Margaret Weis - Dragons of The Dwarven Depths

“Not much time…” said Reorx.

Flint went cold all over. He came to a halt and wiped chill sweat from his brow.

“Serves me right. Daydreaming when I should be keeping an eye out for danger.” He turned around to yell at the kender. “What do you think you’re doing, lolly-gagging about when we’re on an important quest!”

“I’m not lolly-gagging,” Tas protested. “I’m looking for Arman. I don’t think he’s been here. We’d see his footprints in the dust. He probably didn’t know that wall wasn’t a wall.”

“Most likely,” said Flint, feeling a jab of conscience. In his dream of glory, he’d forgotten all about the young dwarf.

“Should we turn around and go back?” Tas asked.

The line of statues came to an end. A short corridor branched off from the promenade to the left. According to the map, this corridor led to one set of stairs that led to a second set of stairs. Hidden stairs. Secret stairs. Young Arman would never find them. He could manage to make his way to the Ruby Tower without climbing up these stairs, but the route was longer and more complicated. Unless, of course, that dwarf claiming to be Kharas showed him the way.

“We’ll find the Hammer first,” Flint decided. “We’ve come this far, after all, and we’re close to where it might be, according to the map. Once we have the Hammer safe, then we’ll search for Arman.”

He hurried down the corridor, with the kender at his heels, and there were the stairs. Flint started climbing, and the aches came back to his leg muscles, and the pain returned to his knees, and there was that annoying shortness of breath in his chest again. He distracted himself by trying to decide what he was going to do with the Hammer once he found it.

He knew what Sturm and Raistlin wanted him to do. He knew what Tanis wanted him to do. What he didn’t know yet was what he, Flint, wanted to do, though the ancient dwarf that called himself Kharas had been pretty near the mark.

Teach them a lesson . Yeah, that sounded good to him, really good. He’d teach them all a lesson—dwarves, Sturm, Raistlin… everyone.

He reached the top of this first flight of stairs and emerged into a very small, very dark, and very empty chamber. Flint held up the lantern and shone it along the wall until he found a narrow archway that had been marked on the map. He peered inside, holding the lantern high. Tasslehoff, peering with him, gave a sigh. “More stairs. I’m getting awfully tired of stairs. Aren’t you, Flint? When they build my tomb, I hope they make it all one level so that I won’t have to climb up and down all the time.”

“Your tomb!” Flint scoffed. “As if anyone would build a tomb for you! You’ll most likely end up in the belly of a bugbear, and if you’re dead you won’t be climbing up and down anything.”

“I might,” said Tas. “I don’t plan to stay dead. That’s boring. I plan to come back as a lich or a wraith or a relevant, or something.”

“Revenant,” Flint corrected.

He was putting off the evil moment when he would have to make his aching legs climb this next staircase which, according to the map, was about three times as long as any of those they had climbed previously.

“Maybe I won’t die at all,” Tasslehoff said, giving the matter some thought. “Maybe everyone will think I’m dead, but I won’t be dead, not really, and I’ll come back and give everyone a big surprise. You’d be surprised, wouldn’t you, Flint?”

Deciding that the pain of climbing stairs was not nearly so bad as the pain of listening to the kender’s yammering, Flint heaved a sigh, grit his teeth, and once more began to climb.

Riverwind regained consciousness when the cold water slapped his face. He sputtered, gasped, then groaned, as the pain twisted inside him. Opening his eyes and seeing himself surrounded by enemies, he clamped his teeth down on the groan, unwilling to let them see how much he was suffering.

Bright light lanced through his aching head. He longed to shut his eyes against it, but he needed to find out what was going on and he forced himself to look.

He was in a large chamber with stone walls, lined with columns, with the feel of an assembly room about it, for there were nine large throne-like chairs arranged in a semi-circle on a dais near where he lay, bound hand and foot, on the floor.

Several dwarves stood over him, arguing loudly in their deep voices. Riverwind recognized one of the dwarves—a skinny little runt who wore a helm with a smoked glass visor, who was doing most of the talking. He’d been the one asking the questions, the same questions, over and over. Then, when he didn’t get the answers he wanted, he had ordered them to make the pain come again.

Hearing another groan, Riverwind turned his gaze from the dwarves. Gilthanas lay beside him. Riverwind wondered if he looked as bad as the elf lord. If so, he must be close to death. Gilthanas’s face was streaked with blood from cuts on his forehead and his lip. One eye was swollen shut, he had a lump on his jaw and a massive bruise on one side of his face. His clothes were torn, and his skin was burned and blistered from where they’d pressed red hot irons into his flesh.

They had treated the elf worse than they’d treated the humans. Riverwind had the feeling that the filthy dwarves had tormented Gilthanas more for the fun of it than because they wanted information from him. A gully dwarf of grandiose appearance was now throwing cold water in the elf’s face and slapping him solicitously on the cheek, but he still remained unconscious. Riverwind lay back and cursed himself. He’d taken precautions. He and his men—six all told—had entered the gate armed and wary, intending to look about, trying to determine if this was, in truth, the fabled gate to Thorbardin. He and his cohorts had never seen the attack coming. The draconians had emerged from the shadows, disarmed them and disabled them swiftly and efficiently.

The next thing Riverwind knew, he woke in pitch darkness, in a dungeon cell, with a hairy and foul-breathed dwarf bending over him, asking him in Common how many men were in the army, where they were hiding, and when did they mean to invade Thorbardin?

Riverwind said over and over there was no army, they weren’t planning to invade. The dwarf told him to prove it, to tell him where the people were hiding so he could go see for himself. Riverwind saw through that ploy and told the hairy little runt to go throw himself off the mountain. They then tried to loosen his tongue, beating and kicking him until he’d lost consciousness, when they woke him up, put a bag over him, and carted him off. He rode first in a wagon, then in a boat, then he’d lost consciousness again and had awakened here. He wondered how his comrades were faring. He’d heard their screams and their moans, and he knew proudly that the other four Plainsmen were not giving the dwarves the answers they wanted. His head was starting to clear, and he decided that he wasn’t going to lie here at the feet of these dwarves like a criminal.

“Paladine, give me strength,” Riverwind prayed and, gritting his teeth, he struggled to sit up. The scrawny dwarf said something to him and kicked him in the side. Riverwind stifled a groan, but refused to lie back down. Another dwarf, this one tall with gray in his beard, said something angrily to the dwarf in the helm. Riverwind took a good look at this dwarf. He had a noble bearing and a proud mien, and though he was not regarding Riverwind with a friendly eye, he appeared to be outraged by the human’s beaten and bloody condition.

This dwarf barked an order and beckoned to one of the guards. The guard left the Court, returning a short time later bearing a mug of some foul-smelling liquid. He held it to Riverwind’s lips. Riverwind looked up at the noble looking dwarf, who gave a reassuring nod.