A Fistful of Elven Gold Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  A Fistful of Elven Gold

  Alex Stewart

  When someone starts killing his fellow bounty hunters in the port of Fairhaven, Drago Appleroot is happy to help his contacts in the City Watch with their investigation—for a reasonable fee, of course. But posing as an assassin-for-hire to draw out the killer attracts the attention of two separate groups from a far-off Elven kingdom whose private war is being fought on the streets of his home town.

  Pitched into a maelstrom of treachery and lethal politics, Drago is forced into a long and dangerous journey to the heart of the Sylvan Marches, where one determined gnome might just decide the destiny of a kingdom. If he can survive long enough to decide which side he ought to be on.

  BAEN BOOKS

  by ALEX STEWART

  Shooting the Rift

  A Fistful of Elven Gold

  A FISTFUL OF ELVEN GOLD

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Alex Stewart

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.

  A Baen Books Original

  Baen Publishing Enterprises

  P.O. Box 1403

  Riverdale, NY 10471

  www.baen.com

  ISBN: 978-1481483155

  eISBN: 978-1-62579-634-9

  Cover art by Dominic Harman

  First Baen printing, April 2018

  Distributed by Simon & Schuster

  1230 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10020

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Electronic Version by Baen Books

  www.baen.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  “People gotta cook wi’ that.”

  Drago didn’t mind too much about people trying to kill him; what he really resented was how bad most of them were at it. Take the big human leaping over the bench, for instance, his heavy pewter tankard already swinging out and down in an attempt to stove Drago’s skull in: he was so slow and clumsy, the strike might as well have sent a note round last week to make an appointment. And the one trying to sneak up behind him, dagger held edge-on to slit his throat, was even worse, making enough noise to rouse a hibernating wyvern—something that never ended well. But that was humans for you—great lumbering masses of muscle, particularly between the ears.

  Actually, to be fair, some of them were reasonably bright, especially the few he favored with his friendship, but intelligence was hardly a job requirement to run errands for Ambrose Fallowfield, the softly spoken sociopath who owned this tavern. If your definition of legitimate ownership included buying up all the old landlord’s debts, demanding immediate repayment, and sending armed thugs to evict him and his family the same afternoon . . .

  Drago was here to talk to him about that. And a number of similar incidents, which had persuaded the Tradesman’s Association of the Wharfside District that the mildly extortionate fee Drago was charging to make their problem go away was far less than they’d lose in the long run by letting someone like Fallowfield simply remain unchecked. And, as Drago had pointed out, if he failed they’d hardly be any worse off, as he’d be dead and unable to collect his payment anyway.

  Not that there seemed much chance of that, if these two clowns were the best Fallowfield had standing between him and almost two foot nine of irritated gnome.

  Not that they saw it that way, of course. To humans, the stupid majority anyway, small meant weak, and his assailants positively reeked of overconfidence. What they generally overlooked was that small also meant fast, and agile.

  Drago dropped, headbutting the oncoming man in the groin, and rolling aside to make plenty of room for him to fold up just where he was guaranteed to get under the feet of the knife-wielder. They went down together in a tangle of limbs and profanity, while Drago kept on going beneath a nearby table, rolling to his feet on the opposite side and upending it on top of the struggling thugs for good measure. The stevedores sitting there scrambled out of the way the instant the heavy piece of furniture began to tilt, their imperiled drinks snatched aloft with barely a drop spilled, which said a great deal about the night life in this part of the city. None of them seemed inclined to remonstrate with him, which in Drago’s book put them in the brighter portion of humanity.

  “Fallowfield!” If he’d had any doubts about the identity of his quarry they were instantly dispelled: A foppish young man, in a coat so expensive looking anyone else around here would have been stabbed for it hours ago, stood with an elaborate air of casualness in response to the shout, and slipped through a door at the back of the room.

  Leaving only three more thugs to evade between Drago and his prey. Of course the taproom was crowded with customers too, some of whom would probably join in on the gangsters’ side if they saw some advantage in it, but the gnome’s reputation preceded him, and most of them were simply getting out of the way as quickly as they could. Which would have suited him fine, except none of them were moving in the same direction, cutting him off from the door Fallowfield had disappeared through with an ever-changing tangle of obstructing legs. Trying to crawl through them would only get him kicked in the head, possibly even by accident, and make life unnecessarily easy for the trio of bravos attempting to hem him in—well, good luck with that, the panicking customers were hindering them even more badly than they were Drago.

