The dwarf grabbed onto the front right wheel and began pulling himself up from one spoke to the next, until he stood halfway up the massive iron ring. His chin just crested the box, and he saw that the thick, dirty canvas was stretched tight over the top of the wagon. He struggled to untie a cor ner of the canvas, and finally he pulled enough away to climb further up the spokes and crawl inside the box. It was surprisingly cramped, he noted as he looked around.
Plows! By Reorx, the mountain dwarves were indeed go ing to great lengths to ship plows! And cheap ones at that!
Flint mouthed his astonishment silently. The interior of the wagon held five huge iron plow-blades. Each of the blades looked uncorroded, as if it had been freshly forged, but the metal was pitted and rough from imperfections of casting.
They should be embarrassed to have anyone see such shoddy workmanship!
This was not what Flint had expected to find. Who cared if the mountain dwarves' notorious greed allowed them to lower their smithing standards? Flint was curled into a pain ful ball to keep his head from bulging the canvas, but he shifted onto his knees now and hunkered down to think.
Suddenly, his aching back produced a most unexpected thought.
Why was he bent double in a box that was at least as tall as he? Unless it was two boxes, not one, he concluded excit edly. He examined the floor of the wagon and was frustrated in his attempt to find secret compartments.
Flint poked his head out of the canvas and looked and lis tened; the yard was still quiet. He lowered a foot around the wheel and onto a spoke, then slipped down.
Flint dropped from the wheel and crawled under the wagon, struggling to balance in the deep, muddy ruts as he slowly inspected the underside of the box. Brushing mud away with his fingertips, Flint probed each crack with his carving knife.
He missed it the first time, but as he doubled back he found the concealed panel. Mounted between the axles was a long rectangle made from two of the wagon's floorboards.
Quickly Flint pried at the door, seeking a latch. His fin gers probed and prodded, and then he felt the mechanism, hidden in a knothole. After a push of his blade, he felt the catch release; the narrow panel swung downward.
He was so close!
Praying that the shadows under the wagon would conceal him a few moments longer, Flint raised his head into the cav ity the panel had revealed. Spotting several long wooden crates, he wasted no time in prying the nearest lid off, snap ping the tip of his knife.
But he paid no attention to his weapon as the wooden lid fell away. Instead he stared at a pair of steel longswords — weapons of exceptional quality, he could tell at a glance; these were not like the pitted plows above. He snapped an other box open, finding a dozen steel spearheads, razor sharp and wickedly barbed. He did not have time to check any more boxes, but he knew that there was no need.
Weapons! And not just any weapons, but blades of supe rior craftsmanship, excellent quality. The steel gleamed with purity, proving it to be expensive and rare.
But they were without craftsman's marks, no artist's sig nature. Wherever the arms were headed, the mountain dwarves wanted their origin to remain a secret. Nearly every day for at least a year, a wagon full of weapons had left Thorbardin for some unknown shore. What nation on Krynn needed so many weapons?
Only war required such numbers.
The answers Flint had sought left only more questions.
Had Aylmar learned of this before he died? Flint swallowed a lump in his throat as he remembered Garth's mutterings of a "humped one and magical blue smoke." Had Aylmar died because of what he had stumbled upon?
Heart pounding, Flint dropped back to the ground and was preparing to dash for the south wall when a heavy boot crushed his left hand into the mud.
"You didn't know half-derro could see in daylight, eh?"
Flint looked up slowly from under the wagon and saw a der ro standing above him, leering. Flint shifted his eyes and saw that, for now, the guard was alone. Desperate, he grabbed the derro's ankle with his free hand and tugged with all his might. The surprised mountain dwarf slid in the mud and dropped, hard, on his back, knocking the wind from his lungs. Flint could get no traction, so he pulled himself up by the other one's elbows and pierced the thrashing derro's windpipe with one quick slash of his carving knife. The der ro stopped struggling.
Flint looked around quickly, then back under the wagon toward the shop. He could see one figure shifting uneasily in the shadows, calling out the dead derro's name. He would come looking for his friend any minute.
Flint looked at the surrounding walls bathed in twilight, including where he had entered the yard and his boots still lay. He had no barrel and sapling to help him over the seven foot barrier now. He looked to the vast wooden gate, di rectly opposite the shop, the wagons obscuring his view.
Though closed, the gate was made of closely spaced rails.
His boots would never have fit in the spaces, but his bare toes might… He had to make the fifteen-yard dash to that gate.
Keeping low, Flint ran as fast as he could, keeping his eyes on the ruts that threatened to trip him. He hurled himself at the gate and jammed his toes into the spaces between the rails.
"Hey!"
The cry came from behind him. Heart pumping wildly,
Flint hauled himself up the gate by sheer desperation. Bal anced on his stomach across the top of the gate, he was swinging his right leg up to prepare to leap off when the gate underneath him swept open. Flint looked down anxiously and saw that two of the guards were returning from the tav erns, staggering and laughing, oblivious to Flint clinging to the top of the gate above them.
But the guard from the shop was yelling a warning as he ran to the gate. His cohorts looked up in time to see the hill dwarf's exhilarated expression as he threw himself from the top of the gate and crashed into them. Their bodies broke his fall, and they were scattered like bowling pins, taking the other guard down with them. Flint jumped to his feet un hurt. The stunned derro could only shake their foggy heads as the barefoot hill dwarf cut left on Main Street and tore down the road and out of sight.
Chapter 6
Flint deliberately avoidea the village, leading his muddy trail away from the Fireforge home. He would not be able to explain his appearance to his family — from his head to his toes he was mud-caked and spattered with blood. His mind was in a tumult, and he needed to think things out before he could face anyone with his suspicions.
His tender bare feet cold and sore, Flint set out into the eastern hills just south of the pass. Using steel and flint, he made a fire in the seclusion of a small cave that had a moun tain stream trickling past it. He stripped off every stitch of his dirty clothing and washed it by hand in the ice-cold wa ter, laying it out to dry on rocks around the fire. The tired old hill dwarf splashed his face, scrubbed the mud from his hair, and then, unclothed, he returned to sit by the fire, star ing without thoughts into the flames for a very long time.
Flint's blue-green cotton tunic dried quickly, and when he slipped it over his head, he was glad for the long hem that dropped to his knees. His leather pants would take much more time to dry. And he dearly missed his boots.
His stomach rumbled now, reminding him that he had not eaten since that morning. Noticing fish in the shallow stream, he knelt beside the water and pushed up his sleeve.
He dipped his hand in, slowly herding an unsuspecting rain bow trout to where he could raise his hand quickly and flip the fish onto the shore. It took him four painstaking tries, but finally a small trout, yet a good seven inches long, was flopping around on the sandy cave floor. Flint quickly slit its silvery belly with his carving knife, cleaned it, then skew ered the fish on a sharpened stick. He remembered seeing some berries on his way to the cave, and while the fish was roasting over the flames, he picked two handfuls of red raspberries by the light of the waxing moon.