Flint the King p2-2

by Mary Kirchoff

  Another clatter told the dwarf — and the troll, too, no doubt — that the chaser had climbed higher still. Perhaps whomever it was had already come into sight of the troll, for Flint watched the beast grow taut in its rocky niche, pre paring to spring. Indeed, he saw movement in the ravine fi nally and determined that it was a short human or dwarf who was climbing so steadily.

  A brown hood covered the fellow's head, so Flint could not see his face. He could, in fact, tell little about him. Flint's pursuer stopped to catch his breath; he peered upward along the ravine that stretched to the top of the ridge, mea suring the distance. At last, even in the gathering darkness,

  Flint got a good look at his young, red-bearded face.

  Flint's pursuer was not a derro spy, or a human. The dwarf below him, in imminent danger of being attacked by a hungry troll, was none other that Flint's nephew Basalt.

  "Reorx thump you!" hissed Flint, astonished. He didn't know what the silly pup was doing here, but the dwarf probed his mind desperately for a way to warn his nephew about the deadly ambush.

  Flint seized one of his smaller rocks and pitched it down the ravine at the monster, watching with satisfaction as it whacked the troll squarely in the back of its grotesque head.

  "Basalt, look out!" Flint cried, springing to his feet.

  Moaning piteously and rubbing its head, the troll spun to look upward, its jaws widespread in a malicious grimace.

  Even in the dim light, Flint could see the creature's long, pointed teeth.

  The troll leaped upward, astonishing Flint with its prodi gious bounds. The dwarf sent a large boulder skittering down the chute, but the rock ricochetted past the troll's head, narrowly missing Basalt, who had begun to scramble up the ravine behind the speedily climbing troll.

  Flint hefted another of his large rocks, holding it over his head as the troll closed in. The creature's wide, black eye sockets stared at him in a way that was all the more terrify ing for their complete lack of expression. Aiming carefully, the dwarf pitched the boulder when the troll was some thirty feet below him. The heavy rock, its momentum aided by the muscles of Flint's broad shoulders, struck the troll a crushing blow on its left leg.

  "Take that, you ugly, green-bellied goblin-eater!" A taunt worthy of Tasslehoff, Flint thought with satisfaction. He hooted with joy as the monster's leg snapped from the force of the blow. The troll uttered a sound — a low, cold hiss of dull pain — and tumbled backward. Its leg twisted and flopped.

  Now, for the kill, Flint hoped. Grabbing his axe, the hill dwarf bounded down from his ledge. He raised the blade over his head and closed on the troll as the beast fell between two rocks. Its leg hung to the side, useless.

  But before Flint could reach the brute, the charging hill dwarf halted in astonishment. The monster's leg twitched slightly, and Flint heard a strange, grating sound, like two jagged rocks scraping together. The troll took its lower leg in both huge, warty hands and arranged it into a proper alignment. Horrified yet fascinated, Flint unconsciously moved closer to watch; the troll looked up through red veined eyes and hissed at him, slashing out with a jagged claw. Flint drew back only slightly, but the troll returned its attention to its wounded leg.

  Amid the gruesome scraping sound, bubbles and bulges could be seen forming under the troll's thick, green warty skin. Slowly, the bulges flattened out, and the spine-chilling sound ceased. Before Flint could comprehend the meaning of the macabre scene, the troll became aware of him again.

  Its eyes locked onto Flint as it leaped to its feet. Dropping to a fighting crouch, the creature danced toward Flint on two good legs! The limb, crushed to bonemeal a moment before, had somehow grown firm and again supported the beast's weight.

  "Holy gods of old — you can regenerate!" Flint cried, flab bergasted. The troll slashed with its viciously clawed hand again, but Flint came out of his stupor long enough to knock the digits away with his axe. Striking quickly, he lopped the troll's hand off. It made a sickening spraying sound, thick green blood spurting in a steady stream. Flint cast an anx ious eye down the slope for Basalt. His nephew was vaulting upward as quickly as he could, panting with exertion, short sword extended. But he was still some distance below.

  The monster seemed more stunned than tortured at the loss of its hand. Flint pressed the advantage, hacking with his axe, driving the monster back. Although the beast was more than twice Flint's height, the dwarf stood above him in the steep ravine. Flint had the initiative, striking, dodging, and striking again.

