“Tie King up!” Nomscul commanded.
Dozens of Aghar lifted Flint from the floor and stuffed him into a rickety chair made of beams. Eight dwarves sat on his thrashing form while Nomscul and a frawl the shaman called Fester ran circles around the chair with two lengths of thick rope.
“Untie me this minute, you miserable dirt-eaters!” Flint flung himself from side to side, sending the chair pitching and making the gully dwarves who clung to him hoot with glee. But the chair did not break, the Aghar did not lose their grips, and Flint remained tied up.
Arms behind his back, Nomscul leaned toward Flint and smiled right into the hill dwarfs scowling face. “Queen not running away,” he said. Perian stood at the far corner of the room, relatively ignored by the Aghar since she offered no resistance. Her arms were crossed and her hazel eyes regarded Flint expectantly, a small smile about her lips. “Promise to be king, and we cut you loose,” Nomscul offered affably in a singsong voice.
Flint hung his head over the arm of the chair and spat on the ground. “Me? King of the gully dwarves? I’d sooner drown!”
FROM THE CREATORS OF
THE DRAGONLANCE® SAGA
THE ART OF THE DRAGONLANCE SAGA
EDITED BY MARY KIRCHOFF
THE ATLAS OF THE DRAGONLANCE SAGA
BY KAREN WYNN FONSTAD
DRAGONLANCE TALES:
THE MAGIC OF KRYNN
KENDER, GULLY DWARVES, AND GNOMES
LOVE AND WAR
EDITED BY
MARGARET WEIS AND TRACY HICKMAN
DRAGONLANCE HEROES
THE LEGEND OF HUMA
STORMBLADE
WEASEL’S LUCK
DRAGONLANCE PRELUDES
DARKNESS AND LIGHT
KENDERMORE
BROTHERS MAJERE
DRAGONLANCE HEROES II
KAZ, THE MINOTAUR
DRAGONLANCE PRELUDES II
RIVERWIND, THE PLAINSMAN
FLINT, THE KING
DRAGONLANCE® Preludes II • Volume II
©1990 TSR, Inc.
©2003 Wizards of the Coast LLC.
All characters in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Published by Wizards of the Coast LLC. Hasbro SA, represented by Hasbro Europe, Stockley Park, UB11 1AZ. UK.
DRAGONLANCE, Wizards of the Coast, D&D, and their respective logos, FORGOTTEN REALMS, Endless Quest, Amazing, and TSR, Inc. are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries.
All Wizards of the Coast characters and their distinctive likenesses are property of Wizards of the Coast LLC.
Cover art by: Matt Stawicki
eISBN: 978-0-7869-6333-1
640-A1590000-001-EN
For customer service, contact:
U.S., Canada, Asia Pacific, & Latin America: Wizards of the Coast LLC, P.O. Box 707, Renton, WA 98057-0707, +1-800-324-6496, www.wizards.com/customerservice
U.K., Eire, & South Africa: Wizards of the Coast LLC, c/o Hasbro UK Ltd., P.O. Box 43, Newport, NP19 4YD, UK, Tel: +08457 12 55 99, Email: [email protected]
Europe: Wizards of the Coast p/a Hasbro Belgium NV/SA, Industrialaan 1, 1702 Groot-Bijgaarden, Belgium, Tel: +32.70.233.277, Email: [email protected]
Visit our websites at www.wizards.com
www.DungeonsandDragons.com
v3.1
As always, this book is for Steve and Alex for their unlimited help, patience, and midnight snacks;
And to Bruce Johnson and Peter Fritzell, teachers/mentors who knew when to encourage and when to laugh.
—MK
For Lou Niles,
My mother and first fan.
