Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [30]
Grim humor lit the dwarf’s slate-blue eyes as he envisioned the reception his kin would muster to receive their unexpected visitors. It had been many years since the Stoneshaft clan had been troubled by osquips-giant, hairless, many-legged rodents who were nearly as ugly as a tea-totaling duergar-but they killed the critters on sight, just on principle, and also to keep the numbers down. If they didn’t, the rodents could raise a horde in the side tunnels even quicker than humans could fill one of their surface cities. Their ugly, naked yellow hides-osquip hide, not human-made good leather, too, and wherever there was mining to be done and people too lazy to do it without the aid of magic, there were wizards who were only too happy to buy osquip teeth as a spell component. For all these reasons, osquip-bashing was a favorite dwarven sport. So here he was, bringing a pack of the damn things right into the clan-hold. The dwarves would have a merry time of it.
If the gods were kind, thought Ebenezer with a grin, the fun he was bringing would get him off the spit for being late to his sister’s wedding. At the very least, maybe Tarlamera would vent most of her temper on the osquips before turning it on him.
Ebenezer burst from the tunnel to emerge in a small cavern. He shot a look over his shoulder and groaned. There were perhaps fifty of the critters behind him now-they must have picked up recruits along the way. That was a bit much, even as wedding presents went. Maybe he should whittle the pack down a mite before making his entrance.
The dwarf considered his options. He could stand and fight, but this many osquips were a bit much even for him. Ahead of him flowed a deep underground river. For the briefest of moments he considered plunging into it. Osquips weren’t much for swimming, even with so many legs to do the paddling. He could count on at least half of them drowning. On the other hand, his own chances were even less optimistic. The clan kept hunting cats that liked water better than Ebenezer did, and they feared it less. It might be that he could swim, but he’d never actually taken to the water to test it out.
“Stones,” he muttered darkly. Still running, he spun on his heel and veered sharply to the right, sprinting down a small, dark side tunnel that led toward the clanhold.
A sudden, sharp hiss on the path before him brought him up short. There, her orange ears flattened back against her head and her fangs bared in her customary welcome, crouched Fluffy, his sister’s ginger cat.
Instinctively, Ebenezer danced back. He was leery of cats, even the sawed-off critters that humans kept as pets and mousers. Four-legged elves, they were, right down to their haughty airs and deft, dangerous paws. Fluffy was easily ten times the size of a surface cat, and she had a disposition to match Tarlamera at her surliest. For once, and for all those reasons, Ebenezer was almost glad to see the beast.
“Rats,” he panted out, stretching the truth a bit as he pointed to the roiling pack of swiftly approaching osquips. “Get ‘em!”
Fluffy cast him a supercilious glare, but her tail lashed as she eyed the rodents. With a fearsome yowl, she launched herself into flight and came down in the center of the pack. The creatures fell back, yipping and squealing in surprise. Had they possessed more intelligence, the osquips would have realized that the lot of them were more than a match for a tunnel mouser. But the ancient instincts of their kind stuck with them, and most of the creatures scuttled away like cockroaches at the sight of this rodents-bane.
Some of the osquips recovered quickly enough from the shock, and a score of them abandoned the cat to follow their original quarry. Ebenezer did not stay