff swayed and began to bend. By the time most of them were halfway up, the pole was bent in a tight arc and its tip was only a few feet from the ground.
Bron grabbed the vibrating tip, clinging with one hand, while the swaying pole swung him this way and that. “High enough!” he barked. “Tie it on!”
Obediently, the gang on the pole clung where they were, and Gandy’s robe was passed up to them. With thongs, they secured its sleeves to the pole, then a brigade of helpers handed up a stone. Those on the staff wrestled the stone into place and dropped it into the open top of the fluttering robe. It fell through, and out the bottom, taking one or two gully dwarves with it.
“Oops,” Tunk said.
“Need more thong, tie up end of sack,” Blip suggested. “Anybody got more thong?”
As one, those crowding the top of the bent pole bailed off, and those dangling from its underside let go, all of them searching for bits of thong.
The pole, released, whistled upright. Bron, still clinging to its very end, found himself flying-tumbling through the air, over the heads of the men locked in mortal combat below, and the great portal of the tower loomed to meet him.