The Queen of Stone_ Thorn of Breland - Keith Baker [49]
Beren made the introductions for the Brelish. That left one more stranger at the table—the man sitting next to Thorn. As disturbed as she’d been by the place card indicating her secret name, her dinner companion proved a worthy distraction. No chair waited at his place, merely a massive bearskin spread out across the floor. His tankard was the size of a barrel, and his crystal plate as wide as a wagon’s wheel. The oversized setting was novelty enough, but then the guest arrived.
He was a giant.
No mere ogre, but a true giant … a creature Thorn had only heard of in the tales explorers brought back from Xen’drik. As Thorn had seen, the ogres—and even the oni—were quite bestial in appearance; no one could mistake them for humans. The newcomer had no such fearsome demeanor—no fangs, no claws, no horns on his forehead. His skin was jet black, his hair the brilliant red of a bonfire, and he was extremely muscular. Setting aside the color of his skin, at a great distance he could easily have been mistaken for a dwarf of the Mror Holds, a proud miner baron. Up close, it was obvious that he was over three times the height of a man, and that he could crush Thorn’s head between his thumb and forefinger. Even sitting on the floor, he towered over the table.
“I am the Warlord Gorodan, called the Ashlord,” he said. His voice was bass thunder, and the wine in their goblets shook with the sound. “I am to be your host for this miserable evening. Ask what you will of me … but be warned.” He set a massive hand on the table, shaking everything on it. “I am hungry and I am cold, and I have no patience for the foolish questions of little men. Now let us EAT!”
The last comment was directed to the room at large. Gorodan’s speaking voice was loud enough; when he shouted, Thorn could feel the force of it. The command sent the goblins scurrying, and within moments food began to arrive.
After her earlier experience with the pixie sticks, Thorn chose to avoid anything she couldn’t identify, but that still left many options. She knew that gorgon was safe, and it wasn’t an easy dish to find in Breland. The sauce was a savory blend of wine and firepeppers; Thorn wondered if the Daughters had imported chefs who understood human tastes, or if they ate such food themselves. Beren’s tale of Sora Maenya rose in the back of her mind, and she had a vision of the hag preparing a wine glaze for the three children she had just killed; she shivered and tried to force the image away. Suddenly she wasn’t hungry any more.
Her companions were pleasant enough. Munta was surprisingly good company; hobgoblins were known as warriors, but Lhesh Haruuc of Darguun had chosen his envoy well. Soon everyone but the giant was laughing at Munta’s tale of the goblin smith trapped inside the suit of plate mail. Councilor Sarin surprised them with a war story; not a tale of the Last War, but an account of a battle fought deep within the Seawall Mountains between kobolds and gnome jewel miners. Sarin had begun his political career as a foreman in the mines.
Councilor Dorian had a talent for weaving illusions, and as Sil Sarin told his tale, she recreated it with shimmering figures of light; even the sullen giant was drawn in by the show. At the end, as everyone cheered the clever victory, Sarin scattered a handful of rubies across the table, gems from the very mine of the tales. The councilor asked everyone to take a ruby as a memory of the evening. Even Toli seemed pleased as he took a ruby; while he hated the Thranes, the gnomes of Zilargo had been strong allies of Breland in the last years of the war.
Clever play, Thorn thought. Beren placed his ruby in his belt pouch, and Thorn slipped it out as he reached for the flagon of wine. Such an object was an ideal target for scrying magic. Assuming the gnomes had a diviner in their party, this friendly