The Spoils

The Ledger

Brought current on the road east, with the siege standing at the edge of sight and the wreck behind us for good. Three rigs now, not two, and a great deal richer in trouble than that.

A ledger is the one page where I do not let myself be clever. This is what the Five hold now, after the gnolls came east for us and took their price out of the convoy, and after the wreck took a different kind of price entirely. I have written the page out fresh rather than scratch over the old one, because scratching over it would not have left much.

The convoy

We came into the Emporium with four rigs and left with three, all of them ours: the loaned Tormentor and our first Devil's Ride went back to Maggie's factor, and the Demon Grinder we traded to Mahadi for two trikes, which the Emporium's gnome had already named after his aunts before we could object. The Bus joined us on the Cold Mile with nine Elturans aboard. Of all of that, this is what still rolls.

Prudence is finished, bent round a rock with her wheels off her, though her gun found its way onto the Bus in the end. Maybelle guttered dry on the same stretch and sits out there with the gnolls all round her still, and Ghulzarr went back west past her with both his own rigs burned out from under him, so I am not counting her as ours any longer and I do not expect to be proved wrong. The Grinder's nameless furnace coin went off with that rig long before any of this, still burning. That soul is Mahadi's bookkeeping now, not mine.

What the road cost

Coll and Doran both fell under the drum-work, and we went back for them. They came out of the resin whole, the both of them, though neither has woken yet. Senna has not left them. I kept my word. Two diamonds remain in Eryador's kit, and neither was needed, which I am trying not to read as luck.

Kaelis's blade woke further out on the road, in the middle of the worst of it, and something that had been sitting behind his eyes since Knucklebones is no longer there. He has not said so and I have not asked.

Roan swore at the tomb, on the Brand, with Cael taking her oath. She is a Hellrider now, the first the order has taken in a hundred years and more, and she drives the Bus like a woman who has been given something she intends to keep. Wren has taken to the work as well, which is a different page.

Ghulzarr lived, and would not follow us into the crash site, which tells me something about the crash site. He kept his drums, his winged thing, two coins we never got our hands on, and whatever else hangs on his belt. We will meet him again.

Soul coins

Fifteen. There were nineteen at the Emporium gate; the Scavenger's furnace has had one of them since, on the Cold Mile. This time I read every face, which I do not recommend as an evening's work. I name them because someone should, and because a coin is easier to spend than a person, and that is precisely the trouble with it. Each was a person before it was fuel.

Eight others have left the book, and I set them down so the count holds. Tomas the Hand, small-time and never past his second job, bought half of Eryador's cloak. Anika Vey paid the other half: a spy for the Lords' Alliance who broke a cipher and stopped a war nobody ever heard about. Yuria Khaln, a swindler who bought one night clear of a debt collector before the collector caught up anyway, paid for the two scrolls. Tarrin Halewell, a baker who gave everything for his wife's eyes, I last saw burning in the Tormentor's furnace as we handed the rig back. There was nothing to be done for him. Corvin Ashlock, who called in debts of his own once, stayed in Mahadi's palm as his fee. Tibalt Crane went into the Scavenger's furnace on the Cold Mile to carry nine Elturans the last of the way home, and burned all the way down doing it; Hewn Grell, a Flaming Fist deserter who could not hold his wall, has the furnace now. Lady Mareth of House Cendish paid once for her husband's silence and never told him what it cost. Kaelis's own gift coin, and none of the bag's business, she paid a second time for the door out of the wreck. And the man who would not give his name, who gave the devil nothing but a door said three times over, went into Gladys's tank, which is as strange an epitaph as any of them will get.

