Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [107]
Ebenezer wriggled through, cursing at the thought of the splinters he’d be picking from his legs and backside. The sight inside the hold stopped him in mid curse.
There were his lost clan, looking thinner and more bedraggled than any dwarf should ever have to look. They were chained to wooden bunks so closely packed that they looked like bookshelves, too close for them to so much as sit up. Barrels and crates were spilled about every which way; In the center of the chaos stood a small, brown-haired child, her face utterly white and her big brown eyes rounded with terror.
The ship rolled suddenly as the sea rocked it lose from the caravel’s lancelike prow. Water spilled in through the shattered hull. For a moment Ebenezer had the uncanny feeling that he was reliving Bronwyn’s personal nightmare.
“This is no damn time to be taking a bath!” exclaimed a querulous and much beloved female voice. “Are you gonna cut us loose or just pass the soap?”
A grin split the dwarf’s bearded face. Tarlamera was alive and feisty as ever! He hurried toward her voice, picking up the child as he went. He placed the girl on a crate, well out of reach of the frigid water that sloshed around his ankles. Before he left her, he took a small knife from his belt and pressed in into her hand.
“For rats, with two legs or four, just in case they trouble you,” he explained kindly.
The child’s fingers closed on the knife, and her eyes were steady as she nodded in understanding.
Ebenezer grinned and chucked her under the chin. Durned if there wasn’t yet another female kicking nothing but a beard. The tunnels were full of them these days.
Then he was off, axe in hand, chopping at Tarlamera’s prison like a deranged forester. The way he saw it, there was no way he could cut through so many chains-the best and quickest way to turn the dwarves loose was to demolish the bunks.
The moment she was freed, Tarlamera rolled off the shelf, one wrist trailing a length of stout chain and the hunk of splintered wood. She moved stiffly, and with obvious pain, but her face was glad and fierce.
“I never once saw a prettier sight,” Ebenezer swore, and meant it down to the depths of his soul. Tarlamera was bedraggled and filthy, and her festive wedding garments stiff with blackened blood, some of it her own. Her red ringlets were lackluster and wildly disheveled, and her beard nearly as stringy as a duergar’s, but she was safe and whole.
Tarlamera’s grin matched his own, and her eyes were as suspiciously bright as his. She seized her brother by his ears and dragged him forward. She planted a kiss smack on the tip of his nose, then slapped him upside the head. And then she was off, running toward the ladder that led to the deck and clutching the remains of her bunk like a deadly club.
Ebenezer sighed happily, delighted by this unusually sentimental reunion. He didn’t have long to ponder it, for his clan was setting up a clamor fit to wake their ancestors. Each dwarf loudly demanded to be next, offered scathing comments on his axe technique, and just generally abused him left, right, and center.
It was good to have them back.
Each dwarf he freed took off up the ladder to join the battle. Not a one stayed to help him free the others. Although Ebenezer grumbled, he understood them well enough. If he’d been packed in here like a heap of coal by a bunch of damn dwarf-stealing humans, he’d be wanting to get his own licks in, too. Even the dwarf children went, as grimly determined for blood as any of their elders, and with no time out for a by-your-leave.
All but Clem, a dwarf lad who was kin to Ebenezer by way of a couple of cousins. The little scamp paused long enough to throw his arms around his rescuer’s middle for a quick, fierce hug. When he straightened up, he had a huge grin on his beardless face-and Ebenezer’s hammer clenched in his hand. Raising the stolen weapon in salute, he turned and darted for