“What a strange coincidence, finding it here,” Perian muttered, then shrugged. “Whoever took it from that lair before you returned probably ended up in the Beast Pit, and the gully dwarves just added it to their piles of treasure.”
She pressed her fingertips to the runes. “I’ve made out a few of the words here, but they are in old dwarven. Do you know what they say?”
Flint shook his head, slipping the Tharkan Axe into the loop on his belt. “What with adventuring, I never had the time to have them translated, nor really cared to while the axe worked so beautifully. And then I lost it.”
He realized suddenly that he had been so overwhelmed by the present that he’d forgotten to thank the gifter. Flint leaned back and observed her copper head, her peach-fuzzy cheeks, the warm smile on her red lips. He had come to depend on her for so much.… “I don’t know how to thank you, Perian. This axe is the best present—two presents—” He laughed “—that I’ve ever received. You’ve given me hope for tomorrow.”
Perian blushed. “I’m just glad you like it, and that it was especially special.” She turned away to pour two luke-warm cups of weed tea.
“I have nothing to give you,” Flint said sadly, then had a thought. “Wait!” He reached into his tunic and pulled a chain over his head from around his neck.
“I do have something for you—it’s not much,” he said, embarrassed. He did not watch Perian’s face as he turned his palm over and held his hand out.
“A leaf!” she cried, setting the cups down on the bench. Perian took the delicate carving, linked to an old, silver chain, and held it in the tips of her fingers, inspecting it, touching it. The spade-shaped wooden leaf was dark-stained on the bottom, and polished as smooth as silk. The top had been intricately carved away until the wood was white. Each leaf vein, big and small, had been etched with precision, creating a work of perfection.
Perian looked up at Flint’s ruddy face. “You carved this yourself, didn’t you?”
Flint shrugged and wrinkled his big nose. “It’s not one of my better pieces—just something I did long ago that I kept for myself because it reminded me of the mountain forests near Hillhome.”
“I love it!” Perian said. “Help me?” she asked, holding the necklace up to him.
With frigid, nervous fingers, Flint slipped the chain over her head and watched as she tucked it into her wrap, seeing it rise under the fabric between her breasts.
Flustered, Flint looked away. “You know, the aspen leaf reminds me of you in a way. Aspen wood is strong, but softer than it looks. Each side of an aspen leaf is a different shade of the same color, like black is to gray, and when the wind catches one, the silver side looks like a shimmering vein in a dwarven mine. It is the most beautiful tree in the Kharolis, and it is my favorite anywhere.” Flint blushed, realizing the implication of his words.
The mountain dwarf simply stared at him, opened-mouthed. She reached a hand toward him.
“Listen, Perian,” Flint said, his voice breaking. “I know what I said about a hill dwarf and a mountain dwarf never … you know—” Flint gestured vaguely with his hands. “I still believe that.” He looked at her squarely, seeing the disappointment in her eyes.
“But neither one of us is much like our clan, and life is too short—” He gulped at the appropriateness of the phrase tonight. “Life is too short to never take chances. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, or even after tomorrow, but—”
Perian tumbled into his arms and silenced him with two fingers pressed to his hairy lips. “I don’t care about any time but now.”
His heart pounding in his ears, his vision spinning dizzily, Flint pushed Perian’s wrap from her shoulders, and it slipped to the glowing moss. Pulling the beautiful mountain dwarf against his chest, he crushed her moist, parted lips in a kiss that was rooted in his soul.
Chapter 20
The Advance
“Wake up to swords! Wake up to swords!”
The tumbling mass of Aghar spilled into the royal bedchambers, crawling over and clawing at each other with dirty fingernails in their desperation to be the first to inform their king and queen of the news.
“What’s going on?” mumbled Flint, his arm encircling Perian on their mossy bed in the Thrown Room. It was the morning of the fifth day after Pitrick’s attack. He and Perian had made their way back from the grotto to the comfort of the moss bed not long before Nomscul arrived. “Stop that!” the hill dwarf ordered, waking up finally.
