The Gully Dwarves

Chapter 4

Vague awareness became tumultuous dreams, disturbing the liquid green comfort of her deep sleep. Then the dreams gave way to annoyance as irritating little presences, presences just beyond awareness, repeatedly jostled and abused the greenness where she slept.

She didn’t want to awaken. Something-some knowledge just beyond the grasp of dreams-told her that she would regret awakening. Still, the presences were there, all around her, and they bumped, jostled and poked at her comforting limbo. They babbled and tumbled, shouted and shoved, drawing her toward angry response. Kill them, she thought and felt again the punishing agony of great, invisible talons raking her mind.

No, something dark said. You will not kill them. You will not injure them. You are powerless against them. It is your fate. Somewhere far off, somewhere not of this world, she sensed cruel, mocking laughter.

She railed against the vicious, ironic cruelty being inflicted on her, railed against the awful feeling of being absolutely powerless, but in the dream-knowledge there was not the slightest lenience. A decree had been issued, and there was no appeal. Once, it seemed, she had dedicated herself to a god. Now that god had renounced her and left her to an eternal punishment. You are theirs, the darkness said. Awaken, sleeping one. Awaken and face the fate you have earned.

The green comforts began to diminish, and awareness grew of the world outside. It was a world where pathetic little creatures waited to torment her, a world where she, to whom power was all, would lack the power to strike back even at them.

Awaken, the dream voice commanded, and gave purpose to the twitching of her body. She turned, rolled over, extended her needle-tipped talons, and raked at the leathery shell beyond the liquid where she grew.

Clout and the dozen or so other rat hunters with him were puzzled. They had hunted for hours in the maze of cells that covered a vast area up the “big tunnel” from This Place, and had not found a single rat. It was unheard of. Ever since any gully dwarf could remember, the Pitt had abounded in vermin. It had always been full of rats. Usually they were everywhere, and the maze of old cells-interconnected cubicles that might once have been sleeping quarters for Talls or lizard-things-was prime rat hunting territory.

Yet today, no matter how they searched, there was not a sign of stew meat anywhere. It was as though every rat in the area had gone into hiding.

“This whole place fulla empty rats.” The chunky, bearded Tote shook his head in disgust. “Where they all go?”

“Dunno why no rats.” Clout muttered. “ ‘No’ one thing. Lady Bruze not gonna like us come back ’thout rats.”

“Plenny sign,” young Blip pointed out, squatting to study the floor. “Rat drops all over. Tracks, too.”

“No rats, though.” Peady gazed around. “Maybe somethin’ eat ’em?”

“What eat rats?” Clout scoffed. “Who hunt rats, ’cept us?”

“Somethin’ scare ’em off, then. All go hide, maybe?”

“What scare rats?” Clout glanced around as a gasp sounded behind him. Tote was staring into the shadows of a tunnel a dozen yards away, his eyes huge, his mouth hanging open. He closed it with a snap and pointed. “That,” he quavered, then spun on his heel and ran.

The rest peered into the shadows, and gaped as something huge moved into view. They had seen giant salamanders before, but the one emerging now from the tunnel was monstrous. It seemed to fill the entire tunnel, and as they saw it, it sensed them, and charged.

“Run like crazy!” Clout shrilled, and pounded away after Tote, the others right behind him. Behind them, they heard the squishy padding of the salamander’s webbed feet, the slithering of its huge, gleaming body, as it pursued.

Though nearly brainless and almost blind, the salamander had a keen sense of smell, and was startlingly fast on its feet. The gully dwarves darted through portal after portal, trying to lose it, but each time they glanced back it was still coming, and coming closer at every turn. As they neared the big tunnel leading downward toward This Place, the thing was virtually on their heels. Its wide, flat mouth gaped like a cave full of short, sharp teeth.

“Don’ lead it home!” Blip panted, seeing the familiar turn just ahead. “Go other way!”

But it was too late. In panic, Tote had turned and the rest pounded after him.

Blip would have followed them, except that the idea of turning left had become lodged in his head. By the time he got around to reversing the notion, he was already headed upward, alone in the main corridor. When the idea of changing his mind and turning right translated itself into action, he veered right and bounced off a stone wall. He stumbled backward and fell, the wind knocked out of him. “Rats,” he muttered, trying to scramble to his feet.

