Strangely stirred, he looked away from her. Out the open door, the mist of the falls rose, prismatic in the late afternoon sun. An idea was forming. He looked back at Rorik, wondering how he could set the trap.

“So you see, Gnarl,” said Rorik, shooting him a look of warning from under his bushy brows, “we are absolutely, and completely, not interested in signing on to your mission. Particularly as you mention the Plains of Rust. I doubt you know anything about the place!”

“Just the little that the warlock told me,” Gnarl admitted. “Not much. I’ve heard of the Abyss-but I know little of that either.” He put on his best look of heroic defiance. “I’m equal to anything that might claw and scrabble in the bottommost pit of any abyss you can name!”

Miriam covered a smile with her hand at that-but it seemed to Gnarl that his bravado pleased her, too.

Rorik spat into a brass urn on the floor. “Ridiculous! Oh, yes, many in Hammerfast have dreamed of visiting the Plains of Rust-but it is too dangerous, even for our heroes. If you’d done your homework when you were an apprentice, you’d know it is secreted within the Abyss of the Elemental Chaos! It’s said to be awash in howling ghosts and the vilest demons. Even a casual trip to its fringes would be lunacy. I don’t care who your warlock is. And I don’t have time, anyway-we’re going back to Hammerfast. If you were a clansman, I might consider it. But a young human, a punkling such as yourself-”

“Punkling!” Gnarl bridled.

Miriam laughed lightly, catching the tip of her tongue between her teeth. “You’ve offended him, Rorik!”

“What of it! I scarcely know him! He shouldn’t be inviting me on suicide missions! It’s true he did get a ceremonial cup back for the clan, once-but I could have done the job myself.” He shrugged, and looked into a clay jug for more beer. “Wasn’t politic for me to do it. I come here for my work-like to stay on the right side of the locals.”