The Hammer of Fire (17 page)

“We can follow their tracks,” said Petra
looking at the hoof prints in the ground. This scrub is good for
that as long as there isn’t a storm.”

“I wouldn’t mind some rain,” said Milli, her
face red and her skin parched and dry. “Even if it did wipe out the
tracks.”

“We can’t wait too long,” said Dol, the fire
in his eyes gone as suddenly as it came, and they were now returned
to their normal, brown color. “When this patrol goes missing
they’ll send out reinforcements. On horses like these it won’t take
them long to find us.”

“Wait,” said Petra who pulled something out
of the saddlebag of the leader’s horse. “It’s a map. I don’t
understand the writing but there are symbols.”

“Let me look at that,” said Brogus coming
over and taking the parchment from the hand of the woman. “We
dwarves know a thing or two about map-making.”

The nomad on the ground watched them closely
and thought about dashing for one of the other horses, but the tall
dwarf with the short hair kept him under strong surveillance. He
felt burning shame at the defeat at the hands of the barbarians,
although he could see that the hammer was of great power. He could
yet redeem himself by taking it back to his people.

“See this symbol here,” said Petra, as she,
Milli, and Brogus huddled over the map and took sips of water from
the large skin containers they looted from the great horse. “It’s
the same as on the horses and their equipment. I think we’re right
at the border of this other tribe. This other symbol looks like a
black horse and I’d take that as a good sign we’re on the right
track.”

“You could be right,” said Milli and turned
her attention back to the man on the ground. “I just wish we could
ask him a few questions. And, if we do find this Black Rider, how
will we communicate with him?”

“He looks the hard sort,” said Brogus with a
glance back at their prisoner. “I’m not sure he’d talk unless we
put the tongs to him.”

“Brogus!” said Milli.

“What?” said Brogus. “He’s not going to
volunteer the information, and besides, he can’t speak our language
anyway.”

“Still, torture?”

“It’s just an idea,” said Brogus with a shrug
of his shoulders and another sip from the water skin. “If Petra is
right about this map then we can head … well … what direction is
what?”

“They say you can tell by watching the sun,”
said Milli pointing up.

Petra looked at the trio and shook her head,
“Have any of you three ever been outside for more than a few days
of your life?”

“I’ve been on trading caravans for weeks,”
said Brogus. “But I didn’t pay too much attention to the sun. It’s
awful bright.”

Milli shook her head, “I was outside as a
little girl, but I don’t remember it.”

Dol simply shook his head.

“We’ve been out in this desert for almost
three days and you haven’t tracked the sun once?” asked Petra with
a shake of her head. “I doubt you even noticed the constellations
are completely different.”

“What’s a constellation?” asked Brogus with a
look of incomprehension on his face.

Petra looked at Milli with raised eyebrows
but the Halfling girl’s face bore a puzzled expression as well.
“The stars? Up there?” Milli said pointing up to the bright
sky.

Brogus looked up and into the sun and then
down the ground and began to blink rapidly, “Owww.”

“Don’t stare at it, you idiot. That’s the
sun.” said Petra with a little snort of air. “I’m talking about at
night. The little pinpoints of light. The stars. You’ve heard of
them, right?”

“Ohhh,” said Brogus. “Yeah, those. Never gave
them much thought. Are they different here than back home?”

“You really didn’t notice?”

Milli looked back and forth between Dol and
Brogus and finally shook her head, “Do they change often?”

Petra just smiled. “It doesn’t matter. It
means we’re a long way from where we were before. I pay attention
to those sorts of things. Now, if this little compass at the top of
the map means what I think it does, then we need to head in the
direction of the setting sun to get to this other area. If this
symbol means anything at all it means the territories of the Black
Horsemen. Even if we get there alive I don’t know how we are going
to talk to them. I know a bit of the trader tongue but I doubt that
extends this far south.”

“We are in the south,” said Brogus as he took
another glance up at the sky. “I never thought it could get this
hot. Did it take us half a year to travel through the portal? It
seemed like it happened right away but it was winter in
Das’von.”

Everyone looked to Petra.

