by Tom Liberman
Milli smiled brightly and flipped her hair in the direction of the rotund man and managed to blush, “Oh, you charmer.”
Brogus snorted out half of a little game bird that he put in his mouth just a moment before.
A serving girl immediately appeared and began to clean up the mess. She leaned over Brogus and her long, dark hair brushed up against him and he was treated to a generous view down the loose fitting robe thing that she wore.
“And you are tall for a dwarf with the caste of something else about you,” said Ming with a look to Dol.
“I am a half-breed,” said Dol as he took a sip from his mug and smiled broadly. He eyes also wandered over to the girl leaning down to clean up Brogus and a flush came to his cheeks. “This beer is most unusual but I find myself in agreement with Brogus.”
“Half-breed what?” said Manetho interjecting himself into the conversation. “You don’t look human, elf perhaps? But, no not that either. Certainly dwarf blood is predominant.”
“My grandfather was a tree shepherd,” said Dol and stared directly at Manetho with an expressionless face.
The mage’s eyes opened wide, “A tree shepherd! There are not many forests in the desert but there were tree shepherds even in the Sands, or so the legends say. But they vanished centuries ago, long after the elemental were driven from power. Are they still common in your part of the world?”
“Nuhnh uhnn,” said Brogus with his mouth full of food, “he’ss a freaaihk.”
“Dol is not a freak!” said Milli turning to Brogus. “And you might want to slow down with that beer.”
Brogus shrugged his shoulders and took another long draught of beer to wash down whatever caused his cheeks to bulge out so fully.
“A tree shepherd, really?” said Tahnoon as he took another drink of wine and motioned with his head for the serving girls to refill Brogus’s glass.
Dol shrugged his shoulders and narrowed his eyes, “I never met him.”
Milli jumped in, “He doesn’t really know. His mother and father told him stories but we’ve never met a tree shepherd. I don’t think anyone alive has ever met a tree shepherd.”
“Elves live long lives and some darklings too,” said Ming with a narrow-eyed look at Milli. “In the darkling lands the rulers have lived for a thousand years, perhaps longer.”
“Oh, said Milli turning to look at Dol with wide eyes, “I didn’t know that. I don’t even know how long Halflings live. I’ve only been around dwarves and they live to be maybe a hundred or so. Do you think Dol will live for a thousand years? I’ll be dead and gone, oh.”
“Who can say,” said Manetho with a smile. “The world is a strange and wonderful place.”
“Please,” said Ming with a nod of his head and his purple eyes flashed brightly in good cheer, “enough of this morbid talk. There will be time enough for that later. You will stay on as my guests.”
“We will head to the five volcanoes as soon as possible,” said Dol and looked down at the hammer at his side.
“I appreciate that you have a mission,” said Ming. “I am a busy man as well. However, you must see it from my point of view. There is a ruler in the north who covets my territory. You are strange visitors from the north. I cannot let you leave immediately after seeing my … palace … as it were. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you some questions about this Corancil and the disposition of the armies of the north.”
“We don’t know anything about that,” said Milli with a little hiccup. The fruity drink was quite tasty but it did make her a little light-headed. “We’re just here to find the volcanoes.”
“I’m sure that you’re telling the truth,” said Ming his face expressionless. “In any case, you’ll be my guest for a few days while we try to figure out exactly where these five volcanoes of yours are hiding. Then we’ll want to provide you with horses to make the journey. But, I’m afraid affairs of state consume my time and I’ve already spent as much as a I dare with such charming company.” With this the warlord of the Black Horsemen stood, slightly tilted his head in the direction of the seated guests, and then quickly exited the area by one of the, apparently many, hidden egresses.
“He can never shtay,” said Tahnoon, slightly slurring his words as he fumbled around to try and get at a cup of dates nearby. He almost managed to spill them on the tent floor but somehow, at the last moment, steadied the bowl and took one of the delicacies for himself. “The sand never burns the feet of a ruler. So, why are those five volcanoes so important?” asked Tahnoon as he helped himself to more of the food that seemed to arrive continuously carried on trays by an endless supply of dark-skinned girls.
