Wynn shrugged off his hand. "Don't be a snob."
She reached the doorway and stepped inside before he could catch her. There she paused as Chane and Shade pushed through. At first she couldn't see clearly through all the pipe smoke swirling in the air and the numerous bodies packed around the tables. Wynn coughed and her stinging eyes began to adjust.
The room was large and dauntingly crowded. Dwarves of all shapes and walks of life sat drinking from large mugs of wood or clay rather than pewter or tin. Some tugged on short and squat clay pipes, sending rolling ribbons or great blasts of gray smoke up to the arch-supported ceiling. At the room's center, the only open and clear space, a large dwarf paced around a wide circular stone platform one step in height.
Some of crowd called out, cheered, or banged their mugs, but all eyes remained fixed on the one pacing dramatically before them.
He was quite stout but also tall for his kind, with steel-streaked ruddy hair and a curly cropped beard a slightly darker hue. A well-crafted chain vest covered him over a quilted leather hauberk. Steel pauldrons and couters protected his shoulders and elbows. Two war daggers were sheathed at his hips, and a double-sided war ax was sheathed upside down on his back, so he could draw it instantly over either shoulder.
"And then?" someone called out in Dwarvish. "What then, Fiáh'our? Finish already!"
Wynn glanced toward the voice, but couldn't spot the speaker. When she looked back at the warrior upon the platform, her breath stopped at one final detail of his attire.
A slivery thôrhk hung around the dwarven warrior's thick neck.
Its ornate loop, looking as if made of braids, was thicker than two of Wynn's fingers. Traditional flanged knobs, each as big as a sword's pommel, were mounted on its ends resting below his collarbone. But in place of round domes, those ends protruded like butt spikes on the hafts of war axes.
Not just a warrior—this was a thänæ, marked in honor with a thôrhk. What was he doing drinking and telling tales in an underside greeting house?
His voice was low and loud, like rolling thunder.
"After the goblin raid on the village of Shentángize, no one dared step beyond the stockade at night. I had no choice but to set out … with only my ax for company."
The audience roared, banged mugs, and slapped the tables in anticipation.
"What is happening here?" Chane whispered.
Wynn remembered he didn't speak Dwarvish. She tried to explain but stumbled over the storyteller's name. Its components were simplified truncations of dwarven root words.
"Uhm … Stag … Battering. … no, Hammer-Stag. He's a thänæ, a paragon among his people for virtuous accomplishments."
"Paragon?" Chane rasped in disbelief. "That bellower?"
Someone snorted, and Wynn flinched around to meet pellet black eyes. A dwarf seated an arm's length away tilted his head with an angry glare. He slowly set down his mug.
"Apologies!" Wynn spit out quickly in Dwarvish. "My friend is an uncouth foreigner … out of his element." She turned on Chane, switching to Belaskian in a sharp whisper. "Keep quiet, before you start something! Dwarven virtue differs from human cultures. He is telling them a story of his exploits."
"That is not virtue," Chane hissed, "only bluster."
"I found no tracks," Hammer-Stag continued, and his low conspiratorial tone brought the room to attentive silence. "But I could smell their passing."
He paused near one table. The room remained silent as he stepped off the platform.
Hammer-Stag reached across the nearest table. He dragged the mug of one patron slowly toward himself, as if waiting for its owner to object. But that dwarf and all others remained quietly still. Hammer-Stag hefted the mug, took a long gulp, and slammed it back down.
Wynn had no idea what this meant, but his audience roared as he returned to the platform.
"So, I tracked them," Hammer-Stag went on, tapping the side of his broad nose.
Chuckles and snickers rose briefly, likely at some jest concerning the stench of goblins.
Wynn stopped listening. Solving the mystery of the thänæ's presence here wouldn't help her find the Iron-Braids, and Chane's elitist contempt was only going to get them in trouble.
Standing close, Chane looked down and gave her a short, sharp shake of his head.
"Some of these people must live nearby," she whispered, ignoring his suggestion that they leave.
Quietly, Wynn slipped forward, trying not to interrupt the thänæ's story.
"Excuse me," she whispered between a pair seated on the outskirts. "Could you tell me where the Iron-Braids live?"
Dwarves were usually willing enough to help a lost stranger. If one of them knew anything, perhaps a quiet response would be enough.
The male to her right dropped his jaw in shock, and then gritted his teeth as if she'd committed some terrible offense. He spun back toward the platform, crossing his arms and pretending not to see her. Others at the table grumbled and followed suit.
The thänæ glanced over but didn't break stride in his tale.
"When the first three came, I took two heads at once!" he called loudly. With one hand, Hammer-Stag whipped the ax off his back into a level arc. It passed swiftly before those nearest, as if severing heads right before their eyes.
A cry of triumph rose in the crowd, and Wynn sighed. Clearly she'd chosen the wrong table, and she moved farther toward the back wall near the entrance.
"Pardon me," she whispered to a small group in the leathers of laborers. "Could you please—"
She was cut off in a gasp as someone grabbed the back of her robe and cloak.
Wynn was up on her toes as she headed unwillingly toward the exit. Shade burst into a loud snarl, and Chane began pushing toward Wynn, his expression darkening. Her heart sank as she flailed her hands before her, trying to wave them both off before this all ended badly.
Chane still had his hand on his sword hilt as Wynn's heels hit the floor. She spun about, wobbling a bit under her pack's weight, and came eye-to-eye with a wide-faced woman.
"If you want to act like a rude little turnip," the female warned in a baritone voice, "then at least be silent like one!"
The dwarven woman straightened and brushed off her muslin apron.
Chane looked about uneasily as a dozen irritated patrons turned in their seats. Shade stayed put and ceased snarling as the woman proceeded back through the tables. Although the thänæ never paused in his telling, his squinting eyes turned once in Wynn's direction.
"Then the pack was upon me!" Hammer-Stag shouted. "I thought to face fifteen or twenty of the half beasts, but they poured from the forest's dark spaces by the scores… ."
Wynn rolled her eyes.
Scores? Hardly! A rare pack of goblins had been known to raid far settlements beyond Malourné's eastern reaches. No more than a dozen had ever been seen at one time. Her frustration grew.
Someone here had to assist her, for where else could she go asking at this time of night? But no one seemed willing to speak during the thänæ's tale. By his overly dramatic manner, he might go on until dawn.
Chane jerked his head toward the door.
Wynn sighed and nodded, fighting down annoyance at the open relief on his face. For a homeless wanderer, he was such an elitist.
"I swung over and over," Hammer-Stag called, "cleaving the first ten who reached me. But in my brazen courage, choosing to face them alone, I was outnumbered by the beasts. I knew I would die there … but I would take many with me on my way to our ancestors."
He paused again, and as Wynn turned to leave, she heard him gulp from another mug.
"Then a white-skinned woman with wild black hair came at me out of the dark."
Wynn stopped and shivered as if dropped in a frigid river.
White-skinned … black hair … wild …