Flint the King

by Mary Kirchoff

  “You see!” the derro exclaimed self-righteously.

  Moldoon took the two derro by their elbows and propelled the startled dwarves toward the door. “I see that you two need to leave my establishment immediately.”

  At the door the derro wrenched away from his grip and turned as if to attack Moldoon, hands on the weapons at their waists. Moldoon stared them down, until at last they dropped their hands and left. Shaking his head, the innkeeper slammed the door behind them and then strolled toward Flint at the bar.

  Flint sank his face into his ale and gulped half the mug down. “I don’t need anyone to fight my battles for me,” he grumbled angrily into the foam.

  “And I don’t need anyone breaking up my inn!” countered Moldoon. He laughed unexpectedly, the lines in his face drawing up. “Gods, you’re just like Aylmar was! No wonder Garth went crazy when he saw you about to take a swing at those derro. Probably thought it was Aylmar back from the dead for one more fight.”

  Flint looked up intently from his ale. “What are you talking about? Aylmar had a set-to with some derro?”

  Moldoon nodded. “At least one that I know of.” Moldoon looked puzzled. “Why are you surprised? You, of all people, must have guessed that he detested their presence in Hillhome.”

  “Do you remember when the fight was? And what it was about?”

  “Oh I remember all right! It was the day he died, sadly enough. Aylmar didn’t frequent here much himself, but he came looking for Basalt. They got into their usual fight about Basalt’s drinking and ‘working for derro scum,’ as Aylmar put it, and then the pup stormed out.”

  Flint leaned across the bar on his elbows. “But what about the fight with the derro?”

  “I’m getting to that,” Moldoon said, refilling Flint’s mug. “After Basalt left, Aylmar stewed for a bit here, watching the derro get louder and louder. And he just cracked—launched himself right at three of them, unarmed. They swatted him away like a fly, laughing at ‘the old dwarf.’ ”

  Flint hung his head, and his heart lurched as he imagined his brother’s humiliation.

  “Indeed, this conversation makes me remember something,” Moldoon added suddenly. Flint looked up halfheartedly. The bartender’s face looked uncharacteristically clouded.

  “Aylmar told me after the fight that he had taken a small smithing job with the derro. Naturally I was surprised. Aylmar had leaned forward and whispered—” Moldoon’s voice dropped “—that he was suspicious of the derro and had taken the job so that he could get into their walled yard to look into a wagon. He asked what I knew of their security measures, and I told him that I’d overheard that each crew of three slept during the day in shifts, one of them guarding their wagon at all times.”

  Flint’s interest was piqued. “Why do they need to guard farm implements so closely?”

  “That’s just what Aylmar asked,” Moldoon said softly, then sighed. “I guess he never found the answer, or if he did, it died with him, since his heart gave out at the forge that same night.” He clapped Flint on the shoulder and shook his head sadly, then turned to wait on another customer.

  Flint sat thinking for several minutes before he worked his way through the crowd and left the smoky tavern. The sun was low in the sky. He stood on the stoop outside Moldoon’s, but instead of crossing the street and walking back up the south side of the valley to the Fireforge home, the hill dwarf set his sights down Main Street to the east, just sixty yards or so, toward the walled wagon yard.

  Chapter 5

  The Break-In

  In Flint’s youth, the wagon yard had been the blacksmithing shop of a crusty old dwarf named Delwar. While most dwarves, racially inclined toward smithing, made their own weapons, nails, hinges, and other simple objects, Delwar had provided the villagers with wagon wheels, large tools and weapons, and other more complicated metal designs.

  Flint had learned a lot of what he knew about blacksmithing from the old craftsman, whose burn-scarred arms and chest had both frightened and fascinated the young hill dwarf. Flint and other harrns would sit in the grassy yard outside Delwar’s shop and barn to watch the smith through the open end of his three-sided stone shed; Flint enjoyed the smell of smoke and sweat as Delwar hammered hot metal almost as much as he liked the taffy treats and cool apple drinks the smith’s robust wife would bring out to them.

