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.
