Darken Wood. The place certainly earns its name, thought Flint. Tall pines, their needles a green that was almost black, towered over the forest floor-. Huge, musty oaks, draped with thick vines and feathery moss, and even an occasional looming vallenwood trunk that rose to disappear among the foliage, prevented a single sunbeam from reaching the ground. The forest was not huge, but Flint knew that it sheltered a number of dangerous denizens. Some years earlier, a small party of mercenaries had entered Solace bearing an unusual trophy - the head of a troll slain in these woods. Bands of hobgoblins and worse reputedly still dwelled among the ancient trunks of Darken Wood.
The feeling of potential danger brought Flint a keen sense of awareness even as his mind wandered. The narrow trail twisted among the tree trunks, enveloped by ferns and great, moist growths of mushrooms and other fungus. The scent of warm earth, heavy with decay, overwhelmed the dwarf with a thick, cloying presence.
Flint did not find the odor unpleasant. Indeed, after his long residence among humans, not to mention the constant presence of kender, elves, and other races, this dominance of nature refreshed his spirit and lightened his step. There was something joyful in this solitude, in this pastoral adventure, that brought a forgotten delight to Flint's soul.
For many hours he made slow progress, not from any sense of exhaustion, but instead because of the great ease within him. His hand stroked the smooth, worn haft of his axe. Absently, his ears and eyes probed the woods, alert, almost hoping for a sign of trouble.
The trail forked and he paused, stark still for a moment, listening, thinking. He sensed the earth, the twists and turns in the surrounding land - as only dwarves could - through his thick-soled boots. Soon he learned what he needed to know, and he chose a direction.
Toward the south for a while. Flint followed no map and needed no compass to maintain the route he had selected. It would lead him the length of the woods, and avoid both the lands of the Qualinesti elves to the south, and the seekerruled city of Haven to the northwest.
The seekers, he thought with a mental grimace, I would walk to the ends of the earth to avoid. Those pesky "prophets" had made life in Solace unpleasant enough. But in Haven - the city that was their capitol and the center of their arrogant worship - their presence was sure to be unbearable.
The region of Qualinesti was different, though. Flint had actually entertained thoughts of going there, into that nest of elves, to see his old - and unlikely - friend, the Speaker of the Suns. Flint remembered fondly the time he had spent in Qualinost some years back. He was still one of the few dwarves who had ever been invited into that elven kingdom - and by the speaker himself! A visiting dignitary had acquired a silver and agate bracelet at a territory fair, which he then gave to the elven leader. The Speaker of the Suns had been so impressed by the metalsmith's craftsmanship that he had tracked down the smith, who was none other than Flint Fireforge of Solace, and extended an invitation for the dwarf to demonstrate his craft in the marble elven city.
It was during that first trip to Qualinost that Flint had met Tanis Half-Elven, the Speaker of the Sun's ward. Young Tanis had stood for hours watching the dwarf's demonstrations in the elven city, staying afterward to talk. Flint understood the boy, who seemed unhappy because of his mixed heritage, and the two spent many pleasant hours together whenever the business of selling his crafts brought Flint near Qualinesti.
The dwarf was tempted now to find the half-elf. On their last night together at the Inn of the Last Home, Tanis had said he was going to go on a quest that would bring him to terms with his heritage at last. Flint presumed Tanis meant he was going back to face the full-blooded elven relatives of his in the city of Qualinost who had never really accepted the half-elf. The dwarf was somewhat concerned about his friend, but he had shrugged off any misgivings. After all, the companions had agreed to separate for five years, and Flint would be damned if he'd be the one to break that agreement.
So he would give Qualinost a wide berth and follow the forest paths instead. He knew that if he kept a steady pace he would pass from the wood around nightfall.
Flint began to wonder now, in the quiet of Darken Wood, if he hadn't been fanciful, believing even half of what the dwarf back at Jessab's had said. Mountain dwarves - much less the replusive derro - in Hillhome! Yet why would Hanak have invented such a tale? Flint pushed the question away for the time being. The answer would be made clear soon enough.
He had been getting lazy in Solace - and bored, if the truth be known - without his young friends around. He had been at rest too long. Unconsciously he hefted his axe.
Flint found himself thinking about Aylmar and wondering how long it had been since he had seen his older brother. Oh, fifteen, maybe twenty years, he decided with a frown, Then a smile dotted his face as he recalled the escapades they had had together, the nick-of-time victories, the grand treasures.
