Flint the King

by Mary Kirchoff

  Yes, it would feel good to see the rest of his family, as well, Flint had to admit. Aylmar had been patriarch of the clan since Flint was a youth, when their father had died of the Fireforge hereditary heart condition, leaving behind a wife and fourteen children. Flint’s work-worn mother had passed on some twenty-odd years ago, which was the last time Flint had been to Hillhome, for the funeral.

  Aylmar had a wife, Flint knew, though he could never remember her name. And at least one son, young Basalt. Flint remembered his nephew quite clearly. Basalt had been an enthusiastic youngster, somewhat of a hellion. Aylmar had grown dour with age and responsibilities, and he disapproved of his son’s prolific time in the alehouse and gaming hall. As a consequence, Basalt had adopted Flint as his mentor.

  Flint flashed on a collage of faces and names, his own younger brothers and sisters—harms and frawls, as the dwarven sexes were noted. There was Ruberik, Bernhard, Thaxtil—or was that Tybalt? Quiet, demure Glynnis and brash Fidelia emerged from the faces of his sisters. He had left home before the seven youngest siblings had been much more than babes, and he had forgotten most of their names since his last visit.

  It was not unusual for dwarves to loose track of their relatives, but Flint wondered now if perhaps he should have paid more attention to the younger children—they had been a good bunch, always eager to fetch things for their older brother, willing to give up the extra pastry or bite of meat for the brawny Flint. And there had never been that much to go around.

  With a start, Flint realized that if he did not hurry now, the sun would set before he came to the edge of Darken Wood. He stepped up the pace. Even so, it was already early evening on his first day out of Solace when Flint at last came upon the White-rage River. Flint crossed the rushing stream on a high suspension bridge that reminded him of the village in the vallenwoods, and made camp on the eastern bank in the shelter of two red maples. The next day he followed the bank of the White-rage until he reached the Southway Road.

  For a little more than one joyously uneventful week of nearly perfect blue skies, Flint advanced down the Southway Road, which formed the eastern fringes of Qualinesti, avoiding the rare habitations of the elves. On the morning of the eighth day he left the Southway Road, since it continued southwest to the ancient fortress of Pax Tharkas, and Hillhome lay to the southeast.

  He blazed his own trail through the hillcountry, the thick forests and foothills east of that settlement. Here the vast slopes of dark fir trees surrounded barren chunks of sharp granite. A land of steep gorges and winding valleys, the hills did not achieve the height of true mountains, but their chaotic nature made the trail as rugged as any snowswept alpine ridge.

  This was hill dwarf country, Flint’s homeland, and the rough ground was like a smooth path under his feet. He spent the ninth night, a rainy one, in an isolated, warm, and nearly empty dwarven inn in the Hills of Blood, where he rinsed the dusty trail from his body and whetted his appetite for his impending reunion with his dwarven clan.

  His mind lingered less on the rumors of mountain dwarves in Hillhome and more on memories of the village: the cozy stone houses lining the broad main street; the sheep and goats in the surrounding sloping fields; Delwar’s forge, where Flint had first seen the shaping of metal by fire. He recalled the sense of safety and security that always seemed to linger like smoke around the kitchen hearth of his mother’s home. And the scent of the thick-crusted, fresh-baked rolls he and his father would purchase each morning from Frawl Quartzen’s bakery after the cows had been tended. They were good memories.…

  Late in the cold afternoon of the eleventh day, Flint’s trip was lengthened by a detour around the Plains of Dergoth. Prior to the Cataclysm nearly three hundred fifty years before, the plains held many water holes. When the Kingpriest of Istar brought the anger of the gods down upon Krynn, the face of the world was changed, and the land south of Pax Tharkas turned to desert. One hundred years later, during the Dwarfgate Wars—which were an attempt by the hill dwarves and their human allies to retake Thorbardin after the Great Betrayal—the magical fortress of Zhaman collapsed in the Plains under a powerful spell and formed the hideous skull-shaped mound known afterward as Skullcap. That same explosion tore apart the Plains of Dergoth once again, and marshes crept over the surrounding land.