  If he couldn’t go down, then, he’d have to go up: an old wagon wheel hung from the ceiling in the center of the room, dripping tallow from the candles spaced around its rim onto the customers below, most of whom seemed used to the inconvenience judging by the spots of grease on their shoulders. Drago vaulted onto the table beneath it, evaded a sword thrust from a young man whose face seemed composed entirely of acne, and yanked the lad’s extended arm downwards, trapping the blade beneath the sole of his boot as it rattled against the table. To his faint disappointment the steel was of better quality than he’d expected, failing to deform enough to give him much of a boost upwards, but at least his would-be kebabber was too slow or stupid to let go of the hilt, trapping his fingers against the tabletop; an intensely uncomfortable sensation, judging by the noise he was making. And there was more than one way to eat a mole, as the saying went.

  A quick jump took him to the swordsman’s shoulder, landing with a crack of breaking collarbone as the youth straightened
reflexively, boosting the gnome upwards. The sword fell from his bruised and swelling hand, clattering against the floor.

  “You should get a compress on that,” Drago told him, grabbing the makeshift chandelier, and pushing off against the back of the young man’s head with a kick which neatly dropped his suddenly unconscious form on top of the first two attackers—who, by now, had valiantly fought off the overturned table, and were using one another to haul themselves upright. The rope securing the wagon wheel to the beam it depended from creaked ominously at the unexpected additional load, but held as Drago swooped across the room, scattering candles in his wake; most, fortunately, blown out by the speed of their passage through the air, the few exceptions adding a distinct odor of singed hair to the already rather close atmosphere. One or two customers yelped, or shouted imprecations after him, but Drago ignored both, letting go of the swinging wheel at what he hoped was exactly the right moment.

  The two remaining thugs had shown a bit more sense than their colleagues, taking up a defensive stance in front of the door Fallowfield had disappeared through rather than wading into the chaos of the overcrowded taproom. Both had drawn swords, though neither seemed to have much of an idea what to do with them—probably the people they were used to dealing with found the threat of the weapons enough. The stocky woman on the left had taken up something resembling a proper guard position, the blade held out in front of her ready to split the oncoming gnome, though he’d have bet most of his purse that her chances of doing so would have depended more on luck than skill. Then again, he’d lost enough money at dice over the years not to dismiss fortune as a factor in anything. So he aimed his boot heels squarely at the man on the right, an overdressed dandy, whose slender build and violet eyes hinted at a bit of elvish blood somewhere in his ancestry.

  A hint confirmed by the speed of his reflexes. He brought his weapon round in a slashing arc as Drago hurtled at his head; quick, but not quite quick enough. As it was, the sword clattered to the worn wooden floor before it could connect, followed almost instantly by its owner, as Drago’s sturdy footwear impacted with his face. Nasal cartilage snapped, and a gush of blood made a terrible mess of the tangle of lace clinging to the front of his shirt.

  “You need to get that in cold water,” Drago said, rolling to his feet, although the chances of the stain not being permanent were negligible. The dandy seemed unappreciative of the advice anyway, although his answer wasn’t really recognizable as words: the slurred gargling might have meant “thanks a lot, I’ll do that,” but Drago rather doubted it. He drew his own blade, parrying a clumsy cut from the woman by the door, and stared up at her, waiting for her to regain her balance. He smiled, in a manner he knew to be far from reassuring. “Just . . . Don’t. Really.”

  She hesitated, glancing down at her erstwhile companion, across to the other three still thrashing on the floor like stranded fish, then back to the diminutive bounty hunter who’d felled them all with such speed and apparent ease. Her tongue flickered across dry lips. “You’re really him, aren’t you?” she asked, in a voice which hardly trembled at all. “Drago Appleroot.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” Drago bowed, keeping his eyes raised against the possibility of a sudden strike, but whoever she was, the woman had enough respect for his reputation not to try anything so blatant. Which was the most sensible thing any of Fallowfield’s minions had done so far that evening. He nodded at the door behind her. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  “Oh. Right.” She shuffled aside, thoroughly intimidated, the sword hanging from her hand apparently forgotten.

  Drago reached up for the latch and yanked it open, finding himself in a steam-filled kitchen, where a couple of cooks barely glanced up from a bubbling pot hanging over an open fire, and a stained wooden table cluttered with kitchen knives and lumps of what had probably once been vegetables or animal parts. The one hacking things to bits was a goblin, a head taller than Drago, and the one stirring the resulting mess another human.

  “Back door. Where?” Drago wasn’t in the mood for prolonged conversation. Neither, it seemed, was the goblin. She simply jerked her head to indicate the direction he wanted, before returning her attention to a mallet and what looked suspiciously like the head of a chicken.

  A flicker of movement behind him warned Drago an instant before the sword thrust arrived where he no longer was; by that time he was already pivoting out of the way, and seizing a saucepan from a nearby shelf. Overextended, the swordswoman stumbled, and Drago stuck out a leg, tripping her neatly. She went down hard on her right knee, which left her head at the ideal height for a swift blow from the solid utensil.