In particular he remembered the grandest treasure of them all - the Tharkan Axe. His older brother Aylmar and he had stumbled upon the axe on one of his earliest treasurehunting forays into the foothills of the Kharolis Mountains, near Pax Tharkas, to be exact, which was why the brothers had so named it. Typical dwarven greed had driven the two Fireforge brothers into the deepest recesses of a hobgoblin lair that was rumored to be filled with riches. Dispatching more than fifteen of the hairy-hided, six-foot monstrosities with blows to their red-skinned heads, Flint and Aylmar had made their way through the last of five interconnected caves to the hobgoblins' treasure chamber. There, atop a fourfoot-high pile of coins and glittering gems, the beautiful axe gleamed like a beacon. Aylmar had snatched it up first while Flint stuffed his pockets and pouches with other riches, then the two had run from the lair before any more hobgoblins appeared.
Many years later Aylmar, his heart already showing the weakness that would soon force him to retire from the adventuring life, presented the weapon to Flint on his Fullbeard Day - the dwarven coming-of-age celebration. Smirking, and using the teasing tone that he knew got Flint's dander up, Aylmar had said, "Considering the girlish way you fight, boy, you need this a lot more'n me!" That had been more than forty years ago.
The dwarf remembered, with a touch of gruff sentimentality, the times he had wielded that Tharkan Axe on his travels. The magnificent weapon had gleamed, cutting a silver are around Flint in battle. For several good years the weapon had served him. It served to remind him of Aylmar as well.
His brow furrowed at the memory of the barrow mounds where he had lost the axe while on yet another treasure hunt. Amid heaps of coins, a scattering of gems, and the bare skeletons of a dozen ancient chieftains, a figure of cold, sucking blackness had lurked. A wraith of death, it had seized Flint's soul with its terrible grip. A deadly chill had settled in his bones, and he had staggered to his knees, hope less to resist.
The Tharkan Axe had flashed, then, with a white-hot light that drove the wraith backward and gave Flint the strength to stand. With a mighty heave, the dwarf had bur ied the weapon in the shapeless yet substantial creature be fore him.
The wraith had twisted away, tearing the axe from Flint's grip. In terror, the dwarf had fled from the barrow, empty handed. Later he returned, but there had been no sign of treasure, wraith, or axe.
Flint looked forward the most to seeing his older brother again. Aylmar would be disappointed, though, to learn that his younger brother had lost the Tharkan Axe. Flint glanced with barely concealed scorn at the inferior, worn battle-axe now resting in his hands. The weapon bore only the most superficial resemblance to the great Tharkan Axe. Where that enchanted blade had shone with the glow of perfect steel, its edge ever sharp, his current weapon showed the pocks of corrosion. The wooden handle was thin and worn, long overdue for replacement.
Yes, it would feel good to see the rest of his family, as well, Flint had to admit. Aylmar had been patriarch of the clan since Flint was a youth, when their father had died of the Fireforge hereditary heart condition, leaving behind a wife and fourteen children. Flint's work-worn mother had passed on some twenty-odd years ago, which was the last time Flint had been to Hillhome, for the funeral.
Aylmar had a wife, Flint knew, though he could never re member her name. And at least one son, young Basalt. Flint remembered his nephew quite clearly. Basalt had been an enthusiastic youngster, somewhat of a hellion. Aylmar had grown dour with age and responsibilities, and he disap proved of his son's prolific time in the alehouse and gaming hall. As a consequence, Basalt had adopted Flint as his mentor.
Flint flashed on a collage of faces and names, his own younger brothers and sisters - harrns and frawls, as the dwarven sexes were noted. There was Ruberik, Bernhard, Thaxtil - or was that Tybalt? Quiet, demure Glynnis and brash Fidelia emerged from the faces of his sisters. He had left home before the seven youngest siblings had been much more than babes, and he had forgotten most of their names since his last visit.
It was not unusual for dwarves to loose track of their relatives, but Flint wondered now if perhaps he should have paid more attention to the younger children - they had been a good bunch, always eager to fetch things for their older brother, willing to give up the extra pastry or bite of meat for the brawny Flint. And there had never been that much to go around.
With a start, Flint realized that if he did not hurry now, the sun would set before he came to the edge of Darken Wood. He stepped up the pace. Even so, it was already early evening on his first day out of Solace when Flint at last came upon the White-rage River. Flint crossed the rushing stream on a high suspension bridge that reminded him of the village in the vallenwoods, and made camp on the eastern bank in the shelter of two red maples. The next day he followed the bank of the White-rage until he reached the Southway Road.
