Thornhold h-16

by Elaine Cunningham

  The image of the iron-willed society queen facing off in battle against the dwarf woman brought a wry smile to Bronwyn's face. That fight, she'd happily pay to observe. "Alice, why don't you go to the market and get something for our guests? Some bread and meat, a keg of ale. Have it delivered."

  "Well, I'm certainly not going to carry it back," the gnome grumbled. She seized her shawl off its hook and took off- gratefully, it seemed to Bronwyn.

  One of the dwarf lads started to climb a shelf after an axe that had caught his eye. A sleek, black form glided from the rafters and landed on his shoulder.

  "Think about it," Shopscat advised.

  With a yelp, the young dwarf let go and tumbled to the floor. The raven winged off and settled down on a tall urn.

  "It talks!" exclaimed a dwarf woman with delight, her stubby finger pointing at the raven. Her eyes took on a battle gleam, and she came over to Shopscat and leaned in close, nose to beak. "Been a while since I had me a roast bird," she said, a challenge in her voice.

  The raven stared her down. "Think about it."

  The dwarves laughed uproariously. "Might be you could keep that up for a while, Morgalla, if you asked the right questions," Ebenezer said.

  She shrugged and grinned, then wandered off to finger a long string of pink pearls displayed on a wooden bust.

  They spent a pleasant hour poking through the shop and exchanging insults with the raven. Just as some were starting to get restless, Alice returned with a half dozen strong porters and the requested refreshments.

  The instant the first keg hit the floor, the dwarves converged from all three floors of the shop. They snatched up whatever came to hand-silver mugs, gem-encrusted goblets-and clustered about. The gnome cringed as she took in this casual use of the treasures she guarded.

  "We can hire someone in to help clean up," Bronwyn told her.

  "If you have the coin left to do the hiring," Alice shot back. She nodded toward their visitors, who were making short work of the piles of food. Two of the dwarves were already tapping the third keg.

  It seemed that Ebenezer was thinking along similar lines. "Don't you doubt, I'm gonna pay you back every copper," he vowed softly. "Tell me what I can do to help get them earning their keep."

  Bronwyn glanced at Cara, who was petting Shopscat and chattering happily. Her heart melted at the sight of the little girl and the obviously charmed raven.

  "There are dwarves in the city, but the sort of labor your clan can do is always in demand. I know people who can line up what we need."

  "You got a lot of friends, if they can set up this bunch," Ebenezer commented.

  "In a manner of speaking." This brought up a matter that Bronwyn had been puzzling over for several days. She had realized aboard ship that she would have to rely upon the resources of the Harpers to get the dwarves settled. Disclosing membership in this secret organization was forbidden, except in extreme situations or to trusted friends. Though she had known Ebenezer for a relatively short time, she counted him as among the best she'd found. She decided to confide in the dwarf

  Taking him by the arm, she led him to a relatively quiet corner. "What do you know of the Harpers?"

  Ebenezer scowled and spat-hitting the bronze spittoon by the door with dead-on accuracy and ringing force. "Nothing good. As I hear it, they're not big on minding their own affairs."

  "That's true enough," she said hesitantly. "But they are good at gathering information and passing it along. If I contact the right Harpers here in the city, by highsun tomorrow I should have every member of your clan set up in business. Sword smiths, gem workers, bakers. Whatever skills they have, I can match."

  "How do you know who to-" The dwarf broke off, his eyes suspicious. "You're one of them."

  Bronwyn sighed. "Guilty. Is that such a bad thing?"

  "Maybe," he grumbled. He slanted a look up at her. "What you did for my clan-was that Harper business?"

  "No," she said stoutly, even though she suspected that claiming otherwise might sway the dwarf's opinion on the matter. "That was personal."

  "Good." He nodded in satisfaction. "Well, then, you tell me where to go, and I'll be getting the process started."

  Bronwyn hurried up the stairs to her chamber-evicting the pair of dwarf children who were jumping on her bed-and sat down at her writing table. Under the false bottom of her drawer were sheets of parchment bearing the sigil of Khelben Arunsun. This rune, his personal symbol, gave force to whatever was written on the parchment. The Harpers under his direction were to use them only in dire circumstances. Bronwyn had but two. She dipped a quill in her inkwell and began to write a letter to Brian Swordmaster.

