Silence whispered through the great hall, stirring up nothing but dust.
Torrin awoke with a start, his heart thudding. That dream! What had it meant? Trouble, obviously-he could feel it-but in what form? And from where?
He sat up in bed. The blanket lay in a heap in his lap. He stroked his beard fretfully. The blacksmith had worn golden bracers and had an impossibly long beard-he’d been a dream manifestation of Moradin. The Dwarffather himself was sending Torrin a warning. Something to do with the runestone. But what? Should Torrin use it? Not use it?
He glanced at the shutters. No light came through the cracks. It was still night. The middle of the night, judging by the stillness that hung over the clanhold.
He rose from the bed, splashed his face with water from the bowl on his bedside table, and dried his beard with a towel. A walk would help clear his mind, he decided. He pulled on his breeches and picked up a shirt, only half noticing, from the singed smell of the wool, that it was the one he’d been wearing in the Wyrmcaves. Ah well, no matter. At that time of night, he didn’t expect to run into anyone, anyway.
As he pulled the shirt on, something sharp scratched his arm. There seemed to be a shard of something caught in the fabric of the sleeve, near a burn hole. Torrin poked a finger through the hole and dug out a jagged- edged fragment of metal the size of a fingernail, soft enough to bend. His eyes widened as he saw what it was: a thin piece of gold, obviously once molten but hardened.
“Smite me with a hammer!” Torrin exclaimed, his hand trembling. “Was the dream real?”
No, he realized. That wasn’t it. Thinking back to the Wyrmcaves, he remembered he’d felt something hot splatter onto his bracer and run down it, onto his left arm. Not candle wax, as he’d thought at the time, but molten gold.
The cavern where the dragon had cornered Torrin and Eralynn had been heavily veined with quartz, a stone often found with gold. The dragon’s fiery breath had likely melted a vein of gold in the ceiling and caused it to drip onto the spot where Torrin and Eralynn had taken shelter. Some part of Torrin’s mind must have realized that, and woven it into the fabric of his dream.
“Except,” Torrin told himself, “that it can’t be that simple. That dream was a message from Moradin. I’m sure of it.”
He fingered the hardened splatter of gold. It held the answer to the question. Of that, he was certain. Yet the metal was mute. And he still didn’t understand what the dream message meant.
Haldrin was the one to ask, Torrin decided. Haldrin was the most learned person that Torrin knew, aside from a loremaster. That’s what came of being a scrivener-you picked up all sorts of odd bits of information from the texts you copied. What’s more, Torrin thought with a wry smile, Haldrin was also the most likely person to be awake at that time of night. He was always complaining about Ambril’s fretful tossing and turning. Odds were, his pregnant wife’s fretfulness had him up out of bed and pacing the halls, yet again.
Torrin slipped out of his room and headed for the portion of the clanhold where Haldrin and Ambril resided. As Torrin walked, he felt slight vibrations under his feet. Though the Thunsonn clan had been generous enough to give Torrin a place to stay, his room wasn’t exactly in the best section of Eartheart. It was close to the smelters, which operated day and night. The smell of soot and hot metal lingered constantly in the air. The corridors there were narrow and rough cut, a far cry from the grandiose halls elsewhere in the dwarf city. Ceiling lanterns, their wicks trimmed low to save oil, filled the corridor with a reddish light that flickered like the dim light from a forge.
As Torrin drew closer to Haldrin and Ambril’s chambers, a door to his right opened suddenly. Mara, Ambril’s sister, stepped out, nearly colliding with him.
“Torrin!” she exclaimed. “You heard it, too?”
“Heard what?” he asked.
“She’s in pain.”
Mara, wearing a misbuttoned robe over her nightgown, looked as though she’d also just gotten out of bed. Her auburn hair exploded in an unbraided tangle from the edges of her night coif. She stared in the direction of Ambril’s room, her eyes wide and alarmed.
Torrin glanced in that direction. “I don’t hear anything.”
“The babies,” Mara said. “They’re coming.”
Oh, Torrin thought. So that was it. Mara’s cryptic comment at last made sense. Ambril must finally be giving birth. The sisters always seemed to know what the other was feeling or thinking-dwarf twins were like that. And Ambril and Mara were a typical pair. They never bothered to explain anything. They just jumped into a story mid- stride and looked at anyone who couldn’t follow as if they were simpletons.
Mara’s husband Sandor followed her out into the corridor. He yawned and rubbed the small of his back. He looked exhausted, and had every reason to be. Ore hauling was heavy work. “What’s the commotion?” he asked.
“Ambril,” Mara said tersely. Her expression grew strained. “It’s hurting. More than it should.”
At last, Torrin heard a muffled groan from the direction of Haldrin and Ambril’s room. Mara winced, then hurried toward it. “Run to the temple,” she shouted back over her shoulder at Sandor. “Bring back one of the Merciful Maidens. We’re going to need her!”
Torrin exchanged a glance with Sandor. “Would you like me to do it?” he asked, partially in sympathy, but also because it might be an excuse to see Maliira again.
Sandor shook his head. “That’s all right,” he replied. “I can sneak back to bed once I’m back from the temple. I doubt Mara will even miss me.” He hurried away.
Torrin’s dream nagged at him, and the anxiety in Mara’s voice had put him on edge. He yearned to be doing something to help, even though he knew he should go back to his room. A birthing was no place for a man-least of all, a man who wasn’t the husband. But then he spotted Kier up ahead, creeping down the hallway to his parents’ room. The boy peeked in through the door Mara had left ajar, his expression a mixture of curiosity and worry. Mostly worry.
Perhaps Torrin could be useful, after all.
He made his way to Kier’s side. The boy jumped as Torrin touched his shoulder, startled by Torrin’s approach.
“Back to your room, Kier,” Torrin said sternly. “You’ll only be underfoot here.”
As he spoke, Torrin glanced into the bedchamber. Ambril was stumbling across the room, alternately groaning and sobbing, supported by Haldrin on one side and Mara on the other. A sick smell wafted out of the door.
“I’m not leaving,” Kier said. Unlike the adults, the boy was fully dressed. One hand was thrust into his pocket, worrying something. Likely his “lucky” stone, the quartz crystal with the double point.
Mara glanced at the door. “Torrin!” she shrieked. “What are you doing here? Where’s the Merciful Maiden?”
Kier ducked back out of sight.
“Sandor’s gone to fetch her,” Torrin explained.
“He’d better hurry,” Mara replied.
Ambril groaned as a contraction shuddered through her body. She looked terrible. Her face had a grayish cast, and her nightgown was soaked with sweat. She gasped weakly between each brief, stumbling step. Her stomach, enormous with the twins, would have toppled her forward, had her sister and husband not been clinging to her arms.
Even though Torrin hadn’t seen a birthing before, it didn’t look right to him.
“Is Mother going to die?” Kier whispered.
“No,” Torrin said. He put a reassuring hand on the boy’s shoulder. “As soon as the cleric arrives, your mother will be in good hands. The Merciful Maiden will shoulder her pain, and use her prayers to help the babies come. Your mother will be fine.”
Ambril gave a low, creaking groan and sagged. Her arms slipped from Mara’s and Haldrin’s grasp, and she fell to her knees. Her entire body shuddered, and a rush of liquid puddled beneath her. Torrin smelled blood.
Haldrin-a smaller, bespectacled version of his brother Sandor-spotted Kier peeking into the chamber. He glanced up at Torrin with a strained look on his face. “Get him away from here,” he shouted. He reached for the door and yanked it shut.
