Sword of the Gods - Bruce R. Cordell [59]
Finally the sun dipped beneath the Akanawater Falls where the facing cliffs of Airspur came together. The light shone with brilliant gold for a couple instants, then gave way to the spreading twilight.
She stood. Lounging in the square wasn’t as comfortable without the sun’s warm caress. Her neck was stiff from reclining, so she rolled her head around in slow circles.
Demascus emerged from the shop. He scanned the square with a worried frown until he saw her. She nodded greeting.
“Did you get any rest?” he said.
She nodded again.
“Good. So did we. Let’s go see your friend.”
“All right. Hold on.” Riltana pushed past Demasus into the shop.
The pawnbroker was hunched over his counter, chopping jerky with a cleaver. Fable was winding around his legs meowing as if she hadn’t eaten in a tenday.
Chant glanced up as Riltana entered. He said as if embarrassed, “She won’t eat if the pieces aren’t small enough.”
“Of course. Say, shopkeep?”
“Yes?”
“What kind of weapons do you have on hand? Besides that cleaver, I mean. I lost my short sword beneath the Sepulcher. And a handful of daggers too.”
Chant looked at Demascus, who had followed Riltana back into the shop. “Can you finish this?”
“Uh, sure.” The tattooed man picked up where the pawnbroker left off, though with less speed and precision. Fable’s meows grew more pitiful and strident as she was forced to endure waiting even longer. Oh, the abuse! thought Riltana, and smiled.
The human directed her to a case containing a battle axe, a crossbow, and a set of matching long swords with lacquered handles. She opened her mouth to patiently explain the difference between a dagger and a battle axe, but Chant pulled open one of the wide, narrow drawers beneath the display to reveal five short swords.
She closed her mouth and examined the hardware. A couple pieces were clearly decorative, but three were real weapons. A sword has to be designed for its intended use. The three she’d identified were all no-nonsense lengths of steel, but one was pattern-welded, and it tapered in thickness from the base of the blade to the point in a way that told Riltana, at a mere glance, that it was a fine piece of workmanship. Its hilt was tightly wrapped with leather that may have once been dyed white, though hard use had caused the color to darken. A snowflake was etched into the blade near the guard.
“Does that engraving have any significance?” she said.
“The fellow who pawned it didn’t say so; he’d have pointed it out if the blade possessed some kind of enchantment. ’Course, it’s possible the blade was stolen. Maybe it does mean something.” He shrugged.
She plucked it from the drawer and gave it a few experimental swings and thrusts. “I’ll take this one,” she said.
“Good choice.”
He closed the drawer, and opened another one a few down from the first. A random mess of daggers cluttered the compartment. None were decorative; all were equal opportunity lengths of death. She smiled, and selected twelve.
“And how about restorative backup; got any more of those potions? I always like to carry at least one.”
Chant nodded, and produced a vial filled with a thumb of blue liquid. She palmed it, and the elixir disappeared.
“Light sources?” she asked.
The man motioned to a rack of candles, lanterns, sun-rods, and torches. She grabbed a sunrod.
“How much for everything?” she said as she secreted the daggers in the various concealed sheaths stitched into her armor.
Chant named a figure, she made a counteroffer, and so it went until she finally sheathed the short sword in her over-the-shoulder scabbard. The pawnbroker grinned and accepted her last proposal.
Fully equipped again, she thought. Let Kalkan find me now!
Demascus finished chopping. He scraped the litter of jerky into a bowl and set it on the