Bane and the dog wandered onto the bridge. The dog smelled strongly of sausage. Bane was obviously bored and out of sorts.
Haplo ignored them both. He was certain now that his memory was not playing him false. Something was definitely wrong….
“What are you looking at?” Bane demanded, yawning, plunking himself down on a bench. “There’s nothing out there except—”
A jagged bolt of lightning struck the ground near the ship, sending rock fragments exploding into the air. Heart-stopping thunder crashed around them. The dog cowered down against the floor. Haplo instinctively fell back from the window, though he was in his place again an instant later, staring out intently.
Bane ducked his head, covered it with his arms. “I hate this place!” he yelled. “I— What was that? Did you see that?”
The child jumped to his feet, pointing. “The rocks! The rocks moved!”
“Yeah, I saw it,” Haplo said, glad to have confirmation. He’d been wondering if the lightning had affected his vision.
Another near strike. The dog began to whimper. Haplo and Bane pressed their faces close to the glass, stared out into the storm.
Several coralite boulders were behaving in a most extraordinary manner. They had detached themselves from the ground, seemingly, and were trundling across it at a great rate, heading straight—there could be no mistaking that now—for Haplo’s ship.
“They’re coming to us!” Bane said in awe.
“Dwarves,” Haplo guessed, but why dwarves should risk coming Outside, particularly Outside during a storm, was difficult to fathom.
The boulders were beginning to circle the ship, searching for a way to enter. Haplo ran back to the hatch, Bane and the dog at his heels. He hesitated a moment, reluctant to break the rune-magic’s protective seal. But if the mobile rocks were really dwarves, they were in danger of being struck by lightning every second they were out in the storm.
Desperation drove them to this, Haplo decided. Something, he guessed, to do with the change in the Kicksey-winsey. He placed his hand on a sigil drawn in the center of the hatch, began tracing it backward. Immediately, its glowing blue fire started to fade and darken. Other sigla touching it began to darken as well. Haplo waited until those runes on the hatch had dwindled to almost nothing, then he threw the bolt and flung the door wide.
A blast of wind nearly knocked him down. Rain drenched him instantly.
“Get back!” he shouted, flinging an arm up to protect his face from slashing hailstones.
Bane had already scrambled backward, out of the way, nearly falling over the dog in the process. The two huddled a safe distance from the open door.
Haplo braced himself, peered out into the storm. “Hurry!” he cried, though he doubted if anyone could hear him above the boom of the thunder. He waved his arm to attract attention.
The blue glow that illuminated the inside of the vessel was still shining brightly, but Haplo could see it starting to grow dim. The circle of protection was broken. Before long, the sigla guarding the entire ship would weaken.
“Hurry!” he shouted again, this time remembering to speak dwarven.
The lead boulder, coming around the ship a second time, saw the blue light shining from the open hatchway and headed straight for it. The other two boulders, catching sight of their leader, scurried after. The lead boulder slammed against the side of the hull, went through a few moments’ wild gyrating, then the rock was suddenly flung upward and over and the bespectacled face of Limbeck, panting and flushed, emerged.
The ship had been built to sail in water, not through the air, and the hatch, therefore, was located some distance off the ground. Haplo had added a rope ladder for his own convenience, and he tossed this out to Limbeck.
The dwarf, nearly flattened against the hull by the wind, began to clamber up, glancing down worriedly at two other boulders, which had crashed into the ship’s side. One dwarf managed to extricate himself from his protective shell, but the other was apparently having difficulty. A piteous wail rose above the roar of the wind and the crashing thunder.
Limbeck, looking extremely irritated, checked an impatient exclamation and started back down, moving slowly and ponderously, to rescue his fellow warrior.