by Adam Witcher
I nodded and thanked him. The father and daughter gave each other one last embrace.
“Good luck, father.” Lily held his hand. “Ride straight to the estate and don’t stop, okay?” He nodded.
They walked toward the barn, and I followed. Inside, there were two large black horses munching on oats next to the giant apparatus. Lily led them both out. Nicolas mounted one, smiled at his daughter, and began to ride away.
“Hey, dad!” She called out before he’d gone too far. He turned to her. “Tell mom that I love her, that I’ll see her soon.” He nodded again and left.
“That didn’t seem too difficult,” I said.
“I think he knew from the start I wasn’t going to go with him.” She put one foot into a stirrup and flung herself onto the horse, then turned to me. “Well, are you coming?”
I hoisted myself up and nestled into position behind her. The horse was a big one, but we were still pressed up against each other. The contours of her back lined up with my chest, and she leaned into me slightly. I felt my heart race.
“This is Milo, by the way,” she said. It took me a moment to realize she meant the horse. She turned to me and grinned. “He’s a fast one, so hang on.”
She yanked the reigns and Milo took off. Lily was right, he was a hell of a mount. Only a few minutes passed before we were so far north on the dirt path that the valley that held Wolfgang vineyards disappeared behind the hills.
I can’t say how long we rode before we came across the man, but the arc of the sun told me that we had entered mid-afternoon. We had just crossed a bridge across the Farro River, and from there the path didn’t change much. We were crossing the plains of Iggoroth and only a few occasional cliffs disturbed the vast farmlands. Our only beacon was the great tower and we moved towards it little by little. The man was nearly collapsed when we found him, struggling to stand. He was shirtless and emaciated, and despite his dour appearance, I guessed that he was about my age. His hair was dark brown and disheveled, and his beard looked like it hadn’t been trimmed in weeks. Red scrapes covered his face and torso. I pointed him out to Lily, who brought Milo to a stop.
“Are you alright?” I called out.
The man looked up. His eyes were red and cloudy.
“Who are you?” he barked. Lily and I looked at each other.
“Travelers,” I said. “You look like you could use a hand. Were you attacked?”
“Attacked,” he repeated, staring again at the ground. I heard him let out a couple of sniffs. He looked up at us, a new vigor present in his face. “You have some, don’t you?”
“Have some what?” I asked. He walked over slowly, and I put my hand on the hilt of my dagger. He sniffed again when he was closer to me, and his eyes moved toward the bag hanging from my belt. He lifted a hand toward it.
“Don’t touch that,” I said, unsheathing my dagger. “Trust me, it won’t be worth your trouble.”
He lowered his hand and gritted his yellow teeth. He began to jump up and down, stifling screams.
“What do you want for it?” He growled. “Sex? Gold? I can find what you need.”
I almost laughed at that. This man wasn’t in a position to do much of anything useful. Still, I could feel the tension from Lily. My hand brushed against hers and it was cold to the touch.
“Wait,” I whispered. I slid off Milo’s back and unclasped the bag from my waist, holding it up. He reached for it and I pulled it away.
“What is this stuff?” I asked, holding it as high as I could.
“I don’t know what it’s called,” he said. “I got some from a group of goblins a few weeks ago. They told me it would make me feel like a god. It did. But they left town, and I ran out. Now give it here.”
The man was shaking violently, his eyes grew wider.
“Where did they get it?” I asked.
“The fuck if I know! They were goblins. They could barely speak the common tongue. All I could hear is something about that tower. And a name too, Neptos. Something like that. Come on now. Have you taken it? Do you know how it feels to be a god?”
I ignored him, but he began reaching toward me. “What are you doing out here?” I tossed the sack up and down and his eyes never left it.
“The goblins went south from my town,” he said. “I thought maybe I could find them out here. But there’s nothing. Nothing!”
“What town?” I asked.
“Finnsbruck,” he said. “Now give it to me!”
