outside their lodgings with the horses raring to go and all their possessions packed into their saddlebags-except for the Bluestone, which Brandon always kept wrapped and bound in a secret bundle he tucked into the small of his back.
Brandon shrugged and decided not to argue the point. If truth be told, he was hungry and thirsty, and the inn below Caergoth Castle proved to be a convivial place. Brandon was pleased to get a hot meal into his companion before Harn started on his second bottle of dwarf spirits. The young Hylar, by comparison, decided that he would stick with beer, which-much to his surprise-the humans had proved capable of brewing with commendable quality.
As Caergoth was the second human city he had visited, Brandon felt almost like a sophisticate as they wolfed down a hearty meal and listened to a pair of minstrels playing their exotic lutes over in a corner. The two dwarves struck up a conversation with a quartet of pikemen, in uniform but unarmed, who were eating and drinking at the next table.
“Do you serve in the army of the king of Solamnia?” asked Brandon. He was buzzing enough with the effects of his beers that he took no offense when the men reacted with laughter.
“We have no king in Solamnia,” one scoffed. “Haven’t for years.”
“Yeah that’s right, Bennett,” said his companion. “We got something better: an emperor!”
“Guess you ain’t heard,” the one called Bennett said to the dwarves. “We’re an empire again! Why, me and my blokes here, we helped to make it so. Didn’t, we boys?”
“Aye,” said another. “We fought the horde of Ankhar the half-giant when Jaymes Markham was our lord marshal, and we fought him again after he was made emperor! If Ankhar wasn’t dead, I’d be ready to go to war with him and fight with the emperor a third time tomorrow.”
“Aye, and me too,” pledged the fourth pikeman, who looked morosely into his empty glass. “There’s not been a merry war for nigh on a year now!”
“Here, let me buy you lads a round,” said Harn Poleaxe, waving a barmaid over and securing a pitcher of beer for each table. Brandon was quietly glad his companion was eschewing the stronger dwarf spirits, at least for the time being. “Tell us about this war.”
Brandon knew a little something about the campaigns of the Solamnics against the barbarian horde of the half-giant, Ankhar. Regar Smashfingers had sent several companies of dwarves to the emperor’s aid, and his forgers made quite a profit, so it was said, selling strong spring steel to the humans so they could build some newfangled kind of weapon, a bombard it was called, that had proved a decisive factor in the wars. Of course, that highly profitable activity had been limited to the king’s inner circle; the Bluestones hadn’t been involved. Still, since many of the goblins and ogres of Ankhar’s army had been drawn from the valleys of the Garnet Range and had perished in the war, the outcome of the conflict had had a beneficial effect on the dwarven kingdom.
“So how big is this empire?” Brandon wondered, thinking about how much ground he and Poleaxe had covered since they left home. It was a big world, he was beginning to realize, but it was startling to think they had been traveling in one nation that whole time.
“Why, Garnet and Caergoth are just the far south,” Bennett explained. “We got Solanthus and Vingaard and Thelgaard. The empire goes all the way to Palanthas, way in the north. That’s where the emperor has his palace.”
“Say, you fellows wouldn’t be interested in a little wagering, would you?” Harn said casually, pulling out the small bag holding his knucklebones. He rolled the shaped ivories onto the table, smiling as each settled with three points turned up. “I have a few steel coins been burning a hole in my money pouch.”
Before Brandon knew what was happening, the two tables had been pushed together and each of the four men and two dwarves had a small pile of coins stacked before him. Ever mindful of his family’s luck, the young mountain dwarf decided to limit his gambling to twenty steel pieces. They took turns rolling the bones, making bets, passing their steel pieces back and forth, and drinking from the never-ending stream of pitchers that Harn Poleaxe kept ordering.
Brandon was having a great time, even though he was down to his last two coins after a couple of hours. He noticed, vaguely, that the four soldiers were also short on coins, while Harn Poleaxe had somehow amassed a rather impressive pile of the valuable steel pieces. Perhaps Brandon was aware that the emperor’s men were not having as much fun as he was, but he was still surprised when the fight erupted.
For some reason, Bennett broke his mug over Harn’s head, an act that did little more than get the big Neidar to freeze, raise his eyebrows irritably, and rise to his feet with a grin and a roar-somehow sliding his coin stack into his purse at the same time. Poleaxe swung a wild punch at the pikeman. The blow failed to connect with its intended target while knocking out the soldier sitting directly to Bennett’s left.
Another of the men lunged at Brandon, who defended himself instinctively, first breaking the fellow’s hold around his neck then clocking him with a punch that smashed his nose into a flat purple bruise. Harn, meanwhile, grasped the necks of both Bennett and the fourth man and pulled, crunching the two heads together and letting the men flop, unconscious, onto the table.
Somehow, however, the two dwarves had failed to notice that the bar was heavily crowded with other humans who were all wearing the same blue tunics as their gambling companions. Those soldiers wasted no time in joining in, lunging after the dwarves, and for a lively ten minutes, the two traveling companions stood back to back, enjoyably defending themselves against thrown chairs and bottles, punches and kicks.
Then a bugle suddenly sounded, and the whole bar cleared out, seemingly in the space of an instant, leaving only the two dwarves and about a dozen pikemen who were unconscious, injured, or simply too stunned to scramble away. The front door-none of the fleeing soldiers had departed that way-burst open, and three tall knights came striding in. Their heavy armor was decorated with the image of a white crown on their chests. The largest marched forward, looming over the dwarves, and glared down at them with his hands on his chest. Brandon, no stranger to facial hair, couldn’t help but be impressed by the fellow’s long, feathered mustaches.
“What in the name of all the gods is going on here?” he demanded.
“Who wants to know?” shot back Harn Poleaxe, trying to step forward and being quickly restrained by Brandon’s strong arm.
“We were fairly defending ourselves, your lordship,” the Hylar said politely.
The knight looked in contempt at the scattered soldiers, some of whom, groaning, were trying to sit up or push themselves to their feet. “Against this rabble?” he asked.
“We were led to believe they were honorable soldiers,” Brandon explained. “But they didn’t take kindly to my companion’s success at knucklebones.”
“What kind of success?” the knight demanded, looming closer.
“None of your-oof!” Harn’s retort was interrupted by Brandon’s elbow to his guts.
“Show him,” the mountain dwarf encouraged in a conversational tone.
Grudgingly, the Neidar pulled out his money purse and displayed the steel coins. The knight reached in and helped himself to a handful, eyeing Poleaxe sternly, while Brandon kept a tight grip on his companion’s arm-partly to hold him back and partly to hold him up, for the Neidar was starting to sway alarmingly.
“How long are you planning to stay in town?” the knight asked when he had taken his share, glaring at them. “Do I need to clear space in my dungeon for you?”
“We’re leaving first thing in the morning,” Brandon said at once.
“Yeah. First thing,” Harn agreed sullenly.
“Very well,” the knight replied, smiling tightly. “We can escort you to a nice room by the waterfront. You don’t want to be late for the morning tide.”
ELEVEN
The High Kharolis is the loftiest, most extensive mountain range upon the continent of Ansalon. The summits are grand and numerous, and while they are not so craggy as some of the Khalkist Mountains and they are not fiery volcanoes like the Lords of Doom, their majesty is apparent to anyone within fifty miles of the foothills of the range.
