“Well, ain’t this a keg o’ beer in a commode,” Ivan grumbled.
He was moving around the small lea that the elves were using as a temporary prison for the two intruders. Using some magic that Ivan did not understand, the moon elves had coaxed the trees around the lea in close together, blocking all exits with a nearly solid wall of trunks.
Ivan, of course, was none too happy with that. Pikel reclined in the middle of the field, hands tucked comfortably behind his head as he lay on his back, staring up at the stars. His sandals were off and the contented dwarf waggled his stubby toes happily.
“If they hadn’t taked me axe, I’d be making a trail or ten!” Ivan blustered.
Pikel giggled and waggled his toes.
“Shut yer mouth,” Ivan fumed, standing with hands on hips and staring defiantly at the tree wall.
He blinked a moment later and rubbed his eyes in disbelief as one of the trees drifted aside, leaving a clear path beyond. Ivan paused, expecting the elves to enter through the breach, but the moments slipped past with no sign the their captors. The dwarf hopped about, started for the break, then skidded to a stop and swung around when he heard his brother giggling.
“Ye did that,” Ivan accused.
“Hee hee hee.”
“Well if ye could do that, then why’ve we been sitting here for two days?”
Pikel propped himself on his elbows and shrugged.
“Let’s go!”
“Uh uh,” said Pikel.
Ivan stared at him incredulously. “Why not?”
Pikel hopped to his feet and jumped all around, putting a finger to pursed lips and saying”Shhhhhh!”
“Who ye shushing?” Ivan asked, his expression going from angry to confused. “Ye’re talking to the damned trees,” he realized.
Pikel looked at him and shrugged.
“Ye’re meaning that the damned trees’ll tell the damned elfs if we walk outta here?”
Pikel nodded enthusiastically.
“Well, shut ‘em up!”
Pikel shrugged helplessly.
“Ye can move ‘em, and ye can walk through ‘em, but ye can’t shut ‘em up?”
Pikel shrugged again.
Ivan stomped a boot hard on the ground. “Well, let ‘em tell the elfs! And let them elfs try to catch me!”
Pikel put his hands on his hips and cocked his head to the side, his expression doubtful.
“Yeah, yeah,” Ivan called to him, waving his hand and not wanting to hear any of it.
Of course he had no weapon. Of course he had no armor. Of course he had no idea of where he was or of how to get out of there. Of course he wouldn’t likely get fifty feet into the forest before being recaptured, probably painfully.
But none of that really mattered to the outraged dwarf. He just wanted to do something, do anything, to stick his finger in the eyes of his captors. That was the way of dwarves, after all, and of Ivan beyond the norm for his taciturn race. It was better to head-butt your enemy, even if he was wearing a full-faced plated helmet, even if it was spiked, than to stand helplessly before him.
Determined, Ivan strode through the Pikel-made gap and down the forest trail.
Pikel sighed and moved to retrieve his sandals. Hearing a commotion beyond the lea, he merely shrugged yet again and fell back to the grass and stared up at the stars. Perfectly content.
“Never would I have believed that a dwarf could move a tree without using an axe,” Innovindil remarked.
She stood at Tarathiel’s side, on a low branch overlooking the lea, observing the brothers.
“He truly is possessed of druidic magic,” Tarathiel agreed. “How is that possible?”
Innovindil giggled. “Perhaps the dwarves are moving to a higher state of consciousness, though it is hard to believe when you consider that one as the source.”
Looking at Pikel and his waggling toes, Tarathiel found it hard to disagree with the last part of her statement.
The pair watched silently as Ivan stormed out of the meadow then patiently waited the few minutes it took for the struggling dwarf to be reunited forcibly with his brother, a trio of elves dragging him back.
“This could get dangerous,” Innovindil remarked.
“We still can’t be sure of their intentions,” Tarathiel replied.
She had been pushing him all day to resolve the issue with the dwarves, leaning heavily in favor of escorting them to the edges of the Moonwood and letting them go.
‘Then test him,” Innovindil said, her tone showing that she had just found a revelation. “If he is a druid, as he seems, then there is one way to prove it. Let Pikel Bouldershoulder find his judge at Montolio’s grove.”
Tarathiel stroked his thin chin, a smile growing as he considered the words. Perhaps Innovindil was on to something, which really didn’t surprise Tarathiel when he thought about it. Ever had Innovindil been the farsighted one, finding roads out of the darkest dilemmas.
He looked to her appreciatively, but she was eyeing the field, concern growing on her fair face. She nodded his way and bade him to follow, then hopped down from the branch and moved onto the field, where it lookedlike the confrontation between the yellow-bearded Bouldershoulder and the three elves might be about to explode.
