wagon and the derro were in this wretched water, thought Flint. That image gave him an idea.
'Bas,' he whispered, no louder than a breath, 'Wait for me in the brush back where the road turns to river. Two days, no more. Then go home.'
'What? I'm going with you!' Basalt hissed quickly, then he saw the determined look on his uncle's gray- bearded face. 'You need me — '
'Look, Bas, I'm not even sure I can get in this way,' Flint began almost apologetically, 'but two of us are sure to get nailed. Two days, no morel I'll be OK!'
The wagon was almost upon them. Approaching their home base, the guards obviously did not fear an attack and were asleep on the buckboard, and the driver nearly dozed from the tedium, too. The four horses pulled the wagon steadily up the stream bed through the knee-high water.
Flint mentally measured the distance and timed the rotation of the huge wooden wheels with their iron spokes.
Flint broke his concentration just long enough to hold Ba salt's gaze. 'Watch yourself, son.'
The wagon was smack in front of them now, the four horses churning the water with their big hooves. Flint launched himself between the bone-crushing wheels and caught the bottom of the cargo box with just three of the thick fingers of his right hand. He quickly swung himself monkey-style until his left hand connected with the axle brace of the right front wheel. Wrapping his arms and legs around it, he held on for dear life and dangled beneath the wagon and just above the water, waiting for some large, pointed rock to impale him from below.
The wagon stopped abruptly, and he heard animated con versation.
'You clear the tunnel,' someone said.
It's your turn!' another said in a sleepy voice. 'I had to clear those boulders out of the way by that ridge a few days ago.'
'Oh, all right!' the first one said.
The front end of the wagon bounced slightly as one of the derro sprang to the ground and landed in the water with a splash.
Flint hugged the axle and made himself as small as possi ble. Lowering his head just slightly, he looked under the front of the wagon and saw that thick brush blocked the bank of the stream beside them. The hill dwarf saw only branches, water, and the mountain dwarf's waist at water level until the fellow moved the tree limbs to either side of the wagon, forming an opening in the steep stream bed.
Deep ruts that led out of the stream were revealed where the branches had been. With an oath, the driver coaxed the horses through a turn to the left, and the poor creatures la boriously hauled the heavy wagon out of the stream and onto the concealed portion of the road.
The driver did not stop the wagon as both guards dropped to replace the brush pile, then climbed back onto the rear of the wagon, where Flint could hear them crawl over the hollow wooden cargo hold and take their places at the front again.
They rolled a short distance, and the sounds of the stream fell behind. It suddenly grew dark, and Flint knew they had entered a tunnel. His arms began to ache so that he could no longer hold onto the bouncing axle brace. Unclenching his stiff hands, arms, and legs, he dropped to the sandy ground, being careful to avoid the enormous iron wheels. He crouched in the darkness, waiting until the wagon had rum bled out of earshot. His heat-sensing infravision responded only dimly in the cold tunnel, outlining the walls in faint red.
Flint took two short steps, his boots crunching softly on the tunnel floor. Then he froze. A second click, following the sound of his own footstep, came from the right. Then another, from higher up, and another even higher. When he heard something snap directly overhead, Flint twisted des perately and threw himself to the left, but it was too late. A cage of iron bars slammed down around him, and he crashed into its side. Furiously Flint grasped the bars with both hands and pushed, pulled, lifted, and rattled them, but the cage was too heavy to budge. He dropped to his knees and scraped at the tunnel floor. Aside from a thin layer of loose gravel, it was solid rock.
The dwarf leaned back against the bars. 'Damn!'
Chapter 9
They took his axe immediately — Flint felt naked with out it. Still angered by the ease with which he had been cap tured, the hill dwarf seethed under the watchful eyes of eight guards while a detachment proceeded to alert their commander. The sentries in the tunnel were derro dwarves, white-skinned and wide-eyed. They wore polished black plate armor with long purple plumes trailing from their helms.
Although the cage had been raised so that he was no longer imprisoned by bars, the derro guards made Flint sit in a stone recess in the tunnel wall. As they waited, the derro played some kind of betting game with pebbles on the smooth, stone floor at the mouth of the cramped alcove. Es cape, for the moment anyway, was clearly out of the ques tion. He could only sit and fidget as time crawled by.
'Who's in charge here, anyway?' Flint asked once, after more than an hour had passed.
One of the derro guards looked up from the game with a cold gaze. His large, pale eyes showed almost as much emo tion as the stare of a dead fish, Flint thought. 'Shuddup,' was the fellow's only reply.
Sometime later Flint heard the step of several pairs of heavy boots. The guards hastily put away their stones and jumped to their feet, standing rigidly. The footsteps tromped closer, but Flint could not see whoever approached through the narrow opening of his niche.
'Column, halt!' The command, spoken in a harsh yet un deniably female voice, brought the march to a stop. 'The prisoner?' he heard the same voice inquire.
'In here, Captain.'
Two derro hauled Flint roughly to his feet and pulled him from the alcove. He found himself facing a frawl mountain dwarf, leading a fresh detachment of guards. She carried a small hand axe, unlike the battle-axes hoisted by the rest of the guards, and she wore the golden epaulets of command on her shoulders.
Her smooth face and warm hazel eyes set her immediately apart from the others, all of whom were male. She wore the same helmet as her men, with its trailing purple plume, but wild copper curls escaped its confines and danced across her shoulders every time she moved her head. Her chain mail sleeves revealed arms of sinewy muscle, but the steel breast plate she wore suggested an undeniably feminine fullness of shape.
'Why am I being held prisoner?' Flint blurted. 'I demand — ' He stopped suddenly, cut off by the slap of a guard's meaty hand across his face.
'Prisoners have no rights here,' the frawl said coldly. 'You may speak when given permission. Otherwise, keep your tongue still. You'll be given ample opportunity to confess your crimes of spying on the Theiwar. Come along.'
The detachment surrounded him. In silence they tromped back the way they had come, deeper into the tunnel, toward
Thorbardin. Flint noted that the passageway had only re cently been widened, or perhaps created anew; jagged out croppings of rock still remained on the walls revealing, in places on the floor, fresh chisel cuts. Wagon tracks were visi ble, but had not yet scarred the rock floor.
Eventually the tunnel swung to the left and before long opened into a vast cavern. A pall of smoke hung in the air, and the clash of heavy iron tools rang constantly, echoing around the stone chamber with a reverberating din. Before Flint stood huge mounds of coal, forming a black ridge some twenty feet high. This pile blocked his view of the rest of the cavern.
'Looks like a pretty big operation,' suggested Flint art lessly. 'Making some farming tools?'
The businesslike frawl seemed not to hear him at first.
Then she turned and eyed him sarcastically. 'It's strange — you don't seem unintelligent…'
'Thank you — ' he interrupted.
'… just foolhardy,' she finished, as if he had not spoken.
'You would be well advised to curb your curious nature, and your clever tongue, if you don't care to lose
