Free 03 - Sword of Vengeance by Chris Wraight - (ebook by Undead) Page B

borders and Averheim sat squarely on the trade routes
between Karak Angazhar and the heart of the Empire. There was money in the place
too, and every fat merchant who’d made his fortune shunting cattle from the
pasture to the slaughter-house had wives and daughters who needed draping in
lines of pearls or traceries of silver, so the jewellery business had prospered
with them.
    Some of the craftsmen were Averland-bred, plucked from the
rural heartland and put to work at the forges or with the hammer. Over the
centuries, the fame of the jewellery quarter had grown and artisans from further
afield had settled there. Most came from Nuln, bringing new devices with them
and a penchant for mechanical innovation, but there were also dwarfs, drawn as
ever by the prospect of making money through the manipulation of the things they
loved: steel, iron, gold and gromril. The stunted folk kept themselves to
themselves, shunning the company of their human counterparts unless some deal
needed to be struck or supplies of stones were running low. So it was that they
formed a community within a community in Averheim, locked in their own arcane
world of contracts and grudges, tolerated by their hosts but seldom interfered
with.
    Such isolation brought certain advantages. The dwarfs didn’t
involve themselves in human affairs, and were as happy serving under a Leitdorf
or an Alptraum as they would have been under a Raukov or a Todbringer. Happy,
that is, as long as they weren’t over-taxed and were given free rein to market
their creations.
    That made the dwarf-smiths of Averland useful contacts for
men of a certain profession. If the gold flowed, then they would be more
discreet than a corpse. Of course, getting them to trust anyone but a member of
their own clan was hard. It took persistence, patience, a working knowledge of
the simpler forms of Khazalid, plenty of money and a formidable power of
persuasion. Not many humans could boast all of those. Pieter Verstohlen, on the
other hand, could.
    So it was that the spy sat, knees up almost against his
chest, sitting on a three-legged stool in the forge of the master jewelsmith
Rossik Valgrind. Before him the fire glowed angrily, throwing red light across
the dark interior. Around the hearth hung metal objects of various kinds. Some
were familiar—tongs, clamps, bellows and fine-headed hammers. Others looked
like nothing Verstohlen had seen before, and their uses could only be guessed
at.
    The owner of the forge himself worked at the back of the
chamber, ignoring Verstohlen and tapping away at a ring of gromril. His gnarled
hands worked with astonishing speed and precision, caressing and moulding the
metal as if it were a child’s forelock. His naked arms were like corded leather,
wound about with brass wire and latticed with tattoos. He smelled of scorched
flesh, hot metal and charred oil, and his beard was wiry and truncated from a
thousand singes.
    He didn’t speak, and the only sound to escape his bearded
lips was the occasional grunt of satisfaction as the jewellery gradually took
shape under his hammers. The deal he’d made with Verstohlen had been for a place
to meet only. There’d been no payment for conversation, so he didn’t provide
any.
    There was a tap on the door leading out from the forge and
onto the street. Valgrind kept working, ignoring everything but his art.
Verstohlen clambered up from the low stool and reached for the latch. Outside,
wrapped in a long cloak, stood Tochfel. Verstohlen beckoned him in and closed
the door behind him. The afternoon light stung his eyes after the occlusion of
the forge.
    “Glad you could make it, Steward,” said Verstohlen, pulling
up a stool. The two of them sat before the hearth. In the background, Valgrind
worked away as if nothing had happened.
    “Safe to talk?” whispered Tochfel, casting anxious looks in
the dwarf’s direction.
    “Absolutely,” said Verstohlen, speaking normally.