Part X: Gentle No More

  I awoke from vivid dreams that I couldn’t quite remember, of my childhood and my father, but also of war, and I was pretty sure Corminar—of all people—was there too. There was something strangely lifelike about the dreams, even considering how weird some of their contents were—at least, what I could remember of them. I opened my eyes to find long black hair in my face, and it took me a moment to remember that I hadn’t fallen asleep alone last night.

  I pulled my face away from Val and spat out a couple of hairs that had made their way into my mouth. I removed my arm from around her as gently as I could, wanting her to continue to sleep, but then my heart skipped a beat when I realised that there were three people standing over us.

  ‘It certainly took you two long enough,’ Corminar said, a smirk on his face that put all previous classic Corminar smirks to shame.

  At his side, Lore begrudging handed over a handful of coins into Arzak’s upturned palm. ‘OK. You were right,’ he said.

  Val, disturbed by the noise, crumpled up her face and turned around. ‘What… what’s going on?’ she mumbled, looking at me. When I nodded to the rest of the team, she was suddenly totally awake, scrambling backwards.

  ‘Oh, thanks for that,’ I said.

  ‘This going cause issues?’ Arzak asked.

  ‘Might stop them bickering quite so much,’ Lore replied. ‘Could even be good for us.’

  Corminar nodded his head sagely. ‘Perhaps we might get fewer headaches without all such arguing.’

  ‘Who says we’re not gonna argue?’ Val asked, glancing in my direction.

  The elf’s shoulders slouched. ‘Ah.’

  ‘OK, maybe not,’ Lore added.

  ‘Want us leave so you put clothes on?’ Arzak asked.

  In response, Val grabbed the sheet and whipped it back over us, to reveal that we’d both passed out fully clothed.

  ‘Aha!’ Lore said, at the same moment that Arzak grumbled, ‘...Oh,’ and then handed the coins back to the barbarian.

  I nodded to the transaction. ‘Do I even want to know what—’ I started to ask, but was cut off by the woman next to me elbowing me in the ribs.

  ‘Why are you lot even up so early?’ Val asked, grasping her head and beginning to heal her hangover first, as evidence by the yellow-white glow of her magicks.

  ‘Why are you up so late?’ Lore retorted. ‘It’s past lunchtime. We were getting worried, especially when we found your room empty.’

  ‘Well, I—’ Val started, but was interrupted by Arzak clapping to prompt us out of bed.

  ‘Up! Up! We have kill horrible Player.’

  ‘We don’t know they’re horrible,’ I replied, aware now that I was apparently going to have convince not just Val of this.

  ‘They Player. They horrible.’

  ‘What crimes has she committed? What does—’

  ‘Might I remind you that she is a member of a so-called “Council”?’ Corminar asked. ‘I have only encountered “councils” when there is some evil afoot. Particularly when they capitalise the C.’

  Lore nodded knowingly.

  ‘Up! Up!’ the orc said again, once more clapping her hands together to spur us into action.

  Lore thrusted his hands forward, a package wrapped in paper in each. ‘I packed you sandwiches for the road.’

  * * *

  We travelled north, along the winding merchant road that connected the Goldmarch with the Gentle Tundras and, further north still, the orcish reaches. With our foray into the palace records office revealing that Niamh was in Lenktra, we couldn’t make use of a ferry to cut days off our journey. Instead it was the good old fashioned method of travel that consisted of putting one foot in front of the other.

  As we journeyed, we occasionally passed through small towns on the merchant route, and I activated my In Plain Sight ability to acquire more Stealth experience, but without there being any real danger, I hadn’t quite levelled it up from 14. Likewise, I made a habit of using Shrill Perimeter to make sure we were warned of any approaching enemies while the whole team slept, though there had been none of the sort. There probably would be none, too, or at least I’d thought so until Arzak had voiced something she’d apparently been pondering.

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  ‘So pyroknight work for Council?’ she’d asked.