  But Delwar and his wife had long since passed away, and a menacing, seven-foot high stone wall had been built around that once-friendly spot. Someone had told him—Tybalt perhaps—that a “modern” forge had been built on the western edge of town, and Delmar’s had been long abandoned until the mountain dwarves had bought the rights to its yard and forge as part of their agreement with Hillhome. The derro had built the wall, which Flint estimated enclosed a thirty-by-twenty-yard area. There was one entrance into the yard: a sturdy, wooden ten-foot gate stretched across the southern edge along Main Street. Flint saw no guard posted on the outside, but one surely supervised the gate from the inside.

  Flint strolled nonchalantly down the road, passing by the walled yard with scarcely a look, focusing instead on the ducks hanging so invitingly across the street in the butcher’s window. After twenty or so yards the wall turned a corner. A narrow alley, no wider than would allow two dwarves abreast, ran the length of the eastern wall and the opposite building. Flint continued his unhurried pace until he was out of sight of Main Street. He covered the last ten yards to the northeast corner in a sprint, since the sun was dropping lower. He could not waste another moment of light.

  The newly built wall had no toeholds of any kind. Flint went around the corner to the northern wall, but the stone continued on for only five feet before the wall joined with and became Delwar’s fifteen-foot-tall barn and blacksmith shop.

  A skinny oak sapling had somehow rooted itself in the small alley. Flint knew it would not support his weight. He looked about the alley desperately, and farther down his eyes came upon a discarded old rain barrel, several of its slats missing. He clomped up to it and turned it on its side, testing its strength; not so good, but the bottom was still solid and there were probably enough slats left to support him for a minute or so.

  Flint dragged the barrel to the corner near the sapling and stood it on its open top. End to end, the barrel was nearly as tall as he and more than half the height of the wall. Reaching nearly above his head, he grabbed both sides of the barrel’s metal rim and tried to haul himself up. The rotted barrel creaked and rocked dangerously toward him. He could get no leverage.

  Frowning, Flint considered the sapling again. Perhaps its lower branches were sufficient to support him just long enough to spring onto the barrel. He pushed the barrel so that it stood on his right, between the sapling and the wall. Hitching up his leather pant legs, he gingerly raised his right foot to rest on the strongest of the limbs, about two feet off the ground. Flint took a deep breath, grabbed the trunk of the sapling with both hands, and thrust himself upward. It held him for a split second, and then he slid down the scrawny trunk of the tree, snapping every little twig on the way to the ground.

  Frustrated, Flint stroked his beard while he thought. He tested the flexibility of the sapling’s trunk and decided that its green wood might bend. Taking it firmly in his left hand, he pushed it toward the ground until it was low enough for him to step on. Counting to three, he launched himself off the doubled-over tree, hearing it snap and tear just as his hands closed around the top of the barrel and he was able to pull himself up. With one more quick spring, he was atop the stone wall. Flint dropped the seven feet to the ground, landing alongside the barn and in six inches of mud with a “splooch!”

  “You leave now!”

  Flint nearly jumped out of his boots, which were stuck fast in the mud. He looked up in the late-afternoon light and espied a big dwarf standing a few paces away. His face was a mask of fear, and he appeared to be dragging a sack full of black coal.

  “Garth!” Flint hissed, both relieved and dismayed. He tried to wr
estle his booted feet from the mud, but the boots would not budge. He stopped struggling and looked up at Garth pleadingly.

  “Leave me alone!” Garth said fearfully, turning away. “Why are you haunting me?”

  “Garth,” Flint began, trying to calm the harrn before he drew attention, “I’m not the dwarf you found by the forge—that was my brother, Aylmar. You needn’t be afraid of me. I’m Flint Fireforge, your friend.”

  Garth looked at him suspiciously out of the corners of his eyes, hugging himself protectively. “You promise to stay out of my dreams now? I didn’t hurt you.” He shook his head vigorously. “The humped one sent the blue smoke, not me. I just found you.”

  “Garth, it wasn’t me—what blue smoke?” Flint asked, suddenly curious.

  “The blue smoke from the stone around his neck!”

  “Whose neck? A derro?”

