Chapter 4: Run, Runt, Run

Runt Thunderbelch was surprised to see lights still burning in Rosaline Wing's Flights of Fancy, an Emporium of Pet Exotica as he rode passed atop a mail coach. "Hey! Hey!" he called to the coachman. "This is fine. Let me off here."

"Can't." The evil-smelling driver didn't even turn around. "Mr. von Lipwig keeps us on a very tight schedule, he does. And I'm already trying to make up for lost time."

"Let me off!"

"Can't!"

So Runt picked up his few belongings, and he jumped. He bounced one on the cobblestones, did a forward somersault, and landed boots-first in a bushy shrub of bloody-nosed Susans. Muttering bad words, he picked up himself along with his few belongings, and limped back up the street to Rosaline Wing's Flights of Fancy, an Emporium of Pet Exotica. He climbed the two wooden steps and pushed open the door to the happy tinkle of the silver bell.

Carrot and Angua turned towards him.

On the floor, was the chalk outline of Rosaline Wing. Next to it was drying blood which spelled out:

Runt Thunderbelch

Must Pay

Carrot spoke first. "Good evening, Runt," he said way too pleasantly.

Runt had always been very good at putting two and two together and coming up with four (unless of course there were actual numbers involved). He dropped his belongings and fled.

As he ran, he heard Carrot's tin whistle(fn1) squealing after him. But soon, he heard a sound he dreaded even more: the pursuing scrabble of werewolf claws on cobblestones. Angua had transformed. Somewhere behind him, she emitted a soul-quivering howl.

Runt spotted a counter-weight crane that had been tied down for the night. He leaped up, seized the rope, and used his axe to chop through the rope below him. A single blow was sufficient to sever it, and Runt was propelled upwards. It was an easy flight up to the roof. Too easy. He kept going up in a high arch. The shingled roof looked tantalizingly delicious as it passed below him. He did so want to be down there. But then to whole downward slope of the roof fell away, and Runt was looking down at the next street, which was coming up fast.

Runt thought about screaming but doubted if it would do any good.

An open carriage of fashionably dressed ladies passed beneath him, and he landed square in the middle of them. There were squeals of surprised.

Runt staggered up to his feet. "Evening, ladies," he said jovially, just to put them at their ease. Then he spotted the watchman running up fast from behind the carriage, blowing his silly whistle. Runt spun around and yelled "he'ya!" at the horse, and they took off at a dead gallop.

"What are you? Crazy?" shrieked the driver as he desperately attempted to bring the horse back under control.

When they careened around the corner on just two wheels, the fashionably dressed ladies ganged up on Runt, seized him, and threw him bodily out of the carriage.

He bounced on the street and rolled up against a nearby boarding house. He came to rest against the cover of the building's crawl space. A single swing of Runt's axe shattered the cover, and Runt dashed into the crawl space. (Well, for humans, it may have been a crawl space. For dwarfs, it was a more like a bend-over-and-hurry-along-really-quickly space.) Rats and cockroaches scurried out of his way. He got to the crawl-space cover at the back side of the boarding house, shattered it, and emerged into the yard.

A guard dog looked at him in surprise. As the dog wondered what he should do, Runt hauled back and punched it hard in the nose. The dog yelped and fled.

The dwarf hurried through the poor-excuse-for-a-garden and grabbed onto the rose trellis that was fixed to the back wall. He began to climb. Rose thorns snagged his chainmail. Splinters stabbed into his hands. Moths flew into his face. Just as he almost reached to top, the trellis pulled free and, with a penultimate groan, lowered Runt back down into the poor-excuse-for-a-garden.

The guard dog had returned and by now was in the mood for trouble. A dwarficidal growl rumbled deep in his throat. Yellow fangs glinted in the moonlight.

So Runt punched him in the nose again.

Again the dog yelped and fled.

Runt spotted a rusty manhole cover in the gravel of the garden. He scooted over, levered up the heavy lid, wormed his way into it, and let the lid back down over the hole.

The shaft led down to a tunnel half-filled with rain water. Runt hurried along until he realized that he must be racing towards the Anhk River. The water in the river was so toxic, it would probably stunt his growth. There had to be another exit.

A few minutes' worth of searching led him to another shaft with a ladder that took him back up to the surface. He shoved to manhole cover aside and slipped silently back out into the night. He came out in a crouching position, but was soon aware of a thick uniformed leg to his left and a matching one to his right.

"Psst, Sarge," he heard an urgent whispered. He looked over to see Corporal Nobby Nobbs pointing directly at him. "There he is."

"Where?" he heard the voice of Sergeant Fred Colon answer. The thick bow legs began orbiting around Runt as the rotund watchman began turning in a circle.

"Look down," urged Nobby.

Fred looked down to see his enormous belly. "What?"

"He's there."

"Naw, that's just my stomach. Keep looking."

"No, Sarge. He's there?"

"Where?"

Enough of this, thought Runt. It is well known that dwarfs put the "up" in the word "uppercut," and so Runt drove his fist straight up into Fred Colon's high & mighties. The big man groaned and bent over just as Runt was leaping out, and so the crown of Runt's head and Fred's nose slammed together. The sergeant yawped and flopped over onto his back while the dwarf took off running.

Nobby Nobbs came after him, moving with inhuman speed.(fn2)

Runt ran, hearing Nobby's pounding boots coming nearer and nearer. He remembered a tale from his childhood of a dwarf being chased by a dragon. The dwarf saved himself by throwing down gold coins and precious gems to distract the dragon. Runt had neither gold nor gems but only a few coins of copper and nickel. He clawed them out of his pockets and scattered them on the ground. A moment later he was rewarded by the sound of boots scrapping to a halt.

He leaped over a short fence and fled into a graveyard.(fn3)

Owls hooted. Crows cawed. Ravens croaked.

Runt desperate path took him right into an open grave. Using the pickax end of his axe, Runt managed to clamber his way up the side, staggered a few feet more and fell into a second open grave. He climbed out of that one too, staggered a few feet more and fell into a third open grave. As he was struggling up the side of that one, a hand came down from above.

"Here mate, let me help you out."

Runt grabbed onto the hand and was hoisted out of the grave by Reg Shoe, the City Watch's first zombie. Reg gazed at Runt with lifeless eyes.

Runt pulled free of Reg's hand (or more precisely, Reg's hand was pulled free from the zombie), and the dwarf turned and ran face first into the fist of Sargent Detritus.

"You are unner arrest. You have de right to remain unconscious. If you give up dat right, you'll talk your head off if you know wat's good for you."

ENDNOTES:

1 If tin whistles are made out of tin, and wooden whistles are made out of wood, what do they make fog horns out of? Just asking.

2 Almost everything Nobby does is inhuman to a greater or lesser extent.

3 "Walls around graveyards/Are silly without a doubt./The people on the inside don't wanna go in./And those on the inside can't get out." …Nipsey Russell