The Gully Dwarves

Chapter 23

Lord Vulpin encountered unexpected resistance in withdrawing the Fang of Orm from the broken cabinet. He pulled the thing halfway out, then blinked and caught his balance as the thing recoiled back into the shadows with unexpected strength. Somebody inside there, someone unseen, was trying to pull the ivory talisman out of his hand.

With a muttered oath, the lord of Tarmish braced himself, firmed his grip and heaved. In an instant the Fang was his, clenched in his steel-gloved fingers. But swinging from the end of it was a babbling, struggling, ugly little person half his height, a raggedly-clothed creature that vaguely resembled a diminutive human but distinctly was not.

“Gully dwarf!” the warlord rumbled. With a vicious shake he dislodged the little creature from his prize. The gully dwarf went tumbling into a corner and Vulpin lashed out with a steel-shod foot, barely missing the creature. The gully dwarf skittered aside, shrieked and dashed back into the sanctuary of the broken cabinet.

“Vermin,” Vulpin muttered, then dismissed the imbecillc little creature from his thoughts. Gully dwarves weren’t worth thinking about, beyond a mental note to have exterminators scour the premises when the present task was completed. He held the Fang of Orm high, gazing at it, his eyes glowing with a triumphant light.

“Mine,” he said. “The Wishmaker is mine, and the world is about to be.”

“Mine!” the broken cabinet argued. “My bashin’ tool!”

Ignoring the objections from the furniture, Vulpin strode to the shattered wall above the inner courts. Below, a melee of armed men swept this way and that. Tarmites and Gelnians raged and strove, howling their bloodlust. From above it was impossible to tell one force from another. They all looked the same. Here and there, on the battlefield, the fallen lay in pools of gore. But these were relatively few. Vulpin’s helmed face twitched sardonically. For all their ancient hatreds, the combatants were not very capable fighters. The battle raged, but it produced more noise than blood.

There were exceptions, though. A mismatched pair of warriors, neither Gelnian nor Tarmite-one looked like an urban alley-dweller, the other a tall, rangy plainsman-were making their way through the fray, slashing and countering, scattering combatants like wind-blown leaves. Vulpin recognized the plainsman, and he heard the cry of his prisoner as the girl saw those below. “Graywing!” she called, her cry a plea.

“Graywing,” Vulpin sneered. A Cobar, with that code of honor that the plainsmen cherished. The other man below he did not know, but he knew the type. Thief or assassin, the smaller man was lithe as a cat, quick and deadly. A dagger-wielder. Vulpin peered downward, where the two were headed. At the base of the tower, a pair of axe-wielding icemen held both Gelnians and Tarmites at bay. Those would be seasoned mercenaries, Vulpin realized, part of Chatara Kral’s personal guard. Which meant that Chatara Kral was here, in the tower.

“Your timing is perfect, little sister,” he rumbled. “Come up. Come up now and face your destruction.” To his guard he snapped, “Give me the girl.”

Thayla Mesinda was shoved forward roughly, and Vulpin closed steel-sheathed fingers on her arm. “You have been well-treated, girl,” he said. “You have been fed, made comfortable and protected. Now-”

“You kept me prisoner!” Thayla snapped, then gasped as his iron fingers tightened cruelly on her arm.

“I have kept you safe and pure, for a purpose,” Vulpin said. “Now it is time to pay your debt. I require only one thing of you. You must make a wish.”

“I wish you’d let me alone!” Thayla shouted at him.

“A wish,” Vulpin growled. “But it must be my wish, and no other.” With a sudden movement he released her arm and his steel fingers closed around her throat. “I will tell you what to wish. You will wish exactly as I tell you. If you alter my wish, even in the slightest way, in that instant I will snap your neck. Do you understand?”

She struggled and fought, but to no avail. The man was incredibly strong. Her flailing little fists, her soft slippers and her clawing nails met only metal armor. She saw the light dimming, like a tunnel closing in around her. She could not breathe.

Dimly, beyond the armored lord, Thayla glimpsed movement. A gully dwarf darted furtively from the broken telescope cabinet and peered over the outer wall, waving.

“Hey, ever’body!” the little creature called. “Could use some help up here!”

Vulpin’s fingers relaxed slightly and Thayla gasped for breath. Her throat throbbed and ached.

“Do you understand?” Vulpin demanded.

Defeated and barely conscious, the girl gulped air into her burning lungs. She nodded, trying to speak. “Yes,” she whispered.

Still holding her by the neck, Vulpin raised the Fang of Orm before her eyes. “Do you know what this is?”

“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.

Somewhere behind him, Scrib stared, wide-eyed. “Fling-thing work pretty good,” he said.

“That not rock!” Pert shrilled. “That Bron!”

“Pretty good shot, though,” several of the gully dwarves observed.

Scrib found his chalk and got busy, scrawling doodles on his slate. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he had come to the realization that when something momentous, or at least unusual and interesting, like Bron flying through the air, occurred, squiggles should be drawn to commemorate it.

Making up squiggles as he went along, Scrib wrote it down.

Gandy leaned on his mop handle staff, gazing upward sadly. The breeze was cold on his naked old hide. High above him, his robe whipped and fluttered like a dirty blue flag, and the Grand Notioner didn’t have the slightest notion how to get it back.

Encouraged by their success, Tunk and Blip rounded up several of their reluctant peers and began climbing the fling-pole again. This time when they reached Gandy’s robe, about the time it neared the ground, they tied off the bottom of it with cord and filled it with fifty pounds of gravel. Then they all piled off and the pole snapped upright. The load of rock took the momentum and continued it, arcing toward the base of the tower, where fierce fighting was going on.

The problem was that the load of gravel, once confined to Gandy’s robe, stayed there. When it took flight, propelled by the released pole, it took both robe and pole with it.

