Flint the King

by Mary Kirchoff

  “What were you thinking about?” she demanded. “I could see from your face that you were activating the teleport ring!”

  Flint shook away the remnants of the tingling sensation. “You mean someone other than Pitrick can use that thing?” he gasped.

  “Of course.” She shrugged. “It’s just like any other magical item. Pitrick used it constantly because of his clubbed foot. He explained it to me once when he was trying to frighten me. He said all he had to do was grasp the ring and picture as clearly as possible the place where he wanted to go.”

  Anyplace he wanted … Flint remembered his thoughts of Hillhome, moments earlier, and had an idea. He turned to Basalt. “I can’t leave the gully dwarves.” He looked squarely into his nephew’s face. “But you can. You could use the ring to teleport back to Hillhome and give them a couple of extra days to prepare for the derro attack, or at least gather some weapons. They’ll believe you, Basalt.” Flint took the ring from Perian’s hand and thrust it forward. “I know Moldoon will, anyway, and you can start by telling him. He’ll rally the rest of ’em.”

  Basalt recoiled from the magical band as if struck. “You don’t understand! I can’t tell anyone, least of all Moldoon!” the young dwarf cried, his face wracked with grief. He turned away in shame. “He’s dead, and it’s my fault!”

  Flint shook his head uncomprehendingly. “Moldoon dead? What are you talking about?” Flint clasped Basalt’s shoulder and spun his nephew around. “Speak up, harrn!”

  Now it was Basalt’s turn to explain. Hiccupping with sobs, he recounted the events of the previous evening, just before the gully dwarves had kidnapped him.

  “… then Moldoon stepped between us to stop the fight, and the derro stabbed him, just like that!” Basalt dropped his face in his hands, and his shoulders shook.

  Flint was stunned and grieved by the news of the old human’s death. He saw the pain in Basalt’s face, pictured the casual cruelty of the derro guard. His hatred of the Theiwar burned hotter than ever. It had become a fire that could only be doused with blood.

  “Basalt,” Perian said, chewing a nail, “it sounds as if this Moldoon was only doing what he felt he had to do. You can’t be blamed because he came between you and the derro.”

  “Don’t you see?” Basalt looked up, bleary-eyed. “Everyone has been right about me—I’m nothing but a worthless drunk who can’t defend himself! I didn’t tell you about the derro patrol that found me outside of Thorbardin after you left. They chased me off like a scared rabbit—didn’t even think enough of me to kill me! Gods,” he cried, looking upward and shaking his fists, “I wish they had!”

  “Stop it” Flint slapped him hard across the face. He saw Perian flinch at what she must have thought needless cruelty. Stunned, Basalt stared at his uncle, wiping away his tears with the back of his hand. Flint waited for him to compose himself.

  “Now you’ve grieved,” his uncle said at last, his expression determined. “For your father. For Moldoon. For yourself. Put it past you, because there’s something more important at stake here.”

  The lines in Flint’s face softened, and he grasped Basalt by the shoulders. “Prove everybody wrong, Basalt. Starting today, prove everybody wrong by mustering every bit of courage and grit you have to persuade them to believe something they won’t want to hear.” He shook him, hard. “Do it, Basalt. You must, because it’s the only real chance Hillhome has.”

  “Do you really think I can persuade them?” he whispered.

  Flint smiled at him encouragingly. “I know you can.”

  Basalt looked at the ring in Flint’s palm. It was made of two incomplete bands of steel woven together and split at the top, so that the two jagged ends protruded outward. He took it and slipped it tentatively onto the middle finger of his left hand. An unfamiliar sense of energy surged through him, though it came not from the ring, but from the glint of faith and respect in his uncle’s eyes. He stood straighter, more sure.

  “Go to the family first,” Flint advised him. “Under the greed and the pompous protestations, they are Fireforges; show them how you’ve changed, and they’ll give you a chance. You’ll see.”

  “Picture the destination in your mind, Basalt,” Perian added, her face a mask of concern for what the naive young hill dwarf was about to undertake.

  Basalt nodded wordlessly and began to concentrate on the main room in the family home.