“Dol is on a mission!” said Brogus waving a thick leg of some sort of game bird in a circle. “A mission!”
“Is this mission secret or can you share it?” asked Tahnoon.
Milli looked at Petra, Petra looked at Dol, Dol simply stared straight ahead without saying anything.
“I’m not sure we can say,” said Milli.
“I’m afraid Ming won’t like that,” said Tahnoon with a shrug and a silly smile. “He suspects you are spies. Of course I’m the one who told him that.”
“Spies?” asked Milli with a smile. “We would have died in the desert if we hadn’t managed to overpower those other fellows. Farriders?”
“Ahh,” said Tahnoon and sipped deeply from his glass yet again, “our current enemy. We always seem to have one enemy or another here in the desert. Our entire history is rife with warfare. One tribe against the other. There are now at least a dozen tribes in the Sands and that doesn’t count the dwarves of Temin or the insect men of Dnubcia.
“You said something about a city to the east?” said Petra. She had sampled a little of almost everything that was offered while managing to keep relatively clear of the strong drink.
“Yes, a trading zone of sorts, Tanta, the City in the Sand. There all people are welcome. It is on the great eastern ocean and the priests convert the salt water into drinkable liquid thanks to the miracles of Ras. It is the greatest city in the region but no one is allowed to fight within its confines. It is a neutral territory for all nomads, traders, and others. It is a city of many delights. Perhaps, Brogus, if Dol can be dissuaded temporarily from his quest, you might visit this place. The women are beautiful and skilled in how to please a man in many ways.”
“Sounds good,” said Brogus, turning to Dol and slapping him on the back. “What do you say, chum? Back in Craggen Steep we were just measly apprentices but here, with our gold coins, we could be kings!”
Manetho gave a sideways glance to Tahnoon but the advisor to the Black Horseman continued to drink wine and eat food as if he heard nothing.
Chapter 13
“Miserable mess!” shouted Cleathelm looking up at the ash spewing volcano that stood high against the hot blue sky and shaking his fist to the heavens. “Achooo! That damn sun makes me sneeze. How many volcanoes are there in the southlands?”
The little goblinoid at his side shrugged his shoulders. “At least six.”
“What? How do you know that? Idiot.”
“You said we’re looking for a group of five of them, right?” said Blaggard.
“Yeah, so?” replied Cleathelm with a look of disgust on his face as he shook his head at the little goblin.
“And there’s one right there,” continued the little fellow pointing to the volcano in the distance. “That makes at least six.”
“You think you’re smart, don’t you,” said Cleathelm and reached over to smack the goblin who was quick enough on his feet avoid the blow with room to spare. “One of these days you’ll get what’s coming to you and then you’ll be sorry, yes you will. That damned mage of Corancil’s said he could send us right to the five volcanoes and we paid him a whole bag of gems.”
“Actually,” said another heavily armed dwarf who stood just to the other side of Cleathelm, “he said there was only one active portal and he wasn’t sure exactly where it came out.”
“That’s not what he said to me, you moron!” said Cleathelm and punched the third member of their party in the shoulder. The light chain shirt didn’t give an inch and Cleathelm shook his hand back and forth. “Damn, that hurt.”
“What should we do, Cleathelm” said the second dwarf, not making any attempt to retaliate for the blow.
“I don’t know,” said Cleathelm shaking his head and looking to Blaggard.
“Follow the road,” said the mixed-breed goblin as he pointed to a dirt trail that led off in the opposite direction of the volcano. “It’s got to lead somewhere eventually.”
Not too high above them, on a little escarpment, sat Uldex and two friends. They watched the three below shouting at one another and looked back and forth to each other with bemused grins.
“By Davim, that Cleathelm is an idiot. If they didn’t have Blaggard with them I’d as soon head back to Craggen Steep and figure they’d starve to death before they found any sign of Milli and the others,” said Uldex to his companions. “Keep watching them and see which direction they go. We have to stay behind them as best as possible. Don’t stay too close though. It’s better to lose them and find them again later than to let them know we’re back here.”