  Flint had no interest in wading through a swamp—his fear of water was legendary among his friends in Solace. So it was that he chose to climb through the low mountains to the northeast of the narrow pass that cut through the peaks to Hillhome. Flint took his time in finding a clearing just to the east of the pass and off the Passroad, then in collecting and igniting the right logs for a hot, long-lasting fire, and finally in sizzling the last of the fat slab of bacon he had brought with him from Solace. As darkness settled, Flint relaxed. I’ll miss this solitude, he thought, sighing.

  He looked at the Passroad, just a little below his camp. Deep ruts ran along its length. Whereas in the past it had borne only the traffic of sheep- and goat-herders, or the occasional farmer’s cart, now the road was wide and well-worn.

  Flint recalled the building of the Passroad from his childhood, though he had been too young to help with the work. The hill dwarves had labored for several years to smooth out the grades, lay a stone foundation over the swampy stretches, and create a route that could, someday, connect Hillhome to the not-so-distant shore of the Newsea.

  The immediate purpose of the road had been to open up the valley adjacent to Hillhome to hill dwarf settlements, and this had occurred to a limited extent. Still, in retrospect, the road had not been very profitable, considering all the work.

  Suddenly Flint’s thick body tensed like a mandolin string.

  He was not alone.

  The dwarf’s first warning was a vague perception, not really sight but more sound, of something approaching from the southwest. Wooden wheels crunched over gravel. Flint turned from the low fire to the pass, and his infravision—the natural, temperature-sensing ability of dwarves that allowed them to see objects in the dark by the heat they radiate—quickly adjusted.

  A heavy, broad-wheeled wagon, looking more like a huge rectangular box, rattled up the rutted Passroad from the direction of Hillhome. Who would be driving a wagon through the pass in the dark of night?

  Flint stepped from his fire to the edge of the road. Hunkered over intently on the buckboard, the driver snapped a whip over the heads of the four-horse team that was laboring to pull the wagon up the steep incline toward the pass. The steeds snorted and strained, pulling an obviously heavy load. Flint could not determine whether the small figure of the driver was dwarven, human, or something worse. Now he could see two more forms standing several feet behind the buckboard in a guarding stance, holding onto the sides of the lurching wagon. As they drew closer, Flint caught sight of three sets of unnaturally large eyes.

  Derro dwarves. That explained why they were willing to drive through the mountains at night, Flint realized.

  Derro were a degenerate race of dwarves who lived primarily underground. They hated light and suffered from nausea when in the sun, though they were known to venture from their subterranean homes at night. While normal dwarves looked much like humans, only differently proportioned, derro dwarves tended toward the grotesque. Their hair was pale tan or yellow, their skin very white with a bluish undertone, and their large eyes were almost entirely pupil.

  And they were reputedly so evil and malicious that they made hobgoblins seem like good neighbors.

  Flint thought about dashing behind an outcropping, but it was already too late to hide: he had been spotted along the roadside. He was more than curious, anyway, remembering Hanak’s sighting of derro mountain dwarves in Hillhome. The driver’s hideous eyes bore into Flint’s from about fifty feet away, and the derro stopped the wagon at the crest of the pass with a violent tug on the reins.

  “What are you doing here at this time of night, hill dwarf?” The driver’s voice was raspy, and though he spoke Common, the words came to
him slowly, as if the language were not totally familiar. The derro on the sides of the wagon dropped to the ground, and one circled around the horses to stand protectively below the driver still on the buckboard. Each held a shiny steel-bladed battle-axe casually in his hands.

  “Since when do derro claim rights over Hillhome’s pass?” Flint was not the least bit frightened. He watched the armed guards, whose eyes were focused on the axe hanging from Flint’s belt. The two derro wore dark metal breastplates and heavy leather gauntlets. They carried themselves with the cocksure attitude of veteran warriors. The driver, who was unarmed and unarmored, held the reins and watched.

  “You hill dwarves know the agreement,” the driver growled deep in his throat. “Now get back to the village before we are forced to report you as a spy … or worse,” he added. The guards took a step toward Flint, gripping their weapons with purpose.

