Logan had a solid day’s march through the wilds with Bipp, during which they had much time to get to know each other. The exile felt so at ease with the little gnome. He was not sure if that had something to do with witnessing Beauford’s untimely death or if it was just that Bipp was genuinely a funny guy he felt comfortable being around. Whatever the reason, he found himself opening up and sharing all the details of his recent journey to Fal and subsequent flight over the wall.
In return, the gnome shared the story of how he came to be three-days’ hike from his hometown, naked in a crate, waiting to be cannibal dinner.
“We got this job out at old man Torkin’s potato farm, seemed the motor went haywire on his water pump. Wasn’t like it was the first time it’s happened. I probably been out there once every couple of months just in the last two years. So I grabbed me toolkit and headed over pronto! Nothing like knocking a job off early in the day so you can fit a couple rounds of scrum in, I always say.
“When I got to the farm, it was plain as day that goffers had gotten into the motor, chewing the carbonator all to pieces again. Kept telling that cheapskate Torkin to get a latched cover, but he never listens. That fool would haggle over the price of air if he had to. Except Mrs. Torkin keeps him right in line, don’t you doubt it.
“So anyhow, where was I…? Oh yeah, I was just finishing up tightening the rollers when I hear wings flapping real close-like. Now, my first instinct was to roll under the wheelbarrow and get out of sight. And what do you think I saw right there before me very own eyes swooping out of the air?” Bipp paused for dramatic flair.
“Only one thing makes flapping sounds like that,” Logan reasoned.
“Don’t know about that,” Bipp said, “but you guessed right. It was a roc-bat, and the furry flying rodent was stealing my tools!”
“Wait, what? Why would a roc-bat want a bag of tools?” Logan interrupted.
“Wasn’t the tools she was after,” Bipp said, “it was my lunch that thieving monstrosity was vying for! So I ran fast as these little legs could pump and snatched ahold of that bag!”
“So you risked your life for some tools and a lunch?” Logan thought perhaps the gnome was a little touched in the head. Roc-bats being the size of a human, they were no easy target, and anyone who tangoed with one over a lunch must be mighty hungry indeed.
“Aw, now don’t you be rude with me, even a human like yourself would have fought that critter for my Aunt Tilly’s honey-soaked ham. Three years winning the town prize for that recipe she’s had, damn sure worth fighting for, and no way I was letting go of what was mine. Only problem, as you can imagine, is the bat shared my enthusiasm and had no intention of releasing its catch.
“‘Fore I knew what was what, we were soaring fifty feet high in the air, and wasn’t she just thrashing about, trying to knock me loose. Well, I did the only sensible thing, reached right down and grabbed my trusty hammer—this thing has been in my family the last seven generations, you know—and gave her a right good smack in the eye. She never even saw it coming, eh?” Bipp laughed at his own joke, almost tripping over a thick root stretching across their path.
“Except then I learned a rough lesson. Hitting a creature carrying you fifty feet up in the air is maybe not the brightest idea I’ve ever had, which occurred to me as I was falling to the cave floor,” he admitted, rubbing his bulbous nose in reflection.
“You know how they say your life flashes ‘fore your eyes and all that ‘see the light’ nonsense? All I can tell you was going through this head was how my honey-soaked ham was gone.”
Logan could only snicker at the gnome’s sentiment over his lunch, which earned him a fleeting dark look.
“Mighty Thorgar himself must have been watching over me that day. Only way I can figure how I was lucky enough to land in that tar pit. That hot stuff really does the trick for your pores, I gotta admit. I was sunk in right up to my shoulders when along came these bandits. ‘Course I didn’t know they were bandits at first, just thought they were goodly folk doing the right thing by fishing me out of that muck. Learned my mistake on that one right quick, though, didn’t I? They didn’t waste no time stripping me and binding my hands. You see, those pits were pretty close to that bloody little camp them cannibals call home. So anyhow, that is how I went from fixing a pump to naked in a crate waiting to be dinner,” he finished, as if his tale made sense.
“Wait, so if there was tar all over your clothes…then whose are those?” Logan wondered, unsure he actually wanted to hear the answer.
“Couldn’t say, friend. If I had to guess, I would think these were from a guest they already had for dinner.”
Both men wrinkled their nose at the prospect.
Once they got past Bipp’s unlucky tale, he shared more about his past with Logan. Bipp hailed from the trade port of Dudje, an entire town filled with gnomes. Apparently, they exported honey, crops from the surrounding farms, and worked the nearby mines, operating as an ore trader for the other towns in Vanidriell.
