Then, too, Nalvarre smiled at Uhoh and his companions just as Gunthar had always done, and he had gray hair like Gunthar, though not as gray nor so well groomed as the Grand Master's. Nalvarre spoke to Uhoh, not at him, very much unlike most Knights, except for Gunthar.
Still, Uhoh didn't know whether to trust Nalvarre. Already on this trip they'd nearly been captured twice by their dreaded slagd pursuers.
Throughout their journey, the shadowy creatures had dogged their trail, filling the gully dwarves with terror. They were allowed no rest, no time to stop and feed to their satisfaction. At night in the lonely places of the wild, they heard whispers and stealthy footsteps stalking around their hiding places, and only their gully dwarf instincts for selfpreservation kept them still and quiet, and thus alive.
Uhoh was weary, weary down to his very bones. He nodded and sighed.
"Tell me what happened," Nalvarre softly said.
"It all happened when me and Papa and Garr hunt big ugly pig, Man-something-or-other," Uhoh said.
"Mannjaeger?" Nalvarre exclaimed.
"That him," Uhoh said.
"You were hunting Mannjaeger, you and your father and Garr?" Nalvarre asked.
"Yes."
Nalvarre's eyes widened. "You are a remarkable fellow," he said.
Uhoh stared at him without comprehension.
"Go ahead with your story," Nalvarre said.
"First Garr die, but he got only a little scratch," Uhoh continued.
"Was Garr your brother?" Nalvarre asked.
Glabella burst out laughing. "Garr a dog, like Millisant," she giggled.
"I'm sorry. So the boar killed Garr. Do continue," Nalvarre said.
"Then pig attack Papa and knock Papa down, so I throw rocks at pig and pig let Papa go. Then Papa stick pig with pig sticker. Pig run away," Uhoh said.
"Your father stabbed Mannjaeger with a knife?" Nalvarre asked in disbelief.
"No, it long stick with knife on end. Very heavy," Uhoh explained.
"I see," Nalvarre said.
The longer this story went on, the less he felt like believing it. To think, the gully dwarf was not only hunting Mannjaeger, but actually wounding him, and with a spear! It was common knowledge that an armed gully dwarf is more a danger to himself than to his enemies.
"Then Papa die, like this," Uhoh said as he performed a remarkable imitation of the convulsions which twisted Gunthar's body.
"Papa get scratch here," Uhoh continued, indicating his thigh. "He say, 'Come close' and he tell me big secret nobody supposed to know. Then Papa say," Uhoh croaked in a remarkable imitation of a dying man's whispered last words. " 'The book… Kalaman… Liam… in bell room… tell him… tell no one.' Then slagd come, and I run away home," he finished in his normal voice.
"We go home too," Glabella said.
Lumpo's head hit the table and he began to snore.
"But what does this big secret mean?" Nalvarre asked, scratching his thick, tangled beard.
"You not suppose to know secret," Uhoh said, pounding the table. "I tell you, that before."
"I'm sorry, but let's get back to the draconians. I thought you said the draconians killed Papa. Why?"
"I come to that!" Uhoh frowned. "You tell story, or me?"
"Do continue," Nalvarre apologized.
"Before hunt, slagd do this and that. They make hoobajooba with hands so dogs don't go right way, but me and Papa we go right way," Uhoh said.
"And Garr," Glabella added.
"What?" Nalvarre asked in bewilderment.
"That easy spell," Glabella interrupted. "I learn do that when I only two."
"A spell?" Nalvarre asked. "Do you mean they performed magic?"
"Big magic. That hoobajooba spell easy. All you need is chicken foot," she said. "I got chicken foot. You wanna see?" She began to dig in her bag.
"Some other time," Nalvarre said to her. He turned to Uhoh. "So the draconians cast a spell to confuse the hunters? But somehow allowing you, and your father, and Garr to find the boar. It sounds feasible… "
"That what I say," Uhoh said. "Feasible!"
"Remarkable!" The very strangeness of the story did lend credence to it. "So after Papa died, then what happened?" he asked.
"I fall asleep. I wake up with draconians all around. Two, at least two. So I fight and get away."
"Really?" Nalvarre asked in surprise.
"No!" Glabella shouted. "Millisant bite slagd on tail and he drop Uhoh on head, just like when he a baby."
"Then I run," Uhoh said a little sheepishly. "They chase. I run away home."
"Where is home?"
"Town," Uhoh said.
Town. Nalvarre had heard rumors of this place. It was a fairly recent colony of gully dwarves. Almost no one knew of its precise whereabouts. There were a few other people, like Nalvarre, who lived in the wild hills alone: rangers, druids, hermits, and the like. Occasionally they met to exchange news or to trade. Recently, there had been talk of this burgeoning gully dwarf Town with everyone wondering how so large a population of the miserable creatures had sprung into being, virtually overnight.
Town was said to lie several days journey to the north, well into the acknowledged realm of the red dragon Pyrothraxus. The only human habitation in the area was an old castle of the Solamnic Knights, built to guard a pass that had fallen out of use ages ago. Over the nine years since Nalvarre had lived in this region, the castle had only been garrisoned twice; the rest of that time it stood empty, a home to rooks and lizards.
"That is quite some tale," Nalvarre said at last. "I don't quite understand all the details, but I trust they'll emerge in the light of day. In the meanwhile, you three are welcome to stay here as long as you like."
Uhoh was nodding sleepily, as Glabella blinked. She reached across the table for another yam and tried to stuff it in her mouth, but somewhere along the way she drifted off. Her head fell on the table with a thud, though her fingers remained firmly locked on the yam. She snuggled it to her cheek like a doll.
Uhoh yawned, his jaws cracking. "We stay two days," he said. "Not more than two." He stretched and rose from his seat, stumbled over and curled up with Millisant by the fire.
"Poor little buggers," Nalvarre whispered as he looked at them.
He quietly cleaned up the supper dishes, extracted his blankets from the wreck of the bed, and climbed into the loft to find a place to stretch out. As he drifted off, he gazed down on his visitors and wondered. He thought about them as sleep stole over him, and in the night he dreamed the trees were full of thousands of squirrels with gully dwarf faces, all jabbering ceaselessly, while black wolves stalked the ground below.
17
Four draconians, their clawed feet bruised and bleeding, scrambled among the rocks and boulders of one of the most barren and forlorn regions any of them had ever seen. Every broken stone and pebble seemed sharper than the obsidian blades and arrowheads of Abanasinian warriors, every bush was a thorn bush, every vine a tangleroot, every stunted tree spiked with needles or prickly with splinters.
The one in the lead was the smallest of the four. A baaz draconian, his scales had a brassy golden hue, and he bore two ram-like horns curling from his sinister reptilian head. He wore a dirty green cloak thrown over his folded wings, as though he were a ranger or scout. The next two had scales of a coppery tint and wore tight-fitting outfits of blackened leather designed to allow full range of motion both to their limbs and to the batlike wings sprouting from their backs. These kapaks, as they were called, were larger than their baaz companion, and they pushed him relentlessly with their taunts and venomous comments. The fourth of the group was the largest. His reptilian scales glimmered with a silvery sheen, glaringly reflecting the light of the midday sun. He wore armor of chain and plate specifically designed to fit his draconic body. A long, heavy sword was slung across his back between his wings. He was a sivak, one of the most powerful of all draconian races.