Tybalt leaped back as if struck. "But you said I was right about you leaving!"
Flint gave him a pitying smile. "You are, but not for the reasons you think." He shook his head and then turned to Bertina, anxious to be done with Tybalt. He could hear his brother rushing out of the house behind him.
Flint's sister-in-law stood mute, tears filling her eyes. Her face glowed a bright crimson that paled all her previous blushes. "You can tell me, Flint. Why would you do such a terrible thing?" she asked, but there was no harsh judgment in her voice.
Flint felt he owed her, wife of his murdered brother, as much of the truth as he dared. "It was self-defense," he said vaguely, measuring his words.
Bertina brightened through her tears. "Then why don't you stay and tell the mayor that? He'll take your word over those of the derro!"
"Do you think so, if it meant he would lose the mountain dwarves' trade?" Flint shook his head. "No, it's not that sim ple, Berti." He hugged her awkwardly and headed for the door.
"Were are you going?"
"I don't know," Flint said evasively. "But don't worry, Ber tina, I'll be back some day… Soon. Say good-bye to ev eryone for me." She slipped a sack full of food into his hands, brushed a kiss across his bristly cheek, then fled into her room at the back of the house.
Flint stood in the sorrowful silence a moment and looked around his family's home one last time. He wished he could have settled things with Basalt, said good-bye to Bernhard and his sisters — the saucy Fidelia, and naive Glynnis — but they were at work in the town. Ruberik was out in the barn, he knew, but he could not bring himself to offer an explana tion for his departure and face the inevitable tongue lashings. So, he tucked his shiny axe into his belt and walked out the door.
Flint did not notice the small shadow that cut across his path. Nor did he see that anyone was following him as he stomped through the hills to the southwest of Hillhome.
The hill dwarf was too preoccupied with finding his brother's murderer to notice anything, for he was on his way to the vast dwarven city of Thorbardin.
Chapter 7
The Kharolis Mountains were not the tallest range upon the face of Krynn, nor the most extensive. They did not contain smoldering volcanoes such as the Lords of
Doom in Sanction to the north, or the great glaciers found in the Icewall range. The ruggedness of the range's individ ual valleys and peaks, however, could be surpassed no where on the continent of Ansalon.
Sheer canyon walls dropped thousands of feet into nar row, twisting gorges. Streams poured with chaotic abandon from the heights, slashing their way deeper and deeper into jagged channels of rock, engraving their mark with each passing day. Trees survived only on the lower slopes and valleys; most of the Kharolis range was too rough or too high to support anything more than sparse patches of moss and lichen.
The crests of the range never lost their snowcaps, the hanging teeth of which descended as glaciers into the circu lar basins of the heights. These twisted and turned in every direction before finally coming to rest in the frigid blue green waters of the high lakes.
The landscape of the Kharolis Mountains, inhospitable in the extreme, was the home of a populous kingdom and thriving culture that dwelled there quite comfortably, since its members rarely saw the landscape above them.
They were the dwarves of Thorbardin.
Thorbardin was a powerful dwarven stronghold, con taining seven teeming cities and an extensive network of roads and subterranean farming warrens. The whole of
Thorbardin covered an area more than twenty miles long and fourteen miles wide.
Toiling in their vast underground domain, the dwarves paid little attention to occurrences on the surface world.
They had enough space and enough intrigue in their subter ranean lairs to last them many centuries.
At the heart of Thorbardin lay the Urkhan Sea. Not a sea at all, it was actually an underground lake some five miles long. Cable-drawn boats crisscrossed the lake in an intricate network, linking most of the cities of the dwarven realm. In the center of the sea was the most amazing city of alclass="underline" the
Life Tree of the Hylar. Twenty-eight levels of dwarven city were carved within a huge stalactite that hung from the ca vern roof to dip below the surface of the sea.
Thorbardin drew its food supply from three great war rens. These massive caverns devoted to sunless agriculture were capable of producing huge crops of fungus and mold based food. Each warren was shared by several cities, but individual food plots were jealously guarded.
Despite its size, Thorbardin was historically connected to the surface world by only two gates, at the north and south boundaries of the kingdom. The Northgate had been de stroyed by the Cataclysm. The dwarves had withdrawn, into their underground domain, sealed the Southgate against every form of attack they could imagine, and turned their backs on the world.
Although considered one kingdom by outsiders, the mountain dwarves of Thorbardin actually consisted of no less than four identifiable clans, or nations: the Hylar, the
Theiwar, Daewar, and the Daergar. Each of these was ruled by a thane, and each had its own interests, goals, even racial tendencies.
Thorbardin's schisms were aggravated by the absence of one true monarch to rule the kingdom as a whole. Accord ing to ancient legend, Thorbardin would become truly united only when one thane obtained the Hammer of
Kharas. That ancient artifact, named for the greatest of dwarven heroes, had been missing for centuries. Untold ef fort, treasure, and lives had been expended, fruitlessly, in attempts to locate it.
Without the hammer to unite them, the nations of the dwarven kingdom struggled against each other. Spies were sent to observe the activities of rival thanes. Treasure stores were jealously watched, because riches — particularly steel and gems — were a traditional measure of dwarven status.
The Hylar, the eldest of the mountain dwarf races, were the traditional masters of Thorbardin. Their might had been severely taxed by the Dwarfgate Wars, however, allowing other nations to gain increased prominence. Most notable among these was the Theiwar clan, made up of derro dwarves and controlled by their magic-using savants.
The derro, paler complected and of slightly larger stature than their Hylar cousins, lived in the northern portion of
Thorbardin. They practiced dark magic and were regarded with superstitious awe by other dwarves. They had a well earned reputation for treachery, betrayal, and sorcerous manipulation. Other mountain dwarves regarded them with fear and extreme distrust.
It was the derro Theiwar who had excavated a new, secret exit from northern Thorbardin, allowing them to send their wagons of weapons to the sea without the knowledge of the other clans. Wealth was power, and the Theiwar intended to be very powerful, indeed.
The great throne room gave an impression of unlimited space, like a wide clearing beneath a silent, nighttime sky.
Tall columns stood around the periphery of the chamber, rising into the darkness like massive tree trunks. Low torches flickered in a hundred locations, cloaking the cham ber in a warm, yellow light.
The vast chamber, nevertheless, lay more than a thou sand feet below the surface of Krynn. Great halls, shielded by massive steel-and-gold doors, led from the throne room to all parts of Theiwar City. A hundred dwarves stood alert at the various doors, clad in gleaming plate mail and armed with axes or crossbows.
Now one of these doors swung slowly open, and a hunch backed dwarf entered the chamber. His long, bronze colored robe rustled along the floor behind him. He hastened toward the center of the room.