The Hammer of Fire (22 page)

“Those are dwarven made,” said Brogus as his
eyes opened wide to examine the thick beer steins. “Where did you
get them?” His hand once again went to the axe handle at his
side.

“Be calm, friend Brogus,” said Ming with a
smile. His teeth were white and his purple eyes seemed friendly and
reassuring. “There is an enclave of your people in the mountains to
the west of the Sands. It is called Temin of the Mount and these
mugs are their product. We also buy beer from them on occasion but
the heavy taste is not to the liking of most nomads.”

“Beer is beer,” said Brogus as he watched the
amber fluid pour from the pitcher and into his mug. He swirled it
once, threw back his head, and quaffed deeply. “Ahhh, it’s sweet,
not dwarven brew that’s certain, but still, a good omen after long
days in your hot sun and endless journey on your devil horses.” He
finished the first glass with another giant swig and then held out
his mug for a second serving. The girl poured without hesitation
and the dwarf sipped more slowly this time.

“Delicious,” said Milli sampling generously
from the arrayed plates in front of her. There were fruits of all
sorts that she did not recognize. They had unfamiliar but wonderful
flavors that seemed to explode in her mouth. “Perhaps it is just my
days on horseback in the sun but I suspect you of the Sands have a
larger sense of palate than the dwarves of my home.”

“So you are part dwarf then,” said Ming as he
glanced up from his own meal. He ate lightly and although he
brought his glass to his lips at regular intervals barely seemed to
drink at all.

“Oh no,” said Milli flashing her best smile
and twirling her hair with her bejeweled right hand. “I was rescued
by dwarves when I was but a little girl. They found my caravan
destroyed by orcs and took me in.”

“A most fortuitous event,” said Tahnoon as he
drank deeply from his glass yet again. “Otherwise we would not have
the pleasure of such beauty at our table.”

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.

“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.”

“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.