Flint the King p2-2 Page 7

  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 aban doned 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 wrestle 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 harrn. 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 fi nally 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 wag ons 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 return ing to the mountain dwarf kingdom? Flint knew he had little time before the derro crew awoke or returned from the tav erns, 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 re turn?"

  "They always stagger back at the last minute," an uncon cerned 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 to ward 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 con tinued 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 be tween 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 cor ner 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 go ing 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 pain ful 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 excit edly. 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 lis tened; 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 fin gers 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 cav ity the panel had revealed. Spotting several long wooden crates, he wasted no time in prying the nearest lid off, snap ping 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 an other 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 supe rior 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 sig nature. 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 der ro 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 der ro 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, di rectly 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. Bal anced 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 tav erns, staggering and laughing, oblivious to Flint clinging to the top of the gate above them.

  But the guard from the shop was yelling a warning as he ran to the gate. His cohorts looked up in time to see the hill dwarf's exhilarated expression as he threw himself from the top of the gate and crashed into them. Their bodies broke his fall, and they were scattered like bowling pins, taking the other guard down with them. Flint jumped to his feet un hurt. The stunned derro could only shake their foggy heads as the barefoot hill dwarf cut left on Main Street and tore down the road and out of sight.

  Chapter 6

  Hasty Departure

  Flint deliberately avoidea the village, leading his muddy trail away from the Fireforge home. He would not be able to explain his appearance to his family — from his head to his toes he was mud-caked and spattered with blood. His mind was in a tumult, and he needed to think things out before he could face anyone with his suspicions.

  His tender bare feet cold and sore, Flint set out into the eastern hills just south of the pass. Using steel and flint, he made a fire in the seclusion of a small cave that had a moun tain stream trickling past it. He stripped off every stitch of his dirty clothing and washed it by hand in the ice-cold wa ter, laying it out to dry on rocks around the fire. The tired old hill dwarf splashed his face, scrubbed the mud from his hair, and then, unclothed, he returned to sit by the fire, star ing without thoughts into the flames for a very long time.

  Flint's blue-green cotton tunic dried quickly, and when he slipped it over his head, he was glad for the long hem that dropped to his knees. His leather pants would take much more time to dry. And he dearly missed his boots.

  His stomach rumbled now, reminding him that he had not eaten since that morning. Noticing fish in the shallow stream, he knelt beside the water and pushed up his sleeve.

  He dipped his hand in, slowly herding an unsuspecting rain bow trout to where he could raise his hand quickly and flip the fish onto the shore. It took him four painstaking tries, but finally a small trout, yet a good seven inches long, was flopping around on the sandy cave floor. Flint quickly slit its silvery belly with his carving knife, cleaned it, then skew ered the fish on a sharpened stick. He remembered seeing some berries on his way to the cave, and
while the fish was roasting over the flames, he picked two handfuls of red raspberries by the light of the waxing moon.

  Only after his stomach was full of succulent fish and sweet berries did he feel capable of thinking at all. Though he had only the ramblings of a simpleton to support the be lief, Flint knew in his gut that Aylmar must have been mur dered, and likely because he knew the true contents of the mountain dwarves' wagons. He had killed one of the derro on instinct — but on what evidence? The word of the village idiot? Though his family might believe him, he would still be imprisoned, causing great humiliation and the ruination of the Fireforge name in Hillhome. What bothered Flint more, though, was that from jail he would be unable to dis cover Aylmar's killer and avenge his brother's death.

  Flint was determined to do both, or die trying. He would keep his suspicions to himself, until he had evidence no one could refute.

  "This is a fine example you set for the family!" grumbled a harsh voice from the barn door when Flint arrived on the front lawn the next morning. He had spent a fitful night sleeping in the cave before setting out at dawn, circling around the south side of the village to reach the family home. Ruberik was in a huff, his milking pail in hand. "Dis appear all night and then come staggering home — a dis grace, that's what it is!"

  Flint's feet were blistered and cold, and he had no patience left. "Listen, Brother," he growled, fixing Ruberik with a glare that halted him in his tracks. "I don't know what branch of the family could produce such a tight-faced, sneering, pompous sourpuss of a hill dwarf as yourself!"

  Ruberik's eyes bugged out of his head, and he was too as tonished to reply before Flint continued. "Whatever quirk of nature made you my brother, you are my younger brother and you've taken too much advantage of my good nature. Now, I've had enough of your self-important proc lamations. You have no idea where I've been or what I've been doing, so I'll expect you to keep your opinions to your self and show some respect to your elders!"