Basalt peered closely, then smacked his thigh in astonish ment. "Why, you're right! Let's go!" The young dwarf took a step toward the stream. Flint's hand flew out to stop him.
Water. Water that was over half as tall as Flint's four-foot frame. Flint shivered involuntarily, considering the rapid icy flow. The stream had no bank to speak of, what with the severe pitch of the canyon walls that shaped it. It was twenty or thirty feet at its widest point.
"What's wrong, Flint?" Basalt asked. "Aren't we going to follow the stream?"
Flint struggled to keep the color from draining from his face. He couldn't let Basalt learn that his uncle's aversion to water went beyond normal dwarven distaste, to cold, blind ing fear. Flint didn't even like admitting it to himself. It wasn't his fault, after all. It was that damned lummox, Caramon Majere.
One fine day not many years before, when Flint had been waiting in Solace for Tanis to return from a trip to
Qualinesti, Tasslehoff Burrfoot proposed that Sturm, Raist lin, Caramon, and Flint take a ride on Crystalmir Lake in a boat the kender had "found." They set out on the lake, and everyone was having a grand time until Caramon tried to catch a fish by hand. He leaned out too far, tilting the boat and sending everyone into the water.
Raistlin, always the clever one, had bobbed up beneath the overturned boat and was quite safe in the air pocket it formed. His oafish twin brother did not fare so well, sinking like a stone. Sturm and Tas, both fearless, strong swimmers, soon righted the boat and Raistlin with it, while it was left to
Flint to try to rescue Caramon.
The three in the boat waited eagerly for Flint and Cara mon, but all they saw was a immense amount of splashing and gurgling, and then the water became ominously silent.
Frightened, both Tas and Sturm plunged back into the wa ter; the knight hauled Caramon, coughing, into the boat. It was Tas who found the dwarf, half-drowned and hysterical; all four of his friends had to help drag him into the boat, where he lay shivering, vowing to never set foot on water again.
"Uncle Flint?"
"What? Oh, yes. I'm thinking!" he snapped. If he wanted to avenge Aylmar, he had no choice but to venture into the stream.
"Oh, all right!" he snarled at last, hitching up his belt, willing his right foot to take a step into the stream. Only it would not move.
"What's the matter, are you afraid of water?" Basalt asked incredulously.
That did it. Setting his chin firmly, Flint clomped two steps into the swiftly flowing stream, barely suppressing a scream as melted mountain snow flowed over the tops of his leather climbing boots. He bit his lip until it nearly bled.
Suddenly a strong eddy grabbed his legs and sent him slid ing off the uneven, slimy rocks under his feet.
"Whoa!" Basalt's strong arm reached out; he caught his uncle by the collar and held tight before the dwarf fell face first into the frigid water. Flint's axe clattered against the rocks on the narrow bank, and he nonchalantly wiped wa ter droplets from the weapon's shiny surface while he gath ered the courage to make another move.
"Let go of me — I mean, you can let go of me now, Bas," he finished more calmly, twisting his damp tunic back into place. He had one goal now that overshadowed all others: he wanted only to get to the end of this stream-road as quickly as possible without falling. And if he should fall, he prayed that Reorx would take him quickly.
Flint set off slowly, concentrating so intently on his feet that his head began to ache with the strain. His toes were numb, as were his legs beneath his soaked leather pants.
Sharp rocks jabbed at the souls of his feet through his boots.
They had progressed perhaps one hundred feet upstream when Flint heard the sound, though at first he thought it was only the blood banging through his temples. No, he de cided, it sounds like wagon wheels. But why would a wagon be coming through now? It was only early evening, just heading toward dusk. The hill dwarf held up a hand to warn
Basalt, and he concentrated on the approaching noise. It was coming from behind them, he determined, probably an empty wagon returning after a run through Hillhome to Newsea.
The hill dwarves couldn't backtrack and they couldn't outrun the wagon. They had to hide! But where? Flint tore his gaze from his feet and spotted some aspen branches hanging over the stream from the right side of the tiny bank.
They would just have to duck low and hope the branches covered them.
Quickly he slogged the ten feet to the branches, waving
Basalt to follow. Flint instinctively held his breath before dropping to his knees on the rocky stream bed, letting the cold mountain water lap at his shoulders and tear at his jan gled nerve endings till he thought he could endure it no more. He felt Basalt stiffen at his side.
Hurry, damn you! he screamed inwardly at the approach ing wagon. Oh, how I wish I were on that dry wagon and the derro were in this wretched water, thought Flint. That image gave him an idea.
"Bas," he whispered, no louder than a breath, "Wait for me in the brush back where the road turns to river. Two days, no more. Then go home."
"What? I'm going with you!" Basalt hissed quickly, then he saw the determined look on his uncle's gray-bearded face. "You need me — "
"Look, Bas, I'm not even sure I can get in this way," Flint began almost apologetically, "but two of us are sure to get nailed. Two days, no morel I'll be OK!"
The wagon was almost upon them. Approaching their home base, the guards obviously did not fear an attack and were asleep on the buckboard, and the driver nearly dozed from the tedium, too. The four horses pulled the wagon steadily up the stream bed through the knee-high water.
Flint mentally measured the distance and timed the rotation of the huge wooden wheels with their iron spokes.
Flint broke his concentration just long enough to hold Ba salt's gaze. "Watch yourself, son."
The wagon was smack in front of them now, the four horses churning the water with their big hooves. Flint launched himself between the bone-crushing wheels and caught the bottom of the cargo box with just three of the thick fingers of his right hand. He quickly swung himself monkey-style until his left hand connected with the axle brace of the right front wheel. Wrapping his arms and legs around it, he held on for dear life and dangled beneath the wagon and just above the water, waiting for some large, pointed rock to impale him from below.
The wagon stopped abruptly, and he heard animated con versation.
"You clear the tunnel," someone said.
It's your turn!" another said in a sleepy voice. "I had to clear those boulders out of the way by that ridge a few days ago."
"Oh, all right!" the first one said.
The front end of the wagon bounced slightly as one of the derro sprang to the ground and landed in the water with a splash.
Flint hugged the axle and made himself as small as possi ble. Lowering his head just slightly, he looked under the front of the wagon and saw that thick brush blocked the bank of the stream beside them. The hill dwarf saw only branches, water, and the mountain dwarf's waist at water level until the fellow moved the tree limbs to either side of the wagon, forming an opening in the steep stream bed.
Deep ruts that led out of the stream were revealed where the branches had been. With an oath, the driver coaxed the horses through a turn to the left, and the poor creatures la boriously hauled the heavy wagon out of the stream and onto the concealed portion of the road.
The driver did not stop the wagon as both guards dropped to replace the brush pile, then climbed back onto the rear of the wagon, where Flint could hear them crawl over the hollow wooden cargo hold and take their places at the front again.
They rolled a short distance, and the sounds of the stream fell behind. It suddenly grew dark, and Flint knew they had entered a tunnel. His arms began to ache so that he could no longer hold onto the bouncing axle brace. Unclenching his stiff hands, arms, and legs, he dropped to the sandy ground, being careful to avoid the enormous iron wheels. He crouched in the darkness, waiting until the wagon had rum bled out of earshot. His heat-sensing infravision responded only dimly in the cold tunnel, outlining the walls in faint red.