'Because only a few of you will go out to search,' the dragon hissed. Suddenly, as subtly as the narrowing of her eyes, all hints of the 'friendly' dragon were gone and the gully dwarves saw Verden Leaf glow as she really was. 'All the rest will remain here,' she said, 'with me.'
As they cowered away from her, she pointed with a huge talon. 'You,' she said, pointing at old Gandy. 'You will search. And you.' This time she pointed at Tagg. 'You two, and three more. The rest stay. The way out is here' — a talon turned, pointing — 'just behind my head.'
Some of them crept closer to look. Just behind the 'hole,' on her right side, was a crevice in the rubble. Tagg grabbed Minna's hand and headed for the opening. Abruptly, the dragon moved her head, blocking the way. 'Not the female,' Verden hissed. 'She stays.'
Verden knew her choices were right. The old gully dwarf with the mop handle staff was, within the limits of Aghar intelligence, the smartest of them all. He would search well, and he was the least likely to wander off. The young male was the same one who had slid past her to look into her lair. For his kind, he had a certain courage and a degree of curiosity. And it was unlikely that he would flee, as long as the dragon had the female he favored.
She would also keep the one they called Highbulp. The rest had a certain dim loyalty to him, she sensed — probably more than he had to any of them.
She moved her head again. 'Go. Now! Find the disk that cut me. The stone should be nearby.'
Tagg and Gandy darted past the dragon's jaws and through the opening, Tagg glancing back at Minna with frightened eyes. As soon as they were out, others hurried to follow them. Verden let three others pass, then blocked the way again.
Verden relaxed. There was a chance the gully dwarves would find the self-stone. It was somewhere nearby. She could sense its presence, dimly. There was a chance they would recover it for her. If not… well, then she would just have to kill them and try to find it, herself.
As her eyes closed, the hostages began to chatter among themselves. She ignored them, then opened one eye in mild curiosity. 'Promised place?' she murmured. 'What promised place?'
From his refuge behind a rank of his subjects, Glitch peeked out at her. 'P… Promised Place,' he said. 'Where we s'posed to go. Our de… density.'
'Density? You mean, destiny?'
'Right. Dest'ny.'
'And where is the Promised Place?'
'Dunno,' Glitch admitted. 'Nobody know.'
She closed her eye again, bored with the 'density' of gully dwarves. Within seconds she was asleep.
With Clout and two others — Gogy and Plit — following them, Gandy and Tagg made their way back to where they had found the dented disk. The dragon had said to look there, and they were in no mood to argue with a dragon.
More than a day had passed. Maybe two or three days, for all they knew. The smoke that had lingered above the ruined city was gone now, blown away, and only bleak rubble remained. But otherwise, things were as they had been… almost. Rounding a turn in a ravine among rubble, the five heard voices ahead. Clinging to shadow, they crept forward to see who was there. Tagg was the first to see, and he almost bowled the others over, backpedaling. Talls,' he whispered. 'Sh!'
From the shadowed mouth of a 'tunnel' where great stones had fallen across the gaps between other stones, they peered out.
The humans ahead of them were ragged and scarred. There were two of them, and they were working frantically at the great, tumbled skeleton of the fallen discobel, turning its huge crank inch by inch as the long throwing arm rose above them. Lying on its side, the sidearm thing became a slanted pole, its outward end creeping toward the sky above the sheer walls of rubble around them.
'No business… comin' this way… in the first place,' one of them grunted, heaving at the windlass of the crank. 'Nothin' here.. just ruins.'
'Shut up!' the other hissed. 'Your fault we… fell in this — canyon… now pull… harder… only way to… get out of here.'
In the shadows. Clout whispered, 'What Talls doin'?'
'Dunno,' Gandy shrugged. 'Tall stuff don' make sense. Hush.'
Slowly, out in the little clear area (which was, indeed, like a deep canyon among sheer walls, if one looked at it as a human would, not seeing the many avenues of exit that were like highways to gully dwarves), the two men labored at the discobel's windlass and the sling arm rose inch by inch. Several times they had to stop and rest, but finally the arm stood straight up, its tip only a few feet from the nearest wall of stone.
The men looked up. 'That'll do,' one of them panted. 'Let's tie it off. I'd hate to have that thing trigger itself while we're climbing up there.'
The other paled at the thought, and trembled. 'Gods,' he muttered. 'Splat!'
'Shut up and tie this thing off with something. Here, what's this? The set-pin?' He picked up a sturdy cylinder of worked hardwood, about three feet long, and glanced from it to the barrel of the discobel. 'Yeah, there's its slot. Hold that windlass 'til I get this in place.'
With the other bracing the windlass, he set the pin in its slot and tapped it with a rock to firm it. The other eased off on the crank, eased a bit more, then stood back, sighing in relief. The pin held. The machine remained motionless.
'Let's get out of here,' one of them said. Gingerly, he stepped to the base of the cranked-up arm and grasped it. Using its guy-bars as hand- and foot-holds, he began to climb. The other followed. From below, they looked like a pair of squirrels climbing a huge tree trunk, except that instead of branches, the trunk had triangles of cable bracings, held outward by heavy wooden guy-bars. They climbed higher and higher. At the top they hesitated, then swung from the tip of the arm to the top of the jagged wall, and disappeared from sight. Their voices faded, and were gone.
'Wonder what that all about,' Tagg muttered. He scratched his head and looked around, puzzled. There was something he was supposed to do, but he had become so engrossed in watching the Talls that he had forgotten what it was. The others had, too, but after a moment old Gandy snapped his fingers. 'Find stone for dragon,' he reminded them. 'Stone 'bout this big.'
They stepped out from the 'tunnel' and peered around. 'Lotta stones 'bout that big, all over,' Tagg pointed out. 'Which one?'
'Dunno,' Gandy admitted. 'Better take 'em all.'
They set to work gathering small stones — all except Clout, who had lost his bashing tool somewhere and felt uncomfortable without it. He set about finding a new bashing tool.
With Gandy selecting rocks, and Tagg, Plit, and Gogy collecting them, they had a nice pile of stones going by the time Clout found what he was looking for. It was a sturdy cylinder of polished hardwood, resting among the inexplicable vagaries of the great wooden device lying in the rubble.
It was exactly what he wanted, but it seemed to be stuck. He pulled at it, heaved at it, and it budged slightly but would not come free. Frowning with determination, he clambered out of the maze of timbers, found a good, heavy stone, and went back in.
Clout had a philosophy of life — only one, but it had always served him well. His philosophy was: if a thing won't move when you want it to move, bash it.
From outside, they heard him hammering in there — among the maze of timbers — and looked up. 'What Clout doin'?' Plit asked.
'Dunno,' Gandy shrugged, frowning. 'Not gettin' stones, though.'
The hammering went on, and then its ringing took on a new sound. After each thud, something creaked, and far above — though those below didn't notice it — the great braced arm began to tremble.
'Almos' got it,' Clout's voice came from the timbers.
He banged again, and again, and abruptly the whole world went crazy. The entire maze of timbers groaned, crackled and heaved upward, seeming to dance. And the tall, heavy arm above shot downward, with such force that the air sang around it. It arched toward the ground, impelled by the released windlass, and smashed into the soil only yards from where the other gully dwarves were stacking their rocks.
The impact was enormous. Gully dwarves, rocks and surrounding rubble flew upward. Partial walls that still
