his balance. Minna clung to Tagg, her pressure against
him totally distracting him. He decided at that moment
that any time Minna wanted to bump into him, it was all
right as far as he was concerned.
“Why Tagg stop?” Gandy snapped. “I nearly fall
down.”
“Okay,” Tagg murmured, paying no attention at all to
the elder. “That fine.”
“Not fine!” Gandy pointed out. “S’posed to be lookin’
for food, not foolin’ aroun’. You!” He nudged Minna with
his mop handle. “Leggo Tagg. Stop th’ foolishness!”
“Oh.” Minna backed away, shrugging. “Okay.”
With a sigh, Tagg turned to go on, then saw the thing
he had seen before. The thing that twitched. He pointed at
it. “What that? Maybe food?”
They gathered close, and Gandy bent for a better look.
The thing was sticking out of a small crevice in the rubble.
It was hard to tell in the subdued light, but it seemed to be
round and tapered, with a sort of sharp ridge running along
the top of it. Its color was dark green. And as they stared
at it, it twitched again.
They stumbled back, wary.
“What it is?” Tagg asked.
Gandy peered again. “Dunno. Maybe half a snake?”
“Might be.” Tagg approached it carefully, thrust out
his arm and prodded the thing with his finger, then jerked
away. When he touched it, it writhed with a motion that
was more than a twitch. Like the tail of a huge rat, it
swayed this way and that. But it seemed otherwise
harmless. Whatever might be at the other end of it, this
end had no teeth or claws.
“This food?” Tagg asked the Grand Notioner.
“Might be,” Gandy decided. “Snake okay for stew
sometimes, if not bitter. Check it out.”
“What?”
“TASTE it. See if it bitter.”
Reluctantly, Tagg approached the thing again,
grasping it with both hands. It writhed and struggled in his
grip. Whatever it was, it was very strong. But he held on,
and when it seemed a bit subdued, he lowered his head,
opened his mouth and bit it as hard as he could.
Abruptly, the thing flicked and surged, flipping Tagg
across the jagged tunnel into the far wall. And all around
them, seeming to come from the stone itself, a huge roar
of outrage rang through the air.
Tagg got his feet under him just as the Grand Notioner
surged toward him, running for his life, with Minna right
behind. Both of them collided with Tagg, and all three
went down, rolling along the cracked floor, a tumble of
arms, legs and muffled curses.
They had barely come to a halt when others – a lot of
others – piled into them, over them, and onto them. The
main party, led by the Highbulp Glitch I himself, had
been emerging from a connecting way when they heard
the roar and panicked. In an instant, there were gully
dwarves tumbling all along the tunnel, and a great pile of
gully dwarves at the convergence where Glitch I – and
everyone behind him – had stumbled over the flailing trio.
It took several minutes to get everyone untangled
from everyone else, and Tagg – at the bottom of the heap –
was thoroughly enjoying being tangled up with Minna
again until he looked up and gazed into the thunderous
face of his lord and leader, Glitch I, Highbulp by
Persuasion and Lord Protector of This Place and
Anyplace Else He Could Think Of.
Glitch glared at the three just getting to their feet.
“Gandy! What goin’ on here?”
“Dunno,” Gandy grumbled. “Ever’body pile up on
me. How I know what goin’ on? Couldn’ see a thing.”
“Heard big noise,” the Highbulp pressed. “You do
that?”
“Not me,” Gandy shook his head. He pointed an
accusing mop handle at Tagg. “His fault. He do it.”
“Do what?”
“Snakebite.”
Feeling that he should explain, Tagg pointed up the
corridor. “Somethin’ stickin’ out over there. Like half a
snake. Tasted it to see if it bitter.”
The Highbulp squinted at the twitching thing. “Is it?”
The earlier roar had faded into echoes, leaving an
angry, hissing sound that seemed to come from nowhere
in particular.
“Is now, sounds like.” Tagg nodded.