The common room was crowded and loud. Most of the patrons seemed to be foreigners-Thentian and Melvauntian merchants in the doublets or quilted jerkins and square caps favored in those cities, Mulmasterites with their double baldrics and dueling swords low on their hips, and even a few sullen dwarf craftsmen in heavy fur and iron. A handful of Hulburgans were scattered through the crowd, notable because they tended to be much plainer in dress than the merchants and traders of other cities. Most people in Hulburg preferred a plain hooded cloak and a simple tunic and leggings to the less practical fashions of the bigger cities, since Hulburg was still something of a frontier town, and its people valued warmth and comfort over style. “Where did all these outlanders come from?” Geran wondered aloud. “The town’s full of them.”
“Doubtless most of the natives had the good sense to leave, as you did.”
“Hmmph.” Geran shook his head. Hulburg had been a sleepy little backwater ten years ago when he had set out to see Faerun, but it seemed that was no longer the case. He realized that he’d seen more foreigners in the streets than native Hulburgans in their short walk up from the docks-men and women in the colors of merchant costers, guilds, and companies from all over the Moonsea. “I wasn’t gone that long. It’s only been ten years. Eight, really.”
You spent too much time with the elves in Myth Drannor, Hamil answered him without speaking. He was a ghost-wise halfling, and his people could make their thoughts heard when they wished. I think they bewitched you, Geran. Ten years is a long time for humans or halflings alike. You’ve forgotten how the rest of us reckon the years.
Geran frowned but made no reply. The two companions chose a table in a far corner of the room and worked their way through a serviceable supper of stew, black bread, and smoked fish. The Sleeping Dragon charged five silver pennies for their board, but at least they included a flagon of passable southern wine with the meal-though Geran doubted that it had ever been within a hundred miles of Sembia. He poured himself two cups and stopped, not wanting to dull himself before finishing the journey. There would be time for that later.
“You haven’t said much about your friend Jarad,” Hamil said after a time.
“Jarad? No, I suppose I haven’t.” Geran returned his attention to his small companion. “He was my closest friend when we were growing up. Once upon a time we were the young kings of this town. We hunted every hilltop and valley for ten miles around, we explored dozens of old ruins, we pilfered and begged and charmed our way through the streets, getting ourselves into more sorts of trouble than you can imagine. We taught ourselves swordplay and picked some fights that we shouldn’t have, but somehow we always came through it. Mirya-that’s Jarad’s sister-and my cousin Kara followed after us as often as not. The four of us were inseparable.” Geran smiled even though the memories made his heart ache. “Hulburg may not seem like much compared to Tantras or Mulmaster, but it was a good place to grow up.”
“Jarad remained in Hulburg when you left?”
“He did. I was anxious to try myself against the world. I couldn’t stand the idea of boxing myself up in this town, but Jarad didn’t see things that way. So I went to study in Thentia, and then I traveled to Procampur to study from the swordmasters there and fell in with the Dragonshields, and I even visited Myth Drannor and lived among the elves for a time-as you well know. Jarad stayed here and became a captain of the Shieldsworn, the harmach’s guards. More than once I tried to talk him into joining me in Tantras or Procampur, but he never had my restlessness. He used to tell me that he had too much to look after right here in Hulburg, but I think he simply liked it here better than anywhere else. He just didn’t see a reason to leave.” Geran drained his cup and set it down. “All right. I think it’s time to call on my family.”
They left a few coppers on the table and made their way outside. The sun had set, and the wind battered at shutters and doors with bitterly cold gusts. Signboards creaked and swayed. The few streetlamps in sight guttered and danced wildly, and people hurried from door to door clutching their cloaks tight around their bodies.
“Charming,” Hamil said with a shiver. The halfling hailed from the warm lands of the south, and he’d never gotten used to the chill of more northerly lands. “I can’t believe that people choose to live in places like this.”
