Knowing the answer through local gossip, Flint had tried desperately to clap a hand over the kender's big mouth. But the quick-footed imp had danced away. "Watch out, Flint I You nearly suffocated me," he had scolded the dwarf. "Your father, maybe?" he pressed, turning back to the suddenly pale shopkeeper. "Grandfather? Hmm?"
"The man who owned the store before me," had been Amos's quiet reply.
"That's it?" Tas squealed.
"Mind your own business, kender!" Flint had growled low in his throat.
But Amos waved away the dwarf's concern. "No, he stole my wife and left behind this shop. I leave his name up to remind me how fickle women can be, in case I'm ever tempted to trust one of them again."
The tender-hearted kender's eyes had filled with tears, and he came to Amos's side to pat the human's shoulder, treasures newly "found" in the shop dropping from his pockets in his haste. "I'm so sorry... I didn't know...."
A slight, stoic smile had creased Amos Cartney's face as he gently slipped his hand from the anxious kender's. "And you know what else? I haven't been tempted, all these ten years."
Flint secretly agreed with Amos's evaluation of women he'd had some bad experiences of his own - and from that time forward, the human and the dwarf were friends.
Seeing Flint in his doorway now, the greengrocer wiped his hands on his apron and waved the dwarf inside, a hearty grin on his face.
"Didn't bring that nosy kender with you, I see!" He snickered, continuing to wave Flint forward. "Hurry on in. I've been having some trouble with seekers hanging around the doorway, pestering my good customers. Can't seem to get rid of 'em." Amos shook his balding head wearily.
Flint patted his old friend on the back. "Tas has gone exploring for five years. And I don't think those seekers will be bothering anyone for a while, either."
Catching the glint in the dwarf's eye, Amos's smile was grateful, but it still held a hint of weariness. "My thanks, but they always come back. Maybe not the same trouble- makers, but every day there are more seekers to take their places." Amos dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and rubbed.
Flint's good mood ebbed as he was forced to agree with the shopkeeper. Solace was not the same friendly village it had been before the seekers had encroached on it in the last few years.
"But what am I saying?" Amos forced his mood to brighten. "You didn't come here to listen to my woes. Where's your list? I'll rustle up your goods." Amos elbowed the dwarf conspiratorially in the ribs. "Got that bottle of malt rum you've been waiting for, too." Taking the scrap of parchment Flint held up in his hand, Amos cackled as he shuffled off to collect the dwarf's groceries.
"Thanks, Amos," Flint called softly, absently scanning the shelves around him.
He saw huge clay jars of pickled cucumbers, onions, and other vegetables. The smell of vinegar lingered thick around here, and Flint moved away. The dwarf passed a row of barrels, containing rye and wheat and oat flours, and then smaller bins with sugar and salt. Opposite these was a wall of spices, and he read their odd names with amused curiosity: absynt, bathis, cloyiv, tumeric. What made people add such bizarre things to their food? the dwarf wondered. What was wrong with a plain, sizzling haunch of meat?
Flint was looking at a tin of salted sea snails, a treat he hadn't had in years, when he heard someone beside him say in a gravelly voice, "So there is another hill dwarf in this town! I was beginning to feel like the proverbial hobgoblin at a kender Sunday picnic," boomed the stranger, clapping Flint on the back merrily. "Hanak's the name."
Flint took a small step sideways and looked at the speaker. He was nearly big nose to big nose with another dwarf, all right. Wild, carrot-red hair sprang from the other dwarf's head like tight metal coils, and between that and a poker-straight beard and mustache were eyes as clear blue as the sky. Flint tried to judge his age: the lines on his face were not too deep, but he was missing his two front teeth, though whether from aging or fighting Flint could not say.
The strange dwarf wore a tight chain mail shirt and a well-worn cap of smooth leather. His high boots were light, almost like moccasins, but showed the wear and stain of much travel. Hanak smacked his lips and rubbed his hands together as he looked at the shelves of food.
"You must be new to Solace," said Flint noncommitally.
Hanak shrugged. "Just passing through, actually; I'm headed for Haven. I hail from the hills south of here a good ways, almost down to the plains of Tarsis. Never been this far north before," he admitted.
Flint turned back to his shopping but then felt the other dwarf's eyes on him.
"You're from the south too, unless I miss my guess."
"You don't," Flint admitted, facing the stranger again. Hanak's inquisitive words made Flint uncomfortable.