  “Tell them everything we’ve revealed to you, and that we’ll be there in three days, four at the latest. We’re counting on you to make them believe.”

  His face scrunched up in concentration, Basalt’s image shimmered.

  “You can do it, Basalt!” Flint called out as the last traces of his nephew disappeared before their eyes.

  Flint and Perian stood alone in the beauty of the grotto, enveloped by the rhythmic pounding of the waterfall.

  Chapter 17

  Teleporting We Go

  Flint threw a cracked wooden shield to the side in disgust. “We aren’t going to find enough decent weapons here to equip us, let alone three hundred defenseless gully dwarves,” he complained bitterly to Perian from atop a six-foot-high garbage mound in the Big Sky Room, across the stream and opposite the Thrown Room tunnel.

  They were anxious to begin preparations for the march to Hillhome, and since the first item on Perian’s list was collecting weapons, they had made their way back to the Big Sky Room shortly after Basalt had teleported away from the grotto. Across the stream and to their left, the gully dwarves continued to work away at filling the hole that Pitrick’s spell and the beast had left in the wall.

  As for the beast itself, the Aghar had finished chopping the front half up into little bits. After a stern lecture from their disgusted king about their new game of “beast toss,” a number of them had been dispatched to carry wooden crates of the beast out through the crackingrotto, while the rest were now hard at work on the rear.

  Up to her hips in odd shoes, discarded pots, leftover food, and other “treasures” on the far side of the mound, Perian was gazing intently at an old axe she’d found.

  “Finding anything interesting?” Flint called.

  Perian looked up guiltily and, without really thinking, slid the axe into her belt loop, the haft hidden within the folds of her tunic. “What was that? I’m sorry, I wasn’t listening.”

  Flint shook his gray head, climbed off the mound, came around to her side, and stood with his arms crossed dejectedly. “Where are we going to find enough weapons? Are we going to send the Aghar off to war with sharpened dinner forks?” he spat.

  Perian slid down the heap to clap him on the shoulder encouragingly. “Don’t worry, Nomscul says there are lots more garbage heaps where we may find useful items. Besides, the Agharpults don’t really need weapons.”

  Flint snorted in derision. “Great, then we only need two-hundred Agharpults.” He picked up a brown wooden button, the size of his palm, and shuffled it between his hands idly. “We don’t stand much of a chance armed against the derro, let alone weaponless.”

  Perian jammed her hands on her hips in irritation. “Flint Fireforge, if you’re not even going to try to be optimistic, then—then,” she sputtered in exasperation, “then—oh, I don’t know why I bother with you! You’re the crabbiest hill dwarf I’ve ever met!”

  “And how many hill dwarves have you met?” he teased, his eyes twinkling. He enjoyed getting her dander up.

  “One more than I like!” she shot back, and though her eyes flashed dark hazel below her curly copper hair, the corners of her red lips were raised in an almost imperceptibly playful smile.

  Grinning back, Flint thought, how different she is from the frawls I’ve met in more than a century of life. He nearly reached up to brush a wayward curl from her forehead, then caught himself. Why do my hands seek excuses to touch her? We both know hill dwarves and mountain dwarves don’t mix.

  “What, no quick retort?” Perian asked him, suddenly conscious of his stare.

&nb
sp; The hill dwarf’s bushy mustache turned down in a frown. “We’ve too much work to do to indulge in verbal jousts,” he said irritably, pitching the brown button into the heap again.

  Hurt by his sudden mood shift, Perian bristled. “Whatever you say. I’m anxious as well to be done with this Hillhome campaign, so I can get on with things in my own life!”

  “There’s nothing that says you have to do ‘this Hillhome campaign,’ ” he said coldly.

  Perian’s hazel eyes narrowed to slits. “You may not understand this, but my sense of honor prevents me from reneging on a promise.”

  Flint whirled on her. “I never asked for your promise to help.”

  Perian trembled with anger. “I was referring to my vow to stay with the gully dwarves,” she said quietly.

  “Oh.”

  Silence.

  “I have things to do.” Averting her face, Perian quickly strode across the bridge that spanned the stream and bolted for the tunnel to the Thrown Room.

