The Hammer of Fire (3 page)

Dol balanced his drink in one hand and shook
his head as he looked once again at Milli. “You do this on purpose,
every time.” The heavy blow to his shoulder went apparently all but
unnoticed.

The winner staggered back, his hair
disheveled, one of the braids loose in his hair, and smiled dazedly
at Milli. “I’ll drink that get now,” he said and staggered off
towards the bar giving a cheerful smile towards the halfling girl,
“I’ve got it all taken care of.”

“See, that’s my point!” said Brogus and
pointed to the vanquished apprentice on the floor who gave off a
little groan. “We’ve got Dol on our side. His skin is as thick as a
brick and you’ve seen him carry hot coals from the fire in his
closed fist. That mother of his must have been made of
ironwood.”

The young dwarf in question raised his eyes
and stared at Brogus and held his gaze for several seconds before
he spoke in steady, even tones, “My grandfather was a tree
shepherd.”

“Grandfather, mother, uncle, cousin, what
does it matter?” said Brogus as he stood up and looked down at Dol
with his eyes shining intensely and his fists clenched in front of
him. “You’ve skin as thick and tough as any dwarf ever born and you
could take …,” he seemed prepared to continue but a kick under the
table from Milli stopped him in mid-sentence.

“Sit down and listen for once,” she said her
smile gone and with a slight little twitch of her nose. “Brogus,
just because everyone says you’re stupid doesn’t mean you have to
act stupid all the time.”

Brogus stared defiantly at her for half a
second but was unable to maintain the gaze, sat down with a thump,
and rubbed his ankle through the thick hide boot on his foot.
“You’ve got sharp little toes for such a pretty thing,” he said in
a lowered tone and with a glance at Milli.

Milli smiled and the slightest hint of red
came to her cheeks, “Brogus, do you think that just because it’s
mainly apprentices and a few craftsmen here that there aren’t spies
for the elders, the High Council members?” she said in a softer
tone.

“I … I got excited,” said Brogus with his
lips pursed and his chin tucked down into his thick neck. “Think of
what we can do with the hammer! You’ll always be a foreigner here,
a prisoner, I’m not smart enough to get far, and Dol … he’s … you
know … a half-breed.”

“Brogus!” said Milli, her eyes came together
and her hands slapped down on the table. “Don’t say that.”

“Why not?” said Dol with a shrug of his
shoulders and in that same even tone. “It’s true enough, isn’t
it?”

“It’s not that you’re a half-breed,” said
Milli and folded her arms across her lithe chest. “It’s what
half-breed means to the dwarves of Craggen Steep. To them it means
you’re inferior by blood; that you can never do anything as well as
a dwarf and that just isn’t true. You can sit there with no
expression on your face and speak in a monotone all you want but
you have to face the reality of what it means to be a half-breed,”
she continued and stomped a foot on the stone floor of the tavern.
“When you call yourself a half-breed you’re calling yourself
inferior to the lowest born dwarf. And you know that’s just not
true. It’s not even close to being true. You know you’re better
than any of them, better than the Firefists, better than the
Blackirons, and better than any old Drawhammer too! Tell me I’m
wrong, go on, tell me!”

Dol stared at the pretty girl without
blinking and finally shook his head although he remained resolutely
silent on the subject.

“Nothing to say,” said Milli shaking her head
which sent her long blonde hair swirling about. “That’s Dol for
you. Not happy to get a promotion, not sad to be passed over. Just
a block of wood.But, you remember this Mr. Delius, you remember
that I know better. There’s a heart beating under your skin, not
wood, and I know it. Someday you’ll know it too.”

Silence engulfed the trio. At a nearby table
sat an older dwarf, his beard nearly a foot long and with three
gold bands, a middle aged dwarf woman with graying hair tied back
in a long ponytail, and two young girls who giggled at one another
and stole surreptitious glances at Dol and his friends. The girls,
no more than six or seven, looked to the table where they seemed
fixated on Dol, then at each other where the covered their mouths
as they giggled, and then back at the table where the three
sat.

After a few more moments of silence between
the three at the table the winner of the brawl returned and
interrupted the silence. He put a little glass filled with an
emerald liquid down in front of the halfling girl. “Here you go,
Milli,” he said with a broad smile and a quick glance to the dwarf
who still lay on the floorgiving off little groans now and
again.