  ‘Jacob. Yeah,’ I replied.

  ‘Jacob work for Council, and we kill Jacob. Now Niamh do same Council work. I follow, yes?’

  ‘You follow, yes.’

  ‘Think Niamh know about us?’

  Lore, who’d been sitting at the campfire at my side, suddenly stopped slurping his stew to look up at us.

  ‘Why would she—’ I started, but Arzak cut me off.

  ‘Council know Jacob dead. Council are powerful, so much know who kill Jacob. So…’

  ‘Niamh might want to avoid the same fate,’ I finished for her.

  ‘She knows we’re coming?’ Lore asked.

  After a pause, the orc shrugged. ‘Eat stew,’ she said.

  If the rest of the team had thought that Val might stop picking fights with me after what had happened—though admittedly they all thought that I was just as guilty of fight-picking—they were dead wrong. If anything, the casual digs became more common than ever, and I’d been forced to return them in kind.

  Once we’d spent one night too many under the stars for Arzak’s back, the orc talked us into staying at a tavern overnight—on the condition that “some of us” didn’t get carried away on the beer. I had no idea who that applied to.

  Val and I were three pints deep when the vibe changed. Corminar had been nursing a glass of what he described as “swill” but was in fact wine—I mean, I don’t know what he expected from wine served on the south Tundran border, to be honest—but paused to watch as a group entered the tavern. At the sight of whoever had entered, his eyes widened, and I immediately wrenched myself around in my seat to get a look.

  It was a group of elves that had arrived in the tavern, and were looking around with absolutely no expression on their faces, but I’d been around Corminar long enough to read elven eyes. They couldn’t quite seem to believe that they were entering a building such as this—a matter on which most of the patrons seemed to agree.

  I turned back to Corminar. ‘Red Thorn?’

  The ranger shook his head, but said nothing more, only continuing to study the group of elves as they ambled—though, “floated” might have been a better descriptor—over to the bar, and ordered more of the same wine that Corminar had described as “swill”.

  Corminar remained oddly silent for the next hour or so—not that he was the Slayer with the loudest mouth at the best of times—his eyes trained on the elves at the bar. But he didn’t move, nor did he comment on them. And, if I wasn’t mistaken, one of them was glancing back. Knowing Corminar, there was only one possible answer to this question—the grizzled elf glancing back at him was a former lover. Though, that didn’t exactly narrow it down.

  ‘Marriage?’ Arzak asked. ‘Babies? Grand babies?’

  ‘Arzak, shut up,’ Val replied.

  ‘What are we talking about? I got distracted,’ I said, returning to the conversation.

  ‘Arzak is interrogating me on my intent.’

  ‘Intent with what?’

  ‘With you,’ Val replied.

  ‘I defend your honour,’ Arzak explained. ‘Make sure she not break your heart.’

  ‘If anyone’s getting their heart broken around here, it’s—’

  The sound of glass shattering against floor interrupted me, and I looked around to find that Val had dropped her—nearly full—pint glass. Her face grew pale as she stared at an older gentleman sporting an old-style sorcerer’s hat, who had just entered the tavern.

  ‘Val?’ I asked, placing a hand on her upper back. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘He…’ Val started, though immediately trailed off. Her eyes remained on the older human as he hurried over to the elves at the bar and clapped a couple of them around the back.

  ‘Sorry about that, old chaps,’ the man said. ‘Had to nip off. Academy business, you understand. How is the wine? Good, good…’

  Val suddenly stood from the table, swaying slightly though I suspected that didn’t have much to do with the beer, and she turned as if around to leave.

  ‘Val, what are you…?’ As she moved towards the exit, I also rose from the table and hurried after her, grabbing her softly by the forearm. ‘Val, what’s going on?’

  ‘He knows,’ Val said. ‘He knows what I am.’

  ‘Equivalence Vignor,’ the voice of the sorcerer boomed across the tavern floor. ‘I did wonder if we would ever meet again…’

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