“He’ll be getting here with half the dwarfs o’ Mirabar’s Shield, not for doubting,” said Athrogate.

True enough, Jarlaxle knew. He heard Athrogate shuffle out of his bedroll and scramble to his feet.

“Prudence, my friend,” the drow said over his shoulder, and started away.

“Nah, it’s more’n that,” Athrogate declared.

Jarlaxle laughed helplessly. Few in the world knew him well enough to so easily read through his tactical deflections and assertions, but in the years Athrogate had been at his side, he had indeed let the dwarf get to know something of the true Jarlaxle Baenre. He turned and offered a grin to his dirty, bearded friend.

“Well?” Athrogate asked. “Yer words I’m taking, but what’s got ye shaking?”

“Shaking?”

Athrogate shrugged. “It be what it be, and I see what it be.”

“Enough,” Jarlaxle bade him, holding his hands out in surrender.

“Ye tell me or I’ll rhyme at ye again,” the dwarf warned.

“Hit me with your mighty morningstars instead, I beg you.”

Athrogate planted his hands on his hips and stared at the dark elf hard.

“I do not yet know,” Jarlaxle admitted. “Something …” He reached around and retrieved his enormous, wide-brimmed hat, patted it into shape, and plopped it atop his head.

“Something?”

“Aye,” said the drow. “A visitor, perhaps in my dreams, perhaps not.”

“Tell me she’s a redhead.”

“Red scales, more likely.”

Athrogate’s face crinkled in disgust. “Ye need to dream better, elf.”

“Indeed.”

* * * * *

“My daughter fares well, I trust,” Marchion Elastul remarked. He sat in a great, comfortable chair at the heavy, ornately decorated table his attendants had brought from his palace in Mirabar, surrounded by a dozen grim-faced dwarves of Mirabar’s Shield. Across from him, in lesser thrones, sat Jarlaxle and Athrogate, who stuffed his face with bread, eggs, and all manner of delicacies. Even for a meeting in the wilderness, Elastul had demanded some manner of civilized discourse, which, to the dwarf’s ultimate joy, had included a fine breakfast.