Carried by the company

• Heward's Haversack, the party's inventory and mine to carry, given by Sylvira at Candlekeep against the road down. The part of it worth a ledger, since no one needs an account of the bedrolls and rope: an alchemy jug, a Pole of Collapsing, a Potion of Fire Resistance, and the healing stock, eleven draughts and three of the greater sort. I keep the list.
• Bag of holding, taken off the Grinder, now carrying the warmachine spares we stripped out of it.
• Demon ichor, every tank filled to four charges by the Emporium's gnome, with a spare flask alongside for when we are desperate.
• Ashward Goggles, five sets, lenses that never foul in the ash, one to each of us.
• Two spare belts of Soulspitter ammunition, thirty rounds apiece. They have a gun to answer to again, so I did not have to be right about keeping them for very long.
• Scrolls of Greater Invisibility and Banishment, bought at the market.
• Three ichor tanks, charged, out of the wreck's own magazine.
• A marked-up survey of Elturel, fifty years out of date, out of a strongroom that belonged to Zariel herself. I am still deciding what to do with the fact of it.

The branded salvage went back to Maggie's factor against the Tormentor's scoring, and the infernal maul we sold. Neither is ours to count any more.

Each of the Five

Kaelis Morne

• Aspect of the Sword of Zariel, the patron blade, Tier 3, since the chase.
• Charm of the Burning Path, unused.
• Angelic Raiment, what his armour becomes while the blade holds its third stage. Driftglobe, Earring of Infernal Comprehension, Ashward Goggles.

Henzia-Mathilda (mine)

• Robe of the Archmagi, off a woman fifty years dead in her own chair. Attuned now, and it took the colour rather better than I expected: black and pink, the same as everything else I own.
• Bracers of Defense, which stack with the Robe rather than fight it. I checked twice before I believed it.
• Broom of Flying, attuned, bought from the dryad's stall on Maggie's credit. It won the argument for my third slot.
• Pearl of Power and a Hat of Wizardry, same stall, neither attuned. Three slots, four wants. The other two wait their turn.
• My Scroll of Plane Shift is spent. I used it to send the dryad, the hobgoblin and the gnome home to Candlekeep. It was our way out, and I do not entirely regret it, which is its own kind of worry.
• Hazel's Heart, the dryad's own charm, carried since the Emporium and older than that besides. Not one I chose to spend or attune. Just one I wear.
• Returning Dagger, Earring of Infernal Comprehension, Ashward Goggles.

Cael Corellian

• A Holy Avenger, Olanthius's own blade, cleansed and handed to him in the tomb. The Justicar's Brand went to Roan when she swore on it, which is as it should be.
• The Vigil, the Hellrider sentinel shield from Old Vance.
• Aldric's plate, crimson and white with the upturned crescent, off his own ancestor.
• Nine adamantine rods, out of a safe on Zariel's own deck. His to give out, and he is taking his time about it.
• Charm of Darkvision, three uses, Earring of Infernal Comprehension, Ashward Goggles.

Eryador Maerathil

• Amulet of the Devout +3, off Yael's tomb, replacing the one he wore down. Attuned now, and doing what it says on the tin.
• Periapt of Wound Closure.
• Cloak of Displacement, bought at the Emporium for two coins. Also attuned, so it is finally earning its keep rather than sitting there being expensive.
• Charm of Heroism, unused. Breastplate of Gleaming, mace +1, Earring of Infernal Comprehension, Ashward Goggles.
• Three diamonds show in his kit, which is one more than my own count after Z'neth. I have not decided whether that is a miracle or a filing error, and I intend to ask him before I decide which. Holy water.

Nuovis Virden

• Amulet of the Moon, which widens her Wild Shape forms.
• Staff of the Woodlands, out of the amber in the wreck's own troop deck.
• Cloak of Elvenkind, given by the dryad against a courier debt to her Cloakwood grove rather than for coin.
• Insignia of Claws, taken from Raggadragga.
• The dryad's Blessing of Understanding on her now, a gift that does not leave. Earring of Infernal Comprehension, Ashward Goggles, potions of healing.

Current to the edge of the siege. What we spend next, and on whom, I will weigh before I write it down.

H.