“It was my idea to steal the thing,” said Brogus with a broad grin as he nodded his thick head up and down and tapped his chest with a thick forefinger. “You two figure out what do with it.”
“Go ahead, take credit where credit is due Brogus,” said Milli with a smile and gave the burly dwarf a pat on the back. “Dol here might actually be able to hold onto the Hammer of Fire, but he’s right. We need to figure out what do with it once we take it. I’m not going to join the army on some five year campaign to subdue the southern continent, Corancil or no Corancil. They have nomadic horsemen down there and the desert sun can’t be good for my skin. I’ve lived my life indoors, under the mountain. I see the way dwarves come back from the caravan trades all burned red and peeling.”
“Why not just join up with Corancil?” said Brogus. “He’s already conquered most of the northern realms, Das’von, Stav’rol. They say he’ll be emperor one day, that he’ll control the entire world. If we join him we can be part of all that. The expedition to the southern continent is gathering now. We should join him. You know the High Council will never allow a dwarf army to join him. It really wouldn’t be the hidden city of Craggen Steep if we went marching around the world now would it?”
“No,” replied Dol suddenly using his toneless voice again as he shook his head.
“Where’s that apple?” asked Brogus changing the subject once again and causing Milli to burst out in laughter and the thick jawed dwarf followed. It took Milli and Brogus a few minutes to calm down from this second bout of hysterics, although each time they almost settled, another would trigger more laughter with a small facial movement or even just a little hiccup. They only stopped when the waitress gave them a sour look and refused to come near their table. All the while Dol sat silently and stared at his mug of beer.
“So you’ll do it?” said Brogus, finally calm enough to speak, as he leaned over the table an eager grin on his face and his eyes wide to the point where white showed all around. “You’ll take the hammer and head out with us?”
“Dol, you know if you do it you’ll break your apprenticeship contract. You won’t be allowed back in Craggen Steep unless you can pay your indemnity,” said Milli, her yellow eyes suddenly dark and the bright smile gone.
The short haired dwarf shrugged his shoulders and looked around the room at all the young dwarves who wore advanced apprenticeship badges on their sleeves and then looked at Milli, “You were right earlier, there’s no hope for a half-breed like me, not here at least.”
Milli reached over the table to touch his hand although Dol pulled back and leaned against the back of his seat. “I was too harsh, you know that’s not completely true, Dol. You’re as fine a metal smith as any young man your age. It’s because you’re so useful in the forge that they haven’t promoted you too much, because of your… natural characteristics. You could stay and make a fine living.”
“Shut up, Milli,” said Brogus. “He’s right. We’re all stuck here for life unless we do something bold.”
“It doesn’t matter what holds me back, my heritage, my natural ability, the point is that there is no future for me at Craggen Steep,” said Dol with a bit of fire in his voice, a shrug of his shoulders, and a glance at the table of giggling girls. “Why not take the thing? I’m with Milli though, I won’t join up with some army, and I won’t take it without a plan. I want to do something with it. Something that will make people remember.”
“Make our fortune!” said Brogus his voice once again slightly too loud as Milli shushed him with a delicate finger to her rosy lips.
Chapter 2
Visitors filled the workshop of First Edos Fierfelm Sunspire and the old dwarf looked around with a deep frown, partially hidden by his long beard, as he contemplated his many guests. It wasn’t the cost of the food and beverage that the First Edos was required to provide that angered him so much as the amount that would surely end up on his floors and workbenches. His useless young chief apprentice, Cleathelm Firefist, busied himself entertaining the various dignitaries in the room and failed utterly to follow Fierfelm’s orders about glasses on coasters. He sighed. The office was virtually the same as when he first came here under the tutelage of old Udor. That was before the Hammer of Fire, before the glory of its creation and the adulation of the entire city. But, even now the tools hung in the same spots, the work bench sat in the same place, although perhaps with one or two more burns and stains, the great weapons rested on the walls in exactly the same places with the notable exception of the Hammer of Fire. The hammer went up on the wall in the most prominent position in the room the day after Udor retired. It had not been moved since. The haft, the bottom half of the greatest elf weapon in history, the Staff of Faelom, proved far too hot for anyone to handle for more than a few seconds and special pegs in the wall, made from ceramics infused with diamonds, kept it in place. The great hammer head glowed with a deep red from within its silver surface and seemed to gently throb like the heart of a great dragon at rest.
“It’s an awful chance,” said an immensely fat dwarf with apparently half a pie evenly dispersed between beard and mouth as he moved silently next to Fierfelm. He carried a huge silver plate in one hand piled high with eclairs and other little pastry desserts. The other hand held a massive mug hollowed out from a single crystal of gargantuan size and filled with a frothy, dark substance that smelled of yeast and hops. Despite his size and load the man moved with surprising agility and grace.
“What chance is that, Borrombus?” said Fierfelm raising his eyebrows and watching the trail of pie crust crumbs fall onto the floor. “Is it possible for you to keep some of the food on the plate?”
“Letting the boy and his friends take the hammer,” said Borrombus as he swallowed massive chunks of the dessert with well-practiced mastication. He wore a heavy leather jerkin and beautifully polished silver chain mail that, while fearsome in appearance, was actually quite light. The links for such armor were smaller and lighter than those worn by soldiers heading off to battle. “This is mighty fine pie you’ve served, Fierfelm. I’m glad you followed my advice for bakeries. I know it’s a bit more expensive but it’s important to impress those in power.”
“If you like the pie so much I would be most pleased if you could get more in your mouth and less on the floor.”
“You always were a tidy one,” said Borrombus with a shake of his massive head that loosed another avalanche of crumbs. “Your apprentices will clean everything up eventually. You should enjoy the party. We need to speak about the hammer though; my nephew has done his work and those children will likely steal the thing today. I remain unconvinced it is the proper course of action. You know how the High Council members are about hierarchy. Not a one of those children is from the three families and the girl doesn’t even have any dwarf blood in her veins at all. A Halfling girl, a foundling, a ward of the state. If she ends up telling people about Craggen Steep it could prove disastrous for the entire city.”
“I thought you wanted us to spread the word about Craggen Steep,” said Fierfelm. “That it was time to spread our wings and join the world?”
“Keep your voice down,” said Borrombus. “Yes, of course, that is all true but if it is one of the other races who does the telling that won’t go over well, even to those who sympathize with our cause. It should be a dwarf, preferably one from one of the good families. That will be more palatable to everyone and more useful to us.”
“If we wait for someone of good family to even have the ability to hold the thing then it will sit on that wall for another fifty years, a fine tribute to Udor that would be.”
“Now, now, now,” said Borrombus with a shake of his head that dislodged yet more pie although he filled the gap by stuffing half of a massive eclair into his mouth and chewing briskly until he was able to speak again. “Did I say that?” he asked and food sprayed out of his mouth, some ending up on the First Edos. “What I said was that you are taking an awful chance by encouraging the High Council to allow it out of Craggen Steep. You should have just let them steal it and not informed the Council at all. If the elders are embarrassed so much the better for Craggen Steep’s future.”
“That apprentice is the best chance I see of ever getting the hammer off the wall, into the hands of someone who can make use it, and I’ll be boiled in oil if I let this opportunity slip by,” said Fierfelm with his hands on his hips. “I promised Udor on his death bed that I’d make sure someone got to use it. I’ve waited half a century for an opportunity to make good on my word and I’ll not get another chance before I die.”
“Now, now, now,” repeated Borrombus as he hungrily eyed a platter of thick sausages that wandered by on
