enemy!”
“Y-yes, sir,” the burly one said. “But how do we get back there?”
“The way you came, obviously. Now get in there and start digging!”
Obediently, most of the Tarmite warriors turned and headed back the way they had come, through the broken portal and up the tunnel. One or two glanced back, gawking at the scene in the catacombs. There seemed to be gully dwarves everywhere. “Wh-what about them, sir?” one asked, pointing.
“What about them?” Dartimien snapped. “They’re only gully dwarves. Ignore them!”
“Yes, sir.”
Within moments, more than a dozen yeomen of Castle Tarmish were at work in the tunnel, digging away fallen stone.
“That should keep them busy for a while,” Dartimien confided to Graywing, who was shaking his head in disbelief.
“They took your commands,” the plainsman said. “Why did they do that?”
“Don’t you know about the Tarmites and the Gelnians?” Dartimien cocked an ironic brow. “The only difference between them is the colors they wear, yet they’ve been at war against each other, off and on, for hundreds of years. Not one in a hundred on either side has any idea what they fight about. They just take orders from whoever’s in charge at the moment. It’s always been like that.”
“So they accepted you as being in charge? Why?”
“Because I acted like I was. Now I think we should see about getting out of this hole.”
“How? The entrance is blocked.”
“You really don’t know anything about cities, do you, barbarian?” The Cat gestured toward a gloomy alcove a hundred yards away, in the recesses of the cavern. There, shadows among the shadows, a troop of female gully dwarves was descending from above, winding their way around a huge pillar. They carried loads of forage, found somewhere above.
“I suggest we use the stairs,” Dartimien said levelly.
Chapter 21
Seething with malignant intent, Clonogh paced the wrecked tower. He had scores to settle, and now, thanks to the intervention of a dragon, he had the power to do so.
He might have gone out to face his enemies, but that was never Clonogh’s way. Here in this tower, he felt aloof, above the turmoil beyond, and he liked the idea of his enemies coming to him-using their own efforts to go to their doom. So, a seething old spider in its chosen lair, he waited.
The skeletal structure of stone that had been the great tower of Tarmish was a twisted ruin now, its precipitous stairway a shambles. But he knew the loft was secure. Where the stones had fallen away, where bombards had blasted outer walls to reveal the winding stairs within, and shattered the dark inner walls beyond them, white stone gleamed-a monolith of pure basalt that descended through the great structure, its foundations deep in the bedrock below. The trappings of mankind might fall away, but this stone was eternal.
Just beyond the sprung portal a wide-shouldered gully dwarf approached, scrambling upward through the ruins. Clonogh smiled faintly. The little creature was bringing him the Fang of Orm.
Shielding himself casually with invisibility, Clonogh waited by the doorway. The gully dwarf would be here in moments. And not far behind, climbing through the wreckage from different sides, were the spawn of a Dragon Highlord-Chatara Kral and Lord Vulpin.
The footsteps on the stairs hesitated, then a tattered Aghar crept out into the ravaged room, peering this way and that with nervous, beady little eyes. The creature was sturdy for a gully dwarf, squat and broad- shouldered. He was well over three feet tall, larger then most of his kind, and there were streaks and tangles of gray in his unkempt hair. Clonogh studied him for a moment, unimpressed. One gully dwarf was pretty much like another, despite slight differences. What did interest the mage was the thing the gully dwarf carried in his grimy hands-the Fang of Orm.
With a muttered spell, Clonogh dropped the cloak of invisibility and stood blocking the doorway. “That talisman is mine,” he said. “Give it to me.”
Clout whirled and gawked at the man, blinking in terror. “Wh-what?”
“That.” Clonogh pointed. “It’s mine!”
“This thing?” Clout raised the Fang, peering at it as though he had never seen it before.
“Yes,” Clonogh said. “It’s mine.”
Clout stared at the man a moment longer, then backed away, frightened but stubborn. He had grown to cherish the implement he carried. “This thing my bashin’ tool,” he said. “Not yours.”
“Give it to me!” Clonogh snarled, lunging forward. “That is no ‘bashing tool,’ you little twit!”
Clout dodged aside, ducked into a broken cabinet and peered out. “Is, too,” he quavered. “Good for bashin’ rats. Talls don’ bash rats.”
“I’ll turn you into a rat!” Clonogh said. “My powers are restored. I command magic now!”
“Do?” Clout squinted, not understanding a word of it. The old Tall seemed to be as crazy as a loon, even crazier than old what’s-’is-name, the Highbulp. The gully dwarf’s sullen stubbornness dissolved, replaced by confusion. “How come?” he asked, hoping for a clue to what the human was talking about.
“There was a dragon here,” Clonogh said, easing toward the broken cabinet. “It cast a spell, and I was within its range. It … it resonated me. I am finally complete!”
“Sorry ’bout that,” Clout said, baffled.
“Why in the names of the gods am I trying to explain anything to a gully dwarf?” Clonogh asked himself, sneering. Another step, and he would be able to trap the gully dwarf at the cabinet. If he could just keep the creature distracted for a moment more … “It certainly did,” he said. “I am no longer as I was.”
“Poor Tall!” The gully dwarf’s voice within the cabinet was full of real sympathy “Wish you were.”
Clonogh’s shriek of anguish echoed from the broken tower walls as he felt his newfound powers, all his wonderful, dragon-induced powers, slip away. In an instant the dragon magic was gone. He couldn’t for the life of him remember how to phrase the spells that had contained it. With a wail, he collapsed on the stone floor, and from the stairwell came the tread of hard boots, climbing toward him. He didn’t know which was coming first, Lord Vulpin or Chatara Kral, but whichever it was, the other would be close behind.
“Please,” he wheezed in an ancient voice, rheumy eyes trying to focus on the dull, confused face of the gully dwarf, “Please, reverse that wish.”
“Do what?” Clout sidled from the cabinet, staring at the suddenly-collapsed human on the floor.
“Wish!” Clonogh pleaded. “You pathetic little twit! Why must you be so dense? Please, before my enemies find me like this. Make a wish!”
Clout scratched his head, deep in thought. “Wish? Okay. Bet ladies makin’ stew ’bout now. Wish I had some stew.”
In a realm far away as distances are measured, but very near as they are not, the great one-fanged serpent called Orm raised its evil head, slitted nostrils twitching, forked tongue tasting the air as resonances long awaited touched its senses. There! Just there, only a strike away for one whose plane was not bounded by the sensory dimensions, the creature’s lost fang called-twice! Gigantic muscles tensed. But once again, the resonance was just too brief, just too uncertain for a clear target. The Fang had been used, its magic awakened, but its user’s concentration had lapsed almost before the magic had occurred.
Hissing in frustration, Orm coiled and writhed, clinging to the tenuous sense of target, desperately seeking just one more “sending.” The next time he would be ready. At the next emanation, no matter how slight, he would strike.
