Thornhold - Elaine Cunningham [4]
The duergar started to work up another wad of spittle, then apparently decided a more dramatic gesture was in order. He pantomimed drawing a knife and plunging it into his heart. “Sooner that, than take a hundred gold!” he swore. “Four hundred, and the axe.”
“The axe alone is worth five hundred, easily.”
“Net likely! But since you and me go back a ways, even trade-the stones for the axe.”
Bronwyn sniffed. “I’ll give you two hundred gold, but you can forget the axe.”
The duergar slammed the table with a slate-colored fist, incensed at the thought of losing this prize. “Gimme the axe, and the two hundred gold, and call it a deal. Call it a theft, is more like it!”
Bronwyn took the complaints in stride. She had expected protests; in fact, it seemed to her that the duergar had given in far too easily. There was more trouble to come-of that, she was certain. That puzzled her, given the presence of the duergar lad.
“Done.” She placed a bag on the table. “Two hundred gold, paid out in five-weight platinum coins. Go ahead and count it.”
A hint of red suffused the duergar’s gray face. Most likely, Bronwyn surmised, he couldn’t count that high, much less cipher out the coin exchange. “No need,” he muttered. “You’re good for it.”
Bronwyn noted, not without satisfaction, that the duergar spoke whole and simple truth for what might have been the first time in his life. She prized the reputation she’d worked hard to earn. Promise made, promise kept.
In a few words, she told them where they would find the second part of their payment. “The axe is yours, you have my word on that. It’ll take time to get to it, that’s all-time that I’ll use to put some hard road between us. I haven’t forgotten what happened after our last deal.”
“Me, neither. I was sorry to lose Brimgrumph. He was a good hand at fighting, but he got too much in the habit of it. Didn’t know when to quit,” the duergar said piously.
It was the longest speech Bronwyn had heard from him, and the most self-serving. If the ambush that had capped their last transaction had succeeded, this duergar would no doubt have been quick to claim his share of the take. But it had failed, and his henchman had died. Bronwyn’s steely gaze announced that she rejected his attempt to slough off the responsibility.
“Cross me once, expect me to watch you. But cross me twice, you best watch out for me,” she warned.
The duergar shrugged. “Fair enough,” he agreed. Too easy again, Bronwyn thought. As the silent duergar pocketed the gold, Bronwyn gathered up the necklace and loosened the strings on her bag. Not a common bag, but one that she’d bought from a Halruaan wizard at a cost that represented nearly a year’s worth of sales. The thing was worth every copper. It was a magical tunnel that whisked whatever she tucked inside to a well-guarded safe in Curious Past, her shop in an elegant section of Waterdeep. Bronwyn had learned long ago one basic truth about the business of acquiring rare antiquities. Finding them was one thing; keeping them was another matter entirely.
A small movement caught her eye and stayed her hand. The stone knife she had borrowed moved of its own accord- not much, but a little, just enough so that the tip pointed to the amber in her hand.
Lodestone, Bronwyn realized. The knife had been carved from a stone that felt and followed the energies in metal- or in this case, in amber. The duergar meant to track her and reclaim the necklace once they thought themselves beyond the traps that she always lay to cover her retreat.
Cross me twice, she thought grimly.
She kept her expression carefully neutral as she rose from her stone seat. She even turned her back as she walked away, allowing the duergar spokesperson time