—DN
Contents
Cover
Other Books in the Series
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Map
Prologue
Chapter 1: Autumn Winds
Chapter 2: The Trail Home
Chapter 3: The Terms
Chapter 4: An Uneasy Reunion
Chapter 5: The Break-In
Chapter 6: Hasty Departure
Chapter 7: A Kingdom of Darkness
Chapter 8: Unexpected Company
Chapter 9: A Parting of the Ways
Chapter 10: The Pit
Chapter 11: Mudhole
Chapter 12: A Cold Domain
Chapter 13: Death of a Friend
Chapter 14: A Curious Theft
Chapter 15: The “Crownation”
Chapter 16: Misguided Mission
Chapter 17: Teleporting We Go
Chapter 18: The Secret Weapon
Chapter 19: The Best Gift
Chapter 20: The Advance
Chapter 21: Eye of the Storm
Chapter 22: Fire in Their Eyes
Chapter 23: The Last Bastion
Chapter 24: When Gods Collide
Epilogue
About the Authors
Prologue
The hammer fell rhythmically against the anvil, over and over, gradually returning the wheelrim to its circular shape. A sheen of perspiration glistened on the dwarven smith’s skin when the fire rose, but then he fell into shadows as the blaze sank into the coals. The smithy around him was empty, dark but for the forge fire.
As the hill dwarfs body labored, so did his mind, frantically. He thought about the secret he had learned, scarce minutes before. Again and again his hammer fell on the rim as he pushed himself past the point of exhaustion. Sparks exploded from each contact, hissing through the air before settling to the earthen floor of the shed.
Indecision tormented him. Should he remain silent? Should he speak out? The hammer continued pounding.
Immersed in his task, the dwarf did not see the grotesque figure moving through the shadowy doorway. For a moment the fire flared, outlining a black, misshapen figure shorter even than the dwarven smith.
This dark one shuffled forward, and again the blaze rose, revealing a hump of flesh that twisted the stunted body half sideways. Still the smith hammered, eyes focused on the wheel, unaware of the one who slowly limped toward him from behind.
The hunchbacked figure raised a hand to his chest and wrapped his blunt fingers around a small object that hung suspended from his neck by a chain.
Blue light glowed between those fingers as the amulet sparked to life. His other hand gestured toward the smith. Softly, the blue light spread outward, advancing slowly like an oily, penetrating mist. It reached forward in uneven tendrils, closer and closer to the smith.
For the first time, the hammer faltered slightly in its blow. Reflexively, the dwarf raised it again, ready to strike. Suddenly his face distorted in a grimace of unimaginable agony, and his body convulsed with a violent spasm. For a moment his movement ceased, as if he had been frozen in a grip of excruciating pain.
The hammer remained poised above him as his body stiffened, wracked within the blue glow that outlined him. The gentle, almost beautiful cocoon belied the supernatural grip of its power. Only the dwarf’s eyes moved, growing wider and more desperate with the slowly increasing, inevitably fatal pressure of dark sorcery.
Abruptly the light vanished, and the hunchback shuffled backward, melting into the darkness.
The dwarven smith’s hammer finally slid from his gloved hand with a loud clang to the anvil. Slowly, the corpse toppled forward, the stocky body splaying across the anvil and the nearly straightened wheel. It slipped silently to the cold ground.
&nbs
p; Chapter 1
Autumn Winds
Watching dead leaves swirl into his windows, Flint Fireforge threw back his mug and swallowed the last of his draught. A satisfied belch ruffled his thick mustache. For cheap ale, it wasn’t half bad, he concluded. But it was gone. He held the empty bottle—his last—up to the light of the fire. The dwarf stroked his salt-and-pepper beard out of habit. After considering his empty larder, Flint decided that it was time to see if his ale order was in at the greengrocer’s. He was going to have to leave the comfort of his home and fire for only the third time in the month since his friends had left the treetop village of Solace.
The dwarf and his companions—Tanis Half-Elven, Tasslehoff Burrfoot, Caramon and Raistlin Majere, Kitiara Uth-Matar, and Sturm Brightblade—had parted ways to discover what they could of the rumors concerning the true clerics, agreeing to meet again in exactly five years. Flint had spent much of his time in the last few years adventuring with his much younger friends or traveling to fairs to sell his metalsmithing and woodcarvings. Truly he missed them, now that they were gone. But the truth of the matter was, at one hundred forty years, the middle-aged dwarf was just plain tired. So, being reclusive by nature, he had stayed at home and done little more than eat, drink, sleep, stoke the fire, and whittle in the month since their departure.