  Even as she wrote, Bronwyn's mind skipped ahead to the consequences of this measure. Khelben would know when one of his special edicts was used, and by whom. Brian Swordmaster, though a common tradesman and a quiet, modest man, was a great friend of the archmage. The story would get to her Harper master all too soon.

  And then, she wondered, what would she be required to do?

  This thought didn't set well with her. All her life, she had been told what to do. As a slave, she had been given little choice about anything. As an antiquities dealer, she had taken commissions and fulfilled them. Her methods were her own, and she prided herself in being resourceful, but the task itself was given her. The same could be said for her involvement with the Harpers. The first act that she could call truly her own was her decision to rescue the Stoneshaft clan from slavery She regarded that with pride and was not reconciled to tamely accepting that all her decisions would henceforth be made for her by others.

  And yet, had that ever been truly the case? Even as a slave, she had directed her path. She worked hard at the gem trade, and before she was a woman grown, she was crafting better counterfeit pieces than any of her master's servants-or her master himself, for that matter. He'd taken an interest in her, and taught her about the rare pieces that they copied in the shop and sold as originals. Bronwyn had developed a genuine love of the old, beautiful things that came into her hands. Unlike her, they had a history, a past. These stories had more importance to her than the pieces themselves. And so she wheedled her master into letting her learn about the background of the pieces-so that they could make better, less detectable reproductions, she'd argued. This idea had pleased him, and Bronwyn had begun the path she now trod. When the master died, his son sold off the shop, including the slaves. She had bought her freedom by apprenticing herself out to a treasure hunter who'd done business with her master. Soon she went her own way. And, she realized with deep surprise, she had been doing so ever since.

  Bronwyn sat for a long moment as she absorbed this. Then she nodded slowly and rolled the parchment into a scroll. She went down the back stairs and through the alley. There was always a messenger or two available for hire at the cobbler's shop two doors down.

  The messenger was a youth she knew well. She gave him the scroll with instructions and an extra silver coin, then returned to her shop with a light step.

  Whatever came of this venture, she would handle it as she always had: her own way.

  It took Ebenezer the better part of two hours to round up his kin and get them headed out of the shop. "Like herding cats, it is," he grumbled as he shoved the last of them out of the door. The look of pure, desperate gratitude that Alice sent him brought a wry grin to his face. The Stoneshafts were a handful, and no mistake. He only hoped that Bronwyn's mysterious "friends" had pickaxes big enough to chop through this particular problem.

  Once the dwarves were out on the street, the problems compounded. Bronwyn's shop was on the Street of Silks, a nose-in-the-air piece of town where folks thought their shoes too good to sully with walking. Fancy carriages rattled past, drawn by teams of horses.

  "Lookit the size of them mules," marveled Benton, a cousin who'd never been out of the tunnels before his capture.

  "How'd they get four of 'em to go in the same direction?" demanded Tarlamera, whose only experience with mules
involved small, dusty pack animals nearly as stubborn as herself. The clan had kept a few for hauling back the gems and ore from the outermost mines.

  That image suggested a solution to Ebenezer. "Miners, ho!" he hollered. "Tunnel size, seven. Fall in by clan rank."

  His clan scuttled into place with an alacrity born of long practice. A size seven tunnel meant that three dwarves could march abreast, and clan rank was easy enough: oldest first. Every dwarf knew where he ranked in comparison with any other dwarf so they found their places readily enough. The only break with tradition was when Ebenezer took his place at the head. Not a dwarf argued with him for that honor, though, seeing as he was the only one who'd ever been to the city before.

  He marched them down the Street of Silks, past shops brimming with the fashionable doodads that humans seemed so all-fired fond of. These the dwarves passed without missing a step, but as they neared the Jester's Court, the scents drifting from the Mighty Manticore inspired wistful sighs from some of his kin. Ebenezer had some knowledge of the tavern owner, a half-dwarf but a good sort for all that. Coopercan, his name was, in honor of a backside as big as a barrel. When Coop settled down to keeping tavern, he'd kept some of his dwarven ways. There was no mistaking the smell of rothй roasting on a spit, stuffed with mushrooms and the tasty black rice that grew wild in the marshy hollows hidden among dwarven mountains. Coopercan always seemed to have a rothe roast going, and there were few scents that could get a dwarf to drooling betterthan that.

