Dan Parkinson - The Covenant of The Forge

Cale looked back, just once, at the great outer wall of Thorin. “Thorin-Dwarfhome,” he whispered. “Thorin-Everbardin, keep my soul. Welcome this one home should I never return.”

Then he turned his eyes westward, where the last glow of day outlined the wavy peaks of the Suncradles. “Keep pace,” he called to his companions. “There is a lot of world to see out there, and no better time than the present.”

Eyes watched them all the way across the Valley of the Bone and out the Chandera Road — furtive, sullen human eyes, hidden in shadows all along a closing line which would soon be a human cordon around Thorin. Eyes watched, but no man lifted a hand. The seven armed and mounted dwarves were packed for travel, and they were going away. They didn’t matter. They would be not be here to interfere with what Grayfen planned for the citadel of the dwarves.

Bram Talien was worried. As trademaster of Chandera, he was responsible for the caravan wending its way toward Thorin, for the midsummer fair that the dwarves called Balladine. Normally, the annual journey was more a pleasure than a worry. As a trader and merchant, Bram Talien enjoyed visiting the Calnar fortress. It was a challenge to match wits with Cullom Hammerstand, the dwarves’ warden of trade, and he had a deep respect for Colin Stonetooth.

The dwarves were not human, of course, but there were dwarves whose company Bram Talien preferred over that of some people he knew.

The caravan was like a traveling city. Carts, wagons, barrows, pack beasts and laden travois by the hundreds wound upward on the mountain road in a line that was sometimes three miles long in the narrow passages, and fully half of the citizens of Chandera trudged along among them, tending stock and driving teams.

Here was the annual commodity wealth of Chandera: grains from lowland fields, spices and scents from the Bloten frontiers, hardwood timbers from the forests bounding the plains of eastern Ergoth, bonemeal and herbs, wooden baskets, tapestries and rugs, and a dozen kinds of wicker furniture. All were things that the dwarves of Thorin cherished and would trade for with their own commodities. And in special wagons near the front of the line was a real prize, something that would make the dwarven traders’ eyes go wide and their bids go high.

Most of the men were armed, and dozens of them were mounted, riding guard on the train. Never in memory had a Balladine caravan been seriously threatened. Sometimes thieves would try to slip into a night camp to filch whatever they could find, and now and then a wandering band of nomads might shadow the train for a day or so, but a caravan in strength was a formidable company, and there had never been an attack. But now Bram Talien was apprehensive.

All through the land, it seemed, things were changing. Just in the past year, strangers had come among them in Chandera, and it seemed to Bram that among his own people — the subjects of Riffin Two-Tree the Wise — moods had shifted. There was talk of Chandera being “poor,” and talk of fortune hunting. It was disturbing. Sometimes Bram felt as though some Chanderans were turning from the old ways and looking in strange, new directions. A sullen, angry discontent was spreading where before had been contentment.

And now there was the more immediate concern — the strangers in the distance, who clung to the caravan route as though the caravan were a flock of sheep being herded. The scouts reported large groups of people — strangers all — flanking and paralleling them, and hardly an hour passed that there were not people on the hilltops watching them.

Bram Talien had told Cullom Hammerstand’s dwarven agents about the strangers on Chandera land and of his concerns. It was common for the chiefs of trade to share such information prior to Balladine. But now, two days out from Riffin Two-Tree’s village, he realized that there were far more strangers in the land than he had known. They seemed to be everywhere — wild-looking, oddly dressed men who might have been assembled from dozens of different tribes — and the only certain thing about them was that they were all armed.

The land was full of movers these days, it seemed. Refugees from the south brought tales of horror, of dragons a’wing over Silvanesti, of dragonfear and dragonfire and awful magics which spread like sand on the winds: trees that danced and captured spirits, bogs that erupted vile acids, stones that exploded, and lightnings that crackled through the forests to find and strike some living thing.

How many dragons were there? Some said one or two, some said hundreds. Personally, Bram Talien doubted that any of the travelers had seen more than a few dragons, if any at all, but that did not diminish his concerns. One dragon alone would be enough to start panic and breed mass migrations.

The stories meshed in some way with the strange disappearance of elves from the realms of the eastern Khalkists. Elven parties had been common in past times. They had crossed Chandera now and then in their journeys and had shared fires with Chanderan herdsmen and patrols.

Often, in olden times, elves had even come to the dwarves’ Balladine, and the goods they brought to trade were much coveted.

But it had been several seasons now since Bram Talien had even seen an elf, though Riffin Two-Tree’s scouts had recently reported large numbers of what looked like western elves skirting the mountains south of Bloten, eastward-bound … eastward, toward Silvanesti.

Something was going on in the south, and the results in these lands were bands of migrants, uprooted tribes moving from where they had been to wherever they were going. But there was something different about the people who now flanked the Chanderan caravan. These did not look like refugees. They looked more like mercenaries.

Spurring his chestnut pony, Bram Talien rode forward along the plodding line of the caravan, feeling the wind in his beard as the horse ran. Though only half the size of the great, gold-and-white horses of Thorin, the chestnut was a good mount, as fast and strong as any in Chandera, and it was the trademaster’s favorite.

Forward of the camp carts, near the front of the train, eight high-sided wagons rolled along, each drawn by a double string of oxen. Bram slowed, casting a careful eye over the wagons and their teams and rigging. Here was the special commodity with which he hoped to gain trade concessions from Cullom Hammerstand. In the high ranges on the eastern perimeter of Chandera, diggers had found a large deposit of the shiny, black firestone that the dwarves used to smelt iron and make their steel.

Cullom Hammerstand would do everything in his power to try to get the firestone for a low price. Bram smiled faintly, imagining the posturings and hand-wringing the wily dwarf would go through, trying to trade him down. Chandera would see a handsome profit this year at Balladine.

Some of the drivers and crewmen tending the high wagons turned to watch the trademaster pass, and one or two waved.

He waved back. “Tend your loads well,” he called. “This year we will out-trade the dwarves of Thorin.”

“We’ll get this stuff there, Trademaster,” a man called, “but it’s your task to see we get a good price for it.”

Bram nodded and started ahead again, then frowned as another voice came to him on the wind — another man, speaking to his companions. “If we had the dwarves’ smelters and forges, we’d have no need to trade with them,” the voice said angrily. “If we had Thorin, we’d make our own steel, and high time we did. Those selfish, bit-pinching dinks have held Thorin too long, as I see it.”

Bram looked around, but whoever had spoken had turned away, and the others looked away as well. … Were they embarrassed at the words? Or did some among them agree?