Not for the first time in your life, you are hiding. The difference this time is that you're outside Dwarven borders now, in a town built by humans.
A human town, bordering on the very fringes of the kingdom you once called home.
This place is your safehouse, a small building, used as a shed by the humans of this town.
You have been hiding here some time, and the stench of its former owner is beginning to attract local animals, despite Red having claimed to have buried it well. It was clearly not buried well enough.
It is your second week together in this remote village. Three weeks since you were all spared a lethal Hammering.
The sheriff had received a letter of pardon from the King, himself. Or so he had believed at the time.
By the time it came to light that the King had sent no such letter, you had been marshalled into an awaiting wagon, and rushed to this town. On the way, you were informed of the forgery, of the death warrant now placed on your heads, and of how little choice you had.
You were told to stay in this village until somebody told you otherwise, and stayed you have.
But tonight your contact has arrived, and the wind blows cold, as if to mark his arrival.
There is no moon. The clouds cover the sky utterly, and there is no light to speak of.
Yet he still finds you. The dwarf in the cloak.
By dwarvish standards he is huge. He carries an axe strapped to his back, and you have no doubt whatsoever he knows how to use it.
Try as you might, even with your superior eyesight, you cannot even glimpse his face.
"Sit, scumbags." he growls.
You can feel his eyes burning out of the darkness of his cowl, like heated coals, and hasten to comply. It's not like you have any choice in the matter.
He continues once you are all sitting.
"No doubt you're wondering why you're not rotting at the bottom of some chasm by now. You're wondering who could care that much about you to not only forge a royal pardon, but to risk a Hammering themself in order to get you free."
He looks at you, and you nod slowly.
"Stop wondering. You'll never find out, so fat lot of good thinking about it will do you. And you're not free yet, not by a long-shot. No, scumbags, we have something else in mind for you. Something you will no doubt excel at. You're all going to make us incredibly rich. And by 'us', I don't mean you scumbags. Your rewards are your continued lives, miserable wastes of time as they may be."
His words hit you like the hammer you were so desperate to avoid. Not free. Indentured to... a mystery man. Slaves, for want of a better term.
No doubt he could read your murderous feelings, as he grabbed the hilt of his axe menacingly.
Weaponless, and undoubtedly far outmatched, you relax yourselves as one.
"Good, scumbags, good!" he says, and you can hear his grin. "Your one chance at life is to do as we say. And what we say is this: You're going to ply the trade routes in the human lands. A particularly rich one.
The kingdom has sent some dwarves to build a new outpost in that very spot. We've already slain those intrepid souls, and have acquired their supplies. You shall go in their steed, build a place there from which you shall raid the traders, and amass a fortune. With this fortune, you shall finally purchase your continued existence from me."
This was beginning to sound like a raw deal. Raw and rotten to the bone. All that work, and all you would end up showing for it was continued survival. Even that wasn't guaranteed, given the circumstances.
But, given the circumstances, nowhere else promised anything but certain death.
You could, technically, go anywhere. But there WAS nowhere else to go. You were no freer now than in that cell.
"Your map, is here. The place will be named Iger Limul. River of Gold. How prophetic." said the cowled dwarf, placing a sheet of papyrus on the table. It showed an area nearby, with details of the strata. Somebody had been doing their homework. Maybe this would be survivable after all.
Your new home, and supplies (that's right, you guys have no weapons to speak of yet):
Author
Topic: Histories of felony and murder. Seven dwarves brigand ch (Read 10212 times)