Thornhold (2 page)

He grunted in approval at her handling of the matter, then took a filthy leather bag from his belt and spilled the contents onto her outstretched palm.

As the golden stones spilled through her fingers, Bronwyn kept her face carefully neutral even though she knew at once that this necklace was extraordinary. The gems were amber, reputed to be the lifeblood of trees that once had grown in the lost Myconid Forest. The delicate silver filigree, though old and much tarnished, was of exquisite workmanship. Elf-crafted, certainly. It was among the most magnificent pieces of gemcraft Bronwyn had ever beheld. Even so, her fingers prickled when they touched the amber. Perhaps because her senses had been honed to a fine edge by a lifetime of dealing with magic-rich antiquities, perhaps it was merely her imagination, but she could have sworn that she sensed the faint, distant echo of fell magic.

She forced herself to pick up the necklace again and study it as if she were merely appraising weight and color. “Nice,” she admitted casually, “but your price is too high.”

The duergar leader knew the game of barter as well as anyone. “Five hundred gold, not a copper less,” he said stoutly. “And weapons. Two of them.”

Bronwyn smirked. “Where I come from, merchants know the value of their wares. But since amber isn’t your usual stock in trade, perhaps I can cut you some extra rope.”

“Yeah? How much?”

She tugged thoughtfully at one of her oversized earrings. “I could stretch the price to fifty gold, and a battle-axe. I found a good one; two-headed, well balanced for either throwing or hand fighting. It’s dwarf-crafted, of course—a very good journeyman piece by a gold dwarf smith. The axe head is mithral, the handle is polished mahogany set with chips of garnet and tourmaline. Interested?”

“Hmmph!” The duergar leaned over to one side and spat. “Got no use for pretties. Less for gold dwarves.”

But Bronwyn did not miss the gleam of avarice in his eyes. Duergar were far more likely to be scavengers than smiths, and she had yet to meet one that didn’t crave fine dwarven weapons. She gave the priceless necklace a casual shake. “This quality amber in a new, fashionable setting would sell for about two hundred gold in the bazaars. I’ll give you half that.”

The duergar started to work up another wad of spittle, then apparently decided a more dramatic gesture was in order. He pantomimed drawing a knife and plunging it into his heart. “Sooner that, than take a hundred gold!” he swore. “Four hundred, and the axe.”

“The axe alone is worth five hundred, easily.”

“Net likely! But since you and me go back a ways, even trade—the stones for the axe.”

Bronwyn sniffed. “I’ll give you two hundred gold, but you can forget the axe.”

The duergar slammed the table with a slate-colored fist, incensed at the thought of losing this prize. “Gimme the axe, and the two hundred gold, and call it a deal. Call it a theft, is more like it!”

Bronwyn took the complaints in stride. She had expected protests; in fact, it seemed to her that the duergar had given in far too easily. There was more trouble to come—of that, she was certain. That puzzled her, given the presence of the duergar lad.

“Done.” She placed a bag on the table. “Two hundred gold, paid out in five-weight platinum coins. Go ahead and count it.”

A hint of red suffused the duergar’s gray face. Most likely, Bronwyn surmised, he couldn’t count that high, much less cipher out the coin exchange. “No need,” he muttered. “You’re good for it.”

Bronwyn noted, not without satisfaction, that the duergar spoke whole and simple truth for what might have been the first time in his life. She prized the reputation she’d worked hard to earn. Promise made, promise kept.

In a few words, she told them where they would find the second part of their payment. “The axe is yours, you have my word on that. It’ll take time to get to it, that’s all—time that I’ll use to put some hard road between us. I haven’t forgotten what happened after our last deal.”

“Me, neither. I was sorry to lose Brimgrumph. He was a good hand at fighting, but he got too much in the habit of it. Didn’t know when to quit,” the duergar said piously.

It was the longest speech Bronwyn had heard from him, and the most self-serving. If the ambush that had capped their last transaction had succeeded, this duergar would no doubt have been quick to claim his share of the take. But it had failed, and his henchman had died. Bronwyn’s steely gaze announced that she rejected his attempt to slough off the responsibility.

“Cross me once, expect me to watch you. But cross me twice, you best watch out for me,” she warned.

