His father never so much as looked tempted.
“No Tom, my mind is made up. I've given this a fair shake these last sixteen years but it's just not for me or my boy either. You've been a fair boss and you're a good man, but I've had my fill. Truth be told it's been in my mind for some time to move on.”
The Foreman argued and pleaded with him but his Father would not be moved. Seeing this, the Foreman sighed.
“Well, if that's how it's to be then I suppose that I must wish you well… But it's cruel hard of you to be leaving just when I need you most! And don't you be expectin' to come back with your tail between your legs and have that promotion waiting for you! You'll be back to running a muck-stick then, and serve you right for abandoning the company!”
They left the Foreman's place and went down the hill. Homes and shops were built half into the hillside, and many of the 'streets' were in fact stairways carved into the mountain. At the bottom they went out the gate to the station along the High road and posted the letter to their clan. It made for a fair climb back up to their own hame but having worked in the deep mines it was nothing to the dwarf and his son.
They stopped to visit one of his father's oldest friends and sat out under the stone overhang that sheltered the front porch, drinking thick earthenware mugs of coffee and enjoying the captured warmth of the early spring sun.
“I’ve known you half my life, Sergeant-Major, ever since the Regiment, and of all the folk in this place I will miss you most, you old codger!” his father told the grizzled dwarf. He gestured to indicate the town and the mine. “This is all the boy has known his whole life. If a job in the deep workings is to be his lot it will be by his choice, knowing and having lived the option.”
The old dwarf and his father had served together for five decades. When the Sergeant-Major had retired, a legend after most of twenty decades in the Regiment, he had come here, returning to the town where he was born. Engvyr's father, newly married and in need of a livelihood, had followed after when he mustered out three decades later.
“Truth is I envy you the journey. I've half a mind to pull up stakes and come along but I've taken to the road for the last time; these old bones would never put up with a long journey.”
The Sergeant-Major levered himself out of his chair with an effort. He seemed near as wide as he was tall and solid as the mountain they stood on. Engvyr realized that he must now be nearing three hundred years of age and this was likely to be the last time that he would ever see him. The old dwarf gestured for them to remain seated, and taking up his cane he hobbled into the hame.
He returned shortly with a bundle almost a pace in length and extended it to Engvyr's father. His father stood with a startled look, protesting even as he accepted the package.
“Thorven,” he said, calling his old friend by name for the first time that Engvyr could remember, “I can't; it's too much!”
“Nonsense!” barked the old dwarf with a pushing-away gesture, “You can and you will. I've told you I'll not take the road again. The old girl will serve you better than she will me, sitting on a shelf as a sad relic for an old dwarf to dote on.
“Besides which,” he said with a grin, “I'll still have her sister to keep me warm at night.”
His father held his friend's gaze for a few moments, his eyes strangely bright, then nodded acceptance and sat once again, the bundle cradled in his lap. The Sergeant-Major grunted in satisfaction and eased himself back into his own chair.
His father smiled and slowly unwrapped the object that he had been given. Engvyr stared in wonder as the weapon inside was revealed. Guns were a rarity outside of the Regiments as few dwarves could afford them. He'd never heard how his father came by the 14-bore he so lovingly kept but he knew of no other miner that possessed one.
But if a gun was rare, the weapon that was now revealed was a genuine oddity. It was a hand-gun, one of a pair given the Sergeant-Major by the Regiment after his first century of service. He watched intently as his father checked the chamber and then extended it to him. He took it gingerly; with the reverence one would give a holy relic. Having watched his father he repeated his motions and checked the chamber himself. He knew that one never, ever trusted that a gun was unloaded. Seeing this, the old dwarf guffawed.
“Isn't he a proper little Trooper,” he exclaimed in approval, “you've brought him up well, Gunnar!”
He leaned forward in his chair and gestured to a mark inlaid in silver above the breech and said, “This is 'The Hammer.' I'll be keeping 'The Anvil' for my own self. You can't expect an old man to give away all his memories!”
Keeping the gun pointed in a safe direction the boy turned it over, examining it carefully. The curved hand-grip felt good in his grasp and the fore-stock settled comfortably in his other hand. The checkering on the oiled hardwood of the stock was worn half-smooth with age and use. It could be slung about the body with a strap and a bar on the side slipped through the belt to keep the gun from swinging free as one moved.
It was a short-ranged weapon but at thirty paces the 36-bore lead ball could drop a charging horse, or hammer its rider right out of the saddle. It was worth the price of a modest hame and after examining it Engvyr gingerly handed it back to his father, who carefully re-wrapped it and set it on the low table next to his chair.
“I've no words to thank you, old friend,” his father said.
The old dwarf waved dismissively, “It's not all settled land you'll pass through on the way… If'n it helps you to care for your family that's thanks enough.”
Chapter Two
“Dwarves are but one of the five races of men. These are the Afmaeltinn, Dwarves, Goblins, Elves and Trolls. Some argue for six, separating the elves from the Fey, but that may just be splitting hairs. We know that Dwarves and Goblins were once Afmaeltinn, but the Elves maintain that they are a separate order. What the Fey and trolls think no man can say.”
The next week passed in a whirl of preparations for the journey. One of the miners had a friend coming to fill a vacancy at the mine and he was pleased to purchase the hame to accommodate his family. That being settled there was a surprising amount of work to be done to prepare for the trip. Engvyr had vaguely imagined them traveling from inn to inn along the High Road but his father shook his head at the notion.
“That's a far richer way to travel than we can manage, lad,” he told him, “We'll be sleeping rough much of the time and doing for ourselves for food and the like.”
They would be weeks upon the road, his father explained. The mining town lay at the far south of Dvargatil Baeg, as the Dwarven nation was called, and the home of their Clan was in the far north. As the crow flew it was no more than 300 miles but by road they would cover a little less than three times that distance as they must wind a snake-like path through the high valleys and passes.
Engvyr knew it would be faster to go down to the coast to the Trade Cities to take ship to the North and then cut through the mountains to their destination. But that would mean placing themselves in the hands of the Afmaeltinn, or Humans as they called themselves. This was a thing no dwarf would willingly do if it could be avoided.
Using their savings, the wergild for his uncle and the proceeds from the sale of the hame they bought oxen and a pair of wagons. The oxen were not the great lumbering beasts used in the lands of the Afmaeltinn, but smaller animals with long hair and short horns. Hearty and strong, they were bred to live in the harsh conditions and high altitudes of the mountains. The wagons were strongly built of planks with a cabin of canvas stretched over a frame on top. At need they could crowd in among their goods for protection from the weather.