Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [119]
“What does it want?” one of the dwarves behind him hissed.
“A better song?” snapped Ebenezer. “Do I know everything there is to know about this city? Step lively, now!”
They stepped, with a liveliness that had the lot of them huffing like a gnome-built tea kettle.
“Gotta get back to the clanhold,” Tarlamera moaned.
Ebenezer shook his head and pointed to the road ahead. The streets were getting narrower, and the tall, timber-framed buildings crowded so close that dwellers in the top floors could lean out and kiss their neighbors, providing they were on good enough terms. They were coming up on the Street of Smiths, and black smoke from a dozen forges rose into the sky.
Many of the houses-the foundations at least and sometimes up to the second floor-were masoned over with stone as a deterrent to fire. If a body squinted just so, he could pretend they were cavern walls.
“Kinda cozy, isn’t it?” he said hopefully.
Tarlamera snorted again.
As they rounded the corner to Brian’s Street, a huge, utterly bald man came striding to meet them. He came to Ebenezer and stuck out his hand. “You’d be the Stoneshaft clan,” he said. “Brian here. Been expecting you.”
Ebenezer gave the ham-sized hand a good squeeze, which was returned with a force that made his eyes cross. “He’s a smith, all right,” he told Tarlamera.
His sister was doing her own evaluation. Her eyes scanned the man from his bald head to his massive, graystreaked black beard, measuring the width of his shoulders and arms heavily corded with muscle and blackened with soot. “He’s a likely-looking lad,” she admitted, and then sighed. “All right, boy, let’s see this forge of yours.”
* * * * *
During the voyage back to Waterdeep, Bronwyn had managed to decipher some of the code in the slave ship’s log. Enough, at least, to assure her that Grunion was owned by the Zhentarim. No large surprise, that, considering the destruction of Thornhold and the capture of the dwarves by Zhentish soldiers.
But what of Cara? What was there about the ring she wore that attracted the ire of the Zhentarim, that they would steal children away from their homes? Cara’s father, whoever and wherever he was, might also be in danger.
That thought spurred Bronwyn as she made her way into Dock Ward. This unknown man was her kin. Perhaps he had answers for her that Hronulf had not lived to give. That possibility made the chance she was about to take worthwhile.
She hurried to the Sleeping Snake, a rough and noisy tavern where thieves of many races gathered to trade stories, blows, and stolen goods. The Zhentarim contact she had used a few times before frequented the tavern.
Raucous laughter burst out into the street when Bronwyn shouldered open the door and pushed her way into the crowded room. The smell of stale ale and staler bodies assaulted her. Most of the dockhands who came to drink here didn’t bother to bathe after a hard day’s work. She spotted the informer-a dockhand and occasional assassin-slumped over a table near the hearth.
He glanced up when she kicked at his chair. “Well,” he asked drunkenly, “what are you looking for this time?”
She bent down low so that she could speak the words in a normal voice rather than shouting. “A man who recently lost a child.”
He leaned back and eyed her with speculation. “Don’t have much use for brats, myself”
“No one’s asking you to have anything to do with this one. Have you heard anything?”
“Can’t say I have. Who’s this man that got shed of his brat?”
“His name is Doon. He’s a dark man, probably not exceptionally tall.”
There was a flicker in the man’s eyes, but he shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t help you,” he said as he reached for his mug.
Bronwyn caught his wrist. “Can’t, or won’t?”
He shook her off and turned aside in obvious dismissal. “One way or another, it’s much the same to you.”
A trickle of fear ran down Bronwyn’s spine. Always before, this man had tried to sell her something,