  “Spy!” sputtered Flint, almost amused, and yet his hand moved to his axe. “Great Reorx, why would I be doing that? Speak up, dwarf!”

  The horses pranced impatiently on the Passroad, snorting misty breath into the chilly night air. The driver stilled them with a jerk on the reins, then clenched his fists at Flint. “I’m warning you—get out of the way and go back to the village,” the driver hissed.

  Flint knew he would get no answers from these derro. He forced his voice to remain level. “You’ve already caused me to burn my bacon with your nonsensical questions, so pass if you must and I’ll return to my charred dinner.”

  Flint saw the two armed derro separate as they neared him. Each held his battle-axe at the ready, and Flint looked at the weapons with momentary envy, thinking of his own, trail-worn blade.

  With growing annoyance, Flint hefted his axe. His body tingled with energy, anticipating battle. Though he did not seek a fight with these mountain dwarves, he would be cursed by Reorx before he’d back down from his hereditary enemies.

  “Can you prove you’re not a spy?” asked one, taunting.

  Flint stepped to the side, away from the fire. “I could if I thought enough of such wide-eyed derro scum to be bothered with it,” he snapped, his patience gone.

  The nearest derro flung himself at Flint, his axe whistling through the air. The hill dwarf darted backward in time to also avoid the second derro, who charged in low. The two mountain dwarves’ axes met with a sharp clang of steel.

  A sublime sense of heightened awareness possessed Flint as he turned to parry a blow from his first attacker, then sent the second derro reeling back with a series of sharp blows. Hacking viciously, he knocked the fellow’s weapon to the ground just as the other one leaped back toward him.

  Whirling away, Flint raised his own axe in a sharp parry. The two blades clashed together, but the hill dwarf stared in dismay as the haft of his axe cracked, carrying the head to the ground. Suddenly Flint was holding only the haft of his battle-axe. He stood there, defenseless, as if naked.

  The second guard’s pale, blue-tinged face split into a grotesque grin at Flint’s predicament. A sinister light entered his eyes as he raised his axe, ready to crush the hill dwarf’s skull.

  Flint moved with all the quickness his years of battle experience could muster. He thrust the axe handle forward, using it to stab like a sword. The splintered ends of wood struck the derro’s nose, and the Theiwar dwarf cried out in agony, blinking away blood.

  Flint struck again, smashing the wooden stick over the derro’s knuckles, which gripped his axe. Crying out again, the guard dropped his weapon, stumbling blindly from his bloody nose and eyes. Flint quickly snatched the axe up and swung menacingly at the suddenly retreating derro. He turned on the one who was sprawled on the ground, urging him along as well.

  The two disarmed Theiwar sprang onto the wagon as the driver lashed the horses. Whinnying with fear and snorting white clouds of breath into the night air, the massive beasts struggled to get the heavy wagon rolling. In moments it lurched through the pass and started on the downhill trek to the east and Newsea. As they rumbled away, the hill dwarf got a good look at their pale, wide eyes staring back at him around the side of the wagon, their glares full of hatred, and not a little fear.

  Thoroughly disgusted with the needless fight, Flint stomped back to his fire and snatched the pan of burned bacon, tossing the blackened remains into the scrub. No longer hungry, he sat with his back to the flames and pondered the strange encounter.

  His mind was a jumble of burning questions. What sort of “agreement” with these evil dwarves could have caused the hill dwarves to forget centuries of hatred and forced poverty because of the Great Betrayal? And what did the derro have to hide that they were concerned about spies?

  Thorbardin, ancient home of the mountain dwarves, lay some twenty miles to the southwest, past Stonehammer Lake. Flint knew that the derro belonged to the Theiwar, one of five clans in the politically divided underground dwarven city. Mountain dwarves as a whole were notoriously clannish, concerned only with their mining and their metalcraft. So of all the clans, why would the derro come to the surface, since they were ones the most sensitive to light?

  Flint examined the axe his attacker had left behind. It was a weapon of exceptional workmanship, hard steel with a silver shine and a razor-honed edge. He would have guessed the axe to be of dwarven origin, except that the customary engraving that marked every dwarven blade was missing from the steel.

