Angel's Creed Seven
In which we get some perspective on our villains, and Oriole has a dire personal dilemma. 8,948 words.
FEEDBACK IS AWESOME. I would like to know:
- What you like
- What you dislike
- Whether anything pulls you out of the reading (poor phrasing, something happens that you have to stop to puzzle out, a world-specific thing is ill-defined enough to stop your reading inertia, can't tell who's speaking for a certain line or set of lines, etc)
- Does characterization seem consistent? Not just generally, but also in terms of emotional flow between scenes? (I always worry that I'm forgetting to take into account a character's feelings when I switch scenes on them.)
- Do you feel that the villain perspective was a good choice? Does this feel like the right time to bring their POV into the story?
- Other thoughts, comments, or concerns
Chapter 7
Redrum didn't want to stick around to see what would happen once Black's thieves pulled themselves together. Slay said he'd grown up with them, and that was how he'd managed to convince them that a raid would be a grand idea, but Redrum did not trust any of them nearly as far as he could throw them. Black was not the sort of man to take a failure like that in stride, and Redrum didn't want to be around when he decided on consequences.
Instead of retreating to Black's hideout, Redrum slung his unconscious boss over his back and ran. He covered as much ground as he possibly could, heading for the river and Rodale.
Slay announced his new-found consciousness with a groan. "Why does it feel like I've gone and got smashed?"
Redrum slowed to a walk. He'd put enough distance between them and Black's forces to feel relatively safe. "Only over the 'ead, Boss," he answered.
"That would explain it, wouldn't it?"
"'Magine so."
"Augh." He curled up, one arm tightening around Redrum's throat and the other leaving it. "What hit me?"
"Couldn't tell you, Boss."
"Khim's sodding wings, I bet it was that stupid-" Slay cut himself off with a strangled cry of pain and the arm around Redrum's neck suddenly tightened enough to start choking him. It was followed by an awful lot of cursing through which Redrum managed to discern a few words relating paint to eyes.
"Boss, quit it," he choked out as he stopped. "I can't breathe-" But Slay was obviously not listening, so Redrum forcibly pulled his arm away from his neck and let Slay drop to the ground.
Slay writhed and curled up into a painfully hissing ball with his hands pressed over his eyes.
"An' you're supposed to be the smart one," Redrum muttered, taking the waterskin from his belt.
Feeling rather like a nanny, he hauled Slay up, forced his hands away from his face, and washed the black paint out of his eyes.
Crisis averted, Slay shook himself to get the water out of his fur. It didn't work very well. He just sat there looking miserable, his eyes red, smeared face-paint making him look like a raccoon. "This is not my bloody week," he muttered.
"Maybe you should give up on this one, Boss. She's too smart for you."
"She is not," he snarled, glaring up at Redrum. He grabbed Redrum's ear, painfully hauling him down to his own level. Slay, though he was half Redrum's size and a fine mess, made Redrum back down out of fear. "There is no summoner too smart for me. Not her, not that old priest, nobody."
"R-right Boss, o' course," he stammered. "Ain't nobody smarter'n you, Slay."
"Good." He released Redrum's ear and Redrum pulled back, rubbing at it, staring back at Slay over his shoulder.
Slay took a deep breath, pushed the loose strands of hair out of his face, and then smiled up at the sky. "Black's livid, I'm sure. What say we keep on keepin' on?" He glanced around the grasslands, his smile fading. "Where are we, anyway?"
"I was, um, runnin' for Rodale," Redrum put forth cautiously.
"Right then. Let's get ourselves as far from Black's territory as we can. The girl can wait a bit." He hauled himself to his feet, stumbling when he hit them and scowling as he rubbed his head.
"You alright, Boss?"
"It'll pass." He started walking. "Come on then, Redrum."
"You're walkin' north, Boss."
"I knew that," he replied, changing direction without missing a beat.
* * *
Matt's group rested until nearly noon. Zahn volunteered to stand watch, claiming experience with all-day guard shifts in ANG. Matt was too tired to question the elf's former service in the Almsland National Guard. He was just glad he didn't have to be the one to volunteer to stay up.
Despite his best efforts, he was still awake before the others. He wanted to blame ANGEL training for that one, but it turned out it was actually the mumbled conversation at the edge of his hearing.
They hadn't bothered to set up a real camp. He'd fallen asleep against Yvonne and woke up with her head on his chest. "Get off," he mumbled, shoving her aside and pushing himself up.
She gave a plaintive trill and complied by moving out from under his shoulders and walking off, leaving him to fall against the ground with a rough thump.
"Dammit, Yvonne."
The indistinct conversation had stopped by that point. Matt pushed himself up on his elbows, tipping up the bill of his cap so he could see.
It was Zahn, and...nobody else. Just Zahn. Somehow, he could accept that. Zahn was a genderless elf from the Nenakret who identified as a goblin - talking to oneself paled in comparison to the rest of the oddness.
"Good morning," Zahn said brightly.
"Technically, I guess." He pushed himself to his feet, straightened out his uniform, brushed himself off, and adjusted his cap. He spared a glance as Bernard flew up to his usual perch.
Matt turned away, looking for Yvonne. She hadn't gone far and was busily pruning her tail-feathers by combing her fingers through them. "Yvonne, come," he called. Her head darted up and she ran back to his side. He picked up the task, combing through her crest and wing-feathers as well.
He checked her injuries. The gash on her nose looked worse than it was, but it had scabbed over fine. He re-dressed her arm, more careful of her feathers than he had been the night before (something he realized with a wince). When he was done, he reached up and rubbed her jaw, eliciting a contented trill from her. "Without you, those beastmen wouldn't even have any horses left to pull their wagons," he told her. "No respect, Yvonne. No respect."
She made a noise that sounded almost like agreement and shoved her nose in his face, nuzzling his cheek.
"Aww, I love you too, Yvonne. You're the cutest little war-thurgia there is."
"That is emasculating."
He froze. Yvonne looked up and he followed suit, looking back over his shoulder at Amelia. Great. "She's my steed and I can talk to her however I want," he replied, faking a haughty air.
"Big bad Matt Richards," said Bernard.
"Hmph."
Amelia rose from her sitting position, doing her best not to disturb Joel on the way. They'd shared sleeping space under his heavy cloak. That was improper enough to raise some eyebrows, but being that Joel was a priest, her best friend, and had helped raise her, Matt didn't comment on it.
She stretched; even from where he was, Matt could hear her back crack multiple times. He cringed. "Ugh." She stepped away from Joel, combing her fingers through her tangled hair, still loose from the night before. "Is my bag over there? I need my hairbrush."
He nodded toward the saddlebags, which he'd pulled off of Yvonne but hadn't unpacked. Amelia grunted and walked over to dig through them. Matt turned back to Yvonne, inspecting her more carefully for further damage.
Less than a minute later, Amelia let out a yelp. He whirled around, hand on his sabre, to see her sitting on the ground in front of the open saddlebag, cradling one hand in the other.
Zahn, who likewise had a hand on hilt, relaxed. "Wingspace bag inside a wingspace bag?"
"Yeah," she said, frowning.
Matt felt like an idiot for not realizing he should've warned her about that. It was something all his acquaintances had known for years, so he'd never even thought to mention it.
Zahn handled the explanation for him, walking over to kneel beside Amelia and pull her bag out of the saddlebag. "You can't do that. Well, you can, but you can only do it two deep, and you can't open one while it's inside another one. Magical feedback."
"Oh." She looked down at her hand and then pulled off her glove. "Why?"
Zahn briefly inspected her hand and decided it was fine. "Because wingspace breaks the rules. Hey," turning to shout toward the rest of the group, "Qiver, get over here and ramble about magic!"
Matt looked up at the rest of those present. Amelia's cry had apparently woken most of them. Oriole looked like he was trying to ignore it, but Victoria was rubbing her eyes and Joel watched silently and Qiver was, now, leaping to his feet and running over to Zahn and Amelia.
"What is it?" the goblin asked.
"Explain wingspace to her," Zahn said, standing and moving away to continue keeping watch.
Matt left Yvonne's side and walked over to listen to the explanation. Goblins might tend toward technology over magic, but he fully expected Qiver to act like a typical goblin here.
He was not disappointed. Qiver launched into an explanation like he had ten seconds to deliver a ten minute lecture. "Wingspace is compressed space. It's called that because it artificially mimics the compressed space where Molge kept their retractable wings. It's an imperfect copy because we've only managed to figure out how to double the space available, and any bigger than that fails. Very creatively! I've seen some spectacular failures, oh yes." Qiver paused for a breath. "You can stack them two deep - four times the space! - but it doesn't work very well. There's interference. You can't get inside the second bag while it's inside the first bag. You'll get feedback instead, a jolt of magic up your arm like an electric shock - which is funny because wingspace is shadow magic and electricity is light magic!"
Another pause for breath; Amelia took the opportunity to respond. "Um."
"You have to take them apart if you want to reach into the second one. Do you know why two works but three doesn't?"
"N-"
"Because three would compress space to eight times its size! Anything inside the third bag wouldn't survive the compression! It deforms and everything molds together into a big mass of stuff, it's a mess! But two is okay. Two doesn't do that. Too badly." He flashed her a thumbs-up, patted her shoulder, and walked off to join Zahn.
Amelia stared. And then she slowly turned her head up to Matt and stared at him instead.
"Goblins," he said.
She frowned. She looked down at her bag, and at the hairbrush she'd pulled out, and quietly, almost as if she were afraid to be caught doing it, started brushing her hair.
Matt left her to return to Yvonne's side. He addressed the group. "Get ready to move. We're still a day out of Wey."
"Half a day," Zahn corrected.
Matt's eyebrows rose in question.
"Half a day from Wey's territories. Another most-of-a-day to Wey proper. We should hit Wyra by nightfall."
"Wyra?" Amelia looked up.
"The closest village. Wey doesn't exist in a vacuum."
"What's a vacuum?" came from Victoria.
Zahn's arms folded and the mask turned to her. She just looked back, waiting.
"A vacuum is nothing," Oriole said.
"Oh. Why not just say 'nothing' then?"
"Because that's not what it means!"
"But you just said-"
Matt turned away from them and went about getting Yvonne's gear strapped back on. Amelia (he had to pay some measure of attention to her because she was sitting by Yvonne's gear) was listening with interest, but too busy working on getting her hair into its usual bun to contribute.
"A vacuum means that the space around something is empty," Matt heard Joel say. "In this case, saying a town exists in a vacuum would mean that there were no other towns surrounding it."
"Ohhh."
"Hey," Oriole protested, "I was explaining it fine!"
"Ah, forgive me, Oriole. I'll be sure to let you handle definitions on your own from now on, if you like."
"But you explain things so well, Joe!"
"It's. Joel."
"Right, Joel, that's what I said!"
"Hey." Zahn interrupted. "Get your stuff together."
The chatter died down, replaced by the sounds of people shuffling around.
