and there was silence. She turned again, peering toward the
dim light ahead. The tunnel seemed to widen there, and
something glistened. Raising her hand to keep the rest
hushed, Drule crept forward. Another cavern was just
ahead, its floor strewn with broken rock and glitters of pyrite,
and the light came from overhead. She tiptoed into the
open, peering around. The light was daylight and came
from a hole in the ceiling. There was no sign of the
Highbulp and his explorers, but among the glitters lay two
or three candles, a forage pouch, and a shoe. The others
had been here.
The Lady Drule’s ears perked at a sound that was like
faraway thunder – or someone snoring. It came from
overhead, and her eyes brightened. “Gorge?” she called
softly. “Highbulp, where you?”
“Lady Drule find Highbulp?” someone asked.
“Must be close,” someone else suggested. “Sure
sounds like him snorin’.”
Drule looked up at the opening in the ceiling, then
handed her candle to the one nearest her. “All wait here,”
she said. “Maybe they up there. I go see.”
Clambering onto a pile of fallen stone, she found
handholds on the stone wall and climbed toward the light.
The opening above was small – about two feet across – but
it was big enough for any gully dwarf to go through.
The Lady Drule climbed, then hoisted herself into the
hole. The sound of snoring came again, very close. If that
was Gorge snoring, he was outdoing himself. She had
never heard even the Highbulp sleep so loudly.
With a final pull, she raised her head above the hole
and looked around. She was on a hilltop littered with stone.
Fragments and grotesque shapes were all around, and a
particularly ugly large boulder blocked her view on one
side. She raised herself from the hole, dusted herself off,
and started to climb over the boulder, then stopped in
confusion. It didn’t FEEL like stone. As she bent to look at
it more closely, the snore came again, then cut off abruptly.
A pair of huge yellow eyes opened directly in front of her.
For an instant, Drule froze in panic, then she pivoted and
tried to run . . . and had nowhere to go. A pair of enormous
hands rose behind her, blocking her escape, and the big
head with
the yellow eyes came upright and gazed at her. Below
the eyes, a huge mouth opened, exposing great, chisellike
teeth. In horror, the Lady Drule gaped at the monster, and it
grinned back, then the big mouth moved, and it spoke one
word. “Mama?”
*****
In the cavern below, the rest of the ladies – and the few
males with them – waited with growing impatience. They
could no longer see the Lady Drule, and could no longer
hear the snoring. There were voices somewhere above – or a
voice and intermittent rumbles of thunder – but they couldn’t
hear what was being said.
By threes and fives, they started wandering around the
cavern, looking at the pyrite deposits, the fallen stone,
anything of momentary interest. Several had nearly decided
to go back down the tunnel to the lower cavern and put on a
pot of stew, when the hole above darkened and Drule’s
voice came down. “Ever’body come up,” she called.
Hunch peered upward. “Lady Drule find others? Find
what’s-‘is-name . . . th’ Highbulp?”
“Not here,” she called back. “Tracks, though. Maybe
we follow an’ find.”
The first ones to the top glanced at the Lady Drule,
started to hoist themselves out of the hole, then spotted the
huge, ugly creature crouched nearby – its gaze fixed
lovingly on Drule – and retreated in panic, dislodging those
below them. Within seconds, there was a tumbling pile of
gully dwarves on the cavern floor and nobody climbing.
The Lady Drule appeared at the opening again, looked
at them curiously. “What happen? Ever’body fall down?”
“What that you got up there?” someone asked. “Big,
ugly thing.”
“Oh.” She glanced around, then looked down again.
“That just Krog. Stop wastin’ time! Come up.”
Several of them began climbing again. Heads reached
the surface and poked out, wide eyes looking past Drule at
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