"It's too damned cold out here." The old dwarf
shivered further into his fur-lined cloak and pulled his scarf up over his
knobby nose. His stubby toes were
wiggling in his old but sturdy boots as they dangled over the wagon's seat
edge. His companion just looked over and
chuckled at the grumpy dwarf before turning back to the reins in his hands.
"Come now, you can't say that this is anything you've
never experienced before!" He cast
out a hand to gesture at the forest around them, barely white from the season's
first snow. "It's hardly cold
enough to see one's own breath!"
"Aye, I feeled it afore. Dun mean I liked it." He grumbled some more while continuing to
huddle back into his cloak.
"Asides, I aint no damned surface creature." He pounded his fist on the side of the wagon
before hastily withdrawing it into his warm coverings and grumbling all the
louder.
"My, if you keep scooting back into that cloak, I fear
that you will plain disappear." He
reached out to pat the surly dwarf on the shoulder, still chuckling.
"I din ask ter be out here. I din ask ter come. Aint where I'm posed to
be." His long, braided, fire-orange
and grey-streaked beard waggled from under his scarf as he complained, almost
like it had some life of its own. The
charms and binders woven into it clanked and chattered with the movement, the
metal and stone sounding sharp against his gravelly voice, already muffled by
his scarf as it was. "I'm apposed
to be at the forges. Fire and steel are
apposed ter be in my hands." It was
easy to see the dwarf's thick hands flexing under his cloak in remembrance of
their tools as he spoke. His eyes stared
off distantly.
"We shall be back in the halls of the Iron Well before
you know it. Have no fear. I understand this is not what you
wanted." He patted the dwarf on the
shoulder again, only this time sympathetically.
The gruff creature hardly noticed.
Indeed the old dwarf had been the last one wanting to
undertake this journey. He had spent the
last two hundred of his three hundred years among his brethren deep in the
caverns of the Iron Forge, bending steel and stone to his will, shaping some of
the most beautiful armor and weapons the land of Airins Gale had ever
seen. So good were they that some said they
rivaled relics from the Times Forgotten, pieces created by beings of old using
magics that had long since been erased from memory. This was Baldrik Firehammer, the most
renowned smith any land had seen in generations, and he did not take lightly to
being pulled from his home among the fires.
His companion, a weapons master known as Alec the Blooded, had
been sent with ten of his best men to escort the smith to the city of Gaewyn,
the capital of Airins Gale. The king,
Haethryn of the Golden Steps, had requested an audience with a member of the
Firehammer clan to thank them for their support in his war of ascension. Since he first lit its fires, Baldrik had almost
never been seen to leave the Well. That the new king was able to force the old
dwarf out was just a show to help cement Haethryn's title.
"Had I knowed he's goin ter pull me out, I'da never
sold tha fool boy me blades. I can't
stand none o' these politics. Leave a
nasty taste in me mouth." Baldrik
briefly pulled his scarf down and spat over the side of the wagon before
covering his nose again, still fuming. Alec
watched him grimly, knowing full well that the dwarf was known for his anger
and hot words, but not able to easily accept slander against his king. Still, he kept his mouth shut.
For a while the only sound coming from the two was the constant
grumbling and moaning of the dwarf. Alec
had decided it was best to leave the smith to his misery since nothing seemed
to lighten the mood. Instead he paid
full attention to the woods around them.
His men had to camp a ways down the mountain face due to the dwarves'
fear of drawing attention to the exact location of the entrance to the Iron
Well. So he knew that he and the smith
were vulnerable in the time until they joined back up with his troop. Baldrik could fetch a pretty penny on any day
and he had made plenty of enemies in the ascension of the Golden Steps. It was well known that his clan's work had
enabled Haethryn to win the war.
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