Flint’s stomach rumbled. Patting the noisy complainer, he reluctantly eased his bulk from his overstuffed chair near the fire, brushing wood shavings from his lap as he stood. He pulled his woolly vest closer and looked about his home for his leather boots.
The house was small by the measure of the human-sized buildings up in the trees. But his home, built in the base of an old, hollowed-out vallenwood, was quite large by dwarven standards—opulent even, he reflected, with not a little pride. Sure, it didn’t have the large nooks and crannies found in the caves-turned-houses of his native foothills near the Kharolis Mountains, nor was there the ever-present homey scent only a white-hot forge could produce. But he had carved every inch of the inside of his tree into shelves or friezes depicting vivid and nostalgic scenes from his homeland. These included a forging contest, dwarven miners at work, and the simple skyline of his boyhood village. Such carvings were not easily done on the stone walls of the homes of most hill dwarves.
The stroke of his knife over a firm piece of wood was Flint’s greatest joy, though the gruff hill dwarf would never have admitted such a sentiment. Idly, he raised his hand to one of the friezes, touching his fingers to the carved crest of a jagged ridge, following the dips and summits. He dropped his hand to the carvings of the dark pine forests below the crest, admiring the precise bladework that had marked each tree in individual relief on the wall.
With a large, shuddering sigh, Flint took his heavy, well-worn leather boots from under a bench by the door and jammed them onto his thick feet. There was nothing to be done about it—he’d put off this errand as long as he could.
The massive vallenwood front door creaked as Flint opened it, causing the shutters on his windows to bang in the chill breeze, their hinges sagging like an old woman’s stockings. They ought to be repaired—there were many such tasks to be done before the first snow fell.
Flint’s home was one of the few in Solace at ground level, since he was one only of a handful of non-humans living in the town, including dwarves. While the view from up in the trees was quite lovely, Flint had no interest in living in a drafty, swaying house. Wooden walkways suspended by strong cords attached to high branches were the sidewalks of Solace. Probably they had provided a useful means of defense against the bandit armies that had once ranged across the plains of Abanasinia in the wake of the Cataclysm. Nowadays the trees served as an aesthetic delight, Solace’s trademark. People came from many miles away simply to gaze on the city of vallenwood.
The day was cool but not cold, and warming sunshine cut through the thick trees in slanted white lines. The greengrocer’s shop rose above the very center of the eastern edge of the town square, a short distance away. Flint set out for the nearest spiral stair leading to the bridgewalks overhead. By the time his short legs had pumped him to the top of the circling thirty-foot wooden ramp, his brow had broken out in beads of sweat. Flint plucked at the furry edges of his vest and wished he hadn’t dressed so warmly; he slipped his arms from it and draped the leather and wool garment over one shoulder. He saw the grocer’s, at the end of a long straightaway.
For the first time in quite a while, Flint truly noticed his surroundings. The village of Solace was washed in vivid fall colors. But unlike the maples or oaks of other areas, each large vallenwood leaf turned red, green, and gold in perfect, alternating angled stripes of about an inch wide. So instead of seeing blazing clumps of solid color, the landscape was a multicolored jumble. The bright sunlight cast the leaves in a shimmering iridescence that shifted in shade and intensity with each passing breeze.
The view from the bridgewalk allowed him to see quite a distance. He looked down at a smithy, where the blacksmith Theros Ironfeld toiled at shoeing the lively stallion of a robed human who was pacing with impatience.
A seeker, Flint thought sullenly, and his mood darkened. It seemed the seekers were everywhere these days. The sect had arisen from the ashes of the Cataclysm, which was itself caused by the old gods in reaction to the pride and misdirection of the most influential religious leader at the time, the Kingpriest of Istar. This group, calling themselves seekers, loudly proclaimed that the old gods had abandoned Krynn. They sought new gods, and sometime during the three centuries since, the seekers claimed to have found those gods. Many of the folk of Abanasinia had turned toward the flickering promise of the seekers’ religion. Flint, and many others of a more pragmatic nature, saw the seekers’ doctrine for the hollow bunk that it was.
