barn and in six inches of mud with a 'splooch!'
'You leave now!'
Flint nearly jumped out of his boots, which were stuck fast in the mud. He looked up in the late-afternoon light and espied a big dwarf standing a few paces away. His face was a mask of fear, and he appeared to be dragging a sack full of black coal.
'Garth!' Flint hissed, both relieved and dismayed. He tried to wrestle his booted feet from the mud, but the boots would not budge. He stopped struggling and looked up at
Garth pleadingly.
'Leave me alone!' Garth said fearfully, turning away.
'Why are you haunting me?'
'Garth,' Flint began, trying to calm the harrn before he drew attention, 'I'm not the dwarf you found by the forge — that was my brother, Aylmar. You needn't be afraid of me.
I'm Flint Fireforge, your friend.'
Garth looked at him suspiciously out of the corners of his eyes, hugging himself protectively. 'You promise to stay out of my dreams now? I didn't hurt you.' He shook his head vigorously. 'The humped one sent the blue smoke, not me. I just found you.'
'Garth, it wasn't me — what blue smoke?' Flint asked, suddenly curious.
'The blue smoke from the stone around his neck!'
'Whose neck? A derro?'
'Yes! You were there, why are you asking me?' Garth said, angry and flustered by this line of questioning. 'I have to go to work now. Get out of here, or he'll use his magic, wherever he is!'
With that warning, Garth hefted the sack, but Flint reached out to stop him. 'Garth, you mustn't tell your bosses I was here again. Promise me, or I'll — I'll give you more bad dreams!' Flint winced at using such a cruel trick on the terrified harrn. Eyes wide with dread, face paler than death, Garth only nodded as he lumbered away around the corner of the barn.
Flint tried to sort through Garth's strange mutterings.
Was he merely spouting dreams he'd had, ones caused by finding Aylmar's body, or had he been the only witness to some horrible deed?
The hill dwarf moved to take a step and remembered with a soft groan that he was still stuck in the mud. Flint curled his toes and tugged upward, but his boots were buried so well that his feet pulled out instead. Wiggling the high topped leather boots back and forth with his hands, he fi nally managed to wrench them out with a loud sucking sound. Each one had to weigh over fifteen pounds now, and he had neither water nor cloth nor grass to clean them with, since the entire yard was churned to mud. He would move as quietly as a squad of ogres with these on. Hardly the barefoot type, Flint reluctantly set them down along the fence anyway, where he could grab them on his way out.
Flint poked his head around the corner of the barn and stole a glance at the wagon yard. It was crisscrossed with deep, muddy ruts. Two of the flat-bed mountain dwarf wag ons were standing side-by-side, their buckboards pointed toward Flint; he saw no guards. Tybalt had said that one wagon was always coming from Thorbardin while another was returning, never in tandem. So which.wagon was full of cargo and on its way to Newsea, and which one was return ing to the mountain dwarf kingdom? Flint knew he had little time before the derro crew awoke or returned from the tav erns, and no time to choose wrongly.
Suddenly he saw a derro emerge from the open side of the blacksmithing shop in the middle of the north wall, some ten yards to his right. The derro guard circled both wagons, bending down to look under the one on the left, farthest from the shop.
'We should be getting on the road within the hour,' the derro called toward the building. 'I'm anxious to get back to Thorbardin. Did Berl or Sithus tell you when they'd re turn?'
'They always stagger back at the last minute,' an uncon cerned voice said from the depths of the shop. 'You worry too much. Come on back and catch a few more minutes of sleep before the long haul.'
'You're right,' said the derro by the wagons, striding to ward the darkened shed. 'Everything looks OK out here, anyway. That idiot brought the coal for the forge, I see, so at least tomorrow's crews won't run short. These mountain roads cause the wagons to break down too often.'
Flint could barely make out their conversation as it con tinued in the shop for a few more minutes, then died away.
Soon he heard snoring.
The guard had looked under only one wagon; Flint locked his gaze on the other one, farthest from the shop.
Taking a cautious step around the barn, Flint's tender feet touched a deep, cold mud puddle, and he recoiled. Shaking globs from his feet, he decided to circle around to the left, where there were less ruts. His approach would be hidden by the wagons.
Forging through the mud, he came at last to the side of the wagon. The sturdy wooden conveyance rolled on four spoked iron wheels that were as tall as the cargo box be tween them, at least six feet off the ground, and certainly way above the stubby dwarf's head. The cargo box had wooden sides reinforced with thick bands of iron.
The dwarf grabbed onto the front right wheel and began pulling himself up from one spoke to the next, until he stood halfway up the massive iron ring. His chin just crested the box, and he saw that the thick, dirty canvas was stretched tight over the top of the wagon. He struggled to untie a cor ner of the canvas, and finally he pulled enough away to climb further up the spokes and crawl inside the box. It was surprisingly cramped, he noted as he looked around.
Plows! By Reorx, the mountain dwarves were indeed go ing to great lengths to ship plows! And cheap ones at that!
Flint mouthed his astonishment silently. The interior of the wagon held five huge iron plow-blades. Each of the blades looked uncorroded, as if it had been freshly forged, but the metal was pitted and rough from imperfections of casting.
They should be embarrassed to have anyone see such shoddy workmanship!
This was not what Flint had expected to find. Who cared if the mountain dwarves' notorious greed allowed them to lower their smithing standards? Flint was curled into a pain ful ball to keep his head from bulging the canvas, but he shifted onto his knees now and hunkered down to think.
Suddenly, his aching back produced a most unexpected thought.
Why was he bent double in a box that was at least as tall as he? Unless it was two boxes, not one, he concluded excit edly. He examined the floor of the wagon and was frustrated in his attempt to find secret compartments.
Flint poked his head out of the canvas and looked and lis tened; the yard was still quiet. He lowered a foot around the wheel and onto a spoke, then slipped down.
Flint dropped from the wheel and crawled under the wagon, struggling to balance in the deep, muddy ruts as he slowly inspected the underside of the box. Brushing mud away with his fingertips, Flint probed each crack with his carving knife.
He missed it the first time, but as he doubled back he found the concealed panel. Mounted between the axles was a long rectangle made from two of the wagon's floorboards.
Quickly Flint pried at the door, seeking a latch. His fin gers probed and prodded, and then he felt the mechanism, hidden in a knothole. After a push of his blade, he felt the catch release; the narrow panel swung downward.
He was so close!
Praying that the shadows under the wagon would conceal him a few moments longer, Flint raised his head into the cav ity the panel had revealed. Spotting several long wooden crates, he wasted no time in prying the nearest lid off, snap ping the tip of his knife.
But he paid no attention to his weapon as the wooden lid fell away. Instead he stared at a pair of steel longswords — weapons of exceptional quality, he could tell at a glance; these were not like the pitted plows above. He snapped an other box open, finding a dozen steel spearheads, razor sharp and wickedly barbed. He did not have time to check any more boxes, but he knew that there was no need.
