Dragonlance Tales II, Vol. 2 – The Cataclysm

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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