Free A Magic Broken by Vox Day Page B

gold: As I would not have you suffer any loss for the services you have rendered to the crown, do allow me to compensate you for it.”
    Lodi hid a satisfied smile beneath his beard as the mage produced a small, heavy-looking leather bag, which he was certain contained at least ten coins. Gold, he hoped. Any thought of warning the elfess of the Savonder’s role in her enslavement vanished—he’d thought to get only five or six out of the wood elves.
    He knew a moment’s pang of shame when the pair mounted horses and the elfess looked back to wave at him and his four companions. But then he recalled another time when he’d seen elves on horseback, a time when he’d watched in utter despair as two thousand elves rode away, and he turned his back on the southbound pair with a clean conscience.
    “You didn’t help us at Iron Mountain,” he growled under his breath. “Did you now.”
    “What’s that?” Thorald asked him as he reached up to pat a horse’s nose. Besides Lodi, he was the only dwarf who wasn’t terrified of the huge beasts.
    Lodi had decided to keep the five remaining horses. They would journey on foot in the same direction as the wizard and the elf had gone, sell the horses at the first Man town along the way, then strike out northeast through the wilds until they reached the safety of the mountains. And he would buy a crossbow or three, he reminded himself.
    Lodi grunted. “Get a move on, lads. It’s an evil sign when men are getting to be as devious as bloody elves. We got a long way to walk before we get home, and I want a thousand tonnes of rock over my head before those foolish Man wizards start learning what a bad idea it is to wake a dragon.”
     
     
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