stones were hurled. Block dropped the pistol back into the bag, drew the other and fired it as well, which was a shame as at just that moment Dugan sprinted out of the tunnel entrance, sword in hand.
The man saw Block coming and angled away, meaning to move around him for the gate. There was no way the dwarf was going to run down the sprinting human, so Block skidded to a halt and spun, racing straight back to get to the gate first. Stones crashed all around both of them. Block and Dugan closed on the gate at the same time from different angles. Up the slope the bugbears howled, for the gate was too far away for them to pitch stones with any accuracy.
“Block!” the renegade huffed. Block slid a dagger from a sleeve and threw it at the man’s head. Dugan narrowly batted it away with his sword but the dwarf had another in each hand as they came together. Dugan tried to twist sideways but Block lashed out and cut him shallowly across a hip. Dugan swore and swung a blow the dwarf ducked under. Still half back-peddling, Dugan’s back hit a palisade post and he barely kept his feet. Block lunged a blow that would have nailed the man’s spine to the log through his belly had Dugan not proven exceptionally fast for a man his size. He threw himself sideways with another parting counterblow Block barely parried with his second dagger, as the first buried almost to the hilt into the wood.
Dugan rolled and came up swinging a blow that would have cut Block in half had the dwarf chased him right away, but leaving one dagger stuck in the wall he paused to draw a fourth from a boot. He threw it high as he charged but rather than bat at it Dugan only ducked and leveled his sword, forcing Block to switch his grip on the dagger he still held and bring it down against the sword blade, pushing both weapons to the side as he slammed into Dugan’s chest.
They fell to the ground, weapons locked. Dugan reached for Block’s throat with his free hand while the dwarf went for his eyes. Before either got a grip or a gouge, Tilda Lanai ran past the struggling tangle.
“They are climbing down the mountain!” she shouted in passing as she ran out through the gate.
Block blinked after her, then down into the furious eyes of the man under him.
“You didn’t kill her?”
“Does it look like I did, you mad little bastard?”
A smaller stone, only the size of a grapefruit, hit in the yard and bounced past them. Block looked over his shoulder and saw several great dark shapes scrambling down the sheer mountainside while those remaining above tried to skip smaller rocks toward the gate like they were throwing stones across a pond.
“Am I the only one running?” Tilda called from outside the fort. Block looked down at Dugan.
“Truce.”
“Get the hell off of me!”
A stone bounced by, narrowly missing Block’s head. The dwarf growled and stood to run, pushing off with a foot on Dugan’s sternum. The man likewise growled and scrambled to his feet.
A narrow but deep chasm Block had seen from the top of the palisade surrounded the place for the long-ago landslide here had cracked open the ground. When the Dauls had constructed their fort much later they had made the gate as a drawbridge, raised and lowered with rope winches Block had also seen above, all ruined now. The gate door was however left in its down position as a bridge. Tilda was already across it, pointing her long gun back at the mountainside where the bugbears descended back out of range.
“Careful,” she said. “The bridge wobbles.”
In fact it did more than wobble as Block ran onto it, with Dugan directly behind him. When the bugbears had bashed the winches and cut the ropes, the bridge had fallen hard, breaking the spikes that were meant to secure the far end. It had also knocked the round beam around which the bottom end rotated out of its metal braces. When Tilda had run lightly across it, the bridge had shuddered. When Block planted one foot on it at a huffing sprint, the near end of the unsecured wooden platform slid under the bulky dwarf’s weight, and he stumbled sideways. When Dugan hit it a step behind him the whole surface shifted sharply forward.
It was a near thing. The man fell forward and landed spread-eagle in the center of the short span. The dwarf, with a lower center of gravity, kept his feet. That made him stumble two steps forward, and just a bit sideways. One foot hit the very edge of the bridge, half-on and half not.
*
The Corner Stone of the House that Tilda Lanai served wheeled, spun his arms, and for a frozen moment she thought surely Block would catch himself, right the ship, and run across the bridge to stand beside her. But it was not to be.
Seeing Block’s predicament, Dugan scrambled sideways and threw out an arm, straining for the edge of the dwarf’s Guild cloak or even the end of his braid. Block tottered for a long moment. Then he fell. Dugan’s hand closed on nothing and his chin banged against the bridge. Just that fast, Captain Block was gone.
Dugan scrambled to the edge on hands and knees and looked down into the darkness untouched by the sun high above in the clear sky. He looked up at Tilda but she did not meet his eyes, only stared at the last place Block had stood. Dugan scuttled the rest of the way across on all fours, and stood up beside her.
“Tilda,” he said.
“What?” she asked numbly. He had no answer.
Inside the palisade one nimble bugbear had already reached the ground. It loped across the yard straight at the open gateway with its fellows whooping high above it, dark shadows cavorting against the yellow stone of the mountainside. Tilda looked across at it coming for a few moments, and when it was nearing the gate she raised her gun. The thick hair and hide of a full-grown bugbear might have been proof against a lead ball, but Tilda shot it in its gaping, fang-rimmed mouth. It fell in a heap.
“Tilda,” Dugan said again.
“Yes,” she said. She put a heel against the near edge of the fateful bridge and threw her weight at it, but it moved only slightly. Without a word Dugan crouched and put his hands on the edge, and shoved hard in time with her next lunge. The bridge did not move far, but in its present state it did not have to. A corner of the far end slipped off the rocky edge and the whole thing turned before plunging down, crashing and splintering for long, long moments.
High above on the mountainside, the shadows of the bugbears were still as they stood silently watching. The rest that had started to climb were nearly down into the yard. Tilda looked across at them. She set her gun down on its stock and dug a ball out of a pocket. She started to reload.
“Tilda,” Dugan said for the third time.
“I know,” Tilda said, though she was not sure what she meant. When her gun was reloaded, she turned and walked away into the woods.
Chapter Twelve
It had been so long since Zebulon Baj Nif had slept in a bed that when he awoke he had no more idea of what he was lying on than of where he was.
Something lumpy but soft, yielding in some places but firm in others. Zeb hoped faintly for a woman before realizing it was only a mattress, irregularly filled.
He opened his eyes one at a time, and blinked in the faintest light. There was a curving wooden wall on one side and a coiled hammock hanging above him, though he was on a bunk. Zeb became aware that his whole world was gently rocking. Hospital wagon, he thought. But no. The constant sound in his ears was not the creak of wooden wheels or the whine of an axel needing grease. It was the slap of waves on a hull. The roll of the sea.
“ Fatch ipi thrajipi,” Zeb muttered in Minauan, a phrase it would not do to translate. His voice cracked and rasped dryly.
Wood scraped wood, and Zeb craned his neck sideways. On the other side of the narrow room beneath a high porthole, a figure stood but remained indistinct in the meager light. Two steps brought it bunk-side and Zeb narrowed his eyes as it, she, knelt.
“Drink,” a vaguely familiar voice said, female and accented. A tin cup touched Zeb’s lips and he pushed himself up to his elbows to gulp the metallic-tasting water. When the swallow of water was gone, the figure withdrew and rummaged around somewhere. Sparks were struck, a candle flickered to life, and the Far Western