  Once more his advantage proved illusory. The troll dodged away from him while it held the oozing stump of its hand. Not the squeamish type, even Flint was repulsed as three tiny claws sprouted from the bloody wound with a loud popping sound. He heard the green skin stretch, and the claws grew impossibly fast, revealing fingers and then, in moments, a completely new taloned hand. Fully re grown, the creature made a gurgling-regurgitating sound in the back of its throat — Flint swore it was snickering — and then the troll crept toward the hill dwarf.

  Flint scrambled backward up the steep chute, struggling to keep his balance in the loose rock. A fall would slide him, helpless, into the slashing maelstrom of tooth and claw below.

  "Uncle Flint!" cried Basalt.

  Flint did not even stop to see where Basalt was. "This is no picnic, Basalt! Run, you hare-brained numbskull!" If the troll turned on his inexperienced nephew, the boy would be devoured before he could raise his blade.

  "I can help!" Basalt gasped, slipping on loose rock as he scrambled closer. Now the troll did turn.

  Powered by fear, Flint sprang forward, hacking the sharp blade of his axe into the monster's back. The blow sent sticky, gelatinous, pea-green blood showering onto Flint, who gagged and spat furiously. Nearly cleaved in two, the monster writhed away as best it could, hissing in pain and rage, giving Basalt enough time to slip past it.

  "Stay back!" shouted Flint to his nephew, then bounded forward with another swing of his axe.

  But Basalt had a mind of his own, and he delivered a sharp jab with his short sword into the troll's belly. The monster had begun to regenerate again, but the new blows doubled it over, sending it twisting and rolling down the ra vine. Grinning proudly, his right arm covered in green blood, Basalt prepared to leap after it.

  "No!" ordered Flint, grasping his nephew's shoulder.

  "You've got to learn when to retreat, harrn."

  "But we've got the advantage now!" objected Basalt, looking longingly down the ravine.

  Flint jerked on Basalt's collar. "Only until it grows back together." He chuckled suddenly, then pretended to frown.

  "Never mind that! What are you doing here in the first place? I'd like to know."

  Basalt began a clumsy explanation, but Flint cut him short with a poke in the chest. "Not now, pup! There's a troll growing below us! You've got a lot to learn about adventuring!"

  Flint leading the way, they raced up the ravine as fast as they could, reaching the top of the ridge in a minute. The troll was out of sight below them, having fallen around a bend in the ravine.

  Basalt followed the older dwarf at a steady trot. Night closed around them, and still the two dwarves maintained a fast pace. They scrambled down the far side of the troll's ridge and hastened across the valley floor.

  Finally they collapsed, exhausted, in a small clearing among the dark pines. Though it was pitch black, they dared not make a fire.

  In the dim light, Flint leveled his gaze at his nephew.

  "You've got some explaining to do, son. Why don't you start by telling me what you're doing here?"

  Basalt fixed him with a sullen glare. "You've got some ex plaining to do yourself, like where do you think you're going?"

  Flint's mouth became a tight-lipped line. "I owe answers to no one, least of all a smart-mouthed boy of a dwarf like yourself."

  "I'm not a boy anymore! You'd know that if you ever came home, or stayed more than a day!" For a moment Ba salt gave Flint a look that was so belligerent,
so full of Fire forge stubbornness, that Flint's hands curled involuntarily into fists. But in another moment the older dwarf laughed out loud, clutching his paunch in mirth.

  Puzzled, and a little insulted, Basalt demanded, "What are you laughing about?"

  "You!" said Flint, his laughter slowing to a chuckle. "Aye, pup — you're a Fireforge, that's for sure! And what a pair we make!"

  "What do you mean by that?" Basalt growled, unwilling to be teased out of his bad humor.

  "Well, you're stubborn like me, for starters." Flint crossed his arms and squinted at his nephew, considering him.

  "You're not afraid of standing up to your elders either. You even tell 'em off once in a while, though you'd best watch so that doesn't become a habit! And you didn't hesitate one whit before jumping into battle with an honest to goodness troll."

