“Stop complaining.” As Kevin dismounted, the woman asked in an undertone, “Before we start spending: you do have the bribe money with you, don’t you?”
The bardling started to pat the purse Count Volmar had given him, but Lydia caught his hand in an angry grip. “Don’t be a fool! You want to bring every thief in town down on us?”
Stung, he straightened. “I am not a fool.”
But Lydia, bargaining with the stable-keep, ignored him. Only after she was finished, and she and the stolid man had shaken on the deal. did she turn back to Kevin.
“I don’t like the idea of you wandering around without a weapon. The first thing we do, kid, is get you a new sword.” She glanced at the elves. “We’ll be back as soon as we can, okay?”
They nodded. Lydia grinned.
“Come on, Kevin.”
As they stepped back out onto the streets of Westerin, the bardling was overwhelmed—and this time not by wonder—While he’d been up on a horse’s back, he’d been raised up out of the worst of it, but now the crowd surrounded him like a noisy, smelly ocean trying to drown him.
“This way,” Lydia called, and he struggled after her. After the first few “Excuse me’s” and “Pardon me’s,” Kevin gave up and pushed and shoved his way like everybody else, elbows jabbing his ribs and feet tromping on his toes—City life might be exciting, but he guessed it wasn’t so glamorous after all!
“Looks like a likely place,” Lydia noted.
Kevin frowned, puzzled. The only indication that this might be a weaponry shop was the sign creaking back and forth over the door, roughly painted with a weather-worn picture of crossed swords. Ah, of course! With all the different races in Westerin, who knew how many of them could actually read the common tongue —or read at all? But anyone could figure out what a simple picture meant!
He followed Lydia inside, and found himself in a small, crowded room, facing a counter piled with a staggering variety of knives. Behind the counter a curtained doorway presumably led to a storeroom, and axes and swords and the occasional shield—its surface left blank so it could be painted with a customer’s coat-of-arms—covered most of the walls.
“What can I do for ya?” a rough but undeniably female voice asked.
Kevin jumped. He could have sworn the room was empty except for Lydia and himself.
“Down here, boy.”
He looked. The look became a stare.
A woman she most certainly was, but one who barely came to his waist—and who was definitely not of human-kind. Buxom and brawny, she was almost as wide around as she was tall, but Kevin suspected that little of that roundness was fat. Her flat, high-cheekboned face was no longer young, and gray streaked the red braids coiled in an intricate knot on her head, but she looked about as fragile as a boulder.
“I’m Grakka, owner of this place.” The woman stopped with an amused snort. “What’s the matter, boy? Never seen a dwarf before?”
“I... uh ... no. I mean, yes. I mean, one of your race stopped in Bracklin once, my—my village. But he was axx! And all the songs say—”
“That dwarves only come in one kind: male?” She gave a sharp bark of a laugh. “Where’d ya think we came from? Jumped up outa rocks all full-grown? Bah, humans! Ya come to gawk, boy, or to buy?”
“To buy,” Lydia said. “The kid needs a new weapon.”
Kevin shook the fragments of the broken sword out of the scabbard. “Can you fix this?”
“What d’ya take me for, a miracle-worker?” Grakka lifted the broken blade to the light, squinting along its length. “Piece a’ junk.”
“A count gave it to me!”
“Then his armorer’s been cheating him.” She pulled aside the curtain, yelling into the back of the store, “Elli! Yo, Elli! Wake up, girl, we got customers! Get me the rack of one-handers—Yeah, that’s the one.”
A slightly smaller figure staggered out with an armload of swords, which she dropped on the counter with a clatter. Kevin stared all over again, but this time in appreciation.
Elli was almost certainly Grakka’s daughter, but even though the bardling couldn’t deny she was almost as squat and powerfully built as her mother, she was still as pretty in her own nonhuman way as any girl in Bracklin. Her eyes were big and blue, sparkling with mischief as she looked at him, her nose was pertly upturned, and her long yellow braids curved smoothly down her simple blue tunic and skirt and the curves of her buxom young body in a way that made Kevin swallow hard.
He froze in panic as she swayed that curvy body to his side.
“I’m Elli. But you already know that. What’s your name?”
“I—I—I’m ... uh ... Kevin.”
“Uh-Kevin?” she teased.
“N-no. Just Kevin.”
“That’s a nice name.” She fixed her big blue eyes on his face. “Do you think my name is nice, too?”
“I—”
“Elli!” her mother snapped, “Stop bothering the boy. You, boy, come here.”
Elli flounced away, pouting deliriously. Sheepishly, Kevin went up to the counter. “Here,” Grakka said shortly. “Try this.”
Kevin looked at the sword in dismay. “It’s so ...”
“Plain?” Grakka finished. “Pretty never won battles. Go ahead. Try it out.”
Kevin took a few practice swings, then tried an experimental pass or two. He straightened, smiling. “I like it. It feels ... right.”
“Good. Because from what your warrior buddy here tells me, there’s no time to design a sword specially for you.” She gave him a speculative glance. “Too bad. It’s always a challenge to make a sword that’ll be useful for a reasonable while for you younglings who are still changing build almost every day.” Grakka shrugged. “Ah well, some other time. That’ll be five gold crowns.”
“Five ...”
“Go wait outside,” Lydia murmured to him. “I’ll take care of this.”
Kevin knew that an adventurer as professional as Lydia would know how to bargain much better than someone from a small town. But that didn’t stop him from feeling a surge of annoyance at being sent away like a little boy.
“Hi, Kevin,” a voice purred.
“Uh, hi, Elli.”
She smiled up at him as brightly as a sunny day. “I have to spend all my time in this dull old place. I never get to go anywhere. But an adventurer like you must have seen all kinds of wonderful things.”
Westerin rfaff?
“I, uh ... “ Kevin wasn’t about to confess the truth about Bracklin and his drab life to this lovely creature. “Sure. Why don’t we sit down “—he patted a bench along the wall—” and I’ll tell you all about them.”
Maybe this wasn’t going to be such a painful wait after all. Kevin began weaving a tale of Bardic wonder about his adventures in Count Volmar’s casde and on the road to Westerin. As Elli stared at him adoringly, he turned the skirmish with the bandits into epic adventure, spinning it out until he and his party had overcome a whole army of outlaws.
“Why, that’s wonderful!” Elli breathed, edging closer to him.
She was, he discovered, wearing some sort of sweet, flowery perfume, a heady scent Warily, he let his hand slide towards her, and felt a shock race through him when her own small hand, rough with work but delicate all the same, closed about his fingers. Breathless, the bardling sat frozen, not daring to move, wondering what would happen if he tried to put an arm around her. About him the bustle of Westerin seemed as distant and remote as a dream.