“Hold fast, Ivan Bouldershoulder,” she called, and the attention of all five turned to her. “Your ire is not justified.”
“Bah!” the dwarf snorted, so predictably. “Ye’re locking me in, elf? How’d ya think I’d take it?”
“And I am certain that if one of us went into your homeland, he would find himself welcomed with open arms,” came the sarcastic reply.
“Probably would,” Ivan retorted, offering a snort at Pikel, who merely giggled. “Cadderly’s always been a soft one, even for a human!”
“Your dwarven homeland,” the quick-on-her-feet Innovindil clarified.
“Nah,” Ivan had to agree, “but why would an elf want to go there?”
“Why would a pair of dwarves walk out of a tree?” came the reply.
Ivan started to argue, but realized the futility of that.
“Point for yerself,” he agreed.
“And how does a dwarf coax a tree to move aside?” the elf asked, looking at Pikel.
“Doo-dad,” came the giggling response, with Pikel poking his thumb into his chest.
“Well, that is a common sight,” Tarathiel said sarcastically.
“Nothing common about that one,” Ivan agreed.
“So please excuse our confusion,” said Innovindil. “We do not wish to hold you captive, Ivan Bouldershoulder, but neither can we readily dismiss you and your curious brother. You must appreciate that you have intruded into our home, and the security of that home remains above all else.”
“I’ll give ye that point, too,” the dwarf replied, “but ye gotta be appreciatin’ that I got better things to do than sit here and watch the stars. Damned things don’t even move!”
“Oh, but they do,” Innovindil enthusiastically replied, thinking she may have found a commonality, a way to thin the ice, if not break it all together.
Her hopes only grew when Pikel hopped up and gave an assenting squeal.
“Some do, at least,” the elf explained.
She moved closer to Ivan and pointed to one particularly bright star, low on the horizon, just above the tree line. She continued for just a moment, until she took the time to look at Ivan and see him staring at her incredulously, hands on his hips.
“I think ye’re missin’ me point,” he said dryly.
“True enough,” the elf admitted.
“It ain’t like we ain’t been with elfs afore,” Ivan explained. “Fought aside a whole flock o’ them in Shilmista Forest, chasing off the orcs and goblins. They was glad for me and me brother!”
“Me brudder!” Pikel agreed.
“And perhaps we will come to be, as well,” said Innovindil. “In truth, I predict exactly that, but I beg your patience. This is too important for us to make any hasty choices.”
“Well, ain’t that like an elf,” Ivan replied with a resigned, but clearly accepting, sigh. “Seen one in Carradoon, gone to market to buy some wine. Took her time, she did, moving front to back and back to front across the winery, then course she bought the first bottle she’d seen.”
“And that elf enjoyed the experience of the purchase, as we wish to enjoy the experience of learning about Ivan and Pikel Bouldershoulder,” Innovindil explained.
“Ye’d be learning more if ye’d let us off this stupid field.”
“Perhaps, and perhaps soon.”
As she finished Innovindil glanced at Tarathiel, who obviously wasn’t sharing her generous thoughts. She gave him a hard nudge in the ribs.
“We shall see,” was all that he would admit, and that grimly.
Thibbledorf Pwent kicked a stone, launching it many feet through the air.
“Bruenor’s expecting better of ye,” scolded Cordio Muffinhead, the cleric who had accompanied the wounded back to Mithral Hall.
They had found Pwent and the Gutbuster Brigade camped along the high ground north of Keeper’s Dale, the battlerager having gone back out after escorting the main force into Mithral Hall.
What a sight that meeting had been, with Cordio and the others waving frantically to slow down the insane charge of Pwent and hisboys. The relief had been palpable when Cordio had at last been able to explain that Bruenor and the others were fine and were moving along a different and roundabout course on their way back to Mithral Hall, checking in with the various settlements, as a good king must now and again.
“If he’s knowin’ me at all, then he should be knowin’ that I’m about to set off to find the fool!” Pwent argued.
“He’s knowing that ye’re a loyal warrior, who’s to do what ye’re told to do!” Cordio yelled back at him.
Pwent hopped aside and did a three-step to another stone, kicking it with all his strength. This one was much larger, though, and not quite detached from the ground, and so it hardly moved. Pwent did well to hide his newly-acquired limp.
“Ye got two camps to organize,” Cordio said sternly. “Quit breakin’ yer toes and get yer runners to Mithral Hall. Ye build a camp here and get one set up on the Surbrin, north o’ the mines.”
Pwent spat and grumbled, but he nodded and went to work, barking orders that sent the Gutbusters scrambling. That same day, what had been a casual camp awaiting Bruenor’s return was transformed into a small fortress with walls of piled stones, perched on the north side of a mountain north of Keeper’s Dale.