The duergar shrugged. “Fair enough,” he agreed. Too easy again, Bronwyn thought. As the silent duergar pocketed the gold, Bronwyn gathered up the necklace and loosened the strings on her bag. Not a common bag, but one that she’d bought from a Halruaan wizard at a cost that represented nearly a year’s worth of sales. The thing was worth every copper. It was a magical tunnel that whisked whatever she tucked inside to a well-guarded safe in Curious Past, her shop in an elegant section of Waterdeep. Bronwyn had learned long ago one basic truth about the business of acquiring rare antiquities. Finding them was one thing; keeping them was another matter entirely.

A small movement caught her eye and stayed her hand. The stone knife she had borrowed moved of its own accord— not much, but a little, just enough so that the tip pointed to the amber in her hand.

Lodestone, Bronwyn realized. The knife had been carved from a stone that felt and followed the energies in metal— or in this case, in amber. The duergar meant to track her and reclaim the necklace once they thought themselves beyond the traps that she always lay to cover her retreat.

Cross me twice, she thought grimly.

She kept her expression carefully neutral as she rose from her stone seat. She even turned her back as she walked away, allowing the duergar spokesperson time to pick up the tattling stone knife. When she reached the mouth of the cave, she turned and stared coldly into the cunning eyes of the treacherous creatures, then dropped the amber necklace into the sack. It disappeared into a magical vortex. The stone knife spun in sympathetic flight, slicing deeply across the duergar’s palm.

His shout of pain and outrage tore the smirk from his face. Bronwyn turned and fled, running like a deer for her escape tunnel.

She dashed around a sharp turn and stooped, dropping her torch to snatch up a stout staff she’d hidden among the rubble beside the path. The three duergar followed in a thundering crescendo of iron-shod boots. When she judged the moment right, she leaped out in front of the first two onrushing duergar, staff held level with the ground, held waist-high and firmly braced.

The duergar had no time to halt. They ran right into the staff, one on either side of Bronwyn, catching the wood just below the throat. Their heads snapped back, and their feet flew out from under them. A dull, deep boom rumbled through the cavern as the two hardy creatures slammed down flat on their backs, arms flung out wide. Bronwyn danced back.

The young duergar came on, trampling his fallen kin in his eagerness to get at Bronwyn. The gleam in his eye and the small, pitted axe he held high overhead announced his deadly intent.

Quickly Bronwyn pivoted to her right. Seizing one end of the staff with both hands, she hauled it back. Feeling like a child preparing for an extremely high-stakes round of stick ball, she swung out high and hard. The staff whistled through the air and connected with the duergar’s weapon arm. Something—either arm or axe handle, Bronwyn wasn’t sure which—shattered with a sickening crack. The youth dropped the axe on one of his dazed elders and kept coming.

Bronwyn stooped and reached for the cudgel that had rolled free of the adult duergar’s hand. Too late she realized that she should have made a different choice; the iron-bound club was too heavy for her to lift.

There was no time to go for another weapon. Bronwyn came up in a springing lunge, her chin tucked. Her head connected hard with the young duergar’s belly, stopping his charge. His breath wheezed out in a sharp, pained grunt, and they fell together in a tangle of arms and legs.

Bronwyn thrashed and kicked, but she was in too close to do much damage. The duergar youth did little better. Winded and favoring a garishly broken arm, he landed a few blows but couldn’t put much force behind them. Suddenly he devised a better strategy. He seized one the bronze hoops in Bronwyn’s ear and yanked it hard. The sudden, tearing pain surprised a scream out of her, and brought a wide grin to the creature’s beardless face.

Angry now, Bronwyn felt about for her fallen torch. Her finger closed on the handle, close enough to the pitch-covered wood to feel the lingering heat. She thrust the still-hot end into the duergar’s face.

He shrieked and released her, clutching at his eye with his one good hand. Bronwyn rolled aside and leaped to her feet, nimbly evading the grasping hands of the duergar leader. The two adults had shaken off the surprise attack, and were starting to gather their wits and reclaim their weapons. Bronwyn turned and fled for her escape tunnel.

Arms pumping, she ran full out down the path, the three duergar huffing along behind. The small tunnel came into view. She dropped to her knees and slid the last few paces, then flopped down onto her stomach and scrambled into the low tunnel. Frantically she dragged herself forward before one of them could grab her ankle and drag her back.

