Chris Evans - The Light of Burning Shadows

The dwarf shrugged. “The Suljak keeps the tribes in check. In return for a cut, the trade caravans pass through the Hasshugeb Expanse and come in to Nazalla, then on to Calahr. Nothing new.”

Yimt took a pull on the bottle, then offered it to the dwarf. He shook his head.

Alwyn stepped forward. “Uh, Sergeant, maybe we should be moving on. We have to get back to camp, remember?”

“Ally, I told you, we got time. You know, Teeter ain’t got a half-bad idea. Maybe a little something to remember our night here in the big city is just the ticket.”

The dwarf stood up from his basket. “I might be able to help you,” he said. He pulled up a sleeve on his left arm, revealing a large tattoo of a stake with several orc heads skewered on it. Alwyn looked closer and counted eight.

Yimt stood up and looked around at the other soldiers. “Lads, we’re in the presence of greatness. There’s only one regiment in the whole Calahrian Army that wears a tattoo like that, and that’s the Queen’s Own Shields.”

Alwyn whistled. The QOS were famous the world over for their stand against the orcs at Frillik’s Drift in the Second Border War over fifty years ago. Six hundred dwarves held off ten thousand orcs for over a week. When it was over, thirty-four dwarves made it back.

“You’re one of the thirty-four,” Alwyn whispered.

“Well, if I wasn’t you’d be talking to a ghost,” the dwarf said. He held out his hand to Yimt. “Sergeant Griz Jahrfel, retired.”

Yimt grabbed his hand and shook it vigorously. “Sergeant Yimt Arkhorn, Iron Elves. I know, I know, takes too long to explain. And this motley bunch is my old section. I was showing them the sights of Nazalla when we ran into a few lads from the twelfth.”

Griz nodded. “Ignorant buggers with hard heads and soft kneecaps.”

“Especially if you hit it just right,” Yimt said. Both dwarves started laughing.

“So are we getting tattoos or what?” Teeter asked. He’d found yet another bottle and was drinking from it. “We want to get a move on if we are, ’cause you know damn well they’ll be sending us out to that desert to chase down that Kama Wall fellow soon enough.”

Alwyn waved at Teeter to be quiet.

“Wait, you’re serious?” Griz said. “You lads really here to go after Kaman Rhal’s ghost?”

“Wasn’t no ghost that burned ol’ Harkon,” Teeter said, swinging the bottle to make his point. “That white fire fried his shadow like an egg getting…fried.”

“Teeter, why don’t you do us all a favor and pass out already,” Yimt said.

Griz whistled and stepped back. “I’ve heard some tall tales in my time…told most of them, so I ought to know, but you don’t want to be talking about white fire and shadows around here. People get upset at that kind of talk.”

“It’s true,” Alwyn said. “We fought it just a few days ago.”

The dwarf looked from Yimt to Alwyn then around the group. “You’re having me on. Kaman Rhal is as dead as dead gets. His power was lost when his library was. It’s just local myth handed down through the generations.”

Yimt shook his head. “Myths aren’t what they used to be. These days, everything old is new again.”

“I heard something over here!” a voice shouted from down the alley.

Griz peered into the distance. “Might be some of those weak-kneed knuckle draggers from the twelfth. Quick, lads, follow me,” Griz said, “we can continue this conversation in private.”

Griz hurried over to a large wicker basket the size of a grown man and stepped behind it. When no one followed, he reappeared and waved his hand. “Well, come on then.”

Alwyn was the first to walk around the basket. He discovered that the back half of the basket was in fact a secret door that opened onto a hidden entrance. Closer inspection revealed a set of stairs. The light from a candle or lantern somewhere below illuminated the steps enough for him to see. Unslinging his musket, he crouched and descended the stairs. They twisted around several times before finally emptying out into a small tunnel with a curved roof about six feet high lined with hardened mud bricks.

“This way,” Griz said, holding a small lantern. Alwyn looked behind him and was reassured to hear the others thumping down the stairs. He set out after the dwarf, who walked quickly for someone with such short legs, forcing Alwyn to almost hop along behind him. Alwyn was about to ask how much farther when Griz stopped and knocked on the left side of the tunnel.

The muffled sound of knocking came in reply from the other side, and then a hidden door opened up in the tunnel wall. Griz motioned Alwyn inside. Alwyn looked back down the tunnel the way he came. Yimt appeared a moment later, with the others following along behind.

Alwyn stepped inside, and for the second time that evening found himself in a room unlike any he had ever been in before. “It’s, uh, cozy,” he said, removing his shako and standing up. His hair just brushed the ceiling. Another dwarf stood just inside, but instead of robes, this one wore heavy leather boots, dark leggings, and a leather and chainmail overcoat. His red beard was shorn so that it only reached the top of his chest. A drukar hung from a leather belt around his waist.

This was a dwarf you didn’t mess with, which got Alwyn thinking he hadn’t actually met a dwarf yet whom you did want to mess with. He nodded at the dwarf, who only stared at him in reply. Alwyn looked around the room. Lanterns hung from iron hooks set in the ceiling. The room itself was a perfect cylinder, with curved walls of ordinary field stone so perfectly laid that Alwyn had to squint to make out the joint lines.

“Not a drop of mortar in the entire place,” Griz said, hooking his thumbs in his belt and beaming. The younger dwarf snorted, or perhaps sneezed.

Alwyn ran a hand along a section of wall. It was as smooth as a polished slab of marble. Fittingly, instead of pillows and hanging curtains of fine cloth and beads, the dwarf had furnished his underground home-if that’s what it was-simply. There were several low, wide stools and benches of slate. There were no wicker baskets in sight.

“Do you have a large family?” Alwyn asked, noticing several dirty mugs and plates sitting on a long, low table on the far side of the room.

Griz looked over at the table, then at the younger dwarf, and cursed under his breath. “Uh, just the hired help.”

The rest of the group now entered the room. Hrem came in almost bent double. He looked around, then sat down and leaned his back against the wall. The younger dwarf’s hand came to rest on the hilt of his drukar, but he otherwise remained still.

“Trij, make yourself useful and get these boys a drink,” Griz said when everyone was in the room. Behind them the door to the tunnel slid shut silently.

Trij stood still a moment longer, studying every soldier in turn. On spying Yimt, Trij squinted and focused on the shatterbow that was now slung under Yimt’s arm and ready to use. Finally, the dwarf slowly took his hand off his drukar and turned and walked toward a section of the wall. He reached out a hand and lightly punched one of the stones. There was a click as the stone sank into the wall an inch. A moment later, another secret door swung open and Trij walked through it. Alwyn kept expecting to hear grinding stone, but there was barely a speck of dust set floating on the air as stone glided over stone. These dwarves knew masonry.

“You’re first,” Griz said, grabbing Alwyn by the arm and leading him to one of the stone stools. “The rest of you lads can grab a seat and get comfortable.” He sat Alwyn down, then pulled a stool up beside him. Griz stared at Alwyn’s ears until Alwyn pulled back a bit.