"Not so far south as me, though - east hillcountry'd be my guess," the other hill dwarf said, tapping his chin in thought, squinting at Flint. "Perhaps just north of Thorbardin?"
"How did you know?" Flint asked brusquely. "I've never met anyone who could pinpoint someone's region so closely!"
"Well, now, it wasn't too difficult," the dwarf said, his tone implying anything but. "I travel for my living, selling leather work. I detected a slight accent and noticed the black in your hair - nearly every dwarf in my region has red or brown; And that long, loose, blue-green tunic and those baggy leather boots - you've been away from dwarves for some time, haven't you? I haven't seen anyone wearing that style in years, you know. Say, what village are you from, exactly?"
Flint was a little put off by the clothing comments - he'd gotten the boots as a gift from his mother a few decades before - but he decided the dwarf meant no offense. "I was raised in a little place called Hillhome, smack between Thorbardin and Skullcap."
"Hillhome! Why, I was there but twenty day ago. Was trading my boots and aprons. Not so little anymore, though. A shame what's happening there, isn't it?" he said sympathetically. "Still, you can't stop progress, now can you? Um, um, um," the dwarf muttered, shaking his head sadly.
"Progress? In Hillhome?" Flint snorted. "What did they do, raise the hems on the frawl's dresses by half an inch?"
"I'm talking about the mountain dwarves!" yelled Hanak. "Marchin' through town, drivin' their big wagons over the pass. They even stay at hill dwarf inns!"
"That pass was built by hill dwarf sweat, hill dwarf blood!" cried Flint, appalled at the news. "They'd never let the mountain dwarves use it!" No, never, Flint repeated vehemently to himself.
The history of the hill and mountain dwarves was a bitter one, at least during the centuries since the Cataclysm. At that time, when the heavens rained destruction upon Krynn, the mountain dwarves withdrew into their great underground kingdom of Thorbardin and sealed the gates, leaving their hill dwarf cousins to suffer the full force of the gods' punishment.
The hill dwarves had named the act the Great Betrayal, and Flint was only one of the multitudes who had inherited this legacy of hatred from his forefathers. Indeed, his father's father, Reghar Fireforge, had been a leader of the hill dwarf armies during the tragic, divisive Dwarfgate Wars. Flint could not believe that the dwarves of Hillhome would avert their eyes to the undying blood feud.
"I'm afraid they are," replied Hanak, his tone gentler. "Theiwar dwarves at that, the derro dwarves of Thorbardin."
"Derro? It can't be!" growled Flint. That was even worse. Indeed, the derro - the race of dwarves that comprised the bulk of the Theiwar clan - were known to be the most malicious of mountain dwarves. Their magic-using shamans had been the prime instigators of the Great Betrayal.
The other dwarf backed a step away this time and held up his hands defensively. "I only know what I saw, friend, and I saw derro strolling merrily among the dwarves of Hillhome - and not a one of the hill dwarves was spitting on 'em, either."
"I can't believe that," Flint muttered, shaking his head. "I can't believe my brothers would allow it. Our family used to carry some weight in the village. Maybe you heard our name - Fireforge? My brother's name is Aylmar Fireforge."
A shadow crossed the other dwarf's face fleetingly, and he seemed almost to nod, then think better of it. "No, it doesn't ring a bell," he said, then quickly added, "but I didn't stay long enough to get to know anyone so very well."
Flint ran a weary hand through his salt-and-pepper mop. Could Hanak be right about mountain dwarves infesting Hillhome?
Flint felt a strong hand squeeze his shoulder. "If my kin folk were dealing with devils, I'd go have me a look," Hanak said kindly. "May Reorx guide you." With that, he strolled out the door of the grocery, leaving Flint to his troubled thoughts.
Amos slammed a brown, wrapped bundle onto the counter before him. "Salt, a bag of apples, four eggs, a slab of bacon, one jar of pickles, two loaves of day-old bread, four pounds of the richest Nordmaarian chicory root known to man - and dwarves -" He snickered "- a vial of tar to fix those creaky shutters before winter sets, and the long-awaited malt rum," he finished with satisfaction.
Flint reached into the pocket of the vest over his shoulder and said distractedly, "You can leave the tar. I won't be here to see winter reach Solace."
Noting the dark tone in the dwarf's voice, Amos looked at his friend with concern, but he knew better than to ask ques tions. The shopkeeper had never seen Flint so preoccupied, even when those young, troublemaking friends of his were in town. He took the money for Flint's purchases and word lessly nodded good-bye.
Chapter 2
The Trail Home
