His name was Tagg, and an odd bit of memory tugged at him as his eyes traced the dimensions of the fallen thing. He had seen something like it before… somewhere. Tugging at his lip, Tagg circled entirely around the thing. A few others were with him now. They had seen his curiosity and returned, curious themselves.
'Got a arm,' he muttered, squatting to reason out the placement of a great timber jutting outward from the device. Within the twisted structure itself, the timber was bound to a sort of big, wooden drum, with heavy rope wrapped around it and a set of massive gears at its hub.
'Fling-thing,' he said, beginning to remember. It was like something he had seen from a distance, atop some human structure his people had skirted long ago in their travels. He remembered it because he had seen the Talls operate it, and had been impressed. It was a wooden tower atop a tower, and a lot of the humans — the Talls — had gathered around it and slowly cranked the extended arm around and back, then abruptly had released it. It had made a noise like distant thunder, and the thing that flew from it had been very large and had knocked down a tree.
'That it,' he decided. 'One a' them. Fling-thing.'
Several other gully dwarves were gathered around him now. One asked, 'What Tagg talkin' 'bout?'
'This thing,' Tagg pointed. 'This a fling-thing. Throws stuff.'
'Why?' another wanted to know.
'Dunno. Does, though. Throws big thing, knock a tree down.'
'I know. Cat'pult.'
'Nope. That some other kind. This called a… uh… dis.. disca… somethin'.'
'Okay.' Losing interest, some of them wandered away again, though Tagg and two others lingered, creeping through the wreckage in wonder. One was a white-bearded ancient named Gandy, who was given to occasional bursts of lucid thought and served as Grand Notioner to the combined clans of Bulp. The other was a young female named Minna.
Tagg was vaguely glad that Minna was interested in the same thing that interested him. He found her presence pleasant. His eyes lighting on a glistening bauble among the rubble, he picked it up and held it out to her. 'Here,' he said, shyly. 'Pretty thing for Minna.'
Climbing among the twisted members of the fallen discobel, Tagg helped Minna across a shattered timber, then turned and stumbled over old Gandy. The Grand Notioner was on his knees, staring at something, and Tagg tripped over him and thudded facedown in the sooty dust.
Barely noticing him, Gandy brushed his hand over a vague shape on the floor and said, 'Here somethin'. What this?'
Tagg crawled over to look, and Minna peered over his shoulder. The object was a big, iron disk with sharpened serrations all around its edge, except for one area where it had been blunted and bent.
'That disk,' Tagg said. 'It what th' fling-thing fling. Knock down trees with these.'
'Knock down somethin',' Gandy decided, looking at the blunted edge. The disk had hit something very solid, very hard. He rubbed it again and looked at the dark stains on its surface. There were other stains on the cracked floor nearby, as though blood had congealed there. He scraped the stain with his finger, then tasted his finger. He frowned and spat. It was not any kind of blood he knew about.
It reminded him, though, of the primary goal of the moment. He stood, tapping the ground with the battered old mop handle he always carried. ''Nough look at stuff,' he proclaimed. 'Look for food first. Come 'long.'
Obediently, they followed him out of the wreckage of the war engine, then paused and looked around.
'Where ever'body go?' Tagg wondered.
Gandy shrugged. 'Aroun' someplace. Can't get far, followin' Highbulp. Glitch don' move that fast.'
From where they were, a dozen tunnels and breaks in the rubble led away. Choosing one at random, old Gandy led off, with Tagg and Minna following. 'Now watch good,' he ordered.
'Watch what?'
'What?'
'You gonna do trick or somethin'?'
'No! Watch for food. Need to find stuff for make stew.'
The tunnel they were in was a long, winding way created by the spaces between building stones that had fallen on one another. After a few minutes, Tagg asked, 'What kind food Grand Notioner expect find here?'
'He didn' say,' Minna said.
Just ahead of them, Gandy turned, frowning in the shadows. 'Any kind food,' he snapped. 'Keep lookin'. If it moves, it prob'ly good for stew.'
'Okay.' Moving on, Tagg stepped into the lead.
They had gone only a few steps when Tagg, his alert young eyes scanning everywhere, saw something move.
It was something that protruded, curving downward, from a crack between fallen stones. It was a tapered thing, about as long as his arm. Dark and greenish, it was almost invisible against the muted, mottled colors of the rubble around it. But as his eyes passed over it, it twitched.
Tagg stopped, and the others bumped into him from behind. Old Gandy tottered for a moment, then regained his balance. Minna clung to Tagg, her pressure against him totally distracting him. He decided at that moment that any time Minna wanted to bump into him, it was all right as far as he was concerned.
'Why Tagg stop?' Gandy snapped. 'I nearly fall down.'
'Okay,' Tagg murmured, paying no attention at all to the elder. 'That fine.'
'Not fine!' Gandy pointed out. 'S'posed to be lookin' for food, not foolin' aroun'. You!' He nudged Minna with his mop handle. 'Leggo Tagg. Stop th' foolishness!'
'Oh.' Minna backed away, shrugging. 'Okay.'
With a sigh, Tagg turned to go on, then saw the thing he had seen before. The thing that twitched. He pointed at it. 'What that? Maybe food?'
They gathered close, and Gandy bent for a better look. The thing was sticking out of a small crevice in the rubble. It was hard to tell in the subdued light, but it seemed to be round and tapered, with a sort of sharp ridge running along the top of it. Its color was dark green. And as they stared at it, it twitched again.
They stumbled back, wary.
'What it is?' Tagg asked.
Gandy peered again. 'Dunno. Maybe half a snake?'
'Might be.' Tagg approached it carefully, thrust out his arm and prodded the thing with his finger, then jerked away. When he touched it, it writhed with a motion that was more than a twitch. Like the tail of a huge rat, it swayed this way and that. But it seemed otherwise harmless. Whatever might be at the other end of it, this end had no teeth or claws.
'This food?' Tagg asked the Grand Notioner.
'Might be,' Gandy decided. 'Snake okay for stew sometimes, if not bitter. Check it out.'
'What?'
'Taste it. See if it bitter.'
Reluctantly, Tagg approached the thing again, grasping it with both hands. It writhed and struggled in his grip. Whatever it was, it was very strong. But he held on, and when it seemed a bit subdued, he lowered his head, opened his mouth and bit it as hard as he could.
Abruptly, the thing flicked and surged, flipping Tagg across the jagged tunnel into the far wall. And all around them, seeming to come from the stone itself, a huge roar of outrage rang through the air.
Tagg got his feet under him just as the Grand Notioner surged toward him, running for his life, with Minna right behind. Both of them collided with Tagg, and all three went down, rolling along the cracked floor, a tumble of arms, legs and muffled curses.
They had barely come to a halt when others — a lot of others — piled into them, over them, and onto them. The main party, led by the Highbulp Glitch I himself, had been emerging from a connecting way when they heard the roar and panicked. In an instant, there were gully dwarves tumbling all along the tunnel, and a great pile of gully dwarves at the convergence where Glitch I — and everyone behind him — had stumbled over the flailing trio.
It took several minutes to get everyone untangled from everyone else, and Tagg — at the bottom of the heap — was thoroughly enjoying being tangled up with Minna again until he looked up and gazed into the thunderous face of his lord and leader, Glitch I, Highbulp by Persuasion and Lord Protector of This Place and Anyplace Else He Could