Matt finished getting Yvonne's gear in place. He leaned down to brush some of the ash from her red and white spats, and wiped it off his gloves onto the bottom of his sweater as he stood. To little avail, really. There were still streaks of grey across her spats and his gloves, and he was going to have to scrub at them once they stopped somewhere he'd have the time to do laundry.
He turned to find Amelia standing beside him, presenting him with her bag. She was looking down at the ground, chewing at her lip. He took it as her not wanting to look at Yvonne, but as he took her bag, in turn stowing it in Yvonne's saddlebags, she said, very soft, "There's ash all over your boots."
He glanced down. His white boots were smeared with grey in addition to the mud he'd yet to knock off of them. While he was trying to think of a reply, Bernard infuriatingly provided his own. "No kidding, woman. That's what happens when you kill a guy when you're wearing white boots."
Holding back a sigh, he pulled down the straps on the saddlebag and fastened them. Amelia's response surprised him. "That's why your sword was purple."
He stopped, looking over his shoulder at her, puzzled. "What?"
"Never mind." She wrapped her arms around herself, still staring down at his boots. "You're a soldier, right? It's just something you do."
This quiet sort of reaction from her was very jarring. He wasn't really sure how to respond. "...Yeah, Varista," he answered, sincere. "Yeah. I kill people when I have to."
"Right..." She took a half-step back, hesitated, and then turned to walk to Joel's side. Matt stared after her.
"Oh man, she is gonna be terrified of you now."
"Thanks, Bernard," Matt muttered.
"If you want somebody who's not going to try to ruin your life for selfish entertainment, find another faerie."
"If only."
Before long, they were back on the road, headed for the outskirts of Wey's territory. Victoria was the first to strike up conversation, asking how Zahn knew so much about Wey. Matt had to admit a certain amount of curiosity himself; most people who were not natives to Ligaram (himself included) were under the impression that the country consisted wholly of the three major cities: Wey, Manala, and Guram.
"I came through here before a couple decades ago," Zahn answered, throwing a glance back at Amelia. "Escorting a summoner on his quest when I was in the ANG."
"Oh, really? Who was it?" Amelia asked. Summoners all seemed to know each other; she'd probably recognize the name.
"Some pretentious jackass named Dmitrius." A thoughtful pause, while the Almslanders present stopped cold. "Dmitrius Vladimir...? Yeah. That was it."
"You shouldn't lie, Zahn." Joel's smile hadn't faded, but it had turned into the sort of smile you didn't want to see on somebody you'd bumped into in a dark alley.
"Oh, Rafsjalel," Zahn said with a sigh, folding one arm over the other, setting mask in hand. "Why would I lie about that? It's not like he's important or anything." A very pregnant pause. "Is he?"
Everyone but Zahn and Matt took a step back when they saw Joel's face. Zahn remained innocently still. Matt rushed forward to set an arm across Joel's chest to hold him back, stepping between him and Zahn. "You guys can antagonize each other later. Cut it out." He went to Zahn, forcefully turned the elf around, and gave a light shove. "We don't have time for this."
That was, very simply, that. Nobody wanted to argue with the ANGEL. (Especially not the one with ash on his boots.) They started moving again.
Only a few steps later, Amelia, hesitant, asked, "Did you...really escort High Father Dmitrius?"
Zahn, thankfully, gave up trying to be inflammatory. "It wasn't his first quest. He was just expanding his collection of Contracts and scouting promising young Spiritalkers. Come to think of it, we did find one. Never made it back with him, though."
"...Why not?" Amelia asked, hesitant.
"Raid. Thieves. Same gang from last night, I think. Took us captive."
"They what?!"
Even Matt glanced back, curious.
"Well, not Dmitrius. He ran. But the kid and me."
That was not quite as interesting. Matt was not surprised to find that the High Father had turned tail and run. By Joel's expression, though, he was about to call Zahn out on lying again. Matt interrupted another potential argument himself. "How'd you get out?"
"Daringly. Kid refused to come, though. Probably ended up getting raised with them." A shrug. "Or sold, who knows."
"You just left him there?" Amelia cried in dismay.
"Hey, when you're making a daring escape from a thieves' den and the kid says he doesn't wanna come, you don't argue." Zahn laughed, somewhat absently. "But Dmitrius became High Priest, wow. You Almslanders, no taste."
Joel's voice, like cold steel, made Matt pray that he wasn't going to have to break up a fight. "I would appreciate it, Zahn, if you would keep your opinions on our church hierarchy to yourself."
Thankfully Zahn just shrugged and left it at that.
* * *
Wyra was a tiny little farm village. It was getting dark by the time Zahn led them to it, so Oriole couldn't tell much more than that. There wasn't even a real inn, just a back room at the tavern where people could rest for the night. Zahn didn't want to stay there with Joel, though, and went to sleep in the stable with Qiver instead. None of them were tired. Except maybe Zahn, who didn't get to sleep when they'd stopped at sunrise.
Even though it was dark, Victoria said she was going to go talk to the local blacksmith or find out if the town had a weapon shop. Oriole thought it was stupid, because if it was dark then they'd probably be closed, even if it wasn't that late. Nobody told her not to go, though.
Oriole took a deep breath and let it all out at once with, "Hey can I go with you it's okay if you say no."
But she smiled and said, "Sure!" and he was stuck.
He didn't really know what he wanted to say. She was his sister, right? And Zahn thought he should tell her. But...he really didn't want to tell her. So he just followed her anxiously as she led them through Wyra.
Some windows were lit, and that plus the light from the moon made it really easy to see. She'd gotten some vague directions from the man at the tavern, and eventually they made it to a sign with an anvil painted on it. The window behind it was lit.
Victoria pushed open the door and stepped inside, and Oriole followed cautiously. He wasn't sure what he'd expected a smithy to look like, but it looked like one.
An old Wyule looked up from sweeping the floors. He looked like the kind of guy who could pick up a house, so he was probably the blacksmith. "Fire's out, miss," he said. "You'll have to come back in the morning."
"Oh, well, I was jus' wonderin' if you had any halberds made up?" she asked.
Oriole stared around the smithy while they talked. The walls were covered in...things. He didn't know what they were supposed to be. A smith's tools, he assumed. They looked kind of like something that should be hanging on the walls in a dungeon, as far as he was concerned.
Why was he here? He wasn't even sure he liked Victoria. Maybe he was related to her - half related to her - but he had a choice on whether or not they had to be family about it. If he didn't tell her, she'd probably never figure it out, and he could go on living just like he always had. He wouldn't have to worry about anything changing. Owl was still his grandpa, he was still some foundling at the Nenakret, and he didn't have to consider this whole other part of who he was and where he came from.
What if she wanted him to come live with her? He definitely didn't want to live in Ligaram. They didn't even have indoor plumbing here, and forget about books and magic and books about magic. What did magically inclined beastmen even do? Just figure it out on their own? Go to the Nenakret, probably. Which brought him right back to the first point!
Or maybe she'd want to come live at the Nenakret with him, and he'd have to explain to everyone that this was his big dumb meathead sister and she'd never remember anybody's names or ever know what people were talking about and he'd have to live the rest of his life hiding in shame because smart people are supposed to come from smart families.
As personal revelations went, this was the worst.
"Come on then," Victoria said to him, tapping him on the shoulder and snapping him out of his thoughts.
He looked up. "Huh?"
She was already walking out. "He hasn't got any halberds made up. I'll have to buy one in Wey."
"Oh." He followed her out. Maybe he would just follow her all the way back to the tavern without saying a word. But it felt awkward. He really should say something. She was his sister, right? After some careful thought, he finally asked, "Um...so, why do you need a halberd?" That was a good conversation subject. It was neutral.
She looked back at him over her shoulder. "I lost mine after the raid. Snapped the shaft over some thief, and I guess he made off with the head."
"Oh. That's, um." He didn't even know what to say to that. He'd never lost a halberd before. "Too bad?"
"Yeah, it is. My grandda gave me that halberd."
"Oh...you, uh, have a granddad too?" Actually that was sort of a stupid thing to ask. Everyone had a grandfather. Two, even. But it was the only thing he could think of to pick up on.
"Mm hm." She nodded.
"Me too," he said hesitantly. "He's called Owl. Only he's not my real grandpa, he just adopted me."
He bumped into something soft and reeled back. It was her chest, because she'd stopped walking and turned to face him. He pushed up the brim of his hat and craned his head to look up at her.
"You're adopted?" she asked, suddenly very interested.
Uh oh. Maybe he shouldn't have said that. Maybe he'd overestimated her ditziness. He looked down, fidgeting with the brim of his hat. "Um...yeah... I was brought to the Nenakret when I was really little, and Grandpa Owl took care of me." He glanced back up at her through the slit in his hat's brim, watching her reaction.
She chewed at her bottom lip. "That's a bit far, innit?"
"The Nenakret? It's all the way over in the west part of the Wilds, so it's pretty far." He didn't know where Orean was, but if it was in Almsland then it was at least a three week walk away from the Nenakret. No way he could've made it there by chance when he was only three.
She was quiet for a minute. Then she asked, "You know anythin' about your folks, Oriole?"
He shrugged. "One was a human and one was a Laun?"
She gave an absent nod. He wanted to stop talking, right now. It was obvious she was starting to figure it out. He wasn't ready for her to know yet. He didn't want to say it, and he didn't want her to put the pieces together. Having a sister was so different from not having a sister, and as long as she didn't know, he could keep pretending.
"A-anyway," he said, trying to quickly change the subject, "you should've been more careful with your halberd, isn't it really expensive to replace those?"
"Oh, um." She reached up, brushing her bangs, the only part of her hair not tied back into tiny braids, out of her face. "A bit. But I've got the money for it. I made it workin' as a caravan guard."
"So you, uh, fight well?" He didn't want to stand out here talking in the middle of the street. He started walking - backwards, so he could look at her while he talked.
"Yeah," she said, following him. "Grandda taught me how. And Da, when he was still alive."
"Why a halberd? Why not, um, a sword, or something?" Not that he really cared, but as long as she wasn't putting together the pieces of the 'hey I'm your brother' puzzle, he was happy.
"Cause Da an' Gradda used halberds." She was starting to brighten back up, dropping the serious tone they'd been heading for.
"Why?"
"Cause their da and grandda used halberds!"
"And you didn't want to be the one person in your whoooole family," he spread his arms, to show just how big that word was supposed to be, "who decided to use a sword instead?"
She shook her head with a laugh. "I never even thought about it! But I like fightin' with a halberd, I wouldn't change it now."
Now that they were actually moving, and conversation had gotten away from that pesky, uncomfortable subject of them being siblings, he turned around and started walking forward, falling back to her side. "I never learned how to use any weapons," he said.
"Cause you're a mage, right?"
"Right! Magic's way cooler than a halberd, anyway."
"My aunt was a mage - my stepmum's sister."
A stepmother. That meant her father was Laun and her stepmother could've been human. Now the ear, tattoo, age, name, and race all checked out. There really was no hope that it was all just a weird coincidence, was there? "Y...yeah?"
