had even met the enemy their army had been tragically reduced by a third.
Only with difficulty did he locate the copse of trees, so completely did the weather cloak them. Finally he stumbled into a small clearing, surrounded by dense pines, giving the area shelter.
Perian sat atop a snow-covered log near a small, unfrozen pool of water. 'Where's Fester and the Wedgies?' she asked at once, noting the look of concern on Flint's face.
'They're lost — or worse,' he said glumly. 'And I'm afraid we'd be running the risk of weakening ourselves still further if we set out to look for them in this snow.'
'We'll just have to hope that they find their way to us,'
Perian said, thinking fondly of Fester, her 'weighty lady.'
The other Aghar seemed not to notice the disappearance of their comrades. They focused instead on gaining the most comfortable sleeping spaces in the damp, snowy grove.
Calculating that the derro soldiers would stay in their own camp only until darkness, Flint and Perian decided to take a chance and wait for more than an hour. Still there was no sign of the missing Wedgies. In that hour, though, the storm began to abate. The wind that had made traveling difficult was now blowing the storm clouds away. Though visibility was not great, they could see a vista of complete whiteness. The peaks and ridgelines gleamed under their pristine frosting, and the whole region was revealed as one of astounding natural beauty. A small, frozen waterfall hung suspended like a great icicle at the head of the valley of their camp.
'We've got to get moving,' urged Flint after the hour had passed. 'Break time is over.' He stepped among the bundles of gully dwarves, discovering that his subjects had collected in groups of four to six. Sharing body warmth, albeit with a great deal of pushing, shoving, pinching, and biting, the
Aghar had managed to remain warm.
Blinking, stretching, and enjoying an afternoon nosepick, the Aghar gathered in ragged bunches at the edge of the clearing. Here the pool of water, fed by a hot spring, re mained clear of snow.
'Come on, you gullies!' Flint bellowed at them, trying to get their attention. 'Fall in — no! I mean, line up!'
But it was too late. For once the gully dwarves responded to a command with alacrity, dropping into the pond like a mass of scattered tenpins.
'Great Reorx! Get out of there this minute!' roared the king from the edge of the pool. Suddenly the snow bank be neath his feet gave way and he, too, plummeted into the warm water.
For a few moments Flint stood stock-still in the waist deep water. Realizing that the eyes of his subjects were fixed upon him, he desperately stifled his terror. With supreme willpower he held his tongue, fearing that once he began to scream, he would never be able to stop. Slowly, with great deliberation, he dragged himself out of the pool. He pulled the hem of his tunic out of his pants and wrung the water from it, only to find his clothing already freezing.
'This is going to be a long campaign, even if it's over this afternoon,' he groaned to Perian, who was dabbing at his face and soaked clothing with one of the rag bandages from a supply pack.
Slowly, after more frolicking and splashing, the Aghar hauled themselves from the pool and finally stood, dripping and shivering. 'We've got to get them moving before they freeze to death,' Perian urged, trying vainly to dry their heads.
The deep snow encouraged the Aghar to remain in file.
Flint and Perian took turns forcing a trail through the soft powder. When they became exhausted from the grueling task, some of the more trustworthy gully dwarves rotated the duty, though their trails tended to zigzag more often than not. Throughout the long afternoon the file of Aghar waded through the snow, skirting the highest elevations along the route Flint judged the most likely shortcut to the
Passroad.
The heavy pace of the march served to keep the Aghar warm, however, and the hardy gully dwarves showed a re markable resilience to the cold.
They had crested a low rise, Flint again in the lead, when he heard sounds before him and hastened his steps to reach the summit. In moments he stood atop the low hill and saw a wide, snow-filled valley stretching before him. The brown strip running through the valley was unmistakably the
Passroad. On the far side of the road the valley floor dropped steeply away, a long, descending slope that finally reached Stonehammer Lake, below and perhaps another mile distant. But what Flint saw on the Passroad made him groan audibly.
'We're too late,' he mumbled, dazed, then turned to Per ian. 'I thought you said they'd stay camped until dark.'
The mountain dwarf was standing next to him. She col ored, and her voice was taut with bitterness. 'Pitrick must have decided to take advantage of the cover the storm pro vided.'
'I'm afraid so.' Flint could only look helplessly at the scene in the valley below.
Three colors of plumes — red, black, and gray — waved in martial precision, as the thane's guards moved past them far below, perhaps two miles ahead. The three companies of mountain dwarves maintained distinct formations, but the whole column was a tight, disciplined military grouping.
The gully dwarves would never be able to catch them now, no matter how hard Flint drove them. Admitting de feat was bitter medicine. It took all of Flint's willpower not to collapse dejectedly in the snow. They had come too late and lost a third of their army in the first day. How had he ever been so foolish as to think they could win?
Perian elbowed him. 'What's that?' she asked.
'What?' He was barely paying attention.
'Look — something's moving in the snow down there!' she said, pointing in the general direction of the amassed mountain dwarf troops. 'Your eyes are better in this light than mine — tell me what that fuzzy blob is that's on this side of the road near the base of the mountain?'
'What?' Flint, despite his dejection, had his interest piqued. He, too, squinted down the distant, snowy fields toward the road. He saw a length of rippling snow, a shim rhering movement. Was that a leg I just saw? he wondered, baffled. Was that a pack of snow-covered animals moving down the slope?
Slowly the mass of movement became visible as many small, individual forms. Flint saw a tightly packed group of creatures, each snowy white on top. The snow, he finally realized, was carried atop each of the creatures upon a shield carried over his head.
'It the Wedgies!' Nomscul shrieked suddenly. Jumping up and down in his excitement, he slipped on the snow and top pled to the ground. 'It old trick,' he said offhandedly, pick ing himself up. 'They hide under shields and creep at enemy!'
'But they'll be slaughtered out there alone and we're too far away to help them quickly!' Flint exclaimed, clenching and unclenching his fists in helpless frustration.
'Wait.' Perian put a calming hand on Flint's arm, never taking her eyes from the events below. 'The Wedgies have a chance. The derro don't seem to notice them yet, what with the snow covering them and the glare.'
Stunned, king and queen looked on from a distance with two-thirds of their troops, as the Creeping Wedgies, now a rippling mass of shield-and snow-covered Aghar, continued to eke slowly forward. The Wedgies reached the Passroad just as the last company of Theiwar marched by, sporting gray plumes, some thirty feet behind the black-plumed rank. Total disorganization suddenly swept through the gray plumes, as the Wedgies infiltrated them.
Fully erupting from the snowy surface like jack-in-the boxes came a multitude of white, diminutive figures. Their appearance in the middle of the Theiwar company had thrown the unit into disarray, but swords rose and fell, and crimson stains appeared on the distant snow.
In confusion, the last company stopped and fell back from the other two regiments, who continued on, unaware of the distraction.
'It's the Silver Swords,' observed Perian bitterly, 'the thane's light infantry. If they can gather their ranks, the Wedgies will be cut down.'
'We've got to try to help them!' Flint cried, though he knew it would be hard to reach them in time. He started to run down the slope toward the distant road. 'Come on, gul lies! Charge!'
'We go, too!' A wave of gully dwarves started down the gentle, snowbound slope.
The king kept his eyes glued to the battle as he advanced.