For a moment Nomscul ceased his bouncing on the edge of the bed nearest Flint, an act that was sending clumps of dried moss flying. “Mountain dwarves marching! Two of them! They go to war, take swords and stuff! Gully dwarves great spies! We see all and tell all right soon!”
“OK, Nomscul, I get the point.” Flint was fully awake now. He grabbed the Aghar’s bony shoulders to keep him from jumping up and down. “How many were—are you sure it isn’t just a patrol?”
Nomscul slammed his hands on his hip bones and sniffed, tossing his head at the insult to his intelligence.
Flint reluctantly rolled away from Perian and pushed himself off the bed. Turning his back, he yanked his pants up to his stomach, stuffing his long blue-green tunic into the drawstring waist.
The mountain dwarf was waking up more slowly. “It can’t be the Theiwar troops—it’s too early,” she protested, stabbing the sleep from her eyes with her fists. “It’s only been a couple of days since the attack in the Big Sky Room; Pitrick couldn’t possibly have organized the troops that quickly!”
“Tell that to Pitrick and his army,” Flint grumbled, stuffing his boots onto his feet. “I just hope Basalt’s had enough time to fortify Hillhome. We’re coming, whether they’re ready or not.”
“We can march? Can we?” pleaded Nomscul, thrusting his chest out and stomping about the room to demonstrate his readiness.
Flint ignored the shaman as he finished dressing, his mind on the march ahead of them. He strapped on the Tharkan Axe, his gift from Perian the night before. His fingers lingered over the cool steel blade, while his mind traveled back to the previous evening. Sighing, he slapped some day-old water on his face.
“Tell every gully dwarf in the place that the time has come for the big march. They must get their weapons, their shields, supplies, everything,” the king ordered Nomscul. “Gather up the sludge bombs and meet Queen Perian in the grotto. I’m going there directly to have a look outside myself.” Nodding furiously, Nomscul dashed from the cavern in the direction of the Big Sky Room.
But Perian shook her head as she crawled over Flint’s side of the bed and began to dress hastily. “I’m coming with you.”
Flint turned to her in exasperation. “One of us has to stay here and see that they get organized!” he objected. “How do we know they won’t bring their knives and spoons instead of their swords and shields?”
“We don’t,” said Perian. “But you won’t know which of the thane’s forces we face, or how to combat them. I served in his guard—”
“I remember,” Flint interrupted.
“—I’ll recognize the units, their strengths and their weaknesses. I know the thane’s officers! If anyone stays back here, it should be you!”
Flint gruffly assented. He led them down the sloping Upper Tubes, finally finding the entrance to the stairway into the grotto.
They scrambled down the stairway, Flint taking the steps two at a time. Both of them paused to look at the bench by the pool, still covered with the containers of food and their plates from the night before.
“Come on,” Flint said at last, following the pool to its farthest corner from the stairway, where a large but low-to-the-ground crack in the granite wall allowed access. A deep channel had been cut in the sandy ground there, and presumably it and the crack had been formed by an old stream bed; now the water left the pool by another, newer channel ten feet beyond the old one.
“This is it.” Flint took up Perian’s hand and slipped into the jagged fissure, l
eading the way. Before long they had to walk in a crouch, as the top of the crack loomed close overhead. Flint counted his steps out of habit from his old dungeon-crawling days, and on step ninety-three, they came abruptly into sunlight on a small crest cloaked in pines. The crack was cut slightly at an angle and surrounded by trees, thus it was almost unnoticeable to the untrained eye.
Accustomed to living underground, Perian squinted in pain at the sudden light, made worse by reflections off of early snow. Even Flint blinked at the brightness, having grown used to the darkness below in less than a week. A cold breeze wafted past his face, and the old, familiar sensation invigorated him.
“I have been to the surface less than a dozen times, but it has never looked beautiful to me before today,” Perian confessed, shielding her eyes with an upraised arm. “The light hurts my eyes, but I’ll grow accustomed soon, because I’m half Hylar.” She laughed. “After years of Pitrick’s threats, I never thought I would be happy about that.”