He noticed then that he was alone. The salamander, huge and swift for all its bulk, had gone the other way, following Clout and the rest. Confused, Blip sat down and considered what to do.

Going on up the tunnel wouldn’t do any good, but going down-tunnel where the beast had gone didn’t appeal to him at all. If the thing caught the others before they got to This Place, it would eat them. And if he came along behind it, it would eat him, too. On the other hand, if the hunting party managed to stay ahead of the salamander long enough, they would lead it right into This Place, and in that case This Place would be no place to be.

That left him only one remaining option. The Lady Bruze had sent them out to hunt rats for stew. Maybe, now that the big salamander was gone from the rat place, the rats would come out where they could be hunted.

Comfortable with his keen logic, Blip headed back to the cells where the chase had begun. The only sensible course of action now, it seemed to him, was to hunt rats.

When the Highbulp’s throne attacked him, Lidda was up on the sculptured wall again.

Since the episode of the big spear and the murder hole, she had avoided climbing the carvings, until the idea occurred to her that the hinged iron plaque, still hanging up there where she had left it, might be useful for something if she could somehow get it loose from its hinge.

That, and the fact that the Lady Bruze had forbidden her to ever climb the wall again, were reasons enough to climb the wall. Sometimes Lidda felt that Lady Bruze herself was all the reason anyone needed. Tracing the route she had followed before, she began climbing and soon was clinging to vines beside the dark, open hole from which the deadly spear, which now served as the Highbulp’s “flagstaff,” had come.

Cautiously, she peeked into the hole, and saw nothing but darkness. Then, her eyes adjusting, she could make out details within. The hole was deep-deeper than the length of the missile that had come from it, and in the depths rested a spiral of metal-the spring that had propelled the shaft. The spiral was too deep for her to reach, and the hole was a little tight for her to crawl into, so she turned her attention to the inverted iron shield that hung from its hinge below.

The hinge was fairly simple-a short series of interlocked rings with a metal pin through them. She grasped the pin and began to work it this way and that, pulling as she twisted. It gave a bit, then a little more, and she kept at it. Grudgingly, the pin slid from its rings, an inch at a time.

Below, a voice called, “Lidda? What you up to?”

She glanced down. Gandy, the Grand Notioner, stood directly below. He was looking up at her. “ ’Up to ’bout here,” she advised him. “Better stan’ back, ’fore this fall.”

The Grand Notioner shuffled away a few steps, and another voice, high and cranky, came from below. “That Lidda up there again? Lidda! Come down right now!”

“Go sit on a tack, Lady Bruze!” Lidda suggested, not bothering to look down at the Chief Basher’s wife. “Be up here if I want to!”

The pin gave another inch, then another, and the heavy iron shield shifted, grating against the stone beneath. “Better get outta way!” Lidda snapped, and gave the pin a sharp tug. It came loose in her hand, the shield’s hinge parted, and thirty pounds of rusty iron hurtled floorward.

The clatter when it hit was deafening, and was echoed by the sounds of Lady Bruze tripping over the Grand Notioner, by a howl from the Highbulp as he suddenly stood bolt upright atop his throne, then tumbled off of it to land in a heap on the stone floor, and by the scramble of startled gully dwarves heading for cover.

Confused by all the commotion, Lidda swung around to look out over the great chamber of This Place. “Wha’ happen?” she called.

“Somethin’ fall down,” several voices responded.

“Highbulp fall down, too,” several others chimed in, but their voices were overpowered by an angry roar from Glitch the Most, getting to his feet. “Somethin’ stab me!” he shouted. Rubbing his bottom, frowning furiously, he stood on tiptoe, trying to see the top of his throne.

From where she was, high on the wall, Lidda could see everything clearly. The Highbulp’s throne wasn’t glowing anymore. Instead, it was writhing violently, greenish fluids flowing from long rips in its fabric, and there were things like busy daggers thrusting from its top.

Lidda gaped at the amazing sight, almost losing her hold on the wall. Then, from somewhere beyond the cavern, other sounds grew-shouts, shrieks and the sounds of pounding feet, coming from the mouth of the big tunnel across the wide hall.

“Run!” a voice shouted from somewhere. “All run like crazy! Got sal’mander!”

Never slow to take flight, gully dwarves ran in all directions, some heading for hidey-holes, some running in circles, some bumping into one another. From the big tunnel spewed more of them, led by Tote, who galloped into the open just in time to collide with several citizens going the other way.

