Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [79]
“The shaft led into your tunnels?” she asked gently.
“That’s right. Not many knew of the slide, even among the dwarves. Only the head human was supposed to know of it. Guess you happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
The heavy irony in his voice did not escape her, nor did the ragged sound of terrible grief. For several moments Bronwyn and her unseen companion sat in silence. Nothing she could say to him would ease his pain. She knew, for she could think of no words of consolation that would make any difference to her own loss.
A small, strong hand gripped her wrist. “Come on,” he said gruffly. “We’d best get out of this place.”
They walked in silence for perhaps an hour before Bronwyn began to notice shapes and shadows emerging from the darkness. “There’s an opening ahead?”
“That’s right. Oh, damnation!”
Bronwyn stopped, startled by the dwarf’s sharp tone. “What is it?”
“I’m-a gonna have to put a blinder on you. No human knows this opening. Best I keep it that way.”
That struck Bronwyn as a sad variation of locking the barn door after the horse was stolen, but she wasn’t about to point that out to the grieving dwarf “1 understand. Rip a strip of cloth off the bottom of my cloak if you want.”
The dwarf busied himself with the task, then led Bronwyn out of the tunnel and into the open. Since being blindfolded was not much different from walking through the black tunnel, she didn’t mind it as much as she thought she would. And even if she couldn’t see, the sound and feel of the sea winds lifted her spirits. Until she’d left the tunnels behind, she hadn’t realized bow oppressive they’d felt.
Finally the dwarf stopped and removed her blindfold. She blinked and shielded her eyes from the sudden stab of light. When her vision cleared, she noted that they were on a wide dirt path-the High Road. She was also able to form a detailed impression of the dwarf.
He was, well, square. Probably just short of four feet tall, he was built like a barrel with thick arms and shoulders of a width that most six-foot men would envy. Curly reddish-brown hair rioted over his shoulders, and a beard in a brighter hue of auburn spilled down over his chest. Unlike most dwarves, he wore no mustache, and that lent a slightly boyish look to his broad face. A horseshoe hung about his neck on a thong, another bit of whimsy, but there was nothing of the child in his eyes, which were the color of a stormy sky and just as bleak.
She extended her hand. “I’m Bronwyn. Thank you for getting me out of the tunnels.”
He hesitated, then clasped her wrist in a brief adventurer’s salute. “Ebenezer.”
His answer was curt, almost challenging. Bronwyn didn’t expect anything different. Dwarves were slow to trust and loath to give more of their names than absolutely necessary.
By unspoken consensus, they started south along the road. Bronwyn noted the dejected slope of his shoulders. “You lost people in the tunnels,” she said with deep sympathy.
A moment of silence stretched out, growing ever more tense until it exploded into an earthy dwarven curse. “My clan,” he admitted. “Most killed. Some gone.”
“Some of them escaped,” she pointed out. “That’s something.”
“Bah! You don’t know dwarves after all, if you’re thinking that way. Running away when there’s fighting to be done? They’re not gone by choice, I’m telling you that for free.”
Bronwyn’s eyes narrowed as this sank in. She stopped and seized the dwarf’s arm, spinning him around to face her. “They were taken by the Zhents? Why?”
“Why indeed?” he raged helplessly. “Why would a human learn to read the stones or sweat himself dry chipping ore and gems out of solid rock? Why spend twenty years learning the craft of sword smithing, another thirty making practice pieces, then start turning out swords at the cost of a decade apiece? Why go through the