take their places.' Amos dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed.
Flint's good mood ebbed as he was forced to agree with the shopkeeper. Solace was not the same friendly village it had been before the seekers had encroached on it in the last few years.
'But what am I saying?' Amos forced his mood to brighten. 'You didn't come here to listen to my woes.
Where's your list? I'll rustle up your goods.' Amos elbowed the dwarf conspiratorially in the ribs. 'Got that bottle of malt rum you've been waiting for, too.' Taking the scrap of parchment Flint held up in his hand, Amos cackled as he shuffled off to collect the dwarf's groceries.
'Thanks, Amos,' Flint called softly, absently scanning the shelves around him.
He saw huge clay jars of pickled cucumbers, onions, and other vegetables. The smell of vinegar lingered thick around here, and Flint moved away. The dwarf passed a row of bar rels, containing rye and wheat and oat flours, and then smaller bins with sugar and salt. Opposite these was a wall of spices, and he read their odd names with amused curios ity: absynt, bathis, cloyiv, tumeric. What made people add such bizarre things to their food? the dwarf wondered. What was wrong with a plain, sizzling haunch of meat?
Flint was looking at a tin of salted sea snails, a treat he hadn't had in years, when he heard someone beside him say in a gravelly voice, 'So there is another hill dwarf in this town! I was beginning to feel like the proverbial hobgoblin at a kender Sunday picnic,' boomed the stranger, clapping
Flint on the back merrily. 'Hanak's the name.'
Flint took a small step sideways and looked at the speaker. He was nearly big nose to big nose with another dwarf, all right. Wild, carrot-red hair sprang from the other dwarf's head like tight metal coils, and between that and a poker-straight beard and mustache were eyes as clear blue as the sky. Flint tried to judge his age: the lines on his face were not too deep, but he was missing his two front teeth, though whether from aging or fighting Flint could not say.
The strange dwarf wore a tight chain mail shirt and a well-worn cap of smooth leather. His high boots were light, almost like moccasins, but showed the wear and stain of much travel. Hanak smacked his lips and rubbed his hands together as he looked at the shelves of food.
'You must be new to Solace,' said Flint noncommitally.
Hanak shrugged. 'Just passing through, actually; I'm headed for Haven. I hail from the hills south of here a good ways, almost down to the plains of Tarsis. Never been this far north before,' he admitted.
Flint turned back to his shopping but then felt the other dwarf's eyes on him.
'You're from the south too, unless I miss my guess.'
'You don't,' Flint admitted, facing the stranger again.
Hanak's inquisitive words made Flint uncomfortable.
'Not so far south as me, though — east hillcountry'd be my guess,' the other hill dwarf said, tapping his chin in thought, squinting at Flint. 'Perhaps just north of Thor bardin?'
'How did you know?' Flint asked brusquely. 'I've never met anyone who could pinpoint someone's region so closely!'
'Well, now, it wasn't too difficult,' the dwarf said, his tone implying anything but. 'I travel for my living, selling leather work. I detected a slight accent and noticed the black in your hair — nearly every dwarf in my region has red or brown; And that long, loose, blue-green tunic and those baggy leather boots — you've been away from dwarves for some time, haven't you? I haven't seen anyone wearing that style in years, you know. Say, what village are you from, exactly?'
Flint was a little put off by the clothing comments — he'd gotten the boots as a gift from his mother a few decades before — but he decided the dwarf meant no offense. 'I was raised in a little place called Hillhome, smack between Thor bardin and Skullcap.'
'Hillhome! Why, I was there but twenty day ago. Was trading my boots and aprons. Not so little anymore, though. A shame what's happening there, isn't it?' he said sympathetically. 'Still, you can't stop progress, now can you? Um, um, um,' the dwarf muttered, shaking his head sadly.
'Progress? In Hillhome?' Flint snorted. 'What did they do, raise the hems on the frawl's dresses by half an inch?'
'I'm talking about the mountain dwarves!' yelled Hanak.
'Marchin' through town, drivin' their big wagons over the pass. They even stay at hill dwarf inns!'
'That pass was built by hill dwarf sweat, hill dwarf blood!' cried Flint, appalled at the news. 'They'd never let the mountain dwarves use it!' No, never, Flint repeated ve hemently to himself.
The history of the hill and mountain dwarves was a bitter one, at least during the centuries since the Cataclysm. At that time, when the heavens rained destruction upon
Krynn, the mountain dwarves withdrew into their great un derground kingdom of Thorbardin and sealed the gates, leaving their hill dwarf cousins to suffer the full force of the gods' punishment.
The hill dwarves had named the act the Great Betrayal, and Flint was only one of the multitudes who had inherited this legacy of hatred from his forefathers. Indeed, his fa ther's father, Reghar Fireforge, had been a leader of the hill dwarf armies during the tragic, divisive Dwarfgate Wars.
Flint could not believe that the dwarves of Hillhome would avert their eyes to the undying blood feud.
'I'm afraid they are,' replied Hanak, his tone gentler.
'Theiwar dwarves at that, the derro dwarves of Thor bardin.'
'Derro? It can't be!' growled Flint. That was even worse.
Indeed, the derro — the race of dwarves that comprised the bulk of the Theiwar clan — were known to be the most mali cious of mountain dwarves. Their magic-using shamans had been the prime instigators of the Great Betrayal.
The other dwarf backed a step away this time and held up his hands defensively. 'I only know what I saw, friend, and I saw derro strolling merrily among the dwarves of
Hillhome — and not a one of the hill dwarves was spitting on
'em, either.'
'I can't believe that,' Flint muttered, shaking his head. 'I can't believe my brothers would allow it. Our family used to carry some weight in the village. Maybe you heard our name — Fireforge? My brother's name is Aylmar Fireforge.'
A shadow crossed the other dwarf's face fleetingly, and he seemed almost to nod, then think better of it. 'No, it doesn't ring a bell,' he said, then quickly added, 'but I didn't stay long enough to get to know anyone so very well.'
Flint ran a weary hand through his salt-and-pepper mop.
Could Hanak be right about mountain dwarves infesting
Hillhome?
Flint felt a strong hand squeeze his shoulder. 'If my kin folk were dealing with devils, I'd go have me a look,' Hanak said kindly. 'May Reorx guide you.' With that, he strolled out the door of the grocery, leaving Flint to his troubled thoughts.
Amos slammed a brown, wrapped bundle onto the counter before him. 'Salt, a bag of apples, four eggs, a slab of bacon, one jar of pickles, two loaves of day-old bread, four pounds of the richest Nordmaarian chicory root known to man — and dwarves — ' He snickered '- a vial of tar to fix those creaky shutters before winter sets, and the long-awaited malt rum,' he finished with satisfaction.
Flint reached into the pocket of the vest over his shoulder and said distractedly, 'You can leave the tar. I won't be here to see winter reach Solace.'
Noting the dark tone in the dwarf's voice, Amos looked at his friend with concern, but he knew better than to ask ques tions. The shopkeeper had never seen Flint so preoccupied, even when those young, troublemaking friends of his were in town. He took the money for Flint's purchases and word lessly nodded good-bye.
Chapter 2
