Jeff Crook - The Rose and the Skull

Shaeder wiggled his fingers at her and said, "Abracadabra."

She jumped, her eyes wide with fear now, then turned and motioned at the door of the barrow where she'd been hiding. There was a scuffling noise and a wail of despair, but then the door opened and three gully dwarves spilled out backward. Several more followed, crying and hurling curses at the three, but upon seeing the draconians, they cowered back, weeping hysterically.

The three gully dwarves dragged a heavy sack before the draconians. They dropped their end, gave one look at the Highbulp, and fled into the night. Something inside the sack thrashed and moaned and struggled.

Harj picked up one end and slit it open with his dagger. He then lifted it, dumping Uhoh out on the ground. Shaeder snatched the gully dwarf up by his collar and shook him violently.

"Be ssstill," he hissed.

"That's him," Harj said to his companion. He bent down and stuck his snout in Uhoh's face. "You ran me quite a race, little worm, but I've got you now," he growled. "The Old Man wants to see you."

Uhoh's legs gave beneath him. He collapsed like an empty sack, his eyes rolling up in his head. The two draconians bent over their victim, taking delight in tormenting the gully dwarf with descriptions of what awaited him. While they were thus occupied, the Highbulp backed toward the door where the other gully dwarves still cringed and sobbed. As she neared them, one female detached herself from the others and crept toward her leader. It was Glabella. Lumpo cowered nearest the door, his eyes frozen with terror.

"Mommamose, how you do this to Uhoh?" Glabella cried as she clawed at the Highbulp's filthy dress.

"Shut up, gulpfunger. Slagd kill all if I not give them Uhoh," she answered.

"But he your son," Glabella wailed. "Uhoh your baby!"

"I got plan. You shut up, watch," Mommamose said.

She motioned to one of the other gully dwarves. He crept forward, his eyes on the draconians.

"Give me twig that make thunder," she said.

He nodded and pulled a long leather wallet from some hidden fold in his rags. It had a gold snap and was beaded with seed pearls. He opened it, retrieving a long wand of amber. As thick as a finger at one end, it tapered to a needle point at the other. At the thick end, a tiny sapphire was embedded in the amber. Glabella stared at it in wonder, forgetting for a moment her fear for Uhoh.

"What that?" Glabella asked.

"This twig that make thunder," Mommamose answered. "It big magic, fix slagd good."

"How it work?"

"When I say magic word and touch this pretty blue rock in the end," she said, indicating the sapphire, "it shoot thunderbolt out other end, fry everything wham! just like that."

"What magic word?" Glabella asked.

"I not tell you," the Highbulp said, turning her nose up with disdain. "You only little gulpfunger."

"You there!" Harj snarled.

The Highbulp spun around, hiding the wand behind her back. The draconians had bound Uhoh's hands behind his back but left his legs free. He stared miserably at Glabella, his heart in his eyes. Glabella burst out crying.

"Come here," Harj yelled at the Highbulp.

She approached within a few yards and stopped, still hiding the wand behind her back. Glabella followed her, and the gully dwarf with the leather wallet trailed behind. Despite his fear, it was his wand, and he wanted to see it didn't get broken.

"Come closer, little one," Harj said in honeyed tones. "I'll not hurt you. I want to thank you for delivering this criminal to us."

The Highbulp took another step closer. Harj's long arm shot out, his claws tangling in the chain around her neck. With a sharp jerk, he snatched the jeweled amulet away, breaking the heavy chain and nearly decapitating the Highbulp. At the same time, Shaeder leaped forward and tore the wallet from the other gully dwarf's grasp.

"I'll take thisss," he laughed.

Harj kicked Uhoh and grunted, "Get moving!" meanwhile tucking the amulet into a pouch at his belt.

Shaeder fell in behind them, cackling to himself. The Highbulp rubbed her bruised neck while the other gullydwarf crowded close to her. Glabella crept nearer as well.

Highbulp Mommamose pointed the wand at the backs of the draconians. "Toejam!" she barked. Nothing happened. She tried it again. "Toejam!"

"That not magic word!" the other gully dwarf said.

"I touch blue rock," the Highbulp said. "What wrong with this thing?"

"You got to say magic word," he answered.

"But I say magic word," she said.

He grabbed the sharp end of the wand and tried to pull it away from her. Thus began a struggle, the two gully dwarves spinning round and round on either end of the wand, one yanking one way, one the other. Harj and Shaeder stopped to watch. Uhoh peered between their legs.

"I touch blue stone!" the Highbulp shouted from the melee.

"You not say magic word."

"I say Toejam!"

"Toejam not magic word."

"What magic word?"

"Crackling!"

With a deafening clap of thunder, a blue bolt of lightning streaked into the night sky. Although well over their heads, Harj and Shaeder ducked reflexively, cursing in awe at the sudden display of magic from a lowly gully dwarf.

Harj grabbed Uhoh to prevent his running away and shouted, "A magic wand! Go get it before she uses it again."

Ducking, Shaeder hurried back to the spot, but he found the street empty and not a gully dwarf in sight. A tattered pair of shoes lay on the ground in the center of a small pile of smoking ash. The wand was nowhere to be seen. Still ducking, he scuttled back to his kapak companion.

"Let'sss get out of here," he said without stopping to wait. He vanished in a cloud of dust.

Harj lifted Uhoh and slung him over his back, crouched, and dashed off in a low, almost four-footed run, his wings beating and helping him along. With a low mournful wail from the back of his captor, Uhoh vanished into the night.

"Oh no," Nalvarre cried. Millisant barked and whined as she limped back and forth at the edge of the precipice. Jessica hurried forward, followed by Valian and Waterstone. Alya brought up the rear at a casual pace.

"We are too late," Jessica sighed as she stood beside Nalvarre.

A column of black smoke rose above gully dwarf Town. All the plains between the cliff and the distant mountains was covered with small clusters of little black dots wandering aimlessly, like ants whose nest has been ravaged.

"Do you think… Pyrothraxus… " she stammered.

"The dragon would have destroyed everything," Valian said. "By the signs, I'd say only our two draconians attacked the Town."

The group had followed the trail of the gully dwarves and the draconians, led for the most part by Millisant but helped on occasion by Valian's woodlore. They'd traversed the night-black tunnels, though torches brought by the wise advice of Waterstone saved them many a knock on the head in the passages, and come at last to the canyon and the cliff overlooking the plains and Town.

"Only two draconians against an entire town?" Nalvarre marveled.

"They're gully dwarves," Waterstone said, as though that explained it all. When no one said anything, he added, "Two kender and a sick chicken could take the place."

Alya came up then. "Well, that tears it," she said when she saw the town and the smoke. "All this way for nothing."

"What do you mean? We have to get down there and find out what happened," Jessica said.

"Isn't it obvious? Whoever has been hunting the gully dwarves has got what he wants. We are too late. There's nothing we can do," Alya said.

"The draconians might still be there," Jessica said.

Valian growled like a panther. "I doubt it," he said, "but I would like to find out for sure."

"As would I," Nalvarre said.