“Nice shot,” Scrib said, adding more doodles to his slate. “Can’t do it again, though.”

“Quit foolin’ ’round!” the Lady Bruze demanded. “Le’s go find Clout!”

“Clout a twit,” several around her pointed out.

“Highbulp, though,” the Lady Lidda said. “Okay, ever’body go upstairs.”

“Can’t get in there.” Tunk pointed at the wide portal in the tower’s base. The opening was filled with humans in combat.

“Then climb wall,” Lidda said. “Ever’body come on!”

When Graywing and Dartimien reached the tower they were fighting for their lives. Both Gelnians and Tarmites-interrupted in their attempts to slaughter each other-had turned on the intruders. Now like a pack of raging beasts, the combatants surrounded and harassed the “outsiders.”

Graywing parried a thrusting pike, kicked aside a Gelnian warrior and disarmed a Tarmite right behind him. Beside him Dartimien was a frenzied flurry of lithe motion, stabbing here, slashing there, now and then releasing a dagger to do its deadly work.

“These people are getting mean,” the plainsman panted, whirling to drive back several attackers.

“It’s what we get for butting in,” the Cat snarled. “This is their private war, and I don’t think we’re welcome.”

“Make for the tower gate,” Graywing ordered, indicating the portal which was now behind him. “We’ll take cover in there.”

Dartimien sneered. “We’ll have to get in, first. Look.”

Pivoting, Graywing glanced at their destination, now only a few feet away. In the doorway were icemen-huge, glowering brutes brandishing axes the size of singletrees. “Gods,” he muttered.

But they were committed now. There was no turning back. Clearing a space around them, their blades driving the attackers back, the Cobar and the Cat found themselves face to face with Chatara Kral’s best mercenaries.

“You!” one of the giants rumbled, recognizing Dartimien. “I owe you this, little man.” He grinned, raised his axe … and froze as a thrown dagger blossomed in his throat.

“Only three knives left,” Dartimien muttered, as the iceman pitched forward, blood spurting from beneath his beard. “I’d better start recovering them.”

“Count your toys later,” Graywing growled. His blade rang against another descending axe, barely deflecting it. The shock of impact numbed his arm, and the iceman towering over him growled and struck again. Graywing dodged aside, evading the great blade by inches. He tried to thrust with his sword, but the giant parried it easily with a huge, banded arm.

The axe rose again, and suddenly the iceman stumbled back. His face was covered with disheveled gully dwarf, clinging to his head.

“Oops,” Bron said. “Sorry ’bout that.”

Seeing his opportunity. Graywing ran his sword through the iceman’s brisket, then leaped over him as he fell. “Get in here!” he yelled at Dartimien.

“Okay,” the unexpected gully dwarf said.

Beyond the shadowed opening were stone steps, leading upward. Graywing sprinted for them, with Dartimien right behind. For a moment it seemed they were alone in the dark base of the tower. The Tarmites and Gelnians outside had noticed one another again.

Graywing sped upward, taking the steps three at a time, then stopped so suddenly that Dartimien collided with him from behind. They dodged aside, clinging to the wall, as the limp body of still another iceman tumbled past. A broken spear shaft protruded from the big primitive’s back. Even in the dim light they could see the black markings on its shaft.

“Cave vandals,” the Cat hissed. “Vulpin’s pet assassins.”

Above were the whispers of soft boots on stone, and descending shadows. Dark cloaks swirled and the shadows were men-tall, silent, dark men with painted faces and painted weapons, descending from somewhere above.

As they saw the assassins, the assassins saw them. The one in the lead didn’t so much as hesitate. Bright steel glinted in shadow and flashed downward, a thrown dart with triad points. The device clanged off the wall where Dartimien had been an instant before, and the lead assassin pulled another from his belt. But before he could throw it, Graywing reached him, a howling fury of lethal Cobar with his razor-edged sword singing its song of death. The lead assassin never knew what hit him.

A second dark cloak shrilled and pitched from the stairs into darkness below, clutching at the hilt of Dartimien’s thrown dagger which stood in his breast.

Then a third assassin screamed, staggered and seemed to shrink abruptly. Graywing blinked in surprise. Neither he nor the foe had noticed the little gully dwarf with the big broadsword, until its blade slashed across the caveman’s knees. It was the same gully dwarf who had sailed out of nowhere moments before, right into the face of an iceman.

“Wow,” Bron said. “Pretty good bash. Real hero stuff.”

“Where did you come from?” Dartimien hissed.

Bron looked puzzled. “Dunno,” he confided. “Guess I was jus’ born. Ol’ Glitch my dad, so Lady Lidda prob’ly my mom.”

“I don’t want your lineage!” Dartimien snapped. “How did you get to this tower?”

“Oh, that,” Bron said. “Fling-thing flang … flu … toss me over here.”

Below them, a faded blue robe full of gravel crashed through the doorway, rattling and scraping as it dragged a long, flexible pole across the stone paving.

“That fling-thing,” Bron pointed. “Guess ever’-body through with it.”

Another cave assassin appeared on the stairs above, and from beyond came the abrupt sounds of fierce combat. Dartimien recognized the rumbling oaths of at least two more icemen and the soft, shuffling footsteps of cave assassins. The last, best forces of Lord Vulpin and Chatara Kral had met, somewhere above.

“Thayla’s up there,” Graywing growled. With a bound, the plainsman dodged the falling, tumbling corpse of a beheaded caveman and charged up the stairway.

“You’re crazy!” Dartimien shouted after him, but Graywing was already gone. “Gods,” the Cat muttered. Relieving a dead cave assassin of a pair of serviceable daggers, he sprinted upward, grumbling.