Her reluctance overcome, she took up the miniature of the warrior, and allowed another picture to swirl within the bowl.
CHAPTER FIVE
T he two horses raced through the night, the struggling gully dwarf’s complaints notwithstanding. Galloping over the rutted mountain track, the dwarf and human riders urged their mounts to nearly reckless speed, relying on the light of the white moon, Solinari, to illuminate their path. When that moon set a few hours before dawn, they were many miles from the stronghold of Cornellus. Finally the warrior reined in his gelding, Dram Feldspar doing the same with his mare.
The little gully dwarf had fallen asleep some time earlier, belly down over the withers of the swordsman’s steed, but now he awakened and pushed himself up, looking around in confusion.
“Lemme go!” he insisted, started to squirm. “I gotta go home!”
This time the rider pulled his horse to a halt, lowering the little fellow to the ground by the scruff of his neck.
“Are you sure you want to go back to Cornellus?” asked the man. “He might not welcome the Aghar that opened the gate for us.”
“Hmmph!” snorted the gully dwarf. “Big Fat Guy not know one gully dwarf from one!”
“Suit yourself,” Dram said, “but we could take you to a city. We’re going to Garnet. Nicer place than that mountain fort, that’s for sure. You’ll find some other Aghar living there, as I recall.”
“You gives me one steel, and I go back to Big Fat Guy house!” insisted the gully dwarf.
With a shrug, the man flipped him the shiny coin, which the grimy Aghar caught and quickly stuffed down into his pants. Sniffing dismissively at the humans, he stomped back up the trail.
“He’s headed the wrong way,” Dram whispered, as the Aghar tromped determinedly along a fork in the track they had just passed. It connected to a side road leading into the south Garnet Range.
The rider shrugged. “Yes, I took that into consideration. He’ll get lost up here, and it’ll be days or weeks-if ever-before he finds his way back to the Big Fat Guy.”
Dram Feldspar nodded, impressed with his companion’s thinking. As the sun paled the eastern horizon, they set their own more leisurely pace before eventually stopping for a mid-morning camp. For three more days they made their way through the foothills and green valleys of the Garnet Mountains. Finally they emerged on the western slope of the range, descending on a good, straight road to the flat Vingaard plains. Within sight, though still eight or ten miles away, loomed the walls and towers, the temples and taverns, of a gleaming, prosperous city.
“Welcome to the Free City of Garnet!” proclaimed a herald as the two riders passed under the wide open gate. “Bring your goods here to sell-or come here to buy! You want to work, we’ve got a job-you want to hire, we’ve got skilled hands and strong backs looking for work!”
“Sounds like a perfect world,” Dram muttered as they passed through the gate and joined a throng of travelers on the crowded main street. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
His companion shrugged. “Garnet’s better’n a lot of places across these plains. No Solamnic dukes in charge here, at least.”
“Maybe we can shop out our services, then,” the dwarf said. “Make a few coins. Since we never got the bounty from Cornellus, we’re down to about three steel pieces. If we picked up some extra, we could while away the nights in one of these fancy-lookin’ drinking houses,” he concluded hopefully, gesturing at a whole street of decorated taverns and inns. Colorful signs advertised the Dragon’s Flagon, the Knight and Maiden, the Kaolyn Hole, and other inviting establishments.
“Why, look there-the Kaolyn Hole-makes me think of my own home, under the mountain. Ah, how I miss it.”
“You miss the dwarf spirits, that’s f’sure,” the man said. “But you’d go crazy in a fortnight if you tried to live underground again.”
Dram sniffed with the air of one who’d been greatly insulted then sighed, squinting at the sun as it slid downward through the late afternoon sky. “Never did think a mountain dwarf could grow so fond of that ol’ ball of fire,” he admitted, “but yer right-I get a kinda creepy feeling if I’m stuck in the dark too long, these days. That’s what hanging around with humans too long’ll do to a fellow!”
They rode along in companionable silence, enjoying the friendly bustle of the city after their long ride. It was the end of the business day, and merchants were folding up tents and awnings across several great marketplaces as people drifted away from the centers of commerce. A few vendors hawked the last of their fish, while others carted away wagonloads of woolen garments, kegs of beer, and casks of wheat to be saved for the next day of selling.
The taverns and inns sprang to life as the sky grew dark. The riders passed one called Granny’s Garter, where a number of scantily clad women danced on the upper balcony. Music, in the forms of drums, lutes, pipes, and mandolins, echoed in every street.
“This city was kind of a scum-hole when the Dark Knights ran the place,” Dram said approvingly. “I thought it was the Solamnics who’d got the place back on its feet again-you say it ain’t so?”
“Hardly,” replied his companion. “You heard what the crier said. This is a Free City. Pledged by compact to none of the orders of knights. Rose, Crown, Sword-they all buy and sell here, but they don’t get to tax the commerce.”
“There are some knights now,” the dwarf observed. He gestured toward the front of a gilded building on a side street, nestled between an inn and a dance hall. “Recognize them horses?”
The man peered in the direction of the dwarf’s pointing finger, seeing two large war-horses and a scruffy mule lashed to a hitching rail.
“Yep,” said the warrior, reining in and dismounting. He lashed the gelding’s reins to a handy railing while he studied the huge horses.
The two steeds were easily distinguishable as knightly mounts, but it was the scrollwork on the saddles that marked them as the same two horses that had been tethered outside of Cornellus’s tavern high up in the mountains. The two companions settled themselves on a bench outside an inn on a porch that allowed them to keep an eye on the pair of warhorses.
“Say, what kind of place is that?” Dram had been scrutinizing the gilded structure, which reflected the setting sun off a myriad of gold leaves and scrollwork along the building’s upper facade.
“It’s a temple. To Shinare. They call her Winged Victory nowadays, but I think of her as a set of moneyhandler’s scales. She’s the goddess of merchants and other thieves,” the warrior said.
“Hmph!” snorted the dwarf. “In Thorbardin they call her the Silver Mistress. I keep my faith in Reorx, thank you very much.”
The human shrugged. “Each to his own. I put my faith in my brains and some keen steel.”
He leaned back on the bench and pulled his cap down low over his eyes, keeping his eye on the war-horses and the temple of Shinare. They were outside an inn called the Roseflower, and a cheerful barmaid spotted them and brought them several mugs of ale-the place had the Coastlund Red that they both favored. Meanwhile the sky grew dark and the streets, lit by oil lamps, seemed to grow even brighter than they had been during the day.
“It’s two drinks for the price of one, today,” the barmaid mentioned casually on their second round.
“What’s the occasion?” asked Dram.
“Well, it’s in honor of Dara Lorimar’s birthday. She would have been twenty-two, today. My master was a loyal follower of her father’s, so he pays tribute to her memory-it’s a year and a half since she died.”
“This city owes a lot to Lorimar?” asked the warrior with an air of disinterest.
“To both of them,” the barmaid said proudly. “He freed us from the Dark Knights, and she was the Princess of the Plains, you know.”
“Huh?” the dwarf asked. “Royalty?”
“You know, from the prophecy,” the woman said. “A Princess of the Plains shall wed a Lord of No Sign-and Solamania will have a king, again.” She shook her head sadly. “Of course, it’s all just stories now, but it’s nice to remember.”