The next morning, two hundred warriors left Mithral Hall, heading north to join up with the Gutbusters, while at the same time a hundred and fifty warriors moved out of Mithral Hall’s eastern gate and marched north along the banks of the Surbrin, laden with supplies for constructing the second forward outpost.
Thibbledorf Pwent immediately set his Gutbusters into a liaison mode, working the direct trails between the two camps.
It tormented Pwent to stay so far south and wait, but he did his job, though he continually sent scouting parties to the north and northeast, searching for some sign of his beloved, and absent, king. It remained foremost in his thoughts that Bruenor wouldn’t have ordered the establishment of advanced camps unless he believed they might be needed.
That only made the waiting all the more unsettling.
“He truly is a druid?” Tarathiel asked, hardly believing his ears as a pair of his clan reported the news to him that Pikel’s spells were not some trick, that the dwarf did indeed seem to have druidic magic about him.
Beside him, Innovindil could hardly contain her grin. She was truly enjoying these unexpected guests, and indeed, she had been spending quite a bit of time with Ivan, the surly one, who was about as perfectly dwarflike as any dwarf she had ever seen. She and Ivan had swapped many fine tales over the past few days, and though he remained a prisoner it was fairly obvious that Innovindil’s contact with Ivan had brightened his mood and lessened the trouble he was causing.
Still, Tarathiel thought her a fool for bothering.
“He prays, sincerely so, to Mielikki,” said one of the observers, “and there can be no doubt of his magical abilities, many of which could not be replicated by any cleric of a dwarf god.”
“It makes little sense,” Tarathiel remarked.
“Pikel Bouldershoulder makes little sense,” said the other, “but he is what he appears to be, by all that we can discern. He is a woodland priest, a ‘Doo-dad,’ as he himself puts it.”
“How powerful is his magic?” asked Tarathiel, who had always held druids in great respect.
The two observers looked at each other, their expressions showing clearly that this was a question they had feared.
“It is difficult to discern,” said the first. “Pikel’s magic is ... sporadic.”
Tarathiel looked at him curiously.
“He seems to throw it as he needs it,” the other tried to explain. “Minor dweomers, mostly, though every now and again he seems possessed of a quite potent spell, one that would only be expected of a high-ranking druid, their equivalent of a high priest.”
“It seems almost as if he has caught the goddess’s fancy,” said the first. “As if Mielikki, or one of her minions, has taken a direct interest in him and is watching over him.”
Tarathiel paused a moment to digest the information, then said, “You still have not answered my question.”
“He is no more dangerous than his brother, certainly,” the first replied. “Surely no threat to us or to the Moonwood.”
“You are certain?”
“We are,” answered the second.
“Perhaps it is time for you to speak with the dwarves,” Innovindil offered.
Tarathiel paused again, thinking. “Do you think Sunrise will bear him?” he asked.
“To Montolio’s grove?”
Tarathiel nodded. “Let us see if the image of Mielikki’s symbol will look kindly upon this ‘Doo-dad’ dwarf.”
I have come to view my journey through life as the convergence of three roads. First is the simple physical path, through my training in House Do’Urden, to Melee-Magthere, the drow school for warriors, and my continued tutelage under my father, Zaknafein. It was he who prepared me for the challenges, he who taught me the movements to transcend the basics of the drow martial art, indeed to think creatively about any fight. Zaknafein’s technique was more about training one’s muscles to respond, quickly and in perfect harmony, to the calls of the mind, and even more importantly, the calls of the imagination.
Improvisation, not rote responses, is what separates a warrior from a weapons master.
The road of that physical journey out of Menzoberranzan, through the wilds of the Underdark, along the mountainous trails that led me to Montolio, and from there to Icewind Dale and the loved ones I now share, has intertwined often with the second road. They are inevitably linked.
For the second road was the emotional path, the growth I have come to find in understanding and appreciation, not only of what I desire to be and to have, but of the needs of others, and the acceptance that their way of looking at the world may not coincide with my own. My second road started in confusion as the world of Menzoberranzan came clear to me and made little sense to my views. Again it was Zaknafein who crystallized the beginning steps of this road, as he showed me that there was indeed truth in that which I knew in my heart—but could not quite accept in my thoughts, perhaps—to be true. I credit Catti-brie, above all others, with furthering this journey. From the beginning, she knew to look past the reputation of my heritage and judge me for my actions and my heart, and that was such a freeing experience for me that I could not help but accept the philosophy and embrace it. In doing so I have come to appreciate so many people of various races and various cultures and various viewpoints. From each I learn, and in learning, with such an open mind, I grow.
