"Uncle Flint?"
"What? Oh, yes. I'm thinking!" he snapped. If he wanted to avenge Aylmar, he had no choice but to venture into the stream.
"Oh, all right!" he snarled at last, hitching up his belt, willing his right foot to take a step into the stream. Only it would not move.
"What's the matter, are you afraid of water?" Basalt asked incredulously.
That did it. Setting his chin firmly, Flint clomped two steps into the swiftly flowing stream, barely suppressing a scream as melted mountain snow flowed over the tops of his leather climbing boots. He bit his lip until it nearly bled.
Suddenly a strong eddy grabbed his legs and sent him slid ing off the uneven, slimy rocks under his feet.
"Whoa!" Basalt's strong arm reached out; he caught his uncle by the collar and held tight before the dwarf fell face first into the frigid water. Flint's axe clattered against the rocks on the narrow bank, and he nonchalantly wiped wa ter droplets from the weapon's shiny surface while he gath ered the courage to make another move.
"Let go of me — I mean, you can let go of me now, Bas," he finished more calmly, twisting his damp tunic back into place. He had one goal now that overshadowed all others: he wanted only to get to the end of this stream-road as quickly as possible without falling. And if he should fall, he prayed that Reorx would take him quickly.
Flint set off slowly, concentrating so intently on his feet that his head began to ache with the strain. His toes were numb, as were his legs beneath his soaked leather pants.
Sharp rocks jabbed at the souls of his feet through his boots.
They had progressed perhaps one hundred feet upstream when Flint heard the sound, though at first he thought it was only the blood banging through his temples. No, he de cided, it sounds like wagon wheels. But why would a wagon be coming through now? It was only early evening, just heading toward dusk. The hill dwarf held up a hand to warn
Basalt, and he concentrated on the approaching noise. It was coming from behind them, he determined, probably an empty wagon returning after a run through Hillhome to Newsea.
The hill dwarves couldn't backtrack and they couldn't outrun the wagon. They had to hide! But where? Flint tore his gaze from his feet and spotted some aspen branches hanging over the stream from the right side of the tiny bank.
They would just have to duck low and hope the branches covered them.
Quickly he slogged the ten feet to the branches, waving
Basalt to follow. Flint instinctively held his breath before dropping to his knees on the rocky stream bed, letting the cold mountain water lap at his shoulders and tear at his jan gled nerve endings till he thought he could endure it no more. He felt Basalt stiffen at his side.
Hurry, damn you! he screamed inwardly at the approach ing wagon. Oh, how I wish I were on that dry wagon and the derro were in this wretched water, thought Flint. That image gave him an idea.
"Bas," he whispered, no louder than a breath, "Wait for me in the brush back where the road turns to river. Two days, no more. Then go home."
"What? I'm going with you!" Basalt hissed quickly, then he saw the determined look on his uncle's gray-bearded face. "You need me — "
"Look, Bas, I'm not even sure I can get in this way," Flint began almost apologetically, "but two of us are sure to get nailed. Two days, no morel I'll be OK!"
The wagon was almost upon them. Approaching their home base, the guards obviously did not fear an attack and were asleep on the buckboard, and the driver nearly dozed from the tedium, too. The four horses pulled the wagon steadily up the stream bed through the knee-high water.
Flint mentally measured the distance and timed the rotation of the huge wooden wheels with their iron spokes.
Flint broke his concentration just long enough to hold Ba salt's gaze. "Watch yourself, son."
The wagon was smack in front of them now, the four horses churning the water with their big hooves. Flint launched himself between the bone-crushing wheels and caught the bottom of the cargo box with just three of the thick fingers of his right hand. He quickly swung himself monkey-style until his left hand connected with the axle brace of the right front wheel. Wrapping his arms and legs around it, he held on for dear life and dangled beneath the wagon and just above the water, waiting for some large, pointed rock to impale him from below.
The wagon stopped abruptly, and he heard animated con versation.
"You clear the tunnel," someone said.
It's your turn!" another said in a sleepy voice. "I had to clear those boulders out of the way by that ridge a few days ago."
