The War Of The Lance (18 page)

“He, ammm” - Kali's mind jumped its track for a moment - “didn't make it, I'm afraid.”
Perhaps she would show sympathy, and that would let him comfort her by revealing that
Oster was alive and well. Or maybe even returned to life by a passing holy man.

“And his body?” she continued. Something in her tone, her tight smile, the way her fingers
dug into the wood of the table told Kali that sympathy was riot a current priority for the
woman.

“Well,” Kali said, “We ah, tend to burn such things. Had we known you wanted it, we would
have kept it for you. I didn't know he meant that much to you.”

The woman laughed - a throaty, deep-seated laugh that started in orbit around her stony
heart and, by the time it escaped her lips, held the cruelty of a creature who would
throttle birds before breakfast. (See above notes on cats and dogs. Kali's case: no birds
were endangered by the laugh.)

“Meant much? I wanted to take him apart in pieces, cracking each bone, and hang him by his
living entrails on a hook in the village to show how I deal with traitors and rebels. His
kind cost me a treasure train, and now he has cost me my dragon as well. May Morgion rot
his body and Chemosh stir his bones!”

Kali was struck by the coldness of her oaths, which carried none of the nobility and
passion of Oster's oaths, though they invoked the same beings. This human did not seem to
have much difficulty in expressing herself at all. It now dawned on him that if he brought
her together with Oster, she would be irate - not only at Oster, but at Kali as well. Best
to backtrack, he thought, and try to make the situation turn out right.

“Well, he seemed a nice sort before he, ah ... well. . .” Kali looked at Eton for support
in the conversation. His fellow gnome had backed up next to the hearth and was

trying to blend in with the fireplace furnishings. “Did he suffer?” asked the woman. "Were
his bones

snapped? Kali said yes and answered in the affirmative to a long

list of horrible things that she described, just about filling the dance card with all the
things that can happen to an individual who has fallen from a high place to a low one.
Snapped bones, shattered skull, inner workings scattered over sharp rocks, just enough
breath left in the crushed body to plead for mercy and deliver a parting rattle. Kali
wondered if this passed for polite conversation where the woman came from. His answers
seemed to get the woman more agitated and excited, until he would swear her eyes became
like twin pilot lights, glowing and sparking in a malevolent fashion.

Having exhausted that interesting subject, the woman demanded, “My weapons? My helm? My
armor?”

“The hero, ah, the one who brought you in ... ah ... hid them,” said the gnome.

“Hid them?” she shrieked, rising from the table.

“Ah, yes. To keep away burglars, you know. He said he would return them when he got back .
. .”

Kali intended to say that the hero would not return for more than a few days and why
didn't the woman rest, but things started to happen very quickly then. Making that
gear-grinding noise again, the warrior pushed both hands up under the gnome's beard and,
taking a firm hold of his neck, lifted him off the ground. Kali found that the grip closed
off his breathing pipes. Small sparks danced between the woman's face and his. She
enlivened this by screaming at him that he and his rat-faced friends would find her
weapons if they had to eat their way through the mountains with their teeth, punctuating
her remarks by banging Kali's head and shoulders against the back wall. The impact with
the wall caused Kali to miss some of her words, but he caught the gist.

How long this fit went on Kali did not know. He was aware, finally, that he could breathe
again, and save for a sore neck and a ringing headache, was still alive. He saw before him
the form of the warrior-woman, resting less than comfortably in a heap of broken
furniture, facedown. Across from him, Eton was holding a wide-mouthed shovel used to clean
the hearth.

Kali gave a breathy, hoarse thanks, but he could see how Eton was already trying to figure
out how to turn the hearth shovel into a combination sword/plowshare.

Kali put the woman back to bed and arranged for the delivery of new furniture by the time
Oster and Archie returned with the material the next day. In that time, Kali had a long
time to rub his sore head and think things through.

