Jeff Crook - The Rose and the Skull

The gully dwarves had awakened at the sounds of the battle. Glabella was the first to the door. She rushed outside and found Millisant cowering at the edge of the stream, and a draconian lying on the ground before the door. She nearly bowled over Uhoh on her way back into the house. She scrambled into the loft and hid.

Hurling a curse over his shoulder, Uhoh stepped outside and nearly tripped over the prone draconian. A scream from the house spun him around in time to see Lumpo standing in the doorway with his eyes rolling back in his head. He sank like an empty sack on the doorstep.

Uhoh shoved his fists on his hips and stomped one foot. "Why you scared? This slagd dead!" he shouted.

"Shhhhhh! Maybe only sleeping!" Glabella hissed from the loft.

"Look, dead like stone!" Uhoh said as he kicked the draconian. He regretted that demonstration as he hopped around holding his stubbed toe. He fell to the ground and pulled off his shoe, fully expecting to see his toe swollen as big as a peach. He stuck it in his mouth and sucked it like a thumb.

Meanwhile, Millisant limped to Uhoh's side. While he sucked his toe, he stroked and petted her. She fawned and wagged her tail, all the while favoring her injured leg. Noticing this, Uhoh spit out his toe and examined her forelegs. His hands came away red with blood.

"Me scared!" Glabella wailed to the heavens.

"Shut up and come here!" Uhoh shouted. "Millisant hurt! Bring medicine."

By holding Millisant's injured leg, Uhoh helped her limp into the cottage. As he passed Lumpo's still form, he kicked the unconscious gully dwarf. "Get up! Put wood on fire!" he ordered.

"Wha… what?" Lumpo mumbled.

"Put wood on fire!" Uhoh shouted in anger.

"I not know how," Lumpo said.

"Take one stick, put on fire, blow," Uhoh said as he helped the injured hound lay by the fireplace. Glabella scurried down the ladder from the loft and went in search of her bag.

"I not know how," Lumpo whined.

"Do it!" Uhoh screamed.

To his everlasting surprise, Lumpo actually managed to stoke up the fire. Soon, a warm blaze filled the room with light. Carefully, tenderly, Uhoh cleansed Millisant's wounds. Glabella busied herself with various charms, feathers, and small dead mummified animals reputed to have magical powers in gully dwarf lore. She waved these in the air and uttered innocuous phrases, only stopping occasionally to assure Millisant of her imminent recovery.

Uhoh bound Millisant's wounds with strips torn from Nalvarre's blanket, then helped settle her comfortably by the fire. Millisant thumped the floor with her tail and gobbled down the scraps from last night's supper as Uhoh fed them to her. Lumpo stood in the corner with his mouth hanging open, eyeing each bite as it passed from the plate to the dog's waiting mouth. Suddenly, Glabella shouted and shook a chicken foot in Millisant's face, then stepped back proudly with her hands on her hips.

"There, that do it. Chicken foot cure work every time," she said.

With Millisant taken care of, Uhoh remember his shoe and stepped outside to get it. His foot was cold, especially his toe. So it was with complete surprise that he found the stone dead draconian gone. Only a pile of dust marked where it had lain. He sidestepped to where his shoe lay, and without ever turning his back on the dust, stumbled quickly though the door. He slammed it shut and pushed the table up against it.

"Slagd gone!" he gasped at his companions' puzzled looks.

"See, I say! I say, slagd only sleeping. I say, he not dead. Now what we do?" Glabella despaired.

"We go," Uhoh said. "Now. We go to Town. We stay here too long."

"Now?" Lumpo moaned as he rubbed his belly.

"Now," Uhoh said. He pulled Lumpo's bag from its hiding place in the corner and threw it at him.

"Get food, much as you can carry," he ordered.

Lumpo looked at his bag. "Me need bigger sack," he muttered as he stuffed apples into it.

In minutes, they were ready. Their bags were packed with food, and Lumpo had indeed found a large canvas sack, which he filled in Nalvarre's forbidden root cellar. He slung it over his back, looking very much like a small soot-begrimed Yulefather with his bag of toys. When everyone was ready, Uhoh pushed the table away from the door. Millisant rose and hobbled to his side.

"What we do with her?" Glabella asked.

Uhoh looked into the eyes of the hound, and a deep regret brought tears to his eyes. If he took her, she might not survive the journey, but he truly didn't wish to leave her behind. She'd saved his life twice now, and unlike most gully dwarves, Uhoh did know the meaning of thankfulness. At last, and with much sadness, he made up his mind.

"Millisant stay here. We lock door. Nalvarre come home tomorrow and take care of her. He good man, good innkeeper," he said.

It truly broke Uhoh's heart to have to push Millisant back and shut the door on her. She pawed and whined, not understanding, but her injuries prevented her from bulling her way past the gully dwarves. By standing on Lumpo's shoulders, Glabella was able to work the latch that locked the door. That done, they gathered their bags and, without a word, set out.

Millisant's howls followed them down the mountainside.

Nalvarre stumbled from the valley forest near daybreak, but weary as he was, he didn't stop. Fear drove him onward. He feared not for himself but for the gully dwarves he'd left on the mountainside. Clearly they were involved in something much more sinister than he first suspected. The manner of Lord Gunthar's death chimed too closely with the way Uhoh's Papa had met his end. Whatever the dwarves' involvement, they were in danger, and he'd left them unprotected.

As a priest of Chislev, Nalvarre's life's work had been to protect and preserve the creatures and the woodlands of Krynn. When he was still a young priest, he'd been given the guardianship of a lovely forest hidden away in a quiet corner of Solamnia, near the city of Kalaman. During the siege of Kalaman, the Knights of Takhisis were spreading their influence all over Ansalon, marking the lands with fire and sword. A band of Knights had come from the south with a party of draconian soldiers. They set up camp in his beautiful woods, and they began to cut the trees to build siege engines for their armies. When they had all they needed, they cut trees apparently for the fun of it. They torched the dead and dry leavings of their works, and these fires soon spread throughout the forest. Nalvarre's home was destroyed, his forest decimated. Even in those days, when he wielded clerical powers, there was little he could do. He moved to a new woodland, but this one also fell to the armies of Takhisis. Each time he moved, it seemed they came to destroy what he loved, until there were no more woods for him to move to. The Knights of Takhisis took control of Qualinost. Nalvarre fled to Sancrist, the very last place on Krynn where he expected to find Knights of Takhisis and their malicious, life-hating draconians, and now, here they were!

Even so, Nalvarre needed a few moments' rest, water, and something to restore his strength. The water was easy enough, for all the lake lay between him and the mountain; it was food he was hard-pressed to find. He hadn't had time to search for food, and he'd already eaten the small ration of bread and honey he brought with him on the journey, but there was nothing to be done. He had to keep going. He felt time was already slipping away from him.

At one point, the path swung near the lake where an outcropping of flat rocks formed the shore. It was an easy place from which to draw water and was often used by such travelers as visited the valley. Nalvarre laid himself out flat on the rocks in the morning sun. Leaning over the edge of the rocks, he drew handfuls of water to his parched lips. He drank first to quench his thirst, then to lessen the edge of his hunger. When he'd drunk his fill, he lay there a while, resting his weary feet and looking at his own reflection in the water.