this Ming fellow would kill them all in the end, and he was even more concerned that the nomads might resort to torture to get information. The riders seemed like hard men who would do what it took to secure their safety.
Dol had watched, more than once, as dwarf torture masters used their wiles on captured darklings to get information about raids, citadels, strongholds, and anything else they might now. They broke down quickly under proper inducement and always told everything they knew or could make up. This was often useful but more often it was impossible to extract the truth from the myriad of lies. More than once Dol had watched a darkling, scourged to within an inch of his life tell of great hidden citadels with mountains of jewels, any lie just to stop the pain for a little while. Even more painful than the thought of torture was the idea that the hammer might fall into the hands of these nomads. His hammer. He caressed the handle lightly and felt the heat of it travel up his fingers. He was becoming more used to it every day. He practiced holding it for longer and longer periods of times when the others weren’t watching too closely. Soon he would be able to master its power. He remembered that first surge of heat when they broke through the wall to the outside world. Then again, much more powerfully, when he killed that nomad. The surge of fire, the heat, the power. He looked at the hammer by his side and stroked it again, “Nothing can stand in my way,” he whispered to himself. “Not when I have you. And I won’t let them take you.”
“What was that,” said Brogus groggily as he rolled onto his side. “I have to pee.”
“The pot’s over there,” said Dol pointing to an unseen corner of the tent. Earlier it took him nearly twenty minutes to find the thing. These tents with their hidden folds were not easy to navigate. He’d tried to watch as they came into the tent city, to keep track of direction, but it was difficult here on the surface. The inside of the tents were easier once you figured out how they folded but it had taken him some exploring before he figured it out.
“Where are the girls?” said Brogus as he let fly a tremendous torrent into the pot from out of sight beyond the cloth walls.
“I don’t know,” said Dol. “They said they were taking them to a female area of the encampment but I had to help bring you back here. Why did you drink so much?”
“Because it was free,” said Brogus with a wide smile as the pleasure of a powerful urination coursed through his frame. “Why didn’t you drink more?”
“We’re not back home anymore, Brogus,” said Dol and looked to the floor of the tent again. “You have to be careful what you say and what you do here. These are not our friends.”
“What?” said Brogus suddenly reappearing as he tried to pull up his pants and shove his member into them at the same time. “Ouch, almost nipped the little fellow there.”
“I said that we’re not at home anymore,” said Dol with a shake of his head as watched his still drunk friend try to navigate the complexities of their strange desert garb.
“Don’t I know it,” said Brogus and put his hand to the back of his neck. “That salve helped a bit but I’m still, what do they call it, kissed by the sun? I feel weak, tired, drained.”
“It could be all that beer you drank” suggested Dol although he too still felt the burning, sapping sensation of too much exposure to the intense sunlight.
“No chance,” said Brogus with a snort. “I’ve had more than that plenty of times. It’s the sun. It beats the energy right out of you. I’ll be glad to be gone from this place, even if it is to fight some elemental from the…”
Dol got up quickly and smacked Brogus across the top of the head before the dwarf could finish his sentence. “You’ve done enough damage already. Think before you speak. Don’t give them any more information. We’re not home, we’re not safe. These people mean us harm.”
“I don’t know,” said Brogus with a puzzled expression on his face and a deep frown. “They fed us pretty good.”
“How many times have you watched interrogation masters with Darklings. First they try the nice method. Give them food, water, tell them you’re their friend. What happens when that doesn’t work?”
Brogus stopped gargling the water he had plunged into his mouth from the large pitcher set up near the entrance of the tent in a specially made little pedestal and looked to Dol with his mouth still full. He looked around the tent, first to the left, then to the right and the put his hands out to Dol with his eyes filled with confusion.
“Tent flap is just there, by your hand, you can spit out the door,” said the tall dwarf as he put down the hammer and sat on one of the cushions in the main chamber. Their tent was quite roomy enough for two nomads, and the dwarfs were not much more than half as tall as the men so the place seemed massively spacious after their apprentice cubbies. Dol leaned back on an orange cushion and rested his head. After staying up all night watching Brogus he suddenly felt exhausted and he was almost instantly asleep.
Brogus stood outside and stared at the tents that surrounded them in every direction. He had no idea what direction he faced, and an occasional nomad drifted by, nodded a head, and said some pleasantry or another although the dwarf could not understand the words. He replied with a hello and a wave but they went on about their business without further notice. He walked all the way around the tent but could garner no further information about his location. A tent of one color or another stood, well staked to the hardpan dirt ground, to each side of him but there seemed to be little rhyme or reason to their location. “Treat it like’s a darkling warren,” said Brogus to himself and shut his eyes. “There is no sky, these are merely tunnels. All I have to do is remember my training, count the turns, note the landmarks. It’s just strange, not impossible.” With that he set his shoulders and started off in a direction. He wandered for several hours, taking note of the shape of the land in the same way he kept track of elevation when wandering a foreign tunnel far below the surface. He counted his steps without thinking and soon found himself standing at the shore of a large lake. Dozens of nomadic woman, many of them with small children wrapped up in strange little trusses, filled basins with the water and then returned to the tent city in a never ending line.
Brogus looked across the lake but the morning mist prevented him from seeing the far side of its shore. The tents were dense on this side of the lake but they slowly started to dwindle further up the shoreline in both directions. He walked ankle deep into the water, knelt down, and plunged his head into to the cool lake. He held it under and then pulled it out with a little whoop. Then he shook his long hair and beard in a spray of water. He repeated this process twice more much to the amusement of a group of children on the shore. They hooted and hollered strange words at him but he ignored them and continued to bathe himself. After his little cleansing he looked around again and noticed his audience still staring at him in wide-eyed wonder. There were about twenty of the little urchins watching him and he waved gaily and then set out to circle the lake. He didn’t get far when a tall nomad who seemed familiar joined him. “Do I know you?” said Brogus.
The nomad looked at him quizzically and shrugged his shoulders with incomprehension.
“I’m going for a walk around the lake,” said Brogus.
The nomad said nothing and his placid expression did not change.
Brogus shrugged and continued on the morning walk with his silent companion at his side. He managed to circle to the other side of the lake in about an hour. By the time he reached the far shore the mists no longer obstructed his view and he saw the tent city on the opposite side of the lake. There was a little hill not far to his left and he climbed it in about ten minutes. This gave him a good view of the city. His mind, used to deciphering endless dwarf and darkling tunnel mazes, managed to figure out the general vicinity of his and Dol’s tent although he could not make it out individually from the distance. The vivid colors splashed on the shore reminded him of mineral deposits in a deep cave although, at the same time, not much like that at all he finally admitted to himself. Still there was pattern, an order, in the display and where there was order his dwarf mind could go to work.
Another hour or so saw him back to the tent city which now bustled with energy as men and woman went about their daily business. While some of their behavior baffled him completely he did recognize much of the domestic work of washing, cleaning, gathering water, and emptying chamber pots as common to his own people. His arrival on the opposite side of the city meant that he was confused as to his location but he simply hugged the shore line until he got back to the spot where he first found the lake. He took another quick bath and then headed into the tents to see if he could find his way back to their temporary home. He got lost two times, although each proved fortuitous in its own way as he found a little stand that served the most delicious meat pies and another tent where he had a glass of the sweet nomadic beer. Each time he paid for the items with a few of the silver coins he obtained back in Das’von in exchange for their heavy gold coins. The nomads seemed to understand the value of gold and silver and honestly returned him the proper change, or at least he assumed as much. His escort accompanied him quietly; never threatening but not helping in any fashion either.