Now, despite a lot of stories, gnomes are not by nature violent. Nor, despite similar
stories, are they stupid. Kali could see that this warrior was going to become enraged
every time she awoke, and that telling her the truth would result in a rampage that would
end up destroying a goodly amount of gnomish property and perhaps gnomish bodies. This
would not be a good occurrence, given the fact that gnomes had surrendered to the woman
and everything. Further, she would likely harm Oster if she knew he was alive. In the
brief time Kali had known Oster, the gnome had decided that the man was one of the good
humans, even given his terrible choice in creatures to fall smitten with. It would crush
his heart if he found out she so cruel and mean. It would also likely crush his windpipe
if the two were left in the same room together.

The problem was, Kali decided, that he was trying to work in an area he was unfamiliar
with. He knew humans only from stories and wild tales, and his current personal encounters
indicated something was lacking from his store of knowledge. Human emotions were even
farther removed. Like most gnomes, Kali was most familiar with things he could touch,
grip, twist, break, and repair. If only this situation had such "a simple, physical
solution.

Looking at the blanket-covered woman, peaceful as the dead and lovely as the morning, Kali
realized that perhaps there WAS a simple, physical solution.

By the time Oster and Archie had returned, Kali had not only laid out a plan, but he had
made a list of materials: a closed wagon with oxen, two hundred pounds of plaster, a
similar amount of wax, a stone mausoleum with an iron fence around it, seven tins of
pastels and other shades of paint, the aid of Organathoran the painter, and sufficient
medication to keep a horse in slumberland for a week.

He was just drawing up the last of it and was about to

check on the woman (to make sure she had not woken up again), when Oster and Archie
returned. A crowd of other gnomes clustered around them as Archie described something in
glowing detail, making swing-of-a-sword gestures with his hands.

Kali met the pair at the door and Oster presented the gnome with a small package
containing the herbs and other items they had gathered from the wild. At his side he had
another, larger bundle. The human gave Kali a small, almost embarrassed smile, but all
eyes were on Archie, who was gesticulating wildly.

“It was wonderful,” cried Archie, noticing Kali for the first time. “The lad, er, the
human Oster was magnificent 1 We were in the Smoking Vale two miles from here when
suddenly we startled a wyrm of some type. A true monster, straight from the pits, with the
legs of a pill-bug and the hunger of a bear and fangs twice as long as my arm.”

“It was a behir,” Oster said softly, his ears tinged with red, “and a small one at that.”

Archie hurtled on without stopping to note the interruption. “I would have been dinner on
a plate, but Oster - Oster the Brave - mind you, threw me out of the way of certain death.”

“I, ah, knocked him over when I turned to run,” Oster corrected, the glow spreading to his
cheeks and increasing in intensity with each moment.

“Then brave Oster, armed with only with a sharpened rock, caught the beast's attention. It
lunged at him” And here Archie did his best imitation of a serpent lunging forward, such
that some of the gathered gnomes backed up a few paces. “And he pulled the side of the
mountain down on the beast, killing it!”

“I tried to scramble up the cliff out of its path, and brought down an avalanche. Nearly
buried us all.” Oster's voice had grown quiet now as he saw that most of the gnomes liked
Archie's recollection of events better than his.

Archie rolled on like a perpetual motion machine. “The beast was mortally wounded, and
tried to turn on us. Oster took a mighty boulder and smashed it until it was no more.”

“Well, I... It wasn't that big of a ... well ... I guess ...”

Oster shrugged his shoulders. Had he known that in gnomish discussions silence meant
agreement, he would probably have protested his innocence of heroism a while longer. But
he did not know, so he did not protest - which was as good as admitting it.

Archie motioned for the sack. “And we found all manner of gems and magic in the creature's
lair.”

The gnomes naturally demanded to see the treasure, and so Oster pulled from the larger bag
one item after another. Fistfuls of gems, long strings of pearls, and a set of plate mail
of a golden hue, topped by a wondrous helm of similar color, ringed with gems. Finally he
drew forth a scabbard and a copper-colored blade from the bag.

News of Oster's prowess (and his treasure) spread about the community quickly, and a
number of gnomes came to surrender all over again to Oster (or rather, the Hero Oster, as
he was now known). Archie had to tell his tale a second and a third time, and the hero's
mighty attacks became mightier with every telling. Oster soon gave up trying to correct
all the minor differences between Archie's version and his, and seemed to enjoy the
attention.

