Booru, Come Home

Splosh!

Booru was having a time of it. The sack had been heavy, without the water and mud. The chest strapped to his back pushed him into the muck up to his thick thighs. "Oaks!" He could not wait until he got home to the cabin downRiiver and Dwyrma's cooking. Hopefully, one of the Riiver pilots brought his message home. He had told enough of them, as well as every swamper, mucker, and carter that had approached that loud-mouth party of his.

It hadn't really been his party at all—just a pack of Wallochs that he had encountered. "Been surrounded by, more likely!" he muttered to himself.

"Spiteful and opinionated lot. Worst that ever spoke the Three Worlds' language," he grumped silently, glad to be rid of them.

Stoic and long-suffering in manner, the stocky warrior was, just the same, pleased to have chased them all out through the thickets. That entertaining thought slackened the strain of sludging his load home through the Impasse. He tugged himself and his burdens through waist-deep water, thickly woven with floating and rotting vegetation. "Smells as thick as wart hog vomit. Pleasant thought, that." He picked up a clot of scum and slung it at a curious mousefish. It dodged the clump easily by skittering over the surface slime and diving through a mucous-colored bubble like a porthole to the cleaner water below.

The sunny Riiverside Caravan Route of two days ago flashed in his memory's eye. He could have been home by now, but there had been nothing else to do. Seven years ago, he had left a chest of artifacts buried under the leaf mould in Slogmire. If he left it through another rainy season, the whole load would have passed through the floating, sucking undermud and sunk forever to the bottom of the Black Lake. To recover the buried trunk, he had had to detour off the Riiver.

There were some things in there that Dwyrma would like. The candelabras especially should thrill her—wherever she'd find to put them. With new candlesticks and the like, Dwyrma was sure to gush and fuss about really needing another room on the complex—for guests, or storage, or weaving, or goats, or whatever.

"Oaks!" He missed her so! He couldn't help it. But neither could he buck the wanderlust that had frequently thrown him into so many strange companies. Caravans and merchant trains, private guards and armies, these last one hundred years had been full—too full. He wanted nothing more than to sit around the house for a spell after this venture. It's not that he was especially old—not even into his fourth century. He was very robust for his age. The constant activity was just a bit of a whirl for one such as he.

All the Dwarves were steady, hard workers. Booru's Riiver Dwarves were, almost of necessity, more widely ranging than their brothers in the mountains. Many Riiver Dwarf communities tended to barge up and down the Riiver in house tugs. They are, perhaps, second only to the Desert Dwarves in mobility.

For themselves, Dwyrma and Booru liked the idea of claiming a stationery base and greeting the courseway crews and passing raft-villages of traders.

Dwyrma's bankside boards of fare were as much a Riiver marking as any natural promontory or cutbank. In testament to her skills, much of the food was donated or left in her care by the "floaters". They could be sure that when they passed that way again, a hearty and firming banquet would be set between the house and the water's edge, laid and waiting under the riverside pavilion.

Booru heaved the sinking sack up. It came clear of the cloying mud with a long low sucking sound. He sloughed off the muck and clamped the bag to his chest.

It had been a long time between rainy seasons, so, luckily, the going was not soupy or deep by Impasse standards. Neither, however, was it spongy enough for good footing at any stretch. It looked like two more hours of trudging before he could pull himself up onto the granite and shale bank of Rockrim. That would be in plenty of time to catch onto one of the last three North Run barge trains heading downRiiver. He'd be at his dock by the rising of the Second Moon.

Rockrim was the spiny stone isthmus that separated the Riiver from the Impasse and Black Lake beyond. Booru hoped that, when he crested the Rim, old Erascu would be piloting the next run that came along. Erascu always made such a fuss with Dwyrma when Booru rode home with him. The big riverman made up outrageous stories of how he had found her husband, in what condition, under what peril, and the amount of care and handling that it had required to return him to her in quite such good condition. He would then sit at the boards as if awaiting a just reward. Dwyrma would provide him with no more or less than she did for every pilot, and some pirates, on the Riiver. But, to Erascu, this was proof positive of her appreciation of his fine standing and contributions as a Riiverfarer. Dwyrma was always a little more touched than she admitted. It all made quite a feast of Dwyrma's efforts. Booru knew that she loved it, especially Erascu's "gusting", as she called the running travelogue at the table.

Another reason to wish for passage with Erascu is that he always has a moss green cask of "swilt", the northern Riiver wine, warming on the wheelhouse stove. That would eat through sixty months of Dry Country dirt and salt crust that still caught in Booru's throat.

Booru picked up the pace with that thought and slid himself up on a hummock, hoping to gain some spongy ground, when he saw the marks again!

Lizard Men tracks! These were really far-ranging for the shy bipeds. You could live on the Riiver for one thousand years and never see a trace of one. The Impasse, of course, was a different story, altogether. Booru was no stranger to Lizard Men in his travels. Indeed, he had been hired by one merchant train specifically because of rumors of their activity along the route.

Lizard Men were unpredictable creatures, but not unfathomable once you realized their thought processes. They were actually rather gentle and civil within their own clan order. That meant nothing, if you crossed their path or, worse, if they were tracking you. And these were in a tracking mode—with their heavy tails carried low, skimming the mud, and their weight forward on the long, clawed feet.

