Dragons of Winter Night - Margaret Weis [3]
“Accept this gift of our people—” Elistan’s words were lost in another cheer from the dwarves.
“Gift!” Sturm snorted. “Ransom is nearer the mark.”
“In return for which,” Elistan continued when he could be heard, “we thank the dwarves for their generous gift of a place to live within their kingdom.”
“For the right to be sealed in a tomb …” Sturm muttered.
“And we pledge our support to the dwarves if the war should come upon us!” Elistan shouted.
Cheering resounded throughout the chamber, increasing as Thane Hornfel bent to receive the Hammer. The dwarves stamped and whistled, most climbing up on the stone benches.
Tanis began to feel nauseated. He glanced around. They would never be missed. Hornfel would speak; so would each of the other six Thanes, not to mention the members of the Highseekers Council. The half-elf touched Sturm on the arm, motioning to the knight to follow him. The two walked silently from the Hall, bending low to get through a narrow archway. Although still underground in the massive dwarven city, at least they were away from the noise, out in the cool night air.
“Are you all right?” Sturm asked, noticing Tanis’s pallor beneath his beard. The half-elf gulped draughts of cool air.
“I am now,” Tanis said, flushing in shame at his weakness. “It was the heat … and the noise.”
“Well, we’ll be out of here soon,” Sturm said. “Depending, of course, on whether or not the Council of Highseekers votes to let us go to Tarsis.”
“Oh, there’s no doubt how they’ll vote,” Tanis said, shrugging. “Elistan is clearly in control, now that he’s led the people to a place of safety. None of the Highseekers dares oppose him—at least to his face. No, my friend, within a month’s time perhaps, we’ll be setting sail in one of the white-winged ships of Tarsis the Beautiful.”
“Without the Hammer of Kharas,” Sturm added bitterly. Softly, he began to quote. “ ‘And so it was told that the Knights took the golden Hammer, the Hammer blessed by the great god Paladine and given to the One of the Silver Arm so that he might forge the Dragonlance of Huma, Dragonbane, and gave the Hammer to the dwarf they called Kharas, or Knight, for his extraordinary valor and honor in battle. And he kept Kharas for his name. And the Hammer of Kharas passed into the dwarven kingdom with assurances from the dwarves that it should be brought forth again at need—”
“It has been brought forth,” Tanis said, struggling to contain his rising anger. He had heard that quotation entirely too many times!
“It has been brought forth and will be left behind!” Sturm bit the words. “We might have taken it to Solamnia, used it to forge our own dragonlances—”
“And you would be another Huma, riding to glory, the Dragonlance in your hand!” Tanis’s control snapped. “Meanwhile you’d let eight hundred people die—”
“No, I would not have let them die!” Sturm shouted in a towering rage. “The first clue we have to the dragonlances and you sell it for—”
Both men stopped arguing abruptly, suddenly aware of a shadow creeping from the darker shadows surrounding them.
“Shirak,” whispered a voice, and a bright light flared, gleaming from a crystal ball clutched in the golden, disembodied claw of a dragon atop a plain, wooden staff. The light illuminated the red robes of a magic-user. The young mage walked toward the two, leaning upon his staff, coughing slightly. The light from his staff shone upon a skeletal face, with glistening metallic gold skin drawn tightly over fine bones. His eyes gleamed golden.
“Raistlin,” said Tanis, his voice tight. “Is there something you want?”
Raistlin did not seem at all bothered by the angry looks both men cast him, apparently well accustomed to the fact that few felt comfortable in his presence