Flint patted her encouragingly on the shoulder; he had the feeling that a lot of things would change today. The hill dwarf knew that they had emerged in the Kharolis range about a half-day northeast of the tunnel by which he had entered Thorbardin. Climbing up the crest to get a better view, he looked down at a mountain stream that he presumed had its origins in the grotto. Flint shielded his eyes and looked to the east. The sky was crystal-clear, and he could see the shimmering shore of Stonehammer Lake about a day’s march away. Looking down the mountain to the west, he could not locate the Passroad, nor see signs of mountain dwarf troops.
“This stream flows down one of the side valleys toward the lake, which meets up with the Passroad,” Flint said. “We should come in sight of the road if we follow the stream down.”
They moved through an open forest, following the gentle descent of the valley. In less than ten minutes they came around a shoulder of the ridge; across barren, snow-dotted slopes they saw the Passroad, a thick brown tendril snaking its way through the foothills north of Thorbardin.
The road was empty for as far to the west as the eye could see.
Arms crossed, Flint chewed his lip. “Have we delayed so long that they’ve already passed from sight ahead of us?” he asked, his voice ragged with concern.
“I don’t think so.” Perian shook her head, not taking her eyes from the general vicinity of the road. “My guess is that they’ve camped somewhere for the day, out of the sun. They probably haven’t moved too far off the road.” She scanned the horizon, stopping to examine the edge of a thicket of pines just a little to the west. “See there?” she asked, pointing. “Under those trees? It’s nearly at the edge of my vision—they could almost be ants!” She concentrated. “No, I’m sure I saw a red plume waving. It’s the Bloody Blades.”
Flint shivered involuntarily at the name. “What are the Bloody Blades?”
Perian pursed her lips while she thought. “The House Guard. The Blades are just one regiment of three, each containing two hundred soldiers. The other regiments are the Silver Swords and the Black Bolts. The three regiments always fight together as a synchronized force, complementing their strengths and weaknesses. They form units of heavy infantry, light infantry, and crossbows.”
“Could you try not to sound so proud of them?” Flint grumbled.
Perian looked only mildly embarrassed. “Old habits,” she said.
Flint whistled through his teeth. “Six hundred dwarves. And against ’em we have a couple hundred Aghar,” he groaned. “Why don’t we just hand Hillhome over?”
“It could be worse,” Perian said, trying to sound encouraging. “The thane has thousands of troops at his disposal, but only the House Guard bear fealty to him alone. The rest defend all of Thorbardin, not just the Theiwar.”
“That’s a comfort,” Flint said sarcastically, digging a hole in a snowbank with the toe of his boot.
“You’re forgetting Basalt,” Perian reminded him softly.
“I’m not,” the old hill dwarf said, shaking his gray head. “But we’re pinning a lot of hopes on that young ’un.”
“Well, we’ve got to get moving,” she said gently. “We’ll get ahead of them by a day while the House Guard bivouacs out of the sun.”
Flint nodded, shaking off his melancholia. Following the stream uphill, the pair of dwarves made their way back up to the crack in the granite. There they found Nomscul.
“You were supposed to organize the troops,” Flint scolded him.
“Rest wait in there, all straight,” Nomscul announced, pointing into the tunnel, “like Nomscul tell them.” Suddenly, gully dwarves began popping from the opening—Fester, Cainker, Oooz, Garf, Pooter, and all the rest. They came out in a steady torrent, carrying every manner of weapon: the one hundred fifty Agharpulters with daggers slipped into their robe belts; one hundred Creeping Wedgies with shields tucked under their arms.
The Aghar milled about the tunnel entrance, a steadily growing mob. Flint and Perian circled them like sheepdogs, trying to keep the group together as their comrades emerged.
Last but not least came the Sludge Bombers, carrying their jugs and bottles and big pots of explosive venom. Flint had cautioned them repeatedly about the need to handle the containers of sludge delicately, so they tiptoed, swinging the jugs any which way as they joined their friends in the sunlight on the mountainside.
