“We go down here now,” Gunnar instructed. “But don’t start anything rolling. The stones are loose, and we might end up in the water with a hundred feet of granite over us for a tombstone.”
Gunnar led the way. Crawling backwards like a crab, he felt his way down the precarious slope. Odin followed. Once his foot slipped and he sent a shower of stones down upon the dwarf. Gunnar caught them like a juggler and held them in place so comically that Jack Odin laughed for the first time since he had started on this journey.
“And could you do better?” Gunnar grumbled. “Maybe I let you go first and we all go tumbling into the sea—”
“Oh, Gunnar, you did fine. But you reminded me of a cartoon back home where the cat’s in the kitchen and has upset some pots and pans and is trying to catch them before they fall and make a clatter.”
“And is this a time to talk about cats? A cat’s place is in the woods. Tell me about dogs, maybe, but I have no time for cats. Besides, if you would throw that gun away you wouldn’t be so clumsy. It’s no good.”
“No. I was here once without a rifle, and I needed it badly. One bullet between Grim Hagen’s eyes and none of this would have happened.”
Gunnar retorted: “I doubt if you could have changed one thread of the Spinners—”
“But didn’t I save you back there in the tunnel with this same rifle?” Jack Odin answered.
“And nearly deafened me, too. Oh, well, I would probably have killed that thing anyway.”