"Yeah. I haven't seen her since my folks died, though."
"Oh..." He almost wanted to ask what her name was, because if she was a Nenakret mage, chances were good he at least knew her in passing. And if she was his real aunt, then chances were better. Probably.
"Oh, look, there's the tavern!" He pointed at the building, relieved to be saved from having to keep talking to her. "I'm gonna go talk to Zahn and Qiver, I'll see you later, bye!" And with that he ran off to the attached stables and left Victoria there in the street.
Zahn was already asleep, curled up on the hay - or at least Oriole assumed Zahn was asleep, because he couldn't see under that mask. Qiver was sitting nearby on a hay bale, scribbling in his notebook like he had five seconds to write down everything he knew.
"Ugh!" Oriole threw up his hands, glaring down at Zahn. "Why does he have to be asleep!"
The scritching of Qiver's pencil stopped as his head snapped up. "Shhhh," he hissed, setting a finger to his mask where his mouth should be. "It only got three hours of sleep last night. It's tired. Don't be rude."
"Aaaaugh I wanted to talk to him, wake him up."
Qiver threw down the notebook and pencil and stalked over to Oriole. He wasn't tall enough to grab Oriole by the shoulders, so he grabbed his wrist instead and dragged him outside.
Oriole had not expected that. He was too surprised to resist.
Once they were outside, Qiver turned to him and...well, stared, maybe. His featureless mask, with the crease down the middle, was directed up at Oriole.
Finally realizing Qiver was waiting for him to say whatever it was he'd wanted to say to Zahn, Oriole said, "I went with Victoria because I thought maybe I could tell her but I can't do it."
Qiver's head tilted to the side. "Why not?"
"Because I've never had a sister before! I don't know what'll be different. I don't want to have to live with her in Ligaram or something. And it's embarrassing! She's an embarrassing sister to have!"
Qiver folded one arm across his chest and set his mask in his hand, looking thoughtful and confused even without a face to show it. "I have three sisters," he said. "It's not weird at all and they don't make me live with them and my whole family is embarrassing or maybe they think I'm embarrassing because I'm a mage and not an engineer but anyway I think you're being kind of silly. She's really nice even if she's not very smart. She's not that bad a sister to have. You should tell her."
He sighed, hanging his head. By now he was pretty sure that was going to be the answer everyone would give him. When everyone is giving the same advice, it's probably a good idea to follow it, but still.
"I could tell her?"
"No!" He shoved his hands over Qiver's mouth - that is, where his mouth should have been, and realized only after he'd done it that it didn't make any difference.
"You should tell her though, or Zahn probably will."
Oriole frowned at him.
"Get your hands off my mask. It's rude."
With a sigh, Oriole pulled his hands away and straightened. "Don't tell her, okay? And don't let Zahn tell her either."
"Okay, but you should do it and you should be quick about it because we have other things to worry about like how we're going to figure out if Matt is-" He cut himself off.
After a few seconds of silence, a voice from behind Oriole asked, "If Matt is what?"
He turned around and saw Matt standing at the entrance to the stables. He was holding the door open, but he faced Oriole and Qiver with one eyebrow arched.
Qiver let out a cry of dismay that kept going. His hands went to his head like he was horrified and then he turned around and ran off, flailing. All without even stopping to breathe.
Matt blinked.
Oriole shrugged. "Goblins," he said.
"Yeah. No kidding." His head turned to Oriole. "What was he going to say?"
Oriole knew exactly what Qiver had been about to say, but he also knew they weren't supposed to tell anybody. He looked away and shrugged and hoped Matt didn't ask again.
He didn't. "Goblins," he echoed, and then walked into the stables, closing the door behind him.
* * *
Nobody killed each other overnight in Wyra, and that pretty much qualified it as a good experience.
Matt didn't have the time to wash his bloodied uniform, but he switched it out for a fresh one and made a token effort to clean off his coat. Since he only had the one sweater and scarf, and he felt it would be imprudent to walk into Wey wearing clothes covered in ash, the coat was the only cold weather gear he had for now.
He also took the time to polish his boots. Not that they'd stay shiny for long, but at least they'd look good until he started walking.
They got on the road later than he would have liked, but they weren't that far out of Wey. Even with the late start, they'd get there before nightfall. He couldn't wait to finally get this trip over with. He'd almost forgotten why they were even going to Wey.
Except he'd never really known, had he? Oh, he knew why he was going to Wey, but Joel was the one who'd suggested it and convinced Amelia it was a good idea. He'd never found out why Joel wanted to come.
Joel's strange behaviour on the ferry, his hidden angry streak, his reaction to the cloaked stranger's name, and his knowledge of the proper order in which Daruma's parts needed to be unsealed - not to mention his presence in one of those places and his unexplained desire to travel to another - all added up to something not being right. Still, Joel had displayed some pretty intense faith, and Matt was hesitant to conclude that he'd be out to resurrect Daruma. Unless he was on orders from the church, it didn't make any sense.
Of course Matt had never held much trust in High Father Dmitrius Vladimir, so he believed it was entirely possible. It was also possible that some priest in Vonariel, also under orders, was going to unseal the part that Joel had said was there.
But then there was the matter of the petrified ANGELs, best explained as the work of a Spirit. Slay was a summoner, and they'd met Slay a day out of Alrael and now he was trailing them to Wey. As long as some third party was handling Vonariel, either explanation would work.
Next time he managed to get a minute alone with Joel, they needed to talk. (Hopefully it wouldn't end with Matt being held hostage again.)
The trip up to Wey was tiresome and slow, because mountain paths were not the easiest things in the world to traverse in the middle of winter, but it was uneventful. No fights, no complaints (shockingly), and nothing particularly interesting. They reached the city late that afternoon.
Wey was a city built in levels, its entrance centered on the first level's square. There were no gates, but there was a retaining wall around the edges of the city. Matt suspected it was a safety precaution for its denizens moreso than any means of defense. Overall Wey did not look very defensible, but that was probably because nobody in their right mind would lead an army into any of the Ligaram city-states.
Across from the city's entrance, a pair of staircases led up to the second level - a pattern which continued all the way up to the City Hall at the top, which was carved from the face of the mountain itself. Between the two staircases on the first level was a large pool, and from it flowed a series of canals which crisscrossed their ways through the city's white stone-paved roads. Footbridges of varying size made these traversable. The levels above had canals as well, and these flowed off the sides of their levels in waterfalls, carrying the canals down to the level below. Despite the cold, none of the water was frozen over. Also, despite the copious amounts of snow on the path leading up to the city, there was none in the city itself.
Overall, Wey was needlessly extravagant, but very visually striking. It looked like something out of a painting. It was no wonder that the Wyule considered it their capital.
Qiver claimed to know of a decent inn up on the second level. Matt had some misgivings about any inn a goblin might recommend, but nobody seemed to object, so Qiver took the lead, zigzagging them across a number of footbridges on the way to the stairs.
When they approached it, Oriole hopped up onto the ledge of the pool, walking along it with his arms spread out.
Joel stepped up beside him, following on the ground. "That's dangerous," he said. "What if you fall?"
"I won't fall. I have really good balance." He stopped, flashing a grin down at Joel. "Elves have really good balance too, don't they? I bet this would be super easy for you."
He hesitated. "Of course. That's elven nature."
Matt kept an eye on them as he walked past, watching as Joel climbed onto the ledge to follow Oriole. He ignored it after that, because daringly walking along "dangerous" ledges was kids being kids - even if Joel didn't exactly qualify.
"Hey, that's dangerous," came Zahn's voice, followed by a splash. That snapped Matt's attention right back. "What if you fall?"
"Joel!" Amelia cried, rushing to the side of the pool. She bravely fished him out while he tried to claw his way up her arms like a terrified, half-drowned cat.
"Are you okay?" Zahn asked, with perfect sincerity.
Matt felt a headache coming on.
"You pushed me!" Joel screamed. That was new. Even the anger about the ferry captain's theft had been kept to enraged shouting.
Oriole slid down to sit on the ledge, staring wide-eyed at the two elves.
"Who, me?" Zahn pointed to that mischievous mask, the perfect picture of faked innocence.
"Don't play innocent!" He stepped away from Amelia to square off with Zahn, dripping wet.
"Hey, don't try to pin your terrible balance on me, Rafsjalel."
Matt stepped between them, holding them each at arm's length. He'd broken up more than his share of stupid fights between soldiers over the course of his career, but it was harder to step in and make everyone shut up when you couldn't just order them to drop. "Enough," he said, bringing out his command voice.
"No! It pushed me!" Matt had to adjust one arm to lay flat across Joel's chest, because Joel did not want to back down. "It's done nothing but antagonize me for the entirety of this journey and I've tried to put up with it, but you have crossed the line, snake."
"Snake?" Zahn sounded honestly offended, splaying a hand over heart as if struck by an arrow. "Did you - did a priest of Alm really just say that?"
"Yes, Nagan, you are a snake, expendable, an unperson-"
"Stop." Matt grabbed Joel's collar, giving him a shake. This did not quell his anger, but it did get him to stop screaming elf-specific slurs at Zahn. Matt shot a glance between the two of them. "I don't care what happened. Both of you stop right now or I will make you stop."
Zahn stepped back, hands held up in surrender.
He turned back to Joel, letting go of his collar. His voice kept its harsh edge. "Go with Varista. Take Yvonne. Grab a room and change into something dry."
Joel, with a quiet sniff, ran his sleeve across his nose (to no avail, as all of him was equally soaked), and nodded. Amelia stepped forward, taking his arm and leading him away.
Matt folded his arms and watched them walk off. Victoria moved to follow at Joel's side, asking if he was alright. Yvonne did not move.
"Go," Matt commanded, waving at her, "follow them."
She trilled a reply and took off after them.
He noticed they weren't heading for the stairs. Amelia was leading them to find an inn on the first level, instead. At this point, he had to agree with the judgment. Zahn and Joel shouldn't be allowed anywhere near each other.
Speaking of Zahn. "You stay," Matt said, turning his head to glare at the elf sneaking away.
Zahn froze in place, and then turned to face Matt.
Oriole, still sitting on the ledge, frowned. "That was really mean, Zahn."
"Worse than that," Matt said, "it's freezing out. I don't care whatever petty elven feud is going on between you two. That was dangerous."
Qiver leaned against the ledge beside Oriole, listening silently. He looked disinterested or bored, but who knew with goblins. Maybe he was actually furious.
Hands on hips, Zahn gave a shake of the head accompanied by a sigh that was a whole-body motion. "If you wanna believe I pushed the kid, fine. But he's had it in for me since we first met. Does it occur to you that maybe he threw himself in and blamed me for it?"
"No," Matt replied. "It doesn't." Dammit though, he hated voices of doubt. His suspicions about Joel made him wonder. He carried on in spite of his own growing uncertainty. "You're older than he is. Show some maturity."
Zahn took a step back, hands up. "Look, we'll stay out of your way, Major. No reason to deal with each other any more now, right?"