  “Yes! You were there, why are you asking me?” Garth said, angry and flustered by this line of questioning. “I have to go to work now. Get out of here, or he’ll use his magic, wherever he is!”

  With that warning, Garth hefted the sack, but Flint reached out to stop him. “Garth, you mustn’t tell your bosses I was here again. Promise me, or I’ll—I’ll give you more bad dreams!” Flint winced at using such a cruel trick on the terrified harm. Eyes wide with dread, face paler than death, Garth only nodded as he lumbered away around the corner of the barn.

  Flint tried to sort through Garth’s strange mutterings. Was he merely spouting dreams he’d had, ones caused by finding Aylmar’s body, or had he been the only witness to some horrible deed?

  The hill dwarf moved to take a step and remembered with a soft groan that he was still stuck in the mud. Flint curled his toes and tugged upward, but his boots were buried so well that his feet pulled out instead. Wiggling the high-topped leather boots back and forth with his hands, he finally managed to wrench them out with a loud sucking sound. Each one had to weigh over fifteen pounds now, and he had neither water nor cloth nor grass to clean them with, since the entire yard was churned to mud. He would move as quietly as a squad of ogres with these on. Hardly the barefoot type, Flint reluctantly set them down along the fence anyway, where he could grab them on his way out.

  Flint poked his head around the corner of the barn and stole a glance at the wagon yard. It was crisscrossed with deep, muddy ruts. Two of the flat-bed mountain dwarf wagons were standing side-by-side, their buckboards pointed toward Flint; he saw no guards. Tybalt had said that one wagon was always coming from Thorbardin while another was returning, never in tandem. So which wagon was full of cargo and on its way to Newsea, and which one was returning to the mountain dwarf kingdom? Flint knew he had little time before the derro crew awoke or returned from the taverns, and no time to choose wrongly.

  Suddenly he saw a derro emerge from the open side of the blacksmithing shop in the middle of the north wall, some ten yards to his right. The derro guard circled both wagons, bending down to look under the one on the left, farthest from the shop.

  “We should be getting on the road within the hour,” the derro called toward the building. “I’m anxious to get back to Thorbardin. Did Berl or Sithus tell you when they’d return?”

  “They always stagger back at the last minute,” an unconcerned voice said from the depths of the shop. “You worry too much. Come on back and catch a few more minutes of sleep before the long haul.”

  “You’re right,” said the derro by the wagons, striding toward the darkened shed. “Everything looks OK out here, anyway. That idiot brought the coal for the forge, I see, so at least tomorrow’s crews won’t run short. These mountain roads cause the wagons to break down too often.”

  Flint could barely make out their conversation as it continued in the shop for a few more minutes, then died away. Soon he heard snoring.

  The guard had looked under only one wagon; Flint locked his gaze on the other one, farthest from the shop. Taking a cautious step around the barn, Flint’s tender feet touched a deep, cold mud puddle, and he recoiled. Shaking globs from his feet, he decided to circle around to the left, where there were less ruts. His approach would be hidden by the wagons.

  Forging through the mud, he came at last to the side of the wagon. The sturdy wooden conveyance rolled on four spoked iron wheels that were as tall as the cargo box between them, at least six feet off the ground, and certainly way above the stubby dwarf’s head. The cargo box had wooden sides reinforced with thick bands of iron.

  The dwarf grabbed onto the front right wheel and began pulling himself up from one spoke to the next, until he stood halfway up the massive iron ring. His chin just crested the box, and he saw that the thick, dirty canvas was stretched tight over the top of the wagon. He struggled to untie a corner of the canvas, and finally he pulled enough away to climb further up the spokes and crawl inside the box. It was surprisingly cramped, he noted as he looked around.

  Plows! By Reorx, the mountain dwarves were indeed going to great lengths to ship plows! And cheap ones at that! Flint mouthed his astonishment silently. The interior of the wagon held five huge iron plow-blades. Each of the blades looked uncorroded, as if it had been freshly forged, but the metal was pitted and rough from imperfections of casting. They should be embarrassed to have anyone see such shoddy workmanship!