It was unlikely that they were tracking Booru, for they were ahead of him and moving in the same direction. They were close, though. In this springy ground, their tracks wouldn't be older than an hour. Taking to a higher piece of ground was strange behavior for them. Their heavy tails and huge feet can propel them much more easily in the liquid mud. Ordinarily, they only sought out firm ground to rest, to call to others in their group, or to challenge and intimidate their quarry.

Something caught Booru's eye in the bush to his right. Their quarry had come up here and they had followed it. This was the reason for the Lizard Men's pursuit.

Whoever or whatever they were following made a meal, or rather an atrocity, of an adolescent Lizard Child. A male too. Judging from the size of the hind legs, the youngster had been too young to hunt but old enough to wander on his own.

The poor thing had been skinned. The forepaws, back and head had been taken, leaving only the belly scales and rear flanks. The feet were missing also.

Poachers would never leave the belly scales or take the wrinkled forepaws. And they certainly would have taken the meaty flanks. It shivered Booru's rough skin to think they were still poaching Lizard Men after the Riiverdell treaties.

Booru was in a dangerous spot. He considered leaving his load somewhere, but there didn't seem to be any place besides the hummock. There was no chance of it going undiscovered when the Lizard Men returned to collect the remains of their lost tribe member.

This was deadly urgent business and no time or place for pondering. They would surely see all the scuffing and gouging Booru's heavy broad-bottomed boots had caused. If the scoundrel they were chasing eluded them, Booru wanted to be well gone toward the Rockrim before they redirected their anger. He had seen Lizard Men in their Rage of Honor.

There was every chance that a band of Lizard Men would find the culprit they sought in any swamp. They had a phenomenal sense of direction and could read the scents, vibrations and temperatures of the air as if they were rings in a tree. Not many intelligent creatures could travel with their swiftness and endurance in a swamp, either.

If it was a poacher that they were hunting, fugitive and revenge party were probably on a straight line ahead of Booru, between him and the Riiver. Booru was not a fancy man. He could see little use for designing a circuitous route to outflank an unseen obstacle. Certainly not when alert caution and common sense were all that it would come down to anyway.

On firmer ground, Booru would give himself the edge, head to head, against one Lizard Man—possibly even an enraged one. But in water and mud, even for a certain well-seasoned Riiver Dwarf, it would be an even match at best. And for more than one of them—well—that simply would not do.

"Dwyrma would never forgive me if this old grey head and her candelabras were out there adorning some Lizard Mother's lair."

"So it's straight to the Riiver and Erascu's keg!" Booru decided. "It's home to you, Dwyrma. And your Booru is being very careful," he promised.

There was no making time without splashing some water. Riiver Dwarves are very sturdy and secure on the silt and mud and rarely stumble. But their style of travel is less graceful than direct. Booru's eyes and wits were as keen as ever and he was on the alert. The trees were thickening in this part of the Impasse—and they were getting larger. Moss hung from thick-boled, low swooping branches. The air took on a dark green hue and musk from the filtered sun. None of the warmth reached the water or Booru.

For speed and silence of travel, this suited Booru. He could use his strong and thick free arm to pull himself from humped root to gnarled trunk, and the hardy vegetation bound more of the solid loam together for firm footing.

But, for seeing far ahead, it was like a maze of dull green tapestries.

Moss and vegetation hung so low and thickly that thirty feet was his longest clear view at any one time.

He kept his sense of direction without trouble. He had the guidestone under his shirt and it let him know if he varied off course. But each curtain of hanging leaves could hide a nasty batch of cutlasses and spears, the preferred hand weapons of the Lizard Man bands.

He only hoped that they would make that low baying sound of theirs when they found their prey and give him a fix on their position—

OWOOOOOO! OOO! OOWOOO!

There it is! So close! Booru was nearly thrust backward by the suddenness and volume of it. Three of them, from the sounds—and one a big one too!

"Bogs!" They must be right on top of the poor devil.

AIEEEEE!

"Great Oaks!" What was that? Such a screech Booru had only heard from the dying battle of a Rockbird—and there were no Rockbirds around here. No rocks.

Booru couldn't see. There was a great commotion. The baying turned to snarling and the screech spread to a spitting hiss.

There was a crack, a groan, torrents of splashing, and the sour clank of metal being bent on impact.

Booru recognized some of the more common battle oaths used by the Lizard Men. One seemed to catch in a deep throat. A Lizard roar. A louder, bloody scream. The scream again! And again! What was that scream?

Suddenly, Booru stopped. What was he doing? The noise of battle and the mad severity of the skirmish had drawn him toward it. He was pulling back the thicket of hanging branches, trying to get a view of the bloody bout.

He should be getting out of there. He had to get out of there.

His guidestone was walloping about under his shirt like a fish.

When did that start? He hadn't even noticed. He turned and corrected his heading and pushed his legs out to step away from the mesmerizing intensity of the unseen clash.

There was a loud angry yowl. A Lizard yell.

"That one's wounded, I know," Booru thought, and he picked up the pace. He slid his hand-axe down from beneath his doublet and undid the thong from his belt. Three steps and he froze.

