Beyond the Moons (32 page)

“Quiet,” rumbled the giffs deep voice, authoritative in all the confusion. “Answer the commander’s question. “Where? Keep it short, gnome.” The dark, warlike look on Gomja’s face chilled any argument from the assembled tinkers. Teldin nodded his approval to Gomja.

“Level thirty. They’re hovering over the lake in a big ship —”

“Who’s attacking?” Gomja pressed, trying to extract precious information from the skittish lot. Teldin grabbed his spear and was ready.

Snowball, Niggil, and the others looked at each other, confusion clear on their faces. “We do not know, but Thromvangilherskisl —” Snowball began a fellow gnome’s endless name, only to be cut short by Gomja’s growl. The gnome gulped and tried again. “He says there are big creatures with funny eyes and little, talking spiders with the heads of snakes, and they —”

“It’s neogi and umber hulks,” Teldin confirmed. Gomja nodded. “The big ones, umber hulks, are the fighters. The little spiders are neogi, the brains,” the human quickly explained, seeing the gnomes’ vacant looks. For safety’s sake, he made sure the cloak was at its smallest dimensions, a collar about his neck.

“Are you fighting or running?” the giff continued in his questioning.

“Well, the Weapons Guild wants to test its new inventions, but those in the Shipbuilder’s Guild do not, because they are worried about the
Unquenchable
, and the Glass-blower’s Guild is too busy trying to move its works out of the way in time,” Snowball explained, pointing in a different direction to show where each group was working. Niggil grabbed his sleeve in violent disagreement. “No, the glassmakers are over there, not —”

“It’s as I feared, sir,” Gomja said, stepping over to Teldin and not even bothering to listen to two gnomes. “No proper organization, no one seems to be in charge. Even if they are outnumbered, the neogi are certain to capture the upper levels – maybe the entire mountain – if this is all the resistance they meet.”

Teldin, his nerves shaken by the neogi’s appearance, steered the giff away from their hosts. “What do you think we should do?”

The two fell into private conference, leaving the gnomes to argue. Neither group paid notice of the other. Gomja wanted to mount an immediate counterattack, arguing that attacking was the only way to win. Teldin glanced at the gnomes with their hodgepodge of weapons and overruled the giff. They needed to stall the attackers until the gnomes could recover from the surprise. A violent rumble from the central shaft brought Teldin and Gomja’s hurried discussion to an end. Before the gnomes would pay attention however, Teldin had to separate Snowball and Niggil, by now almost to blows.

“Listen to me!” the human shouted, infuriated with the dissension among the tinkers. “Listen! You’re going to lose Mount Nevermind if you keep arguing like you’ve been. You,” Teldin commanded, pointing at Broz, who stood in the back, “you find your leaders and tell them Mount Nevermind has been attacked by the neogi, who will kill every gnome in the place unless action is taken right away. Stress that all the guilds must work together to win. Now get going!” Cowed by the anger in Teldin’s voice, Broz nodded in understanding, his jaw slack. Still, the appointed messenger did not move until Teldin took a threatening step toward him. All at once, the fat, short gnome found his legs and darted away.

Teldin turned back to the rest of the gnomes, who were already beginning another argument, and laid his strong hands on the shoulders of Snowball and Niggil. The latter, terrified of the human, tried to squirm away. “Now the rest you, listen!” Teldin shouted over the noise. “Sergeant Gomja and I will try to set up some defense. Everyone in my half of the room stand with Snowball.” Teldin gave the gnome an encouraging shake. “The rest of you are to go with Niggil and Sergeant Gomja and do exactly as the sergeant tells you. Any questions?”

The mouth of every gnome opened to speak, and Teldin realized he had just made a serious tactical error.

“Good!” the giff bellowed in a parade-ground shout before a single word could be spoken.

“Then everyone’s in agreement!” the human continued with a nod toward his companion. “So let’s go!” That said, Teldin and Gomja hustled the gnomes into the hail, moving them along before any could think of even a single question or new idea.

Teldin nodded the giff aside. “Gomja, you know more about fighting than I do, so you’ll have to take whatever’s hardest.” The farmer felt some shame at the statement, feeling as though he were putting his friend at unnecessary risk.

“Thank you, sir,” the sergeant said brightly. “That would be the main shaft. Lots of ways for the enemy to get down. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it, sir.”