  Flint shivered, whether from cold or apprehension, he could not be sure. Still, it reminded him the fire needed stoking. Tossing two small logs onto the coals, he stared into the flames until the fire’s mesmerizing effects made his eyelids heavy.

  These mysteries he would take to sleep, unresolved. He moved away from the fire to where he could keep an eye on the camp yet remain concealed. But nothing disturbed him again that night.

  Flint awoke at first light and at once headed east through the pass toward Hillhome. He stayed with the rutted, mud-slick road until he came to the last low ridge before the village, just a quarter-mile away. There he stopped to relish the view.

  He had made the journey in less than two weeks, a refreshing enough adventure until the derro skirmish the previous night. But now he felt a peculiar emotion choke his heart as he looked down at the winding, paved road, the expanse of stone buildings, the blockhouse that was the forge in the village of his youth.

  The rugged valley stretched east to the pass and west to Stonehammer Lake, broadening into a grassy vale around Hillhome. Several side canyons twisted back into the hills to the north and south.

  Flint’s warm feeling chilled somewhat when he realized that a low haze hung in the valley where before the air had been impeccably clear. Of course, there had always been a little smoke from the town forge.…

  The town forge! Flint realized the barn beside it was three times or more the size it had been twenty years ago. A great, muddy yard surrounded it, containing several parked wagons. The wagons, Flint realized with a jolt, were just like the one he had encountered the previous night at the pass.

  And where once a single stack had emitted the smoke of the small forge, now four squat chimneys belched black clouds into the sky. The town itself seemed to have doubled in proportion, stretching farther to the west toward Stonehammer Lake. Indeed, the sleepy village of Flint’s memory now bustled with a size and energy the dwarf found unnerving. Main Street, which once had been paved with sturdy stone, was now practically churned to mud by the traffic of crowds and vehicles.

  Flint anxiously made his way down the Passroad until it became Main Street. He slowed his steps to search for familiar faces—familiar anything!—but he recognized not a one, nor did any of the busy dwarves look up from their hurried pace. He paused to get his bearings.

  For a moment he wondered if he had come to the right place. Up close, Hillhome looked even less like the town in his memory than it had from the ridge. The same large buildings—the mayor’s mansion, the trading barn, the brewery—still dominated the central area. But around them clustered a
mass of lesser structures, tightly packed, as if each was trying to shoulder the other aside.

  Most of these newer buildings were made of wood, and many showed signs of uncharacteristically hasty construction and shoddy workmanship. The town square was still a wide open space, but where it had once been a tree-shaded park, now it was a brown and barren place.

  Flint’s eyes came to rest on Moldoon’s Tavern across the street. A happy sight at last! A young frawl was standing at the back of an ale wagon parked out front, hefting two half-kegs onto her shoulders. She struggled her way up the two wooden steps and into the inn, the door of which was held open by a large, middle-aged dwarf.

  Flint well remembered the rugged human, Moldoon, who had opened his inn in quiet Hillhome. The man had been a hard-drinking mercenary who had retired from fighting and carousing. His small alehouse had become a comfortable club for many adult dwarves, including Flint and Aylmar. Flint wondered if the human were still about.

  With a sense of relief he started toward the familiar doorway. He made his way around the ruts in the street and shouldered his way through the thick crowd in Moldoon’s. The hill dwarf’s eyes rapidly adjusted to the darkness, and he saw with relief that the place had not changed all that much.

  When designing his saloon, Moldoon had realized that most of his patrons would be short-statured dwarves, yet he wanted a place that was comfortable for himself as well. He neither made it human-sized (though other people would have gotten sport out of watching dwarves scrabbling for doorknobs and seats), nor did he make it dwarf-sized (he, himself, would look silly on a too-small chair). What he did do was make all tables and chairs adjustable with just a turn of the top; all doors had two knobs on each side. The bar itself had two levels: the right side to the patrons was dwarf-height, and the left was human-height. The ceiling was high enough to accommodate all.