“By Davim, that Cleathelm is an idiot. If they didn’t have Blaggard with them I’d as soon head back to Craggen Steep and figure they’d starve to death before they found any sign of Milli and the others,” said Uldex to his companions. “Keep watching them and see which direction they go. We have to stay behind them as best as possible. Don’t stay too close though. It’s better to lose them and find them again later than to let them know we’re back here.”
“They’ll have to take the trail,” said the broader of his two companions pointing to the little dirt trail not far from Cleathelm and his friends. “Maybe we should circle around and get ahead of them. There’s got to be a town or a village or a farm around here somewhere.”
Uldex looked around in all directions but saw no sign of smoke or village in the lightly wooded terrain of the region. Finally he looked up to the sun and the endless blue sky with its few puffy clouds and suppressed a slight shudder. “They might come up here looking for caves, for shelter. This vast openness is… disturbing.”
“Maybe,” said the smaller of his two companions also with a wary look towards the vast sky.
“No, of course not,” said Uldex answering his own question after only a brief pause. “Cleathelm may be an idiot but his father sent him on a mission and he’ll see it through no matter how clumsily. They’ll follow the road to a village and try and find the five volcanoes. I wonder if they were smart enough to bring a translator amulet?”
The two warriors by his side shrugged simultaneously but said nothing.
“All right,” said Uldex after another moment. “Let’s try and get to the trail in front of them. We don’t want to be seen though. Even if Cleathelm doesn’t recognize us for who we are there might not be many dwarves in the region. Even someone as stupid as him would get suspicious, and Blaggard is nobody’s fool.”
“Where there are mountains, volcano or no, there are dwarves,” said his broad shouldered companion.
“True enough,” said Uldex with a nod of his head and a tight smile. “Still, I’d like to keep as little seen as possible.”
“Why not just jump them, kill them, and be done with it,” said the smaller of his two friends with a wicked little grin on his face as he fingered the heavy axe at his side. “We can do it, easy.”
“That’s what I suggested to Uncle Borrombus before we headed out to follow these idiots, but it is not our job. We are to follow them, see where they go, and only intervene if they are doing something directly against Milli and Dol.”
“Orders are orders,” said his big friend.
“Yes,” said Uldex, “I suppose they are.”
Chapter 14
“Damn that Brogus,” said Milli as she and Petra sat in the luxurious tent provided to them by the Black Rider. The cushions were made of some soft material that Milli did not recognize, and there seemed an endless supply of fresh drinks and food brought in by handsome young nomads with black eyes and hard muscles. Indoors the nomad’s loose fitting clothes sometimes slipped to reveal far more skin than Milli was used to seeing. “Why does he have to drink so much and blather on like a child?” she said as her eyes wandered to the departing nomad whose muscled legs displayed handsomely in the short wrap that he wore.
Petra put her finger to her lips and replied quietly, “Shhhh, it’s most likely that Tahnoon has spies around our tent. He is a crafty one, pretending to get drunk while all the while asking leading questions and hoping for information. The Black Horseman and Tahnoon planned that entire meeting down to the wine they served. They’ll never let us go. They’ll get what they need to know about Corancil and his armies and then they’ll kill us.”
“I don’t know,” said Milli with a shrug of her shoulder and longing gaze at the jug filled with the sweetest juice she’d ever tasted. “Ming seemed like a pretty decent fellow before he had to leave.”
“Good guard, bad guard,” said Petra. “I’ve been in enough prisons in my life to know that game. They’re scared of Corancil and his armies. They think he’ll invade and they’re almost certainly right. You know that as well as I do. They’ll get as much information from us as possible and then kill us in some awful way. Stake us out in the sun, feed us to some terrible desert creature, trample us with those horses of theirs, who knows, but they’ll kill us in the end, don’t make a mistake about that,” she continued with her black eyes cold and set as she stared at the girl. “Don’t let notions of romance fool you into a sense of security.”
“How can you be so sure?” said Milli with a rather unfocused gaze at the woman. Then she paused briefly before continuing “You’ve been in prison?”
“Since I was a little girl, many times. We gypsies are always hunted and hounded and framed for something the local noble’s son did in the first place. It’s always the same. People say those in authority do what’s necessary, while we are called thieves for stealing only a fraction of what they take. Some prisons are worse, some are better, but none of them are good. We are in one now, gilded to be certain, but a prison nonetheless. Ming knows about Craggen Steep, he knows we carry a large amount of treasure, and they’re fools if they couldn’t see the power of Dol’s hammer. They’ll want the gold and hammer if nothing else. Even if we don’t have much information about the invasion they’ll want that much.”
“Damn that Brogus! Why did Davim make men so stupid?”
“It’s in their nature, you use it to your advantage. Don’t deny it, little girl, I’ve seen you flip your hair and bat your eyes.”
Milli pursed her lips and shrugged her shoulders before she smiled, “That’s a different kind of stupid.”
Petra shook her head, “Stupid is what it is. And don’t think it’s an accident that they’ve sent handsome young stallions to our tent. You can bet that they’ve sent pretty girls to the boys.”
At this Milli suddenly looked down and felt her face go red.
Petra patted her arm and gave a little knowing wink, “No sense in not looking though! Now, we have to figure out how to escape from here before they kill us. We have to hint that we know more about Corancil than we’re letting on so they keep trying to get Brogus drunk to find out more. The longer we can stay alive the better our chances to escape.”
“How can we escape?” said Milli. “It’s nothing but desert in all directions, and even if we stole horses you saw how those nomads ride. They’d track us down in hours.”
“We need to find a map of the desert. There’s that trading town they said, Tanta. We steal the horses, get to the trading town, and get aboard a ship heading south to the volcano lands. We learned that much at least. From there it can’t be too hard to find five volcanoes. How many areas can have five of them right next to each other?”
“I don’t know,” said Milli and buried her head in her hands. “How did things get so messed up? We were supposed to come south, kill Gazadum, and get famous and rich. It shouldn’t be that hard.”
Petra looked at the girl and shook her head, “How old are you, Milli?”
“Nineteen I think,” said the girl. “They weren’t sure how old I was when they found me. Three or four they guess.”
“And you’ve lived your entire life in Craggen Steep, with dwarves?”
Milli nodded as a tear formed in her eye.
“It’s okay; it’s not your fault, Milli,” said Petra and again patted her gently on the arm.
“We’re all going to die and it’s my fault! I didn’t think ahead, I didn’t plan for the desert, I didn’t think Ming would kill us. I’m so stupid.”
“Just naive,” said Petra and leaned over to give the girl a hug. “It’s okay. Girls are allowed to cry.”
Milli choked back a sob, “Not dwarf girls, crying is for the weak.”
“Oh dearie, that’s just not true. Let it all out. I’m here.”
Milli tried to prevent another sob but her little body convulsed and suddenly she was weeping and hugging Petra tightly.
In another tent, far enough away to seem close but distant enough to confuse strangers in the tent city, Dol sat over the unconscious Brogus and watched his snoring friend for long hours. The Hammer of Fire was at it his side as he contemplated the events of the evening silently and coolly although he felt his anger rising at his companion’s foolish admissions in the tent of the Black Horseman. He thought about waking Brogus just to chastise him but there was no sense in flogging a dwarf because he stole a little gold from the ore bin. He was certain that