“How long have you been walking?”
“Two days,” he said. “Three maybe. I don’t know. Give it to me now!”
I opened the sack and handed him a handful of the substance, careful to leave a little bit in it. I tried not to let the man see that I didn’t give him everything. He was so excited at the touch of the stuff that he didn’t seem to notice. I wanted to ask him more questions, but the moment he held the stuff in his hands, he ran off down the dirt path, snorting it wildly.
“You know,” Lily said. “If we follow him, he might just attack us. I’d rather not bother.”
I shrugged. “Let’s see if Finnsbruck can offer us any clues. He can’t be the only one who met those goblins.”
Chapter Seven
We caught sight of Finnsbruck at twilight. We were tired, sore, hungry, thirsty, and greatly relieved by its presence. It was only a little larger than Fellrock, but its appearance suggested that it was once a wealthy city. Massive stone walls surrounded it, though they were crumbling and weathered. Behind them, I could see the golden spires of an elegant cathedral. They had already closed the gate for the day when we approached it. I called out to the silhouette of a guard that was leaning against the wall. He jumped at the sound of my voice and raised a spear toward us.
“Who are you?” His voice was high pitched, which made his threatening tone laughable. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Hey, relax, okay?” I said, raising my hands. “We’re just travelers. We wanted to inquire about a hot meal and a place to sleep.”
“You aren’t goblins, are you?” He stepped forward and I got a better look at him. He was a short, blonde, moon-faced man. The spear shook in his hands. I looked to Lily and had to stifle a laugh.
“Not that we are aware of, no.” I called back.
“And you don’t have any of that black stuff?”
“We sure don’t.” It wasn’t exactly true, but I wasn’t going to try and explain it to him.
“Alright, fine.” The gate swung open and we walked through it.
If Finnsbruck was once a wealthy town, it had taken a turn for the worse. Most of the inhabitants that walked its streets had grim faces, and they were clothed in stained and threadbare clothing. Grime coated the sidewalks, and a scent of decay hovered above the streets. Even so, most of the businesses appeared to be in operation. The path from the gate led us to a bustling main square. We passed a butcher with a display of suspicious looking meat. An emaciated teenager stood on a box near it and preached to a group of four or five old women. Nobody else seemed to notice him. Across the square, a blacksmith hammered away at a sword that had been chipped and bent into a useless state. I was surprised he wouldn’t simply melt it down and start over. We made our way through the crowd.
A little way past the main square we reached a smaller road. Lily pointed up to a sign that read The Sleeping Dragon Inn. Inside, there were only three or four other patrons huddled over mugs of ale and bowls of soup. A very fat woman with her hair in limp braids stood behind the counter. She grunted to us as we entered. Lily picked out a table in a corner. The woman waddled.
“Yeh?” She said.
“We’re tired,” I said.
“And hungry. And thirsty.” Lily added.
“What do you have for dinner?” I asked.
“Bean soup.” Even her tongue sounded fat.
“Lovely, two bowls of that,” I said. “And two ales please. Wait, do you have wine?”
The woman just stared.
“Just the soup and the ales then.” I forced a grin. It was not reciprocated. The woman waddled off.
“Charming town,” I said once we were alone.
“I don’t think it used to be like this,” she responded.
“I got that impression.”
The woman set down two cloudy mugs of ale in front of us. I took a sip. It wasn’t very good. I took another one anyway.
“My father told me about this town when I was younger, I think,” she said. “My aunt and uncle did a lot of business here. My gods, the thought of them showing up here now.” She laughed.
The woman showed up again and put down two bowls of soup in front of our mugs. I took a slurp. It was a bit bland, and not terribly hot. I didn’t care. I wolfed it down in less than a minute and requested another bowl. She didn’t seem pleased to fetch it for me. This was again true when Lily asked for seconds. We ordered more ales, too, and the stress of the day began to fade. The second round came out warm. Lily grabbed the two mugs, focused for a moment, and her hands began to glow a light blue. There was a crackling sound, and when she moved her hands, the cups were frozen solid. This time I gulped the icy ale.