...Ugh. He still wanted to ask about the faeries thing. He wanted to know what Zahn had stopped Qiver from saying. Now was not the time, though, and if he let Zahn walk away he might never get an answer.
But give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile. Even if he personally had no problems with Zahn, he had to show some solidarity and make it clear that what had happened was not okay.
"Go," he said finally, pointing toward the stairs.
Zahn flashed him a thumbs-up, which served as a goblin shorthand for a smile, and turned to leave. Qiver followed silently.
Oriole, however, hopped down from the ledge and considered for a moment before looking up at Matt. "Um. Can I go with you?" he asked. "I want to make sure Joel's okay."
That made him raise an eyebrow, but if Oriole and Joel were going to end up friends, maybe he could exploit that for an answer. He nodded and walked off after the rest of his group. Oriole followed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Zahn stop and turn back toward them to watch. He ignored it.
* * *
Amelia was furious. Not just because Zahn had shoved her best friend into freezing cold water in the middle of winter, but also because said friend didn't seem to be very furious about it himself once he got changed into some dry clothes.
Eventually she got fed up with trying to convince him he should be just as mad as she was and went to talk to somebody else about it, instead. Matt had appeared at one point and then vanished, and now she stalked through the inn in search of him.
She found him in the common room, at the table nearest to the part of the room set aside as a kitchen. He was peeling potatoes. He also wasn't wearing his red overcoat, which left his white button-up long-sleeved undershirt uncovered.
She stalked over to him and pulled out a chair. His hat and coat were sitting on it, Bernard lounging on top of the hat. Matt's eyes flickered up to her. She pulled out a different chair.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, sitting down across the table from him.
His eyes turned back down to his work. She noticed he was still wearing his white gloves, despite having his sleeves pushed up. "What does it look like I'm doing, Varista?"
"Don't even start, okay."
He rolled his shoulders back and straightened and faced her. "I'm helping our gracious hosts prepare the dinner you'll be eating tonight."
She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. "Why? They can do it. We're paying them."
He rolled his eyes and turned back to the potatoes.
"Don't you get to order other people to do this kind of thing?" This wasn't even what she'd come to talk about, but the longer she was away from Joel and his stupid indifference to things he should be livid over, the less frustrated she felt with him. Her remaining anger was to be vented on Matt peeling potatoes, apparently.
"Varista, in case you didn't notice, I'm the only ANGEL here. There's nobody to command. Besides, these nice folks are putting us up for however long we're staying here; the least I can do is fall back on my copious KP experience to help them out."
But they were paying those nice folks to put them up, so what was the point? She didn't say that, though. "What's KP?"
"It's when your commanding officer hates you for no good reason and makes you peel potatoes and wash dishes until your hands fall off."
She blinked. "...Oh."
Bernard spoke. "I bet when you get back and tell Sterling your gun was stolen, he sticks you on KP with a bunch of privates for months."
Matt shot him a sour glance.
"Sterling?" Amelia asked.
"Princess's general. Hates his guts. Can't imagine why. It's not like you questioned his leadership ability to his face in front of the whole battalion when you were a PFC, or anything."
"Ugh," Matt replied.
Amelia's arms dropped to the table and she lifted her head, staring at Matt. "Did you really?"
She was not sure how large a battalion was, but it sounded like a lot of people. She had trouble imagining Matt as the sort of guy who do something like that. It'd be like if she stood up in the middle of a sermon and told High Father Vladimir he didn't know what he was talking about.
"You know what let's not talk about that," Matt said, and immediately switched to a more casual tone. "What do you want, Varista? Why are you down here?"
"Called him a hardheaded jackass, sir, after delivering a report..."
"Shut up, Bernard."
Amelia's eyes went wide. "Wow."
Matt shot her a glare. "Why are you bothering me, Varista?"
That killed her awe pretty fast. "I'm not bothering you!" she snapped back.
"Sure. Okay."
"Huhhh." Glowering, she folded her arms over her chest and slumped back in her chair. "I'm still mad about what happened earlier."
"Yeah, don't worry about it. I gave Zahn a dressing down for it already."
"A what?"
He sighed. "I yelled at it."
"Stop using words that make no sense and maybe I'd stop asking you to explain them."
He set a freshly peeled potato aside in a basket and picked up a new one and didn't respond to her.
After a few seconds of silence, she sighed. "Joel's not even mad about it anymore, but he should be."
"And, what, that bothers you?"
"Yes!" She slammed a fist down on the table, leaning forward. "He should be furious!"
"I saw his reaction out there, Varista. 'Furious' is not a word strong enough."
"But-!" She gestured vaguely, not quite succeeding at getting her feelings into words.
"Look. Varista." He straightened again, turning to the table and setting down the knife and the half-peeled potato. "There's this thing I've noticed about Father Ahmnratasa in the, what, week and a half I've known him? He gets mad, but then he pretends he's not mad, because, I don't know, priests aren't allowed to get raving pissed off, I guess. He justifies things with Karmic Law and accepts that it was just supposed to happen. Hell, he probably thinks Zahn pushed him in because he splashed water on you to wake you up that one time."
"That's not even the same thing at all!" she protested. (Even if she had been pretty mad about that.)
"Of course it isn't. But Karma." He made a sweeping gesture along with the word, as he leaned back in his chair. "Varista, how long have you known the guy?"
"Since I was born."
"And you never realized this? I've known him a week and a half and I picked up on it."
She slammed both hands down. "Of course I realized it!" She'd never put it into words like that, but she'd always known it on some level. That didn't mean it didn't still annoy her.
"Then stop being mad about him acting like himself."
"Huhhh." She slumped again, returning to her previous position, and narrowed her eyes at the wall.
Silence fell between them and she could hear the sound of the knife scraping skins off of potatoes again.
After what seemed like ages, Matt finally spoke up, calm and casual. "I have to go check on something tomorrow. Out in the mountains. Would you like to come?"
She blinked, turning back to him. "Why?"
He shrugged, not looking up at her. "Might be Spirits out there. I figure if I'm going to go running through the mountains, you might as well take the chance to look around."
But Slay might be out there, was her first thought. She wasn't sure if she felt completely safe with just Matt (and Bernard). But then, if she didn't trance and they weren't sleeping, it'd be hard for Slay to get to her, wouldn't it? It had only happened before because he'd caught them by surprise.
And maybe Slay wasn't even around Wey at all. He'd said he was exiled. They'd burned off his tattoo thing and kicked him out. Maybe that meant he couldn't get anywhere near the city.
And...Matt had killed people before, right? He said he did it when he had to. So if he could kill somebody who was trying to kill her without hesitating, that made him a good sort of bodyguard to have around, didn't it?
She mulled it over, chewing her bottom lip and staring off at the wall again. "You won't bring your stupid bird, will you?"
He gave an amused snort. "No."
"...Okay," she decided finally. "I'll go."
"Great. We'll head out after lunch." He stood, picking up the basket of peeled potatoes, and carried them to the Wyule innkeepers in the kitchen.
The back of his undershirt was plain white. No wings. When she'd come to expect that everything Matt wore had wings embroidered over the shoulder-blades, that solved mystery was kind of a let-down.
* * *
"Boss?" Redrum glanced back at Slay, who was trudging along with his head down and his arms wrapped around himself.
"Redrum..." Slay whined. Slay did not whine very often.
Not wanting to upset him too terribly, Redrum sort of sheepishly mumbled his concern, "I was jus' wonderin' what you was plannin' on doin' about that girl."
"Redrum." Slay staggered to a stop, eyes closed, one hand moving up to rub at his temple. "What did I tell you not five minutes ago?"
"Uhh, 'Redrum, shut it'?"
"Right, and I cited a reason, what was it?"
" 'I've got an 'eadache'?"
"Right, so your logical course of action is...?"
"Sorry, Boss, it's only that-"
"It's only that I feel as though somebody's trying to lever my skull open with my own horn. I can't even see straight, Andy, it's all colours and lines." Very rarely did Slay's voice ever lose its cool edge. Very rarely did he ever sound anything but either perfectly self-assured or angry. Right now he sounded genuinely upset. "So please, do continue asking my intentions, I'd just love it."
Redrum fell silent, feeling guilty. Slay didn't call him by name very often, and it added sincerity to his complaint. It sounded like another migraine, which wasn't too surprising considering that blow to the head he'd suffered not long ago.
Having never been a victim of migraines himself, Redrum had never quite been able to understand Slay's. He'd had headaches, but migraines weren't headaches, they were worse and they were different, and however he tried to understand it was wrong, and it was all very confusing for him. Usually Slay just locked himself up in his room, but that wasn't an option here, and so Redrum went quiet and just kept walking.
After a long while of walking in silence, a freezing rain began to fall.
With a heavy sigh, Slay staggered to a stop, rubbing at his temples. "God hates me."
"Which?"
"All three."
Redrum glanced up at the grey sky. It was cold, sure, but it was just water. They'd live. "It's only a bit of rain, Boss," he said, turning back to Slay.
He let out a pained noise, pressing his hands over his eyes (which were still ringed by smeared paint). "Andrew." It was half whine, half plea.
"...Er." Slay had told Redrum something important about rain, once, but he was having trouble remembering it. Either way, he did have a headache and the rain was freezing and that alone was bad enough. "Want I should carry you, Boss?"
He sighed. "Please."
Redrum helped Slay climb onto his back and then he continued vaguely southeast. The rain fell in sheets, soaking through his fur and freezing him to the bone. He didn't complain, though. Slay had it worse.
He continued on through the rain for quite some time before he finally saw something that made him stop. "Er, Boss?"
"What now, Redrum?" Slay responded, weary.
"Well it's, er...I think you better see for yourself, Boss."
"Well I'll try, Redrum, but I can't make any guarantees." He slid down from Redrum's back, carefully rubbing at his eyes as he stepped forward. When he saw what Redrum had seen, he stopped and blinked. "Who...?"
"Statues, Boss." Four of them. All Laun, all looking like Black's men.
"Are you joking me?" Slay reached out to touch one of them and his brow furrowed as his hand traced its arm. "...What? All three are?"
"There's four." He said it a little too late, just as Slay stumbled over the one lying on the ground.
Slay barely caught himself against the arm of the one he'd been examining. "Khim's sodding wings," he muttered.
"They, er, look a bit like Black's blokes," he said, because he knew Slay wouldn't be able to see the details.
"Turned to stone?"
"Looks like it."
"The four of 'em?"
"Right."
"...You're bloody joking me, you've got to be. That isn't possible." He stepped back, pressing his hands over his eyes again. "Redrum, I might not be thinking straight right now, but as far as I know, there's no bloody way to turn people into stone."
"Er...couldn't tell you, Boss."
He sank, muttering a curse. "I can't think about this right now. Let's go, Red." He climbed back up and Redrum resumed walking.
Redrum would rather not think about it himself, but it wasn't everyday a man saw something like that. He made the rest of the trip to Rodale with a wary eye out for whatever might have done it.