“I know you will,” Teldin agreed, though he lacked the giff’s confidence in their situation. The neogi were coming for him, and a lot of people were going to get hurt because of it. The farmer felt like a plague carrier, involuntarily spreading death wherever he went. “Where should I go?”

The giff wrinkled his brow in thought, more used to following orders than making plans. “The staircases, I guess, sir. See if you can block those so the enemy can’t get down that way.

“All right,” the farmer agreed. He was not at all certain how he would accomplish it. “Good luck, Sergeant Gomja.” The giff was already beyond earshot, herding his unruly band down the hail.

Grabbing Snowball and his troops, Teldin set off to the left, toward the supposedly “improved” staircases. Teldin tried to formulate a plan. All that seemed to come to mind was to gather the gnomes in the area and organize a barricade. The human explained his simple idea to Snowball, playing on the gnome’s vanity for cooperation. With a promised rank of second-in-command, the gnome eagerly helped work out the plan.

At the staircase, Teldin saw the improvements added by the engineers to “make the stairs faster.” The width of each step had been cut in half and replaced by a smooth, semicircular groove. The curling, circular staircase was now half stairs, half slide. Pistons could be triggered at each level to divert the slide into the hallway, where the descendee shot across the floor and into a thick wall of mattresses, hopefully to come to a safe stop. Even as he worked to organize the barricade, gnomes from the upper levels shot by and disappeared, shrieking into the distance. Teldin didn’t know if their screams were caused by the neogi or their hair-raising method of transport. Stopping as many as he could, the human, with Snowball’s assistance, pressed the newcomers into service. Two of his crew, sent hustling off to look for an armory, came back with a mismatched assortment of weapons: swords, axes, hammers, and things Teldin could not identify. The farmer had to break up several arguments over who got to wield which weapon.

As he questioned Snowball, Teldin learned there were four staircases on this level. With only one barricaded and guarded, there was little time to waste. The farmer took a random guess and appointed the most sensible-looking gnome of the lot to command this station. After carefully explaining what he wanted done, the human assigned a few of his crew to remain on guard, then gathered the rest, some of whom already had managed to wander away, and hurried to the next stair. From somewhere above, the booms and crashes of battle seemed to grow louder.

At the second staircase, the task was complicated by the discovery of a bizarrely built catapult, a ballista designed to fire ten bolts at once, so that they went “around corners, too,” according to one of the crewmen who dragged the device through the halls. The engineers had been wheeling it toward the center when Snowball had found them. “It’s just what we need!” the doorkeeper shouted, and, before Teldin could stop him, the artillerists were drafted to their cause. At the staircase, the yeoman tried to arrange it so the ballista was as far from everyone as possible, but the gnomes insisted on placing the device in the front lines. With grave misgivings, Teldin continued to the third staircase.

While they were in the midst of setting up defenses at the next station, a gnome, riding the slide from above, suddenly diverted to their level and shot through their numbers. Skidding across the floor, he slammed into the wall of mattresses with a loud
phlooph
! and a swirl of feathers. Once pulled from the padding, the refugee staggered back to the landing to inspect the slide. Teldin and the other gnomes, curious to see what the new arrival was looking at, packed themselves in the doorway. A trickle of water appeared from around the curve of the staircase and ran down the center of the slide.

“Oops,” the new arrival said, spotting the water. Ears perked up among the group.

“Oops?” Teldin asked. With his back to Snowball and the other gnomes, the human did not notice that those at the rear of the group had already turned to run. “Oops” was a universal danger signal for gnomes. Behind Teldin, Snowball and the few gnomes still remaining edged carefully away from the landing.

The gnome looked up. “Yep, oops,” the little fellow answered, nodding his head. “Looks like the Water Guild tried to flush out the enemy.” In the distance there was a faint rumbling noise. The trickle of water had widened a little in that time.

“Flush out? How?” Teldin asked, not understanding what the gnome meant. Snowball, the only gnome of Teldin’s crew that remained, quietly turned and ran.

“Well, I’m not a Water Guildsman, mind you,” the gnome began, his speech gradually increasing in speed, “but I would guess that they opened the main valves on the water mains from the big lake and now there are, let’s see —” The gnome stopped to make some calculations, wiggling his fingers as he thought — “a lot of water coming down! Bye!” Before the human could argue, the gnome leaped on the slide and disappeared.

