morning. You know how these social occasions can go on all night and tire out our elders.”
“Run along now, nephew,” said Borrombus with a large smile on his face. “Cleathelm, we haven’t spoken in months. I heard about your promotion to chief apprentice of the Deep Forge, that is quite a hammer in your father’s belt, he must be extremely proud,” went on the jolly dwarf as he hooked his arm under the apprentice’s and dragged him off in the direction of a large group of revelers.
Uldex watched them, his face a mask of ferocity, and then he turned and walked towards the bar where a beautifully dressed young dwarf poured out thick beer into massive mugs. The young dwarf with the scar walked directly behind the bar, reached underneath, and grabbed a decanter of some darkish fluid.
“You can’t…,” started the bartender but a scowl from Uldex silenced the sentence long before it finished.
“Who will stop me… you?” he said, turned, filled a mug, and walked away from the party.
Chapter 3
Milli and Brogus continued to argue as they made their way down a narrow corridor in the upper levels of the citadel where apprentices and lower class dwarves made their home. The rock walls were smoothed to a fine finish but an odor of wet laundry hung densely in the air and the ruts in the stone floor were worn by the passage of thousands of years of apprentices. “We can’t do anything without Dol,” said the heavyset dwarf as his feet slammed into the ground with plodding steps. The apprentice quarters were squat, low, and not particularly clean. Built after the liberation of Craggen Steep from the elementals and sized for dwarves, they had low ceilings, narrow halls, and impossibly small chambers where generation after generation of young dwarfs learned the craft of metal smithing. “He’s set in his ways. He wants to steal it but he won’t do it. He’s stubborn as a tree, once he says something there’s no changing him.”
“You think I don’t know that, Brogus?” said Milli looking down at her feet as they walked. “Ugh, I hate coming up to this level of the mountain, I can’t believe they make you live in these little cubby holes.”
“You’ve got it good,” said Brogus as a young dwarf staggered passed and attempted to fit a key into a door across from them. “You’ve got the wrong cubby, Tomos. You’re one corridor over.”
The drunken dwarf waved his hand, mumbled something, and continued to try and fit his key in the lock.
“That’s Minodon’s,” tried Brogus again, “He’ll pound you to goblin size if you wake him. He’s on day shift at the forge.”
Milli looked at her companion and shook her head, “They’re all like that now. Anyone from one of the three families doesn’t try because promotion is certain, and the rest of you have given up because there is no chance for advancement. We have to get out of here. The city is dying.”
“So why didn’t you help me back there? If you had tried to tell him then he would have gone along, you know I’m right Milli. You can convince any dwarf of anything with those big yellow eyes of yours. We’re helpless against them.”
A low cough caught the duos attention as they rounded a corner in the apparently endless maze of the upper corridors and a dwarf figure stepped out towards them. Brogus’s hand immediately went to his side where he fingered a knife when he spotted a young dwarf with a scar down the left side of his face appear out of the shadows. “Don’t sneak around like that, Uldex,” he said and positioned himself between the newcomer and Milli.
“Hello, Millasandra,” said Uldex with a nod of his head to Milli. “It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you.”
“Don’t even try it,” said Brogus as he put his hand on the dwarf’s chest and pushed him back a step. “She doesn’t want to talk to you and don’t forget what happened last time we tangled.”
Uldex eyes flickered briefly at Brogus and then he turned back to Milli, “We need to talk about the Hammer of Fire, Milli.”
The Halfling girl crossed her arms in front of her slim chest, her lips narrowed, her eyes turned cool, and she shook her head, “What do we have to talk about at all?”
Brogus glared at the other dwarf, his eyes raging with fire, “What do you know about the hammer anyway?”
“Keep out of this, Brogus,” said Uldex with another quick glance at Brogus, “I’m the one who put the idea of stealing the thing in Milli’s head in the first place.”
“That’s not true,” said Brogus his voice raising as several passers-by glanced in their direction.
“Can we talk somewhere privately?” said Uldex and took a step closer to Milli. “I owe you an apology… from before.”
“I took that apology out on your face,” said Brogus as Milli stood silently with her arms crossed on her chest and her eyes still cool with disdain.
“Just because I let you beat me once doesn’t mean I will let it happen again,” said Uldex and turned to face Brogus directly. His lips curled into a snarl and his chin jutted forward like a mountain ram ready to slam heads with a rival.
“Let me?”
“Let you!”
“Brogus,” intervened Milli, and put her hand on the big dwarf’s shoulder, “let me and Uldex talk for a minute, will you please?”
“I don’t like him, Milli,” said Brogus and took a step towards the dwarf with the long scar who stood his ground and glared back. The two continued to glare at one another until Milli spoke again.
“I know you don’t, Brogus, but I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself, now, please, let Uldex and me talk alone for a moment. You’re attracting too much attention,” this last as she looked around at several small groups of young apprentices that traversed the same hallway as them. One was a group of dwarves, just finishing a shift at one of the forges to judge by their filthy clothes and the smell of cinder that emanated from them, talking just around the bend. One of the young fellows kept glancing in the direction of the two belligerents and Milli.
Brogus looked at Milli for a moment, his dark eyes like little coals and then turned back to the dwarf with the scar, “I’ll be right over there, so don’t try anything funny.”
Uldex gazed back at him impassively with his jaw firm but said nothing and eventually Brogus, with one final sneer, turned and walked a few yards away to leave the two alone.
Uldex leaned forward and pounded his fist into his hand, “Milli, why aren’t you getting ready to take the damn thing already? I thought we had this all settled. I already told my uncle and he’s working with the First Edos. What are you doing here in the upper levels and where is that freak Delius?”
“Dol won’t do it,” said Milli with a shrug of her slender shoulders. “And he’s not a freak.”
“You said you could convince him; tonight’s the night, after that they’re going to lock the thing up in the Hall of Relics and you’ll never get at it. He might be a freak you like, Milli, but you can’t get around it, he’s a freak.”
“Dol won’t do it unless there is some grand scheme to be achieved,” said Milli with a shake of her head that sent her hair swirling so that it brushed against Uldex. “I thought reminding him of being passed over for promotion, again, would be enough but it wasn’t. He needs a reason to steal it. He’s like that. He’s slow to act, always thinking, and meditating. It’s that damned tree blood in his veins, however it got there. And, I don’t like that word, don’t use it again.”
The dwarf breathed in for a moment, the fresh scent of her hair even stronger than the wet odor of decay that permeated the hallways, and blinked his eyes a couple of times before he managed to gather his thoughts. “Just stealing? Is that what he thinks? It’s a much grander scheme than that. This isn’t just about the hammer; it’s about all of Craggen Steep, the malaise that’s swept through this place. The High Council is corrupted, the three families are stagnant.”
“None of that matters to Dol. You don’t know him like I do, Uldex. When Dol signed his apprentice papers it meant something to him.”
“Those things don’t mean anything! Young dwarves break their apprenticeships all the time. All you have to