  "Hoy, brother!" shouted a gruff female voice. "I'm-a coming up."

  Ebenezer lifted his hand to his lips to hide his smirk. He'd been too long among humans, if he found humor in the usual dwarven method of "asking permission."

  Tarlamera huffed up to his side. For several moments they marched in silence as he waited for her to speak her mind. "We gotta go back to the clanhold," she decreed.

  He'd been afraid of that. Knew it was coming. Even so, he tried to scoff away the notion. "And how might you be planning to do that? There's not enough of us left to take back the tunnels, much less hold them secure. The men that stole you away in the first place would be back, and the second harvest would be all the easier."

  The dwarf woman scowled and folded her arms. "What are we to do, then?"

  "There's dwarves in the city," he told her. "Bronwyn has friends what can find us work. We'll fit in, make our way. Make a life."

  Tarlamera glowered. "Seems to me like you're putting too much weight in that human's say-so. Mountain dwarves in a city? What kind of life is that?"

  "Better'n the one 'that human' stole you from, I'll tell you that for free," he shot back.

  She shrugged. "There's that. But all I got to say is- Almighty Clangeddin by the short hairs!"

  Ebenezer pulled up short, startled by his sister's oath and the force with which it was delivered. "How's that again?"

  She seized his arm and pointed. The road had widened up into a broad, cobblestone courtyard. At the far end was the enormous, elaborate palace built for the first lord of the city, and behind that swept the majestic summit of Mount Waterdeep. But somewhat closer was the sight peculiar enough to stop Tarlamera in mid-complaint, a tall, slender tower before which stood a skeleton, arms raised high and feet not quite touching the ground.

  "Don't be going too close to that tower," Ebenezer said casually. "Alghairon's Tower, it's called. Been empty for a long time. Seems it used to belong to some big-axe wizard, long since gone to his ancestors. It's a monument now. The folks hereabouts let it alone mostly, except for the fellow you see there."

  "Good warding sign," one of the dwarves behind them offered. That sent a weak chuckle rippling through the group.

  The company got some strange looks as they marched in formation through the courtyard. Ebenezer didn't suppose they looked like much of a threat, as scrawny as they were, and not more than three weapons among the lot of them, but still he raised his hand in a conciliatory salute whenever a curious member of the guard looked their way.

  They veered east onto Waterdeep Way, toward the massive castle that was the heart and strength of the city. Ebenezer had always admired that castle. "Lookit that," he said grandly, pointing up at the far towers. "Four hundred feet high, that is."

  Tarlamera sniffed. Dwarves, as a rule, weren't terribly impressed with up. They were more interested in through.

  "Got walls some sixty feet thick," he added.

  "That's a wall," she admitted, impressed at last.

  Ebenezer pointed ahead. "See that sign what's a-hanging from that lantern pole? Marks the Way of the Dragon. Big street. Goes down to the Trade Ward and the man we gotta see."

  "I seen a man already," the dwarf maid grumbled. "Seen hundreds of 'em so far today."

  "This one's a smith. They say his pieces are as good as any human can make. Better than some dwarves."

  She scoffed. "I'm not buying that at the asking price. How can you get a good forge going without the tunnels to pull a powerful updraft?"

  Ebenezer pointed up toward the blue dome of the sky. "Got lots a wind."

  "Yeah." She scowled and plucked at her ruined clothes. "And I'm feeling every breath of it in these rags. Back at the clanhold, I got me a new linen kirtle and a leather apron."

  A bleak, wistful note crept into her voice. Though her eyes kept steadily fixed ahead, Ebenezer could read the pain in them. The kirtle and apron were part of every dwarf maid's wedding chest. By all that was right, she should be home scrapping happily with her new-made husband. But Frodwinner was dead, as were their four brothers and their sister, their mother, their da. They hadn't spoken of their slain kin, not once since the day Ebenezer had chopped her loose from the slave ship.

