Daughter of the Drow - Elaine Cunningham [81]
The Rashemi took a stool beside his guide. Saida, the innkeeper, bustled over to them with a steaming bowl in each hand. She was a plump, brisk matron with nut-brown hair, and she wore a no-nonsense expression and a thick shawl of practical gray wool. But the vest she wore over her chemise was tightly laced and bright red. It was the first gfint of color Fyodor had seen in this dismal place, and he took that as an encouraging sign. He greeted the woman pleasantly. "Good-day, Saida. Can you tell me where I can buy some travel supplies?"
I've got plenty of supplies on hand," she replied. "What do you need?*
Fyodor listed dried trail food, a length of rope, and as many pitch torches as he could reasonably carry. Tosker choked on a mouthful of ale and turned narrowed eyes on _tihe young man.
"Sounds like you're planning to go Below. Only a fool would do that."
"Yes, you are probably right," Fyodor said mildly, and took a long pull at his mug. The brew was bitter, but it filled his too-empty stomach with a pleasant heat.
"If it be drow you seek, you needn't leave this accursed valley to find them," came a quavering voice from the corner of the room.
Fyodor turned. A wizened man hauled himself out of his chair and staggered toward the bar. His face was crisscrossed with old scars, and the lid of one eye sank deep over an empty socket. Though the morning was young, he had clearly been drinking for some time and was already long past the point of discretion.
"Be quiet, you old fool," Saida snapped.
But the man stumbled closer to the bar, too deep in his ate and his memories to be deterred by her words. "Every year they come," he muttered, his scarred face haggard with remembered horrors. "Every year. Can't never tell when, but usually they strike during moondark."
Fyodor did some quick calculations. The moon had been waning the night he followed the drow thieves into the magic gate. If he had wandered in the Underdark for three or four days, then this would indeed be the time of the new moon. That would explain the repairs to the walls, the penned animals, the general sense of foreboding. But what of the frantic preparations for the spring market?
"If your village is hi danger, is it not strange to hold a fair?" he asked. "Or are the merchants in these lands not afraid of such a threat?"
"They would be plenty afraid, if they knew about it," Saida said grimly. "The caravans have usually come and gone by now. But the river's high this year, and the caravans late in coming. They dont like to stop here, us being so far off the path and all. If the drow attack while the merchants are here, it will likely be the last spring caravan to come through Trollbridge. And then, I ask you, what are we to do?"
A man several seats from Fyodor slammed down his mug. "All the more reason why we should hunt down the drow fiends before they can strike," he growled. "Stake their bloody corpses out in the fields to scare away the crows."
A muttered chorus of agreement rose from the bar, and the sheer hatred in the villagers' voices sent a prickle of revulsion down Fyodor's spine. He pushed aside his half-eaten bowl of porridge, his hunger forgotten. He was about to ask Saida the cost of the meal when the dark-bearded man to his left elbowed him.
"You're a likely-looking young fellow. If n you know how to use that sword you carry, you might do well to stay around Trollbridge a few days. One man's nightmare is another man's opportunity, I always say."
The bearded man drew a leather thong from beneath his jerkin. Suspended from it was a dark, triangular bit of leather. Although it had been dried and tanned, it was unmistakably an elven ear. The man brandished the trophy in Fyodor's face.
"The wizard rulers of Nesme are ready