The next few hours were a blur for Wyll.
As quickly as the battle had ended, he’d been loaded onto another pony and carried up the rocky scree with all haste. There were other ponies and donkeys carrying wounded Dwarves, several in grave condition.
Strangely, while the terrain was going up, they were headed on a path that led deep into the heart of the mountains. It was a forbidding road, but the Dwarves knew the trail well.
The caravan passed several sets of sentries, heavily armed Dwarf fighters who showed no expression upon their faces. Here and there Wyll noticed marks of ornament—sections of rock that had been carved by Dwarves, such as over an archway or marking an entrance. They were going deeper into the mountain, and the natural light was fading away.
Soon they were completely underground, as the road wended forward and began to level off. More Dwarves could be seen on the periphery, and there was commotion as they rushed the caravan to spirit away the wounded. Hands grabbed Wyll roughly and he was borne off into the caverns and rooms of this strange place. He looked around for Orli, but could not find him in the fray.
Wyll’s destination was a catacomb of small chambers, each containing a few beds where the injured were lain. The level of activity was intense as Dwarves swarmed over the patients, pulling off torn, damaged clothing and armor and examining wounds up close.
Another set of Dwarves arrived to clean the minor cuts or sew up sword gashes and arrow holes. Some patients required stitching to repair internal organs, whereas others expired where they lay, their wounds too traumatic for the Dwarf healers to cure. There was no crying or wailing when a warrior died; his or her body was lifted and moved elsewhere, while more injured were brought in for care.
Fortunately for Wyll, the goblin arrow wound in his leg was not significant, and he was sewn up quickly. More of the smelly balm was applied, and he was given a tincture of herbs and hot water to drink. It made him feel cozy and tired. At last he fell into a dreamless sleep.
When he awoke, Wyll wasn’t entirely surprised to see Orli sitting near the edge of his bed, sharpening a knife. “Thanks again, friend,” were all the words he could muster.
“There he is—back from the arms of sleep. Are ya feeling better?”
“Yes, but how about you, Orli? You got cut on the arm and stabbed in the hip. Did the healer fix your ills? I wish I had your resilience.”
“My injuries were minor, but I’m glad yer well. The healer said you’ll be walking soon. Then we can repair to the home of my cousins and rest there. And discuss visiting the Seer.”
“How are the injured faring?” inquired Wyll, feeling a little guilty, as if he had caused the goblin attack himself.
“Most fighters survived, though we lost our share. The orkus have been growing in strength and becoming more brazen in their attacks. This was one of the worst in memory—and we rode straight into it.” Orli said this matter-of-factly, yet the whole city was abuzz with murmurs of the rising goblin threat, as if they were preparing for something ominous.
“Have the goblin attacks just started recently?”
Orli looked at Wyll as if he had three eyes. Then he smirked. “The orkus have been assailing us since I was born and probably centuries before that. It’s just the way of things. They want the Northland for their own, while we’ve been here since the Beginning of Time. It’s ours.”
Wyll looked puzzled. “They’ve never bothered us in Thimble Down.”
This drew gales of laughter from the Dwarf boy. “We know, Wyll! Why do you think that is? It’s because our best fighters have been protecting the Halflings to the South forever and a day. That is the Dwarves’ role in the nature of things—we are the defenders and protectors of this realm.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Even Orli looked baffled. “Because that’s what Dwarves do! Honestly, Wyll, you are naïve sometimes! You Halflings can barely see past your plates of beef chops and tankards of ale. There’s a big world out there, and it’s full of good and evil. As I understand it, I’ve heard there are other powerful forces in place to protect your lands, but I do not know much about them. What I do know is that we protect the entire Northlands and if we find goblins anywhere, we engage and destroy ‘em. And that means fewer enemies to attack the Halflings lands, and to the South and West, even the lands of Men-folk.”
“I had no idea,” Wyll was befuddled. “We have much to thank you for.”
“Well, not me—more like the Dwarves of the Northern Kingdom. Now sleep, my addled friend. When you awake, I’ll take you ‘round my city.”
“Are we in your city yet?” asked Wyll.
Again, Orli grinned. “Yep, we are here. This is Gildenhall.”
* * *
The troupe moved northeast in brisk morning air. Dorro hired out two ponies to pull the cart carrying Cheeryup, Crumble, and Aramina. Before departure, the bookmaster had checked his pockets and bags several times to make absolutely sure he hadn’t forgotten anything; they also stopped briefly at the burrow of Mr. Bedminster Shoe for a quick errand, but soon they were back on the road.
Within the first hour they had passed through the village of Upper-Down and observed the hillocks of West Upper-Down in the distance to their left; neither of them were of the grand size of Thimble Down, but to Dorro, they were civilized communities and had the basic necessities of life (though he himself would never deign to live there).