For a little more than one joyously uneventful week of nearly perfect blue skies, Flint advanced down the Southway Road, which formed the eastern fringes of Qualinesti, avoiding the rare habitations of the elves. On the morning of the eighth day he left the Southway Road, since it continued southwest to the ancient fortress of Pax Tharkas, and Hillhome lay to the southeast.
He blazed his own trail through the hillcountry, the thick forests and foothills east of that settlement. Here the vast slopes of dark fir trees surrounded barren chunks of sharp granite. A land of steep gorges and winding valleys, the hills did not achieve the height of true mountains, but their cha- otic nature made the trail as rugged as any snowswept alpine ridge.
This was hill dwarf country, Flint's homeland, and the rough ground was like a smooth path under his feet. He spent the ninth night, a rainy one, in an isolated, warm, and nearly empty dwarven inn in the Hills of Blood, where he rinsed the dusty trail from his body and whetted his appetite for his impending reunion with his dwarven clan.
His mind lingered less on the rumors of mountain dwarves in Hillhome and more on memories of the village: the cozy stone houses lining the broad main street; the sheep and goats in the surrounding sloping fields; Delwar's forge, where Flint had first seen the shaping of metal by fire. He recalled the sense of safety and security that always seemed to linger like smoke around the kitchen hearth of his mother's home. And the scent of the thick-crusted, fresh-baked rolls he and his father would purchase each morning from Frawl Quartzen's bakery after the cows had been tended. They were good memories....
Late in the cold afternoon of the eleventh day, Flint's trip was lengthened by a detour around the Plains of Dergoth. Prior to the Cataclysm nearly three hundred fifty years before, the plains held many water holes. When the Kingpriest of Istar brought the anger of the gods down upon Krynn, the face of the world was changed, and the land south of Pax Tharkas turned to desert. One hundred years later, during the Dwarfgate Wars - which were an attempt by the hill dwarves and their human allies to retake Thorbardin after the Great Betrayal - the magical fortress of Zhaman collapsed in the Plains under a powerful spell and formed the hideous skull-shaped mound known afterward as Skullcap. That same explosion tore apart the Plains of Dergoth once again, and marshes crept over the surrounding land.
Flint had no interest in wading through a swamp - his fear of water was legendary among his friends in Solace. So it was that he chose to climb through the low mountains to the northeast of the narrow pass that cut through the peaks to Hillhome. Flint took his time in finding a clearing just to the east of the pass and off the Passroad, then in collecting and igniting the right logs for a hot, long-lasting fire, and fi nally in sizzling the last of the fat slab of bacon he had brought with him from Solace. As darkness settled, Flint re laxed. I'll miss this solitude, he thought, sighing.
He looked at the Passroad, just a little below his camp. Deep ruts ran along its length. Whereas in the past it had borne only the traffic of.sheep- and goat-herders, or the oc casional farmer's cart, now the road was wide and well worn.
Flint recalled the building of the Passroad from his child hood, though he had been too young to help with the work. The hill dwarves had labored for several years to smooth out the grades, lay a stone foundation over the swampy stretches, and create a route that could, someday, connect Hillhome to the not-so-distant shore of the Newsea.
The immediate purpose of the road had been to open up the valley adjacent to Hillhome to hill dwarf settlements, and this had occurred to a limited extent. Still, in retrospect, the road had not been very profitable, considering all the work.
Suddenly Flint's thick body tensed like a mandolin string.
He was not alone.
The dwarf's first warning was a vague perception, not re ally sight but more sound, of something approaching from the southwest. Wooden wheels crunched over gravel. Flint turned from the low fire to the pass, and his infravision the natural, temperature-sensing ability of dwarves that al lowed them to see objects in the dark by the heat they radiate - quickly adjusted.
A heavy, broad-wheeled wagon, looking more like a huge rectangular box, rattled up the rutted Passroad from the di rection of Hillhome. Who would be driving a wagon through the pass in the dark of night?
Flint stepped from his fire to the edge of the road. Hun kered over intently on the buckboard, the driver snapped a whip over the heads of the four-horse team that was labor ing to pull the wagon up the steep incline toward the pass. The steeds snorted and strained, pulling an obviously heavy load. Flint could not determine whether the small figure of the driver was dwarven, human, or something worse. Now he could see two more forms standing several feet behind the buckboard in a guarding stance, holding onto the sides of the lurching wagon. As they drew closer, Flint caught sight of three sets of unnaturally large eyes.
