“Can you believe that?!” Beleg thundered. “Outside my prime!”
Kre was never more thankful of the candle’s power than now, when Beleg used his angry voice. Without the magical light, his yell would likely have reverberated through the tunnels and into the main room of the tavern. Unfortunately, within the candle’s light, Dain and Kre felt the full force of Beleg’s volume roar into their ears.
“Easy big guy,” Dain hissed, holding his head. “No one believes that you’re too old to win fights, but if it comes down to the finals…”
Beleg snarled.
“When it comes down to the finals,” Dain corrected himself, “between you and Barry, it still comes down to a fight to the death over what?”
“That’s between him and me,” Beleg grumbled again.
“It’s a concern for the company,” Dain countered. “A vendetta against one is a vendetta against all. You know Talimar’s rules as well as anyone.”
Beleg shook his head, “This has been a thing since long before the Red Feathers and mark me… it’ll continue to be a thing long after. I have no intention of fighting Barry tomorrow, the night after, or any time after that. If ever the two of us fight, it will be as old men, hobbling at each other with crutches.”
Kre tried to picture the scene but couldn’t quite capture the image of Beleg as an elderly man. All he could picture was crotchety old Cooter, and it just didn’t seem to fit. It was like trying to imagine the old Cooter as a stalwart Dragon Knight. Although Kre believed that he was, it was still hard to picture him in his prime, in a full suit of shimmering parade armor.
“The tournament isn’t our priority anyway,” Dain said, dismissing Beleg’s statement. “What we’re concerned with is the auction that will happen during or after. That’s certain to be what the Rakshasa have been waiting for and where we’ll find our comrades.”
“So,” Kre chimed in, “do we plan to go in and buy them back? How much would folks like Ortho and Gnore go for?” Though he had no idea how much Dain typically carried with him, he doubted it was enough to procure two strong and battle-hardy dweorvkin.
Dain waved his hand, “Trust me, we won’t be able to afford them, even if the entire company pooled our money. Folks that tend to buy dweorvkin slaves generally do it for one of two reasons.”
Kre waited to see if Dain would elaborate more on that but when he didn’t, Kre sighed and asked, “What reasons are those?”
It was Beleg that answered, as Dain was busy scribbling stuff in his special notebook. Kre assumed he was scribing their new information to Talimar. “Dweorvkin are far better built than most, meaning they can last longer than any other laborer for exceptionally strenuous work such as mining. Also, their stature suits that subterranean environment very well. In terms of forced labor, you can’t find a better breed.”
Beleg rubbed at his jaw and sighed, “The other reason is more Dain focused. There are a great many rich and powerful Tehynshins that believe there are arcane and medicinal qualities to dweorvkin blood. They essentially keep them on tap until they simply have no more to give. It could take weeks or even months depending on how greedy they are.”