The Howling Delve - Jaleigh Johnson [15]
"My sister's fault, entirely," said a new voice, rough and engulfed by a deep, canine bark.
Kail looked up and saw the animal first, a lumbering bronze mastiff with folds of flesh dangling off its ribs and paws the size of a man's fist. Matching its stride-barely-was a dwarf with skin the color of dead leaves and a full, matching beard that fell nearly to his knees. As the dwarf bent over, Kali could see the hair was as wire-hard as the spectacle frames wedged in front of the dwarPs brown eyes.
The human whose head and arm Kali had glimpsed earlier trailed behind him, dirt-covered and oddly tall and gangly next to the dwarf. In profile, the man's face tapered and curved so prominently that Kail could have hung a cloak from his chin. Gesturing animatedly, he tried in vain to slide his parchment drawing under the dwatf's thick nose. The shorter figure's attention was entirely fixed on Kali.
"My name is Garavin Fallstone," the dwarf said in an oddly formal accent. He extended a hand. When Kali only continued to stare uneasily at the group, a corner of the dwatf's mouth turned up. "Ye need fear no attack from me or any of mine," he said, his voice quiet but still rough as a boot scrape. "Laerin"- he nodded to the half-elf-"would have been about telling ye the same thing, had I not interrupted." He deftly plucked up the human's parchment, folded it, and slid it away in a pocket of his brick-colored vest. "The other here is Morgan, and the dog's Borl. They're not brigands, at least not tight now."
"Delvar," Laerin said, as if that should explain everything.
"Means we dig." Morgan glared at the half-elf. "Anyways, some of us dig, and some of us come within a druid's death of slaughtering thousand-year-old trees!"
"Laerin knows the difference between a young oak and a considerably more established Weir," the dwarf intetjected smoothly. "No true harm was done. Morningfeast for one more, if ye please, Morgan."
"I'll see to it." Morgan continued to glare at the half-elf as they strode off together into the trees.
"Do ye have brothers?" the dwarf asked incongruously as he took a seat on the ground next to Kail.
A memory of himself and Aazen on the sparkling lake flashed before Kail's eyes. Mutely, he shook his head.
"Neither do I. I took my time growing accustomed to Morgan and Laerin. Ye'll want to do the same." He smiled. "Though I'll make a wager ye give yer parents enough headaches for ten brothers."
Kail glanced sideways at him. "You're trying to get me to talk," he said.
"Aye," Garavin agreed, still smiling easily. "I'm needing to Jcnow if ye have family looking for ye. If so, I can save them the worry and send ye back through the grave-don't mind the expression, it's really a portal. But Morgan tells me ye've been in a fight, and more than a small scuffle. If that's true, and ye've trouble of another sort following ye, then I'm needing to know how many of my diggers to pull out of the ground to defend ye." The smile disappeared, but the dwarf s voice was gentle and matter-of-fact.
"They don't know where I've gone," Kali said. "At least, I don't see how they could."
"Or they would have followed by this time," Garavin said, nodding. "By 'they,' I take ye to mean the trouble and not the family?"
"I have no family."
"I see." Garavin said, as if he'd heard the same raw-voiced statement many times before. "The choice is yer own, then." He pointed to Alinore Fallstone's marker-weed-grown, but in all other ways identical to the grave Kail had fallen asleep beside in Amn. "It's not truly a grave, ye see. I never had a sister, but if I did, I'm relatively certain she'd be appreciating the jest." Kali almost missed the wink Gatavin shot him. "As I said, it's actually a portal. There're several hereabouts. A tiavelet in a rush can fly the Weave all the way to the Great Rift if he uses his head and knows where to set his feet."
"I don't know anything about that," Kail