Aldric Starweaver's Arc

Chapter 2 of 10

The dragon lay dead. The tower lay in pieces. Aldric stood in the dust and felt the three fighters watching him. Galahad wiped his blade clean. Beside him, the two elf archers lowered their bows. Faelan flexed a sore shoulder. Sylvra picked spent arrows from the rubble and counted them under their breath, the same way they had counted the dragon's dives. "Well, crystal-keeper," Galahad said. "We killed your monster. Now we're owed." He held out a gauntleted hand, palm up. "Coin. Or a fight worth our time. We don't work for thanks." Aldric's stomach dropped. He turned out his pockets. Dust, a broken shard, nothing more. "I have no gold," he said. "My treasury is under that." He pointed at the fallen wall. Sylvra stopped counting. Faelan's face went flat. "Then we've wasted a week," Faelan said, and slung the bow across their back. "We move on at first light." Aldric's mind raced. He needed them. Not for the coin he lacked, but for the digging. His worktable lay buried. The center shard lay somewhere in that heap, small as a thumbnail. Alone he would dig for a month. With four backs, days. "Wait," he said. "I can't pay you in gold. But I can pay you in shelter." He hurried past them, out the broken gate. Down the slope stood a small log cabin, three rooms, a well beside it. His caretaker's home once. Empty now. "That's mine. Warm. Dry. A well that never runs dry. Stay in it as long as you like." Galahad crossed his arms. "A roof isn't a wage." "It comes with one condition," Aldric said. "Help me dig. There's a shard lost in that rubble. Small. Grey. I need it to rebuild the crystal that keeps the dragons away." He met the knight's eyes. "Find it, and the roof is yours. Refuse it, and the next dragon that comes has no one to stop it. Not even you can kill them all." Galahad was quiet. Sylvra and Faelan traded a look. They had slept in mud for a week. The cabin's windows caught the last light and glowed. "One shard," Faelan said slowly. "In that." They toed the rubble. "One shard," Aldric said. Sylvra walked to the fallen wall. They set a hand on a broken stone and pushed. It rocked, then rolled free. "Beds beat gold," Sylvra said. "I'm in." Faelan sighed and joined them. Galahad stood a moment longer. Then he sheathed his sword and gripped a slab with both hands. "Fine, wizard. We dig. But when we're done, that cabin is ours." "Done," Aldric said. They worked until dark. Stone by stone the heap shrank. But the pile ran deeper than Aldric feared, and the buried worktable held more than one shard. Near midnight, Faelan's fingers closed on cold metal down in the gap. Not the shard. A locked iron box he had never seen before.