The vibrations became true sound, and things scuttled in the deepest shadows within the chamber. From cracks and crevices everywhere, small things emerged, coming toward her. Rats and mice, here and there a squirrel, a rabbit or a hare — they emerged by the dozens, answering the call of her spell.
For a moment it seemed the place was filled with rodents, darting around and over the tumbles of sleeping gully dwarves, then they were all directly in front of her. Moving carefully, ignoring the pain of her injuries, she thrust out her right paw, and its talons sliced downward, slaughtering great numbers of the rodents. Using her tail, she scraped the ceiling of her lair, and brought forth the herbs and roots that hung there, drawn downward from above by her magic. These she pushed from tail to foot to forepaw, and deposited them in front of her hole, beside the dead rodents there. A final twist to the spell, and rocks moved, somewhere above. Seconds later, water began to drip from the roof of rubble, a small spring diverted to flow through the chamber. And a small, crackling fire appeared in mid-chamber.
"Wake up, you detestable creatures," Verden Leafglow rumbled. "Wake up and make stew. You are no good to me if you starve."
"Sure. We find thing for you. No problem. What thing is?" Glitch I stifled a belch and grinned a reassuring grin at the monstrous face looking at him from its hole.
After the first shock of sharing a closed cave of rubble with a dragon had worn off, and when it became obvious that the dragon didn't intend to kill them and eat them — at least not right away — the Clans of Bulp had gotten down to business. First things first. They were hungry, and there was food.
Within minutes, savory stew was bubbling in their best pot over what — to some of the ladies especially — was the most remarkable cooking fire they had ever encountered. The fire seemed to have no fuel, nor to need any, and none of them had ever seen stew become stew so quickly.
Then, when their bellies were full, the dragon explained to them what she needed. She seemed, despite her great size and horrendous appearance, to be a pleasant enough dragon. Her voice was low and comforting, her words simple enough for most of them to understand and she even managed to seem to smile now and then. Quite a few of them discovered — without ever considering that there might be a touch of magic involved here — that they were really quite fond of the unfortunate Verden Leaf glow.
"The thing I need is a small thing," she told the Highbulp. "It is a sort of stone, about this big…" A huge, three-fingered "hand" with needle-sharp talons a foot long appeared beside the green face, two talons indicating a size. About an inch and a half.
"Lotta stones 'round here," Glitch said dubiously, looking around the cavern. "Whole lot more outside, though. Oughtta look outside of here."
"By all means," Verden agreed. "Outside, of course. And I am sure that, once you are outside, you wouldn't for a minute consider just going off and leaving me, would you?"
"Nope," Glitch shook his head, speaking just a bit too loudly. "Nope, wouldn' do that. Sure wouldn'."
"Of course you wouldn't," Verden said softly. "Because that would be very unwise."
"Sure would," Glitch agreed emphatically. Then his face twisted in confusion. "How come not wise?"
"Because only a few of you will go out to search," the dragon hissed. Suddenly, as subtly as the narrowing of her eyes, all hints of the "friendly" dragon were gone and the gully dwarves saw Verden Leaf glow as she really was. "All the rest will remain here," she said, "with me."
As they cowered away from her, she pointed with a huge talon. "You," she said, pointing at old Gandy. "You will search. And you." This time she pointed at Tagg. "You two, and three more. The rest stay. The way out is here" — a talon turned, pointing — "just behind my head."
Some of them crept closer to look. Just behind the "hole," on her right side, was a crevice in the rubble. Tagg grabbed Minna's hand and headed for the opening. Abruptly, the dragon moved her head, blocking the way. "Not the female," Verden hissed. "She stays."
Verden knew her choices were right. The old gully dwarf with the mop handle staff was, within the limits of Aghar intelligence, the smartest of them all. He would search well, and he was the least likely to wander off. The young male was the same one who had slid past her to look into her lair. For his kind, he had a certain courage and a degree of curiosity. And it was unlikely that he would flee, as long as the dragon had the female he favored.
She would also keep the one they called Highbulp. The rest had a certain dim loyalty to him, she sensed — probably more than he had to any of them.
She moved her head again. "Go. Now! Find the disk that cut me. The stone should be nearby."
Tagg and Gandy darted past the dragon's jaws and through the opening, Tagg glancing back at Minna with frightened eyes. As soon as they were out, others hurried to follow them. Verden let three others pass, then blocked the way again.
Verden relaxed. There was a chance the gully dwarves would find the self-stone. It was somewhere nearby. She could sense its presence, dimly. There was a chance they would recover it for her. If not… well, then she would just have to kill them and try to find it, herself.
As her eyes closed, the hostages began to chatter among themselves. She ignored them, then opened one eye in mild curiosity. "Promised place?" she murmured. "What promised place?"
From his refuge behind a rank of his subjects, Glitch peeked out at her. "P… Promised Place," he said. "Where we s'posed to go. Our de… density."
"Density? You mean, destiny?"
"Right. Dest'ny."
"And where is the Promised Place?"
"Dunno," Glitch admitted. "Nobody know."
She closed her eye again, bored with the "density" of gully dwarves. Within seconds she was asleep.
With Clout and two others — Gogy and Plit — following them, Gandy and Tagg made their way back to where they had found the dented disk. The dragon had said to look there, and they were in no mood to argue with a dragon.
More than a day had passed. Maybe two or three days, for all they knew. The smoke that had lingered above the ruined city was gone now, blown away, and only bleak rubble remained. But otherwise, things were as they had been… almost. Rounding a turn in a ravine among rubble, the five heard voices ahead. Clinging to shadow, they crept forward to see who was there. Tagg was the first to see, and he almost bowled the others over, backpedaling. Talls," he whispered. "Sh!"
From the shadowed mouth of a "tunnel" where great stones had fallen across the gaps between other stones, they peered out.
The humans ahead of them were ragged and scarred. There were two of them, and they were working frantically at the great, tumbled skeleton of the fallen discobel, turning its huge crank inch by inch as the long throwing arm rose above them. Lying on its side, the sidearm thing became a slanted pole, its outward end creeping toward the sky above the sheer walls of rubble around them.
"No business… comin' this way… in the first place," one of them grunted, heaving at the windlass of the crank. "Nothin' here.. just ruins."
"Shut up!" the other hissed. "Your fault we… fell in this — canyon… now pull… harder… only way to… get out of here."
In the shadows. Clout whispered, "What Talls doin'?"
"Dunno," Gandy shrugged. "Tall stuff don' make sense. Hush."
Slowly, out in the little clear area (which was, indeed, like a deep canyon among sheer walls, if one looked at it as a human would, not seeing the many avenues of exit that were like highways to gully dwarves), the two men labored at the discobel's windlass and the sling arm rose inch by inch. Several times they had to stop and rest, but finally the arm stood straight up, its tip only a few feet from the nearest wall of stone.
The men looked up. "That'll do," one of them panted. "Let's tie it off. I'd hate to have that thing trigger itself while we're climbing up there."