Whisper of Waves

56

16 Flamerule, the Year of the Wave (1364 DR)

THE WINERY, OUTSIDE INNARLITH

Two days later they were in the country.

“Damn that fiery ball to the blackest pits!” Hrothgar growled. “It burns my eyes, burns my face, burns the top of my arse-bald head…. How do you suffer the gods-cursed orb?”

Devorast lifted his heavy sledgehammer over his head, pausing there, the muscles in his arms twitching ever so slightly, and said, “The sun does its job-” and he brought the hammer down on a limestone boulder with a loud crack! — “and I do mine.”

That made Vrengarl laugh, but Hrothgar didn’t find it funny. It was only their first day toiling in the blazing Flamerule sun-no other month so aptly named-and he was already hot, sweaty, and angry … and not in a good way.

Being part of the “new crew” only just arrived from Innarlith, they’d been assigned to the most menial task: what the gruff human foreman called “making big ones into little ones.” Hrothgar had broken boulders before but usually in the civil coolness of a deep cavern, not under the horrid scorching sun. The humidity was worse. The dwarf was covered from head to toe in sweat and over the course of the day he and Vrengarl had removed one layer of clothing after another until modesty stopped them at their stained linen loincloths.

“One more warning,” Devorast said, lifting his hammer again. “Put something on or the sunburn will have you up all night.”

Hrothgar grunted and lifted his own hammer. The three of them brought their heavy steel hammerheads down hard on separate boulders at the same time. Hrothgar watched Vrengarl take note of the size of the pieces that broke off each of the three and smiled a little at the grimace that crossed his face when he saw that Hrothgar’s was bigger.

“It’ll peel, too,” Devorast said.

“What?” asked Vrengarl, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. “What’ll peel?”

“Your skin,” the human replied.

“Bah,” Hrothgar scoffed. “Pull the other one tomorrow, will ya?”

Devorast laughed a little and said, “You’ll see.”

Hrothgar slammed his sledgehammer into the boulder again and taunted, “I’ll see, you’ll see, we’ll see…. Keep your eyes on your own skin, human.”

“All right, you three,” the foreman called. He stood at the end of the line of laborers with a rolled up sheet of parchment in his hands, his face red and sweaty under a wide-brimmed hat. “You’re getting paid for what? Workin’, or sparkling conversation?”

“We’re gettin’ paid for workin’, boss,” said Hrothgar.

Vrengarl shouted back, “But we’ll throw in the sparklin’ conversation fer free!”

The human laborers on either side of them, strangers all, laughed between hammer blows, and Hrothgar thought even the foreman let slip a smile. He stalked off with his parchment and left them to their labors.

“I’m either going to fall in love with that string bean,” Hrothgar warned, “or kill him in his sleep.”

“I’ll stay somewhere in between, thank you very much,” Devorast said.

They broke rocks in silence for a while longer until a young boy came by with a bucket of water and a wooden ladle. All three drank eagerly of the tepid water and splashed a ladleful over their smoldering heads. Hrothgar watched steam rise from his cousin.

“Have we made a grievous error coming out here, boys?” the dwarf had to ask.

“Aye,” his cousin replied without a pause to think.

“The worst mistake of my life,” Devorast said, even as he went back to work.

The two dwarves joined him, all three of their boulders half the size they were when they’d started on them.

“Still,” Devorast said, “it is good to be out in the fresh air. The city’s smell can get to you after a while.”

“Bah,” Hrothgar replied. “A little sulfur never hurt a body. Reminds me of the stench of home.”

“It’s not just the smell, though, is it Ivar?” Vrengarl asked.

Though his cousin and the human went on with their labor, Hrothgar had to stop and consider Vrengarl’s words. It was as if he and Devorast shared some secret in common that Hrothgar wasn’t privy to.

Why in the deeper three of the Nine Hells should I care if they do? he asked himself.

“No, Vrengie, it’s not,” the human replied. “It’s the people.”

“Aye,” Hrothgar said. “I know what you mean. Humans … if they didn’t breed like dung beetles they would have stupided themselves into oblivion by now and given the rest of Faerun a chance to take a breath. Like this here senator whatshisname-?”

“Infelp?” Vrengarl suggested.

“Inzelf?” Hrothgar replied. “Inpelp? Whatever his name is. Here he’s got this grand plan for a grape farm out here in the middle of nowhere … well, if not the middle of nowhere then a point just west of the edge of nowhere … and what for? Wine? All this for wine? My grandmother used to drink wine on special occasions and such, but really. It’s not a beverage for someone with danglies, human, dwarf, or otherwise. It’s as if the sissier they are the better they’re thought of. There’s nary a real male among the lot of ’em.”

“Present company excluded, of course,” Vrengarl cut in, with a nod to Devorast and a stern look for his cousin.

“Aye, yeah,” Hrothgar said, feeling his already red, hot face flush. “Sorry ’bout that, Ivar.”

“No worries,” the human replied. “I’m inclined to agree, in principle at least.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“This city is nothing,” Devorast explained, working all the while. “It’s a fly speck on the map of Faerun, surrounded by greater realms with greater men to lead them. They scurry around after artifacts and curios from this or that far-off corner of Toril, never bothering to make anything of their own. They even had to bring me and …”

He stopped himself, and Hrothgar looked up at him.

“They even had to bring me all the way from Cormyr to build ships,” Devorast continued. “They brought you two and other dwarves from the Great Rift, and men of more races than I can count from everywhere to show them how to tie their wives’ corsets. You’re right, Hrothgar, there’s not a real man in that city, and only a handful who’d know one if he saw him.”

Hrothgar stopped working again to ponder that. He’d never heard a human criticize other humans like that. Devorast might have been a dwarf at heart after all.

“Stopping for tea, are we?” the foreman shouted from across the line. He still held the rolled-up parchment, and his face was still sweaty and pinched under the shadow of his hat. “What’s that little chat costing me, dwarf?”

“Apologies all around, boss,” Hrothgar called out, then smashed his hammer hard into the boulder, breaking it clean in half. Under his breath, he added, “Come closer and I’ll do the same to your head, you rat-birthed fancylad.”

Vrengarl and Devorast chuckled and the foreman walked away.

“Ever wonder what’s on that parchment he carries around?” Hrothgar asked.

“A shopping list from his wife,” Devorast suggested.

“Milk, bread, tomatoes,” Vrengarl listed, “oregano, a real man …”

They laughed some more and broke rocks for the rest of the long, hot summer afternoon.