His eyes were yanked sideways by the scene. For the first time, the trees stood in a naturally ordered row. Off to his left, between the ranks of overgrown branches, sixty feet away, was the most frantic scene of carnage Booru had ever seen in this corner of the Three Worlds. And the cause of it was astonishing.

One Lizard Man lay apparently dead, sinking in the liquid green mud.

Behind him, an enormous male, obviously the chieftain of the clan, leaned back against a thick, moss-covered tree. His right arm, severed from his shoulder, was sliding off the bank next to him. Filthy red smoke rose from the smooth stump on his body. He was bent over, searching for his weapon in the soupy muck. From the stiff spasms of his movements, Booru could see that he was hurt badly somewhere besides his steaming shoulder.

"More than his ribs, probably his back," Booru judged.

There was murderous pain on the reptilian face and killing intent in his eyes.

"Gods of the Ogres! What a Beast!" the dwarf admired, but more incredible was the object of the chieftain's battle rage.

It appeared to be a young emaciated Lizard child. It crouched and stalked a third large male that was darting lithely from the water to a mud hump, slashing at arm's length with his scimitar.

The spindly youth ignored the scimitar, coming forward toward the full-grown male, backing him to a tree.

The adult seemed to suddenly gather himself and leap forward, snarling his slashing blade at the shoulder of the youth. Instantaneously, the sword bounced off the smaller being as a thin right arm came up and cuffed the older male to the turf.

"Oaks! Look at the sword in the young one's hand!"

Even from this distance, Booru could see the blood-red line in the center of the blade pulsing like a living heart. The entire length shimmered with a serrated blue glow!

As fast as thought, the smaller figure leapt astride the fallen foe.

The blue light slipped and slid through the poor thing's chest as if it was skimming cream. There wasn't even the sound of impact as hot dark fluids flew out from the ends of each lethal slicing arc.

It was horrifying—the total silence now. The vanquished and ravaged body hadn't even had time to scream.

And the blood-red line grew darker and pulsed larger and stronger.

The smaller lizard stopped. It slowly straightened. There was something—wrong—with the look of it!

It snapped back upright with an arching back. And that screeching scream flew out, piercing the overhanging canopy! It rippled Booru's hard skin. Stopped his breath and heart!

The young head flopped back, lolling, and the dark underside revealed itself to be that of a slender, filthy, quivering man!

The long keening screech wobbled into a ringing, chilling laugh as the man snapped his head and body forward and it was obvious to see—

He was mad.

The eyes were pulled to tight slits under a face checkered and streaked by mud slime and twisted by insane bloodlust.

And as Booru stared, the man's blood-red eyes met his.

Just then, a monstrously strong arm smothered the raving thing and, wrapped itself completely around the small frame, pinning the cursed sword arm against its side. The force and fury of the charging chieftain drove the two across the mud hump and into the water scummed with fresh, clotting gore.

"That ought to crack that wispy body to splinters," Booru thought. But Booru didn't look, didn't care! He was off through the tree roots as fast as Dwarf, man or Lizard. This bore no more watching!

Booru was of a mind to see neither chieftain nor madman between him and the Riiver. Or ever again.

The heavy dwarf churned through water, slid over roots, swivelled and bumped over hummock and log, surging toward Rockrim.

He had slogged and hopped over three hundred yards before he even realized that he still had with him his sack and, of course, his strapped chest. He held his bag so tightly that he had to consciously command his hand to open and transfer the parcel to his axe hand, stuffing the weapon back up under his leather jerkin. He belatedly consulted his guidestone. It was jouncing too much to read without holding.

Thank Ghosts, that he had not headed off in the wrong direction altogether in his panic! He did not want to re-cross that path.

Booru was huffing now—more from the taut rein he had held on his breath than from fatigue. His tightened heart had constricted his breathing during his sprint.

The trees were thinning and Booru was working like a machine made of leather and iron. Sploosh! Sploosh! Sploosh! The water was getting shallower. He was near the end of Hangwood and would soon enter the Sodden Plain, the last stretch of the Impasse.

As he burst through the last dripping veil of moss, the darkly shining shoots of grass shimmered out in all directions before him. The closeness of the trees fell away. Sound disappeared, engorged by the grey humid cold and dank green ranks of the glutted marsh.

The wet echo of the sunken forest was replaced with the soft squelch underfoot of the super-moistened fibrous mesh of roots and strands spread before him.

There would be no running here, however. These webbed, thick mats of vegetation were little more than floating islands and patches scattered closely about over the unbelievably deep Black Lake. Between these living green buoys rose the fronds of lake grass, so tightly crowded that the water could not be seen even from directly overhead. The mangled, matted grass floes were steady and sturdy enough. The long lake grass tangling throughout them held them in place. They wouldn't even tip or bob. The danger lay in that the next step could be safe or just as easily, out over unending depths and entangling growth deeply anchored to who-knew-what in the unseen depths and yearning to pull the dim light—and anything else—into its roots. Booru would have to look closely for the horizontal grids of growths on the thickly growing pods. They were indistinguishable, otherwise, from the enormously deep-rooted free-water plants.