“They’ll have to take the trail,” said the broader of his two companions pointing to the little dirt trail not far from Cleathelm and his friends. “Maybe we should circle around and get ahead of them. There’s got to be a town or a village or a farm around here somewhere.”
Uldex looked around in all directions but saw no sign of smoke or village in the lightly wooded terrain of the region. Finally he looked up to the sun and the endless blue sky with its few puffy clouds and suppressed a slight shudder. “They might come up here looking for caves, for shelter. This vast openness is … disturbing.”
“Maybe,” said the smaller of his two companions also with a wary look towards the vast sky.
“No, of course not,” said Uldex answering his own question after only a brief pause. “Cleathelm may be an idiot but his father sent him on a mission and he’ll see it through no matter how clumsily. They’ll follow the road to a village and try and find the five volcanoes. I wonder if they were smart enough to bring a translator amulet?”
The two warriors by his side shrugged simultaneously but said nothing.
“All right,” said Uldex after another moment. “Let’s try and get to the trail in front of them. We don’t want to be seen though. Even if Cleathelm doesn’t recognize us for who we are there might not be many dwarves in the region. Even someone as stupid as him would get suspicious, and Blaggard is nobody’s fool.”
“Where there are mountains, volcano or no, there are dwarves,” said his broad shouldered companion.
“True enough,” said Uldex with a nod of his head and a tight smile. “Still, I’d like to keep as little seen as possible.”
“Why not just jump them, kill them, and be done with it,” said the smaller of his two friends with a wicked little grin on his face as he fingered the heavy axe at his side. “We can do it, easy.”
“That’s what I suggested to Uncle Borrombus before we headed out to follow these idiots, but it is not our job. We are to follow them, see where they go, and only intervene if they are doing something directly against Milli and Dol.”
“Orders are orders,” said his big friend.
“Yes,” said Uldex, “I suppose they are.”
Chapter 14
“Damn that Brogus,” said Milli as she and Petra sat in the luxurious tent provided to them by the Black Rider. The cushions were made of some soft material that Milli did not recognize, and there seemed an endless supply of fresh drinks and food brought in by handsome young nomads with black eyes and hard muscles. Indoors the nomad’s loose fitting clothes sometimes slipped to reveal far more skin than Milli was used to seeing. “Why does he have to drink so much and blather on like a child?” she said as her eyes wandered to the departing nomad whose muscled legs displayed handsomely in the short wrap that he wore.
Petra put her finger to her lips and replied quietly, “Shhhh, it’s most likely that Tahnoon has spies around our tent. He is a crafty one, pretending to get drunk while all the while asking leading questions and hoping for information. The Black Horseman and Tahnoon planned that entire meeting down to the wine they served. They’ll never let us go. They’ll get what they need to know about Corancil and his armies and then they’ll kill us.”
“I don’t know,” said Milli with a shrug of her shoulder and longing gaze at the jug filled with the sweetest juice she’d ever tasted. “Ming seemed like a pretty decent fellow before he had to leave.”
“Good guard, bad guard,” said Petra. “I’ve been in enough prisons in my life to know that game. They’re scared of Corancil and his armies. They think he’ll invade and they’re almost certainly right. You know that as well as I do. They’ll get as much information from us as possible and then kill us in some awful way. Stake us out in the sun, feed us to some terrible desert creature, trample us with those horses of theirs, who knows, but they’ll kill us in the end, don’t make a mistake about that,” she continued with her black eyes cold and set as she stared at the girl. “Don’t let notions of romance fool you into a sense of security.”
“How can you be so sure?” said Milli with a rather unfocused gaze at the woman. Then she paused briefly before continuing “You’ve been in prison?”
“Since I was a little girl, many times. We gypsies are always hunted and hounded and framed for something the local noble’s son did in the first place. It’s always the same. People say those in authority do what’s necessary, while we are called thieves for stealing only a fraction of what they take. Some prisons are worse, some are better, but none of them are good. We are in one now, gilded to be certain, but a prison nonetheless. Ming knows about Craggen Steep, he knows we carry a large amount of treasure, and they’re fools if they couldn’t see the power of Dol’s hammer. They’ll want the gold and hammer if nothing else. Even if we don’t have much information about the invasion they’ll want that much.”
