“No hurry,” Glitch squirmed in her grasp. “This place
not bad This Place. Maybe stay here a while, then go.”
“We go now,” she hissed.
Gandy squinted up at her. “Where is Promised Place?”
“Xak Tsaroth.”
“Bless dragon,” Minna said.
“What?”
“Dragon sneeze.”
“I did not sneeze! I never sneeze. I said, ‘Xak
Tsaroth’.”
“Bless dragon,” Minna repeated. “Where Promised
Place?”
Verden shook her head as though insects were
tormenting her. “The Pitt,” she said.
All around her, gully dwarves glanced at one another
with real interest. “That sound pretty good,” several
decided.
“Sound all right,” Glitch conceded. “Maybe think ’bout
that, day or so, then . . .”
“SHUT UP!” Verden roared. “WE GO NOW!”
Never before – as far as anyone who might have cared
knew – had gully dwarves traveled as fast or as
purposefully as the combined clans of Bulp traveled
during the following two days. It was a nearly exhausted
band that gathered by evening’s light to gaze on Xak
Tsaroth. They stood at the top of a high, sheared slope
above shadowed depths, and looked out at distant crags
beyond which were the waters of Newsea.
“The Promised Place,” Verden Leafglow told them. “I
have brought you here, as I promised. I have kept my
word.”
“Promised Place?” The Highbulp squinted around.
“Where?”
“Down there,” Verden pointed downward with a
deadly, eloquent talon. “The Pitt.” Not gently, she set
Glitch down and said, “This is it. Now cough up my
stone.”
Tagg crept to the edge and looked down. It was a slope
of sheer rock, a vertiginous incline that dropped away into
shadows far below. “Wow,” he said.
The Highbulp only glanced into the depths, then turned
away, an arrogant, scheming grin on his face. “Prob’ly not
it,” he decided. “Nope, prob’ly not Promised Place. Better
try again.” With a casual wave of his hand, he added,
“Dragon dis – dismiss for now. Highbulp send for you
when need you.”
It was just too much for Verden Leaf glow. She had
taken more than she could stand. “Dismissed? You
imbecilic little twit, you dismiss we? Rats!”
Gully dwarves backpedaled all around her, tumbling
over one another. Some went over the edge, sliding and
rolling away toward the shadowed depths. Others turned
to watch them go. “They really movin’,” someone said.
“That steep.” “Smooth, though,” another noted. “Good
slide.”
“RATS!” Verden roared again, exasperated beyond
reason and reverting to the vernacular of her charges.
“RATS!” Annoyed beyond control, she aimed a swat at
Glitch. The Highbulp dodged aside, ducked . . . and
belched. Something shot from his mouth, to bounce to a
stop at Verden’s foot. She scooped it up. It was her self-
stone. She had it back, intact.
“Rats,” Gandy said, realizing that the good times were
over.
“That right,” the Highbulp remembered, snapping his
fingers. “Rats, too. Dragon promise us rats.”
“You . . . want. . . RATS?” The huge, dragon face
lowered itself, nose to nose with the little Highbulp. “You
want rats? Very well. You shall have rats.”
Closing her eyes, she murmured a spell, and her
dragon-senses heard the scurrying of tiny things in the
distance – sounds below sound that grew in volume as
they came closer.
The gully dwarves heard it then, too, and stared about
in wonder. The sounds grew, seeming to come from
everywhere. Then there were little, dark shadows arrowing
toward them, emerging from crevices, coming over rises
and up gullies – dozens, then hundreds, then thousands of
small, scurrying things, homing in on them. Rats. A
leaping, bounding, flowing tide of rats.
“Wow,” Tagg murmured.
“Lotta rats,” Minna concurred. “Gonna make lotta stew,
for sure.”
Clout, never one to be concerned with details,
brandished his bashing tool and prepared to deal with
dinner.
Gandy, though, took a different view of the matter,
“Too much rats,” he started. “Way too much rats for . . .”
The tidal wave of rats swept around them, under
them, over them – and carried them with it. A second later,
Verden Leafglow stood alone on the ledge, looking down
at a slope awash with rats and gully dwarves, all gathering
momentum on their way to Xak Tsaroth, buried city