  Flint looked at his nephew with affection. "And you didn't come out here to spy on me, anyway, did you?"

  "No!" Basalt said quickly, sitting up. "You were right, Un cle Flint," the young dwarf said softly. "What you said about me being mad at my dad and at myself was true. I knew it when I threw that punch at Moldoon's — " He looked away sheepishly "- but I guess I didn't much like you being the one to point it out."

  Basalt plucked nervously at his bootlaces. "I didn't like leaving things the way they were between us." He looked up now, clearing his throat gruffly. "I've done that once before, and it will haunt me for the rest of my days." Basalt's voice broke, and he hung his head. Flint sat quietly while his nephew composed himself.

  "Even Ma doesn't know this," he began again, his eyes looking far away into the night now, "but Dad and I had a fight the night he died. She wouldn't be surprised, though — me and Dad argued almost every night. Always about the same thing, too. 'Stop drinking and get a decent job,' he'd say."

  Basalt looked squarely at Flint. "The thing that always stuck in my craw was that, in addition to apprenticing to him, I had a job. He just didn't like me hauling feed for the derro's horses, that's all." Basalt heaved a huge sigh and shook his head sadly. "He tracked me down at Moldoon's that night and started up the old argument again, said the derro were up to no good and he would prove it. I told him to stay out of my business, and then I left him at the bar." Ba salt's eyes misted over as he looked into the dark distance again, focusing on nothing in particular.

  Basalt's expression turned unexpectedly to puzzlement.

  "There's just one thing I don't understand. Dad said he hated that the village was working with the mountain dwarves, said he'd never lift a finger to help a derro dying in the street." Basalt stroked his beard thoughtfully. "So what was he doing smithing for them the day his heart gave out? Why that day?" Basalt turned his face to the heavens.

  Flint heard his nephew's grief and was wracked with inde cision about the secret suspicions he harbored over

  Aylmar's death. Basalt's account of the fight with his father only bolstered his hunch. Could he trust Basalt? He squeezed his nephew's shoulder.

  "Basalt, I don't think your father's death was an accident," he said.

  Flint's nephew looked at him strangely. "Are you talking about 'fate' or some such hooey?"

  "I wish I were," Flint said sadly. "No, I think Aylmar was murdered by a derro mage's spell."

  "That's going too far!" Basalt said angrily. "I've heard Garth's mutterings, and I know my father thought the derro were evil. But why would they want to kill him? It doesn't make sense!"

  "It does if he discovered they were selling and transport ing weapons, not farm implements, and enough to start a war!" When Basalt still looked confused, Flint pressed on, telling Basalt how he had searched a derro wagon and what he had found there. He left nothing out, none of his worst imaginings, and he told him about the derro he killed.

  "Seemed like I had no choice," he added.

  Basalt struggled to absorb the news. "You knew all this and yet you didn't tell anybody'? You just left?" Basalt asked, smoldering.

  Flint snorted at the irony. "As Tybalt aptly put it, 'Who would believe the village idiot?' That's all the proof I have so far, Bas: Garth's 'mutterings' and what I saw with my own eyes in that wagon. And when they tie me into that derro I killed, Mayor Holden won't be likely to order a search of the wagons or a murder investigation on my say-so, either."

  He shrugged. "Since these derro come from Thorbardin, there was nothing else I could do but go to the mountain dwarves myself and find the derro scum who killed

  Aylmar."

  Basalt no longer looked skeptical. "How are you going to find this one derro, when there must be hundreds of magic using derro there."

  Flint gave a devilish grin. "Ah, but how many of them are hunchbacked? Garth, bless his simple heart, kept calling the derro he saw 'the humped one.' That's my only clue, but it's a good one."

  Basalt jumped to his feet. "Well, what are we waiting for?

  Let's go find the Reorx-cursed derro who killed my father!"

  Flint patted the harrn's hand. "You're a true Fireforge, like

  I said. But we aren't going anywhere in the dark." He sighed.

  "I'm not sure that I want any help, but you can't go back the way you came — a clumsy pup like you'd be troll food for sure," he teased. "I guess you'll have to come along, but we'll leave in the morning."

  Basalt smiled eagerly. "You won't be sorry, Uncle Flint!"