  "Frodwinner fought well," Tarlamera said. A struggling smile rippled across her face, as if she were trying to accept that this was enough. "I saw that much before they dropped me. How many did he take?"

  "Fifteen," Ebenezer said promptly, upping the number without a qualm.

  "Good," she said. "That's good."

  They walked in silence for a while. "I made them a cairn," he said softly. "Just one, for all of them."

  "That's the way things are done in time of battle," she agreed. "You accounted for all?"

  "Not all," he said grimly. "Didn't see old Hoshal, but I'm pretty sure they got to him ahead of time. Found one of his chisels in an osquip trove."

  "They got him," Tarlamera agreed. "Hoshal's particular about his tools. Da always said Hoshal could put a hand to any one of his tools quicker than he could grab his own-"

  She broke off, her jaw dropping in astonishment. Ebenezer tracked her gaze into a side alley, and his own eyes widened in astonishment. "Now, that's something you don't see every day," he admitted.

  An enormous, disembodied hand, each finger longer than a dwarf was tall, floated aimlessly down the alley. In the center of the palm was a huge mouth that worked its way through some silly tavern tune. Ebenezer shook his head in utter bemusement.

  "What does it want?" one of the dwarves behind him hissed.

  "A better song?" snapped Ebenezer. "Do I know everything there is to know about this city? Step lively, now!"

  They stepped, with a liveliness that had the lot of them huffing like a gnome-built tea kettle.

  "Gotta get back to the clanhold," Tarlamera moaned.

  Ebenezer shook his head and pointed to the road ahead. The streets were getting narrower, and the tall, timber-framed buildings crowded so close that dwellers in the top floors could lean out and kiss their neighbors, providing they were on good enough terms. They were coming up on the Street of Smiths, and black smoke from a dozen forges rose into the sky.

  Many of the houses-the foundations at least and sometimes up to the second floor-were masoned over with stone as a deterrent to fire. If a body squinted just so, he could pretend they were cavern walls.

  "Kinda cozy, isn't it?" he said hopefully.

  Tarlamera snorted again.

  As they rounded the corner to
Brian's Street, a huge, utterly bald man came striding to meet them. He came to Ebenezer and stuck out his hand. "You'd be the Stoneshaft clan," he said. "Brian here. Been expecting you."

  Ebenezer gave the ham-sized hand a good squeeze, which was returned with a force that made his eyes cross. "He's a smith, all right," he told Tarlamera.

  His sister was doing her own evaluation. Her eyes scanned the man from his bald head to his massive, graystreaked black beard, measuring the width of his shoulders and arms heavily corded with muscle and blackened with soot. "He's a likely-looking lad," she admitted, and then sighed. "All right, boy, let's see this forge of yours."

  During the voyage back to Waterdeep, Bronwyn had managed to decipher some of the code in the slave ship's log. Enough, at least, to assure her that Grunion was owned by the Zhentarim. No large surprise, that, considering the destruction of Thornhold and the capture of the dwarves by Zhentish soldiers.

  But what of Cara? What was there about the ring she wore that attracted the ire of the Zhentarim, that they would steal children away from their homes? Cara's father, whoever and wherever he was, might also be in danger.

  That thought spurred Bronwyn as she made her way into Dock Ward. This unknown man was her kin. Perhaps he had answers for her that Hronulf had not lived to give. That possibility made the chance she was about to take worthwhile.

  She hurried to the Sleeping Snake, a rough and noisy tavern where thieves of many races gathered to trade stories, blows, and stolen goods. The Zhentarim contact she had used a few times before frequented the tavern.

  Raucous laughter burst out into the street when Bronwyn shouldered open the door and pushed her way into the crowded room. The smell of stale ale and staler bodies assaulted her. Most of the dockhands who came to drink here didn't bother to bathe after a hard day's work. She spotted the informer-a dockhand and occasional assassin-slumped over a table near the hearth.

  He glanced up when she kicked at his chair. "Well," he asked drunkenly, "what are you looking for this time?"