Lord of the Rose

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

T he ridge cresting the Vingaard Mountains rose like an inverted sawblade across the horizon, dramatically marking the end of hundreds of miles of tabletop-flat plain. The four travelers were headed for a certain valley, where, in the middle of the range, a pair of anvil-shaped summits stood like watchtowers.

“Ah, I can smell the pines,” Dram Feldspar said, drawing a luxurious breath through his ample nose. “All these weeks of trekking across the flatland is a foreign thing to a mountain dwarf. When we get into the high valleys, I’m going to take my boots off and soak my feet in an icy stream until they turn blue.”

“Why would you want blue feet?” asked Sulfie. She tried to act cross, but it was obvious even the literal-minded gnome was pleased at the prospect of leaving the plains for forests and high ground.

Dram broke into a trot, with the two gnomes hastening behind. Jaymes’s long strides meant he had no trouble keeping up. Of the four, he was the only one who wasn’t staring in awe at the mountains. Instead, his eyes, squinting and suspicious, swept across the flatlands to the right, the left, and behind them.

They hadn’t seen any other goblins or humans for the past three weeks. The goblin raiders and the human armies apparently remained behind in the area of the Upper Vingaard River and the plains lying directly below the Garnet Mountains. The travelers had avoided small towns and farmsteads and in more than a score of days and several hundred miles had come upon no other travelers.

Nor, in the weeks since their crossing of Mason’s Ford, had they seen any group of trees larger than a small copse of cottonwoods, no elevation more pronounced than the eroded bank of a stream or gully. The rains, thankfully, had finally dwindled, though that meant the landscape became a swath of dusty brown soil, scored by greenery only where the infrequent streams cut sluggishly across the featureless land. Just this morning they had skirted a small verdant grove centered around a pond, on the grounds of an abandoned and collapsing manor house, which they decided not to investigate.

They had a precise destination since leaving Mason’s Ford. Jaymes wanted to get his hands on the supposedly explosive compound invented by the brilliant dead gnome Brillissander Firesplasher. How he knew about this supposed invention, Jaymes refused to say (even Dram didn’t know)-but Jaymes believed it would be very useful and profitable, if such a thing really existed.

Thus far the compound, with its smoky fizzle, had proved to be a major disappointment, and Carbo and Sulfie had conflicting ideas as to the reasons for the fizzle. Both insisted that it had worked in the past, that their brother, Salty Pete, would know how and why. But Salty Pete was lost to the lizardmen in the Brackens, so it was up to them to recreate their father’s formula. The first step was to find the necessary ingredients.

Sulfie had described the essential ingredient, a yellow and chalky stone that emitted a foul stench when heated, which she called “sulfir.” They needed to find a store of this material; she didn’t know where her father had acquired it. Dram Feldspar thought that he knew such a place, and it was he who had led them westward across the flatland.

“Yep, we’re getting close,” Dram said, studying the twin flat-topped mountains with a critical eye. “When I was here before I heard about this rock. There are dwarves who mine in this area, but the ones we have to keep a lookout for are not so much miners, they’re more like scalawags, outlaws, who will sell anything for a price. They have lots of these yellow rocks just lying around, and as far as I know don’t have any use for ’em.”

Jaymes frowned. “I’m not worried about outlaws, but we’ve come a long way if you’re wrong.”

The female gnome shook her head. “Don’t blame me. I told you we need to get some more of the yellow rock for a new batch of the compound, but I didn’t say anything about walking a thousand miles to get it. And I don’t cotton to outlaws.”

“Hmph!” Dram said sourly. “It wasn’t a step over four hundred miles, and if we need to find a bunch of yellow rock, then here’s a likely place. The only place I know of, anyway. Just follow my lead and we’ll get in and out of here without too much trouble.”

By now the dark layer on the foothills was recognizable as lush pines sprouting in a luxuriant blanket over meadows of green grass. Wildflowers popped through the grass, blue and red and purple and white speckles waving back and forth in a cool breeze. Most delightful, clear water-in the form of a rapidly flowing brook spilling out of the narrow valley-offered welcome refreshment, a wonderful change from the brackish, muddy trickles that had marked every sluggish waterway on the whole, vast plain.

That first night in the mountains they made camp in a narrow grotto next to that stream and shared a dinner of fresh fish around a cheery fire. Not only had firewood been generally lacking on the plains, but even when they found pieces of driftwood they had been unwilling to build an evening campfire, for the light would be visible for miles. Here, steep stone walls to either side and tall trees up and down the valley masked the illumination.

As the dwarf and gnomes made themselves comfortable in mossy bowers, even Jaymes allowed himself to relax. The soft grass soothed his muscles as he lay back. The sky was bright with stars, and when he slept he wasn’t troubled by dreams.