She shrugged, “I’m not sure about things like
that. Maybe the seasons are different in the south. Maybe this is
winter and it gets even hotter.”

“No!” said Milli and touched her sunburned
skin gingerly. “It can’t get hotter than this. It’s always pretty
much the same in Craggen Steep.”

“Unless you do deep mining,” said Brogus.
“It’s sweaty down there all the time. Hundreds of miners working
next to each other, hour after hour. I’ve seen apprentices keel
over dead, I have.”

“Lovely thought,” said Milli with a tight
little smile towards Brogus. “Be dear and try to say something to
take my mind off the heat.”

“What do we do with him?” said Dol with a nod
of his head to the prisoner.

“He’ll catch one of the horses and ride back
to his friends as soon as we leave,” said Milli and put her hands
on her hips and stomped her foot. “But, we are not going to just
kill him in cold blood.”

“What then?” asked Brogus tilting his head to
the side and looking at Milli.

“I might be able to cook something up that
will knock him out for a bit,” said Petra. “The plants here are
different than back home but I recognize some things and I’ve got
some herbs I brought with me.”

“That’s the plan then,” said Milli with a nod
of a her head and a firm smile. “We knock him out and then head
towards the … what did you say about the sun?”

“Towards the setting sun,” replied Petra. “In
a few hours it’ll start going down and we can just follow it to the
horizon. I’m not sure what the measurement means in actual distance
but it can’t be much different than we use back home. One tick mark
means a thousand or so steps.”

“Maybe one tick mark means a thousand miles,”
said Brogus.

“Maybe,” said Petra, “but I doubt it. People
think the same way no matter what. You’ll find different people
everywhere but they’re all the same in many ways. The way they
think, the way the act, the way they can be tricked from their
coin. You’d be surprised how much people are the same
everywhere.”

“Wait,” said Brogus. “It is a few hours until
the sun goes down. In Das’von the day was much shorter than that
and the nights longer. The days are longer here. It must be
summer.”

“That’s true,” said Milli with a bright
smile. “So it can’t get hotter!”

“I’m going to brew something up in the cave,”
said Petra. “Make sure he doesn’t get away.”

The morning sun filtered through the clouds
four days later as they stared across the bleak landscape of never
changing prickly scrub plants and dirty brown sand and dirt.

“Sun’s coming up,” said Brogus. “We should
find another cave in the next couple of hours before it gets too
hot. His skin was still red and burned but with the desert clothes
and good water supply looted from the nomads he looked healthier
than four days before and spoke with a stronger voice.

Petra went over to the one horse they managed
to tame and petted it across its neck, “We’ve still got enough
water for a few days but we might want to head towards one of these
green splotches on the map. I’d guess that means water and we’ll
need to get the horse more than we’ve been giving it or it will
die. I don’t want to wait until we’re out of water again. It was
pure luck those nomads came across our hiding spot or we’d be dead
now.”

“What if we run into more of those nomads?”
asked Milli looking in first in one direction and then in the
other. “I think we should just keep heading to the place on the map
that shows the black horse picture. That’s who we are here to find.
If we find them then they’ll have water.”

“We’re here to kill Gazadum,” said Dol in a
quiet voice as his hand went to the hammer at his side. He found
himself touching it more frequently these days and luxuriating in
the heat it emanated.

“Yes, Dol,” said Milli with a roll of her
eyes at his now familiar refrain. “But we have to get out of this
desert first and we don’t even know how far away the five volcanoes
are from here.”

“South,” said Dol with a shrug. “We need to
head south.”

“Further south?” said Brogus moping his brow.
“How is that possible? It can’t get any hotter.”

“How do you know it’s south?” said Milli with
a sideways glance at Dol through her yellow eyes. She fiddled with
draw strings on the floppy hat that she wore.

“I know,” said Dol, his hand lingering on the
handle of the hammer long enough that the heat started to permeate
through his arm.

“That’s not an answer,” said Milli, “but I
know you well enough to understand that’s all I’ll get.” She looked
down at his hand which held the hammer and then turned her gaze to
Petra. “How long can we make it with the water we have?”