FEEDBACK IS AWESOME. I would like to know:
- What you like
- What you dislike
- Whether anything pulls you out of the reading (poor phrasing, something happens that you have to stop to puzzle out, a world-specific thing is ill-defined enough to stop your reading inertia, can't tell who's speaking for a certain line or set of lines, etc)
- Does characterization seem consistent? Not just generally, but also in terms of emotional flow between scenes? (I always worry that I'm forgetting to take into account a character's feelings when I switch scenes on them.)
- Do you feel that the villain perspective was a good choice? Does this feel like the right time to bring their POV into the story?
- Other thoughts, comments, or concerns
Chapter 7
Redrum didn't want to stick around to see what would happen once Black's thieves pulled themselves together. Slay said he'd grown up with them, and that was how he'd managed to convince them that a raid would be a grand idea, but Redrum did not trust any of them nearly as far as he could throw them. Black was not the sort of man to take a failure like that in stride, and Redrum didn't want to be around when he decided on consequences.
Instead of retreating to Black's hideout, Redrum slung his unconscious boss over his back and ran. He covered as much ground as he possibly could, heading for the river and Rodale.
Slay announced his new-found consciousness with a groan. "Why does it feel like I've gone and got smashed?"
Redrum slowed to a walk. He'd put enough distance between them and Black's forces to feel relatively safe. "Only over the 'ead, Boss," he answered.
"That would explain it, wouldn't it?"
"'Magine so."
"Augh." He curled up, one arm tightening around Redrum's throat and the other leaving it. "What hit me?"
"Couldn't tell you, Boss."
"Khim's sodding wings, I bet it was that stupid-" Slay cut himself off with a strangled cry of pain and the arm around Redrum's neck suddenly tightened enough to start choking him. It was followed by an awful lot of cursing through which Redrum managed to discern a few words relating paint to eyes.
"Boss, quit it," he choked out as he stopped. "I can't breathe-" But Slay was obviously not listening, so Redrum forcibly pulled his arm away from his neck and let Slay drop to the ground.
Slay writhed and curled up into a painfully hissing ball with his hands pressed over his eyes.
"An' you're supposed to be the smart one," Redrum muttered, taking the waterskin from his belt.
Feeling rather like a nanny, he hauled Slay up, forced his hands away from his face, and washed the black paint out of his eyes.
Crisis averted, Slay shook himself to get the water out of his fur. It didn't work very well. He just sat there looking miserable, his eyes red, smeared face-paint making him look like a raccoon. "This is not my bloody week," he muttered.
"Maybe you should give up on this one, Boss. She's too smart for you."
"She is not," he snarled, glaring up at Redrum. He grabbed Redrum's ear, painfully hauling him down to his own level. Slay, though he was half Redrum's size and a fine mess, made Redrum back down out of fear. "There is no summoner too smart for me. Not her, not that old priest, nobody."
"R-right Boss, o' course," he stammered. "Ain't nobody smarter'n you, Slay."
"Good." He released Redrum's ear and Redrum pulled back, rubbing at it, staring back at Slay over his shoulder.
Slay took a deep breath, pushed the loose strands of hair out of his face, and then smiled up at the sky. "Black's livid, I'm sure. What say we keep on keepin' on?" He glanced around the grasslands, his smile fading. "Where are we, anyway?"
"I was, um, runnin' for Rodale," Redrum put forth cautiously.
"Right then. Let's get ourselves as far from Black's territory as we can. The girl can wait a bit." He hauled himself to his feet, stumbling when he hit them and scowling as he rubbed his head.
"You alright, Boss?"
"It'll pass." He started walking. "Come on then, Redrum."
"You're walkin' north, Boss."
"I knew that," he replied, changing direction without missing a beat.
* * *
Matt's group rested until nearly noon. Zahn volunteered to stand watch, claiming experience with all-day guard shifts in ANG. Matt was too tired to question the elf's former service in the Almsland National Guard. He was just glad he didn't have to be the one to volunteer to stay up.
Despite his best efforts, he was still awake before the others. He wanted to blame ANGEL training for that one, but it turned out it was actually the mumbled conversation at the edge of his hearing.
They hadn't bothered to set up a real camp. He'd fallen asleep against Yvonne and woke up with her head on his chest. "Get off," he mumbled, shoving her aside and pushing himself up.
She gave a plaintive trill and complied by moving out from under his shoulders and walking off, leaving him to fall against the ground with a rough thump.
"Dammit, Yvonne."
The indistinct conversation had stopped by that point. Matt pushed himself up on his elbows, tipping up the bill of his cap so he could see.
It was Zahn, and...nobody else. Just Zahn. Somehow, he could accept that. Zahn was a genderless elf from the Nenakret who identified as a goblin - talking to oneself paled in comparison to the rest of the oddness.
"Good morning," Zahn said brightly.
"Technically, I guess." He pushed himself to his feet, straightened out his uniform, brushed himself off, and adjusted his cap. He spared a glance as Bernard flew up to his usual perch.
Matt turned away, looking for Yvonne. She hadn't gone far and was busily pruning her tail-feathers by combing her fingers through them. "Yvonne, come," he called. Her head darted up and she ran back to his side. He picked up the task, combing through her crest and wing-feathers as well.
He checked her injuries. The gash on her nose looked worse than it was, but it had scabbed over fine. He re-dressed her arm, more careful of her feathers than he had been the night before (something he realized with a wince). When he was done, he reached up and rubbed her jaw, eliciting a contented trill from her. "Without you, those beastmen wouldn't even have any horses left to pull their wagons," he told her. "No respect, Yvonne. No respect."
She made a noise that sounded almost like agreement and shoved her nose in his face, nuzzling his cheek.
"Aww, I love you too, Yvonne. You're the cutest little war-thurgia there is."
"That is emasculating."
He froze. Yvonne looked up and he followed suit, looking back over his shoulder at Amelia. Great. "She's my steed and I can talk to her however I want," he replied, faking a haughty air.
"Big bad Matt Richards," said Bernard.
"Hmph."
Amelia rose from her sitting position, doing her best not to disturb Joel on the way. They'd shared sleeping space under his heavy cloak. That was improper enough to raise some eyebrows, but being that Joel was a priest, her best friend, and had helped raise her, Matt didn't comment on it.
She stretched; even from where he was, Matt could hear her back crack multiple times. He cringed. "Ugh." She stepped away from Joel, combing her fingers through her tangled hair, still loose from the night before. "Is my bag over there? I need my hairbrush."
He nodded toward the saddlebags, which he'd pulled off of Yvonne but hadn't unpacked. Amelia grunted and walked over to dig through them. Matt turned back to Yvonne, inspecting her more carefully for further damage.
Less than a minute later, Amelia let out a yelp. He whirled around, hand on his sabre, to see her sitting on the ground in front of the open saddlebag, cradling one hand in the other.
Zahn, who likewise had a hand on hilt, relaxed. "Wingspace bag inside a wingspace bag?"
"Yeah," she said, frowning.
Matt felt like an idiot for not realizing he should've warned her about that. It was something all his acquaintances had known for years, so he'd never even thought to mention it.
Zahn handled the explanation for him, walking over to kneel beside Amelia and pull her bag out of the saddlebag. "You can't do that. Well, you can, but you can only do it two deep, and you can't open one while it's inside another one. Magical feedback."
"Oh." She looked down at her hand and then pulled off her glove. "Why?"
Zahn briefly inspected her hand and decided it was fine. "Because wingspace breaks the rules. Hey," turning to shout toward the rest of the group, "Qiver, get over here and ramble about magic!"
Matt looked up at the rest of those present. Amelia's cry had apparently woken most of them. Oriole looked like he was trying to ignore it, but Victoria was rubbing her eyes and Joel watched silently and Qiver was, now, leaping to his feet and running over to Zahn and Amelia.
"What is it?" the goblin asked.
"Explain wingspace to her," Zahn said, standing and moving away to continue keeping watch.
Matt left Yvonne's side and walked over to listen to the explanation. Goblins might tend toward technology over magic, but he fully expected Qiver to act like a typical goblin here.
He was not disappointed. Qiver launched into an explanation like he had ten seconds to deliver a ten minute lecture. "Wingspace is compressed space. It's called that because it artificially mimics the compressed space where Molge kept their retractable wings. It's an imperfect copy because we've only managed to figure out how to double the space available, and any bigger than that fails. Very creatively! I've seen some spectacular failures, oh yes." Qiver paused for a breath. "You can stack them two deep - four times the space! - but it doesn't work very well. There's interference. You can't get inside the second bag while it's inside the first bag. You'll get feedback instead, a jolt of magic up your arm like an electric shock - which is funny because wingspace is shadow magic and electricity is light magic!"
Another pause for breath; Amelia took the opportunity to respond. "Um."
"You have to take them apart if you want to reach into the second one. Do you know why two works but three doesn't?"
"N-"
"Because three would compress space to eight times its size! Anything inside the third bag wouldn't survive the compression! It deforms and everything molds together into a big mass of stuff, it's a mess! But two is okay. Two doesn't do that. Too badly." He flashed her a thumbs-up, patted her shoulder, and walked off to join Zahn.
Amelia stared. And then she slowly turned her head up to Matt and stared at him instead.
"Goblins," he said.
She frowned. She looked down at her bag, and at the hairbrush she'd pulled out, and quietly, almost as if she were afraid to be caught doing it, started brushing her hair.
Matt left her to return to Yvonne's side. He addressed the group. "Get ready to move. We're still a day out of Wey."
"Half a day," Zahn corrected.
Matt's eyebrows rose in question.
"Half a day from Wey's territories. Another most-of-a-day to Wey proper. We should hit Wyra by nightfall."
"Wyra?" Amelia looked up.
"The closest village. Wey doesn't exist in a vacuum."
"What's a vacuum?" came from Victoria.
Zahn's arms folded and the mask turned to her. She just looked back, waiting.
"A vacuum is nothing," Oriole said.
"Oh. Why not just say 'nothing' then?"
"Because that's not what it means!"
"But you just said-"
Matt turned away from them and went about getting Yvonne's gear strapped back on. Amelia (he had to pay some measure of attention to her because she was sitting by Yvonne's gear) was listening with interest, but too busy working on getting her hair into its usual bun to contribute.
"A vacuum means that the space around something is empty," Matt heard Joel say. "In this case, saying a town exists in a vacuum would mean that there were no other towns surrounding it."
"Ohhh."
"Hey," Oriole protested, "I was explaining it fine!"
"Ah, forgive me, Oriole. I'll be sure to let you handle definitions on your own from now on, if you like."
"But you explain things so well, Joe!"
"It's. Joel."
"Right, Joel, that's what I said!"
"Hey." Zahn interrupted. "Get your stuff together."
The chatter died down, replaced by the sounds of people shuffling around.
Matt finished getting Yvonne's gear in place. He leaned down to brush some of the ash from her red and white spats, and wiped it off his gloves onto the bottom of his sweater as he stood. To little avail, really. There were still streaks of grey across her spats and his gloves, and he was going to have to scrub at them once they stopped somewhere he'd have the time to do laundry.