“I never knew there were any towns in the wildlands,” Logan said upon hearing this revelation. He was astonished to hear about a gnome civilization outside New Fal and Malbec.
“Hmmm, you know wildlands is just a name those humans in New Fal came up with, right?” Bipp said. “Folks who live out here call the land Vanidriell, its rightful name, of course. We tend to keep the human rabble from Fal out of our towns. They aren’t usually a good lot, but sometimes we meet one here or there that really proves us wrong. Not like the exiled criminals. Kind of like you, Logan—just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“You really think your mayor will see it that way?” Logan asked. Bipp had kindled a flame of hope within him that the leader of Dudje would look kindly upon his rescue of the imprisoned gnome, allowing him to stay in their town as some sort of reward for the good deed. Bipp also thought it important for Logan to share the news of Beauford’s death firsthand.
“Know he will. Nothing but good stock in Dudje, friend,” Bipp said confidently, which put Logan even more at ease.
He had not realized how fearful he felt about being homeless and doomed to a wandering life in the dangerous wildlands without friends or family. His future was a bleak path of hermitage until this slim chance of settling with the gnomes came along.
They were headed east at a split in the cavern into a series of winding tunnels that grew gradually tighter. Entire sections of the tunnel seemed to loop in and wind around in a maze. If not for Bipp’s uncanny sense of direction, Logan would have been lost hours ago. Then again, Bipp could just be making it all up so as not to look stupid and Logan would have been none the wiser.
Shortly after crossing a trickling creek, they heard some squealing up ahead around the bend. Bright eyed, both men looked at each other and simultaneously exclaimed, “A pig!!” They had not had much to eat since the previous day, when they caught some small fish in one of the rivers.
“Hurry, ‘fore she gets away!” Bipp’s little legs pumped as fast as they could, but Logan quickly outpaced him, laughing.
Their merriment was soon cut short when they came around the bend and almost ran headlong into a giant sauria.
This was a nasty variety of trapdoor lizard, the size of two people, which would jump out of a hidden alcove to spit poison in its prey’s eyes then pull them back into its lair to feast. This particular sauria was about eight feet in length and half that wide, thankfully small for its species. Its back was covered with sticky spikes and it had talons the size of Logan’s head, which clawed the ground. As they came ambling around the corner, it spun about to face them, leaving the pig it had just captured for the newly arrived meal.
Logan shoved his small companion out of the way just in time. The sauria’s face suddenly seemed to grow as large flaps covered with spiky protrusions opened up on either side of its hissing mouth, and a stream of sizzling poison spit forth, hitting the spot where the men had just been standing.
“Sweet mother of
milk,” Bipp said, biting his fist.
Logan had no time for words, freeing his small hand-crossbow and leveling it to let a round of double shafts fly. He aimed for the exposed sauria’s side, but the sharp projectiles clattered harmlessly off the beast’s scale-covered shoulder. He had no time to curse the armored skin, having to throw himself in a wild roll to dodge the lizard’s snapping tongue, which seemed to have an extraordinary reach.
Missing Logan, the fleshy pink appendage stuck against the limestone wall behind him, saliva melting into the rock. Bipp ran forward, pounding the tongue with his tiny hammer before it could retract. The sauria let out a rattling sound of pain, snapping the tongue to safety.
“Aim for the eyes!” Bipp yelled.
Logan had already reloaded his weapon and, taking the gnome’s cue, he let off a single bolt. This time he guided it straight and true to its mark, zipping dead center toward the lizard’s iris. However the sauria was not going to go down that easy. It pulled its head sharply to the side, just enough so that the bolt missed its target, again skittering harmlessly to the ground.
“Ohhhh, she’s angry now,” Bipp said. “Make a run for it!”
Taking his own advice, he ran full tilt toward the lizard, dropping at the last minute so that his tiny body slid underneath its belly and out through its hind legs.
The sauria reared back and roared before thunderously charging at Logan to crush him against the rocks and skewer his body with its horned head. Having to react quickly, he hopped sideways against the rocky surface of the tunnel wall, moving with such agility that his feet skipped from one rock to the other until he was high enough to leap over the lizard’s head. Charging too quickly to stop, the sauria moved right past his gravity-defying maneuver, smashing head first into the tunnel wall.
Using the temporarily dazing opportunity, Logan caught up with his friend, who stood beside the dead pig. “It moves too fast for my crossbow,” he said, trying to catch his breath and holstering his weapon.
“What else do you have in mind?” Bipp asked, hoping the human had an answer that would save them from becoming lunch.