“Another three days for us,” said the old
witchy woman with a shrug of her shoulders as she continued to
stroke the mane of the stallion. “I don’t know for the horse. If we
give him our water that cuts into how much we have left.”

“Why not head for the water spots?” said
Brogus and moped his brow yet again. “We have a better chance of
finding people there anyway. Wouldn’t they gather near water?”

Milli looked at her friend and broke into a
broad smile, “Actually, Brogus, you have a pretty good idea there.
If we find water we’ll surely find these nomads. I’m still not sure
how we’ll talk to them but at least it’s a start.”

“I had a good idea!” said Brogus as his smile
threatened to leap completely off his face.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” said Milli
but her smile widened as well.

“Too late,” said Petra with a shake of her
head as a big grin appeared on her face as well.

“She’s right,” said Brogus and made a muscle
with his right arm.

Milli rolled her eyes and shook her head,
“Fine, fine. Let’s find a place to get out of the heat of the day.
There are some low hills over that way,” she finished pointing
towards a little rise in elevation to her right. “Is that in the
right direction to the water?”

Petra pulled out the little map and nodded
her head, “Generally, I think. It’s not easy to figure out exact
directions like that. Those hills are opposite the sun this
morning, so it’s as good a choice as any. I wish we could find one
of the landmarks on this map because then we’ll know how far we’ve
traveled.”

“You don’t even know where we were when we
started,” said Brogus with a shake of his head. “I’m not much at
map reading here in the open but underground I know my business.
The mines of Craggen Steep go on for who knows how long all the way
to the bottom of the mountain and beyond. You have to know where
you start to be able to figure out where you are now.”

“Fine,” said Petra with a little downturn of
her lips, “we need to find first one place on this map and then a
second. Is that good enough?”

“Yep,” said Brogus as he continued to smile
widely.

“And wipe that grin off your face,” said
Petra. “If it wasn’t for me we never would have made it this
far.”

Brogus continued to smile. An hour later,
just as the sun began its long climb to the zenith of the sky, they
found a small cave in the rocky hillside. They all went into
together and set down their gear before Petra went out to gather
some of the strange plants that grew in the region. They had
learned, through trial and nausea, what plants were tasty and which
were toxic.

“It must rain sometimes,” said Petra as she
returned with an armload of the little green pads that grew on the
plants all over the desert. “These plants can’t exist without water
at all. I bet they have a big rainy season and then it’s stored up
to survive the rest of the year. It probably happens in autumn and
maybe again in spring. I bet it gets cold in winter. It gets cold
enough at night and this is summer.” With this observation, to
which no one replied, she busied herself with scraping off the
needles while Dol and Brogus ignited a little fire with some of the
scrub they harvested earlier.

“It does get pretty cool at night,” said
Brogus stripping off his heavy chain shirt and preparing some
bedding for the long day. “I never would have thought it but it’s
true.”

“Hey!” said Milli from the cave mouth. “I see
some dust over there.”

Petra and Brogus immediately rushed to the
entrance of the little cave while Dol stayed at the fire and gently
twisted the hammer round and round. The three peered out over the
seemingly endless desert while little Milli stood in front and
pointed. Petra, the tallest of the trio stood behind her, and
Brogus tried to wriggle his way past the tall woman. “Riders,” said
the witch with in a low tone. “They’re coming from the direction of
the black horse symbol.”

“Do you think we should say hello,” said
Milli looking back over her right shoulder to the Petra. “I mean
that is who we’re supposed to spy on.”

“We could ambush them like we did the first
group,” suggested Brogus and looked back towards his weapon and
armor on the floor of the stone cave. They lay neatly arranged so
that he might grab and use them at a moment’s notice. He learned
this particular habit a long time ago from his father and older
brothers in the dwarf citadel. Even in the secure environment of
Craggen Steep darkling forces attacked from the realm below on
occasion and the mining operations were always at risk. The
darklings were a cruel, torturous lot that captured dwarves for
slave operations beneath the ground. Dwarves were strong miners and
the darklings worked them to death building new tunnels for their
endless warrens.