“Thank you … was it Otis?” she asked, giving
him just the slightest of passing glances before turning her
attention back to her companions.

“Umm … no, it’s Grephuk, Grephuk Ironspike,
I’m a master apprentice in the upper forge. We met once at a party
that ….” He replied but Milli cut him off.

“Well, I almost remembered, you’re a real
dear, thank you ever so much but could you leave me and my friends
alone for just a moment.”

The dwarf stared at the two young men at the
table with narrowed eyes and a curled lip that was already showing
signs of swelling from the recent fight, “Well, ok, but if you need
anything you just ask for Grephuk Ironspike, all right? I’m master
apprentice at the upper forge, right?”

Milli nodded her head distractedly, “Of
course I will, Ironside was it?”

“Ironspike … Grephus Ironspike, I’m a master
apprentice,” he repeated and pointed to the bands on his sleeve.
“That’s what the orange means. Blue means junior apprentice,” he
continued emphasizing the word junior and gazing at the two dwarves
at the table.

“I’ve lived in Craggen Steep long enough to
know what colored jerkins means what,” said Milli and turned to
face the dwarf with a roll of her eyes and a withering glance. “Are
you saying I don’t know one grade from the next?”

“No, no, I didn’t … I mean,” started the
dwarf as he backed away from the table in little stutter steps, “I
just … what I meant to say …,” he tried to continue but Milli
turned her back to him and he stood there stammering for a little
while, then bent down to help his friend up, and the two retreated
back to the bar arm in arm.

Dol watched the dwarves go and then turned
back to the table and Milli and Brugus, “I don’t like to admit it,”
he said in a quiet voice with the slightest inflexion of
sadness.

“Admit what,” said Brogus, having lost track
of the conversation and wearing a quizzical expression on his
youthful face. “What don’t you like to admit?”

“Actions should determine promotion,” he said
looking down at the table and shaking his head. “Those who do well
make promotion, those who don’t get left behind.”

“But, what don’t you want to admit?” said
Brogus again as he leaned forward in his seat and put his hands on
the thick stone table. “Either you don’t talk at all or you talk in
riddles, Dol.”

“That I might be …,” started Dol.

At this second, before he could say that last
terrible word, one of the young dwarf girls at the nearby table
dashed across the divide between the two groups, snatched at Dol’s
hair with a quick motion, and then ran back to her table where she
opened her hand and showed something to her sister. Both girls
broke into a fit of giggles and looked back and forth between the
object and Dol.

Dol stopped in mid-sentence, slumped with his
shoulders, slowly shook his head, and gave out a long sigh. Milli
sat there with her mouth open for a half a second and then burst
into a fit of laughter before she could cover her mouth with her
hands. “I’m sorry, it’s just funny,” she said trying to stifle her
laughs.

Suddenly the father of the girls was at the
table with a serious expression on his face, “I’d like to apologize
for my daughters,” he said a scowl on his craggy face, but this
apology triggered another bout of laughter from Milli and Brogus’
own harsh guffaws soon joined in. Dol sat there quietly and looked
at the two with black eyes through narrowed lids.

“It’s ok,” he said to the older dwarf, “it
happens all the time.”

Milli shrieked with laughter and pounded
Brogus on the back as the dwarf beat his fists onto the table, his
face growing redder by the moment.

“I’m going to pee myself,” he finally gasped
and this sent Milli off into another gale of shrieks.

The older dwarf stood at the table for much
of this but eventually nodded his head to Dol and put down a small,
green apple on the table. It looked about the size of a cherry but
the surface was crisp and it had the distinctive shape of an apple.
“You’ll be wanting this back then?”

Milli shrieked, fell out of her seat, and
started to roll around on the floor while Brogus buried his face in
his arms as his body shook with laughter.

Dol sat with a stony face, took the little
apple, looked at it closely, put it into his pants pocket, and then
waited for Milli and Brogus to stop laughing.

“I’m sorry,” said Milli gasping for breath as
she regained her seat, “you have to admit, it gets funnier every
time.”

“Maybe you should ask me if I want to do it,”
said Dol in a low tone filled with strength. “There are times I
find life here in Craggen Steep … trying,” he continued as he
looked over at the table of the young girls and shook his head
sadly.