  Flint swore silently. Why all of a sudden had he acted like such a proud, stubborn old fool? Go after her, tell her you’re sorry, he said to himself. Tell her whatever you have to to take that disgusted look from her eyes!

  “Eeeeeeoooooo!”

  Following the echoing cry of distress, Flint’s head snapped to the left, where he saw a crew of ten gully dwarves still dismantling the carrion crawler. Hissing smoke rose in small clouds around half of the Aghar, who were doing a bizarre dance of pain.

  “How have you boneheads set yourselves afire now?” the hill dwarf groaned, taking the bridge in four strides. He ran the two hundred feet to where they stood around the oozing remains of the giant carrion crawler.

  Though surrounded by choking, putrid-smelling smoke, Flint could find no signs of fire. Four of the gully dwarves had drawn into themselves in fear, their big eyes peering now and then over their shoulders at their screaming comrades.

  Those five were covered in varying degrees with a black, tarlike slime, which they were frantically trying to fling from their bodies. Each time they managed to toss a globule to the ground, it exploded on contact with a spark and a loud “bang!” then fizzled into a noxious gray cloud.

  “It burn my skin off!”

  “Black goop make fingers bubble!”

  “It like bomb!”

  “I all sweaddy!”

  “It eat hole to my brain!”

  “That your ear,” Nomscul informed him calmly, looking closely at the side of one Aghar’s head. Nomscul had been supervising the task. His shaman status helped him avoid lapsing into hysteria with the rest of the Aghar.

  “Dunk them in the stream!” Perian cried from behind Flint. She had been back by the tunnel when she heard the gully dwarves’ screams. Running up to the group now, she propelled two of the injured gully dwarves over to the left and into the gently flowing stream. She held their collars while they flailed in the water, washing away the mysterious black substance. Finally their wails slowed to sobs. Perian hauled them out and was happy to see that the affected skin was shiny pink but otherwise unharmed.

  Seeing her success, Flint shoved the other two Aghar in, and soon their symptoms were relieved as well. Teeth chattering, the soaked Aghar clustered around their king, looking like drowned rats.

  “Someone had better tell me what’s going on here!” Flint demanded of the group. “Nomscul?”

  Nomscul’s wispy mustache twitched above his lips. “I use my magic bag to stop yelling, but it not work! It always work before!” Nomscul’s eyes narrowed, shifting the bags underneath them. “You put curse on it, O kingly guy?”

  Flint scowled. “Of course it doesn’t work—it’s just a bag of dir—” He sighed and gathered his patience about him like a cloak. “Nomscul, where did that black stuff come from?”

  “That all king want to know?” Nomscul asked. “It beast guts.” He pulled Flint over to the remains of the carrion crawler and pointed. “See sack of yuk, there? They chopping like you say, and out goop fly!”

  “Must be like a venom sack,” Perian suggested. “How are we going to get rid of the rest of this thing without disturbing that exploding organ?”

  Flint was scratching his beard in thought. “Hand me your dagger,” he said to Perian. Puzzled, the mountain dwarf pulled it from her belt and placed it into Flint’s open palm. He bent and stirred it around in the black slime.

  “What do you think you’re doing with my blade?” Perian demanded.

  “Just give me a second here,” Flint said softly. Flicking the wrist of the hand that held the dagger, Flint sent some slime sizzling on its way to the dirt floor. A loud clap, like a firecracker, erupted, and then a narrow column of thick, acrid smoke billowed upward. Flint checked the surface of Perian’s blade and saw that it was still smooth and unpocked. Apparently, the substance was corrosive to skin, but more durable objects, like metal, and probably glass and clay, were impervious to its caustic effects.

  Flint handed the weapon back to the frawl. “How much of this black venom do you figure there is here?”

  “I don’t know, quite a lot. The abdominal sac is very large—and there could be another venom gland, for all we know. What does it matter?” Perian asked.

  Flint was doing some calculations in his mind and did not hear her question.

  “You’re not thinking of—?”