“Hold those carefully—carefully!” Flint bellowed. “And where are the litters to carry the sludge bombs?” he asked.
Four gully dwarves trooped out of the crack just then, holding the handles of two makeshift litters, old leather vests each stretched across stout limbs. The biggest jugs of sludge, several measuring a foot across, had been set upon the litters for gentle transport.
Flint and Perian began to organize the three hundred-odd members of the army, such as it was, on the mountainside.
“Assemble your units!” Flint barked. “Nomscul, you lead the Agharpults over here; Oooz, get the Sludge Bombers over there; and Fester, put the Creeping Wedgies here, in the middle.”
To their credit, the Aghar tried to follow the commands of their king. Several minutes of raw chaos ensued as the gully dwarves charged into a single pile of squirming Aghar, where only an occasional arm, leg, or face could be spotted. Somehow the pile resolved itself into three milling groups, more or less organized by the categories Flint had detailed.
Their king felt compelled to offer up some inspiring words. “Stand at attention for some last instructions!” he bellowed.
Again, they tried to stand at attention, but their habit of facing every which way diminished the military precision of the maneuver. Flint only sighed. “Gully dwarves of Mudhole!” he began sternly, trying to get as many of them to face him as possible. “We embark today upon a great excurs—Oooz, get back here!—a great excursion, to face in combat an enemy implacable and bold, savage and—what is it, Nomscul?”
The shaman was hopping in agitation, waving his hand in the air and clenching his lips together as if to forcibly prevent himself from speaking without royal permission. “King talk too much,” explained Nomscul. “We march now?”
Flint’s face flushed, and he aimed a glare at Nomscul that would have transfixed any halfway intelligent subject. Fortunately—for himself, at any rate—Nomscul was only halfway intelligent and simply mistook his monarch’s stare for a warm smile of congratulations.
“In a moment,” Flint growled in exasperation. He turned back to the troops, saw their stupidly eager expressions. “Look, gang, we’ve got quite a march ahead of us; we’ll stop before dark near Stonehammer Lake, then I figure we’ll make it to Hillhome midday tomorrow. It’s vitally important that we stick together as a group—Basalt and all of Hillhome are probably waiting this very minute for us to come and help them. Please try to act like soldiers. Do it for your king and queen.”
“Two chairs for King Flunk and Queen Furryend!” Nomscul shouted. The troops responded with resounding screeches and caterwauls.
“
Let’s go, before they get tangled up again,” Perian suggested in a loud whisper, watching them wander from their units.
“Gully dwarves, march!” cried Flint, waving his arm in a circle over his head.
The king of the gully dwarves led his troops, three hundred strong, down the mountainside, heading for the Passroad east of the House Guard encampment below. This would allow him, with luck and speed, to move his force onto the road somewhere ahead of the thane’s troops.
The organizing into units represented a masterpiece of military precision when compared to the march of the gully dwarves that ensued. In muttered conversation with Perian, Flint could only compare it to the ridiculous task of herding chickens, though after the fourth or fifth effort at chasing down a wayward column of Aghar and returning them to the fold, he amended his comments to the effect that his comparison did a grave disservice to poultry.
To make matters worse, dark, angry clouds rolled in and it began to snow. At first the storm came as great, feathery flakes, gently wafting earthward. Except for the disruption caused by gully dwarves breaking file to catch particularly choice snowflakes with their tongues, the light precipitation caused no problem for the hardy Aghar.
But then the wind rose and the big, friendly flakes grew small and hard, turning into hail. Blustering out of the north, the weather drove stinging needles of ice into their faces, considerably slowing down the progress of the Aghar force. And as the day progressed, the dwarves became more widely scattered, forcing Flint and Perian to cover three or four times as much ground as their charges, constantly running back and forth along the column.
Still moving into the teeth of the storm, they finally descended into a small valley that gave them protection from the worst of the wind.
“I think we’d better stop for a short rest,” urged Perian.
“Why don’t you go ahead and look for a place big enough to hold all of us?” suggested Flint. “I’ll collect the Aghar and bring them up.”
Flint the King Page 25