The sauria was already recovering, shaking its horned head to straighten out the spinning tunnel. Logan’s mind raced for an idea as it circled, lowering its head and clawing the ground. If it looked angry before, now the sauria was downright enraged. It let out a low growl then sprang forward, barreling down at them and opening its flaps again to spit poison.
The tunnel walls lit up as a stream of energy zipped out of Logan’s laser rifle, melting through the beast’s wide mouth and incinerating its insides. The sheer heat of his weapon caused the sauria’s eyes to burst outward, and it tumbled in mid-charge to the ground. Still rolling forward, it came to rest only inches from their feet, while they stared on in shock, Logan still aiming his rifle in disbelief.
Both men cheered in celebration, and Bipp even ran over to waggle his hindquarters at the beaten monster.
“Plenty of food for us now, huh?” Logan bragged, eagerly gesturing at the horned lizard.
“Can’t be eating that, no sir. Filled with poison she is, flowing right through the blood.” Bipp shook his head, then pointed happily over to the hog, turning Logan’s frown back into a smile. “The pig’s another story. That’s good meat there, as sure as my Aunt Tilly is a butcher!” He slapped his hands together, licking his lips hungrily.
The pair high-fived each other at the bounty in front of them like two school kids. The pig had to be a good two hundred pounds of tender meat, and the tunnel here forked past a clearing where the ceiling raised high again, back up into the darkness, meaning there should be no problem lighting a fire to set up camp. Things were really looking up for the companions.
Logan’s smile withered when the sound of wings beating through the air came from overhead. He spun around to see what was coming and a giant roc-bat swooped down to snatch their prize.
“Drat. There goes my ham again…,” Bipp grumbled, looking sad enough to cry as the bat plucked the pig up into the air.
Logan felt his insides boiling. Nothing out here in the wildlands was fair. “Not on my watch,” he said through gritted teeth, determined to take control of the situation.
He lifted his metal fist high, aiming at the fleeing bat. A small latch opened on top of his hand, whirring as a little spring mechanism popped up, revealing a tiny pill-shaped metal capsule.
“What in the seven blazes is that thing?” Bipp asked, the engineer in him fully piqued.
“Not sure. Let’s find out!” Logan said with a mischievous grin before releasing the pill.
It zipped through the air into the shadows above, where the bat had just flown out of view, leaving behind a small spiraling stream of smoke. They waited for a few silent moments, both holding their breath in anticipation, but nothing happened.
Bipp scratched his head. “Well, at least we tried, and that’s all you can do sometimes, right?” He tried to sound optimistic, but the pitiful whining pitch in his voice belied his true feelings.
“I guess,” Logan said, about to admit defeat when the capsule tapped its target, letting off a massive fiery explosion overhead that rocked the cave, violently shaking the walls all around them.
In the bright ball of the blast, Logan could see the ceiling was far closer than he had judged, not that he had a clue what the weapon would do in the first place, anyhow.
They had to run as fast as they could, sprinting in opposite directions as first the dead bat and then their pig crashed to the ground, quickly followed by an enormous stalactite, which was knocked loose from the ceiling. As the gargantuan rock hit the ground, it shattered into hundreds of rocks, some small but most large. One of the smaller pieces flew sideways, catching Logan squarely in the back, throwing him face first to the cavern floor.
He decided it was probably a good idea to stay put until the storm of rocks abated, which was not for several minutes. As the cloud of dust settled, he could dimly make out a wall of boulders the direction he had come, stretching up a good twenty feet or more.
“Logan!” Bipp yelled from the other side. “Logan! Please tell me you’re alright, friend!”
“I hear you, Bipp!” he had to shout, so the gnome could hear him through the thick pile of boulders that stood as a barrier between them, dividing the travelers.
“Thank the gods, man…I thought I lost you for sure there!” Bipp said. “Can you make it over the rockslide?”
Logan tried to see the top of the rockslide through the settling dust. “I don’t think so, and I left my rope back in Fal anyhow.”
Bipp waggled his fingers nervously in front of his face, thinking of a solution. “You had better head northeast then. These tunnels meet back up after a while. Your way is a little trickier though, lots of twisting channels to traverse. Going to have to keep heading north then east in that order as the paths split!” Bipp instructed, unable to see Logan nodding his head.
“Got it. Don’t worry about me, I’ll meet you on the other side!” Logan shouted back.
“Be safe, friend!” Bipp said.
The gnome backed up from the wall and was preparing to head into the northern tunnel when he spied a big fat pig leg sticking out of the rubble beside him. He stopped and flicked out his small dagger, licking his lips. “Looks like I got me some ham after all.”