Now, after all these adventurous years, I have come to understand that there is indeed a third road. For a long time, I thought it an extension of the second, but now I view this path as independent. It is a subtle distinction, perhaps, but not so in importance.
This third journey began the day I was born, as it does for all reasoning beings. It lay somewhat dormant for me for many years, buried beneath the demands of Menzoberranzan and my own innate understanding that the other two paths had to be sorted before the door to this third could truly open.
I opened that door in the home of Montolio deBrouchee, in Mooshie’s Grove, when I found Mielikki, when I discovered that which was in my heart and soul. That was the first step on the spiritual road, the path more of mystery than of experience, more of questions than of answers, more of faith and hope than of realization. It is the road that opens only when the needed steps have been taken along the other two. It is the path that requires the shortest steps, perhaps, but is surely the most difficult, at least at first. If the three paths are each divergent and many-forked at their beginning, and indeed, along the way—the physical is usually determined by need, the emotional by want, the spiritual—?
It is not so clear a way, and I fear that for many it never becomes so.
For myself, I know that I am on the right path, but not because I have yet found the answers. I know my way is true because I have found the questions, specifically how, why, and where.
How did I, did anyone, get here? Was it by a course of natural occurrences, or the designs of a creator or creators, or are they indeed one and the same?
In either case, why am I here? Is there indeed even a reason, or is it all pure chance and randomness?
And perhaps the most important question to any reasoning being, where will my journey take me when I have shrugged off this mortal coil?
I view this last and most important road as ultimately private. These are questions that cannot be answered to me by anyone other than me. I see many people, most people, finding their “answers” in the sermons of others. Words sanctified by age or the perceivedwisdom of authors who provide a comfortable ending to their spiritual journey, provide answers to truly troubling questions. No, not an ending, but a pause, awaiting the resumption once this present experience of life as we know it ends.
Perhaps I am being unfair to the various flocks. Perhaps many within have asked themselves the questions and have found their personal answers, then found those of similar ilk with whom to share their revelations and comfort. If that is the case, if it is not a matter of simple indoctrination, then I envy and admire those who have advanced along their spiritual road farther than I.
For myself, I have found Mielikki, though I still have no definitive manifestation of that name in mind. And far from a pause or the ending of my journey, my discovery of Mielikki has only given me the direction I needed to ask those questions of myself in the first place. Mielikki provides me comfort, but the answers, ultimately, come from within, from that part of myself that I feel akin to the tenets of Mielikki as Montolio described them to me.
The greatest epiphany of my life came along this last and most important road: the understanding that all the rest of it, emotional and physical—and material—is naught but a platform. All of our accomplishments in the external are diminished many times over if they do not serve to turn us inward. There and only there lies our meaning, and in truth, part of the answer to the three questions is the understanding to ask them in the first place, and more than that, to recognize their penultimate importance in the course of reason.
The guiding signs of the spiritual journey will rarely be obvious, I believe, for the specific questions found along the road are often changing, and sometimes seemingly unanswerable. Even now, when all seems aright, I am faced with the puzzle of Ellifain and the sadness of that loss. And though I feel as if I am on the greatest adventure of my life with Catti-brie, there are many questions that remain with me concerning our relationship. I try to live in the here and now with her, yet at some point she and I will have to look longer down our shared path. And both of us, I think, fear what we see.
I have to hold faith that things will clarify, that I will find the answers I need.
I have always loved the dawn. I still sit and watch every one, if my situation permits. The sun stings my eyes less now, and less with each rising, and perhaps that is some signal that it, as a representation of the spiritual, has begun to flow more deeply into my heart, my soul, and my understanding of it all.
That, of course, is ray hope.
-Drizzt Do’Urden
“Ye’re really meaning to do this?” Shingles asked Torgar when he found his friend, fresh off his watch, at his modest home in the Mirabar Undercity, stuffing his most important belongings into a large sack.
“Ye knowed I was.”
“I knowed ye was talking about it,” Shingles corrected. “Didn’t think yer brain was rattled enough for ye to actually be doin’ it.”
“Bah!” Torgar snorted, coming up from his packing to look his friend in the eye. “What choice are they leavin’ to me? Agrathan comin’ to me on the wall just to tell me to shut me mouth . . . Shut me mouth! I been fightin’for the marchion, for Mirabar, for three hunnerd years. I got more scars than Agrathan, Elastul, and all four of his private guards put together. Earned every one o’ them scars, I did, and now I’m to stand quiet and hear the scolding of Agrathan, and that on me watch, with th’ other sentries all lookin’ and listenin’?”
“And where’re ye to go?” Shingles asked. “Mithral Hall?”
“Yep.”
“Where ye’ll be welcomed with a big hug and a bottle o’ ale?” came the sarcastic reply.
“King Bruenor’s not me enemy.”