  “Oi!” The goblin looked up from the mess in front of her, and wagged an admonishing talon in his direction. “That’s unhygienic, that is. People gotta cook wi’ that.” She wiped a dripping nose with the back of her hand, and started stuffing something from a bowl in front of her into the body cavity of a disemboweled hen.

  “My sincere apologies, madam. And for the intrusion,” Drago said smoothly, helping himself to the unconscious swordswoman’s purse as he straightened up. The mouth around the goblin’s tusks widened a little in response, in what he supposed was meant to be a smile. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  The doorway across the kitchen was still ajar, allowing a refreshing blast of cooler air into the room, freighted with the reassuring odor of the city: a faint salty tang from the sea, smothered almost into oblivion by the far stronger smells of ordure and rotting fish for which Fairhaven was famed far into the surrounding countryside, and by which many veteran mariners swore they could find the port even in the thickest of fogs. A lifelong urbanite, Drago barely noticed it.

  The alleyway beyond was squalid even by Fairhaven standards, carpeted in a slippery mush of kitchen refuse and, more than likely, the contents of the local chamber pots. Drago, however, was as sure-footed as all his kind, hardly slowed at all by the treacherous surface, and took off running in what he hoped was the right direction. To his right, the main street was illuminated by the candles and oil lamps of the many businesses scattered along it, and the occasional link boy, carrying a torch for someone rich enough to afford it and unsqueamish enough not to mind seeing what they were stepping in. Fallowfield might have gone that way, hoping to get lost in the crowd, but Drago didn’t think so. Too many people in the neighborhood had grudges against him, and he was too spineless to risk being seen without some bodyguards to hide behind.

  Which left the other way, into the dark and shadows, where vermin generally scuttled to hide. He’d been on enough rat hunts as a kid to know that. The other thing about rats, of course, was that they were most dangerous when they were cornered . . .

  A muffled curse up ahead reassured him that he’d made the right choice, and a smile which would have made the one he’d given the swordswoman in the tavern seem warm and friendly tugged at the corner of his mouth. Fallowfield was trying to cut through the tangle of narrow passages between the street and the wharves, which weren’t so much thoroughfares as places where the tightly packed buildings weren’t. If he made it as far as the waterside, he’d be able to hide among the bustle of cargoes still being shifted even at this time of night by the light of torches or, in the warehouses of the Merchants’ Guild, who skimmed enough from their clients to be able to afford such things, the brighter glow of enchanted rocks dangling from the ceiling. Or find some more of his hired muscle, who were probably hanging around down there looking for something to pilfer.

  Unfortunately for the gangster, Drago not only knew every square inch of the district, he was fast and small enough to take short cuts no human could ever have fitted down. That, and the sharp low-light vision bequeathed by generations of burrowing ancestors, gave him an unbeatable edge in this environment. He darted left, right, and a made a quick sprint down a gap so narrow even a gnome’s shoulders brushed against the walls hemming him in.

  “Damn it!” The expostulation was near, followed almost instantly by the
sound of rending cloth, and Drago’s grin widened; it seemed that expensive coat wasn’t coming off too well against the confined spaces its owner had chosen to take refuge in. But the noise had been enough to let him pinpoint his quarry’s location; exactly where he would have chosen to confront him.

  A couple more twists and turns, and Drago stepped quietly out into a narrow courtyard, although calling it that would have been architectural flattery of the most egregious kind: little more than a small space between buildings, across which someone had hopefully hung a clothesline. That probably meant there was a resident or two in what, at first sight, he’d taken for nothing more than a conglomeration of sheds tucked behind a couple of larger, brick-built warehouses. If there was anyone else around, though, none of them had been careless enough to leave any garments hanging up after dark; prudent, but rather disappointing, as that would have given him some clue as to the numbers, race, and gender of any potential bystanders.

  Taking a step into the shadows of the courtyard, he waited, his sword held easily ready for use. To his right, the wider gap between the warehouses, almost a yard across, leaked light into the confined space from the illuminated dockside beyond, and, to his left, another dark slit between walls, perhaps half that in size. He narrowed his eyes. Any moment now . . .

  And there he was, Fallowfield, wriggling out of the confined space like a grub from a manure pile.

  “What kept you?” Drago asked, taking another step forward, the light from the bustling wharfside glittering on his blade in a manner guaranteed to attract his quarry’s attention. Fallowfield hesitated, giving the gnome enough time to plant himself firmly in the middle of the wider passageway, blocking his hoped-for line of retreat. The gangster hovered for a moment, glancing back at the narrow cleft he’d just emerged from. For the first time that evening, Drago’s smile held a hint of genuine amusement. “Good idea. Let’s play hide and seek.”