Crown of Fire - Ed Greenwood [69]
He seemed to see nothing amiss, because after a few moments, he turned and looked toward the haystack. His eyes met Narm's. The dwarf nodded and withdrew to his post as silently as he had left it Narm thought the dwarf's face looked bitter and drawn in the moonlight Usually Delg seemed lit by a fierce fire from within, his face like a smithy door, spitting surly sparks with energy to spare. Not now.
He looked like a ruined farmer Narm had once seen-beaten, bereft of hope.
The dwarf stared out across the moonlit field again, beaked nose pointing like an accusing finger into the night. Then something cold and wise crept slowly up Narm s spine, and with sudden certainty he knew the look Delg wore. He looked like a man about to leave his friends behind forever and go down into the darkness that does not end.
For all their differences, dwarves and men do look like brothers when their faces wear the same hopeless expression. Delg looked like a man who knew he was about to die.
Chapter 10
A HARD AND STONY PLACE
The Realms hold many a hard and stony place-and the worst of it is, some of them come well furnished with wizards.
Glarthlyn of Silverymoon Sage
Shadows in the Firelight
Year of Dark Frost
Ahead, the land was rising. "The Stonelands " Mirt announced unnecessarily.
Delg squinted up at him. "It may come as a great surprise to you, large and mighty one, but I'd managed to puzzle that out for myself already."
Mirt sketched a florid bow. "The wits of the dwarves are keen, and the fame of their workings resounds from the Spine of the World to the peaks of the Dustwall."
Delg made a rude sound in reply. The fire-blackened pans he carried clanked slightly as he clambered to the top of a ridge to get a better view ahead.
In the distance, like a row of old and gray teeth, a line of crumbling stone cliffs rose out of the mottled greenery of the forest. The edge of the Stonelands. Between that line and where they now stood stretched a wide expanse of gently rolling pastureland. Down its center, the road that linked Cormyr with Tilverton lay like a dark snake basking in the sun. The Moonsea Ride, it was called. Soldiers of Cormyr kept the brush cleared on either side of the road; a long, long walk across open ground lay between them and the Stonelands.
Delg turned to Mirt- "How d'you propose to get unseen across that? Wait for dark I suppose-or have you some hidden magic at the ready?"
Mirt grinned easily, then lazily reached out one stout, hairy arm to haul the dwarf back from the crest of the ridge. "I've as little liking as ye do for waiting about while foes on our trail grow nearer, friend Delg. Sit ye down for a breath or two, and I'll show ye my hidden magic."
The old merchant wheezed as he bent over and fished in the open top of one of his large, flopping leather boots, dragging a leathern cord into view. It was loosely knotted around his leg; Mirt grunted, drew the knot open, and then pulled on the line. A wrinkled, seemingly empty sack came up front the depths of his boot. "A gift from a lady," he announced with dignity, shaking the hand-sized thing to rid it of folds and wrinkling his nose at the boot smell it gave off. He was not alone in this reaction.
Then the Old Wolf opened the bags drawstring and plunged his hand in, drawing forth a gown of shimmering, flame-red silk. with a bodice of linked gold chains.
Hastily the old merchant thrust the garment out of view again, chuckling. "Sorry-wrong handful," he explained as Shandril lifted an eyebrow and the other two grinned delightedly The next thing he drew up was a mesh sack, holding a large bottle filled with something dark. The mesh bag and the bottle both seemed too large to have come out of the wrinkled sack-which still looked and hung as if empty.
Delg's eyes fixed on the bottle and fit tip. "Amberjack! Now that's worth dragging around one of these magical sacks for."
Mirt had already made it vanish into the depths of the bag again and was feeling around, his arm thrust into the