“Where’d you learn to do that anyway?” I asked her.
“When I was a kid, my mother used to take me to this book salesman who came through the town nearest our estate once or twice a year. He always had a booth in the main square. A huge wagon full of all kinds of books. Mysteries, adventures, romances. It took four horses to carry the thing around. She’d buy me anything I wanted. The man who ran the thing always joked that after I came through, he only needed three horses.” She smiled. “No matter how many I got, I always seemed to read them all before he came again.”
“Let me guess, you cooped yourself up in your room all the time to keep your cousins away.”
“Something like that,” she said. “Anyway, when I was probably eight or nine, I found that he had a small new section of books. There weren’t stories, so I couldn’t make any sense of them at first. I asked the man what they were, and he told me he’d picked them up at the Arcane Academy in eastern Iggoroth. He didn’t know much about them. One in particular caught my eye. It was some sort of instruction manual. It was full of images of a human figure in these strange positions. They seemed to be creating ice out of thin air. I hadn’t ever heard of such a thing. I was intrigued, so I stuck it in the pile with everything else. My mother didn’t even ask about it.”
“So you’ve been doing this since you were eight?” I asked. “Impressive.”
“Well,” she said. “Kind of. Those were very basic spells. Creating useless things like cubes or freezing puddles. Not much good. When he came the next year, I hoped that he’d bring more books like it. No luck, though. I was pretty disappointed.”
“Okay, so clearly you can do more than that now.” I motioned to the barkeep for two more ales. She rolled her eyes.
“Oh man. I was not expecting to tell this story to someone I met one day ago.” The barkeep set down another set of mugs. Lily took them and froze them again.
“Ah, come on!” I said. “We’ve bonded over battle. That counts for something, right?”
She took a deep breath
“So, when I say my family treated me like shit, I mostly mean my two cousins. Ignatius, who went by Iggy, or Piggy to me, was the younger one, but still older than me by about a year. A fat idiot. I suspect he still is. His older brother was Jericho, and admittedly, he was a bit stronger and smarter than his brother. One day they were being particularly awful. In one day Piggy had put a spider in my oatmeal, Jericho had painted the word “BUTTHEAD” on the back of my favorite white dress, which I didn’t notice for hours after I’d put it on, and the two of them together fed my favorite horse hayrot instead of oats. He was vomiting so violently, and they convinced me he was so disgusted by me that he was trying to commit suicide. My breaking point didn’t come until dinner that night, though. We had guests. Another rich family, a couple and their boys who were about our age. When the adults were away, Piggy and Jericho convinced them that I was actually a pig that they had dressed up as a girl, as a joke. The other boys chased me around all evening with a frying pan, oinking at me. My cousins wouldn’t stop laughing. I ran to my bedroom screaming and didn’t come out for several hours. I wouldn’t even open the door for my parents when they came to check on me. Later that night, I heard Piggy laughing at something and going into the washroom. I waited until the tub was full and I heard him get into it. I snuck in, tip-toed over to the tub, and flung the curtain open. He stared at me for a second. I guess he didn’t know how to react. Before he could, I stuck my hand down into the water and froze it solid. He was screaming his head off when I ran out of the room.”
“Good gods!” I almost snorted from laughter. “Brutal. Was he okay?’
“He was fine. Almost died of hypothermia. He didn’t, but that didn’t make my aunts and uncles any less furious. They demanded that my parents send me to a summer retreat for disturbed children. Like rehab for violent kids.”
“Did you go?”
“They sure thought so.” She smirked. “Sent me away on a horse, and I didn’t come back for three months. But you know where I went instead?”
“You didn’t!” I laughed and slapped my hand on the table. A couple of hooded patrons looked our way. “The academy?”