He turned to find Amelia standing beside him, presenting him with her bag. She was looking down at the ground, chewing at her lip. He took it as her not wanting to look at Yvonne, but as he took her bag, in turn stowing it in Yvonne's saddlebags, she said, very soft, "There's ash all over your boots."
He glanced down. His white boots were smeared with grey in addition to the mud he'd yet to knock off of them. While he was trying to think of a reply, Bernard infuriatingly provided his own. "No kidding, woman. That's what happens when you kill a guy when you're wearing white boots."
Holding back a sigh, he pulled down the straps on the saddlebag and fastened them. Amelia's response surprised him. "That's why your sword was purple."
He stopped, looking over his shoulder at her, puzzled. "What?"
"Never mind." She wrapped her arms around herself, still staring down at his boots. "You're a soldier, right? It's just something you do."
This quiet sort of reaction from her was very jarring. He wasn't really sure how to respond. "...Yeah, Varista," he answered, sincere. "Yeah. I kill people when I have to."
"Right..." She took a half-step back, hesitated, and then turned to walk to Joel's side. Matt stared after her.
"Oh man, she is gonna be terrified of you now."
"Thanks, Bernard," Matt muttered.
"If you want somebody who's not going to try to ruin your life for selfish entertainment, find another faerie."
"If only."
Before long, they were back on the road, headed for the outskirts of Wey's territory. Victoria was the first to strike up conversation, asking how Zahn knew so much about Wey. Matt had to admit a certain amount of curiosity himself; most people who were not natives to Ligaram (himself included) were under the impression that the country consisted wholly of the three major cities: Wey, Manala, and Guram.
"I came through here before a couple decades ago," Zahn answered, throwing a glance back at Amelia. "Escorting a summoner on his quest when I was in the ANG."
"Oh, really? Who was it?" Amelia asked. Summoners all seemed to know each other; she'd probably recognize the name.
"Some pretentious jackass named Dmitrius." A thoughtful pause, while the Almslanders present stopped cold. "Dmitrius Vladimir...? Yeah. That was it."
"You shouldn't lie, Zahn." Joel's smile hadn't faded, but it had turned into the sort of smile you didn't want to see on somebody you'd bumped into in a dark alley.
"Oh, Rafsjalel," Zahn said with a sigh, folding one arm over the other, setting mask in hand. "Why would I lie about that? It's not like he's important or anything." A very pregnant pause. "Is he?"
Everyone but Zahn and Matt took a step back when they saw Joel's face. Zahn remained innocently still. Matt rushed forward to set an arm across Joel's chest to hold him back, stepping between him and Zahn. "You guys can antagonize each other later. Cut it out." He went to Zahn, forcefully turned the elf around, and gave a light shove. "We don't have time for this."
That was, very simply, that. Nobody wanted to argue with the ANGEL. (Especially not the one with ash on his boots.) They started moving again.
Only a few steps later, Amelia, hesitant, asked, "Did you...really escort High Father Dmitrius?"
Zahn, thankfully, gave up trying to be inflammatory. "It wasn't his first quest. He was just expanding his collection of Contracts and scouting promising young Spiritalkers. Come to think of it, we did find one. Never made it back with him, though."
"...Why not?" Amelia asked, hesitant.
"Raid. Thieves. Same gang from last night, I think. Took us captive."
"They what?!"
Even Matt glanced back, curious.
"Well, not Dmitrius. He ran. But the kid and me."
That was not quite as interesting. Matt was not surprised to find that the High Father had turned tail and run. By Joel's expression, though, he was about to call Zahn out on lying again. Matt interrupted another potential argument himself. "How'd you get out?"
"Daringly. Kid refused to come, though. Probably ended up getting raised with them." A shrug. "Or sold, who knows."
"You just left him there?" Amelia cried in dismay.
"Hey, when you're making a daring escape from a thieves' den and the kid says he doesn't wanna come, you don't argue." Zahn laughed, somewhat absently. "But Dmitrius became High Priest, wow. You Almslanders, no taste."
Joel's voice, like cold steel, made Matt pray that he wasn't going to have to break up a fight. "I would appreciate it, Zahn, if you would keep your opinions on our church hierarchy to yourself."
Thankfully Zahn just shrugged and left it at that.
* * *
Wyra was a tiny little farm village. It was getting dark by the time Zahn led them to it, so Oriole couldn't tell much more than that. There wasn't even a real inn, just a back room at the tavern where people could rest for the night. Zahn didn't want to stay there with Joel, though, and went to sleep in the stable with Qiver instead. None of them were tired. Except maybe Zahn, who didn't get to sleep when they'd stopped at sunrise.
Even though it was dark, Victoria said she was going to go talk to the local blacksmith or find out if the town had a weapon shop. Oriole thought it was stupid, because if it was dark then they'd probably be closed, even if it wasn't that late. Nobody told her not to go, though.
Oriole took a deep breath and let it all out at once with, "Hey can I go with you it's okay if you say no."
But she smiled and said, "Sure!" and he was stuck.
He didn't really know what he wanted to say. She was his sister, right? And Zahn thought he should tell her. But...he really didn't want to tell her. So he just followed her anxiously as she led them through Wyra.
Some windows were lit, and that plus the light from the moon made it really easy to see. She'd gotten some vague directions from the man at the tavern, and eventually they made it to a sign with an anvil painted on it. The window behind it was lit.
Victoria pushed open the door and stepped inside, and Oriole followed cautiously. He wasn't sure what he'd expected a smithy to look like, but it looked like one.
An old Wyule looked up from sweeping the floors. He looked like the kind of guy who could pick up a house, so he was probably the blacksmith. "Fire's out, miss," he said. "You'll have to come back in the morning."
"Oh, well, I was jus' wonderin' if you had any halberds made up?" she asked.
Oriole stared around the smithy while they talked. The walls were covered in...things. He didn't know what they were supposed to be. A smith's tools, he assumed. They looked kind of like something that should be hanging on the walls in a dungeon, as far as he was concerned.
Why was he here? He wasn't even sure he liked Victoria. Maybe he was related to her - half related to her - but he had a choice on whether or not they had to be family about it. If he didn't tell her, she'd probably never figure it out, and he could go on living just like he always had. He wouldn't have to worry about anything changing. Owl was still his grandpa, he was still some foundling at the Nenakret, and he didn't have to consider this whole other part of who he was and where he came from.
What if she wanted him to come live with her? He definitely didn't want to live in Ligaram. They didn't even have indoor plumbing here, and forget about books and magic and books about magic. What did magically inclined beastmen even do? Just figure it out on their own? Go to the Nenakret, probably. Which brought him right back to the first point!
Or maybe she'd want to come live at the Nenakret with him, and he'd have to explain to everyone that this was his big dumb meathead sister and she'd never remember anybody's names or ever know what people were talking about and he'd have to live the rest of his life hiding in shame because smart people are supposed to come from smart families.
As personal revelations went, this was the worst.
"Come on then," Victoria said to him, tapping him on the shoulder and snapping him out of his thoughts.
He looked up. "Huh?"
She was already walking out. "He hasn't got any halberds made up. I'll have to buy one in Wey."
"Oh." He followed her out. Maybe he would just follow her all the way back to the tavern without saying a word. But it felt awkward. He really should say something. She was his sister, right? After some careful thought, he finally asked, "Um...so, why do you need a halberd?" That was a good conversation subject. It was neutral.
She looked back at him over her shoulder. "I lost mine after the raid. Snapped the shaft over some thief, and I guess he made off with the head."
"Oh. That's, um." He didn't even know what to say to that. He'd never lost a halberd before. "Too bad?"
"Yeah, it is. My grandda gave me that halberd."
"Oh...you, uh, have a granddad too?" Actually that was sort of a stupid thing to ask. Everyone had a grandfather. Two, even. But it was the only thing he could think of to pick up on.
"Mm hm." She nodded.
"Me too," he said hesitantly. "He's called Owl. Only he's not my real grandpa, he just adopted me."
He bumped into something soft and reeled back. It was her chest, because she'd stopped walking and turned to face him. He pushed up the brim of his hat and craned his head to look up at her.
"You're adopted?" she asked, suddenly very interested.
Uh oh. Maybe he shouldn't have said that. Maybe he'd overestimated her ditziness. He looked down, fidgeting with the brim of his hat. "Um...yeah... I was brought to the Nenakret when I was really little, and Grandpa Owl took care of me." He glanced back up at her through the slit in his hat's brim, watching her reaction.
She chewed at her bottom lip. "That's a bit far, innit?"
"The Nenakret? It's all the way over in the west part of the Wilds, so it's pretty far." He didn't know where Orean was, but if it was in Almsland then it was at least a three week walk away from the Nenakret. No way he could've made it there by chance when he was only three.
She was quiet for a minute. Then she asked, "You know anythin' about your folks, Oriole?"
He shrugged. "One was a human and one was a Laun?"
She gave an absent nod. He wanted to stop talking, right now. It was obvious she was starting to figure it out. He wasn't ready for her to know yet. He didn't want to say it, and he didn't want her to put the pieces together. Having a sister was so different from not having a sister, and as long as she didn't know, he could keep pretending.
"A-anyway," he said, trying to quickly change the subject, "you should've been more careful with your halberd, isn't it really expensive to replace those?"
"Oh, um." She reached up, brushing her bangs, the only part of her hair not tied back into tiny braids, out of her face. "A bit. But I've got the money for it. I made it workin' as a caravan guard."
"So you, uh, fight well?" He didn't want to stand out here talking in the middle of the street. He started walking - backwards, so he could look at her while he talked.
"Yeah," she said, following him. "Grandda taught me how. And Da, when he was still alive."
"Why a halberd? Why not, um, a sword, or something?" Not that he really cared, but as long as she wasn't putting together the pieces of the 'hey I'm your brother' puzzle, he was happy.
"Cause Da an' Gradda used halberds." She was starting to brighten back up, dropping the serious tone they'd been heading for.
"Why?"
"Cause their da and grandda used halberds!"
"And you didn't want to be the one person in your whoooole family," he spread his arms, to show just how big that word was supposed to be, "who decided to use a sword instead?"
She shook her head with a laugh. "I never even thought about it! But I like fightin' with a halberd, I wouldn't change it now."
Now that they were actually moving, and conversation had gotten away from that pesky, uncomfortable subject of them being siblings, he turned around and started walking forward, falling back to her side. "I never learned how to use any weapons," he said.
"Cause you're a mage, right?"
"Right! Magic's way cooler than a halberd, anyway."
"My aunt was a mage - my stepmum's sister."
A stepmother. That meant her father was Laun and her stepmother could've been human. Now the ear, tattoo, age, name, and race all checked out. There really was no hope that it was all just a weird coincidence, was there? "Y...yeah?"
"Yeah. I haven't seen her since my folks died, though."