Derro dwarves. That explained why they were willing to drive through the mountains at night, Flint realized.
Derro were a degenerate race of dwarves who lived primarily underground. They hated light and suffered from nausea when in the sun, though they were known to venture from their subterranean homes at night. While normal dwarves looked much like humans, only differently proportioned, derro dwarves tended toward the grotesque. Their hair was pale tan or yellow, their skin very white with a bluish undertone, and their large eyes were almost entirely pupil.
And they were reputedly so evil and malicious that they made hobgoblins seem like good neighbors.
Flint thought about dashing behind an outcropping, but it was already too late to hide: he had been spotted along the roadside. He was more than curious, anyway, remembering Hanak's sighting of derro mountain dwarves in Hillhome. The driver's hideous eyes bore into Flint's from about fifty feet away, and the derro stopped the wagon at the crest of the pass with a violent tug on the reins.
"What are you doing here at this time of night, hill dwarf?" The driver's voice was raspy, and though he spoke Common, the words came to him slowly, as if the language were not totally familiar. The derro on the sides of the wagon dropped to the ground, and one circled around the horses to stand protectively below the driver still on the buckboard. Each held a shiny steel-bladed battle-axe casually in his hands.
"Since when do derro claim rights over Hillhome's pass?" Flint was not the least bit frightened. He watched the armed guards, whose eyes were focused on the axe hanging from Flint's belt. The two derro wore dark metal breastplates and heavy leather gauntlets. They carried themselves with the cocksure attitude of veteran warriors. The driver, who was unarmed and unarmored, held the reins and watched. "You hill dwarves know the agreement," the driver growled deep in his throat. "Now get back to the village before we are forced to report you as a spy... or worse," he added. The guards took a step toward Flint, gripping their weapons with purpose. "Spy!" sputtered Flint, almost amused, and yet his hand moved to his axe. "Great Reorx, why would I be doing that? Speak up, dwarf!" The horses pranced impatiently on the Passroad, snorting misty breath into the chilly night air. The driver stilled them with a jerk on the reins, then clenched his fists at Flint. "I'm warning you - get out of the way and go back to the village," the driver hissed. Flint knew he would get no answers from these derro. He forced his voice to remain level. "You've already caused me to burn my bacon with your nonsensical questions, so pass if you must and I'll return to my charred dinner." Flint saw the two armed derro separate as they neared him. Each held his battle-axe at the ready, and Flint looked at the weapons with momentary envy, thinking of his own, trail-worn blade. With growing annoyance, Flint hefted his axe. His body tingled with energy, anticipating battle. Though he did not seek a fight with these mountain dwarves, he would be cursed by Reorx before he'd back down from his hereditary enemies. "Can you prove you're not a spy?" asked one, taunting. Flint stepped to the side, away from the fire. "I could if I thought enough of such wide-eyed derro scum to be bothered with it," he snapped, his patience gone. The nearest derro flung himself at Flint, his axe whistling through the air. The hill dwarf darted backward in time to also avoid the second derro, who charged in low. The two mountain dwarves' axes met with a sharp clang of steel. A sublime sense of heightened awareness possessed Flint as he turned to parry a blow from his first attacker, then sent the second derro reeling back with a series of sharp blows. Hacking viciously, he knocked the fellow's weapon to the ground just as the other one leaped back toward him.
Whirling away, Flint raised his own axe in a sharp parry. The two blades clashed together, but the hill dwarf stared in dismay as the haft of his axe cracked, carrying the head to the ground. Suddenly Flint was holding only the haft of his battle-axe. He stood there, defenseless, as if naked.
The second guard's pale, blue-tinged face split into a grotesque grin at Flint's predicament. A sinister light entered his eyes as he raised his axe, ready to crush the hill dwarf's skull.
Flint moved with all the quickness his years of battle experience could muster. He thrust the axe handle forward, using it to stab like a sword. The splintered ends of wood struck the derro's nose, and the Theiwar dwarf cried out in agony, blinking away blood.
Flint struck again, smashing the wooden stick over the derro's knuckles, which gripped his axe. Crying out again, the guard dropped his weapon, stumbling blindly from his bloody nose and eyes. Flint quickly snatched the axe up and swung menacingly at the suddenly retreating derro. He turned on the one who was sprawled on the ground, urging him along as well.
