The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [126]
The fortress was collapsing. Kov stared in utter disbelief as the log palings began to lean inward, slowly at first, trembling, groaning, then faster, until they fell, slamming against the roofs of the buildings inside. The buildings shook, then began to sink, tip-tilted like children’s blocks. All around the mound Horsekin ran and swarmed like ants when a careless farmer plows up their hill. Dust rose up in huge pillars like smoke, and indeed, smoke mingled with the towering dust. Kitchen fires, most likely, had spread and caught the wooden walls.
From right below him a voice called out—Leejak. “Get down! Run!”
Kov followed orders and splashed off the ladder into water halfway up his calves. The Dwrgwn were streaming past, rushing back north, carrying their spirit talker as well as the remaining supplies and tools. Kov and Leejak brought up the rear, splashing through the water that flowed relentlessly after them. Apparently the attempt to block the entrance into the ancient tunnel had failed. Still, as they ran, gasping and sweating, Kov realized that the flood was slowing, turning shallow, losing the race.
Under the next ventilation shaft the Dwrgwn slowed and stopped on reasonably dry ground. In the pale light that filtered down from above to meet the blue glow of the fungi baskets, they clustered around Leejak and began to all talk at once, panting between words and phrases. The spearleader held up both hands for silence while he, too, gasped for breath. At last the chatter stilled, and Leejak could speak.
“Very good,” he said. “Kov, Mountain Man, what happens there?”
Kov nearly blurted out the truth, that he had no idea, but he decided that he’d best come up with some sort of explanation.
“Gebval summoned all the water out of the wood,” he began, then realized he’d stumbled on the answer. He paused often, allowing Leejak to translate. “He also summoned water from some sort of spring or underground stream. That water was the reason the wood was so damp to begin with. The wood was so rotten that the water and the fungi were holding it together. As the fungi dried, and the water ran out, the wood couldn’t bear its own weight, much less the weight of the buildings above. It fell. Meanwhile, the groundwater kept rising, sweeping the dirt out from under the fortress.”
“Gebval!” two of the Dwrgwn began the chant. “Gebval, Gebval!”Others chattered among themselves.
Leejak silenced them with a hiss and a growl. He pointed up, reminding them that the enemy still lurked above.
“They say Gebval killed fortress,” Leejak said to Kov. “I like this not.”
“Well, he did, truly,” Kov said.
“Say it not! I tell more later.”
By then Gebval himself had roused to the acclaim. With help he stood and leaned against the burrow wall, a pale, drained little figure, as if his act of dweomer had sickened him, but malice still glittered in his dark eyes as he looked Kov’s way. The northern Dwrgwn gathered around their spirit talker and turned to glare at Kov as well. Jemjek, Grallag, and Leejak stepped in front of Kov to protect him. Grallag hefted a spear. The other two growled so viciously that the northerners moved back and away.
Kov suddenly realized that if Gebval had brought down the fortress, the northern Dwrgwn would see him, the Mountain man who’d done nothing, as fit only for sacrifice. His three protectors were outnumbered, but Leejak’s authority held—at least for the moment. The other Dwrgwn ostentatiously turned their backs and set off marching down the tunnel, heading back north toward the forest and the bridge. Leejak, Grallag, and Jemjek spoke briefly to one another, then with a gesture to Kov to follow, set off more slowly after the others.
“Tonight,” Leejak said to Kov, “I give you spear, food, blanket. You escape. Go up shaft.