The morning dawned clear and dry. They rose quickly and started up the mountain valley, following a twisting, steeply climbing road that looked impassable to anything like a cart or wagon, and would have provided a challenge to a sure-footed mule. Dram led the way and Jaymes brought up the rear. The two gnomes were more cheerful and talkative than ever:

“This place reminds me of Dungarden,” Sulfie explained. “It was like this in the Garnet Range-cool, and smelling like pines. I like the sound of the water splashing over the rocks. It would be a good place to live.”

“Just be alert,” Dram said, his eyes scanning the rising bluffs to either side of them. “There are those who already live here. It remains to be seen if they’ll be glad to see us.” He fixed Jaymes with a stare. “Are you ready to do this?”

The warrior merely nodded and continued on. Dram’s hand rested on the head of his axe, but-at Jaymes’s insistence-he kept the weapon tucked into his belt, instead of ready in his hand.

As the small party made its way through a narrow bottleneck between two huge boulders rising to either side of the trail, Dram came to an abrupt halt. Sulfie bumped right into him, the dwarf cursing at the impact. His hand clenched around his axe but then, with an almost visible effort, he let his arms drop to the sides.

“We’ve met the locals,” he reported.

They found themselves confronted by a half dozen dwarves, similar in size and whiskers to Dram but wearing soft deerskin trousers and shirts instead of the dark woolens and chain shirt favored by the Kaolyn dwarf. Five of them carried crossbows, and these held their weapons leveled at the four travelers, while the sixth stood belligerently, fists planted firmly on his hips.

Small pebbles clattered down from above. Jaymes looked upward, quickly spotting another dozen or so dwarves coming into view atop the large boulders to either side of the trail. A quick glance behind showed that yet another group of the valley’s guardians had slipped into position to block their retreat. All told, a good twenty or more arrows were aimed at the four of them.

“We come in peace,” Dram said, holding both hands, empty, up before him. “No need for any shooting… Hiya Swig,” he added, his tone of attempted familiarity somewhat inhibited by his clenched teeth and the fixed grimace of his expression.

“Dram Feldspar,” said the dwarf called Swig, the one with his hands planted on his hips. He was grinning now, with an expression that mingled amusement with cruelty. “I never thought you’d have the guts to show yourself in these hills again. I wonder-what’s to keep me from putting an arrow through your heart, right now?”

“Now, that would be a bit of an overreaction, Swig,” Dram argued. “At least let us tell you why we’ve come.”

“And delay the pleasure of watching your blood running onto the ground?”

“That would end up costing you a lot of money,” Jaymes interjected, stepping forward.

Swig stared appraisingly at the warrior, who returned his wary look with a cool, neutral expression. The two gnomes looked around nervously, sidled close together, and held each others’ hand. After giving a good, long impression of a person wrestling with a really difficult decision, Swig finally nodded and made a gesture. The rest of the dwarves in his party raised their weapons so that the arrows were no longer sighted directly on the travelers.

“Money, eh? Ah, you speak to my heart, stranger,” the dwarf said to Jaymes. “Very well-you four will come with me. We’ll share a mug around my hearth. You’ll have ten, maybe fifteen minutes to tell me why I shouldn’t have you killed and your bodies dumped in the garden as fertilizer for next year’s hops.”

Swig Frostmead was a hill dwarf chieftain, every bit as proud and vain as his cousins, the mountain dwarves. Here, north of the Newsea, the traditional rivalry of the two dwarven tribes was more removed than in Thorbardin. There, at the time of the Cataclysm, the mountain dwarves had sealed the gates of their underground fortress against their hill-dwelling kin. That perceived betrayal was a three-century-old wound that left a still-bleeding scar.

But dwarves are ever stubborn, and there was clearly no affection wasted between the hill dwarves of the Vingaard Range and the mountain dwarves of Garnet, which included Dram-one of the Feldspar clan from Kaolyn. Jaymes took note of the hostile looks exchanged between Swig and Dram as the four travelers were escorted to Swig’s hall, a stone-walled house in the center of a village high in the valley of the Vingaard Mountains.

This was clearly a prosperous community. The buildings were mostly of stone, though they often had ornamental woodwork on the eaves, around the doors and windows. The narrow streets were clean, paved with cobblestones, and the few oxen they noticed in a streamside pasture were fat and sleek, clearly well fed and cared for. The mountainsides beyond the village were dotted with the dark mouths of mines, and several tall chimneys rose from an area of foundries and smelters just beyond the houses. Still, the air was clean, as the mountain wind carried the smoke up and over the adjacent ridge.

Within the hill dwarf’s hall, they seated themselves on benches before a broad hearth, Jaymes made a point of sitting between Dram and Swig. The chieftain clapped his hands, and several young maids-rosy cheeked, smiling, and pleasantly plump-emerged from the kitchen, holding large mugs in each hand.