“And not near the friend ye’re thinkin’,” Shingles argued. “He’s to bewonderin’ what bringed ye there, and he’ll think ye a spy.”
It was a logical argument, but Torgar was shaking his head with every word. Even if Shingles proved right on this point, the potential consequences still seemed preferable to Torgar than his present intolerable situation. He was getting up in years and remained the last of the Hammerstriker line, a situation he was hoping to soon enough correct. Given all that he had learned over the last few tendays of King Bruenor, and more importantly, of his own beloved Mirabar, he was thinking that any children he might sire would be better served growing up among Clan Battlehammer.
Perhaps it would take Torgar months, even years, to win the confidence of Bruenor’s people, but so be it.
He stuffed the last of his items into the sack and hoisted the bulging bag over his shoulder, turning for the door. To his surprise. Shingles presented him a mug of ale, then held up his own in toast.
‘To a road full o’ monsters ye can kill!” the older dwarf said.
Torgar banged his mug against the other.
“I’ll be clearing it for yerself,” he remarked.
Shingles gave a little laugh and took a deep drink.
Torgar knew that his response to the toast was purely polite. Shingles’s situation in Mirabar was very different than his own. The old dwarf was the patriarch of a large clan. Uprooting them for a journey to Mithral Hall would be no easy task.
“Ye’re to be missed, Torgar Hammerstriker,” the old dwarf replied. “And the potters and glass-blowers’re sure to be losin’ business, not having to replace all the jugs and mugs ye’re breakin’ in every tavern in town.”
Torgar laughed, took another sip, handed the mug back to Shingles, and continued for the door. He paused just once, to turn and offer his friend a look of sincere gratitude, and to drop his free hand on Shingles’s shoulder in a sincere pat.
He went out, drawing more than a few stares as he moved along the main thoroughfare of the Undercity, past dozens and dozens of dwarves. Hammers stopped ringing at the forges he passed. All the dwarves of Mirabar knew about Torgar’s recent run-ins with the authorities, about the many fights, about his stubborn insistence that the visiting King Bruenor had been badly mistreated.
To see him determinedly striding toward the ladders leading to the overcity with a huge sack on his back. . . .
Torgar didn’t turn to regard any of them. This was his choice and his journey. He hadn’t asked anyone to join him, beyond his remark to Shingles a moment before, nor did he expect any overt support. He understood the magnitude of it all and quite clearly. Here he was, of a fine and reputable family who had served in Mirabar for centuries, walking away. No dwarf would undertake such an act lightly. To the bearded folk, the hearth and home were the cornerstone of their existence.
By the time he reached the lifts, Torgar had several dwarves following him, Shingles included. He heard their whispers — some of support, some calling him crazy—but he did not respond in any way.
When he reached the overcity, the late afternoon sun shining pale and thin, he found that word of his trek had apparently preceded him, for a substantial group had assembled, human and dwarf alike. They followed him toward the eastern gate with their eyes, if not their feet. Most of the remarks on the surface were less complimentary toward the wayward dwarf. Torgar heard the words “traitor” and “fool” more than a few times.
He didn’t react. He had expected and already gone through all of this in his thoughts before he had stuffed the first of his clothes into the sack.
It didn’t matter, he reminded himself, because once he crossed out the eastern gate, he’d likely never see or speak with any of these folks ever again.
That thought nearly halted him in his walk.
Nearly.
The dwarf replayed his conversation with Agrathan over and over in his mind, using it to bolster his resolve, to remind himself that he was indeed doing the right thing, that he wasn’t forsaking Mirabar so much as Mirabar, in mistreating King Bruenor, and in scolding any who dared befriend the visiting leader, had forsaken him. This was not the robust and proud city of his ancestors, Torgar had decided. This was not a city determined to lead through example. This was a city on the decline. One more determined to bring down their rivals through deceit and sabotage than to elevate themselves above those who would vie with them for markets
Just before he reached the gate, where a pair of dwarf guards stood looking at him incredulously and a pair of human guards stood scowling at him, Torgar was hailed by a familiar voice.
“Do not be doing this,” Agrathan advised, running up beside the stern-faced dwarf.
“Don’t ye be tryin’ to stop me.”
“There is more at stake here than one dwarf deciding to move,” the councilor tried to explain. “Ye understand this, don’t ye? Ye’re knowing that all your kinfolk are watching ye and that your actions are starting dangerous whispering among our people?”
Torgar stopped abruptly and turned his head toward the frantic Agrathan. He wanted to comment on the dwarf’s accent, which was leaning more toward the human way of speaking than the dwarven. He found it curiously fitting that Agrathan, the liaison, the mediator, seemed to speak with two distinct voices.
