shot past, shaking the ground with their force. A tumbling boulder the size of an elven mansion bore down on him, and he flung himself aside, hugging the ground as it hit, bounced and sailed over, missing him by inches. He raised himself and turned to watch it go, and something hit him from behind — something massive and stone-hard that smashed against his head, bowling him over. Chaos rang in his ears, and he saw the hard, shaking ground rise to meet him… then saw nothing more.

Where he fell, shards of stone skidded and bounced, piling up in drifts around him. After a long time, the stonefalls slowed and stopped, and a creeping, gurgling torrent of mud and silt from ravaged slopes above rolled down to bury the lesser debris. He was not aware of being buried. He wasn't aware of anything now. The flowing soil found him, covered him and passed on, and there was nothing there to see.

With the winds came clouds, and with the clouds came rain — torrents of rain washing over a ravaged land, rain and more rain, scouring channels and gullies in the sediment among the tumbled stones.

The rains came and went and came again, and between storms the ravaged land lay in silence.

On a caprock hillside, where scoured stone rose in stacked layers above the climbing slopes, evening light made a patchwork of shadows, hiding indentations in the stone cliffs, camouflaging them from prying eyes. Here on the south face of the cliff, low in its surface, one of those somber shadows might have seemed slightly different from those around it, to the practiced eye — darker and deeper, the opening of a cavern that opened to other caverns beyond.

Screened from view by jutting rock, the spot was just the sort of place the combined clans of Bulp had been seeking for weeks — a place that could be This Place until it was time to move on to Another Place.

And, seeking it, they had found it and moved right in. Furtively, they entered, scouted around, were satisfied, and reported the find to their leader.

With great ceremony, then, His Royalness Gorge III, Highbulp by Choice and Lord Protector of This Place and Who Knew How Many Other Places, made his own brief tour of inspection, strutting here and there, looking at this and that, muttering under his breath and in general behaving like a Highbulp.

Various of his subjects trailed after him, occasionally stumbling over one another.

At a wall of rock, Gorge stopped and raised his candle. 'What this?' he demanded.

At his shoulder, his wife and consort, the Lady Drule, peered at the wall and said, 'Rock. Cave have rock walls. Wouldn't be cave without walls.'

Old Hunch, the Grand Notioner of the Bulp Clan, padded forward, leaned on his mop-handle staff, to ask, 'What Highbulp's problem?'

'Want to know what is that.' The Lady Drule pointed at the wall.

'That wall,' Hunch said. 'Rock wall. So what?'

'Highbulp doin' inspec… explo… lookin' 'round,' Gorge proclaimed. He moistened a finger, touched the wall, then tasted his finger. 'Rock wall,' he decided. 'Cave got rock wall this side.'

'Other sides, too,' Hunch pointed out. 'Caves do.'

Satisfied, Gorge wandered away from the wall, raised his eyes to look critically at the rock ceiling, and tripped over a bump in the rock floor. He sprawled flat and lost his candle.

'Highbulp clumsy oaf,' Drule muttered, helping him to his feet. Someone returned his candle to him, and he looked around, found a foot-high ledge, and sat on it. 'Bring Royal Stuff,' he ordered.

Several of his subjects scouted around, found the tattered sack that was the Holder of Royal Stuff, and brought it to him. Digging into it, throwing aside various objects — a rabbit skull, a broken spearhead, a battered cup — Gorge drew forth a broken antler nearly as tall as he was. An elk antler, it once had been part of a set, attached to a tanned elk hide. The hide and the other antler were long gone, but he still had this one, and he raised it like a scepter.

'This place okay for This Place,' Gorge III decreed, 'so this place This Place.' The ceremony ended, he tossed aside the elk antler. 'Get stew goin',' he ordered. ' 'Bout time to eat.'

The Lady Drule stepped aside to confer with other ladies of the clan. There were shrugs and shaking heads. She paused in thought, gazing into the murky reaches of the cavern.

'Rats,' she said.

Gorge glanced around. 'What?'

'Rats. Need meat for stew. Time for hunt rats.'

Within moments, small figures scurried all around the cave and into the tunnels leading from it. Their shouts and chatter, the sounds of scuffing, scrambling feet, the thuds of people falling down and the oaths of those who stumbled over them, all receded into the reaches of the cavern.

Gorge looked distinctly irritated. 'Where ever'body go?'

'Huntin' rats,' the Lady Drule explained.

'Rats,' Gorge grumbled. No longer the center of everyone's attention, he felt abandoned and surly. He wanted to sulk, but sulking usually put him to sleep, and he was too hungry to sleep.

It was a characteristic of the race called Aghar, whom most races called gully dwarves: Once a thing was begun, simply keep on doing it. When at rest, they tended to stay at rest. But once in motion, they kept moving. One of the strongest drives of any gully dwarf was simple inertia.

Thus the rat hunt, once begun, went on and on. The cave held plenty of rats, the hunting was good, and the gully dwarves were enjoying the sport… and exploring further and further as they hunted.

Stew, however, was in progress. Seeing that her husband was becoming more and more testy, the Lady Drule had rounded up a squadron of other ladies when the first rats were brought in. Now they had a good fire going, and a stew of gathered greens, wild onions, turnips and fresh rat meat was beginning to bubble.

Gorge didn't wait for the rest to come to supper. He dug into one of the clan packs, found a stew bowl that once had been the codpiece on some Tall warrior's armor, and helped himself.

He was only halfway through his second serving when a group of gully dwarves came racing in from the shadows at the rear of the cave and jostled to a stop before him.

'Highbulp come look!' one said, excitedly. 'We find.. ah…' He turned to another. 'What we find?'

'Other cave,' the second one reminded him.

'Right,' the first continued. 'Highbulp come see other cave. Got good stuff.'

'What kind good stuff?' Gorge demanded, stifling a belch.

The first turned to the second. 'What kind good stuff?'

'Cave stuff,' the second reminded him. 'Pretty stuff.'

'Cave stuff, Highbulp,' the first reported.

'Better be good,' Gorge snapped. 'Good 'nough for inter… int… butt in when Highbulp tryin' to eat?'

'Good stuff,' several of them assured him.

'What kind stuff? Gold? Clay? Bats? Pyr… pyr… pretty rocks? What?' Another resounding belch caught him, this one unstifled.

The first among them turned to the second. 'What?'

'Pretty rocks,' the second reminded. 'Highbulp come see!'

'Rats,' Gorge muttered. Those around him seemed so excited — there were dozens of them now — that he set down his codpiece bowl, picked up his candle, and went to see what they had found. A parade of small figures carrying candles headed for the rear of the cavern — the guides leading, Gorge following them, and a horde of others following him. Most of them — latecomers on the scene — didn't know where they were going or why, but they followed anyway. Far back in the cavern, a crack in the rock led into an eroded tunnel, which wound away, curving upward.

As he entered the crack, Gorge belched mightily. 'Too much turnips in stew,' he muttered.

By ones and threes and fives, the gully dwarves entered and disappeared from the sight of those remaining.

The Lady Drule and several other ladies were just coming back from a side chamber, where they had been preparing sleeping quarters. At sight of the last candles disappearing into the tunnel, Drule asked, 'Now what goin' on? Where Highbulp?'

Hunch was inspecting the stew. He looked up and shrugged. 'Somebody find somethin'. Highbulp go see.' He tasted the stew. 'Good,' he said. He tasted again, then turned away, philosophically. 'Life like stew,' he said. 'Fulla rats an' turnips.'

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