“Wait!” Teldin shouted. “Do you mean that —”

“Yes!” echoed back the reply, almost drowned out by the growing rumble from above. That was enough for the farmer. Turning to warn his crew, he discovered they were all gone. “Snowball,” he screamed, “damn it, get back here!”

Then the flush-out hit. At first it was only a wave washing about Teldin’s legs. The staircase behind him had turned into a waterfall, water splashing down the steps and swirling down the coiled shaft. Most of the flood roared past to disappear farther down the stairwell. Then, all at once, the pressure became too great and the cascade became a solid blast. The algae-rich lake water burst through the doorway and slammed the farmer full in the face. Without a chance to even struggle for his footing, Teldin was swept backward down the hail. He floundered and struggled, trying not to drown, but the surging water bashed him from wall to wall, rounding corners in an endless rush. Teldin choked and sputtered and struggled to break the surface, but the hallway was filled. The current dragged him along the tunnel’s rough rock face, which ripped his shirt and skin on its sandpaper-like surface. His body hurtled into doorjambs and debris, battering the farmer nearly senseless.

Finally, half-drowned and scraped raw, Teldin broke the surface, gagging and sputtering. The crest of the flood had passed, but the current carried the limp human swiftly through the corridors. He was barely aware of what was happening and feebly clawed at passing projections, trying to stop his progress.

Then he heard an echoing roar, deeper than the high-pitched crash of the waves, a roar that came from somewhere ahead. Teldin turned to see the end of the corridor, where it opened into the central shaft of Mount Nevermind. The carrying flood swept out onto the ledge and plunged over the edge into darkness. Desperately Teldin tried to brace his feet on the bottom, only to have them swept out from under him. He splashing and clutched at a shape, but it was only a crate that bobbed underneath his grasp. Rolling around, the farmer saw he was only seconds from the edge of the chasm.

At the very edge Teldin saw a barrel-lift just to the left. He lunging outward, and his fingers grazed the wooden rim, then slipped away. With a frantic flail, his arm wrapped around a rope. The farmer clung to the slender line, his body swinging out over open space. Water from above battered the human, as if trying to knock him loose. A small body smashed against his shoulder and disappeared into the darkness.

Looking through the spray, Teldin saw the barrel he had lunged for just above him. The rope he clung to was the other half of the lift and somewhere above it looped over a big pulley and ended at the barrel. Somewhere below was the counterweight.

Teldin wrapped his legs around the hemp, then began to carefully slide down. The rope creaked and groaned, but the farmer paid it no mind until he realized, to his amazement, that he was moving up, not down. Even as his dazed brain tried to figure this out, the barrel on the other end dropped past him. The wooden gondola was filled to the brim with water, and as more crashed into it from above, the force drove it down farther and faster. Teldin, in turn, rose higher and faster. Before he could stop it, the lean human was rocketing to the upper levels.

Teldin wanted to scream, but the cry was driven back into his throat. Looking up, he saw a massive disk forming out of the darkness. As he sped toward it, the drenched climber suddenly realized it was the pulley. He thought briefly about his hands being dragged over the metal wheel. With a wild, frantic kick he swung the rope toward the outer edge of the shaft, and at the height of the swing, Teldin let go, praying the momentum was enough to carry him to safety.

The wild lunge carried Teldin to one of the landings. He tried to land on his feet, but, soaking wet and slippery, he crashed to the floor. With an almost audible crack, his temple hit the stone. Teldin’s eyes suddenly flashed bright sparks, then darkness settled upon him.

Chapter Twenty-one

“To the Chamber of Pain take meat you shall,” the leading neogi whispered to the red-brown brute carrying Teldin. The human, stripped of his weapon and slung over the beast’s shoulder, craned around to see the neogi scuttling about. Teldin’s head throbbed and he had trouble focusing. The horrid little creature swam before his eyes.

Hanging limply across the umber hulk’s shoulder, such as it was, Teldin’s chest banged against the creature’s bony hide. Gradually his head stopped swimming and he could see around him again, albeit upside-down and across the back of a smelly, plate-covered creature. From his position, though, the human had a fairly good view of the back of the beast’s feet, and somehow he was not surprised to see the creature’s talons gouging the solid rock floor like soft sand. Each glimpse of the cracked, yellow claws accentuated the agony of the equally powerful hand that dug into Teldin’s back, holding him in place.