Chapter 11

Mirri went back to camp and returned with a set of clothes from one of the packs. They were a little short, a little ripe, and a little too snug in places I didn’t want to mention, but at least I wasn’t naked anymore. I considered that a win.

As it turned out, everything I’d brought with me had burned to nothing in the fight. Food, tent, rope, all gone. Even the few coins I had left had fused together into a single lump of metal. Maybe I could sell it for scrap, assuming anyone bought regret by the pound.

My sword hadn’t fared any better. What was left of it amounted to a puddle of slag. Apparently, in my moment of heroic stupidity, I’d driven the blade straight into the fire-breathing bastard’s mouth. The sword had liquefied almost instantly. It made me wonder, again, how I’d survived at all. Maybe whatever was wrong with me - this magic immunity - worked both ways. Well, not immunity, exactly. The burns scattered across my body argued against that. But something… similar.

The packs we recovered probably belonged to the guards, and thankfully they’d been well stocked. We’d lost my tent, but gained three replacements. There were a few changes of clothes for me - none of them fitting quite right - and enough food to put us ahead. Not as far ahead as we would’ve been without an extra mouth to feed, but I wasn’t about to complain about that.

The girl - Mirri told me her name was Serah - still wouldn’t speak to me. Every time I caught her watching me, she’d look away. Once or twice she even tried to hide behind a tree, like I’d suddenly turned into something frightening. It was strange, but my niece had done the same thing when she was little. Maybe Serah was just shy. I didn’t know. I didn’t understand kids, much less women.

The fire-breather had carried a long dagger - beautifully made, heavy, and elegant in a dangerous sort of way. We gave it to Mirri. She hadn’t had a weapon until this point, and as impressive as her magic was, having a backup plan seemed wise. Ashlara cut me a new staff, and despite her obvious doubts, we drilled with it for a few hours.

Among the rest of the salvaged gear was a solid, round metal shield stamped with a wolf’s head. That went to Ashlara. She’d make far better use of it than anyone else. The only thing that didn’t make sense, a thing that absolutely did not belong with rations and bedrolls, was a guitar.

Mirri decided immediately that it was my share of the ‘treasure’.

“What am I supposed to do with that?” I asked. “I haven’t played a guitar in thirty years.”

Her eyes lit up. “You can play that? Were you in a bardic troupe?”

“I was… in a band,” I said. “Once. We weren’t very good.” A sad smile tugged at my mouth as old memories surfaced - no shitty job, no hellish marriage. Just loud music, dreams, and too much free time. “Thirty years ago maybe. But now? I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“You could sell it,” Ashlara offered.

“Fuck no!” Mirri snapped. “You’re goin’ to learn again. And you’re goin’ to sing me songs like my great Granda sang to my Grams.”

“Music’s changed a little since the sixties,” I said carefully. “Okay. A lot.”

She grinned wider. “And I get to hear all of it.”

* * *

The next day we packed up and set out again. Mirri and Serah hung back, Mirri chattering happily while Serah stayed mostly quiet, walking close at her side. I kept pace with Ashlara instead, figuring the two of them could use the space. Serah still didn’t seem comfortable around me, and I wasn’t about to **** the issue.

I tried some small talk with Ashlara as we walked, but true to form her answers were clipped and practical. Normally I would have written it off as just her being her, but something felt… off. She seemed distracted, and more than once I caught her glancing at me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

“You ok?” I finally asked.

“Hm?” she replied without looking at me. She’d trimmed what little hair she’d had left after the necromantic fire, leaving her with a short pixie-cut. It was jarring, though it didn’t diminish her femininity.

“I asked if you were ok,” I said. “You seem off today.”

“I’m fine!” she snapped, the words coming out sharp and sudden. Before I could say anything else, she lengthened her stride and stormed ahead, leaving me standing there wondering what the hell I’d done to make her angry.

I replayed the last few days in my head. Was she upset about Mirri’s magic not working on me? Maybe they’d talked about it while I was out. Or when I wasn’t around. Or maybe it was something else entirely, something I’d missed or done without realizing.

With no answers forthcoming, I let her pull ahead and drifted back into the middle, keeping an easy distance between Ashlara in front and the girls behind. It felt like the safest place to be, for the moment, at least.

* * *

By noon the trees finally fell away and we stepped out into a rocky grassland. Hip-high stalks of gold swayed hypnotically in the breeze over rolling hills, broken here and there by jagged stone outcroppings. We stayed near the treeline at first, stopping for a quick lunch and our now-customary break for combat practice before pushing out into the steppe proper.

As the sun slid lower behind us, I realized we were heading east - probably the first time since arriving here that I’d been able to pin down a direction with any confidence. A few hours later, when the sun was just kissing the distant canopy miles behind us, we spotted a settlement ahead. We altered course slightly and made for it, all of us hoping it meant a roof and a bed for the night.

The village was small, maybe two dozen buildings at most, encircled by a low wall of stacked local stone. There was no gate, no guards - just a wide gap in the wall that served as an entrance. It looked far less fortified than the other towns I’d seen, but it was also much smaller. Inside, the buildings were single-story affairs, all built from the same dark sedimentary stone, topped with pitched thatch roofs. A handful of stalls sat empty in the village center, likely a daytime marketplace now gone quiet.

The sound of a woman singing drifted through the air, and we followed it deeper into the village. Along the way we passed a modest house with an enormous sword embedded point-down in the stone out front. The house itself was dark, which stood out since the surrounding homes were lit, but with the light fading fast we couldn’t linger.

