disposal, but only the House Guard bear fealty to him alone. The rest defend all of Thorbardin, not just the Theiwar.'
'That's a comfort,' Flint said sarcastically, digging a hole in a snowbank with the toe of his boot.
'You're forgetting Basalt,' Perian reminded him softly.
'I'm not,' the old hill dwarf said, shaking his gray head.
'But we're pinning a lot of hopes on that young 'un.'
'Well, we've got to get moving,' she said gently. 'We'll get ahead of them by a day while the House Guard bivouacs out of the sun.'
Flint nodded, shaking off his melancholia. Following the stream uphill, the pair of dwarves made their way back up to the crack in the granite. There they found Nomscul.
'You were supposed to organize the troops,' Flint scolded him.
'Rest wait in there, all straight,' Nomscul announced, pointing into the tunnel, 'like Nomscul tell them.' Sud denly, gully dwarves began popping from the opening -
Fester, Cainker, Oooz, Garf, Pooter, and all the rest. They came out in a steady torrent, carrying every manner of weapon: the one hundred fifty Agharpulters with daggers slipped into their robe belts; one hundred Creeping Wedgies with shields tucked under their arms.
The Aghar milled about the tunnel entrance, a steadily growing mob. Flint and Perian circled them like sheepdogs, trying to keep the group together as their comrades emerged.
Last but not least came the Sludge Bombers, carrying their jugs and bottles and big pots of explosive venom. Flint had cautioned them repeatedly about the need to handle the containers of sludge delicately, so they tiptoed, swinging the jugs any which way as they joined their friends in the sun light on the mountainside.
'Hold those carefully — carefully!' Flint bellowed. 'And where are the litters to carry the sludge bombs?' he asked.
Four gully dwarves trooped out of the crack just then, holding the handles of two makeshift litters, old leather vests each stretched across stout limbs. The biggest jugs of sludge, several measuring a foot across, had been set upon the litters for gentle transport.
Flint and Perian began to organize the three hundred-odd members of the army, such as it was, on the mountainside.
'Assemble your units!' Flint barked. 'Nomscul, you lead the Agharpults over here; Oooz, get the Sludge Bombers over there; and Fester, put the Creeping Wedgies here, in the middle.'
To their credit, the Aghar tried to follow the commands of their king. Several minutes of raw chaos ensued as the gully dwarves charged into a single pile of squirming Aghar, where only an occasional arm, leg, or face could be spotted.
Somehow the pile resolved itself into three milling groups, more or less organized by the categories Flint had detailed.
Their king felt compelled to offer up some inspiring words. 'Stand at attention for some last instructions!' he bellowed.
Again, they tried to stand at attention, but their habit of facing every which way diminished the military precision of the maneuver. Flint only sighed. 'Gully dwarves of Mud hole!' he began sternly, trying to get as many of them to face him as possible. 'We embark today upon a great excurs -
Oooz, get back here! — a great excursion, to face in combat an enemy implacable and bold, savage and — what is it,
Nomscul?'
The shaman was hopping in agitation, waving his hand in the air and clenching his lips together as if to forcibly pre vent himself from speaking without royal permission. 'King talk too much,' explained Nomscul. 'We march now?'
Flint's face flushed, and he aimed a glare at Nomscul that would have transfixed any halfway intelligent subject.
Fortunately — for himself, at any rate — Nomscul was only halfway intelligent and simply mistook his monarch's stare for a warm smile of congratulations.
'In a moment,' Flint growled in exasperation. He turned back to the troops, saw their stupidly eager expressions.
'Look, gang, we've got quite a march ahead of us; we'll stop before dark near Stonehammer Lake, then I figure we'll make it to Hillhome midday tomorrow. It's vitally impor tant that we stick together as a group — Basalt and all of Hillhome are probably waiting this very minute for us to come and help them. Please try to act like soldiers. Do it for your king and queen.'
'Two chairs for King Flunk and Queen Furryend!' Nom scul shouted. The troops responded with resounding screeches and caterwauls.
'Let's go, before they get tangled up again,' Perian sug gested in a loud whisper, watching them wander from their units.
'Gully dwarves, march!' cried Flint, waving his arm in a circle over his head.
The king of the gully dwarves led his troops, three hun dred strong, down the mountainside, heading for the
Passroad east of the House Guard encampment below. This would allow him, with luck and speed, to move his force onto the road somewhere ahead of the thane's troops.
The organizing into units represented a masterpiece of military precision when compared to the march of the gully dwarves that ensued. In muttered conversation with Perian,
Flint could only compare it to the ridiculous task of herding chickens, though after the fourth or fifth effort at chasing down a wayward column of Aghar and returning them to the fold, he amended his comments to the effect that his comparison did a grave disservice to poultry.
To make matters worse, dark, angry clouds rolled in and it began to snow. At first the storm came as great, feathery
Hakes, gently wafting earthward. Except for the disruption caused by gully dwarves breaking file to catch particularly choice snowflakes with their tongues, the light precipitation caused no problem for the hardy Aghar.
But then the wind rose and the big, friendly flakes grew small and hard, turning into hail. Blustering out of the north, the weather drove stinging needles of ice into their faces, considerably slowing down the progress of the Aghar force. And as the day progressed, the dwarves became more widely scattered, forcing Flint and Perian to cover three or four times as much ground as their charges, constantly run ning back and forth along the column.
Still moving into the teeth of the storm, they finally de scended into a small valley that gave them protection from the worst of the wind.
'I think we'd better stop for a short rest,' urged Perian.
'Why don't you go ahead and look for a place big enough to hold all of us?' suggested Flint. 'I'll collect the Aghar and bring them up.'
Perian headed away toward a grove of tall pines that was barely visible through the storm. Nomscul came up quickly with his comrades of the Agharpult, and Flint directed them toward the grove. Next came Oooz with the Sludge
Bombers, and he urged them in the same direction.
Flint waited behind for Fester as the last of the sludge bomb team disappeared after Perian. The Creeping Wedgies had been bringing up the rear, but even for the Aghar they seemed unusually far behind. Flint's concern grew as several more minutes passed.
Full darkness had settled, giving the late autumn wind a sharper bite, yet there was still no sign of Fester and the
Creeping Wedgies. Flint peered fruitlessly into the darkness, seeking any sign of movement, but all he saw was the frigid expanse of blowing, drifting snow. There was no denying the fact, now: Fester and the Wedgies were lost, or even dead, buried in the snowfall.
Flint thought about backtracking, but he sensed that the task would be futile. Instead, he turned and plowed his way through the snow toward the grove. He would have to in form Perian of the grave news that before they