Almost through. Almost safe.

Something bumped her foot, startling her. Her head jerked up and connected painfully with the stone ceiling. Suddenly she realized why the duergar had brought the scrawny youngster with them. She was not the only one who had scouted the cavern. They must have anticipated this evasion—and brought along a duergar small enough to pursue her through the tunnel.

For some reason, that realization inspired more anger than feat The young duergar was already hurt, and this was far from over. She would kill him if she had to. Surely his elders knew that.

Bronwyn scrambled out of the tunnel and ran for the ravine, steeling herself for the swinging jump ahead. She reached the rope and crawled out to the marked spot. Gripping the rope tightly with one hand, she sawed at the rope behind her with her knife. The rope was almost shredded through when she heard the young duergar’s terror-filled scream. His wail rose in pitch as it faded away, and then ended altogether in a resounding splash. Bronwyn cursed under her breath. The young duergar, half blinded and no doubt off balance with pain, had stumbled and fallen into the rivet.

The shouts of the older duergar and their thundering footsteps brought Bronwyn an odd sense of relief. They had found another way into the cavern. They would save the youngster before he was swept too far downstream.

Suddenly her rope rose in a sharp, hard jerk. She dropped her knife and hung on with both hands as she gazed back in disbelief at the path. The duergar were focusing their attention on her, rather than on the boy in the river below.

Anger swept through Bronwyn, chasing away the nearly paralyzing fear of the water below. She shouted a dwarven insult—one that was almost guaranteed to inspire a tavern brawl, retributive murder, or small-scale war.

Again they tugged on the rope, harder this time. The fraying rope gave way, and Bronwyn swung out over the ravine. She forced herself to keep her eyes open, her attention fixed on the rapidly approaching stone. As soon as she cleared the ledge, she released the rope and threw herself into a side roll.

The maneuver absorbed some of the impact, but still she hit the stone floor with bruising, numbing force. She rolled several times and slammed into the wall hard enough to leave her dazed and aching.

Another angry shout ripped across the divide. “You made a deal!” the leader howled. “The gold and the axe!”

Bronwyn rose painfully to her feet and glared across the divide at the dancing, hooting duergat After all this, he had the gall to accuse her of reneging on their deal.

Still, he had a point. She had the necklace, and she’d promised the axe in exchange. She went to where she’d left the weapon, then fisted her hand and drove it into the pile of pebbles that hid it. Raising the gleaming axe high, she hauled it back for the throw.

The axe spun across the divide, directly toward the angry duergar. They squawked and dived for cover behind a pile of boulders. When they heard the heavy thunk! of metal against rock—several feet below their position—they darted out and skidded to a stop at the edge of the ravine. There, on a small ledge perhaps ten feet below the path, lay the axe.

“Oops,” Bronwyn said casually.

Leaving the duergar to solve the dual problem of retrieving their axe and their young henchman, she turned and started up the steep path to the surface. There was little doubt in her mind which they would consider the more important.

Dag Zoreth had forgotten what the river sounded like when it ran wild in the spring. Faint and sweet, both impatient and laughing, the River Dessarin sang in the distance, its voice as familiar as a childhood lullaby. A wave of sharp, poignant memory assailed him, a memory almost powerful enough to drown out the remembered screams, and the terrible thunder of hooves.

He took a long, steadying breath to ground himself firmly in the present. “Wait here,” he curtly told the men with him.

They had not anticipated this. They tried to hide their surprise, but Dag saw it all the same. He didn’t miss much, and he gave away less—which was, in no small measure, the reason why he was the one giving the orders.

Dag understood the men’s reaction all too well. He knew what they saw when they looked at him. A slight man who stood a full head shorter than most of his guards, a man who had little expertise with the short, jeweled sword on his hip, a man exceedingly pale of skin from many years spent within walls; in short, hardly the sort of man who might venture off alone into the wild foothills. Usually, Dag Zoreth didn’t waste much thought on such matters. But here, in this place, childhood memories were strong—strong enough to strip him of his hard-won power and leave him feeling small and weak, once again the child despairing of ever reaching the mark set for him.