Chapter 57
Explosive Potential
"Two coppers for that? You're out of your damn mind."
One of the merchants—a squat man with a gut that hung over his belt—scratched behind his ear and looked at the pair of frost-wyrm fangs I'd laid on his folding table.
The caravan had stopped for rest, the wagons circling up like some old frontier formation.
The drivers unhitched the beasts. And a handful of merchants and camp followers set up their little stalls between the wagons, selling dried meat, lamp oil, boot patches, and whatever else travelers might need.
I'd had these fangs since the first wyrm kill.
I'd dug through Cedric's memories that morning while walking behind the wagon, sifting through a dead Dragoon's knowledge of trade goods in the Hearthlands, and found that frost-wyrm fangs were prized by alchemists.
A single fang sold for six to eight coppers.
The farther south you went, the higher the price climbed.
And this guy was offering two coppers for the pair.
"Friend," I said, keeping my voice easy and my hands on the table.
"I pulled those out of a wyrm skull yesterday.
They're intact. No cracks, no chips. You can see the cold essence still in them.
" I tapped the nearest fang. Frost clung to it.
"An alchemist in Valdris would pay eight each for these. You know that."
The merchant's eyes narrowed. His tongue worked against his cheek.
"Four copper… For the pair."
"Ten. And I'll take it in trade, not coins."
His eyebrows rose. Coins cost him nothing to hoard, but trade goods he'd been carrying for weeks took up space in his wagon.
"What kind of trade?"
"Rope. oil. Dried food… fruits if you have them. And I'd like information."
He snorted. "Information's free on the road."
"Then it won't cost you anything to throw it in."
We haggled for another three minutes. I got some rope, a sealed jar of oil, six strips of salt-cured beef, and dried fruit that looked like mango. The value was probably seven coppers, maybe eight. Close enough to fair that neither of us walked away angry.
But I mainly came for information.
"The wagon with the guards, whose riding in it?"
He looked over both of his shoulders. The guards stood on either side of the wagon, eating from wooden bowls.
"Don't know her name." He turned back and lowered his voice. "She is part of some big merchant family, I'd wager. Joined us three stops back at the crossing town. Paid the caravan master double rate for the escort and brought her own guards."
"She? Big merchant family? Any idea who she is or which family?"
"Couldn't say. The guards don't really talk much. Not to us, not to the other passengers." He shrugged and folded his table legs with a kick. "Rich folk do as rich folk do."
I thanked him and carried the supplies back to where Zo sat, legs stretched out, her axe across her thighs. She'd been watching me work the merchant; her grin when I dropped the rope and rations into her lap told me she'd enjoyed the show.
"Look at you." She held up a strip of dried beef and bit into it. "Playing shopkeeper."
"We want these merchants to remember us as traders instead of threats."
Zo chewed, watching me. "And what about the rich wagon?"
"Apparently, some kind of merchant family."
"So… just some rich bitch."
A rich bitch who could be either an asset or a potential threat, and I needed to know which before we reached Valdris and this caravan disbanded.
I shrugged and bit into the dried mango.
◆◆◆
The caravan packed up and hit the road again. And while I walked, I worked on the bomb worms.
I did this internally, beneath my skin, where no one could see it.
The bomb worms were different from the others.
Denser. Heavier. They carried a charge in them that I could feel as a constant heat.
When I focused my attention on them, the heat sharpened, and I could sense the explosive potential in each.
The problem was delivery…
A bomb worm had to detach from me, reach the target, and detonate.
That meant throwing it, or launching it, or planting it somewhere.
Against the frost-wyrms, against the beetles and monstrosities we'd fought in the valley, that would've been fine.
Those were big targets. Slow, or at least predictable.
I could have tossed a worm grenade at their feet and blown it on impact.
But Dragoons weren't big, slow, or predictable. A Dragoon would see a worm flying at them and cut it out of the air, or dodge, or throw up a barrier. The delivery method needed to be something they couldn't see coming.
In my mind, I examined my worm-blade. It was a short sword, roughly two feet of bone-white worm-matter compressed into a saw blade, the surface calcified and hard.
When I struck something with it, the blade bit deep because the worms at its edge were alive and gnawing, chewing through whatever they connected with.
What if…
The thought made me stop in my tracks. Zo glanced over, but I waved her off and kept walking, my mind racing now.
When the worm-blade cut into something, I could break off individual bomb worms and allow them to fester and explode. A sword cut that left explosives in the wound.
I'd need to control the detonation. If the worm blew the instant it broke off, the explosion would catch my blade—catch me.
Enough time for me to pull the blade out and step back before the charge went off.
I'd have to suppress the worm's natural instinct to release its stored energy on separation and instead tie the detonation to a conscious command.
I pushed at the bomb worms in my blade's edge with my mind, clamped down on it, told it to hold—the compressed energy in it wanted out—but my worms obeyed me now. They had since the dragon. Since Mabel.