“Might be past time the dwarfs o’ Mirabar started asking them questions ye’re so fearin’.”
Agrathan shook his head doubtfully, gave a shrug and a resigned sigh.
Torgar held the stare for a moment longer, then turned and stomped toward the door, not even pausing to consider the expressions of the four guards standing there, or the multitude of folks, human and dwarf alike, who were following him, the horde moving right up to the gate before stopping as one.
One brave soul yelled out, “Moradin’s blessings to ye, Torgar Hammers triker!”
A few others yelled out less complimentary remarks.
Torgar just kept walking, putting the setting sun at his back.
“Predictable fool,” Djaffar of the Hammers remarked to the soldiers beside him, all of them astride heavily armored warhorses.
They sat behind the concealment of many strewn rocks on a high bluff to the northeast of Mirabar’s eastern gate, from which a lone figure had emerged, walking proudly and determinedly down the road.
Djaffar and his contingent weren’t surprised. They had heard of the exodus only a few moments before Torgar had climbed the ladder out of the Undercity, but they had long-ago prepared for just such an eventuality. Thus, they had ridden out quietly through the north gate, while all eyes had been on the dwarf marching toward the eastern one. A roundabout route had brought them to this position to sit and wait.
“If it were up to me, I’d kill him here on the road and let the vultureshave his rotting flesh,” Djaffar told the others. ‘‘And good enough for the traitor! But Marchion Elastul’s softer in the heart—his one true weakness—and so you understand your role here?”
In response, three of the riders looked to the fourth, who held up a strong net.
“You give him one chance to surrender. Only one,” Djaffar explained.
The four nodded their understanding.
“When, Hammer Djaffar?” one of them asked.
“Patience,” the seasoned leader counseled. “Let him get far from the gate, out of sight and out of their hearing. We have not come out here to start a riot, but only to prevent a traitor from bringing all of our secrets to our enemies.”
The grim faces looking back at Djaffar assured him that these hand-picked warriors understood their role, and the importance of it.
They caught up to Torgar a short while later, with dusk settling thick about the land. The dwarf was sitting on a rock, rubbing his sore feet and shaking the stones out of his boots, when the four riders swiftly approached. He started to jump up, even reached for his great axe, but then, apparently recognizing the riders for who they were, he just sat back down and assumed a defiant pose.
The four warriors charged up and encircled him, their trained mounts bristling with eagerness.
A moment later, up rode Djaffar. Torgar gave a snort, seeming hardly surprised.
‘Torgar Hammerstriker,” Djaffar announced. “By the edict of Marchion Elastul Raurym, I declare you expatriated from Mirabar.”
“Already done that meself,” the dwarf replied.
“It is your intention to continue along the eastern road to Mithral Hall and the court of King Bruenor Battlehammer?”
“Well, I’m not for thinking that King Bruenor’s got the time for seein’ me, but if he asked, I’d be goin’ to sec him, yes.”
It was all said so casually, so matter-of-factly, that the faces of the five men tightened with anger, which seemed to please Torgar all the more.
“In that event, you are guilty of treason to the crown.”
“Treason?” Torgar huffed. “Ye’re declarin’ a war on Mithral Hall, are ye?”
“They arc our known rivals.”
“That don’t make me goin’ there treason.”
“Espionage, then!” Djaffar yelled. “Surrender now!”
Torgar studied him carefully for a moment, showing no emotion and no indication of what might happen next. He did glance over at his heavy axe, lying to the side.
That was all the excuse the Mirabarran guards needed. The two to Torgar’s left dropped their net between them and spurred their horses forward, running past on either side of the dwarf, plucking him from his seat and bouncing him down to the ground in the strong mesh.
Torgar went into a frenzy, tearing at the cords, trying to pull himself free, but the other two guards were right there, drawing forth solid clubs and dropping from their mounts. Torgar thrashed and kicked, even managed to bite one, but he was at an impossible disadvantage.
The soldiers had the dwarf beaten to semi-consciousness quickly, and managed to extricate him from the net soon after, unstrapping and removing his fine plate armor.
“Let the city find slumber before we return,” Djaffar explained to them. “I have arranged with the Axe to ensure that no dwarves are on the wall this night.”
Shoudra Stargleam was not truly surprised, when she thought about it, but she was surely dismayed that night. The sceptrana stood on her balcony, enjoying the night and brushing her long black hair when she noted a commotion by the city’s eastern gate, of which her balcony provided a fine view.
The gates opened wide and some riders entered. Shoudra recognized Djaffar of the Hammers from his boastfully plumed helmet. Though she could make out few details, it wasn’t hard for the Sceptrana to guess the identity of the diminutive figure walking behind the riders, stripped down to breeches and a torn shirt and with his hands chained before him, on a lead to the rear horse.
