Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [120]
Bronwyn nodded and worked her way back to the bar. The fighting had spread into the main floor, and it would be a while before she could get to the door. She ordered an ale and took a stool to wait out the storm.
A hand seized her arm. Bronwyn spun, gripping the hilt of her knife. She measured the man with a glance and decided that this would be an easy battle. Though still south of mid-life, he was the thinnest, frailest person she had ever encountered. The spark of life had apparently drained from his body to center its last flame in his small black eyes.
“Move your hand, or I’ll slice it off,” she said in an even voice.
The man halted her with an impatient gesture, an upraised palm. Her eyes bulged. Tattooed, or perhaps branded, into his palm was the emblem of the evil god Bane-a small, black hand.
Instinctively she eased away, raised both of her hands in conciliation. Though the god himself was considered dead and gone, and no longer a power to be feared, Bronwyn had no desire to tangle with someone who purported to be an acolyte of such evil.
“I heard you. You want a man who is seeking a child. Where is this man?” he insisted in a voice that recalled a viper’s hiss.
Bronwyn licked her lips nervously. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. If you know anything of him, I’d be willing to trade for the information.”
A terrible chuckle wheezed from the former priest’s lips. “If the item you have to barter is his yellow hide, then you have a deal, wench. I want him. I want him dead,” he specified, as if there could be any doubt concerning his intentions.
Bronwyn quickly weighed the risk against the possible gain. If this priest had knowledge of Cara’s father, she really had no choice but to endure conversation with a Banite and accept the danger inherent in such company. She reached for her mug and signaled the barkeep to bring another drink for her “friend.”
“I don’t know where he is, but I’d be happy to turn him over to you once I locate him. Because of the child,” she said quickly, when he turned a suspicious stare upon her.
“Alt” He smirked, then tossed back the contents of the mug the barkeep set before him. “Your tale rings true. He always was one to walk away from what he started.”
A horrible suspicion took root in Bronwyn’s eyes. “He was once a follower of Bane?” she asked, striving mightily to keep her voice neutral.
“That he was. Defected, the damn traitor,” he sneered, raising and clenching his fists.
Bronwyn let out her breath in a long sigh. The possibility that Cara’s father might be a follower of an evil god was chilling, but, perhaps, in seeing the error of his ways he had made enemies. It was better so than that he should earn the fate of the man beside her, with his skeletal face and wild eyes. Bereft of spells, cut off from the source of evil power, the former priest of Bane was little more than an insane shell.
“When I find Doon, I will send word here,” she said, her mind racing as she planned how she could kept this promise without endangering Cara’s father. “I will write the name of the place where he might be found on a sketch of a black dragon and post it on the cloakroom door. Watch for it.”
“Doon? What are you talking about, wench? The man’s name is Dag Zoreth.”
She quickly covered her surprise. “Of course,” she said with feigned bitterness. “He would not want to be known by the name he gave to a woman he’d betrayed and abandoned. He was always cautious. Most likely, he is also frank and earnest-Frank in Luskan, and Ernest in Neverwinter!”
To her surprise, the hoary old jest earned a wheezing chuckle from the Banite. She supposed that, in the company he was accustomed to keeping, humor was not a common commodity.
Bronwyn rose and tossed several silver coins onto the counter and nodded her intent to the barkeep. “Drink what you will, with my thanks, until the coins run out.”
She left quickly, while the former priest was still