Chinkers talked with Gord, congratulating him in a reserved way that was genuine because the man would now never have a chance to supervise the lad personally. Gord affected great happiness, but inside he felt something else-a sort of vague anticipation tinged with uneasiness and dread. Chinkers couldn’t determine what was on the boy’s mind, but considering Cord’s aptitude, the plump beggar was certain that all of his talents and desires would come out soon enough and surprise them all.
In a few weeks’ time thereafter a great war between the thieves and the beggars commenced, and Chinkers lost track of the boy during this uproar.
Chapter 10
Dillor was a river rat-a nasty scavenger who lurked along the banks of the Selintan. looking for anything worth taking. Greyhawk was built on hills and ridges, just as most cities of its sort were. The various drains that lay beneath the place eventually ran down into the waterways that virtually surrounded the walled city. Some few drained into Bubbly Mire and the Grey Run, but most came out on the western side of the city. Dillor haunted these places, searching through the various effluences for valuables. It was a filthy and vile existence, but it kept Dillor alive, and he didn’t actually mind the work at all.
“That’s gold!” he exclaimed aloud as he peered into the mouth of a broad drain. The illumination was dim Inside, but the setting sun glinted off something yellow and shiny. The drain was barred, of course, but the object was just on the other side of the great metal poles that prevented entrance beneath the city. “Dillor, you’ve finally struck it rich!” he babbled, clambering through the shallow outflow and debris to get to the object.
After using his hooked pole to drive off a half-dozen rats and get right up to the outside of the bars, Dillor saw that the glittering object was indeed a piece of gold-and it was set with a gem, too. It was on the bony finger of a partially eaten corpse. Nearly eaten, more like it, and soon to be finished by rats, beetles, and the rest, but not before Dillor jerked free a skeletal digit and the ring attached to it. He snared the golden object with the hook on the end of his pole, thrust the ring onto his own dirty finger, and set off quickly to find a buyer.
He couldn’t know that the bit of jewelry he now sported had recently been in the possession of a hired killer who had taken it from the corpse of yet another assassin. Because its most recent former owner had no need of immediate cash, he had kept it for quite some time and on occasion sported it on his hand, even though it fit his finger rather loosely. He had been in the process of escaping from a botched assassination attempt while wearing it. In his haste to flee, the wearer had tried to push the ring farther back onto his finger as it began to slip off. His attention divided, the fellow had slipped and fallen. His head struck a corner of the ledge above the subterranean duct he had just climbed down into, and that was enough to cause his drowning. That incident had happened but two days before.
“What’s this worth to ya?” Dillor asked the Rhennee bargeman.
The dark-skinned water-gypsy whistled in surprise at what he saw. “Where’d you get that, Dild?”
He hated to be called that. Dild was a contraction of his nickname, and Dillor didn’t like it at all. “Call me Dillor! That’s my name, and you’ll call me that if you want to buy the ring from me!”
“Sure, sure, Dild… Dillor, I mean. Come on ze barge, an’ we’ll talk.”
Eventually they agreed that the Rhennee would give him five hundred zees for it, payment to be made in copper commons and silver nobles. Dillor knew that having coins of greater value, such as luckies, would not only attract unwanted attention to him but also be hard to change in the places he meant to frequent shortly.
“Done,” the Rhennee said with a grin. The dark man rummaged around in a low cabinet and drew out a box. It was filled with an assortment of money-bronze, copper, and a sprinkling of silver. “I got only five nobles, so you’ll have to take the rest in commons, Dild. Got a bag to load ’em een?”
The dirty gypsy had dared to call him that again. Suddenly it struck Dillor that he could have even more than five hundred. He could have both the ring and more money than that easily. He and the river-man were alone…
“Ah, yeah. Sure thing, Streebul. I got a poke here,” he said, reaching inside his filthy jerkin.
Dillor was not very smart, and he telegraphed his intention to the wise and wary Rhennee even before his fingers had closed around the worn haft of the heavy, broad-bladed knife he kept hidden inside his clothing. Streebul was on his feet in an instant, his own dagger out and in motion even as the clumsy river rat dragged his own blade out in his “surprise” move. Dillor was stabbed twice before he even knew it. “You eediot!” the gypsy bargeman hissed. “Don’t you know you’re a dead man?”
The thick blade struck wildly, cutting Streebul’s cheek. “Yaagh!” was all Dillor could manage to say. Then he groaned and grunted as the bargeman’s dirk went home again and yet again. Those were the last sounds that Dillor ever made.
“Well,” Streebul said as he wiped the cut on his cheek with a rag, “Dildo, you always were a poor one at bargaining.” At that the bargeman laughed wildly. “Giving a lousy life for a leetle cut ain’t half bad, but you threw in the reeng to boot!”
A few months later Streebul was killed by a wagon-gypsy. They were arguing over whether the Rhennee or the Attloi were the true folk, and the bargeman was too slow with his weapon. Naturally, the victorious Attloi gypsy took the gold ring set with its precious stone as part of the rightful spoils of his victory.
The new owner of the ring made it all the way to central Urnst before a group of particularly fierce brigands attacked the train of wagons he was with. A pitched battle was fought, and the Attloi made the raiders pay dearly. In the end, however, all the gypsies were either killed or carried off as slaves. The captain of the outlaw band took the ring as part of his share of the spoils.
“Why’n hells name we heddin’ norf?”
“Shut yer flappin’ lips, Dogteeth,” Renfil Leed said without bothering to look at his lieutenant. “Even that fool should be able to tell when things were too hot for them. The duke’s horsemen are after us, and I’m goin’ to head for quieter places and easier pickin’s.”
There was no argument, of course. The captain was too tough, too mean to contest with-at least for now. He brought Dogteeth and his troop of seventy or eighty bandits through border provinces and wild lands in a long sweep that went through parts of both the Duchy and County of Urnst, then along the contested strip that ran between the Pale, Nyrond, and County Urnst. From there it was an easy swing into the safety of the Bandit Kingdoms, where the brigands could rest and their leader could plan fresh forays.
Disaster struck when the company was raiding in the Shield Lands. Leed and his surviving men were forced to flee westward, and a tribe of humanoids ambushed them there. The humans were eaten and their possessions either discarded or used to adorn the trappings of the great goblins that had killed and eaten the bandits who had previously possessed the articles. A heavy ring of gold set with a strange green stone now decorated the braided sidelocks of the tribal chieftain.
When the head of that humanoid monster was taken by a knight of Furyondy some time later, he salvaged the ring and took it for his own. Not-long thereafter the warrior was bested in a joust with a knight errant who. had challenged him. To redeem his armor, weapons, and steed, the Furyondian paid over all his other wealth, including the ring.
Eventually the wandering knight who now possessed the gem-set ring took service with a marcher lord. Nothing untoward happened to him thereafter, although he did eventually lose the ring to a dwarf with whom he was gambling.