by Jean Rabe
To the west, he spied stone dust thick as fog, near where the wide mountain pass had been. The twisting spire from dwarven lore was destroyed. Dhamon stared sadly at the broken remains of the lovers’ legend, gone forever from maps.
“Closer to the foothills, Dhamon. Those people. Fly closer!”
Dhamon found a safe landing place on a small plateau a few miles away. Feril was quick to slide off. Ragh, still in a daze, crawled out of Dhamon’s mouth. The draconian had regained consciousness, but now he gingerly tested his legs, which had been battered by the falling rocks.
“We were close when the quake hit.” Feril spoke quickly, excitedly. “Look, here and here.” She pointed high in the mountains. Stone dust billowed everywhere. “Over there, east of the broken spire, things look fairly intact. It’s possible the scale isn’t completely buried, or at least not buried too deep. There are people over there to the north. I want to speak to them, Dhamon, about dragons in the area, any Knights of Neraka they might have spotted, and…”
“Slow down, elf.” Ragh sat down wearily. “I want to make sure the mountain’s stopped dancing. Been through plenty of quakes in my life. Once I was underground, these very mountains. Knew a draconian who died in one of those quakes. I couldn’t get to him in time. I don’t want to end up like he did.”
“The quake’s over,” Feril said.
“Don’t be so sure,” Ragh continued. He rubbed his sore thighs. “Sometimes the ground only pauses, like it’s catching its breath before it starts up again.”
Feril ran her fingers through her hair and looked back and forth between the sivak and Dhamon. She glanced up, seeing a flock of black birds heading west over the Kharolis peaks and past the ruined spire. The sky was becoming bluer, the stone dust and dirt that had been kicked up finally starting to settle.
“We shouldn’t give up on that scale,” she said. “We’re too close not to look and be sure.”
“I agree,” Dhamon rumbled softly, not wanting to aggravate the quaking. His eyes were wide, his expression hopeful. “Though it’s possible the quake buried it even deeper.”
“If it did, we can still dig for it,” Feril said. “I saw water down there by those people, a large pond, runoff from the mountain. I can use the water for scrying…”
“Hey, look closer—those are not people,” Ragh said, pointing across the plateau. “If you crane your neck, you can see them.” He gestured to the northeast. “They’re dwarves.”
Feril brightened. “Dwarves! Wonderful! Experienced travelers in these mountains might be able to help. Wait here for a little while, Dhamon. You don’t want to frighten them unnecessarily, and…”
He shook his head, closed his eyes, and began folding in upon himself.
“I’m coming—as a shadow.”
“That’s a good idea, elf. What with all this earth-shaking, we don’t need to get separated.”
“I don’t need you coming along, too, sivak. A draconian’s going to scare those dwarves as much as any dragon.”
Ragh spat. “I’ll keep my distance, Feril. Don’t want to set any of their stubby fingers to trembling, but at the first sign of the mountain shaking again, Dhamon had better become a dragon and fly us out of here. Scale or no scale.”
Dhamon was already transforming into a pool of black that flowed toward Feril’s shadow and merged with it. The Kagonesti looked at the shadow, admiring Dhamon’s handiwork and thinking no one would ever guess that it was him.
“Besides, dwarves and elves don’t get along so well,” Ragh continued, as he started picking his way down a slope and onto a narrow ledge. “Historically, they just don’t get along, suspicious of each other, I understand. They might not be too willing to talk with you. Funny, but you might actually need me.”
Agile as a cat, Feril slipped past him, moving effortlessly along a narrowing strip of flat rock, then climbing down what amounted to a natural set of steps. As they progressed, Dhamon’s shadow flitted back and forth between her and the sivak.
“I had a dwarf friend some years back,” Feril said proudly, “a very good friend.”
The sivak looked surprised that the Kagonesti had volunteered personal information.
“His name was Jasper Fireforge, and he was the nephew of the legendary Flint Fireforge. Jasper was one of Goldmoon’s most trusted champions. I treasured his friendship and count myself fortunate to have known him. He had a good heart.”
“Had?”
