make an alliance between us.'
'I need no alliance,' the tribal chieftain declared.
'You have a small tribe at present, and you are in uncertain lands,' Krystarn pointed out.
'We have met foul beasts and ill magic in this place,' Chomack said. 'We have triumphed with our skill and bravery.'
'So far. Yet how many have you lost in your wanderings through these caverns?'
Chomack did not answer, but some of the hobgoblins shifted around him uneasily. The drow's words had struck a chord of concern.
'You are here to seek your fortune,' Krystarn said. 'You do not have to tell me this because I can see by the packs your women and children carry. You have been busy accumulating wealth.'
'I will raise an army,' Chomack said. 'With the treasure from these dead-elf pits, I will find an outlaw trader and buy more weapons. New weapons that are made of polished steel to fire the heart of any hobgoblin who call himself a warrior. When others hear of what I have, they will flock to my tribe.'
'You are ambitious,' Krystarn said. 'What will you do with this army when you gather it?'
'There is an accounting of vengeance that must be made against the Ulnathr Tribe. They attacked our tribe from behind while we battled a band of troglodytes that had moved into our homeland and started eating us. Caught between the troglodytes and the Ulnathr Tribe, most of us were left for dead. We traveled deeper into these ruins. The coward-chieftain of the Ulnathr will not come here because of the wild magic.'
'I can help you,' Krystarn said.
The hobgoblin chieftain glanced at her suspiciously. 'How?'
The drow opened her bag of holding and reached inside. When she drew out her hand, she opened it to show the jewels inside. 'Here.'
Hesitantly, Chomack held out his hand. Krystarn dumped the handful of diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds into the hobgoblin chieftain's palm. 'Let this be a token of my interest in your success.'
'This is much,' Chomack said.
'Only a small fortune,' the drow replied, 'against the measure of my interests. I have been lucky in my life, Lloth be praised.'
The hobgoblin chieftain passed the gems back to a subchieftain, who made them quickly disappear. 'Why would you care about my cause?'
'I am not interested in furthering your cause,' Krystarn answered honestly. 'However, I am investing on a return against my good will.'
'Huh?' Chomack asked suspiciously.
'As a down payment for the use of your sword arms at a time when I would need it.' Krystarn felt a glow of satisfaction when the hobgoblin chieftain didn't immediately turn her offer down. The tribe was indeed in dire straits if they were delving into the ruins of Myth Drannor. She also knew that agreeing to a bargain with a drow was not something Chomack would want to do under normal circumstances. Shallowsoul did not control everything that happened in the ruins.
'When?'
'When I should so declare it.' Having a small, well-equipped army within the caverns might prove beneficial, the drow knew. For the first time in the four years of her sacrifice to Lloth, she felt as if she might soon be freed.
'I will not throw away my life or my tribe,' the hobgoblin chieftain warned.
'Nor would I have you do so. I do not fight battles to let the gods decide. If I ask you to fight for me, it will be to win, not to lose.'
'And if we do?'
'There will be more gems and treasures for you to add to your coffers. I find vengeance a powerful motivation. I can see in your eyes that nothing less than blood-letting will sate yours. In that, we understand each other.'
Chomack took a step back and swung his hard gaze on his tribespeople. None of them had moved any closer to the drow, nor had any of their weapons been lowered. 'When I speak my answer to this sorceress, I speak for all of us. I want this to be understood. Any who would oppose me later will oppose me now.'
Quiet murmurs and nods of assent spread around the half-circle of hobgoblins.
Chomack turned back to face the drow. 'I agree to your terms, Krystarn Fellhammer. We shall give you our sword arms when you need them, and you will give us four gems for every gem you have already given us.'
Irritation stung the drow. It wasn't that the amount was so much, she had managed to gather several times that much in gems and coins and other items in the years she had been with Shallowsoul, but the humanoid's greed offended her. Having the hobgoblin push the bargain so hard only meant he believed he had her at a disadvantage. She did not want him thinking that. 'You are greedy,' she said quietly.
'I thought your Ubth invented greed,' Chomack said.
'Careful that your tongue does not commit a sacrilege that I cannot abide,' Krystarn warned.
'I meant no offense, sorceress, but I've heard of the Spider Queen. Lloth, it is said, weaves webs of betrayals, treacheries, and deceits, and gives them all power by the driving force of greed.'
'You misinterpret,' Krystarn said.
'I don't know what that means, but maybe I was lied to once,' the hobgoblin said. 'I meant only to flatter, and for understanding. After all, I seek a way to achieve my vengeance, not half a way. That is why I must ask for what I ask for.'
Krystarn smiled, thinking that Chomack acquitted himself very well in the negotiations. Perhaps the hobgoblin chieftain was destined for better things. 'Very well, Taker of Dragon's Teeth. You shall have the amount you ask for, but only upon successful completion of the task you undertake for me.'
'I have only one more question to ask, sorceress.'
'What?'
'How do you know that you can trust me?'
Krystarn walked toward the hobgoblin chieftain. She felt powerful, the way a drow female was supposed to feel, the way Lloth had bred them to be. 'I can trust you, Chomack, because as a hobgoblin you are not quite the antithesis of a human, as is such a wide-spread belief. Many of the same values they have, you and yours try to emulate, to bring you on equal footing with them.'
Chomack started to disagree.
'Hold your tongue and hear me out,' Krystarn ordered. 'You are what you are, but you channel and direct yourself. It is not a bad thing. But you asked a question and I am answering it to the best of my ability. Your people live in a military fashion, and the basis of that lifestyle is order and honor.' Neither of which, the drow admitted to herself, did she want in her own life.
'I have been told, sorceress, that honor means nothing to the drow.'
'Indeed it does not,' Krystarn replied. 'But we understand how binding it can be on other species that prize it. I know you will bind yourself because of it.'
'But how can you trust something you don't believe in?'
'By asking you to trust in your own trust, Taker of Dragon's Teeth. Hold, this will only hurt for a moment.' Krystarn laid her forefinger against a bare spot on the hobgoblin's neck. To Chomack's credit, he flinched only a little when her fingernail laid open his flesh in a furrow almost two inches long. The drow plucked a single silver coin from her bag of holding. Working quickly, she warded it, allowing the designs she drew in the air to show as traces of pale green fire.
Chomack paled, but he did not move.
Finished with the spell to permanently mark the coin, the metal still warm to the touch, the drow shoved it into the cut in the hobgoblin's flesh. Chomack staggered only slightly, then regained his footing. Blood seeped down his neck.
'If you think to disappear, this will ensure that you won't,' Krystarn stated. 'No matter where you go, this coin will mark you and I'll find you. If you seek to cut it out of your flesh, the coin will sink further into your body and become poisonous.' What she said was a lie, but the drow knew the hobgoblin chieftain would be too afraid of her power to disbelieve. Reaching into the bag of holding, she took out a small vial of healing potion. Pouring carefully, she sprinkled the area she'd opened up on the hobgoblin's neck and along the side of his face. The torn
