Cautiously, the clans of Bulp gathered around the
green thing protruding from the rubble. Glitch scrutinized
it carefully, first from one side, then from the other, then
beckoned. “Clout, come here. Bring bashin’ tool.”
A squat, broad-shouldered gully dwarf stepped
forward uncertainly. On his shoulder he carried a heavy
stick about three feet long.
Glitch pointed at the twitching thing. “Clout, bash
snake.”
Clout looked doubtful, but he did as he was told.
Raising his stick over his head, he brought it down against
the twitching thing with all his might. This time the roar
that erupted, somewhere beyond the rockfall, was a shriek
of sheer indignation. Stones trembled and grated, dust
spewed from crevices, and the entire wall of fallen rock
began to shift. The twitching green thing disappeared,
withdrawn into the rubble, and massive movements
beyond sent fragments flying from the rocks there. All
around, the debris shifted and settled, closing crevices and
escape tunnels.
As gully dwarves scampered back, falling and
sprawling over one another, the entire wall of rubble
parted, and in the settling dust a huge, scaled face glared
out. Slitted green eyes as bright as emeralds shone with
anger, and a mouth the size of a salt mine opened to reveal
rows of dripping, glistening fangs. The scale crest atop the
head flared forward, and the head was raised to strike.
Then the emerald eyes widened slightly and the mouth
closed to a grimace.
“Gully dwarves,” Verden Leafglow hissed, her voice
laced with pain and contempt. “Nothing but gully
dwarves.”
*****
For a time, she simply ignored them. Their pleas for
mercy, the smell of their fear, the cowering huddles of
them here and there in the shadows, were dimly pleasant
to her, an undertone like music, soothing in its way.
A gaggle of gully dwarves. They could do her – a
powerful green dragon – no harm. They could not get
away – all the exits they might reach were sealed by
rockfall – and at the moment, she decided, they were not
worth the effort it would take to crush them. So she
ignored them, concentrating instead on her wounds. The
indignities of a bitten and thumped tail rankled her, but
she could deal with the perpetrators later, when she was
stronger. They were trapped here in the rubble with her.
They had nowhere to go.
The saw-edged disk had ripped into her body,
bringing her down in the rubble. In the darkness of the
fallen castle, almost buried by debris, she had lain
bleeding as the armies of the Dragon Queen passed by –
passing, she thought bitterly, and leaving her behind. For
that, she would not forgive Flame Searclaw. The huge,
arrogant red dragon with his preoccupied human rider, had
known she was there. In her mind, clearly, had been his
dragon-voice, chiding and taunting her.
Her left wing hung useless beside her, her left
foreclaw was terribly maimed and it had been all she
could do – through spells and sheer concentration – to
close the gaping slash at the base of her neck. That wound
alone could have killed her, had her powers been less.
Still, the healing was slow, painful, and incomplete. In
ripping through the armored scales at her breast, the disk
had cut her potion flask – hidden beneath the scales – and
carried away the precious self-stone concealed there. It
was gone, somewhere among the rubble, and without it the
powerful green dragon lacked the magic to reshape her
maimed parts. The ultimate healing power was beyond
her, without her self-stone.
Focusing all of her concentration upon the damaged
parts of her, she drew what strength she had and applied it
to healing. And when the effort tired her, she slept.
*****
When their initial blind panic began to fade, replaced
by simple dread and awe, the subjects of Glitch I –
Highbulp by Persuasion and Lord Protector of This Place,
Etc. – turned to their leader for advice. They had to find
him first, though. At first sight of the apparition that had
appeared in the shifting rubble, Glitch had darted through
the first several ranks of his subjects, crawled over, around
and under several more layers of panicked personnel, and