Feril paused, picking her way along the rock path carefully. She found a handhold on a small outcropping of sandstone to balance her descent. “Jasper died at the Window to the Stars portal. I assume Dhamon told you something about the events at the Window. Before that time… when Malys controlled Dhamon with the scale… Dhamon nearly killed Jasper. Of course, Dhamon wasn’t trying to kill him. He was trying to kill Goldmoon. Oh, it’s confusing. That was a long time ago.” Softer and a few feet down, she added, “A very, very long time ago.”
“So you like dwarves fine,” Ragh said, after he’d climbed down to another ledge.
“Yes, I get along with dwarves.” She was following a worn path that had been rutted by heavy rains. “Better than I get along with sivak draconians.”
They crested a hill festooned with sizeable chunks of granite and bands of striped slate and obsidian. The odd layering of rock suggested there was volcanic activity here at one time… or a lot of earthquakes that shifted things around.
“Tracks,” Feril noted, pointing to a patch of dirt cradled in a stony depression. The recent footprints were as wide as they were long. Four or five dwarves, the Kagonesti guessed, only minutes ahead of them.
Feril hurried her pace but stopped momentarily when the dwarves came into view. The dwarves were at the southern edge of a large pool up ahead—she could make out four of them clearly when she crested the next rise.
They were making camp at the narrow end of an egg-shaped basin that brushed up against a steep hill. The pool must have been formed by run-off from the mountains. This side of the Kharolis apparently saw much more rain.
She waved to them until she got their attention, then she rushed forward to greet them. Ragh kept a few yards behind her, his arms out to his sides and hands open, hoping they would take his neutral posture as a gesture of peace. Dhamon was close by Feril, his shadow form overlapping her own shadow.
“Merry afternoon to you, children of Reorx,” Feril said in the language of the hill dwarves. She spoke the tongue adequately, having learned it from long afternoons spent in Jasper’s company. “May I join your camp for fellowship?”
The four were typical hill dwarves—ruddy skin and bulbous noses, bristly hair, long beards on the three men—but they bore no familial similarities. They were a disparate bunch, probably none of them were related. They might have hailed from different clans.
The one closest to her, who had been rummaging around in a big canvas pack as she approached, was nearly as broad-shouldered as an ogre, though he had none of an ogre’s great girth. His hands were large and thickly callused, his arms muscular, his legs were incongruously short and slender. Of middle years, he had wide gray eyes that looked kind and were intently scrutinizing her.
Another was a stocky dwarf with pale brown eyes rimmed in a darker shade. His skin was smooth, showing he was likely just past young adulthood. His fingers were thin and constantly working, twirling around in the ends of a reddish beard that came past his breastbone and flared out. He was standing, shifting his weight back and forth between the balls of his booted feet and looking between his companions and Feril. Likely a Neidar dwarf, she guessed.
The one walking briskly toward her reminded the Kagonesti of a tree stump, his skin dark and as heavily lined as walnut bark. He waddled with a rolling gait as he thrust out a hand in formal greeting. She took his hand, feeling the roughness of his skin with dirt so embedded in the grooves of his palm that it likely never would come out. He had a pick sticking out of a pack on his back, but Feril didn’t need t
o see that to know these dwarves were miners. Their dirty hands and muscular arms told her as much—that and the way they squinted in the sunlight. They were accustomed to working underground most of the time.
The eldest was the only female, and she kept farthest away from the newcomers, taking off her pack and brushing dust off her trousers. Her face was broad and careworn, her hair steel-gray and braided with strips of leather. She was wearing a sleeveless chain mail shirt that was a little too big for her, and a short sword hung in a scabbard from her hip. If the band had a leader, it was the female dwarf, Feril decided. The woman’s arms were bare and covered in tattoos. More were on her neck and on the back of her hands. Feril couldn’t make them all out at this distance, but she noted emblems of war hammers and battle axes.
“Feldspar Ironbeard,” the tree-stump dwarf introduced himself. After vigorous shaking, he finally released Feril’s hand. “Odd seeing a wild elf here. Thought forests were more to your liking.”
“Ferilleeagh Dawnsprinter. You can call me Feril.” She offered a wide smile, reassuring the hill dwarves by her adeptness at their tongue. She pointed to the small ridge behind her. “My companion, you may note, is a sivak draconian. His name is Ragh, and he means no harm.”