Up until now, Booru's greatest concern over crossing the floating prairie was to do so before the light fell away too far for him to pick his way.

Now, however, there could be a madman or a crazed and raging Lizard giant on his trail with Booru's footprints in the heavily soaked grass showing the safe route right to him.

"O Dwyrma! It's home for one hundred years after this, I can tell you," he swore.

There was, of course, nothing to do but strike off—carefully.

This was the kind of work well suited to Booru and his attention to small detail. Steady as you go. Check. Step. Steady. Check. And the quiet, so eerie still to others, was softly peaceful to Booru.

The constantly overcast Sodden Plains were so still and hypnotic that large flocks of birds were said to lose their ability to navigate when passing over it. Their song stuck in their throats, they would wheel aimlessly, until, exhausted, they fell without a splash to sink under the hushed floating carpet.

Booru continued. Step, brace, peer, shuffle, step. Green on green on green. At one point, he had put down his loads on two pods no more than twelve inches apart, when the chest began to disappear in the green tangle. Booru hadn't first checked for firmness with the haft of his axe. He retrieved the trunk quickly, though perilously. Only his superb balance and strength had kept him from missing his step or toppling into the lake's embrace. He would have to check for every square foot of safety. Nothing could be taken for granted, no matter how slow the probing and peering. The weeds would clutch and twine around anything and pull it down into the depths of this eternal lake.

AIEEEE! The dead calm ruptured like a water bag.

Booru was nearly shocked off his feet by the jolting scream that suddenly ran up his spine. He stood quickly and turned his head sharply, remembering, in his stolid way, not to shuffle his position on the treacherous footing.

At first, Booru couldn't pick out the form. Then he saw it.

Sixty feet up, silhouetted in a space high in a tree at the edge of Hangwood Forest.

For a Dwarf, simply to look up is a dizzying experience and this seemed, to Booru, to be unbelievably high. That was nothing.

"Oaks and ghosts!" It jumped!

The madman had easily spotted Booru out on the Plain and, leaping without thought, had landed safely and low at the edge of the morass. Now, it burst forward toward Booru through the sodden fronds.

Even with all his crossing and backtracking, Booru's footprints led a path right toward him. "Safe and sound and sensible," thought Booru, ruefully.

There was nothing for it but to stand and fight. He waited, suspended over water with a badly-honed and battle-dented axe against a blood-lusting maniac who killed, butchered and probably skinned three crazed Lizard Men. One of them as big as a barge. For the first time in many forays, Booru felt bitterly sorry.

"I really wanted to bring Dwyrma those candlesticks. And I know she wanted to see this old grey beard again," the warrior regretted. "Oh well, dear. I know Erascu's company won't do without me around."

The mad screeching on this silent plain reached out toward him like an inert dead thing. He was six hundred yards away. With Booru's keen Riiver Dwarf eye for flat distances, he saw the incredible amount of terrain that this ghoul could cover in this unsure footing.

"Ghosts! Can he walk on water too?" Booru cursed.

And down from sight went the screeching killer.

"Obviously not!"

It had happened so suddenly that Booru didn't move but just stood peering. A chuckle was beginning to gurgle in his throat.

It died there.

He watched, grimly shocked, as, with a flat roar of upward water, the crazed stalker clutched and pulled itself onto a clod. Its glowing blade sliced through fibrous strands as if they were wisps of clouds. The midline of the sword surged bright green. The bent figure was quite visible, even at this distance, to Booru's sharp eyesight. Dripping from its back like a scabrous skin, was, obviously, the severed hide of the adolescent Lizard Boy remains that Booru had found. It no longer fooled Booru as it had at first glance. Now, however, the mutilator appeared dazed, casting its wet, mud-caked head back and forth as if trying to comprehend some encryption from the featureless landscape.

"Oh! He thinks! He judges!" Booru mused. "I'm not sure that that's a point in my favor," he grinned ruefully. "Thinker or no, with his madness and that blade, the Plain is a better match for him than I." Booru shrugged. "I'll consider him again when he's close enough to swing at. For now, it's the business of distance and Rockrim."

Before he could turn and bend, the creature rose from the distance and started after him again.

And fell in again.

Furiously, it thrust itself up, slashing at the water as if it were a living thing. Which it was, nearly. Scrambling to a floating pod by luck and fury and persistence, it cleared itself from the matting vines and water and immediately galloped again toward Booru.

"At least he's no longer screeching," thought Booru.

And down went the monster again.

"If I were home with Dwyrma, this would be hilarious," Booru chuckled wryly.

"Maybe, not even then," he thought, as the blue glow surfaced again, sweeping in wide circles. "I hope he cuts his own legs off," Booru muttered. He bent to the laborious task at hand.

Behind him, fifteen yards closer, the lunatic loped toward him, a little more steadfastly, a little lower to the ground, but just as coldly, just as lustful. Killing Booru from behind with dark red furious eyes. And he went down again.

And he rose up again.

The silence closed in over the Plain once more, like a trunk lid, and stood mute to a macabre chase, run in the exacting mind and eye of a bent Dwarf and the boiling, raging heart of a slashing fiend.