The song led us to a small inn, bright and lively. Heads turned as we entered, but conversations barely faltered. Humans were clearly the majority here, though I spotted a single dwarf and a couple of the blue-scaled, lizard-like folk I’d seen back in Wolfsend. Near the hearth, a young woman in a simple brown dress - eighteen or nineteen, maybe - sang, holding most of the room’s attention.

Mirri, Serah, and I claimed one of the few open tables while Ashlara went to speak with the innkeeper, after all she was the only one among us still carrying coin. She returned a few minutes later with four tankards and set them in the middle of the table.

“They’ve only got a common room,” she said, grabbing one of the tankards and taking a long pull, “but it looks like we’ll have it to ourselves tonight. I ordered dinner.”

I thanked her as Mirri slid a tankard toward Serah and dragged another to herself. I took the last one, eyed the cloudy liquid, and drank with my teeth clenched, straining out the mushy bits of small beer. I still wasn’t fond of it, but my waterskin had been empty for hours and thirst won the argument.

Serah sniffed her drink, frowned slightly, and set it back down untouched. Mirri, meanwhile, took an enthusiastic gulp.

The singer finished her song to applause and a few whistles, then disappeared into the back. A short while later she returned, setting four bowls of stew and a plate of bread on our table. The others dug in immediately, but I thanked her and complimented her singing before she moved on.

As I lifted my spoon, I noticed Mirri staring at me mid-chew, one cheek puffed out with food.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothin’,” she said with a grin, then went back to chewing and washed it down with a deep drink.

I really wished there was a manual for understanding women.

* * *

“Mirri,” I whispered. “What kind of people are those?” I asked, nodding toward the blue-scaled folk.

“Naga,” she said quietly. “Mostly live by the northern lakes, but it’s not strange to see ‘em this far south. They’re really pretty, and usually really nice, but don’t go drinking with ‘em. Sometimes they eat people when they get drunk.”

I looked from her to them and back again. She didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smirk. I gave a slow, understanding nod.

“And he’s a dwarf, right?”

“She’s a dwarf, yeah.”

I took another look at the short, hairy figure seated with a few broad-shouldered humans. Her beard was about as thick as mine, average, really. Not patchy, but not the kind you’d brag about either. I didn’t usually wear one, but with no razor for days, mine had filled in enough to make comparisons easy.

Her hair was chestnut brown, falling to her shoulders, with two narrow braids worked into otherwise loose locks. I didn’t notice any particularly prominent breasts, though her clothes were loose enough to hide them if they were there. She was stocky, could’ve been a flat-chested woman or a slightly overweight man.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“Her eyes,” Mirri replied. “Dwarven men have dark eyes. Women have light ones. Hers are gray.”

I looked again and caught them - pale, almost unnaturally gray. “Huh,” I muttered. “Good to know.”

When we finished eating, the girls headed toward the common room and I lingered behind. “I’ll be there in a minute,” I said.

Mirri fixed me with a hard look.

“I’m not going to get into trouble,” I added quickly. “I just want to ask a question.”

“Don’t take too long,” she said, then gave me a small smile.

I made my way to the bar. It was short, maybe ten feet end to end, but fit the room well enough. A doorway to the kitchen sat to the left, another to the common room on the right. Four stools lined the counter, all occupied.

I nodded to the innkeeper, a man in his forties with a receding hairline and an impressive mustache. “We passed a house on the way into town,” I said. “Big sword stuck in the stone out front. What’s the story there?”

“You like that?” came a voice from my left.

The man who spoke was tall and lean, older but still striking in a way that hadn’t dulled with age. He was clean-shaven in a room full of beards, which only made him stand out more. His olive skin lent him an almost foreign air, something reminiscent of distant deserts and sunbaked cities.

His gray robes were immaculate, not a crease out of place, and his salt-and-pepper hair fell in smooth lines to his shoulder blades. When he smiled, it was easy and deliberate - bright teeth flashing, polished and perfect.

“That’s the former home of Saint Aldric,” he continued. “And that sword? Adhaneth, the Unbroken Promise.” His chest puffed with pride. “Aldric left it there to protect his sister when he went off to fight in the War of Falling Stars. Swore that if anyone tried to harm her, the sword would answer. She lived in that house until the day she died.”

He turned toward me fully, eyes bright. “Tell you what, kid. If you want to know more, stop by tomorrow. I’ll give you a proper look - fill you in on the history. Both the man and the blade.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll see if I can make the time. Thanks.”

I made my way to the common room and found the girls already settled in. The space wasn’t very large - just big enough to hold six beds and the small hearth meant to keep it warm. The beds were little more than cots, simple wooden frames with leather stretched tight across them and a single coarse pillow. Each of the girls had tucked their packs beneath a bed and sat nearby talking, with Mirri and Serah on the far left and Ashlara claiming the far right. I slid my pack under the bed beside Ashlara’s and sat down.

“I asked about that house with the sword out front,” I said. “Apparently it belonged to some saint or something. There’s a guy who offered to give us a tour tomorrow, if we want.”

They mulled it over. Mirri perked up immediately and said she’d go with me. Ashlara, on the other hand, said she’d rather spend the time picking up supplies. Serah didn’t voice an opinion at all, but I got the sense she’d follow Mirri wherever she decided to go.