Feldspar took a step back, setting his fists on his hips. “Odd enough to find an elf here. Odder still that she has a sivak for a companion, and one, I can’t help but notice, without wings.” His bulbous nose quivered and set his mustache to wiggling.
“She might be a sivak, too.” The female dwarf spoke suspiciously. “Them sivaks can paint themselves to look like whatever they just killed.”
“No,” Feldspar returned mildly. “She smells like an elf. The draconian…” His nose quivered a little more. “That one smells like sulfur. It’s a draconian all right. Odd set of travelers for these hills, but I’ve seen plenty of odd things in my…”
The ground began to rumble again as Feril and Ragh quickly braced themselves for the worst. The thin-legged dwarf glanced nervously up at the sheer hillside. Only dirt and bits of stones rained down and splattered in the pool.
“…long years under the mountains,” Feldspar finished, looking around warily in case another, stronger quake was coming along.
Feril nodded to each of the dwarves. “In fact, I do prefer the forest, but often my journeys take me elsewhere. Ragh and I were traveling along a pass through these mountains when that big earthquake struck.”
Feldspar chuckled. “Yeah, we don’t get many trembles in these mountains nowadays, but it happens. We were in our tunnel, working, when we felt the first tickle of trouble, and of course we headed out immediately.” He pointed to a spot above them in the sheer hillside. Feril took a closer look.
About thirty feet above the ground there was a slash in the slope, likely an exit from the dwarves’ tunnel. The hillside wasn’t exactly a hill, she realized. There was plenty of dirt, but the dirt was clinging to a stone wall. A keep had been carved into this hill a long time ago; the brickwork was smooth from age. It might have been a castle once; she’d heard that dwarves once built immense halls under the hills. She wondered how much of it was intact inside the hill.
“Come quench your thirst with us, Dawnspringer.”
“Dawnsprinter,” Feril corrected gently.
He pointed toward the narrow end of the basin, where the other three dwarves were now sitting down and relaxing, leaning back against their packs. “The sivak can come along, too—if it’s got a mind to behave itself.”
Ragh followed, choosing to sit just outside their circle. His shadow was darker than it should have been, as though Dhamon had merged with his shadow when Feril passed by. None of the dwarves noticed. They were busy passing around a jug and talking loudly. Feril, in their midst, was drinking with them, asking them questions about their mine. She took off her satchel and tucked it protectively beneath her knee as she drank and talked, gazing at the pool. Ragh knew she was thinking of using that water to scry on the scale with Obelia.
“More ale, Dawnspringer?”
She accepted the jug and took her third deep pull. It was a heady and sweet brew, but she was thirsty. She passed it to the female dwarf.
“Grannaluured,” the female dwarf said, raising the jug in toast.
It wasn’t a Dwarvish word Feril was familiar with, so, after a moment’s hesitation, she realized it was the woman’s name rather than a toast. This close to her, Feril could observe the intricate craftsmanship of her tattoos. There were images of the constellations and of a hammer suspended above a forge—a tribute to the god Reorx. Just above the dwarf’s right elbow was the grinning visage of a one-eyed gargoyle with an outstretched claw. Grannaluured caught Feril staring.
“Eh, admiring my art,” the dwarf observed proudly. “That one there…” She took a long drink, handed the jug back to Feril, and pointed to the gargoyle. “That one was quite difficult to do, me being right-handed and all. Tough to get all the details right around its eyes and ears using my left hand. Saw the beast perched high in the mountains one night and wanted to record him for posterity.”
Feril took another drink and touched the back of Grannaluured’s left hand. Etched on it was a fiery sun with a face in the center of the sun. “What does this one represent?” Another drink. The Kagonesti was finding the ale tastier with each swallow. “You spending so much time underground, I wouldn’t think you’d see the sun very often, and I notice that the light bothers your eyes.” She took another long pull and almost reluctantly passed the jug to Feldspar.