High atop the wheelhouse of the giant barge, Erascu stood, bellowing his thick, garbled instructions to his hard-working crew of Riiver Gnomes. His massive fists swirled in the air for emphasis. "Oh come to, you gnarly little gentleman! I had that Boom and Lift brought on board so you crones wouldn't need me to do all the heavy work. Do you want me to rip it out with you lashed to it? Figure it out and get those loads over the rail! We don't all live as long as you."

Erascu was very aware of the Gnomes' proud egos and always went out of his way to be genteel, congenial, and cordial—after an Ogre fashion—toward his crewmembers. He considered himself a great leader. First among Riiver Ogres. There were no Riiver Ogres.

Down on the deck, his loyal first mate, Obash, was directing operations of the new loading crane. Actually, the gnomes had no problem figuring it out. They figured everything out.

What they couldn't do was work together. They worked hard. For pure, frantic, work, nobody topped a gnome. They would stay at a task long after it was completed and a problem long after it was solved, and a subject long after it was dead.

They are the longest living Thin Skins of the Three Worlds. Nobody knows how long a Gnome lives. Nobody dares ask Gnomes anymore because they will figure it out for you. And nobody lives longer than a Gnome historian doing "Research".

It was the rarity of Obash's approach to life that served him uniquely as first mate to fellow Gnomes. He was lazy—for a Gnome.

A Gnome's train of thought isn't ordinarily stopped, except by another Gnome, and he usually just suggests a track change. Obash's nature was such that he would bring ruminations to a crunching halt. It was one of his few talents—leaden disinterest.

He was learning belligerence from Erascu. So far, he had worked himself up to such a fit of proud pique that he had, on several occasions, put his hand on other Gnomes' mouths to shut them up.

The Gnomes, an incredibly gentle race, had never had this happen before. And they shut up. They can't wait to figure it out.

Obash's other talent was not so remarkable for the gentle Gnomes, as a race, but happened to be singular in this water-borne clan. He could talk to birds. Well, one bird anyway, Kissel, his overweight Pea Falcon.

Kissel was not always talkative but she was given to bragging. According to Obash, Kissel counts herself as the Scourge of the Pea Patch.

She can be found, at any time, lolling on the hatch cover, gorging herself on Riiver kelp that sloshed over the rail or dripped from the coiled ropes.

Erascu struggled down the side of the steer house. He was rather small, by Ogre standards. His mangled and twisted left leg bore picturesque testimony to the rigors of growing up gentle—by Ogre standards—in an Ogre household.

Ogres mate for life and generally have one offspring. In this matter, Nature is wise. Ogres don't survive well as friends, let alone siblings. Erascu had an older sister. He left home at an early age. It was a three-hundred-foot drop.

Where the mountain rejects, the Riiver beckons.

"Obash!" Erascu barked, "Send that Sea Turkey, Kissel, out over the Windings between here and Rockrim to check for sandbars. It'll be dark soon and I don't want to do soundings by firelight with this confusion of a crew!"

"Aye, leader of Gnomes!" shouted Obash. He liked shouting. It sounded belligerent.

"A dozen brilliant idiots on board, and I get my directions from a pre-stuffed capon," muttered Erascu.

***

SPLOOSH!

Booru stiffened. Even in the dead air, that sounded awfully close. He tucked a look around his shoulder.

"Bees!" he swore. The killing fiend had closed one hundred more yards since he had last checked. The madman seemed to have the hang of it now. The last stretch, unhappily, had been relatively straightforward, although that had made it no easier for Booru's task of choosing over every foot and yard.

There would be no assurance that he would be able to search his way over the last fifty yards to the Rockrim embankment before this thing completed the distance between them. That was maybe one hundred fifty yards—depending on where it surfaces this time.

Three hundred yards earlier, it had fallen under for nearly a minute, dipping under a large grass floe and perhaps getting disoriented under the large mass in the lightless, non-buoyant water. But Booru's heart sank when that infernal blue blade sliced upward through the middle of the dark clod. It had soon cut itself free.

Booru had resumed his work, but now there would be no room, no time. So close to the Riiver. That salty bitterness began to rise in Booru again. This time, however, it turned to cold anger, like a spring from his stomach to his heart and lungs.

This was Booru's personal Spirit of Valor.

All Dwarven warriors, early in their careers, pray for and discover their own Spirit. For some, it comes as a hot battle-rage, for others, it is the keenest intensity of wit and reflex. For Booru, it was ice cold. It lifted his arms as if they were weightless wings. It straightened and strengthened his legs until he felt he towered on the crest of whatever earth that he claimed. The muscles of his neck rolled up and forward. His grey hair whitened and the creases on his hard tan face smoothed back and glistened.

A warrior Dwarf in Spirit was a marvelous, breathtaking sight to make a fighting man cry.

Booru had found his Spirit long ago and he had named it Valor. And it bid him now to STAND!

The wildman sloshed upward from the water and, seeing Booru turned face to battle, roared its merciless intent and scrambled to hack itself free. Free from the vines, free of water, free for blood.

None of this had the slightest impact on Booru. He was like ice. Unreachable as the wind, for anything but battle. Booru had once hewn three successive chargers with his axe in an open field of battle while in Spirit.

THE BAG!

