only at the derro.
'He insulted us!' one of them claimed, shaking his fist at Flint.
Flint pushed the pale fingers away. 'Your presence insults everyone in this bar,' he muttered.
'You see!' the derro exclaimed self-righteously.
Moldoon took the two derro by their elbows and pro pelled the startled dwarves toward the door. 'I see that you two need to leave my establishment immediately.'
At the door the derro wrenched away from his grip and turned as if to attack Moldoon, hands on the weapons at their waists. Moldoon stared them down, until at last they dropped their hands and left. Shaking his head, the inn keeper slammed the door behind them and then strolled to ward Flint at the bar.
Flint sank his face into his ale and gulped half the mug down. 'I don't need anyone to fight my battles for me,' he grumbled angrily into the foam.
'And I don't need anyone breaking up my inn!' coun tered Moldoon. He laughed unexpectedly, the lines in his face drawing up. 'Gods, you're just like Aylmar was! No wonder Garth went crazy when he saw you about to take a swing at those derro. Probably thought it was Aylmar back from the dead for one more fight.'
Flint looked up intently from his ale. 'What are you talk ing about? Aylmar had a set-to with some derro?'
Moldoon nodded. 'At least one that I know of.' Moldoon looked puzzled. 'Why are you surprised? You, of all people, must have guessed that he detested their presence in Hillhome.'
'Do you remember when the fight was? And what it was about?'
'Oh I remember all right! It was the day he died, sadly enough. Aylmar didn't frequent here much himself, but he came looking for Basalt. They got into their usual fight about Basalt's drinking and 'working for derro scum,' as Aylmar put it, and then the pup stormed out.'
Flint leaned across the bar on his elbows. 'But what about the fight with the derro?'
'I'm getting to that,' Moldoon said, refilling Flint's mug.
'After Basalt left, Aylmar stewed for a bit here, watching the derro get louder and louder. And he just cracked — launched himself right at three of them, unarmed. They swatted him away like a fly, laughing at 'the old dwarf.' '
Flint hung his head, and his heart lurched as he imagined his brother's humiliation.
'Indeed, this conversation makes me remember some thing,' Moldoon added suddenly. Flint looked up half heartedly. The bartender's face looked uncharacteristically clouded.
'Aylmar told me after the fight that he had taken a small smithing job with the derro. Naturally I was surprised.
Aylmar had leaned forward and whispered — ' Moldoon's voice dropped '- that he was suspicious of the derro and had taken the job so that he could get into their walled yard to look into a wagon. He asked what I knew of their security measures, and I told him that I'd overheard that each crew of three slept during the day in shifts, one of them guarding their wagon at all times.'
Flint's interest was piqued. 'Why do they need to guard farm implements so closely?'
'That's just what Aylmar asked,' Moldoon said softly, then sighed. 'I guess he never found the answer, or if he did, it died with him, since his heart gave out at the forge that same night.' He clapped Flint on the shoulder and shook his head sadly, then turned to wait on another customer.
Flint sat thinking for several minutes before he worked his way through the crowd and left the smoky tavern. The sun was low in the sky. He stood on the stoop outside Mol doon's, but instead of crossing the street and walking back up the south side of the valley to the Fireforge home, the hill dwarf set his sights down Main Street to the east, just sixty yards or so, toward the walled wagon yard.
Chapter 5
In Flint's youth, the wagon yard had been the black smithing shop of a crusty old dwarf named Delwar. While most dwarves, racially inclined toward smithing, made their own weapons, nails, hinges, and other simple objects,
Delwar had provided the villagers with wagon wheels, large tools and weapons, and other more complicated metal de signs.
Flint had learned a lot of what he knew about blacksmith ing from the old craftsman, whose burn-scarred arms and chest had both frightened and fascinated the young hill dwarf. Flint and other harrns would sit in the grassy yard outside Delwar's shop and barn to watch the smith through the open end of his three-sided stone shed; Flint enjoyed the smell of smoke and sweat as Delwar hammered hot metal al most as much as he liked the taffy treats and cool apple drinks the smith's robust wife would bring out to them.
But Delwar and his wife had long since passed away, and a menacing, seven-foot high stone wall had been built around that once-friendly spot. Someone had told him -
Tybalt perhaps — that a 'modern' forge had been built on the western edge of town, and Delmar's had been long aban doned until the mountain dwarves had bought the rights to its yard and forge as part of their agreement with Hillhome.
The derro had built the wall, which Flint estimated enclosed a thirty-by-twenty-yard area. There was one entrance into the yard: a sturdy, wooden ten-foot gate stretched across the southern edge along Main Street. Flint saw no guard posted on the outside, but one surely supervised the gate from the inside.
Flint strolled nonchalantly down the road, passing by the walled yard with scarcely a look, focusing instead on the ducks hanging so invitingly across the street in the butcher's window. After twenty or so yards the wall turned a corner.
A narrow alley, no wider than would allow two dwarves abreast, ran the length of the eastern wall and the opposite building. Flint continued his unhurried pace until he was out of sight of Main Street. He covered the last ten yards to the northeast corner in a sprint, since the sun was dropping lower. He could not waste another moment of light.
The newly built wall had no toeholds of any kind. Flint went around the corner to the northern wall, but the stone continued on for only five feet before the wall joined with and became Delwar's fifteen-foot-tall barn and blacksmith shop.
A skinny oak sapling had somehow rooted itself in the small alley. Flint knew it would not support his weight. He looked about the alley desperately, and farther down his eyes came upon a discarded old rain barrel, several of its slats missing. He clomped up to it and turned it on its side, testing its strength; not so good, but the bottom was still solid and there were probably enough slats left to support him for a minute or so.
Flint dragged the barrel to the corner near the sapling and stood it on its open top. End to end, the barrel was nearly as tall as he and more than half the height of the wall. Reaching nearly above his head, he grabbed both sides of the barrel's metal rim and tried to haul himself up. The rotted barrel creaked and rocked dangerously toward him. He could get no leverage.
Frowning, Flint considered the sapling again. Perhaps its lower branches were sufficient to support him just long enough to spring onto the barrel. He pushed the barrel so that it stood on his right, between the sapling and the wall.
Hitching up his leather pant legs, he gingerly raised his right foot to rest on the strongest of the limbs, about two feet off the ground. Flint took a deep breath, grabbed the trunk of the sapling with both hands, and thrust himself upward. It held him for a split second, and then he slid down the scrawny trunk of the tree, snapping every little twig on the way to the ground.
Frustrated, Flint stroked his beard while he thought. He tested the flexibility of the sapling's trunk and decided that its green wood might bend. Taking it firmly in his left hand, he pushed it toward the ground until it was low enough for him to step on. Counting to three, he launched himself off the doubled-over tree, hearing it snap and tear just as his hands closed around the top of the barrel and he was able to pull himself up. With one more quick spring, he was atop the stone wall. Flint dropped the seven feet to the ground, landing alongside the