They all went down, and the ones behind Tote piled up on them. Clout was on top of the heap. He started to rise and run again, then realized he had lost his rat-hunting stick in the melee. Forgetting why he had been running, he set to work methodically tossing gully dwarves this way and that, searching for his bashing tool.

Abruptly, just beyond him, the big tunnel was full of monstrous salamander. This Place resounded with shrieks of panic, and Lidda found herself peering out of the murder hole high in the wall. Instinctively, she had backed into it to hide.

“Run like crazy!” the Highbulp roared, heading for parts unknown.

“Clout!” Lady Bruze shouted. “Stop foolin’ aroun’! Bash sal’mander!”

“Somebody do somethin’!” Gandy quavered.

When he reached the pile of people, Clout had recovered his bashing tool, and heard his wife’s orders. “Yes, dear,” he called, and turned, raising the two-foot stick in both hands.

The salamander’s mouth opened wide, and Lidda-high on the opposite wall, decided the Grand Notioner was right. Somebody really should do something. She still had the hinge-pin in her hand, and on impulse she leaned out of the murder hole, reaching down as far as she could, toward the brass shield below-the next plaque down, in the circle. She could barely reach the top of it, but she got her hinge-pin under its catch and twisted.

The plaque banged open and something long, dark and deadly shot from the hole behind it, whistling.

In an instant, the missile had crossed the hall of This Place. It flashed past Clout, missing him by an inch, and into the gaping mouth of the salamander, deflecting upward from the thing’s lower jaw to erupt from the top of its flat, ugly head. Clout’s determined swing of his bashing tool missed its mark as the salamander was thrown backward, away from him.

An angry hiss filled the cavern as the salamander twitched and lay still.

But the hiss went on. Wide, terrified eyes staring at the dead monster turned slowly, looking for the source of the sound, growing even wider when they found it.

The Highbulp’s throne was no longer a throne. Instead, it was a sagging, shredded thing, partially collapsed amid pools and runnels of green liquid. And something was emerging from it, hissing with an anger that became a shrill howl.

A few among them had seen a dragon. Some remembered the green dragon that had carried Glitch the Most and led the rest of his tribe to This Place. This dragon, freshly-hatched, was not nearly as big as that one had been, but it was definitely a dragon. Within seconds, there wasn’t a gully dwarf in sight anywhere in This Place, except the chubby Tote. He had been at the bottom of the gully dwarf pileup, and was just getting to his feet, gaping around in total confusion.

He stood, blinked at the dead salamander in the big tunnel, brushed himself down, turned … and froze in place. Directly over him, towering more than twice his height, cruel, intelligent eyes opened in a scaled, crested green face, and looked down at him.

A taloned “hand” reached for him, then suddenly recoiled as though it had been swatted away. The crested head descended toward him, dripping fangs agleam, and stopped inches from his face. The hiss that came from that dragon’s mouth almost stopped his heart, and the breath of it whipped his beard and smelled of chlorine. The thing stared at him, hating him, then turned away.

The dreams had been right, and now they had come true. Aching with frustrated anger, Verden Leafglow turned from the pathetic creature, unable to harm it even though that was what she craved to do. It was as though a wall stood between her and the little creature, a wall that she could not penetrate, and that punished her when she tried.

Licking and cleaning herself, she looked around slowly as the knowledge of hatching wove itself together in her mind. She knew who she was now. She knew where she was, and knew the awful reality that had befallen her. There was no recourse from the will of a vengeful god. Her fate had been promised, and now it was real.

The Aghar before her hadn’t moved, hadn’t so much as blinked since he first saw her. He stood as though frozen, his mouth agape and his eyes bulging, not even seeming to breathe. And there were others, as well, all around her, peering from cracks and holes, their fear a tangible thing in the still air of the cavernous chamber. Did they think she couldn’t see them? Did they think she couldn’t sense exactly where they hid? There were dozens of them in this chamber, and dozens more not far away, running and hiding from her.

And there wasn’t a thing that she could do about them. The Dark Queen had made her powerless against them. The keening roar of her anger and anguish echoed from the stone walls of the place, making things rattle and grate, causing little showers of ancient dust to fall from above.

Powerless!

But only against them. She spotted the huge, dead salamander in the mouth of the corridor, and her tail twitched. With a hiss of rage she threw herself upon the giant corpse and began tearing it apart.