Though he was an excellent storyteller, like all tundra dwellers, Sunbright didn't embellish the story, for Dorlas's deeds needed no exaggeration. All through the tale, the eyes of Drigor never left the shaman's face, and Sunbright felt burned anew, as if he'd been pierced to the guts himself, cut open to expose any untruth.
"A good death, and brave…" The old dwarf talked mostly to himself. "We own little here in the Iron Mountains, we Sons of Baltar. Scanty food, iron used up, little coal to burn. So, for generations now, our children are our resource. We train our sons and daughters to war, and send them into the world of men to fight as soldiers and bodyguards. Many never return to this, our ancestral home. So with Dorlas."
Sunbright was quiet at this epitaph, feeling that, rather than floating a coffin down a river, he'd finally helped bury Dorlas, who'd been a friend in the short time the barbarian had known him. He murmured, "I'm sorry."
"Sorry is nothing," pronounced the dwarf, obviously an old mountain adage. Then surprised him with, "I owe you, Sunbright Steelshanks. I, Drigor, son of Yasur, owe you a favor." He tipped the warhammer, then left the stone room.
Sunbright sat on the shelf and stared at the empty doorway, wondering what next? A quiet stir made him turn.
"A dwarf owes you a favor. Better than money in the bank."
Sunbright looked into Knucklebones's single eye and asked, "How long have you been awake?"
"Long enough. As a child, I learned to wake silently. You make powerful and lasting friends, country mouse."
"I meet a lot of people, true, though some I must kill. How's your head?"
"It hurts. What are you looking at?" she murmured, almost against his chin as he loomed above her.
"It's a shame you've only the one, because it's a pretty eye," he whispered, then he planted a big juicy kiss on her eyelid.
"Yick! That's not where they go!"
He kissed her small, firm mouth.
"Better?"
"Much better," she murmured.
Sunbright and Knucklebones spent the night huddled under two blankets and the glowing iron pipe. The stone was hard, but the warmth wonderful. In dry clothing and with breakfast (their own rations) under their belts, they felt better, if sore.
Drigor walked into the room shouting, "Are you better?"
Noise made Sunbright's head throb, but he answered civilly, "Yes, we're better, thank you. This is my friend, Knucklebones, by the way."
The dwarf only puffed a wisp of ring-braided mustache from his mouth. "It's well you can travel," he said, "for you must leave."
"Leave?" The word was jerked from Sunbright.
By the glow of luminous paint the dwarf's face looked like old parchment. He nodded glumly, brooking no argument, and said, "We have nothing to offer you, and you nothing to offer us. Your mission is accomplished and you may go. We conserve food and fighters because of yak-men. What you saw yesterday was another scout party. The yak-men covet our mountains. They push in from the east, and we are busy killing them. This takes food, and we have barely enough to feed ourselves."
"More folk on the move…" Sunbright pondered aloud. "Tell me, do you find the animals fewer, and sickly, even plants not thriving?"
Drigor frowned, and said, "Yes, perhaps. The elk and goats did not climb as high this autumn, and even the high-dwelling chamois have moved to lower meadows to scratch moss. Scouts tell us the lichen and gorse is thin on the highest peaks, and not recovering from their graze. Why ask?"
"The high mountains are another harsh territory, but fragile, like my tundra. I sought my people in traditional lands for months and never found them. They've moved into new territories, unless they're all dead, which I don't believe. Now you tell me yak-men press in from the east, outside the empire. I wonder if they too find their land can't support them."
"I care not." Drigor waved a craggy hand as he said, "These mountains can't support them either, and we kill all they send. But our best fighters are away soldiering, and the yak-men are many. Sometimes I think…"
The pause arrested Sunbright and Knucklebones, but the dwarf never finished, only changed tack. "Never mind. You must go. Gird yourselves. A guide will lead you out." He spun on his heels and stamped away.
"The rotten bastards!" Knucklebones snapped. "The lousy cheapskates! Pitched out into the storm without so much as a by-your-leave! Why not just hurl us off the mountain, for Shar's sake?"
"Or charge us for the room and hot water," Sunbright sighed. "It would be kind to give us some of the yak-men's rations. They had food satchels."
"I'd like one of those carved staves." Knucklebones groused. She rammed clothes into her ox hide pack, yanked the straps tight, and slammed her blanket roll atop. "They're probably worth a fortune! And we earned them, for we engaged the enemy first."
"We would have died if the dwarves hadn't attacked," Sunbright reminded her.
"They still stink, the penny-pinching shrimps. I hope their mountain collapses around their ears."
She shut up as a dwarven woman, the same who'd led them here, clomped through the doorway. Crossing her arms, the dwarf waited impatiently for them to strap on their tackle. Silently, the humans complied. Without a word, they followed her through corridors black or illuminated, searing hot or just warm. Knucklebones craned her head around, for she'd seen nothing when carried in. They heard bursts of coarse laughter, smelled cookfires and food, glimpsed rooms where dwarves repaired gear or stoked charcoal fires for forging. Once she heard a snatch of lonesome song like a coyote's cry. Deliberately she dragged her feet to slow them.
For Knucklebones found this mountain enclave enticing. The winding dark tunnels with jots of light, so warm, reminded her of home, the sewers and tunnels of the floating enclave of Karsus. And too, the hustle and bustle and busyness reminded her of the thieves' community with its quiet secrets and bold camaraderie. Visiting the dwarven warrens made the city-born orphan feel homesick, and yet at home.
But they were ejected. A wave of cold air gushed, and made Knucklebones draw her sheepskin coat close to her neck. Her breath fogged, misting the picture of the outdoors, though she knew it was sunny. By the time her one eye had squinted open, they stood alone at the mouth of the pass, the dwarven woman having turned back.
Sunbright huffed in the clear mountain air. After last night's storm, fair weather brought blinding sun reflected from a million icicles and knobs and patches on gray, naked rocks. Far in the distance, beyond lesser peaks, lay some blue-gray and green land to the south.
Knucklebones sipped chilly air and waited for the barbarian to begin the trek down, but he stood stock-still. His lover realized he seethed inside, furious, the insult of being thrown out finally fanned to a white-hot rage. Yet he breathed deep, swallowed his anger, and finally summed up, "A hard life makes a hard people. But still, they could have… But never mind. Let's go." He tramped off, going too fast on the icy slope.
That was a contrast between them, Knucklebones thought. While her anger flared quickly, and quickly died, Sunbright took a long time to anger, smoldering low but hot, perhaps for days, then exploding.
Meekly, Knucklebones picked after him. She reflected that Sunbright too was hard, for the tundra had made him so. And being driven from his tribe, surviving on his own, had hardened him more, until he was tough as tempered steel. But even steel could shatter under tension, and the constant disappointments galled him, she knew. Seeing Dorlas die, losing Greenwillow, being dragged to the future against his will to be chased and abused, failing to find his tribe, being refused hospitality by dwarves he'd pledged to visit…