  I'm not so sure about that, Flint thought inwardly. What would he do with Basalt when he got to Thorbardin?

  A cold drizzle fell, then turned to light snow. They looked for an overhanging shelf of rock well off the Passroad, since a wagon or two was bound to pass in the dark, and made a crude camp. Uncle and nephew talked long into the night, about Basalt's father and Flint's brother, and even Flint's fa ther, too. Though he hated to see their conversation end,

  Flint knew they would pay for their indulgences with ex haustion in the morning.

  By late afternoon the next day, a snowy one, the road curved into a narrow valley and began climbing steeply.

  Flint and Basalt wondered at the difficulty of maneuvering heavy wagons up and down these switchbacks, but the rut ted state of the road proved that it did carry steady traffic.

  They were closer to the heart of the Kharolis Mountains now, and the surrounding hills had gained sharp definition.

  The slopes towered thousands of feet in the air, with jagged precipices of bare rock exposed to the wind.

  Flint groaned and struggled up the heights made all the more arduous by heavy snow. He cursed the sedentary life that had led him into this physical decline. He knew — or at least convinced himself — that this would have been no trou ble for him a short twenty years ago.

  But the hills brought him a sense of exhilaration as well.

  The view of jagged crests stretching for a hundred miles, capped by the snows of autumn; the sweeping grandeur of the valleys and the inexorable crushing force of the moun tain rivers — all of these returned a joy to his old heart that he hadn't even been aware he was missing.

  The sun was dropping over their right shoulders when the road abruptly ended at a shallow stream, as if a giant broom had descended and swept the rutted trail away. The bank rose steeply on the opposite side, unmarked by a single rut or hoofprint, while the two-foot-deep stream, so clear and cold Flint could see the gravel bottom, teemed across their path. Big, fluffy snowflakes plopped into the stream and melted into the steady current. Flint smiled to himself; hid ing a trail in a riverbed was one of the oldest tricks in an ad venturer's book.

  Flint looked downstream, then upstream to the right.

  Kneeling near the edge of the water, he saw an almost imper ceptible curve to the right in the tracks leading to the stream. "See these, Bas?" he said, pointing to the ruts. "I think the wagons are turning off right here, where they en ter the water. They follow it upstream."

  Basalt peered closely, then smacked his thigh in astonish ment. "Why, you're right! Let's go!" The young dwarf took a step toward the str
eam. Flint's hand flew out to stop him.

  Water. Water that was over half as tall as Flint's four-foot frame. Flint shivered involuntarily, considering the rapid icy flow. The stream had no bank to speak of, what with the severe pitch of the canyon walls that shaped it. It was twenty or thirty feet at its widest point.

  "What's wrong, Flint?" Basalt asked. "Aren't we going to follow the stream?"

  Flint struggled to keep the color from draining from his face. He couldn't let Basalt learn that his uncle's aversion to water went beyond normal dwarven distaste, to cold, blind ing fear. Flint didn't even like admitting it to himself. It wasn't his fault, after all. It was that damned lummox, Caramon Majere.

  One fine day not many years before, when Flint had been waiting in Solace for Tanis to return from a trip to

  Qualinesti, Tasslehoff Burrfoot proposed that Sturm, Raist lin, Caramon, and Flint take a ride on Crystalmir Lake in a boat the kender had "found." They set out on the lake, and everyone was having a grand time until Caramon tried to catch a fish by hand. He leaned out too far, tilting the boat and sending everyone into the water.

  Raistlin, always the clever one, had bobbed up beneath the overturned boat and was quite safe in the air pocket it formed. His oafish twin brother did not fare so well, sinking like a stone. Sturm and Tas, both fearless, strong swimmers, soon righted the boat and Raistlin with it, while it was left to

  Flint to try to rescue Caramon.

  The three in the boat waited eagerly for Flint and Cara mon, but all they saw was a immense amount of splashing and gurgling, and then the water became ominously silent.

  Frightened, both Tas and Sturm plunged back into the wa ter; the knight hauled Caramon, coughing, into the boat. It was Tas who found the dwarf, half-drowned and hysterical; all four of his friends had to help drag him into the boat, where he lay shivering, vowing to never set foot on water again.