"Oh, all right!" the first one said.
The front end of the wagon bounced slightly as one of the derro sprang to the ground and landed in the water with a splash.
Flint hugged the axle and made himself as small as possi ble. Lowering his head just slightly, he looked under the front of the wagon and saw that thick brush blocked the bank of the stream beside them. The hill dwarf saw only branches, water, and the mountain dwarf's waist at water level until the fellow moved the tree limbs to either side of the wagon, forming an opening in the steep stream bed.
Deep ruts that led out of the stream were revealed where the branches had been. With an oath, the driver coaxed the horses through a turn to the left, and the poor creatures la boriously hauled the heavy wagon out of the stream and onto the concealed portion of the road.
The driver did not stop the wagon as both guards dropped to replace the brush pile, then climbed back onto the rear of the wagon, where Flint could hear them crawl over the hollow wooden cargo hold and take their places at the front again.
They rolled a short distance, and the sounds of the stream fell behind. It suddenly grew dark, and Flint knew they had entered a tunnel. His arms began to ache so that he could no longer hold onto the bouncing axle brace. Unclenching his stiff hands, arms, and legs, he dropped to the sandy ground, being careful to avoid the enormous iron wheels. He crouched in the darkness, waiting until the wagon had rum bled out of earshot. His heat-sensing infravision responded only dimly in the cold tunnel, outlining the walls in faint red.
Flint took two short steps, his boots crunching softly on the tunnel floor. Then he froze. A second click, following the sound of his own footstep, came from the right. Then another, from higher up, and another even higher. When he heard something snap directly overhead, Flint twisted des perately and threw himself to the left, but it was too late. A cage of iron bars slammed down around him, and he crashed into its side. Furiously Flint grasped the bars with both hands and pushed, pulled, lifted, and rattled them, but the cage was too heavy to budge. He dropped to his knees and scraped at the tunnel floor. Aside from a thin layer of loose gravel, it was solid rock.
The dwarf leaned back against the bars. "Damn!"
Chapter 9
A Parting of the Ways
They took his axe immediately — Flint felt naked with out it. Still angered by the ease with which he had been cap tured, the hill dwarf seethed under the watchful eyes of eight guards while a detachment proceeded to alert their commander. The sentries in the tunnel were derro dwarves, white-skinned and wide-eyed. They wore polished black plate armor with long purple plumes trailing from their helms.
Although the cage had been raised so that he was no longer imprisoned by bars, the derro guards made Flint sit in a stone recess in the tunnel wall. As they waited, the derro played some kind of betting game with pebbles on the smooth, stone floor at the mouth of the cramped alcove. Es cape, for the moment anyway, was clearly out of the ques tion. He could only sit and fidget as time crawled by.
"Who's in charge here, anyway?" Flint asked once, after more than an hour had passed.
One of the derro guards looked up from the game with a cold gaze. His large, pale eyes showed almost as much emo tion as the stare of a dead fish, Flint thought. "Shuddup," was the fellow's only reply.
Sometime later Flint heard the step of several pairs of heavy boots. The guards hastily put away their stones and jumped to the
ir feet, standing rigidly. The footsteps tromped closer, but Flint could not see whoever approached through the narrow opening of his niche.
"Column, halt!" The command, spoken in a harsh yet un deniably female voice, brought the march to a stop. "The prisoner?" he heard the same voice inquire.
"In here, Captain."
Two derro hauled Flint roughly to his feet and pulled him from the alcove. He found himself facing a frawl mountain dwarf, leading a fresh detachment of guards. She carried a small hand axe, unlike the battle-axes hoisted by the rest of the guards, and she wore the golden epaulets of command on her shoulders.
Her smooth face and warm hazel eyes set her immediately apart from the others, all of whom were male. She wore the same helmet as her men, with its trailing purple plume, but wild copper curls escaped its confines and danced across her shoulders every time she moved her head. Her chain mail sleeves revealed arms of sinewy muscle, but the steel breast plate she wore suggested an undeniably feminine fullness of shape.