"Oh..." He almost wanted to ask what her name was, because if she was a Nenakret mage, chances were good he at least knew her in passing. And if she was his real aunt, then chances were better. Probably.
"Oh, look, there's the tavern!" He pointed at the building, relieved to be saved from having to keep talking to her. "I'm gonna go talk to Zahn and Qiver, I'll see you later, bye!" And with that he ran off to the attached stables and left Victoria there in the street.
Zahn was already asleep, curled up on the hay - or at least Oriole assumed Zahn was asleep, because he couldn't see under that mask. Qiver was sitting nearby on a hay bale, scribbling in his notebook like he had five seconds to write down everything he knew.
"Ugh!" Oriole threw up his hands, glaring down at Zahn. "Why does he have to be asleep!"
The scritching of Qiver's pencil stopped as his head snapped up. "Shhhh," he hissed, setting a finger to his mask where his mouth should be. "It only got three hours of sleep last night. It's tired. Don't be rude."
"Aaaaugh I wanted to talk to him, wake him up."
Qiver threw down the notebook and pencil and stalked over to Oriole. He wasn't tall enough to grab Oriole by the shoulders, so he grabbed his wrist instead and dragged him outside.
Oriole had not expected that. He was too surprised to resist.
Once they were outside, Qiver turned to him and...well, stared, maybe. His featureless mask, with the crease down the middle, was directed up at Oriole.
Finally realizing Qiver was waiting for him to say whatever it was he'd wanted to say to Zahn, Oriole said, "I went with Victoria because I thought maybe I could tell her but I can't do it."
Qiver's head tilted to the side. "Why not?"
"Because I've never had a sister before! I don't know what'll be different. I don't want to have to live with her in Ligaram or something. And it's embarrassing! She's an embarrassing sister to have!"
Qiver folded one arm across his chest and set his mask in his hand, looking thoughtful and confused even without a face to show it. "I have three sisters," he said. "It's not weird at all and they don't make me live with them and my whole family is embarrassing or maybe they think I'm embarrassing because I'm a mage and not an engineer but anyway I think you're being kind of silly. She's really nice even if she's not very smart. She's not that bad a sister to have. You should tell her."
He sighed, hanging his head. By now he was pretty sure that was going to be the answer everyone would give him. When everyone is giving the same advice, it's probably a good idea to follow it, but still.
"I could tell her?"
"No!" He shoved his hands over Qiver's mouth - that is, where his mouth should have been, and realized only after he'd done it that it didn't make any difference.
"You should tell her though, or Zahn probably will."
Oriole frowned at him.
"Get your hands off my mask. It's rude."
With a sigh, Oriole pulled his hands away and straightened. "Don't tell her, okay? And don't let Zahn tell her either."
"Okay, but you should do it and you should be quick about it because we have other things to worry about like how we're going to figure out if Matt is-" He cut himself off.
After a few seconds of silence, a voice from behind Oriole asked, "If Matt is what?"
He turned around and saw Matt standing at the entrance to the stables. He was holding the door open, but he faced Oriole and Qiver with one eyebrow arched.
Qiver let out a cry of dismay that kept going. His hands went to his head like he was horrified and then he turned around and ran off, flailing. All without even stopping to breathe.
Matt blinked.
Oriole shrugged. "Goblins," he said.
"Yeah. No kidding." His head turned to Oriole. "What was he going to say?"
Oriole knew exactly what Qiver had been about to say, but he also knew they weren't supposed to tell anybody. He looked away and shrugged and hoped Matt didn't ask again.
He didn't. "Goblins," he echoed, and then walked into the stables, closing the door behind him.
* * *
Nobody killed each other overnight in Wyra, and that pretty much qualified it as a good experience.
Matt didn't have the time to wash his bloodied uniform, but he switched it out for a fresh one and made a token effort to clean off his coat. Since he only had the one sweater and scarf, and he felt it would be imprudent to walk into Wey wearing clothes covered in ash, the coat was the only cold weather gear he had for now.
He also took the time to polish his boots. Not that they'd stay shiny for long, but at least they'd look good until he started walking.
They got on the road later than he would have liked, but they weren't that far out of Wey. Even with the late start, they'd get there before nightfall. He couldn't wait to finally get this trip over with. He'd almost forgotten why they were even going to Wey.
Except he'd never really known, had he? Oh, he knew why he was going to Wey, but Joel was the one who'd suggested it and convinced Amelia it was a good idea. He'd never found out why Joel wanted to come.
Joel's strange behaviour on the ferry, his hidden angry streak, his reaction to the cloaked stranger's name, and his knowledge of the proper order in which Daruma's parts needed to be unsealed - not to mention his presence in one of those places and his unexplained desire to travel to another - all added up to something not being right. Still, Joel had displayed some pretty intense faith, and Matt was hesitant to conclude that he'd be out to resurrect Daruma. Unless he was on orders from the church, it didn't make any sense.
Of course Matt had never held much trust in High Father Dmitrius Vladimir, so he believed it was entirely possible. It was also possible that some priest in Vonariel, also under orders, was going to unseal the part that Joel had said was there.
But then there was the matter of the petrified ANGELs, best explained as the work of a Spirit. Slay was a summoner, and they'd met Slay a day out of Alrael and now he was trailing them to Wey. As long as some third party was handling Vonariel, either explanation would work.
Next time he managed to get a minute alone with Joel, they needed to talk. (Hopefully it wouldn't end with Matt being held hostage again.)
The trip up to Wey was tiresome and slow, because mountain paths were not the easiest things in the world to traverse in the middle of winter, but it was uneventful. No fights, no complaints (shockingly), and nothing particularly interesting. They reached the city late that afternoon.
Wey was a city built in levels, its entrance centered on the first level's square. There were no gates, but there was a retaining wall around the edges of the city. Matt suspected it was a safety precaution for its denizens moreso than any means of defense. Overall Wey did not look very defensible, but that was probably because nobody in their right mind would lead an army into any of the Ligaram city-states.
Across from the city's entrance, a pair of staircases led up to the second level - a pattern which continued all the way up to the City Hall at the top, which was carved from the face of the mountain itself. Between the two staircases on the first level was a large pool, and from it flowed a series of canals which crisscrossed their ways through the city's white stone-paved roads. Footbridges of varying size made these traversable. The levels above had canals as well, and these flowed off the sides of their levels in waterfalls, carrying the canals down to the level below. Despite the cold, none of the water was frozen over. Also, despite the copious amounts of snow on the path leading up to the city, there was none in the city itself.
Overall, Wey was needlessly extravagant, but very visually striking. It looked like something out of a painting. It was no wonder that the Wyule considered it their capital.
Qiver claimed to know of a decent inn up on the second level. Matt had some misgivings about any inn a goblin might recommend, but nobody seemed to object, so Qiver took the lead, zigzagging them across a number of footbridges on the way to the stairs.
When they approached it, Oriole hopped up onto the ledge of the pool, walking along it with his arms spread out.
Joel stepped up beside him, following on the ground. "That's dangerous," he said. "What if you fall?"
"I won't fall. I have really good balance." He stopped, flashing a grin down at Joel. "Elves have really good balance too, don't they? I bet this would be super easy for you."
He hesitated. "Of course. That's elven nature."
Matt kept an eye on them as he walked past, watching as Joel climbed onto the ledge to follow Oriole. He ignored it after that, because daringly walking along "dangerous" ledges was kids being kids - even if Joel didn't exactly qualify.
"Hey, that's dangerous," came Zahn's voice, followed by a splash. That snapped Matt's attention right back. "What if you fall?"
"Joel!" Amelia cried, rushing to the side of the pool. She bravely fished him out while he tried to claw his way up her arms like a terrified, half-drowned cat.
"Are you okay?" Zahn asked, with perfect sincerity.
Matt felt a headache coming on.
"You pushed me!" Joel screamed. That was new. Even the anger about the ferry captain's theft had been kept to enraged shouting.
Oriole slid down to sit on the ledge, staring wide-eyed at the two elves.
"Who, me?" Zahn pointed to that mischievous mask, the perfect picture of faked innocence.
"Don't play innocent!" He stepped away from Amelia to square off with Zahn, dripping wet.
"Hey, don't try to pin your terrible balance on me, Rafsjalel."
Matt stepped between them, holding them each at arm's length. He'd broken up more than his share of stupid fights between soldiers over the course of his career, but it was harder to step in and make everyone shut up when you couldn't just order them to drop. "Enough," he said, bringing out his command voice.
"No! It pushed me!" Matt had to adjust one arm to lay flat across Joel's chest, because Joel did not want to back down. "It's done nothing but antagonize me for the entirety of this journey and I've tried to put up with it, but you have crossed the line, snake."
"Snake?" Zahn sounded honestly offended, splaying a hand over heart as if struck by an arrow. "Did you - did a priest of Alm really just say that?"
"Yes, Nagan, you are a snake, expendable, an unperson-"
"Stop." Matt grabbed Joel's collar, giving him a shake. This did not quell his anger, but it did get him to stop screaming elf-specific slurs at Zahn. Matt shot a glance between the two of them. "I don't care what happened. Both of you stop right now or I will make you stop."
Zahn stepped back, hands held up in surrender.
He turned back to Joel, letting go of his collar. His voice kept its harsh edge. "Go with Varista. Take Yvonne. Grab a room and change into something dry."
Joel, with a quiet sniff, ran his sleeve across his nose (to no avail, as all of him was equally soaked), and nodded. Amelia stepped forward, taking his arm and leading him away.
Matt folded his arms and watched them walk off. Victoria moved to follow at Joel's side, asking if he was alright. Yvonne did not move.
"Go," Matt commanded, waving at her, "follow them."
She trilled a reply and took off after them.
He noticed they weren't heading for the stairs. Amelia was leading them to find an inn on the first level, instead. At this point, he had to agree with the judgment. Zahn and Joel shouldn't be allowed anywhere near each other.
Speaking of Zahn. "You stay," Matt said, turning his head to glare at the elf sneaking away.
Zahn froze in place, and then turned to face Matt.
Oriole, still sitting on the ledge, frowned. "That was really mean, Zahn."
"Worse than that," Matt said, "it's freezing out. I don't care whatever petty elven feud is going on between you two. That was dangerous."
Qiver leaned against the ledge beside Oriole, listening silently. He looked disinterested or bored, but who knew with goblins. Maybe he was actually furious.
Hands on hips, Zahn gave a shake of the head accompanied by a sigh that was a whole-body motion. "If you wanna believe I pushed the kid, fine. But he's had it in for me since we first met. Does it occur to you that maybe he threw himself in and blamed me for it?"
"No," Matt replied. "It doesn't." Dammit though, he hated voices of doubt. His suspicions about Joel made him wonder. He carried on in spite of his own growing uncertainty. "You're older than he is. Show some maturity."
Zahn took a step back, hands up. "Look, we'll stay out of your way, Major. No reason to deal with each other any more now, right?"
...Ugh. He still wanted to ask about the faeries thing. He wanted to know what Zahn had stopped Qiver from saying. Now was not the time, though, and if he let Zahn walk away he might never get an answer.