"The voice!" It came through Booru's soul.

THE SACK!

It came unbidden. It sometimes did.

THE WIZARD BALLS!

This was not the sound of panic. This was the sound voice of inspiration, and a wise Dwarf followed the door that opened for him while in Spirit. JUMP is jump. STAND is stand—and THE BAG is—the bag!

The old sack that he had hauled back from the Dry Country—with his stores and souvenirs! At the camp bazaar, a mage had been off-loading some of his old items and materials and Booru had bid for a basketful. He had special hopes for an ancient-looking rusty helm then, but the blasted thing had cracked wide open in the next fight and nearly spilled his brains. Those things happen with wizards' toys. But the mage had purposefully told him of the two stone balls being particularly handy, though balky. One would cool meat and keep it from spoiling. The other would heat it to cooking.

Booru dug through the top layer and his hand immediately found—the helmet!

"Booru, you old gustbag! What are you keeping this fool thing for?" he grated at himself. He cast it away with a clank-ploop.

The lunatic, gurgling with insane hoarseness, crouched, stepped, lurched face flat forward onto a clod. Fifty yards away.

There they were! One alabaster, one marble. But which was which? What will they do? How do they operate?

"Really, Booru, who knows? Use one of them!" the old Dwarf stamped silently.

The thought occurred to Booru that he might be able to brain the creature with one. He liked the alabaster one better, so he threw the marble one. The being had slipped and flopped twenty yards closer during the time Booru was ruminating. Booru let sail a mighty heave to cover the distance.

Too far by a foot!

The globe plummeted into the water, sending up a big splash.

KRRRACK!

The water, invisible until now, whitened and grew suddenly where the globe had disappeared.

The wave of droplets sent up by the splash changed in midair to icy shards. The magic ice shards pierced the left shoulder and arm of the madman, who shrieked and turned to do battle with this unseen foe. One step back into the rapidly freezing water and its left leg caught fast—and so did that unholy sword arm!

The fiend wasn't sinking. But it wasn't coming either—and time was what Booru was looking for, not heroics. The Spirit had slipped away when he had begun questioning which ball to use. He turned, lifted the bag in his right hand, and continued picking his way forward, careful not to hurry for being so close.

Behind him, the ice began to dissolve. There was too much water for this simple magic tool to effect for long. The killer gibbered and growled and spit but could not rush the process.

Booru picked on, with one ear alert for splashing.

What he heard was a long wrenching crack. The beast had pulled its sword arm free with a crazed yell and brought the pulsing blade down on the ice around its trapped leg.

It shuddered and cracked. Another blow and it burst apart.

Released of the ice, the tensed lake grass yanked the mad demon down under and a lungful of water cascaded into its open, howling throat.

Looking back, Booru could see a slight dull orange hue tinting the dissolving ice. The sun was setting lower. In minutes it would be below Rockrim and the section where Booru stood would be black in its shadow.

There was no speeding now but there was to be no more stopping.

Splashing.

And a coughing hack. Booru snuck a peek.

That struggle, the lungful of water or the magic ice had taken something from the stalker. Or maybe the long day of gory mayhem and the frustrating chase were finally beginning to wear on it. The haggard beast sat, glaring at Booru, then the lake, then Booru again.

Booru felt the pains and ache of the prolonged tension. He had come through the Plains before, although certainly not in a painstaking flight for his life. The last hour and a half had been a paralyzing board game played across an eerie green shifting surface. Booru's life or his blood would be the trophy that determined the winner.

The monster began to crawl on all fours on the wet grass clods. The ice crystals had disappeared from its left arm underwater but the wounds, opened wide, oozed rapidly congealing blood. Its left leg, crushed by the magical, crowding ice, was too weak to bear weight but it was strengthening with every yard.

Determined, Booru kept his head down and forward when, suddenly, he saw it. The shadow line of the Rockrim! Too late! The sun was setting!

And the dripping monster raised to a crouch. The madness, slowed by its recovering injuries, began to reanimate a cursed and ruined brain. The slower movements had brought the scuttling horror more directly onto the safe course that Booru had charted. Twenty-five yards and the madness welled.

Booru was weary with the resignation of it all. He would face this hellion. Perhaps, if he could force him to drop his sword, that would be the difference. Perhaps.

The terrifying figure straightened with every step—gaining strength and rage in a regenerating bath of insanity.

The mud had been slaked away with continual dunking. The body was left gleaming white in the horizontal light, illuminated like a giant demonic blood-sucking maggot. And as the sun sank further, the top of the twitching head began to tinge pink, orange-red.

Booru reached with his left hand for the axe in his belt and realized that he still held the alabaster ball.

"From here I could bash his teeth in, for all the good it will do," he thought. "He may not enjoy it, but he heals in seconds anyway. I'd better have something besides this rock when he springs," and, as with the helmet, he tossed it aside.

WHOOOSH!

A solid wall of fire, twenty yards deep shot sixty feet in the air and spread out thirty yards to either side.

"Aargh!" The heat seared Booru's face and arms and nearly instantly dried his cold wet clothes. His beard curled upward, his eyebrows disappeared and the front of his hair felt as if it had been blown back off his head. His forehead and scalp felt like they were poaching. Steam from his wet pants, trapped within his leather vest, was turning his belly red and peeling the hair off his chest.

