“Citrine,” she said. “A type of quartz. Not as valuable as some of the other stuff we’ve been takin’, but that one’ll cut really fine. More valuable because of its size, though.”
“How’d you learn so much about gems?”
She puffed herself up, smiling. “Dhamon Grimwulf, I decided at a very young age that I wasn’t gonna be poor like my parents. So I fell in with a small guild of thieves. My dad… my parents’re both half-elves… anyway, my dad disowned me, he did, not that I minded. Said he didn’t approve of how I made my livin’. My folks were horribly poor, barely makin’ their way as fishermen in a village on the shore of Blood Bay.” She shook her head as if casting off the inconvenient memory. There was no trace of regret in her eyes. “The guild schooled me—in all the things important to becomin’ wealthy. Such as how to recognize good stones, how to tell which houses are likely filled with the most valuables, where to fence things, how to pick pockets and cut coin purses from a man’s belt. I’d still be with them if I hadn’t tried to pick Mal’s pocket when he was strollin’ big-as-you-please along the Sanction docks. Caught me, he did—and took me in and taught me other things, like how to rob merchant wagons and scam folks and to always be movin’. No roots sproutin’ from the bottoms of my feet anymore. No percentage to give the guild.” She studied his face a moment. “Why hadn’t you asked me before now?”
Dhamon shrugged. “I guess I wasn’t curious.” She discarded a cracked chunk of opal, picked up another large piece of citrine and passed it to him. “Wonder how Mal is doin’?” she mused, looking around a gypsum outcropping and searching for the big man. “There he is. Way down there.” She watched Maldred a moment, enjoying the view his sweat-slick, muscular body presented, then she waved. But Maldred wasn’t looking in her direction. He was staring up and to his right, and his hand was reaching for the great sword strapped to his back. “Trouble,” she hissed, turning her head to see what had caught his attention. “Fetch got himself into more trouble. He’s worthless.”
Dhamon sped by her, navigating around the gypsum spires, dropping his sack of gems as he tugged the broadsword from his belt.
Maldred reached Fetch just as another two dwarves appeared. “A half-dozen,” the big man growled. “And there’ll be more coming if we don’t take them out quick. Might be more coming anyway.” He immediately sized up his opponents. “Stay down,” he told the kobold. Then he was dodging quarrels from their crossbow bolts, bringing his sword around to parry some that «thwanged» off the blade as he scrabbled over the loose gravel and gems. As he neared, he shouldered his sword, bent down, and scooped up a handful of rocks, bringing his arm over his back and hurling them at the closest dwarf. Several found their marks, and one of the dwarves dropped his crossbow and rubbed furiously at his eyes.
The others were loosening battle-axes from their waists and readying to meet Maldred’s charge. He shouted as he closed the distance. “You haven’t a chance against me! Lose your weapons and I’ll spare your lives!”
The thickest of the quartet laughed loud and deep. He stopped only when Maldred was upon them, swinging his massive blade. The sword practically cut the lead dwarf in two, and then Maldred drew back the weapon and brought it down to cleave off the arm of another dwarf. One of the others started scrambling up the hill, calling for support, this being the one who had laughed so heartily. The rest gritted their teeth and one hollered, “Die, trespasser!”
“Life is precious,” Maldred said as he drew back his blade again, muscles tensing and veins bulging. “You are very foolish to throw it away.”
The dwarves were dead by the time Dhamon reached Maldred. Dhamon sheathed his sword, knelt, and tugged a thong free from one of the dwarves’ necks. Dangling from it was a large, beautifully cut diamond, the largest he’d seen. Dhamon hung it around his own neck and started searching the other bodies, retrieving finished stones set in gold and silver and stuffing them into his pockets.
The big man was shielding his eyes from the light of the crystals in the rocks and craning his neck up the mountainside, looking for the dwarf who got away. “Can’t see in this glare. But I know we’ll have company soon,” he told Dhamon.
“Aye. Let’s take what we’ve gathered and get out of here. And let’s be quick. We certainly have more than enough to buy the sword. We could buy all of Blöten, I suspect, with what we’ve gained.”
Fetch grabbed his sacks, struggling under the weight and making his way slowly up the mountainside. Maldred glanced back at his collecting spot, where four bulging bags waited. “Very quick,” he added to himself.
Dhamon whirled and headed toward his own sacks, noting Rikali was continuing to stuff gems into one, her arms practically a blur, her tunic plastered against her back with sweat. He scrabbled over the rocks and spires and was almost at her side when two steel-tipped quarrels shot through the air, one whizzing by his shoulder, slicing through his sleeve, the other lodging itself in his right thigh, finding its way to the scale affixed there.
He shouted from surprise, falling back and clutching at his leg.
“Remove the scale, and you’ll die,” he heard the long-dead Dark Knight say. Then the Knight was gone and Dhamon was writhing on the mountainside in the Valley of Crystal. A wail escaped him, long and unnerving, one that brought a choked sob from the half-elf.
She threw herself on him, wrapping her slender fingers around the quarrel and tugging gently. “Maldred!” she called, “By my breath, Mal, help me!” She continued to tug, mindless of the dozen dwarves who had loosed the last of their quarrels and were now charging down the mountain toward her and Dhamon. “Maldred!”
Dhamon gasped for air. All he could feel was intense heat and excruciating pain covering every inch of his body, turning him into a human furnace. “Damn this scale!”
Within moments the dwarves were on the pair, gleaming axes raised, intent on slaying the two trespassers. Rikali tried to shield Dhamon. “I said we were gonna die, lover,” she muttered, as the first axe came down…
And clanged loudly against Dhamon’s upraised sword. Despite the pain, he’d managed to scramble away from her and rise to his feet. “I’m not going to die today,” he told the half-elf as he pushed her away. He whipped the blade about and shoved the tip through a dwarf’s wrist. Maldred raced to his side, and the big man gave no warning to the dwarves this time. He waded into their midst and began swinging. “Join us, Riki!” he shouted. “Any time, please!”
The half-elf picked herself up and drew her wavy-edged dagger, hurling it deep into the throat of a dwarf coming her way, one who wrongly had decided that fighting her was an easier proposition than taking on Maldred or Dhamon.
All of the dwarves were heavily armored despite the summer heat. The half-elf tugged free her blade and moved on to another one. She had to look for openings in their defenses, jabbing her blade at the joints in the thick plates.
Three lay dead at Maldred’s and Dhamon’s feet before one managed to land a blow against the big man. The tallest of the dwarves cut deep into Maldred’s arm, bringing a groan from the big man. The great sword clanged to the ground, as Maldred could no longer hold it with both hands. His wounded arm hung limp at his side.
Two dwarves darted in and raised their axes, thinking the large human an easy mark now. However, Maldred’s good arm shot forward, his massive fingers closing on the haft of a battleaxe and ripping it free from the dwarf’s grip. Without pausing, he pulled the axe back and brought the weapon down on the other dwarf, cutting through his helmet and lodging in his skull. He tugged the axe free as the dwarf fell and swung it against its previous owner, dropping him.