ground for all of his life, Flint never knew just how much va riety there could be in subterranean dining. The food and drink had thus far included spiced mushrooms, raw and cooked fish, potatoes, and lichen leaves.
'This is the best I've felt since we got here,' admitted the king of the gully dwarves, with a frank look at his queen.
'It was all right,' Perian admitted. 'I'm used to better, but most of this came from the Theiwar warrens anyway. Still,
I'm surprised Nomscul did such a good job with it.
'I just wish Too-thee would get back with my mossweed. I wonder what's keeping him.'
'He could still be here by the end of the meal,' replied Flint, with a glance at the still raw pork ribs. 'That gives him plenty of time.'
Across the room they saw the low fire, with its sizzling rack of ribs impaled on a great, steel-shafted spear. Every few minutes Nomscul skipped over to the fire and rotated the pig slightly. His procedure was apparently mostly guess work, but the meat sent a delightful aroma whispering around the assembled multitudes.
All of the approximately four hundred Aghar of Mudhole had assembled in the Big Sky Room for the great feast and celebration. By this point in the feast the chamber was pretty well ravaged, blanketed with litter, food and clothing scraps, and sleeping Aghar.
The cavern was divided by the shallow stream that flowed through so much of the gully dwarf lair. Here in the cavern the stream collected into a series of three deep, clear pools. Dozens of young Aghar splashed playfully in the chilly waters of these pools. Unlike virtually every other type of dwarf known to Flint and Perian, the gully dwarves of Mudhole actually liked the water. All of them seemed to be darned good swimmers. This fact amazed Flint, who didn't know a hill or mountain dwarf that knew how to keep his head above water.
Flint, Perian, and a dozen Aghar — their 'court,' which in cluded Nomscul, Ooz, and Fester — sat on one side of the stream. A small, rugged stone footbridge crossed the water way between two of the pools, connecting up with the larger portion of the cave where the rest of the gully dwarves were gathered.
Fester and Nomscul had been taking turns saluting and toasting their new rulers. Fester had become Perian's chief handmaiden and lady-in-waiting — or 'weighty lady,' as the gully dwarf referred to herself. Nomscul, in addition to his roles as healer, and Best Cook and Chief Shaman, had vowed to become the king's primary aide.
'You a real kingly king,' said Nomscul, sloshing slightly as he offered yet another salute to his new monarch.
After Nomscul's toast, the air was filled with mushrooms, lichens, and fishheads flying back and forth. Several near misses splashed into the water just feet from the king and queen, but a withering look from Nomscul, coupled with a menacing reach toward his magic bag, moved the game to a more comfortable distance.
'Say,' commented Flint, 'do you folks play any games down here: Kickball, stick-and-hoop, anything like that?'
Nomscul looked at him quizzically. 'Stuck in hoop?'
'You know, sports,' Flint persisted. 'Athletic games. You get a bunch of — '
'Two,' corrected Perian.
'… two fellows on one side and two on the other, and they both try to hook a leather hoop over the others' post — that sort of thing. Or anything to watch that's more orga nized than this free-for-all.'
'Agharpult!' yelped Nomscul, jumping up and down.
'King wants en… entert… you watch this!'
The excited Aghar turned toward the crowd and shouted,
'Agharpulters, get over here! Hurry, hurry, hurry!' Imme diately the crowd turned into a shoving, pushing mass as gully dwarves from every corner of the room tried to con verge in front of the bridge.
'You like this,' beamed Nomscul. 'We learn by watching Theiwar practice war.'
Teams of gully dwarves suddenly began to form pyramids with rows of kneeling bodies, ten dwarves forming a four tier pile. Other Aghar stood behind, squatting and prepar ing to charge the pyramids formed by their comrades.
At Nomscul's command, these others dashed forward, vaulting to the tops of the pyramids, whereupon all of the piled gully dwarves flung themselves face forward toward the floor. The momentum of the fall hurtled the topmost gully dwarf, at significant speed, across the room, eventu ally to crash into a crowd of gathered spectators.
Flint roared with laughter as the hapless gully dwarves tumbled over one another and sailed through the air, arms and legs flailing, usually screeching at the top of their lungs.
'Someone is going to get hurt doing ' this,' muttered Perian.
'Oh, lighten up,' retorted Flint. 'These little guys have skulls thicker than the thane's best armor.'
Indeed they must, concluded Perian as she watched a pair of them smack violently into the cavern wall, fall to the ground, and jump up beaming.
Between guffaws, Flint asked Nomscul, 'Where did you say you learned this sport?'
Nomscul puffed out his chest. 'We sneak teeny-tiny quiet into Big-Big Room and see Theiwar cracking walls with cattle-pult machines. It stupid name, since they fling rocks, not cattle. But it look like fun, so we do Agharpult.'
'He's talking about the catapult range,' Perian explained, amazed. 'The thane's army trains with some of the heavy siege equipment in an enormous cavern on the second level.
They practice hitting targets painted on the walls. I'm sur prised any gully dwarf has ever seen it, though. That room is quite a distance from here.' Flint thought he saw a glim mer of admiration in Perian's eyes as she studied Nomscul, who just grinned back at her ridiculously.
With tears of laughter rolling down his cheeks, Flint watched the beefiest Aghar he'd seen yet, launch off the top of an Agharpult and try to do a somersault in midair. In stead of tucking under, however, he wound up sailing across the room spread-eagled and upside-down, finally splashing against the far wall and sliding down into a pool of muck.
Splashing?
Suddenly alert, Flint peered at the opposite wall, squint ing to make out details. Nudging Perian, he pointed and asked, 'What's happening over there? The wall looks… squishy.'
Perian followed his gesture and gasped. She saw the rock wall of the cave suddenly turned to mud and ooze slowly downward. The narrow tunnel to the Beast Pit gaped wider as its framework of rock melted away.
'It's collapsing!' She was instantly on her feet, shouting,
'We've got to get everyone out of here now!'
The gully dwarves blithely continued Agharpulting around the room, oblivious to the danger.
Flint, too, sprang to his feet, and grabbed Perian's elbow, staring in disbelief. 'That's no cave-in!' he growled. 'The wall's turning to mud.'
'The chamber connecting to the Beast Pit is behind that wall,' whispered Perian. Her worried glance told Flint that they both were thinking the same, terrifying thought.
They watched, horror-struck, as the rock oozed onto the cave floor. Soon the narrow tunnel gaped wide, and they both knew that nothing blocked the carrion crawler's pas sage into Mudhole.
Then they saw white, flailing tentacles beyond the open ing.
'Here it comes!' cried Perian. 'These Aghar are helpless.
We've got to clear the chamber and barricade this thing out of the rest of Mudhole!'
'Hey! Beast go home!' shouted Nomscul, leaping to his feet and scolding the horrifying creature from across the huge cave.
Other Aghar turned and shouted in annoyance, fear, or confusion, as the beast crept forward.
The carrion crawler's enormous bulk slithered through a round hole perhaps twelve feet in diameter as its tendrils lashed back and forth hungrily.
'If we don't get the Aghar out of here quickly, they'll stampede!' Instinctively Flint reached for the axe that would normally be at his waist, but found nothing. He cursed the fates that had placed him in this chamber without so much as Happenstance, the rusty dagger, to defend his 'kingdom.'
Screams and shouts rose through the Big Sky Room, and
Aghar bolted in every direction. Some, by coincidence more than intent, actually headed toward the