  “I certainly am,” he cut in, smiling slyly as he suddenly became aware of her again. “I think, Perian, that we may have found our secret weapon.…”

  Basalt’s right hand curled around the ring of teleportation. His eyes were squeezed shut in deliberation, his thoughts on the main room of the family homestead. Then, for a brief second, an image of Moldoon’s inviting tap room flashed through his mind and he could feel his body wavering in midair! In panic, he opened his eyes and saw both the family home and Moldoon’s, shimmering and distant. Instantly he clamped his eyes shut again and flooded his mind with thoughts of home, his family, the furniture—and in a brief moment that seemed like an eternity, the wavering stopped and he sensed that he was standing on his own feet. Somewhere.

  The air was warm on his freckled cheeks. He opened his eyes slowly, and before him stood his Uncle Ruberik’s unsmiling, astonished countenance. The wooden pails in Ruberik’s hands clattered to the floor, creating a small puddle of creamy white milk at his feet.

  “What’s the meaning of this? Where did you come from? What happened to you? You’ve got some explaining to do, you foolish young trickster!”

  “Yes, Basalt,” he heard his mother chime in from behind, “besides this bit of nonsense, where have you been since, well—” She coughed uncomfortably. “Where have you been all night? Tybalt’s been looking for you, not to mention the rest of us have been worried.”

  Basalt had not moved since the moment of his arrival, and now he stepped back toward the fireplace to get both of them into view, Bertina in the kitchen, Ruberik at the door. He saw in their faces their usual reaction to him—his uncle’s anger, his mother’s distress—and he nearly lost his courage. But he reminded himself that there was a good cause for his strange behavior, one far too important to forsake.

  “Milk’s a-curdlin’, so speak up, harrn! You look harder used than an old anvil—where have you been drinking all night?” Ruberik demanded.

  Basalt pushed words into his throat. “Ma, Uncle Rubie, I’ve got to tell you something,” he began, his voice shaking, his eyes darting from one figure to the other. “You’re not going to want to believe any of this, but you’ve got to! Dad didn’t die of a heart attack, he was murdered with derro magic!”

  Bertina gasped, then bit her knuckles. Ruberik slapped his thigh angrily. “Gods curse you, now you’re making up hurtful lies to cover your indulgences! I’ve tried everything, talking to you, yelling at you, shaming you, trying to help however I could, and this is your response?” He stomped over to Basalt and snatched the young dwarf’s wrist. “Maybe a day or two in jail—for running from the scene of a murder�
�will make you dry out and think about your ways!”

  Basalt stood his ground, in spite of his churning stomach and trembling knees, and spoke quickly and intently.

  “Please let me explain,” he began again. “I’m sorry if I startled you, but the derro are planning to attack Hillhome and we have very little time to prepare.”

  Ruberik scowled with impatience. “Now what nonsense are you jabbering about?”

  “Basalt, you’re not making any sense, but I’ve never seen you so earnest,” said Bertina. “Whatever’s got you in this state, you just take your time and explain it.”

  Ruberik huffed, “It’s obvious what’s got him in this state, and I’ve humored it as much as I care to. It’s time to—”

  “Rubie,” cut in Bertina, “leave it be. Let him talk.”

  The nervous hill dwarf smiled gratefully toward his mother. “I know I haven’t been very responsible lately,” he said, ignoring his uncle’s snort of agreement, “but I am not drunk now, nor am I lying.” He took a deep breath.

  “Dad was killed because he discovered that the plows the derro are transporting are just a front for massive weapon shipments to some nation in the north.”

  “Basalt,” his mother moaned, drawing a handkerchief from her sleeve, “how do you know this?”

  “I’ve been with Uncle Flint. They tried to kill him for learning the same thing.”

  Ruberik slapped his head in understanding. “There’s a trustworthy source. My infrequent older brother, the twilight derro killer!”

  Basalt frowned. “Uncle Rubie, please let me finish. If you still don’t believe me when I’m done, I’ll cheerfully hand myself over to Uncle Tybalt and go to jail. It won’t matter anyway, because if no one believes me we’ll all be dead in five or six days,” he said ominously. Even Ruberik felt compelled to be silent.