Dan Parkinson
The Gully Dwarves
Introduction
It has been said of the Aghar that no such race could exist in a practical world. It has been said that the gods of creation must have been terribly distracted when the Aghar were created … either distracted or crazy. The scholars insist such a race of creatures as the Aghar-commonly referred to as gully dwarves-could not possibly survive for generations among the harsh realities of life. The pathetic little things have nothing on their side.
In a world of strong races, the gully dwarves of Krynn are surprisingly weak. They are neither fierce nor menacing, neither bold nor especially lucky, neither strong of limb nor fleet of foot. Their only natural defense against enemies is a tendency to inhabit those places no one else wants, thereby going unnoticed most of the time. They lack the stubborn strength of true dwarves, the unpredictability of humans, and the inherent skills and longevity of elves. Compared to any of these races, gully dwarves are hardly more than vermin. They have no defenses, no skills beyond a certain clumsy furtiveness, and certainly no command of magic.
As for intelligence, the gully dwarves-while more or less human or dwarven in appearance-are barely smart enough to come in out of the rain.
The continued existence of gully dwarves on Krynn is a puzzle to those who consider such matters. But then, those same scholars might insist that neither bumblebees nor dragons can fly. Yet no matter how avidly the scholars pursue their logic, bumblebees and dragons go right on flying … And gully dwarves continue to survive.
The little creatures have not only existence, but also a history. Indeed, there are odd legends among various cultures about gully dwarves. Some believe that a gully dwarf clan, long ago, may have had something to do with the destruction of mighty Istar-might have figured somehow in the Cataclysm itself. Odd tales sometimes circulate across the ale boards, linking gully dwarves to unlikely enterprises including a mine that produced wine, claiming they were involved in the ogre massacre of the slavers of Doon, even hinting that gully dwarves may have been the first occupants of ancient Thorbardin, where their descendants are more or less tolerated to this day.
The most improbable of these tales, yet one of the most persistent, has to do with an unlikely alliance between a gully dwarf tribe and a dragon during the War of the Lance. Among humans, elves and even true dwarves there are those who swear that they actually witnessed the phenomenon-a group of gully dwarves traveling with a green dragon.
Such accounts suggest a truly notable history. Still, these tales cannot be proven or even verified by the gully dwarves themselves. The people called Aghar have few great skills, but one of them is the ability to promptly forget anything beyond their understanding, and that covers almost everything in the world.
Thus it is a rare gully dwarf who can clearly recall any event prior to yesterday. Such individuals are as rare as a gully dwarf who can count past two.
In the befogged history of these bumbling little people, though, there have been a few such rare gully dwarves. The first Grand Notioner of the Tribe of Bulp-an intuitive individual named Hunch who may well have done most of the group’s serious thinking during the long and eventful reign of the Highbulp Gorge III-was one of them. Hunch was burdened with an awareness that there were times further back than yesterday. He was bright enough to deduce from this fact that there might be times beyond tomorrow.
Another uncommon gully dwarf was old Gandy, Hunch’s successor and heir to the mop handle staff of office. Gandy knew that there were quite a few people in his clan, and that the number-while it varied from day to day-was almost certainly more than two. Lacking either the words or the theory to express such ideas, he usually kept them to himself.
But his intuition told him that if he perceived something so arcane there might be others capable of perceiving it, too. He suspected one of them might be a young gully dwarf-a mere child at the time of the finding of the Promised Place-whose name was Scrib and who sometimes tried to draw pictures of the world around him.
Prologue
Above a world in shambles, where low, smoke-darkened skies reflected the somber glow of fires burning out of control amidst the darkness of charred battlefields, Verden Leafglow beat upward on mighty wings. Higher and higher she flew, talons cradled close against her scaled body. Her great tail a graceful rudder beneath her, her long neck stretched upward as she reached for altitudes beyond the madness that reigned below.
It was all over. A mighty war had been fought-a game of gods in which good and evil had met head-on, regardless of the carnage on the field of play. Takhisis the Dark Queen, goddess of all that was evil, had played her game for control of the world Krynn, but in the final hours she had lost.
To Verden Leaf glow, it was inconceivable that Takhisis could have failed. Intent upon rule or ruin, the dark goddess had unleashed her mightiest forces upon the world, uncaring of the chaos in her wake, aloof to the suffering of mortal beings caught up in the maelstrom. Darkest of the gods, lover of dominance and mistress of betrayal, Takhisis had thrown her dice with the certainty of victory … and then had lost!
Now, like a vengeful child, Takhisis the spiteful goddess turned her back on the agonies created in her name and left the world of Krynn to recover as it could-or to rot if it would. Now madness ran rampant beneath the triad moons.
Yet, even in turning away, the Dark Queen was vengeful. To those who had defeated her ambitions, she bequeathed her legacy of ruin. For those of her followers who had failed her-in any slightest manner-far worse was in store. The dark goddess was venomous in her spite, and she demanded satisfaction even in defeat.
On emerald wings, Verden Leafglow sought the sky and soared high above the madness below. Beneath her, the plains of death fell away to remote distance as she beat upward, escaping the carnage far below.
She had seen much in these past days. In fields of havoc she had seen draconian footmen, those darkling spawn of the betrayal of the mighty by the mighty, dying by the thousands at the hands of their own kind and of those who had been their allies.
She had seen fabrics of black sorcery collapse upon themselves, and upon the dark-robed ones who were their weavers. And the worst of the manic fury was among the dragons-those who had been Takhisis’s mightiest allies. In a matter of days, Verden had seen dragon turn from foe and attack ally, and even her own keen instinct for betrayal had barely saved her.
She had seen the mightiest of all the dragons of evil-the magnificent and deadly Venge Scarlet-pluck his rider from his back, tear his head from his shoulders and cast the pieces earthward like so much debris. She had seen the cunning, malicious Ebon Nightshadow turn on a goblin force that had come to aid him in defense of the Token Portal. He drenched them with acid breath, and watched with contempt as they writhed and screamed, melting to sludge.
These were things that Verden Leafglow herself might have done, had she had a human rider or a goblin troop. But she had been afield when the end came with nothing more than some puny human mages working their spells to create a secret way into the remote Dominion Garrison of Sablethwon.