Behind the wall of flame, the mad brain screeched its pain and frustration.

Booru turned from the heat and ducked, and realized—he could see.

The brilliance of the flame lit the path to the bank clearly. More clearly than it had ever been in the dull overcast daylight of the Plain. In this light, the pods and their horizontal fronds were clearly visible from yards away.

This was not the time to stand and take more notice. There was no telling how long the flame would last or what effect that blue sword might have on it. The crazed howling continued from behind the barrier.

"That's encouraging," thought Booru with a perverse chuckle.

"'A little balky,' that mage had said! May the Ghosts take me if I ever go to another wizard auction!"

Booru sludged the rest of the way to the embankment rather easily, covering the space in minutes, and scrambled up the slippery side.

He looked back. The fire was still burning brightly. There were no signs or sounds of the crazed devil that had dogged his every step since he first looked into those red eyes. The relief hit Booru like a wave, and he sank to one knee and gratefully thanked no one in particular.

Out on the floating veldt, a face, blackened with blisters, gasped up out of the water, ten feet in front of the fiery wall.

"Gods of the Ogres! This is a curse on me for sure! I can't go home with this beast on my trail. He must be stopped somehow!" Booru lamented. Even if Booru could outdistance or hide from it, the veteran could not just let the madman run loose on the Riiver.

"I'm not going to meet him here on the farside, though. That fire apparently did him some damage, but there's no telling for how long."

"We're in my country now!" Booru yelled, "I get to choose the battleground—and my allies! You'll find that Dwarves are not Lizard Men—by a long shot!" he vowed.

He wondered if he felt any better after all that and decided that he did. Then he got up and scrambled to the top of the Rockrim for the unhealthy slide down the other side.

From the crest, he could see the distant foothills and the sun nearly tucked beneath them. Its last rays felt good on his face and he squinted into it.

"Ho! Booru!" He heard the booming call of Erascu.

Booru shielded his eyes to see through the glare, into the deep dark of the Riiver Valley below. As his sight adjusted, he could pick out several points of light—the deck fires and a signal on the near sandbar, four yards off shore.

"We've been waiting for you!"

Booru began to make out Erascu on deck and some of his crewmembers standing around the signal fire.

He started down the only way he and everyone else did, for their whole lives, on the Riiver Face of Rockrim—on the seat of his pants.

With his sack on his lap and the small chest bumping behind his back, Booru came skittering down, stone boot-heels scratching along the rock surface in an attempt to control the acceleration of his descent.

The Gnomes whooped and hooted as Booru jounced along. Gnomes don't go in for these types of games. Their fun ran more toward bubble sculpture and beard races. Gnome parties were not a lot of laughs but they lasted as long as anything else the Gnomes did.

They are an encouraging folk, however, and they love to cheer people on in whatever they do.

They applauded when Booru's haunches thumped into the sand of the beach.

Booru got stiffly up and waded out to the sandbar where the barge had lowered a gangplank toward the signal fire.

"How did you know I was coming?" he called up to Erascu.

"This pea raven of Obash's said she saw you crossing the Sodden Plain while she was out checking for sandbars. Lucky thing she's got the eyes of a falcon. The little porker's heart would slam shut if she had to get close to the Plain," Erascu shouted back.

Kissel had gone off to sleep in the hold, but Obash spoke up in his pet's defense. "She did a good job!" Obash shouted in. These were belligerent folks. It would do to practice.

"Listen …" Erascu said, "tell me what it is that you got to burn on the Sodden Plain. This is a story worth repeating."

Just then, a screech pierced the air. Kissel rolled over on her snore and scuttled under a tarp.

Obash ran up the gangway. "Ready to shove off, sir," he whispered. These were indeed belligerent times.

Up on the Rockrim, silhouetted in front of the fire's light, stood a small figure with an oblong blue light held high.

"That is a long story that I'd like to shorten, friend," Booru said, pointing. "That fiend has stalked and tormented me all the way from just this side of Slogmire."

Ebascu understood. Gentle, by Ogre standards, he had dragged a crippled body as a youth from the mountains to the Riiver through hostile territory.

Nowadays, he enjoyed, more than once, leaping aboard pirate skimmers in the South and wreaking havoc with his fists—while his crew remained on board the barge, making dinner and giving soundings galore.

"Erascu, have you got a way to drive him backward? We can't let him loose on the Riiver!" cried Booru.

"I don't know. Anyway, if he slides down here, I'll just bash him to pieces," Erascu offered.

"I'm afraid not, old friend," Booru cautioned. "I believe that sword of his would be a match even for a leader such as you."

"Oh?" Ebascu couldn't fathom that happening, but a leader would say such a thing if he had heard something new.

"What's that?!" Booru yelled, pointing at Erascu's new loading contraption.

"That's an Arm and Pulley," said the barge captain, proudly calling it by the eighth name since loading it on board.

"It looks like a catapult!" Booru said.

"That's it! A Cat and Pole! I knew I'd remember the name. I bought it upRiiver for loading cargo," reported the Ogre.

