“Shouldn’t you be coming down a little faster?” the female dwarf called worriedly from her seat on the wagon.
“Don’t you worry about that, Sal,” replied the leader of the small group of miners. Dram Feldspar swaggered along with every appearance of extreme confidence, sparing not so much as a glance over his shoulder at the dark entrance of the mine. “Freddie’s getting pretty damn good at setting those fuses just-”
The sentence was never finished, as a spurt of smoke and flying rocks erupted from the mine entrance, spraying the little valley with a wave of debris. A second later, the sound of the explosion-a dull boom that shivered the very bedrock of the place and echoed from the cliffs like thunder-swept across the four dwarves, knocking them over and sending them tumbling in a tangle of boots, beards, and flying tools.
The four miners picked themselves up rather slowly and dusted each other off, checking for broken bones. Fortunately, none of the flying rocks had struck flesh.
“Er,” Dram noted sheepishly, acknowledging the crimson flush sweeping across his wife’s round face as they limped up to the wagon. “Maybe we do need to be a little more careful.”
“Well, if all you hurt was your pride, then you can go ahead and set another charge-might knock some of the pride out of you!” Sally Feldspar huffed, hopping down from the wagon, using the tail of her shirt to blot-none too gently-at a scuff on Dram’s nose, caused when that impressive proboscis had slammed into the ground.
“Ah, geez,” the dwarf said, blushing. “It ain’t nothing, Sal.”
“Can we go back to New Compound now?” she asked, ignoring his protestations as she licked at the corner of her shirt and used the moist cloth to wipe the dust from her husband’s forehead. She looked at him hopefully, though she suspected the answer.
“Of course not!” he objected. “We’ve got to get back in the hole, as soon as the dust settles, and see how well the blast worked!”
“I suppose so,” she sighed. She gestured to the wagon. “Well, you fellows better have a tankard to wash out the dust. And I brought along a hunk of ham and a few loaves of bread.”
“Thanks, Sally. I mean it,” Dram said, resting his hand on her shoulder. He smiled, his white teeth gleaming through the dusty tangle of his beard. “And I bet you brought the ham from Josie’s smokehouse too.”
“I did-but how did you know?” she asked, pulling back the blanket, which she’d had covering the sumptuous feast.
“I could smell it from twenty paces away,” he said with a chuckle.
It was late in the afternoon before the four dwarves reemerged from the “hole.” Coated with gritty dust, they evinced pleasure in shining eyes and beaming grins as they made their way down to the wagon. Sally, meanwhile, had caught an impressive stringer of trout, which she had packed in a chest and covered with snow that she had scooped from a nearby, shady swale. She hitched the mules into their traces as the miners reappeared and had the wagon turned and ready to roll by the time they reached her.
“Good news, I take it?” she said drolly, taking in their obvious delight.
“You wouldn’t believe the crack we put in that seam of ore!” Dram declared, hopping onto the bench beside his wife, ignoring her attempt at evading him as he planted a sooty kiss on her cheek. “Why, there’s enough digging to keep a team of a dozen working around the clock for the rest of the season!”
“Well, I’m glad for that, but I do wish you’d be a little more careful,” Sally said, getting the wagon rolling with a cluck of her tongue and a quick snap of the reins. The other dwarves settled themselves in the back as she expertly steered the two-mule team onto the rutted, descending track. She kept one hand on the brake and, with a lot of jostling and bouncing, slowly guided them beside the tumbling stream, until the steep little valley spilled into a wider, more pastoral area.
The wagon forded the little stream with a splash that doused them all-Sally declaring the rinse-off did the four miners a world of good-then rolled onto the smooth road that would take them the rest of the way to New Compound. The bumps vanished, replaced by tightly meshed paving stones, the slabs laid with dwarf precision.
Soon the road crossed the river, and there a span of three stone arches made a gentle rise, with the middle arch set high enough to allow the passage of a good-sized boat underneath. From the crest of the sturdy bridge, the dwarves got a nice view of their destination.
New Compound had changed dramatically from the muddy, wooden-timbered frontier town that had sprung up, practically overnight, when Dram relocated his manufacturing operation to the Garnet Range. Though most of the residents-including Dram’s wife and father-were hill dwarves from the Vingaard Mountains, they had made the migration across the plains with relatively little grumbling.
Under the orders of Jaymes Markham, then lord marshal of the Solamnic Army, the entire town and manufacturing operation dedicated to the production of the explosive black powder had been obliged to be moved there, to be closer to the war. And, in fact, the powder-and the tubelike bombards Dram had invented-had proved decisive in winning that war, driving the barbarian half-giant Ankhar from Solamnia with the remnants of his scourging horde.
The great factory complex occupied half of the town, which was situated on a flat plain along the water where the river pooled into a lake before spilling out of the valley and down onto the central Vingaard Plain. Five tall smokestacks dominated the flat area, and two of them belched black smoke into the mountain air as Dram and his fellows watched from the wagon; a stiff wind, cresting across the foothills, carried the smoke away in the direction of Solanthus, leaving the sky over New Compound generally clear. Steam swirled around the great, stone firehouse, where boilers remained hot and sent their warmed water throughout the manufacturing complex, as well as providing service to some of the larger houses near the shore of the lake.
The greatest of those, through no accident, was the domicile of Dram Feldspar and his wife and child. As the wagon trundled off the bridge and onto the streets of the town-which was not protected by a wall or any other defensive positions-the mountain dwarf felt a proud, glowing sensation in his belly. He thought of that house, of the dwarf woman and their precocious child, and he could not restrain a chuckle of deep, genuine pleasure.
“What is it?” Sally asked, shooting him an amused look.
“Ah, just… I guess I never imagined I would so much enjoy coming to a place like this, having a real home, a real family.” He blushed and glanced back to make sure that none of the three miners in the rear of the wagon could hear him. No worries: they were happily toasting each other and the day’s work, their sloshing mugs half full of the ale they continued to draw from the keg Sally had so thoughtfully brought along. Dram looked back at his wife, his expression serious, his voice low but sincere.
“I owe it all to you, Sal. And I want you to know I’m grateful.”
She squeezed his knee, looking at him through shining eyes. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” She giggled. “For starters, you stood up to my father when he wanted to rip your liver out and cook it on a spit!”
“Well, that was just man-business,” Dram said, embarrassed. He touched the knob on his skull, a bump inflicted a week earlier during the course of some “man-business” with his estimable father-in-law, Swig Frostmead.
“I mean, you make me proud, the way you don’t give in to him. You’re the only dwarf I’ve ever known that could take his measure.” She looked away, and he thought he heard her sigh slightly. “I wish… I wish… someday…”
“You wish I’d stand up to Jaymes, don’t you?” Dram spoke seriously, knowing his wife’s mind all too well.
She looked at him again, and he felt as though she were looking straight through him, straight through to his soul. “I don’t mean it like that. I know what he means-what he meant-to you… for all those years you were living like outlaws. And I know that the work you’ve done for him has been in the name of a good cause. You’ve united Solamnia, and that was no easy task. And the barbarians have been driven out, for good… I hope.”