But give somebody an inch and they'll take a mile. Even if he personally had no problems with Zahn, he had to show some solidarity and make it clear that what had happened was not okay.
"Go," he said finally, pointing toward the stairs.
Zahn flashed him a thumbs-up, which served as a goblin shorthand for a smile, and turned to leave. Qiver followed silently.
Oriole, however, hopped down from the ledge and considered for a moment before looking up at Matt. "Um. Can I go with you?" he asked. "I want to make sure Joel's okay."
That made him raise an eyebrow, but if Oriole and Joel were going to end up friends, maybe he could exploit that for an answer. He nodded and walked off after the rest of his group. Oriole followed.
Out of the corner of his eye, Matt saw Zahn stop and turn back toward them to watch. He ignored it.
* * *
Amelia was furious. Not just because Zahn had shoved her best friend into freezing cold water in the middle of winter, but also because said friend didn't seem to be very furious about it himself once he got changed into some dry clothes.
Eventually she got fed up with trying to convince him he should be just as mad as she was and went to talk to somebody else about it, instead. Matt had appeared at one point and then vanished, and now she stalked through the inn in search of him.
She found him in the common room, at the table nearest to the part of the room set aside as a kitchen. He was peeling potatoes. He also wasn't wearing his red overcoat, which left his white button-up long-sleeved undershirt uncovered.
She stalked over to him and pulled out a chair. His hat and coat were sitting on it, Bernard lounging on top of the hat. Matt's eyes flickered up to her. She pulled out a different chair.
"What are you doing?" she demanded, sitting down across the table from him.
His eyes turned back down to his work. She noticed he was still wearing his white gloves, despite having his sleeves pushed up. "What does it look like I'm doing, Varista?"
"Don't even start, okay."
He rolled his shoulders back and straightened and faced her. "I'm helping our gracious hosts prepare the dinner you'll be eating tonight."
She put her elbows on the table and rested her chin in her hands. "Why? They can do it. We're paying them."
He rolled his eyes and turned back to the potatoes.
"Don't you get to order other people to do this kind of thing?" This wasn't even what she'd come to talk about, but the longer she was away from Joel and his stupid indifference to things he should be livid over, the less frustrated she felt with him. Her remaining anger was to be vented on Matt peeling potatoes, apparently.
"Varista, in case you didn't notice, I'm the only ANGEL here. There's nobody to command. Besides, these nice folks are putting us up for however long we're staying here; the least I can do is fall back on my copious KP experience to help them out."
But they were paying those nice folks to put them up, so what was the point? She didn't say that, though. "What's KP?"
"It's when your commanding officer hates you for no good reason and makes you peel potatoes and wash dishes until your hands fall off."
She blinked. "...Oh."
Bernard spoke. "I bet when you get back and tell Sterling your gun was stolen, he sticks you on KP with a bunch of privates for months."
Matt shot him a sour glance.
"Sterling?" Amelia asked.
"Princess's general. Hates his guts. Can't imagine why. It's not like you questioned his leadership ability to his face in front of the whole battalion when you were a PFC, or anything."
"Ugh," Matt replied.
Amelia's arms dropped to the table and she lifted her head, staring at Matt. "Did you really?"
She was not sure how large a battalion was, but it sounded like a lot of people. She had trouble imagining Matt as the sort of guy who do something like that. It'd be like if she stood up in the middle of a sermon and told High Father Vladimir he didn't know what he was talking about.
"You know what let's not talk about that," Matt said, and immediately switched to a more casual tone. "What do you want, Varista? Why are you down here?"
"Called him a hardheaded jackass, sir, after delivering a report..."
"Shut up, Bernard."
Amelia's eyes went wide. "Wow."
Matt shot her a glare. "Why are you bothering me, Varista?"
That killed her awe pretty fast. "I'm not bothering you!" she snapped back.
"Sure. Okay."
"Huhhh." Glowering, she folded her arms over her chest and slumped back in her chair. "I'm still mad about what happened earlier."
"Yeah, don't worry about it. I gave Zahn a dressing down for it already."
"A what?"
He sighed. "I yelled at it."
"Stop using words that make no sense and maybe I'd stop asking you to explain them."
He set a freshly peeled potato aside in a basket and picked up a new one and didn't respond to her.
After a few seconds of silence, she sighed. "Joel's not even mad about it anymore, but he should be."
"And, what, that bothers you?"
"Yes!" She slammed a fist down on the table, leaning forward. "He should be furious!"
"I saw his reaction out there, Varista. 'Furious' is not a word strong enough."
"But-!" She gestured vaguely, not quite succeeding at getting her feelings into words.
"Look. Varista." He straightened again, turning to the table and setting down the knife and the half-peeled potato. "There's this thing I've noticed about Father Ahmnratasa in the, what, week and a half I've known him? He gets mad, but then he pretends he's not mad, because, I don't know, priests aren't allowed to get raving pissed off, I guess. He justifies things with Karmic Law and accepts that it was just supposed to happen. Hell, he probably thinks Zahn pushed him in because he splashed water on you to wake you up that one time."
"That's not even the same thing at all!" she protested. (Even if she had been pretty mad about that.)
"Of course it isn't. But Karma." He made a sweeping gesture along with the word, as he leaned back in his chair. "Varista, how long have you known the guy?"
"Since I was born."
"And you never realized this? I've known him a week and a half and I picked up on it."
She slammed both hands down. "Of course I realized it!" She'd never put it into words like that, but she'd always known it on some level. That didn't mean it didn't still annoy her.
"Then stop being mad about him acting like himself."
"Huhhh." She slumped again, returning to her previous position, and narrowed her eyes at the wall.
Silence fell between them and she could hear the sound of the knife scraping skins off of potatoes again.
After what seemed like ages, Matt finally spoke up, calm and casual. "I have to go check on something tomorrow. Out in the mountains. Would you like to come?"
She blinked, turning back to him. "Why?"
He shrugged, not looking up at her. "Might be Spirits out there. I figure if I'm going to go running through the mountains, you might as well take the chance to look around."
But Slay might be out there, was her first thought. She wasn't sure if she felt completely safe with just Matt (and Bernard). But then, if she didn't trance and they weren't sleeping, it'd be hard for Slay to get to her, wouldn't it? It had only happened before because he'd caught them by surprise.
And maybe Slay wasn't even around Wey at all. He'd said he was exiled. They'd burned off his tattoo thing and kicked him out. Maybe that meant he couldn't get anywhere near the city.
And...Matt had killed people before, right? He said he did it when he had to. So if he could kill somebody who was trying to kill her without hesitating, that made him a good sort of bodyguard to have around, didn't it?
She mulled it over, chewing her bottom lip and staring off at the wall again. "You won't bring your stupid bird, will you?"
He gave an amused snort. "No."
"...Okay," she decided finally. "I'll go."
"Great. We'll head out after lunch." He stood, picking up the basket of peeled potatoes, and carried them to the Wyule innkeepers in the kitchen.
The back of his undershirt was plain white. No wings. When she'd come to expect that everything Matt wore had wings embroidered over the shoulder-blades, that solved mystery was kind of a let-down.
* * *
"Boss?" Redrum glanced back at Slay, who was trudging along with his head down and his arms wrapped around himself.
"Redrum..." Slay whined. Slay did not whine very often.
Not wanting to upset him too terribly, Redrum sort of sheepishly mumbled his concern, "I was jus' wonderin' what you was plannin' on doin' about that girl."
"Redrum." Slay staggered to a stop, eyes closed, one hand moving up to rub at his temple. "What did I tell you not five minutes ago?"
"Uhh, 'Redrum, shut it'?"
"Right, and I cited a reason, what was it?"
" 'I've got an 'eadache'?"
"Right, so your logical course of action is...?"
"Sorry, Boss, it's only that-"
"It's only that I feel as though somebody's trying to lever my skull open with my own horn. I can't even see straight, Andy, it's all colours and lines." Very rarely did Slay's voice ever lose its cool edge. Very rarely did he ever sound anything but either perfectly self-assured or angry. Right now he sounded genuinely upset. "So please, do continue asking my intentions, I'd just love it."
Redrum fell silent, feeling guilty. Slay didn't call him by name very often, and it added sincerity to his complaint. It sounded like another migraine, which wasn't too surprising considering that blow to the head he'd suffered not long ago.
Having never been a victim of migraines himself, Redrum had never quite been able to understand Slay's. He'd had headaches, but migraines weren't headaches, they were worse and they were different, and however he tried to understand it was wrong, and it was all very confusing for him. Usually Slay just locked himself up in his room, but that wasn't an option here, and so Redrum went quiet and just kept walking.
After a long while of walking in silence, a freezing rain began to fall.
With a heavy sigh, Slay staggered to a stop, rubbing at his temples. "God hates me."
"Which?"
"All three."
Redrum glanced up at the grey sky. It was cold, sure, but it was just water. They'd live. "It's only a bit of rain, Boss," he said, turning back to Slay.
He let out a pained noise, pressing his hands over his eyes (which were still ringed by smeared paint). "Andrew." It was half whine, half plea.
"...Er." Slay had told Redrum something important about rain, once, but he was having trouble remembering it. Either way, he did have a headache and the rain was freezing and that alone was bad enough. "Want I should carry you, Boss?"
He sighed. "Please."
Redrum helped Slay climb onto his back and then he continued vaguely southeast. The rain fell in sheets, soaking through his fur and freezing him to the bone. He didn't complain, though. Slay had it worse.
He continued on through the rain for quite some time before he finally saw something that made him stop. "Er, Boss?"
"What now, Redrum?" Slay responded, weary.
"Well it's, er...I think you better see for yourself, Boss."
"Well I'll try, Redrum, but I can't make any guarantees." He slid down from Redrum's back, carefully rubbing at his eyes as he stepped forward. When he saw what Redrum had seen, he stopped and blinked. "Who...?"
"Statues, Boss." Four of them. All Laun, all looking like Black's men.
"Are you joking me?" Slay reached out to touch one of them and his brow furrowed as his hand traced its arm. "...What? All three are?"
"There's four." He said it a little too late, just as Slay stumbled over the one lying on the ground.
Slay barely caught himself against the arm of the one he'd been examining. "Khim's sodding wings," he muttered.
"They, er, look a bit like Black's blokes," he said, because he knew Slay wouldn't be able to see the details.
"Turned to stone?"
"Looks like it."
"The four of 'em?"
"Right."
"...You're bloody joking me, you've got to be. That isn't possible." He stepped back, pressing his hands over his eyes again. "Redrum, I might not be thinking straight right now, but as far as I know, there's no bloody way to turn people into stone."
"Er...couldn't tell you, Boss."
He sank, muttering a curse. "I can't think about this right now. Let's go, Red." He climbed back up and Redrum resumed walking.
Redrum would rather not think about it himself, but it wasn't everyday a man saw something like that. He made the rest of the trip to Rodale with a wary eye out for whatever might have done it.