She held quiet but did nothing to conceal herself as the prisoner caravan wound its way right beneath her balcony.
There, shuffling along behind the four, and being prodded by the fifth, came Torgar Hammerstriker, bound and obviously beaten.
They hadn’t even let the poor fellow put his boots on.
“Oh, Elastul, what have you done?” Shoudra quietly asked, and there was great trepidation in her voice, for she knew that the marchion might have erred and badly.
The knock on her door sounded like a wizard’s thunderbolt, jarring Shoudra from her restless sleep. She leaped out of bed and scrambled reflexively to answer it, only half aware of where she was.
She pulled the door open, then stopped cold, seeing Djaffar standing there leaning on the wall outside her apartment. She noted his eyes, roaming her body head to toe, and became suddenly conscious of the fact that she was wearing very little that warm summer’s night, just a silken shift that barely covered her.
Shoudra edged the door closed a bit and moved modestly behind it, peering out through the crack at the leering, grinning Hammer.
“Milady,” Djaffar said with a tip of his open-faced helm, glinting in the torchlight.
“What is the hour?” she asked.
“Several before the dawn.”
“Then what do you want?” Shoudra asked.
“I am surprised that you retired, milady,” Djaffar said innocently. “It was not so long ago that I saw you, quite awake and standing on your balcony.”
It all began to make sense to Shoudra then, as she came fully awake and remembered all that she had seen that far from ordinary night.
“I retired soon after.”
“With many questions on your pretty mind, no doubt,”
“That is my business, Djaffar.” Shoudra made sure that she injected a bit of anger into her tone, wanting to put the too confident man on the defensive. “Is there a reason you disturb my slumber? Is there some emergency concerning the marchion? Because, if there is not. . .”
“We must discuss that which you witnessed from your balcony, milady,” Djaffar said coolly, and if he was the slightest bit intimidated by Shoudra’s powerful tone he did not show it.
“Who is to say that I witnessed anything at all?”
“Exactly, and you would do well to remember that.”
Shoudra’s blue eyes opened wide. “My dear Djaffar, are you threatening the Sceptrana of Mirabar?”
“I am asking you to do what is right,” the Hammer replied without backing down. “It was under the orders of the marchion himself that the traitor Torgar was arrested.”
“Brutally . . .”
“Not so. He surrendered to the lawful authority without a fight,” Djaffar argued.
Shoudra didn’t believe a word of it. She knew Djaffar and the rest of the four Hammers well enough to know that they loved a fight when the odds were stacked in their favor.
“He was brought back to Mirabar under the cover of darkness for a reason, milady. Surely you can understand and appreciate that this is a sensitive matter.”
“Because the dwarves of Mirabar, even those who disagree with Torgar, would not be pleased to learn that he was dragged into the city in chains,” Shoudra replied.
Though there was a substantial amount of sarcasm in her voice, Djaffar ignored it completely and merely replied, “Exactly.”
The Hammer gave a wry smile.
“We could have left him dead in the wilderness, buried in a place where none would ever find him. You do understand that, of course, as you understand that your silence in this matter is of prime importance?”
“Could you have done all of that? In good conscience?”
“I am a warrior, milady, and sworn to the protection of the marchion,” Djaffar answered with that same grin. “I trust in your silence here.”
Shoudra just stared at him hard. Finally recognizing that he wasn’t going to get any more of an answer than that, Djaffar tipped his helm again and walked away down the corridor.
Shoudra Stargleam shut her door, then turned her back and leaned against it. She rubbed her eyes and considered the very unusual night.
“What are you doing, Elastul?” she asked herself quietly.
In the room next to Shoudra’s, another was asking himself that very same question. Nanfoodle the alchemist had been in Mirabar for severalyears but had tried very hard to keep away from the politics of the place. He was an alchemist, a scholar, and a gnome with a bit of talent in illusion magic, but that was all. This latest debacle, concerning the arrival of the legendary King of Mithral Hall, whom Nanfoodle had dearly wanted to go and meet, had him more than a bit concerned, however.
He had heard the loud knock, and thinking it was on his own door, had scrambled from his bed and rushed to answer. When he had arrived there, though, he already heard the voices, Shoudra and Djaffar, and recognized that the man had come to speak with her and not him.
Nanfoodle had heard every word. Torgar Hammerstriker, one of the most respected dwarves in Mirabar, whose family had been in service to the various marchions for centuries, had been beaten on the road and dragged back, secretly, in chains.
A shiver ran up Nanfoodle’s spine. The whole episode, from the time they had learned that Bruenor Battlehammer was knocking on their gate, had him quite unhinged.
He knew that it would all come to no good.