“Winter’s worse,” Geran answered. He turned right and set off along High Street, trying his best to ignore the cold. He was a native Hulburgan, after all, and he was not about to let Hamil see that it bothered him too. They came to the small square by the Assayer’s House, a rambling old stone building where the harmach’s officials oversaw the trade in gold dust and mining claims, and descended the stairs leading down to the Middle Bridge and Cinder Way. Once that part of town had been given over to several big smelters, but some sixty years ago Lendon Hulmaster had moved the stink and slag of the furnaces a mile to the east, downwind of the town. Afterward a crowded district of workshops and poorly built rowhouses known as the Tailings had grown up in place of the smelters.
Geran remembered the Tailings as a sparsely inhabited and poor neighborhood, but it seemed it had taken a turn for the worse since he’d last been home. Outlanders crowded every dilapidated house or hovel-dirty and sullen men who gathered around firepits, staring at the two travelers as they passed. Who are these people? Geran wondered again. Miners with no claims to work? Laborers indentured to one of the guilds or merchant companies? Or just more of the rootless wanderers who seemed to collect like last year’s leaves, blown here and there by the winds of ill fortune? The towns and cities of Faerun were full of such men, especially in the years since the Spellplague.
Geran, Hamil said silently. The swordsman sensed his small companion’s sudden alertness and slowed his steps. He followed Hamil’s gaze and saw what the halfling saw-a gang of five men watching over the street. Three lounged on the sagging stoop of a dismal alehouse, and two gathered around a firepit on the opposite side of the street. They carried cudgels and knives, and each man wore a red-dyed leather gauntlet wrapped in chains on his left hand. Crimson Chains. Slavers.
“I see them,” Geran answered. A slaving company from the city of Melvaunt, the Crimson Chain had a bad name throughout the Moonsea. He’d met them a few times in the Vast, but he never would have expected to find them in Hulburg. The harmachs had outlawed slaving long before he’d been born, and it was a law they kept rigorously. Geran’s mouth tightened, but he kept walking. The Chainsmen might have some legitimate business in Hulburg, he told himself. And even if they didn’t, it wasn’t his place to object. The Shieldsworn would roust them out if they intended trouble.
“Not so fast, friends.” One of the Chainsmen-a short, stocky man with a shaven head and a long, drooping mustache-stepped down from the alehouse stoop into their path. He grinned crookedly, but his eyes were hard and cold. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before, hey? You’ve some dues to pay.”
Geran scowled. He’d seen this sort of thing more than once, but never before in Hulburg. In any event, he was not inclined to pay off thugs anywhere as long as he had good steel on his hip. “Dues? What exactly do I owe dues for, and who’s collecting?”
The bald Chainsman studied Geran with a shark’s smile. “There are lots of bad sorts about, you know. I’m Roldo. My boys and I keep order in the Tailings. Your dues buy you safe passage, my friends. Everybody pays.”
Hamil rolled his eyes. “And how much are your dues?” he asked.
“How much’ve you got?” another one of the slavers asked.
“More than I’d care to part with.”
“Then hand over your purse, little man, and I’ll see how much you can afford,” the Chainsman Roldo said. He spat on the ground. “We’re reasonable fellows, after all.”
Geran studied the Chainsmen surrounding them. Five on the street and possibly more in the alehouse or another place nearby, and most looked like they knew how to use the cudgels at their belts. It would be easier to play their game and buy them off with a couple of silver pennies, but the thought of paying for safe passage in his own hometown did not sit well with him.
Besides, he told himself, they’re probably not as reasonable as they say they are.
Deliberately, Geran let his duffel drop and shrugged his cloak over his shoulder, revealing the backsword at his hip. Harassing two nondescript passersby was one thing for a gang of ruffians, but a man carrying a blade might know how to use it. Hoping the Chainsmen might see things that way, he rested his hand on the pommel. “I think we’ll look after ourselves,” he said easily. “Now, if you don’t mind…?”
The slaver’s face darkened, and his false humor fell away. He scowled and jerked his head, and the Chainsmen nearby pushed themselves to their feet and started to close in around Geran and Hamil.
“You don’t understand, friends,” Roldo rasped. “Half the ditchdiggers and dirtgrubbers in this town wear steel, hey. I ain’t seen one yet who knows what to do with it. Everybody pays. And your dues are getting steeper.”
