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?'
She bent down low so that she could speak the words in a normal voice rather than shouting. 'A man who recently lost a child.'
He leaned back and eyed her with speculation. 'Don't have much use for brats, myself'
'No one's asking you to have anything to do with this one. Have you heard anything?'
'Can't say I have. Who's this man that got shed of his brat?'
'His name is Doon. He's a dark man, probably not exceptionally tall.'
There was a flicker in the man's eyes, but he shook his head. 'Sorry. Can't help you,' he said as he reached for his mug.
Bronwyn caught his wrist. 'Can't, or won't?'
He shook her off and turned aside in obvious dismissal. 'One way or another, it's much the same to you.'
A trickle of fear ran down Bronwyn's spine. Always before, this man had tried to sell her something, spinning out any scrap of information into something she might wish to buy. His outright refusal and the gleam of avarice in his eyes alerted her to danger.
Bronwyn nodded and worked her way back to the bar. The fighting had spread into the main floor, and it would be a while before she could get to the door. She ordered an ale and took a stool to wait out the storm.
A hand seized her arm. Bronwyn spun, gripping the hilt of her knife. She measured the man with a glance and decided that this would be an easy battle. Though still south of mid-life, he was the thinnest, frailest person she had ever encountered. The spark of life had apparently drained from his body to center its last flame in his small black eyes.
'Move your hand, or I'll slice it off,' she said in an even voice.
The man halted her with an impatient gesture, an upraised palm. Her eyes bulged. Tattooed, or perhaps branded, into his palm was the emblem of the evil god Bane-a small, black hand.
Instinctively she eased away, raised both of her hands in conciliation. Though the god himself was considered dead and gone, and no longer a power to be feared, Bronwyn had no desire to tangle with someone who purported to be an acolyte of such evil.
'I heard you. You want a man who is seeking a child. Where is this man?' he insisted in a voice that recalled a viper's hiss.
Bronwyn licked her lips nervously. 'That's what I'm trying to find out. If you know anything of him, I'd be willing to trade for the information.'
A terrible chuckle wheezed from the former priest's lips. 'If the item you have to barter is his yellow hide, then you have a deal, wench. I want him. I want him dead,' he specified, as if there could be any doubt