They could be recognized by their brown and golden robes, these seeker missionaries who rode about the plains collecting steel coins for their coffers. Most of them at the missionary level were the young, bored malcontents who grew up in every town. The promise of money and power, if only over people desperate for a sign that gods existed, seemed to lure these spiritual bullies like a magnet. They were molded into persuasive salesmen by an intensive “training” session in the seeker capitol of nearby Haven, and they claimed to have converted thousands to their cause.
The seekers were as close as anything to the governing body of the plains. A body with muscle, of course: seeker followers were equally divided between the zealous acolytes who taught the words and ways of the new gods, and the men-at-arms who garrisoned the towns for no discernible purpose.
Unfortunately, groused the dwarf to himself, their concept of governing seems to involve little more than mooching off the towns and villages unlucky enough to host their temples and guardposts.
Flint’s mood dipped even farther when he noticed a group of seekers hovering around the doorway to Jessab the Greengrocer’s. He recognized this bunch as rude, belligerent, over-postulating phonies who couldn’t cure a split finger any more than they could speak with their so-called gods. In one of the few times Flint had ventured from his home in the last month, he had come upon a villager choking on a bite of meat. This very group had been summoned to help, and after much desperate prodding from the small, gathered crowd, the leader of the three, a pimply young whelp, had sighed and gesticulated uselessly above his head as if casting a clerical spell. No miracle appeared. The villager had gasped his last before the other two could try to help him. The three had shrugged in unison and then headed into the nearest inn, unconcerned.
Flint could feel his face tighten with anger now as he considered the cluster around the doorway. Novices, he noted, from their coarse white robes edged with embroidered hemlock vine and the all-too-familiar emblem of a lighted torch on the left breast.
“Who are you staring at, little man?” one of them demanded, his arms crossed insolently.
Flint’s eyes narrowed in irritation, but he let a shake of his head and a snort of disgust suffice to answer the
question. Tipping his head slightly, he made to squeeze his way between them and into the greengrocer’s.
A bony finger poked him in the shoulder, scarcely enough pressure for the dwarf even to notice. “I asked you a question, gully dwarf.” The seeker’s friends laughed at the insult.
Flint stopped but did not raise his eyes. “And I believe I gave you as much answer as your kind deserves.”
Egged on by his friends, the young seeker pressed his point. “You’ve got an awfully smart mouth for an outnumbered old man,” he growled, stepping fully in front of Flint. He reached down to grab the dwarf’s lapels.
“Teach him a lesson, Gar,” a crony purred in anticipation. Flint’s irritation turned to fury. He looked into the face of his antagonist. What he saw was the glee-and-fear mixed expression of an animal who was closing on an easy victim. Or so the seeker thought.
Flint decided that the fellow needed a lesson in humility and manners. Moving like lightning, he drove his fist into the boy’s belly. Stunned, the youth doubled over and clutched at his stomach. The dwarfs stubby fingers flew up to pull the seeker’s droopy, coarse hood down over his red face. Flint quickly drew the strings tight and knotted the hood shut, until only the boy’s pimply nose poked out. Flailing his arms desperately, the seeker let out a screech and tumbled to the planks of the bridgewalk.
Flint was dusting off his hands when his sharp dwarven ears picked up the familiar “whoosh” of blades being unsheathed. Whirling around with stunning quickness, the stocky dwarf knocked the small daggers from the other seekers’ hands. The metal weapons glinted in the sun as they flew over opposite sides of the bridgewalk.
“Daggers! Look out below!” Flint called over the railing in case anyone stood beneath. Looking down, he saw a few villagers scatter without question, and the blades fall harmlessly, point down, into the earth.
When Flint looked up again, he saw the backs of the seekers as they fled, the two toadies pulling their still-hooded, stumbling leader after them.
Flint the King Page 1