And though the gnome had long before decided to remain neutral on anything politic, to do his experiments and take his rewards, he found himself at the house of a friend the next day.
Councilor Agrathan Hardhammer was not pleased by the gnome’s revelations. Not at all.
“I know,” Agrathan said to Shoudra as soon as she opened her door that next morning, the dwarf having gone straight from his meeting with Nanfoodle to the sceptrana’s apartment.
“You know what?”
“What you know, about the treatment and return of a certain disgruntled dwarf. Torgar was dragged in by the Hammers last night, in chains.”
“By one Hammer, at least,”
“Djaffar, curse his name!” said Agrathan.
The dwarf’s ire toward Djaffar surprised Shoudra, for she had never heard Agrathan speak of any of the individual Hammers at all before.
“Elastul Raurym is the source of the decision, not Djaffar or any of the other Hammers,” she reminded.
Agrathan banged his head on the door jamb. “He is blowing the embers hot in a room full of smokepowder,” the dwarf said.
Shoudra did not disagree—to a point. She understood Agrathan’s frustration and fears, but she also had to admit that she understood Elastul’s reluctance in letting the dwarf walk away. Agrathan knew Mirabar’s defenses as well as any and knew their production capacities and the state of their various ore veins as well. The sceptrana didn’t honestly believe that it would ever come to war between Mithral Hall and Mirabar, but if it did....
“T believe that Elastul felt he had no choice,” Shoudra replied. “At least they did not murder the wayward dwarf on the road.”
That statement didn’t have the effect Shoudra had hoped for. Instead of calming Agrathan, the mere mention of that diabolical possibility had the dwarf’s eyes going wide, and his jaw clenching tightly. He calmed quickly, though, and took a deep, steadying breath.
“It might have been the smarter thing for him to do,” he said quietly, and it was Shoudra’s turn to open her eyes wide. “When the dwarfs of Mirabar learn that Torgar’s a prisoner in his own town, they’re not to be a happy bunch—and they will learn of it, do not doubt.”
“Do you know where they’re keeping him?”
“I was hoping that you’d be telling me that very thing.” Shoudra shrugged.
“Might be time for us two to go and talk to Elastul.” Shoudra Stargleam did not disagree, though she understood better than Agrathan, apparently, that the meeting would do little to resolve the present problem. In Elastul’s eyes, obviously, Torgar Hammerstriker had committed an act of betrayal, of treason even, and Shoudra doubted that the unfortunate dwarf would be seeing the world outside his prison cell anytime soon.
She did go with Agrathan to the marehion’s palace, though, and the two were ushered in to Elastul’s audience chamber forthwith. Shoudra noted that all of the normal guards and attendants in the room were absent, other than the four Hammers, who stood in their typical position behind the marchion. She also noted the look that Djaffar shot her way, one suggestive and uncomfortable, one that made her want to pull her robe tighter about her.
“What is the urgency?” the marchion asked at once, before any formal greetings. “I have much to attend this day.”
“The urgency is that you’ve put Torgar Hammerstriker in prison, Marchion,” Agrathan bluntly replied, and he added with great emphasis, “Torgar Delzoun Hammerstriker.”
“He is not being mistreated,” Elastul replied, and he added, “As long as he does not resist,” when he took note of Shoudra’s doubtful look.
“I have asked for, and expect, discretion on this matter,” the marchion went on, obviously aiming this remark at Shoudra.
“She wasn’t the one who told me,” Agrathan answered.
“Then who?”
“Not important,” the dwarf replied. “If you intend to hunt any who’d speak of this, then ye’d do better trying to hold water from dripping through your fingers.”
Elastul didn’t seem pleased at all by that remark, and he turned a frown upon Djaffar, who merely shrugged.
“This is important, Marchion,” Agrathan said. “Torgar is not just any citizen.”
“Torgar is not a citizen,” Elastul corrected. “Not anymore, and by his own volition. I am charged with the defense of Mirabar, and so I have taken steps to just that effect. He is jailed, and he shall remain jailed until such time as he recants his position on this matter, publicly, and forsakes this ludicrous idea of traveling to Mithral Hall.”
Agrathan started to respond, but Elastul cut him off.
“There is no debate over this, Councilor.”
Agrathan looked to Shoudra for support, but she shrugged and shook her head.
And so it was. Marchion Elastul considered Mithral Hall an enemy, obviously, and every step he took seemed to ensure that his perception would become reality.
Both Agrathan and Shoudra hoped that Elastul understood fully the implications of this latest action, for both feared the reaction should the truth of Torgar’s imprisonment become general knowledge around the city.
The dwarf’s remark about hot embers in a smokepowder filled room seemed quite insightful to Shoudra Stargleam at that moment.