“Welcome to Meadstone. So, you tell me you have a way for me to make some money,” Swig declared, after the cold mugs of bitter ale had been served to himself, his score of armed guards, and even-surprisingly enough-the four prisoners. “What’s to stop me from just stealing it off your bleeding corpses?”

“Well, we don’t have any money,” Jaymes replied. “Not now, not yet. Of course, you could have the satisfaction of killing us today, but nothing at all after that.”

“And if you live, does all this money appear like magic?”

“We came here to make a proposition. Dram here remembers you as a shrewd businessman and an intrepid miner. If we live, I offer to buy something from you-something that you can mine in great quantity, that you currently have very little use for.”

Swig leaned past Jaymes to glare at Dram. “You brought this fool here? After what you did to my daughter?” he demanded.

“Now, er, Swig,” Dram said, holding up his hands again. “You got the wrong impression. I didn’t actually do anything!”

“Liar!” roared the hill dwarf, rising to his feet so quickly the thick ale in his mug almost slopped over the sides. He paused and took a long drink, so that he could gesture with no danger of wastage. “I caught you sneaking out of here with your pants in your hand! Are you claiming she ain’t pretty enough for you?”

“No! She’s lovely-a real treasure! A mountain flower,” Dram protested. “Er, a hillside flower, I mean. But my intentions were honorable. I had split a seam, and she was mending it for me! I know how it looked. Mighty suspicious. But that’s all that happened!”

“Bah-why’d you run away, then?”

“You wouldn’t let me explain it at the time! If you recall, I took an arrow in my hindparts as it was! You were in no mood to listen to reason!”

Swig snorted. Still, he blinked, as if considering Dram’s words. “That’s the same story she gave,” he grunted. “Clever, you mountain dwarf scum-even working out your lies together in advance!”

“I tell you, it’s no lie!” Dram’s face grew red, and his beard was twitching. Jaymes rested a hand on his companion’s shoulder, exerting gentle pressure, until his dwarf companion exhaled very slowly.

Swig took another long pull, draining his mug, and sat down. Jaymes took the opportunity to steer the conversation away from reminiscence.

“I understand that you mine plenty of iron from these hills-a good, pure strain of ore.”

“Aye. You understand right. So what?”

“And you do the smelting and casting, right here?”

“That we do. No sense letting a good raw material get gunked up by a bunch of amateurs.”

“Commendable. Vingaard black iron is famed throughout the lands of Solamnia and beyond.”

The dwarf preened a bit, warmed by the praise. “We sell it to the Solamnics at a good price. They take all we can dig and pay premium. So if that’s what you’re after, you might as well stop talking right now. We already got our customers.”

Jaymes shook his head. “No. I have no need of iron and couldn’t match prices paid by the dukes even if I did. But Dram tells me that there is another material, a waste rock of dusty yellow, that you have to cart out of the way in order to get at the iron. Is that true?”

“Sulfir?” Swig shook his head in disgust. “Oh, we haul a bit of that stinking junk off to the cities-some of the metalsmiths use it in their smelting. Most of it we pile up just to get it out of the way.” Suddenly the chieftain narrowed his eyes. “You don’t mean to suggest that you’d be wanting some of that useless chalk?”

“It might have a use for me, yes,” Jaymes said. “I would be willing to negotiate a fee. To start, I want to arrange for the purchase of five tons.”

“Five tons, eh?” Swig looked bored. “Hmm. That’s a lot, that would add up. That might be possible. When do you want it?”

“I will need it in three months’ time. Delivered to a place I will specify one month before delivery-some place in Solamnia.”

“Delivery? Well, of course, delivery is one of our specialties, but that will cost extra.”

“Of course,” Jaymes agreed. “I have no desire to cheat you. If this works, it might be the start of a whole new business for you-something you’ll be able to sell as fast as you can dig it out of the ground.”

“What do you intend to pay for this…” Swig seemed to realize that “junk” was the wrong word to use in describing his newfound and apparently valuable commodity. “… this sulfir ore?”

“What do the dukes pay for iron?” Jaymes asked.

Swig’s eyes narrowed, and he made a great show of scratching his bearded chin. “Well, that depends, depends. The finest grades fetch a thousand steel per ton, paid in gems, usually. Rough ore makes me in the neighborhood of four hundred.”

“I’ll match the price of low grade iron,” Jaymes offered. “Say four hundred steel per ton of sulfir. But I only want the pure yellow rock-your miners will have to chop out the waste.”

Now the hill dwarf looked indignant. “Of course they’ll get rid of the waste! How long do you think I’d stay in business if I was selling impure product?”

“Not long-not with me, in any event. I just want to make sure we understand each other.”

“I understand,” Swig said. He mused for a moment then looked up at Dram, his face locked in a scowl that slowly cracked into something resembling a smile. “She was really just mending your trousers?” he asked.