A few Halflings were out puttering about in the morning air, raking leaves or drinking tea on their stoops. They waved, but cautiously— they didn’t know Dorro or Cheeryup, and wondered what the two strange creatures in the back of his cart were. (“Them’s be elves, Madge! I seen ’em with wit me own eyes,” hooted Farmer Taggett, as he ran inside to tell his wife. “They don’t look like elves,” she retorted, scrunching up her face while looking out the dirty window of their burrow. “Silly Madge! Them be short, fat elves—a mighty rare breed!” said Taggett with absolute certitude.)
Soon, the Halfling settlements became far and few, a cluster of burrows here, a small hamlet there. The folk were never prolific breeders, and there were no big Halfling cities. Thimble Down was among the more densely packed towns; elsewhere, their kind was spread across a swath of forest and farmland, mostly in smaller clusters, which is the way they liked it. Just enough to support a pub and a few fellows and gals working in the blacksmith and woodworking trades, and the rest left to farming.
Of course, the troupe’s destination—St. Borgo—was the biggest of all Halfling settlements, a university town that made Thimble Down seem like a dingy pony stop. Dorro had never been there, yet as a learned fellow, had dreamed of it his entire life.
During the ride, the bookmaster delighted in calling out the names of trees he identified (hornbeam! yellowwood! elm!) and the birds he saw (thrush! woodpecker! finch!), ostensibly to educate Cheeryup, but mostly just to amuse himself.
The Dwarves sat in the back of the cart, saying little and bored by the long hours. Aramina sharpened her axe and blades on a soft rock while Crumble smoked his pipe quietly, lost in thought. Cheeryup periodically complained that her backside was sore, but otherwise made a good show of it.
“I say, young lady, do you even know who St. Borgo is named after?”
“Of course, King Borgo, you silly goose,” she sneered.
“Yes, but he wasn’t born a king. Who was Borgo?” triumphed Dorro.
“I don’t really know.” Cheeryup didn’t like it when she didn’t know things and frowned at the bookmaster. “You might as well tell me, since you’re going to anyway.”
“That’s correct, my dear! Borgo was a Halfling peasant boy, oh, seventeen-hundred years ago, but he was the one that rose up against the cruel overseers and freed our folk. You always know Borgo’s birthday by our current year—it’s 1721 A.B., which means ‘after Borgo.’ His birth, that is.”
“Hmmmm—I get it. Who were the cruel overseers, Mr. Dorro?”
“Best we can tell, they were a tribe of foul, violent Men who discovered the Halflings living very primitively up this way. Back then, our folk were very simple farmers, gatherers, and hunters, living off the land and not organized into much beyond muddy hamlets. Thus the Men rode herd over us and made our breed into veritable slaves, growing crops for them and serving their masters.”
“How horrible? What did Borgo do?” asked Cheeryup, growing more interested.
“Why, he was tired of being beaten and threatened every day and decided to rally other Halflings to his cause. Of course, poor Borgo was beaten and imprisoned more than once, but he always escaped, and in a pivotal moment, defeated one of the Men in combat. This was crucial, as it proved that the overseers weren’t indestructible and mere Halflings could stand up to them. When the Men counterattacked a few weeks later, they couldn’t find our kin. No, Borgo had taught them to use our natural strengths to fight back—stealth, intellect, intuition!”
“What did they do?” The girl was bouncing off her seat by now.
“Why they hid in secret burrows during the day, where the Men couldn’t find them. Then Borgo and his Halfling army—probably not more than a hundred farmers—would attack them at night or early morning, when the masters were groggy with drink. Borgo also invented new weapons; these were insidious projectiles that pierced or blinded the Men and drove them crazy. The Halflings also fouled their drinking water and dispersed their cattle and livestock. And yet, when they returned to crush the little folk, they found that we had all gone underground as if we’d never been there. Hungry, injured, and driven mad, the overseers finally abandoned our land and returned to the South never to return.”
“Hooray!” screamed Cheeryup.
“There’s more to it than that, of course—there was one terrible battle in which many Halflings died—but more or less, that’s the story,” crowed Dorro, who by now was terribly animated himself. “Thereafter, Borgo commanded all the Halflings come together and swear themselves to be one people. And that decree began the ancient settlement that became the burg of St. Borgo today.”
“The boy was made its first King and, since then, we Halflings have lived in this part of the world, more or less in peace and tranquility. It reminds us, young lady, that we may be small, but we are ever mighty! Since then, no foe has ever dared challenge Halflings on their own land.”
In the back of the cart, Crumble and Aramina clapped their hands in appreciation, though exchanging glances as if they knew more to the story. Yet for the moment, they let Dorro revel in the glory of Halfling history and Cheeryup in tales of heroism and danger.