“Well, let me help the cook get the fire started,” Sally declared cheerfully. “I’m sure you two have a lot to talk about. Get the boring stuff out of the way, won’t you? At dinner, I’ll be joining the conversation and by then I hope you’ll have got around to something interesting.”
“Ah, she’s a nag, and she bosses me around,” Dram said affectionately as his wife disappeared into the back of the house. “I don’t know how I ever lived without her.”
“It’s a long way from sleeping on the ground next to a fire, wondering if goblins are sneaking around, getting ready to attack our camp. Do you really miss that life?”
“You know?” Dram reflected. “Sometimes I feel like I do. But when I think about it other times, I don’t.” Still, the dwarf’s eyes did not turn back to the kitchen or pantry, or his wife. Almost unconsciously, his gaze shifted to the open window, to the mountain horizon, and the blue sky beyond. He passed a beer to Jaymes, and both sat down, sipping their refreshment and saying nothing further for several moments.
Swig Frostmead arrived shortly. He came into the parlor where Dram and Jaymes were having their beers and enthusiastically pumped the lord marshal’s hand. Jaymes opened his belt pouch and took out a small leather sack. The beaming hill dwarf, Dram’s father-in-law, hefted the sack, feeling its weight, and as he did so, his grin grew even wider. “Hope you don’t mind if I have a little peek?” he asked with a wink.
“Not at all,” said the human.
The hill dwarf chieftain dumped the contents of the bag into his palm, and his eyes glittered as brightly as the pile of gems was revealed. “Diamonds, rubies-and a few of them emeralds I like so much!” he crowed. He looked up at Jaymes and smiled even more broadly. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, my good man!” he said. “And this time I’m not even going to ask where you keep finding these lovely little baubles!”
“You keep your dwarves busy working in my compound-and keep strangers away from here-and I’ll make sure you keep getting paid,” declared the man.
Swig’s appearance had changed quite a bit since Jaymes had last seen him, before the winter. Where the hill dwarf chieftain had once been content to wear buckskin clothes and soft moccasins, he now sported a silk shirt, tailored trousers, and shiny black leather boots. Platinum chains encircled his neck, and the marshal estimated their weight to be no less than twenty pounds of precious metal. The dwarf’s fingers were studded with rings, and a diamond earring was set into the lobe of his left ear. The formerly bushy beard was now neatly braided, and his long hair combed and oiled, bound with a silken ribbon into a tail that draped most of the way down his back.
Dram might not have had time to roast the hog he had planned to butcher, but the household cook-with considerable help from Sally-managed to lay out quite a feast. They started with crusty bread and creamy butter followed by a soup rich and thick with bacon, potatoes, and onions. The main course was a fat turkey, one of the plump and tasty birds that roamed so freely through the foothills of the Vingaard Mountains. It was stuffed with a mix of mushrooms and herbs, and served in a pool of savory gravy. For dessert there was a tort made from flaky pastry, cream, and fresh strawberries harvested from the bogs that dotted the lowlands at the very fringe of the mountains.
Not surprisingly, Dram had asked about the progress of the war, and now Jaymes filled him in on the latest developments, including how the Crown Knights and foot soldiers of General Dayr’s wing had broken Ankhar’s northern force and driven them, finally, east of the Vingaard River.
“Ah, the thrill of battle! The chaos, the sounds, the danger,” Dram said, taking a deep draught from his tankard. He wiped the foam from his whiskers and shook his head with melancholy. “You know, I miss them times! The best times of my life!”
“You can’t be serious!” Sally snorted, her eyebrows raised scornfully. “The killing, the pain, the suffering? All those things you tell me you’ve tried to forget!”
“Er, yes,” Dram mumbled sheepishly. “Maybe I did a better job of forgetting than I thought. But still, I feel like I should be there with my friend here, should be helping somehow.”
“You are helping, in case you’ve forgotten that too,” Jaymes noted pointedly. “The black powder you’re making here in the Compound is going to be a decisive factor in our strategy; I’m sure of it. First, we need to learn how to use it in battle.”
“That’s what the demonstration is for, tomorrow. The gnomes are supervising the preparations right now. Knowing Sulfie and Pete, they’ll be up all night working and tinkering, making sure we’re good to go after breakfast.”
After an evening of companionable drinking-Jaymes merely sipping, while the hill and mountain dwarves tried to outdo each other, as usual-the visiting marshal slept comfortably in his host’s guest suite. After a hearty breakfast, and some grousing from Swig Frostmead about the early hour, the three followed a stone-paved road through the heart of the Compound, toward the testing range at the far end of the valley.
As they passed the many buildings, Jaymes took note of the improvements made over the winter. There was a large charcoal factory that had been recently completed and vast yards where hardwood imported over the mountains-the oak, hickory, and maple of the coastal forests-was stored. The heavy, tough timber had proved more suitable than the local pines for the charring process. In the sulfur yards, mountainous piles of the yellow rock excavated by Swig’s miners lined both sides of the road.
An entire section of the Compound was given over to the purifying of the black power. This was the brilliant contribution of the gnome, Salty Pete. The purifying buildings were sided with planks instead of logs and roofed with actual slate shingles. The whole area looked more like a quaint mountain village than an industrial center.
“Those are the mixers, down near the creek and the pond,” Dram explained proudly, pointing to several iron casks that were each the size of a small barn. From within these came the sounds of grinding and churning. The three crucial ingredients of the secret formula were being ground into fine powder and mixed in carefully measured proportions.
Despite the early hour, activity churned across the compound. Most of the factories were staffed with hill dwarves of Meadstone, Swig Frostmead’s village, though there were a few gnomes and humans who had been drawn to the hard work here by the promise of good pay. The marshal could hear forge doors slamming, smiths pounding on iron and steel, and furnaces roaring everywhere. Passing the open doors of one foundry, he could feel the blast of heat against his skin.
Dram pointed inside. “Those foundry-feeders are the dwarves who really earn their pay,” he said. “For them, it’s like working in the deserts of Neraka without the benefit of shade.”
“Aye, they’re a hearty breed, those dwarves of Meadstone,” Swig remarked proudly.
Beyond the manufacturing area, a series of stone-walled structures, half buried in the ground, dotted a field as large as a parade ground. Wide spaces of grass separated these warehouses, and each was surrounded by moats filled with still, murky water.
“These are the storage centers-twelve of them now, with eight more to go up this summer.”
“Good. I’m glad to see you have them dispersed. So even if there’s an accident in one warehouse, we should be able to protect the rest of the powder stockpiles.”
“Yep. Don’t want to have a repeat of the yule disaster,” Dram agreed heartily. Jaymes hadn’t witnessed that calamity, but the results had been recounted in a grim letter the dwarf had scribed the previous winter: Someone had sparked a fire in the main storage house, and the entire stockpile of powder had vanished in a tremendous explosion. Some dozen workers had perished, and all the nearby buildings had suffered damage. Following that tragedy, Dram had immediately instituted safety precautions. Now some facilities were underground, others spaced apart; and tanks or trenches of water were interspersed throughout the camp. There had not been a repeat of that incident.