“I thought when you kept your hair short-like
they didn’t grow?” said Milli and then, suddenly realizing that Dol
was not talking about the apples that grew in his hair, turned to
him, “You’d want to do what?”

Dol looked at her and shook his head, “I
could shave my head bald but then I’d be even more of a curiosity
here in Craggen Steep. You know I don’t like people looking at me,
talking about me. They just keep getting worse as I get older. When
I was a teenager it was only once a year or so but now they pop-up
at any time.”

“No, no, forget about the apples, your hair.
Ask you what you want to do with what?” insisted Milli as another
little burst of giggles erupted from her mouth unbidden.

“The Hammer of Fire,” said Dol in a low voice
but there was passion in it. “If we take it, what do I want to do
with it?”

“So, you’ll help us!” said Brogus his eyes
glowing as he leaned forward at the table. “Dol, we can’t do it
without you, you know that. Someone has to carry the thing.”

“First we have to decide what to do with it,”
said Dol his face humorless and his gaze steady.

“It was my idea to steal the thing,” said
Brogus with a broad grin as he nodded his thick head up and down
and tapped his chest with a thick forefinger. “You two figure out
what do with it.”

“Go ahead, take credit where credit is due
Brogus,” said Milli with a smile and gave the burly dwarf a pat on
the back. “Dol here might actually be able to hold onto the Hammer
of Fire, but he’s right. We need to figure out what do with it once
we take it. I’m not going to join the army on some five year
campaign to subdue the southern continent, Corancil or no Corancil.
They have nomadic horsemen down there and the desert sun can’t be
good for my skin. I’ve lived my life indoors, under the mountain. I
see the way dwarves come back from the caravan trades all burned
red and peeling.”

“Why not just join up with Corancil?” said
Brogus. “He’s already conquered most of the northern realms,
Das’von, Stav’rol. They say he’ll be emperor one day, that he’ll
control the entire world. If we join him we can be part of all
that. The expedition to the southern continent is gathering now. We
should join him. You know the High Council will never allow a dwarf
army to join him. It really wouldn’t be the hidden city of Craggen
Steep if we went marching around the world now would it?”

“No,” replied Dol suddenly using his toneless
voice again as he shook his head.

“Where’s that apple?” asked Brogus changing
the subject once again and causing Milli to burst out in laughter
and the thick jawed dwarf followed. It took Milli and Brogus a few
minutes to calm down from this second bout of hysterics, although
each time they almost settled, another would trigger more laughter
with a small facial movement or even just a little hiccup. They
only stopped when the waitress gave them a sour look and refused to
come near their table. All the while Dol sat silently and stared at
his mug of beer.

“So you’ll do it?” said Brogus, finally calm
enough to speak, as he leaned over the table an eager grin on his
face and his eyes wide to the point where white showed all around.
“You’ll take the hammer and head out with us?”

“Dol, you know if you do it you’ll break your
apprenticeship contract. You won’t be allowed back in Craggen Steep
unless you can pay your indemnity,” said Milli, her yellow eyes
suddenly dark and the bright smile gone.

The short haired dwarf shrugged his shoulders
and looked around the room at all the young dwarves who wore
advanced apprenticeship badges on their sleeves and then looked at
Milli, “You were right earlier, there’s no hope for a half-breed
like me, not here at least.”

Milli reached over the table to touch his
hand although Dol pulled back and leaned against the back of his
seat. “I was too harsh, you know that’s not completely true, Dol.
You’re as fine a metal smith as any young man your age.It’s because
you’re so useful in the forge that they haven’t promoted you too
much, because of your … natural characteristics. You could stay and
make a fine living.”

“Shut up, Milli,” said Brogus. “He’s right.
We’re all stuck here for life unless we do something bold.”

“It doesn’t matter what holds me back, my
heritage, my natural ability, the point is that there is no future
for me at Craggen Steep,” said Dol with a bit of fire in his voice,
a shrug of his shoulders, and a glance at the table of giggling
girls. “Why not take the thing? I’m with Milli though, I won’t join
up with some army, and I won’t take it without a plan. I want to do
something with it. Something that will make people remember.”