you?”
“Nope,” Glitch shook his head, speaking just a bit too
loudly. “Nope, wouldn’ do that. Sure wouldn’.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Verden said softly.
“Because that would be very unwise.”
“Sure would,” Glitch agreed emphatically. Then his
face twisted in confusion. “How come not wise?”
“Because only a few of you will go out to search,” the
dragon hissed. Suddenly, as subtly as the narrowing of her
eyes, all hints of the “friendly” dragon were gone and the
gully dwarves saw Verden Leaf glow as she really was.
“All the rest will remain here,” she said, “with me.”
As they cowered away from her, she pointed with a
huge talon. “You,” she said, pointing at old Gandy. “You
will search. And you.” This time she pointed at Tagg.
“You two, and three more. The rest stay. The way out is
here” – a talon turned, pointing – “just behind my head.”
Some of them crept closer to look. Just behind the
“hole,” on her right side, was a crevice in the rubble. Tagg
grabbed Minna’s hand and headed for the opening.
Abruptly, the dragon moved her head, blocking the way.
“Not the female,” Verden hissed. “She stays.”
Verden knew her choices were right. The old gully
dwarf with the mop handle staff was, within the limits of
Aghar intelligence, the smartest of them all. He would
search well, and he was the least likely to wander off. The
young male was the same one who had slid past her to
look into her lair. For his kind, he had a certain courage
and a degree of curiosity. And it was unlikely that he
would flee, as long as the dragon had the female he
favored.
She would also keep the one they called Highbulp.
The rest had a certain dim loyalty to him, she sensed –
probably more than he had to any of them.
She moved her head again. “Go. Now! Find the disk
that cut me. The stone should be nearby.”
Tagg and Gandy darted past the dragon’s jaws and
through the opening, Tagg glancing back at Minna with
frightened eyes. As soon as they were out, others hurried
to follow them. Verden let three others pass, then blocked
the way again.
Verden relaxed. There was a chance the gully dwarves
would find the self-stone. It was somewhere nearby. She
could sense its presence, dimly. There was a chance they
would recover it for her. If not . . . well, then she would
just have to kill them and try to find it, herself.
As her eyes closed, the hostages began to chatter
among themselves. She ignored them, then opened one
eye in mild curiosity. “Promised place?” she murmured.
“What promised place?”
From his refuge behind a rank of his subjects, Glitch
peeked out at her. “P . . . Promised Place,” he said. “Where
we s’posed to go. Our de . . . density.”
“Density? You mean, destiny?”
“Right. Dest’ny.”
“And where is the Promised Place?”
“Dunno,” Glitch admitted. “Nobody know.”
She closed her eye again, bored with the “density” of
gully dwarves. Within seconds she was asleep.
*****
With Clout and two others – Gogy and Plit –
following them, Gandy and Tagg made their way back to
where they had found the dented disk. The dragon had
said to look there, and they were in no mood to argue with
a dragon.
More than a day had passed. Maybe two or three
days, for all they knew. The smoke that had lingered
above the ruined city was gone now, blown away, and
only bleak rubble remained. But otherwise, things were as
they had been . . . almost. Rounding a turn in a ravine
among rubble, the five heard voices ahead. Clinging to
shadow, they crept forward to see who was there. Tagg
was the first to see, and he almost bowled the others over,
backpedaling. Talls,” he whispered. “Sh!”
From the shadowed mouth of a “tunnel” where great
stones had fallen across the gaps between other stones,
they peered out.
The humans ahead of them were ragged and scarred.
There were two of them, and they were working
frantically at the great, tumbled skeleton of the fallen