“That’s the point of it,” Grannaluured said, holding her left hand up for everyone to see. “If I put the sun on my hand I can see it anytime I want—which is usually by torchlight in the tunnels.” She waved for the jug and swallowed some more, then sloshed the jug around and scowled to note there wasn’t much left. “Feldspar, where’s your manners? Get us another!” Softer, she said to Feril, “Maybe the sun wasn’t my best idea for a tattoo, but I’d been drinking.” She passed the jug back to Feril and chuckled. “Just like now. You can finish that if you want, Dawnsprinter. We got us a couple more jugs of the good stuff. Not going back to the mine today. Want to make sure all the tremblin’s done, so we might as well drink up.” The dwarf laughed longer and deeper.
Feril tipped her head back and finished the jug, then noticed Ragh staring at her in disapproval. “In the time you spent mining, Granalal, did you happen to find any dragon scales?” The female dwarf winced and Feril scowled, knowing she’d mispronounced her host’s name.
“You’re good with our hill dwarf words, Dawnsprinter, but your tongue is clumsy with the nuances. Try Needle, that’s my nickname.”
“Needle,” Feril repeated.
“Much better.” The woman shifted against her pack, propping herself up. “Years back,” she continued, “I did find me a dragon scale, a pretty bronze one I had made into a shield for my grandson. Found some teeth, too, and strung them on a gold chain. Though I suppose the teeth might not have come from a dragon. There’re other big beasts in this world.”
“Found me a black scale once,” the young dwarf cut in. This, the youngest of the small party, hadn’t introduced himself, and Feril raised her eyebrows and nodded in his direction.
“Oh, that’s Campfire. Likely you’d have trouble with his real name, too,” Grannaluured said. “Nickname’s Campfire, on account his hair looks like one and he likes to sit real close to the flames. He’s on the cold side.” Then she nodded to the broad-shouldered dwarf. “Over there’s Churt Ironbeard, Feldspar’s uncle once removed.”
Feril thought Campfire reminded her a little of Jasper, or rather what Jasper would have looked like so young. “Even among the longest-lived races, life is too short,” she murmured distractedly in her own tongue.
“Pardon?” Grannaluured said. “I don’t speak Elvish.”
“Sorry, I was thinking of old friends.” She returned her attention to Grannaluured’s tattoos. “You’ve got an interesting scaled claw here, cl
utching…” Feril turned so she could better see another tattoo, a scepter that wrapped around Grannaluured’s forearm.
“You like my tattoos?”
“I used to have a few of my own.” There was something regretful in her voice, and Grannaluured picked up on her sadness. “I had them removed, Needle,” Feril said with a thin smile, “…on a day I hadn’t had quite enough to drink.”
Grannaluured reached behind her and fumbled in her pack, pulling out a small chest wrapped in black cloth. She faced Feril. “Just means you’re all ready for new ones, like your body’s a blank page. Want one done by a semi-expert?”
Feril looked across the camp to Ragh. The draconian was pretending to study the scenery, though she knew he had been eavesdropping.
“Would it take very long?”
“Depends what you want exactly, Dawnsprinter.”
Feril pulled up the sleeve of her tunic. “How about a dragon’s head? Here.” She pointed to a spot just below her right shoulder.
“Odd tattoo for an elf,” Grannaluured mused, “but then, you’re not in the forest, and you’re keeping company with a sivak… one with no wings. I think it fits the likes of you. I think I’ll just have a few more swigs before I start. Funny, I do my best work when I’m drinking just a bit.”
Feldspar chuckled. “She does her best mining then, too.”
“Loosens up my fingers.”
Feril clamped her teeth together as Grannaluured went to work with her dyes and needles. While the dwarf prepared, the Kagonesti told her about the jay feather and the lightning bolt tattoos she used to have emblazoned on her face.
“What color do you want the dragon to be?”
Feril almost said “black,” but Dhamon wasn’t really a black dragon. “Doesn’t matter, Needle,” she said matter-of-factly. “Whatever color suits your fancy. I’ll trust to the artist.”
Grannaluured smiled, reaching for her vial of red dye. “I like lots of color,” she said. “I’ll put a bit of blue in it, too. I think I’ve just the shade to match your eyes. Perhaps not very realistic, as far as dragons go, but more colorful. Nice to be able to put some of my work on display—on someone else. My friends here don’t care for tattoos, but I figure I’ll wear them down eventually. I’d like to put some flames on Campfire’s arms.”
