Somewhere behind him, Scrib stared, wide-eyed. “Fling-thing work pretty good,” he said.
“That not rock!” Pert shrilled. “That Bron!”
“Pretty good shot, though,” several of the gully dwarves observed.
Scrib found his chalk and got busy, scrawling doodles on his slate. He wasn’t sure what he was doing, but he had come to the realization that when something momentous, or at least unusual and interesting, like Bron flying through the air, occurred, squiggles should be drawn to commemorate it.
Making up squiggles as he went along, Scrib wrote it down.
Gandy leaned on his mop handle staff, gazing upward sadly. The breeze was cold on his naked old hide. High above him, his robe whipped and fluttered like a dirty blue flag, and the Grand Notioner didn’t have the slightest notion how to get it back.
Encouraged by their success, Tunk and Blip rounded up several of their reluctant peers and began climbing the fling-pole again. This time when they reached Gandy’s robe, about the time it neared the ground, they tied off the bottom of it with cord and filled it with fifty pounds of gravel. Then they all piled off and the pole snapped upright. The load of rock took the momentum and continued it, arcing toward the base of the tower, where fierce fighting was going on.
The problem was that the load of gravel, once confined to Gandy’s robe, stayed there. When it took flight, propelled by the released pole, it took both robe and pole with it.
“Nice shot,” Scrib said, adding more doodles to his slate. “Can’t do it again, though.”
“Quit foolin’ ’round!” the Lady Bruze demanded. “Le’s go find Clout!”
“Clout a twit,” several around her pointed out.
“Highbulp, though,” the Lady Lidda said. “Okay, ever’body go upstairs.”
“Can’t get in there.” Tunk pointed at the wide portal in the tower’s base. The opening was filled with humans in combat.
“Then climb wall,” Lidda said. “Ever’body come on!”
When Graywing and Dartimien reached the tower they were fighting for their lives. Both Gelnians and Tarmites-interrupted in their attempts to slaughter each other-had turned on the intruders. Now like a pack of raging beasts, the combatants surrounded and harassed the “outsiders.”
Graywing parried a thrusting pike, kicked aside a Gelnian warrior and disarmed a Tarmite right behind him. Beside him Dartimien was a frenzied flurry of lithe motion, stabbing here, slashing there, now and then releasing a dagger to do its deadly work.
“These people are getting mean,” the plainsman panted, whirling to drive back several attackers.
“It’s what we get for butting in,” the Cat snarled. “This is their private war, and I don’t think we’re welcome.”
“Make for the tower gate,” Graywing ordered, indicating the portal which was now behind him. “We’ll take cover in there.”
Dartimien sneered. “We’ll have to get in, first. Look.”
Pivoting, Graywing glanced at their destination, now only a few feet away. In the doorway were icemen-huge, glowering brutes brandishing axes the size of singletrees. “Gods,” he muttered.
But they were committed now. There was no turning back. Clearing a space around them, their blades driving the attackers back, the Cobar and the Cat found themselves face to face with Chatara Kral’s best mercenaries.
“You!” one of the giants rumbled, recognizing Dartimien. “I owe you this, little man.” He grinned, raised his axe … and froze as a thrown dagger blossomed in his throat.
“Only three knives left,” Dartimien muttered, as the iceman pitched forward, blood spurting from beneath his beard. “I’d better start recovering them.”
“Count your toys later,” Graywing growled. His blade rang against another descending axe, barely deflecting it. The shock of impact numbed his arm, and the iceman towering over him growled and struck again. Graywing dodged aside, evading the great blade by inches. He tried to thrust with his sword, but the giant parried it easily with a huge, banded arm.
The axe rose again, and suddenly the iceman stumbled back. His face was covered with disheveled gully dwarf, clinging to his head.
“Oops,” Bron said. “Sorry ’bout that.”
Seeing his opportunity. Graywing ran his sword through the iceman’s brisket, then leaped over him as he fell. “Get in here!” he yelled at Dartimien.
“Okay,” the unexpected gully dwarf said.
Beyond the shadowed opening were stone steps, leading upward. Graywing sprinted for them, with Dartimien right behind. For a moment it seemed they were alone in the dark base of the tower. The Tarmites and Gelnians outside had noticed one another again.
Graywing sped upward, taking the steps three at a time, then stopped so suddenly that Dartimien collided with him from behind. They dodged aside, clinging to the wall, as the limp body of still another iceman tumbled past. A broken spear shaft protruded from the big primitive’s back. Even in the dim light they could see the black markings on its shaft.
“Cave vandals,” the Cat hissed. “Vulpin’s pet assassins.”
Above were the whispers of soft boots on stone, and descending shadows. Dark cloaks swirled and the shadows were men-tall, silent, dark men with painted faces and painted weapons, descending from somewhere above.
As they saw the assassins, the assassins saw them. The one in the lead didn’t so much as hesitate. Bright steel glinted in shadow and flashed downward, a thrown dart with triad points. The device clanged off the wall where Dartimien had been an instant before, and the lead assassin pulled another from his belt. But before he could throw it, Graywing reached him, a howling fury of lethal Cobar with his razor-edged sword singing its song of death. The lead assassin never knew what hit him.
A second dark cloak shrilled and pitched from the stairs into darkness below, clutching at the hilt of Dartimien’s thrown dagger which stood in his breast.
Then a third assassin screamed, staggered and seemed to shrink abruptly. Graywing blinked in surprise. Neither he nor the foe had noticed the little gully dwarf with the big broadsword, until its blade slashed across the caveman’s knees. It was the same gully dwarf who had sailed out of nowhere moments before, right into the face of an iceman.
“Wow,” Bron said. “Pretty good bash. Real hero stuff.”
“Where did you come from?” Dartimien hissed.
Bron looked puzzled. “Dunno,” he confided. “Guess I was jus’ born. Ol’ Glitch my dad, so Lady Lidda prob’ly my mom.”
“I don’t want your lineage!” Dartimien snapped. “How did you get to this tower?”
“Oh, that,” Bron said. “Fling-thing flang … flu … toss me over here.”
Below them, a faded blue robe full of gravel crashed through the doorway, rattling and scraping as it dragged a long, flexible pole across the stone paving.
“That fling-thing,” Bron pointed. “Guess ever’-body through with it.”
Another cave assassin appeared on the stairs above, and from beyond came the abrupt sounds of fierce combat. Dartimien recognized the rumbling oaths of at least two more icemen and the soft, shuffling footsteps of cave assassins. The last, best forces of Lord Vulpin and Chatara Kral had met, somewhere above.
“Thayla’s up there,” Graywing growled. With a bound, the plainsman dodged the falling, tumbling corpse of a beheaded caveman and charged up the stairway.
“You’re crazy!” Dartimien shouted after him, but Graywing was already gone. “Gods,” the Cat muttered. Relieving a dead cave assassin of a pair of serviceable daggers, he sprinted upward, grumbling.
Chapter 24
Chatara Kral, rumored daughter of the mightiest of Dragon Highlords, was a formidable warrior in her own right. Though striking of face and form, the daughter of Verminaard despised and shunned the gentle teachings offered in her childhood by tutors and tenders. She hated them, just as she hated her arrogant brother Vulpin. Since childhood she had trained in the deadly arts, preparing for just this time-when she would face her despised brother and claim the legacy that should be hers alone, a legacy promised by her father when he pledged the dark ways in exchange for power.