"Dragonlance - Preludes 2 Vol 2 - Flint The King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragonlance)

around the side of the wagon, their glares full of hatred, and
not a little fear.
Thoroughly disgusted with the needless fight, Flint
stomped back to his fire and snatched the pan of burned ba-
con, tossing the blackened remains into the scrub. No
longer hungry, he sat with his back to the flames and pon-
dered the strange encounter.
His mind was a jumble of burning questions. What sort of
"agreement" with these evil dwarves could have caused the
hill dwarves to forget centuries of hatred and forced poverty
because of the Great Betrayal? And what did the derro have

to hide that they were concerned about spies?
Thorbardin, ancient home of the mountain dwarves, lay
some twenty miles to the southwest, past Stonehammer
Lake. Flint knew that the derro belonged to the Theiwar,
one of five clans in the politically divided underground
dwarven city. Mountain dwarves as a whole were notori-
ously clannish, concerned only with their mining and their
metalcraft. So of all the clans, why would the derro come to
the surface, since they were ones the most sensitive to light?
Flint examined the axe his attacker had left behind. It was
a weapon of exceptional workmanship, hard steel with a sil-
ver shine and a razor-honed edge. He would have guessed
the axe to be of dwarven origin, except that the customary
engraving that marked every dwarven blade was missing
from the steel.
Flint shivered, whether from cold or apprehension, he
could not be sure. Still, it reminded him the fire needed stok-
ing. Tossing two small logs onto the coals, he stared into the
flames until the fire's mesmerizing effects made his eyelids
heavy.
These mysteries he would take to sleep, unresolved. He
moved away from the fire to where he could keep an eye on
the camp yet remain concealed. But nothing disturbed him
again that night. -

* * * * *

Flint awoke at first light and at once headed east through
the pass toward Hillhome. He stayed with the rutted, mud-
slick road until he came to the last low ridge before the vil-
lage, just a quarter-mile away. There he stopped to relish the
view.
He had made the journey in less than two weeks, a re-
freshing enough adventure until the derro skirmish the pre-
vious night. But now he felt a peculiar emotion choke his
heart as he looked down at the winding, paved road, the ex-
panse of stone buildings, the blockhouse that was the forge
in the village of his youth.