“I tore ’em on a snag coming up from the south,” the mountain dwarf said with a glower. “And your daughter, bless her kindness-and Reorx knows where she gets it from! — was good enough to see that I could pass on from here without the chill winds of winter blowing up my… well, you get the picture.”

Swig tossed back his head and laughed. The two gnomes joined in, as did the other hill dwarves standing around. Even Jaymes cracked a smile, the warrior winking at the sulking Dram.

“Enough with business!” roared the Vingaard chieftain. “Brewer-bring us a fresh keg. We’ll seal this suitable arrangement over a fine ale-as sacred a bond as a pledge to any god!”

The resulting feast was one of those parties that could be called the stuff of legend. Pilsy Frostmead, lovely and cherished daughter of the chieftain, emerged with several other young lasses, carrying pitchers of Special Reserve Ale, and they proceeded to see that all became better acquainted. Pilsy was a beauty by the standards of the race, with rosy cheeks and a plentitude of toothsome curves.

Dram Feldspar and Swig Frostmead, of course, proceeded to get roaring drunk. The inevitable fistfight erupted shortly after midnight and lasted for slightly less than an hour. In the end they clinched as wrestlers and, after staggering around the room with increasing unsteadiness, collapsed, utterly exhausted.

They fell asleep in each other’s arms, lying in the cold ashes outside the hearth, brothers in dwarfdom…

And mortal proof of Reorx’s blessing.

“You the fellow that drove the Duke of Thelgaard into the Vingaard River?”

The speaker was a human knight dressed in dark armor. He wore no emblem on his breast and carried no weapon-otherwise the guards would not have allowed him to approach Ankhar. The dark-armored knight had a companion, a man dressed in supple black leather, including gloves and a riding cape as long as a robe. The camp guards, naturally, had searched beneath that voluminous garment and pronounced the man unarmed.

These two were courageous, for they did not flinch as the half giant rose to his full height and looked down at the visitors.

“My gobs and hobs did it,” Ankhar replied flatly. “Attack plan all mine.”

“Nice piece of work. That bastard drove me right out of my own city. I’d like to see him spitted on a sword, myself.”

“Your city? Thelgaard?”

“Well, it was for a time, a while back,” the man said. “I got no place now.”

“Well, duke drowned. Or swam away.” Ankhar had been a trifle disappointed that his warriors had not been able to bring him the head of the enemy commander. “His army pretty much broken up. Nine out of ten men fell on field.”

The half giant was more than pleased with the result of his first battle against a large force of trained knights, but it had not sated him. He hungered for more victories. That aim would not be served by fighting this man or his force of some two thousand men-including hundreds of knights in dark armor. Ankhar’s scouts had reported the humans encamped just over the horizon.

The half-giant gazed at the human, sizing him up. He was handsome, by the standards of humankind, with a dueling scar on his cheek.

“You warriors? Captains of men?” Ankhar said.

The armored knight replied. “I am the leader of this brigade. My companion here is a knight of a different kind-he commands legions of magic.”

The leather-clad fighter clicked his heels and bowed his head. “Sir Hoarst, Knight of the Thorn, at your service, my lord.”

Ankhar chuckled, and looked back at the captain. “Why you come here, all alone and pitiful? Because I broke Thelgaard’s army? I not give you his city back.”

The visitor laughed with an easy self-confidence that Ankhar admired. “No,” he said. “Nobody needs to give me anything. I came looking for work. I have a strong company, two hundred armored men, former Dark Knights. There are also a thousand of us on foot, all trained in knights’ tactics. Sir Hoarst has two comrades of the Thorn, well-versed in battle-magic. We are looking to join your army, and we’ll fight for our share of the plunder.”

Ankhar scratched his broad chin. This was a surprising, pleasing development-a human offering to join and serve under a barbarian half giant. The additional troops would add considerable punch to his army. As to how battle magic could help, he had little concept, but he liked the sound of it.

“Wait here,” he said, abruptly turning his back and stalking through the camp. He made his way to the conical tent that was set up for his foster mother. Not surprisingly, she awaited him, holding back the flap as he stooped to enter, then dropping it into place. They sat in semi-darkness, leaning close to speak privately.

“I like this human. Prince of Lies want him to join us?” asked Ankhar.

Laka shook her skull-totem, and immediately the eyes glowed green, the teeth chattered out a message.

“Monstrous master,

“Mankind’s bane.

“Truth is righteous,

“Ankhar’s reign!”

The half-giant nodded, satisfied. Without another word he rose, left the tent, and made his way back to the human visitors.

“I your general. General Ankhar. Your men welcome to join us, Captain. What your name?”

“Blackgaard. Captain Blackgaard, if you please.”

“Captain Blackgaard. Come into camp. Join our feast. Soon, we march against Knights of Solamnia.”