"Why am I being held prisoner?" Flint blurted. "I demand — " He stopped suddenly, cut off by the slap of a guard's meaty hand across his face.
"Prisoners have no rights here," the frawl said coldly. 'You may speak when given permission. Otherwise, keep your tongue still. You'll be given ample opportunity to confess your crimes of spying on the Theiwar. Come along."
The detachment surrounded him. In silence they tromped back the way they had come, deeper into the tunnel, toward
Thorbardin. Flint noted that the passageway had only re cently been widened, or perhaps created anew; jagged out croppings of rock still remained on the walls revealing, in places on the floor, fresh chisel cuts. Wagon tracks were visi ble, but had not yet scarred the rock floor.
Eventually the tunnel swung to the left and before long opened into a vast cavern. A pall of smoke hung in the air, and the clash of heavy iron tools rang constantly, echoing around the stone chamber with a reverberating din. Before Flint stood huge mounds of coal, forming a black ridge some twenty feet high. This pile blocked his view of the rest of the cavern.
"Looks like a pretty big operation," suggested Flint art lessly. "Making some farming tools?"
The businesslike frawl seemed not to hear him at first.
Then she turned and eyed him sarcastically. "It's strange — you don't seem unintelligent…"
"Thank you — " he interrupted.
"… just foolhardy," she finished, as if he had not spoken.
"You would be well advised to curb your curious nature, and your clever tongue, if you don't care to lose both."
He studied her profile curiously. What manner of dwarf was this commander? She did not fit his mental picture of a mountain dwarf, and her eyes and hair did not seem to match the derro around her. Yet she was obviously a leader, and her rank indicated that she'd been recognized and re warded for that ability.
They left the huge cavern and entered a maze of tunnel like streets. Uncountable side streets led away from the ave nue, and mountain dwarves moved quickly and quietly along them. Overhead, perhaps twenty feet above, the street was capped by a stone ceiling. The buildings to either side extended from floor to ceiling. Counting the windows,
Flint guessed that most of them contained three or even four interior floors. Some of these buildings appeared to be built from stone and brick, while others seemed to be carved from the solid mountain. All of them, however, were deco rated with the heavy, brooding stonework that character ized derro cities. All dwarven architecture tended to be in tricately carved and sculpted, but the derro favored a style that seemed almost oppressive, palpably dark, to Flint.
As they wound along the rows of stone buildings, Flint counted mostly shops and houses. He heard the unmistak able noise of rowdy drinking from taverns, the sounds of households preparing for the day, the rumble of manufac turing houses and craft shops — all the bustle of a major city.
"So this is Thorbardin," he said, his wonder almost over shadowing his predicament.
"One of the cities of Thorbardin," his escort corrected him. "City of the Theiwar of Thane Realgar."
They marched down a wide avenue in almost total dark ness, the only light coming from small wall torches, and shed by fires in hearths and cookstoves glowing in the build ings. Flint had no trouble seeing in the dark, and he sus pected that the derro were even more at home in it than he was. This city was as large as any Flint had ever been in, and it was only one of many! For the first time Flint began to grasp the enormity of the mountain dwarf kingdom.
Finally they turned off the avenue into what looked like a side street. A clanking of metal suddenly drew Flint's eyes upward in alarm, fresh with the memory of the cage that had snared him earlier. The noise did come from a cage of sorts, but this one was an enclosure of metal bars suspended from a heavy chain. With a crash the contraption settled into a square frame of metal that stood before them. The frawl stepped forward and opened the cage.
"What's this?" growled Flint. "An underground cell isn't good enough?" A derro prodded him forward sharply while the captain looked at him in surprise. "It's a lift. You really are a barbarian, aren't you? Step in. We're riding to level three, for an… interview." She and two guards joined him in the cage.
"Then what?" Flint scowled, trying to cover his nervous ness as the cage suddenly lurched upward. The mountain dwarves seemed to be indifferent to the gently swaying movement.
"That's up to Pitrick." She looked into his face for the first time. "You should have anticipated the consequences of your actions," she added angrily.
"Who is 'Pitrick?' "
"Chief adviser to Thane Realgar."