“Damn that Brogus! Why did Davim make men so stupid?”
“It’s in their nature, you use it to your advantage. Don’t deny it, little girl, I’ve seen you flip your hair and bat your eyes.”
Milli pursed her lips and shrugged her shoulders before she smiled, “That’s a different kind of stupid.”
Petra shook her head, “Stupid is what it is. And don’t think it’s an accident that they’ve sent handsome young stallions to our tent. You can bet that they’ve sent pretty girls to the boys.”
At this Milli suddenly looked down and felt her face go red.
Petra patted her arm and gave a little knowing wink, “No sense in not looking though! Now, we have to figure out how to escape from here before they kill us. We have to hint that we know more about Corancil than we’re letting on so they keep trying to get Brogus drunk to find out more. The longer we can stay alive the better our chances to escape.”
“How can we escape?” said Milli. “It’s nothing but desert in all directions, and even if we stole horses you saw how those nomads ride. They’d track us down in hours.”
“We need to find a map of the desert. There’s that trading town they said, Tanta. We steal the horses, get to the trading town, and get aboard a ship heading south to the volcano lands. We learned that much at least. From there it can’t be too hard to find five volcanoes. How many areas can have five of them right next to each other?”
“I don’t know,” said Milli and buried her head in her hands. “How did things get so messed up? We were supposed to come south, kill Gazadum, and get famous and rich. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
Petra looked at the girl and shook her head, “How old are you, Milli?”
“Nineteen I think,” said the girl. “They weren’t sure how old I was when they found me. Three or four they guess.”
“And you’ve lived your entire life in Craggen St
eep, with dwarves?”
Milli nodded as a tear formed in her eye.
“It’s okay; it’s not your fault, Milli,” said Petra and again patted her gently on the arm.
“We’re all going to die and it’s my fault! I didn’t think ahead, I didn’t plan for the desert, I didn’t think Ming would kill us. I’m so stupid.”
“Just naïve,” said Petra and leaned over to give the girl a hug. “It’s okay. Girls are allowed to cry.”
Milli choked back a sob, “Not dwarf girls, crying is for the weak.”
“Oh dearie, that’s just not true. Let it all out. I’m here.”
Milli tried to prevent another sob but her little body convulsed and suddenly she was weeping and hugging Petra tightly.
In another tent, far enough away to seem close but distant enough to confuse strangers in the tent city, Dol sat over the unconscious Brogus and watched his snoring friend for long hours. The Hammer of Fire was at it his side as he contemplated the events of the evening silently and coolly although he felt his anger rising at his companion’s foolish admissions in the tent of the Black Horseman. He thought about waking Brogus just to chastise him but there was no sense in flogging a dwarf because he stole a little gold from the ore bin. He was certain that this Ming fellow would kill them all in the end, and he was even more concerned that the nomads might resort to torture to get information. The riders seemed like hard men who would do what it took to secure their safety.
Dol had watched, more than once, as dwarf torture masters used their wiles on captured darklings to get information about raids, citadels, strongholds, and anything else they might now. They broke down quickly under proper inducement and always told everything they knew or could make up. This was often useful but more often it was impossible to extract the truth from the myriad of lies. More than once Dol had watched a darkling, scourged to within an inch of his life tell of great hidden citadels with mountains of jewels, any lie just to stop the pain for a little while. Even more painful than the thought of torture was the idea that the hammer might fall into the hands of these nomads. His hammer. He caressed the handle lightly and felt the heat of it travel up his fingers. He was becoming more used to it every day. He practiced holding it for longer and longer periods of times when the others weren’t watching too closely. Soon he would be able to master its power. He remembered that first surge of heat when they broke through the wall to the outside world. Then again, much more powerfully, when he killed that nomad. The surge of fire, the heat, the power. He looked at the hammer by his side and stroked it again, “Nothing can stand in my way,” he whispered to himself. “Not when I have you. And I won’t let them take you.”