Flint patted the harrn's hand. 'You're a true Fireforge, like
I said. But we aren't going anywhere in the dark.' He sighed.
'I'm not sure that I want any help, but you can't go back the way you came — a clumsy pup like you'd be troll food for sure,' he teased. 'I guess you'll have to come along, but we'll leave in the morning.'
Basalt smiled eagerly. 'You won't be sorry, Uncle Flint!'
I'm not so sure about that, Flint thought inwardly. What would he do with Basalt when he got to Thorbardin?
A cold drizzle fell, then turned to light snow. They looked for an overhanging shelf of rock well off the Passroad, since a wagon or two was bound to pass in the dark, and made a crude camp. Uncle and nephew talked long into the night, about Basalt's father and Flint's brother, and even Flint's fa ther, too. Though he hated to see their conversation end,
Flint knew they would pay for their indulgences with ex haustion in the morning.
By late afternoon the next day, a snowy one, the road curved into a narrow valley and began climbing steeply.
Flint and Basalt wondered at the difficulty of maneuvering heavy wagons up and down these switchbacks, but the rut ted state of the road proved that it did carry steady traffic.
They were closer to the heart of the Kharolis Mountains now, and the surrounding hills had gained sharp definition.
The slopes towered thousands of feet in the air, with jagged precipices of bare rock exposed to the wind.
Flint groaned and struggled up the heights made all the more arduous by heavy snow. He cursed the sedentary life that had led him into this physical decline. He knew — or at least convinced himself — that this would have been no trou ble for him a short twenty years ago.
But the hills brought him a sense of exhilaration as well.
The view of jagged crests stretching for a hundred miles, capped by the snows of autumn; the sweeping grandeur of the valleys and the inexorable crushing force of the moun tain rivers — all of these returned a joy to his old heart that he hadn't even been aware he was missing.
The sun was dropping over their right shoulders when the road abruptly ended at a shallow stream, as if a giant broom had descended and swept the rutted trail away. The bank rose steeply on the opposite side, unmarked by a single rut or hoofprint, while the two-foot-deep stream, so clear and cold Flint could see the gravel bottom, teemed across their path. Big, fluffy snowflakes plopped into the stream and melted into the steady current. Flint smiled to himself; hid ing a trail in a riverbed was one of the oldest tricks in an ad venturer's book.
Flint looked downstream, then upstream to the right.
Kneeling near the edge of the water, he saw an almost imper ceptible curve to the right in the tracks leading to the stream. 'See these, Bas?' he said, pointing to the ruts. 'I think the wagons are turning off right here, where they en ter the water. They follow it upstream.'
Basalt peered closely, then smacked his thigh in astonish ment. 'Why, you're right! Let's go!' The young dwarf took a step toward the stream. Flint's hand flew out to stop him.
Water. Water that was over half as tall as Flint's four-foot frame. Flint shivered involuntarily, considering the rapid icy flow. The stream had no bank to speak of, what with the severe pitch of the canyon walls that shaped it. It was twenty or thirty feet at its widest point.
'What's wrong, Flint?' Basalt asked. 'Aren't we going to follow the stream?'
Flint struggled to keep the color from draining from his face. He couldn't let Basalt learn that his uncle's aversion to water went beyond normal dwarven distaste, to cold, blind ing fear. Flint didn't even like admitting it to himself. It wasn't his fault, after all. It was that damned lummox, Caramon Majere.
One fine day not many years before, when Flint had been waiting in Solace for Tanis to return from a trip to
Qualinesti, Tasslehoff Burrfoot proposed that Sturm, Raist lin, Caramon, and Flint take a ride on Crystalmir Lake in a boat the kender had 'found.' They set out on the lake, and everyone was having a grand time until Caramon tried to catch a fish by hand. He leaned out too far, tilting the boat and sending everyone into the water.
Raistlin, always the clever one, had bobbed up beneath the overturned boat and was quite safe in the air pocket it formed. His oafish twin brother did not fare so well, sinking like a stone. Sturm and Tas, both fearless, strong swimmers, soon righted the boat and Raistlin with it, while it was left to
Flint to try to rescue Caramon.
The three in the boat waited eagerly for Flint and Cara mon, but all they saw was a immense amount of splashing and gurgling, and then the water became ominously silent.
Frightened, both Tas and Sturm plunged back into the wa ter; the knight hauled Caramon, coughing, into the boat. It was Tas who found the dwarf, half-drowned and hysterical; all four of his friends had to help drag him into the boat, where he lay shivering, vowing to never set foot on water again.
'Uncle Flint?'
'What? Oh, yes. I'm thinking!' he snapped. If he wanted to avenge Aylmar, he had no choice but to venture into the stream.
'Oh, all right!' he snarled at last, hitching up his belt, willing his right foot to take a step into the stream. Only it would not move.
'What's the matter, are you afraid of water?' Basalt asked incredulously.
That did it. Setting his chin firmly, Flint clomped two steps into the swiftly flowing stream, barely suppressing a scream as melted mountain snow flowed over the tops of his leather climbing boots. He bit his lip until it nearly bled.
Suddenly a strong eddy grabbed his legs and sent him slid ing off the uneven, slimy rocks under his feet.
'Whoa!' Basalt's strong arm reached out; he caught his uncle by the collar and held tight before the dwarf fell face first into the frigid water. Flint's axe clattered against the rocks on the narrow bank, and he nonchalantly wiped wa ter droplets from the weapon's shiny surface while he gath ered the courage to make another move.
'Let go of me — I mean, you can let go of me now, Bas,' he finished more calmly, twisting his damp tunic back into place. He had one goal now that overshadowed all others: he wanted only to get to the end of this stream-road as quickly as possible without falling. And if he should fall, he prayed that Reorx would take him quickly.
Flint set off slowly, concentrating so intently on his feet that his head began to ache with the strain. His toes were numb, as were his legs beneath his soaked leather pants.
Sharp rocks jabbed at the souls of his feet through his boots.
They had progressed perhaps one hundred feet upstream when Flint heard the sound, though at first he thought it was only the blood banging through his temples. No, he de cided, it sounds like wagon wheels. But why would a wagon be coming through now? It was only early evening, just heading toward dusk. The hill dwarf held up a hand to warn
Basalt, and he concentrated on the approaching noise. It was coming from behind them, he determined, probably an empty wagon returning after a run through Hillhome to Newsea.
The hill dwarves couldn't backtrack and they couldn't outrun the wagon. They had to hide! But where? Flint tore his gaze from his feet and spotted some aspen branches hanging over the stream from the right side of the tiny bank.
They would just have to duck low and hope the branches covered them.
Quickly he slogged the ten feet to the branches, waving
Basalt to follow. Flint instinctively held his breath before dropping to his knees on the rocky stream bed, letting the cold mountain water lap at his shoulders and tear at his jan gled nerve endings till he thought he could endure it no more. He felt Basalt stiffen at his side.
Hurry, damn you! he screamed inwardly at the approach ing wagon. Oh, how I wish I were on that dry