They rode upward in silence for a few moments. The cage passed into a hollow cylinder in the bedrock, then emerged onto a flat platform, perfectly square and approximately a hundred feet on each side. The ceiling was quite high, nearly at the limit of Flint's vision in the darkness. It appeared to be a natural cavern roof, not an excavated ceiling, though how it came to be suspended atop four square walls puzzled
Flint. Each of the walls held a sturdy gate, and each gate was guarded by a pair of derro wearing the same purple plumage as the sentries in the tunnel.
The cage lurched to a halt, and one of the derro swung the gate open. "Out, now," ordered the captain. She and the guards stepped behind Flint. The captain approached one of the doors, but stopped when Flint called to her.
"Wait!" the hill dwarf shouted.
The frawl turned and looked at him curiously. He noticed that several of her coppery curls had fallen over one of her eyes. Impatiently, she pushed the offending locks away.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Might I know your name?" Flint felt compelled to ask the question.
She hesitated a moment, and Flint thought her face soft ened in the bare light.
"You might," she said, turning on a polished heel. She marched to a gate in one of the walls, which the derro guards hastily opened. They just as hastily closed it behind her, and she disappeared from Flint's sight.
"Captain Cyprium to see you, my lord," intoned the burly derro sergeant who guarded Pitrick's door.
"Send her in." The voice, from within the apartment, sounded to Perian like the rasp of a reptile. She stepped through the door, and it was quickly closed behind her.
"Do you have news, or is this a visit for pleasure?" Pitrick inquired. Sitting in a hard granite armchair, wearing a robe of golden silk, the adviser looked up with interest at the cap tain's entrance.
"We've captured a hill dwarf at the tunnel," she reported flatly.
Pitrick sprang to his feet, his grotesque frame moving with surprising agility. "Excellent!" he cried, clapping his hands in delight.
"He seems pretty harmless," Perian added.
"Your opinion is of no interest to me," sneered Pitrick. "I will decide his status, and his fate."
"Shouldn't you take him to the thane?"
The hunchback limped over and looked up at her with a cruel gr
in. Now Pitrick's face pressed close to hers, and the stench of his breath brought the usual revulsion. "His Excel lency has given me control of all matters relating to the tun nel and the trade route. I have no need to consult him. And need I remind you, my warrior pet, that 'matters relating to the tunnel' now include you."
Pitrick turned away from her. "I will see the prisoner, but not here. Take him to the tunnel beyond the North Warrens — you know the place." Perian felt sick to her stom ach. Yes, she knew the place.
"Oh," added Pitrick, twisting to face her again. His grin had eroded to a thin, sly smile. "Catch one of those Aghar that forever raid the garbage dump. Bring him along with the hill dwarf. Have them all at the tunnel in four hours."
"A gully dwarf? Why?" The Aghar, or gully dwarves, were common pests in Thorbardin. They were the lowest form of dwarf, so dirty, smelly, and stupid that few of the other dwarves could tolerate their presence. The Aghar lived in' secret lairs and often emerged to rummage through garbage dumps and refuse piles, seizing "treasures" that they would hasten back to their lairs. But they're harmless little creatures, Perian thought.
"Never mind why!" barked Pitrick, startling her with his vehemence. "You will obey me! Or — " His voice dropped ominously "- or you will pay the price for insubordina tion."
The sudden glow in his wild eyes left no doubt in Perian's mind as to what that price would be.
Flint was startled by the look on the Theiwar captain's face as she emerged from the gate and stomped back to the cage. She would neither meet the hill dwarf's eyes nor an swer any of his questions, except one.
"My name is Perian Cyprium," she told him.
"Flint Fireforge," he said simply.
The cage took them back to the street level, where they marched down the avenue, around a corner, and along sev eral smaller streets. Everywhere Flint saw busy derro, mov ing quickly and silently about their business. Never had he seen a place that was so populous, yet seemed so exception ally ominous and grim.
They came to a barracks building where several platoons of purple-plumed guards stood or lounged about a court yard. Here Flint was thrown into a cell, where he sat idly and undisturbed for several hours.
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