He tugged the heavy body off to the side of the road, concealing it amid a patch of broad-leafed ferns. He plucked the hammer from the dwarf’s waist, considered for a moment carrying it, as the weapon was finely crafted and quite valuable. However, shaking his head, he dropped it. “I do not need their things,” he hissed. He returned to the path, following it as it continued to wind toward the foothills.
The sivak was in the heart of dwarven country, on a well-traveled road that was twisting and at times steep. It was called Barter Trail, and it ran between dwarven towns all nestled amid the impressive, rugged mountains of Thorbardin. He’d been taking the forms of lone dwarves he killed along the road as a means to disguise himself as he cut through the Thunder Peaks and then along the lengthy Promontory Pass-a miner one time, young and filthy from the work; a wheezing, rash-ridden merchant another; and most recently a one-armed elderly dwarf with a dozen knives strapped around his waist.
Only one more village and then one small range to travel across-according to the map the merchant had been carrying. After that he’d be in the Qualinesti Forest, where, he’d heard, draconians were gathering to hide from the dragons and men.
He was nearing that last village now, not needing the sign he just passed to tell him so. He heard the gruff chatter of dwarves coming from around the curve ahead and what sounded like a drum being thumped in a peculiar rhythm.
“Neidarbard,” the sign had said in rich brown paint. “Home of the Forge’s Favored Dwarves.”
“And Kender” was scrawled in bright blue paint beneath.
The transformed draconian squared his dwarven shoulders and picked up the pace, rounded the bend- and came to an abrupt stop. The town that spread out before him was not like the others he’d passed through. Neidarbard was. . oddly colorful. It seemed a ridiculously cheerful place.
The homes closest to him were covered in pieces of gray-blue slate, looking like big turtle shells with doors and windows cut in them. The trim was red and white, with various shades of green and yellow thrown in. Beyond those were more traditional dwarven homes, made of stone with thatch roofs, some with sod that had a scattering of wild flowers growing in them. There were even a few two-story dwellings of stone and wood-all of them with brightly painted eaves and shutters, many with window boxes full of daffodils and daylilies.
Each home had long, streaming pennants, a rainbow of clashing colors to assault the eyes. Thick, twisting ribbons ran between the turtle-shaped homes, and delicate parchment lanterns, unlit at this time of day, dangled on purple twine stretched between the tallest dwellings. Out of the corner of his eye, the disguised draconian saw two dwarves precariously balanced on a ladder, alternately drinking from a big mug of ale while they tried to add to the decorations. The sivak involuntarily shuddered at the entire festive scene.
There seemed to be no pattern to the streets. They did not radiate outward from the center, like the spokes of a wheel-the last two dwarven towns the draconian passed through were like that. The streets did not form a grid or any other geometric shape that dwarves seemed to be fond of. They were random and curvy, some a mix of cobblestones and earth, some paved with the same bricks used in the stoutest dwellings, some dead-ending into the backs of buildings.
In what the draconian surmised passed for the center of the town, a fountain topped with a statue of a warrior-dwarf bubbled merrily, the water spewing from the stone fellow’s mouth. No, not water, he noticed on second glance. Ale. All around the edge of the fountain sat a mix of dwarven and kender musicians dressed in bright reds and yellows. The former were thumping long, slender drums that rested between their knees, and the latter had just begun to play flutes and curved bell horns that glimmered in the late afternoon sun. The smallest kender had tiny metal plates attached to her fingers, which she clinked together at what seemed-judging by the look of the other musicians’ faces-the most inopportune times. A young female dwarf was attempting to direct them by waving an empty mug in the air. Her other hand gripped a full mug that she frequently sipped from.
In front of the musicians strolled a most portly dwarf. He was dressed in a shiny runic, striped horizontally green and blue, which did nothing to help conceal the ample stomach that hung over his wide belt. Stroking his short black beard and staring at a piece of curling parchment he held in a meaty hand, he seemed to be practicing a speech.
“I, Gustin Stoutbeard, hie acting mayor of Neidarbard. .” He cleared his throat and started again, the words slightly slurred.
The draconian’s gaze shifted to the southern edge of town, where tables upon tables sat end to end. They were covered with red and green cloths and dozens of bouquets of spring flowers. Dwarven and kender women bustled around them setting out plates and mugs. A firepit was nearby, and a great boar was roasting over it, being turned by a dwarf with massively muscled arms. The scent of the meat hung heavy in the air and made the sivak’s belly rumble.
“I, Gustin hie Stoutbeard, acting. .”
The music swelled, drowning out the acting mayor, the clinking from the kender child coming at regular intervals now, and the drummers beating out a syncopated rhythm that did not sound altogether bad.
The draconian stood on his tiptoes, a considerable feat given the body he’d adopted, craned his neck, and looked through a gap in all of the decorations. There! The mountains beckoned beyond Neidarbard, part of the Redstone Bluffs. Beyond those mountains was the blessed forest, safety, and the company of his own kind.
Ignoring the protestations of his empty stomach, he took a deep breath and strolled purposefully down the main street and toward the fountain.
“Hey!”
The sivak scowled as he felt a rugging on his cape-wings. He glanced down and over his shoulder, spotting a kender with two topknots. The kender had a large book in his hands, opened to a page with an illustration of a dwarf. The kender looked at the picture, then at the dra-conian, hiccuped, releasing a cloud of ale-breath. “Hey!” He beamed. “It’s Reorx! You are Reorx, aren’t you? Hic.”
The draconian did his best to ignore the besotted young man and took another step toward the mountains, but the kender was persistent and hurried to plant himself in the sivak’s path. “Where are you going, Reorx? Do you mind if I call you Reorx?”
The dwarf he’d slain had made some mention of Reorx, the draconian recalled. “If I say I am this Reorx, young man, will you go away?”
The kender’s eyes widened, he hiccuped again, and he nodded vigorously.
“Very well. I am Reorx.”
The kender was quick to scoot out of his path, stuffing the book under one arm, topknots bobbing as he ran toward the acting mayor-who had stopped at the fountain to fill his mug.
“Hic. I, Gustin Stoutbeard. .”
As the kender rugged on the acting mayor’s clothes the draconian continued on his way. He passed by the musicians, slowing for only the briefest of moments when the delicate strains of a flute stirred something inside him, then slipped between a trio of two-story buildings, the bottom floors of which were businesses. One had a bright yellow-orange sign out front in the shape of a beehive. “Best-Ever Honey,” it read. The next was a baker’s, and all manner of elaborately decorated cakes and cookies sat tantalizingly in the window. The draconian’s stomach growled louder, and he urged himself along. The third was a barber’s, and through the open window he spied a young dwarf receiving a beard trim.
The music swelled as he thrust all these chaotic trappings of society to the back of his mind and set his sights once again on the mountains. He renewed his pace and actually made it another few yards before his cape was tugged on again. Growling softly in his throat, he turned to meet the gaze of the fat dwarf, Gustin Stoutbeard.