The other paled at the thought, and trembled. "Gods," he muttered. "Splat!"
"Shut up and tie this thing off with something. Here, what's this? The set-pin?" He picked up a sturdy cylinder of worked hardwood, about three feet long, and glanced from it to the barrel of the discobel. "Yeah, there's its slot. Hold that windlass 'til I get this in place."
With the other bracing the windlass, he set the pin in its slot and tapped it with a rock to firm it. The other eased off on the crank, eased a bit more, then stood back, sighing in relief. The pin held. The machine remained motionless.
"Let's get out of here," one of them said. Gingerly, he stepped to the base of the cranked-up arm and grasped it. Using its guy-bars as hand- and foot-holds, he began to climb. The other followed. From below, they looked like a pair of squirrels climbing a huge tree trunk, except that instead of branches, the trunk had triangles of cable bracings, held outward by heavy wooden guy-bars. They climbed higher and higher. At the top they hesitated, then swung from the tip of the arm to the top of the jagged wall, and disappeared from sight. Their voices faded, and were gone.
"Wonder what that all about," Tagg muttered. He scratched his head and looked around, puzzled. There was something he was supposed to do, but he had become so engrossed in watching the Talls that he had forgotten what it was. The others had, too, but after a moment old Gandy snapped his fingers. "Find stone for dragon," he reminded them. "Stone 'bout this big."
They stepped out from the "tunnel" and peered around. "Lotta stones 'bout that big, all over," Tagg pointed out. "Which one?"
"Dunno," Gandy admitted. "Better take 'em all."
They set to work gathering small stones — all except Clout, who had lost his bashing tool somewhere and felt uncomfortable without it. He set about finding a new bashing tool.
With Gandy selecting rocks, and Tagg, Plit, and Gogy collecting them, they had a nice pile of stones going by the time Clout found what he was looking for. It was a sturdy cylinder of polished hardwood, resting among the inexplicable vagaries of the great wooden device lying in the rubble.
It was exactly what he wanted, but it seemed to be stuck. He pulled at it, heaved at it, and it budged slightly but would not come free. Frowning with determination, he clambered out of the maze of timbers, found a good, heavy stone, and went back in.
Clout had a philosophy of life — only one, but it had always served him well. His philosophy was: if a thing won't move when you want it to move, bash it.
From outside, they heard him hammering in there — among the maze of timbers — and looked up. "What Clout doin'?" Plit asked.
"Dunno," Gandy shrugged, frowning. "Not gettin' stones, though."
The hammering went on, and then its ringing took on a new sound. After each thud, something creaked, and far above — though those below didn't notice it — the great braced arm began to tremble.
"Almos' got it," Clout's voice came from the timbers.
He banged again, and again, and abruptly the whole world went crazy. The entire maze of timbers groaned, crackled and heaved upward, seeming to dance. And the tall, heavy arm above shot downward, with such force that the air sang around it. It arched toward the ground, impelled by the released windlass, and smashed into the soil only yards from where the other gully dwarves were stacking their rocks.
The impact was enormous. Gully dwarves, rocks and surrounding rubble flew upward. Partial walls that still stood among the rubble teetered and fell, and a cloud of dust rose to blank out everything from sight. Below the dancing rubble, a deep, cavernous rumble sounded, and in its echoes came a muted roar of surprise and outrage. The very ground seemed to fall, resettling several feet lower than it had been.
For a time there was silence, then the dust blanketing the ground shifted and a small head came up. "Wha' happen?" Tagg asked.
Around him, others arose from the dust, wide-eyed and shaken. Plit and Gogy appeared first, then old Gandy, coughing and spitting dust.
"Wha' happen?" someone echoed Tagg's question.
Gandy looked around, bewildered. Then he looked up and blinked. "Fling-thing fall down," he said.
Not far away, the maze of timbers that had been a discobel was now an entirely different maze. It had rolled over, its timbers realigning in the process. At first the gully dwarves could see no movement there, then there were scuffing sounds and Clout appeared, crawling from a gap between broken spars. He got out, dusted himself off and blinked at the rest of them.
"Where Clout been?" Gandy demanded.
Clout held up a sturdy cylinder of polished wood. "Got new bashin' tool," he explained. "Wha' happen out here?"
The carefully-collected pile of rocks was gone — scattered all over the clearing. Gandy sighed and began again to pick up stones. The others watched for a moment, then joined him. And as other gully dwarves appeared, chattering, Gandy silenced them with a glare. "No talk," he snapped. "Get rocks."
Soon there were dozens of them there, all busily picking up stones. And then more, and then still more.
Suddenly, Tagg glanced around and saw Minna beside him, gathering rocks. He blinked, frowned and remembered. "What Minna doin' out here?" he asked.
"Gettin' little rocks," she explained. "Somebody say to."
"Where dragon? Let everybody go?"
"Hole fall down," she said. "Dragon can't move. Foun' new gully, though, for come out."
"Oh." He looked around. There were gully dwarves everywhere, all collecting stones. But to Tagg, that didn't seem quite as important as it had before. He went and found Gandy, and explained the situation to him. "Dragon don' got everybody anymore." he said. "Look."
It took a lot longer for Gandy to get everyone to stop collecting rocks than it had taken to get them to start. Inertia is a powerful force among gully dwarves. But finally they were all gathered around Gandy and someone asked, "What we do now?"
"Dunno," he said. "Ask Highbulp." He turned full circle, searching. "Where what's-'is-name?"
"Who?"
"Th' Highbulp! Ol' Glitch. Where th' Highbulp?"
None of them knew, so they went looking for Glitch I. They found him, eventually, right where they had left him.
Glitch had slept through the "earthquake," only to wake up and find everyone gone. He sat up, rubbed his eyes and noticed that the stones had shifted and a new tunnel had opened. So he headed that way, grumbling. It was just like his subjects to wander off and leave their leader to catch up when he got around to it.
He was just ducking to step through the opening when a voice behind him said, "Oh, all right! Let's make a deal!"
At first he couldn't see who had spoken. Sometime during his nap, a whole new rockfall seemed to have filled about half of the cavern. Huge slabs of stone had crashed down from above, and torrents of gravel with them. He peered here and there, then found the speaker: a big, angry green eye stared back at him from the depths of a crevice among the stone.
"Who that?" Glitch asked, backing hastily away.
"Verden Leafglow, you little imbecile!" The crackling voice subsided into a rasp of resignation. "I'm ready to make a deal."
"What kin' deal?" He hugged the cavern wall, ready to flee at an instant.
"I'm trapped here," the dragon voice admitted. "The hill fell in on me, and I can't move." The statement wasn't entirely true. She knew she could fight free if she had to, but the effort it would take to get loose — in her condition — might kill her. "I need help," she said.
The Highbulp relaxed slightly. "What kin' help?"
"The same thing I needed before!" the answer was almost a roar of aggravation. Then the dragon sighed and lowered her voice. "My self-stone. I told you about my self-stone. Remember?"