The Gnomes had rigged it so that, by ratcheting it back to the fully armed position, it would dip cargo down into the hold. The set-up was brand new, just installed. It had only been used to load so far, and had worked reliably and well.

The Gnomes had reasoned, from the machinery's cable gears and pulley system, that unloading would be incredibly fast and efficient. Deliveries to The Battlements downRiiver were likely to prove high-spirited and lively affairs. At the moment, half a ton of canvas fabric sat in the netting of the war machine/cargo lift.

Booru pounded up the gangplank and leapt onto the deck.

"God of the Mines, it's cocked and loaded!" he shouted.

"Yup …" said Crespo, the cargo hand, "… loaded upRiiver at Stawley's. Works like a dream."

"Do you think you could hit that thing with this load from here?" Booru asked Ebascu.

"Gee, I don't know, Booru. That's awfully long for a Block and Rope," the Ogre considered.

"Of course, we can!" Crespo piped up.

"Well, then—let it go!" Booru swept his hand toward the crouching figure on the crest, as it searched for a first foothold down. The fire to the West was beginning to flicker out.

"We can't do that," Crespo explained.

"Why not?!" Booru asked.

"Wrong delivery spot. That sailcloth is for Sealy's Shipyard in Brinymarsh. If he wants to follow us down, we'll give it to him there," Crespo corrected.

"Crespo, you idiot!" Erascu bellowed. "Give me that manifest!" He snatched the wooden board with the coded gouge marks and pitched it down the hold.

"Battle stations!" Erascu roared.

"Battle stations!" squealed a crewmember on the sandbar and scurried up the gangplank.

"Dinner!" yelled the cook.

"I'll take soundings!" called the second mate.

"Me too!"

"Me too!"

"Fire!" trumpeted the captain.

"What?" yelped a crew hand.

"Where?" squeaked another.

"Up on the hill!" Erascu aimed.

"Oh yeah, I saw it," the first crewmember said, relieved.

"Saw what?" yelled the captain.

"The fire on the hill," he explained good-naturedly.

"No! I mean—Unload!" Erascu pounded.

Down in the hold, the cargo chief, awakened by a flying board, checked the manifest next to him and called, "Okay!"—and let her rip. "Long nap," he thought.

With a loud SPROING!, one thousand pounds of sailcloth and canvas tarpaulin was sent hurtling toward the creeping maniac, beginning to pick its way off the ridge.

"Four feet! Three feet! I've got a sandbar!" came the soundings from around the deck.

As the huge wad reached the apex of its flight, a small grey ball separated from the larger mass.

"EEEEEEEEEP!" Kissel chirped as she pumped and furled her tiny wings, trying to impede her rudely imposed flight.

Out of the darkened sky with a whoosh, the giant rag ball came at the startled man-beast. Roaring outrage, it raised that awful sword and—WALLL-OPPP!

The glowing sword flew from the abruptly flattened madman and bounced crazily along the top of the Rim. Then it tipped down—on the Lakeside.

As the canvas began to unroll from the spread-eagled figure, a groan crawled up from his smashed ribcage. The heavy cloth barrage peeled from him like softened sealing wax, curling down the length of the ravaged body.

The fingers of his right hand twitched involuntarily overhead as they searched for the gilded pommel of the thing that drove them to power and madness. The tattered Lizard skin had lost its protective charm and the body could no longer instantly rejuvenate, but the maddening call of the enchanted weapon cried out for its living pawn from over the crest of the hill.

Slowly, the small man turned over as the last bolts of cloth slipped down the slope. With a mind blackened by pain and fractured by a whining yearn, he pulled and scraped his way to the rough spine atop the Rock.

Searching down the far side, he spied the retreating weapon as it slowly gathered speed, pitching and bumping this way and that, slipping closer and closer to—the water!

The servant of the sword yelled weakly and scrambled fiercely on his belly over the bladed shale, shredding his tattered Lizard skin like a molting serpent.

Very close now—the sword now touching the water, the first tendrils wrapping to its form, pulling it down.

No! He could see the bright blue glow. The water's edge is here. He lunges and grips the full wide bore of the hilt.

It's not the sword! It's a vine!

The powerful shoot dragged the frail man easily, lovingly down among the green and the black and the fading and receding blue.

***

Kissel huffed back and reported what she had seen to Obash.

The cargo chief stuck his head out of the hold.

"Did somebody get a signature for that shipment, I hope?"

"Four! Three! We've run aground!" came the soundings.

"It's all right everybody. We're safe!" yelled Obash, relieved, but belligerent, he was sure.

"Soup's on!" called the cook. The happy crew was glad for more new activities and trundled around in a spiral looking for bowls, spoon, seats.

"Booru," the captain said kindly, "how would you like a bowl of hot swilt?"

"That would be perfect," the Dwarf accepted, and to himself, "Dwyrma, dear, there will be stories tonight. And you had better love these candlesticks."

THE END

Bio: Tim Coyne is a retired reporter/writer for local bi-weekly publications. He writes fiction in short and novella form with edges toward humor, fantasy, speculative and supernatural. He has a varied background, involving electronic engineering maintenance and support, hospital equipment support and career service and college administration.

E-mail: Tim Coyne

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