  This was not what Flint had expected to find. Who cared if the mountain dwarves’ notorious greed allowed them to lower their smithing standards? Flint was curled into a painful ball to keep his head from bulging the canvas, but he shifted onto his knees now and hunkered down to think. Suddenly, his aching back produced a most unexpected thought.

  Why was he bent double in a box that was at least as tall as he? Unless it was two boxes, not one, he concluded excitedly. He examined the floor of the wagon and was frustrated in his attempt to find secret compartments.

  Flint poked his head out of the canvas and looked and listened; the yard was still quiet. He lowered a foot around the wheel and onto a spoke, then slipped down.

  Flint dropped from the wheel and crawled under the wagon, struggling to balance in the deep, muddy ruts as he slowly inspected the underside of the box. Brushing mud away with his fingertips, Flint probed each crack with his carving knife.

  He missed it the first time, but as he doubled back he found the concealed panel. Mounted between the axles was a long rectangle made from two of the wagon’s floorboards.

  Quickly Flint pried at the door, seeking a latch. His fingers probed and prodded, and then he felt the mechanism, hidden in a knothole. After a push of his blade, he felt the catch release; the narrow panel swung downward.

  He was so close!

  Praying that the shadows under the wagon would conceal him a few moments longer, Flint raised his head into the cavity the panel had revealed. Spotting several long wooden crates, he wasted no time in prying the nearest lid off, snapping the tip of his knife.

  But he paid no attention to his weapon as the wooden lid fell away. Instead he stared at a pair of steel longswords—weapons of exceptional quality, he could tell at a glance; these were not like the pitted plows above. He snapped another box open, finding a dozen steel spearheads, razor sharp and wickedly barbed. He did not have time to check any more boxes, but he knew that there was no need.

  Weapons! And not just any weapons, but blades of superior craftsmanship, excellent quality. The steel gleamed with purity, proving it to be expensive and rare.

  But they were without craftsman’s marks, no artist’s signature. Wherever the arms were headed, the mountain dwarves wanted their origin to remain a secret. Nearly every day for at least a year, a wagon full of weapons had left Thorbardin for some unknown shore. What nation on Krynn needed so many weapons?

  Only war required such numbers.

  The answers Flint had sought left only more questions. Had Aylmar learned of this before he died? Flint swallowed a lump in his throat as he remembered Garth’s mutterings of a “humped one and magical blue smoke.” Had Aylmar died because of what
he had stumbled upon?

  Heart pounding, Flint dropped back to the ground and was preparing to dash for the south wall when a heavy boot crushed his left hand into the mud.

  “You didn’t know half-derro could see in daylight, eh?” Flint looked up slowly from under the wagon and saw a derro standing above him, leering. Flint shifted his eyes and saw that, for now, the guard was alone. Desperate, he grabbed the derro’s ankle with his free hand and tugged with all his might. The surprised mountain dwarf slid in the mud and dropped, hard, on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. Flint could get no traction, so he pulled himself up by the other one’s elbows and pierced the thrashing derro’s windpipe with one quick slash of his carving knife. The derro stopped struggling.

  Flint looked around quickly, then back under the wagon toward the shop. He could see one figure shifting uneasily in the shadows, calling out the dead derro’s name. He would come looking for his friend any minute.

  Flint looked at the surrounding walls bathed in twilight, including where he had entered the yard and his boots still lay. He had no barrel and sapling to help him over the seven-foot barrier now. He looked to the vast wooden gate, directly opposite the shop, the wagons obscuring his view. Though closed, the gate was made of closely spaced rails. His boots would never have fit in the spaces, but his bare toes might … He had to make the fifteen-yard dash to that gate.

  Keeping low, Flint ran as fast as he could, keeping his eyes on the ruts that threatened to trip him. He hurled himself at the gate and jammed his toes into the spaces between the rails.

  “Hey!”

  The cry came from behind him. Heart pumping wildly, Flint hauled himself up the gate by sheer desperation. Balanced on his stomach across the top of the gate, he was swinging his right leg up to prepare to leap off when the gate underneath him swept open. Flint looked down anxiously and saw that two of the guards were returning from the taverns, staggering and laughing, oblivious to Flint clinging to the top of the gate above them.