“Let’s just say,” she said, “When I got back home, I took a lot less shit from my cousins. And it gave my parents an extra incentive to move away.”
“Badass.” I raised my glass. She clinked it. “I commend you. Truly.”
“So how did you get your powers?”
I told her about the battle in the forest.
“Izmira?” She was flabbergasted. “You met a forest nymph? Yesterday?”
We ordered another round, and the night got a bit blurry. We laughed and talked loudly. I kept noticing two other patrons glancing our away in annoyance, but I didn’t care. Eventually, I stumbled over to the barkeep and asked for a room, holding up a bag full of goblin gold that I’d plundered that morning. She led me to one in the back with two separate beds. I went out and asked Lily if she was coming. She told me she’d come when she finished her ale. I’m not sure when she came in. I was already sound asleep.
Chapter Eight
Lily was already dressed in her traveling gear when I awoke. She was sitting on the edge of her bed and gazing in my direction. She seemed embarrassed when I opened my eyes to meet hers.
“Oh hey,” she said. “You’re awake. I couldn’t sleep much.”
Her voice sounded strained, I assumed from sleep deprivation. I yawned and stood up. I started to change my pants. She blushed and turned around.
She continued, “So listen, there’s a road that runs northwest through the city walls. I think it’s the quickest way to head north for the tower.”
“You want to leave already?” My stomach growled and my head pounded. “We haven’t even explored the town yet. We need supplies, need to ask about those goblins and that guy from the roadside. You realize we still have no idea what’s happening up there, right?” I took off my shirt and put it in my bag, replacing it with a clean one. Then I placed my light armor over it.
“This town is dirty and gross.” She stood up anxiously. “Full of creeps, too. I doubt they know anything. I think our best bet is to keep heading north.”
“Look, let’s just start with breakfast, okay? And we’re going to need at least some basic supplies. We don’t know how far it is to the next town.”
I took her silence as agreement, so we took our bags and went back out into the main room of the inn. It was empty. We’d likely out slept the few other guests. The fat woman had apparently been relieved by a short, thin old man sometime during the night. I asked for some breakfast and paid the bill with more of the goblins’ coins. We took a seat and he brought out two bowls of hot porridge. We ate in silence, then headed out into the street.
“I’m not keen on buying
food from these stalls,” I said once we’d reached the main square, “but it looks like we don’t have much of a choice.”
We meandered through the square until we found a dried fruit and nut stand that looked acceptable. The woman who ran it was older, but very pretty. She seemed like she took better care of herself than most of the other inhabitants of Finnsbruck. Lily tapped her foot and looked around while I made my purchase.
“We just needed food, right?” she asked. “Is that it?”
“Well, I’d like some dried meat too if we can find it. And some oats for Milo. I could stand to pick up a few arrows if there’s a fletcher around here. Never hurts to carry a full quiver.”
“Fine,” she said. “Let’s just make it quick.”
I turned on her abruptly. “What is wrong with you this morning?” I could hardly recognize her as the woman I’d drank and laughed with the night before. She was tense and closed off, and a grimace seemed plastered to her face.
“Nothing is wrong,” she said. “I’m fine. I just really don’t like this town. I want to leave.”
“You seemed alright last night when we walked through it.”
She crossed her arms and stared at her shoes before responding, “It just looks way worse in the daylight.”
She clearly wasn’t going to give me any more than that, so I kept walking and tried not to let her distract me. Luckily, the square was less crowded this morning, and I was able to find a butcher and fletcher within just a few minutes. Lily said nothing during the purchases, and if she wanted anything for herself, she didn’t say so.
“So we can go now?” she asked.
“Don’t you want to at least try to ask around about the black powder? About goblins?”
“And who do you propose we ask?”
I looked around the dingy square at the blank faces trudging past. None of them looked very inviting or knowledgeable.
“Alright, fine,” I said. “Let’s just take that exit you were talking about. We can ask any travelers we meet on the road.”