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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lazybones" data-source="post: 7326038" data-attributes="member: 143">Thanks for the kudos, LapBandit!* * * Chapter 115Drozan Kiefer sat on a rock, warming his hands on the fire, and thought about where his life had started to go wrong.He glanced over at his companion, who appeared to have no such thoughts.  Ludo was scraping at a pan of roasted beans as if it was a vein with a rich lode of ore.  After he licked his spoon he peered around the rim to confirm he hadn’t missed anything.  Satisfied, he tossed the empty pan aside and belched.Kiefer had no idea where their other two companions had gone to ground and he didn’t much care.  He hadn’t trusted the two human brothers, and hadn’t turned his back on them during their brief but eventful association.  He didn’t trust Ludo all that much more when it came down to it, but at least there was a racial affiliation there.  He glanced at the other dwarf again to see him picking his nose with almost as much enthusiasm as he’d shown with the pan earlier.Kiefer bent and grabbed another few branches to throw onto the fire.Their hideout was an old mine called Winter’s Hold.  The name seemed appropriate, with a bone-chilling cold in the air.  There wasn’t much left, just the stone foundations of some huts that had long since been cannibalized and a vertical shaft about fifty paces behind them in the rocks.  The place had been abandoned twenty years ago and now the only people who used it were men like Kiefer and Ludo, men who had reason to avoid attention.Kiefer grimaced as he snapped the branches and tossed them into the flames.  He should have left the Silverpeak already.  He should have just kept on walking after the fiasco at the Crossed Picks Mine, and not stopped until he was in the plains to the south.  With the war going on nobody would have paid any heed to another penniless vagabond on the roads.But no, that would have been foolish.  Without proper gear, supplies, and a caravan with men to keep watch, crossing the mountains alone would have been suicide.  At least here he knew the game, knew what was what.  He knew the right people, although most were like Ludo, men who would help you as long as it served their self-interest, but who only a fool would turn their back on.Kiefer got up, trying to ignore the protests in his legs.  He was getting too old for this.“Where you goin’?” Ludo asked.“Going to take a leak.  You want to come and hold it for me?”Ignoring the other’s guffaws, Kiefer made his way back toward the mine shaft.  Within five steps the dense tangles of brush that surrounded the abandoned site had swallowed him up.  He paused and almost went back for his crossbow, but he had both of his knives and his throwing axe.  He kept his hand on the reassuring heft of the latter as he pressed on.In the quiet and the dark the short trek to the shaft seemed longer than it would have in the light of day.  His dwarven eyes had no difficulty in the night, of course, but there was something in the nature of the place that gave him the willies.The shaft was just an open hole in the ground, a little more than five feet across.  When the mine had been closed a wooden plug had been installed, but that had long since been scavenged.  Now it was just a gaping opening, surrounded by bushes and tufts of weeds that approached almost to the edge.He was just reaching for his belt when he felt something cold pressed to his neck.“Oh, crap.”“Hello again, old friend.”Careful not to make any sudden moves, Kiefer lifted his hands so the other could see them, then turned slowly around.  “Hey, Kosk.  Ah… this is all just a misunderstanding.”“So, this isn’t yours, then?” the other dwarf asked.  He was still dressed in that odd robe, with sandals instead of boots or proper shoes.  The robe looked rather the worse for wear, with several folds hanging loose where the fabric had been torn.  He held up what he’d pressed against Kiefer’s neck.  It was a crossbow bolt, the stubby shaft tipped with a thick steel point.“Look, I can explain,” Kiefer said.  Now that steel wasn’t at his throat he gauged his chances, but something in the other dwarf’s look gave him pause.  He resisted the urge to glance back in the direction of the camp.“Explain why you and your friends took some potshots at me and mine?”“It wasn’t like that.  Okay, I get it, it looks bad, sure.  But you don’t know what I was up against!  There’s folks here… I owe some money, you see…”“Some things never change,” Kosk said.  “And some people, apparently.  You’re still the same old bastard who would sell his own mother for a clipped copper that I remember.”“Look, there’s some situations where you just can’t say no, okay?  But when I saw it was you… I didn’t hit nobody, okay?  You know me well enough to know that I can hit what I’m shooting at, most times.  But I didn’t hit nobody.”“You didn’t hit nobody,” Kosk said.  He might have changed over the decades since they’d last ran together, but the danger in his voice, that was the same that Kiefer remembered.“This kind of thing happens all the time up here,” Kiefer said.  Something shifted in the shadows behind them, from the bushes in the direction of the campfire.  Kiefer’s eyes didn’t so much as flicker in that direction.  “There’s no law in places like this… you know what that’s like!  Or at least you did.”“I remember,” Kosk said.  “Of course, by that logic, there’s nothing to stop me from snapping your lying neck, is there?”Kiefer felt an icy trickle of sweat down his neck, but he made no move for his weapons.  The shadow continued to approach.  “Look, Kosk…”The shadow lunged at Kosk’s back, but the dwarf pivoted, moving faster than Kiefer had ever seen anyone move.  He stumbled back as he caught a flash of steel, then Ludo was flying into the open shaft.  The dwarf mercenary bounced off the rim and them plummeted into the darkness below.  There was the start of a surprised shout but it was cut off by a decisive thud of impact.Kiefer was already running, but he barely managed to steps before a firm grip seized hold of him and spun him around.  He felt the ground disappear under his feet, and started to cry out before hands clasped around his neck and held him balanced on the very edge of the shaft.“Don’t… don’t let go,” he hissed.Kosk leaned in close, until Kiefer feared that they would both slide into the shaft.  “We’re going to have a little chat,” he said.  “You’re going to tell me everything you know about what happened today.”Kiefer shuddered and let out a whimper as his bladder gave way.</blockquote>

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