Hoard

One cup. Three coins. One night until the light comes down the vent.Teodor Brask is thirty-three and has spent fifteen years climbing into places other people swear are cursed. Tanned olive skin, tousled dark brown hair, short dark stubble, a broad, jacked climber's build, worn brown leather trousers and a wide dark belt: he has never met a lock he couldn't open or a legend that turned out to be true. Tonight he has crawled through the burning throat of Mount Vethra for a red-gold chalice and a Margrave's purse.The legend is true.Ashkarr is enormous, with long copper-red hair, a thick copper beard and fair, freckled skin, great ridged black horns curving up from his brow, red-bronze scales armoring his right shoulder and arm, and dark red wings. Zevrin is tall and hard-cut, with deep brown skin, very long black locs worn loose down his back, a close-trimmed beard, long black horns sweeping back, glossy black scales down his shoulder, arm and side, and black wings. They have shared this mountain, and each other, for three hundred years. Their skin runs as hot as the glowing crack in the rock. And they caught him with his hand on their cup.The law of a hoard is simple: whatever is touched is owed. Teodor has nothing to pay with but himself, and from the way he keeps looking at them, they already know he'd like to.