Oster gave the bulk of the jewels to Archie, and the gem-stones to Kali. The mail, copper
sword, and helm he kept for himself, as they were all man-size, and Oster was the only
being currently awake in the community who matched the description.

At the insistence of the gnomes, he put on the armor, though he had to let out the chains
on the side plates to their maximum length. With the helm down over his face, he looked
like a clockwork figure or automaton, and the name Oster the Clockwork Hero went down in
many journals that night.

It was only when Oster had finished displaying and giving away his booty and Archie had
finished describing (for the fifth time) the masterful strokes that the Clockwork Hero has
delivered against the hordes of serpent creatures that the trio went back into the house.
Oster let out a gasp of shock when he saw the drawing room in shambles.

“What happened?” he demanded, looking at the broken table, the shattered chairs, and the
crushed crockery.

“Well, that is . . .” Kali stammered, thinking that he

had best use this time to tell Oster the truth - that his lady fair had woken and
destroyed the room, all the while gleefully describing the tortures she would heap upon
him, Oster.

“It looks like a fiend hit this place,” continued Oster.

“Ah ... yes. A fiend.” Kali shoved the truth to the back of his mind. Oster had been a
hero only moments before, and the truth would only hurt him.

Kali had no fiends illustrated on his spoon collection and wondered what one truly looked
like, but taking a deep breath he plunged on. “Ah ... A fiend was here. Tall he was, so
that his horns scraped the ceiling, and with plates of red, hardened chitin jutting from
his shoulders, and a weave of black wires where his mouth was.”

“Was he large? Did he carry a sword in a mailed glove? And armor?” asked Oster, his brow
furrowed.

“Yes, yes, he was, and armored all over.” Suddenly Kali clamped a hand over his own mouth.
In seeking to describe the “fiend” who had leveled the place, he had described the
Highlord's dragonarmor.

“So,” said Oster sternly, drawing himself up to his full height. “He lived through the
death of his dragon. Why would he come here . . . unless . . . the Lady Columbine? Is she
safe?”

“She ... ah ... rests comfortably in her room. The fiend made no attempt to get to her.”
Kali hoped that when Oster checked on her condition, he was not knowledgeable enough to
spot an additional bump where Eton had clobbered her with a shovel.

“He was looking for me, wasn't he?” asked Oster grimly.

“No. I mean yes. I mean . . .” Kali said, trying to avoid tripping over his own tongue.
Other gnomes, such as Archie, could spin tall tales until morning, but Kali always feared
that one word would fall against another and leave him revealed as a liar. “He was here,
and looking for you, and was most angry when I told him you were dead. He wanted your
body, but I said we had burned it. I didn't mean to lie, but it seemed to be a good idea
at the time.” And I mean that in all possible ways, he added to himself.

“You did well, little healer,” said Oster. "But you risked much to deceive one such as
that. He will probably be back. When he does return, we must be ready for him.

Tell me, what is the condition of the lady?“ ”She . . . rests," said Kali, still choosing
his words

carefully. “I have given much thought to her injuries, and fear she might not recover.” He
was going to add that it would be in everyone's best interest if she NOT recover, but he
made the error of looking into Oster's face, and saw the pain in his eyes. The human had
stopped being a hero and became once more a middle-aged merchant. So Kali said instead, “I
have a list of further medications that may cure her illness. But it will take time.”

Oster immediately volunteered to go fetch them, and Archie chimed in his aid as well. Only
Eton and Kali would know that the lady was no lady, and the ingredients the Clockwork Hero
gathered were mixed to form a smoky concoction, the fumes of which would keep the woman in
her blissful sleep until Kali could work his own solution.

The next few weeks - the time through high summer - passed with as few incidents as could
be expected for a community of gnomes. Oster the Clockwork Hero's prestige in the
community increased as he slew a few of the creatures that had plagued the area, including
a large hydra that ruled the Steaming Stream and a beholder that had set up shop in an
ancient dwarven mine.