Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [71]
Then, suddenly, one was there-or at least, something that closely resembled a boulder. She caught a glimpse of it, silhouetted against some faint, distant light far beyond. She threw her arms over her head to ward her face, and then plunged headfirst into a hard, rounded wall.
Fortunately for Bronwyn, the “wall” had some give to it. A startled oofl wheezed out, and strong, stubby arms and legs thrashed about in a brief, desperate attempt to hold position on the steep incline. For just a moment, Bronwyn grappled with her unseen “rescuer” as they both teetered on the edge of a fall. They lost the battle, and the slide resumed in a tangle of arms and legs and a flurry of gruff-voiced and exceedingly earthy curses.
The tunnel began to level out, and Bronwyn slowly skidded and spun to a stop. She had no idea where she was, but at least there was a bit of light-a soft, greenish glow, probably due to the phosphoric lichens that grew in some underground caverns. Bronwyn lay flat on her back, willing the whirling shapes and colors to sort themselves out into images she could use. With one hand she groped for her knife, in case she needed to defend herself against what she could not yet see.
A few paces away, Ebenezer groaned and rolled up onto his knees. He hurt from beard to boots, but his belly had definitely taken the worst of it. Physical pain was something he knew, something he could handle. Compared to the agonizing grief of his clan’s destruction, a few aches and pains was almost a relief. A distraction. So was the anger that welled up when his eyes settled on the small, disheveled woman sprawled out on the stone floor of the cavern.
Ebenezer rose to his feet and staggered over to the dazed human. “Well, are you gonna lie there all day?” he demanded in a querulous voice.
She opened her eyes and squinted in the direction of his voice. Her head bobbed around a bit, as if she were trying to peer through a swirling haze.
“A dwarf;” she muttered, and her eyes drifted closed again. “No wonder I thought I’d run into a boulder.”
“You weren’t far wrong,” Ebenezer said in a tight, rumbling growl, “only boulders generally don’t go taking revenge when they’re attacked.”
That got her attention. Her eyes popped open, and she pulled a long knife out of a sheath attached to one side of her belt. She hauled herself onto her feet, looking so wildly unsteady that Ebenezer confidently waited for her to fail. She wobbled a mite, but stayed up. Dropping to a respectable crouch, she held her knife in a practiced, blade-down grip.
A fight, then. That was fine with Ebenezer. He pulled from his belt the hammer he’d taken from Frodwinner’s cold, clenched fist.
“You’re wrong. I didn’t attack you,” the woman stated as she began to circle around him.
He turned with her, rubbing his aching belly. “Yeah? What would you call it?”
“Falling.”
Despite his anger, Ebenezer had to admit that there was something to that. When humans wanted to bombard someone, they didn’t generally use their own bodies as missiles. Ebenezer granted that this human might not have deliberately halted his process up to the fortress, but he still had ample justification for wrath. His clanmates had been slain or captured. Ebenezer would kill any Zhent he saw in Stoneshaft tunnels, starting with this one.
“Falling, eh?” Ebenezer echoed bitterly. “Get ready to fall a mite further. I’m-a gonna send you and all your kind straight to the Abyss.”
He circled her, measuring her height and balance and stance. Humans, in his experience, were fairly predictable. When they saw a hammer or axe coming at them,! most of them instinctively ducked. But it seemed that their instincts didn’t take into reckoning the measure of a dwarf’s height and reach. Ebenezer noticed that oftentimes all they managed to do was lean into the coming blow. Aim at the shoulder, and he’d get the head. A good deal, by his measure.
He lashed out, swinging the hammer in a high, side-sweeping blow.
But this human didn’t respond as Ebenezer had anticipated. She dropped flat to the cave