“I won’t go to him—”

“Already done,” Lander said with pride. He pointed at the two-wheeled cart parked near the forge. “I have been working extra to finish my work so I can leave today. I will meet Baldrush and bargain with him for this metal.” Lander grinned, his pale eyes atwinkle with excitement. “Advise me, Dain. You know this Baldrush. Tell me how to make a good bargain with him.” Dain dropped to his haunches in the dwarf way. “Let us discuss his terms, then.” A few minutes later, Dain and Lander sauntered out of the forge. Dain blinked in the bright sunshine, feeling sure Lander would be cheated in Nold. He wanted his metal too much. He had saved forty gold dreits in his strongbox, a veritable treasure. But forty dreits was Baldrush’s asking price.  “Too high,” Dain said. “Thirty is more than fair. Forty is too much.” “Can you make him take thirty?” Lander asked. “Of course I will pay it all, if I must.”

“Don’t say that,” Dain told him, appalled. “You should tell him thirty is all that you have. And don’t sound too willing to pay that. Twenty-five would be better.”

“No, no, twenty-five is not fair price,” Lander said, shaking his head. “You would have me insult him. Already he does not want to sell the metal to me. If I offer twenty-five, he will say I am cheating him in the man-way, and he will leave.”

“Thirty, then,” Dain said firmly, believing Baldrush would talk Lander into the full amount.

The smith was nodding at Dain. “You come with me. You make the bargain.”