And somehow – God knows how – I liked her even more. And she had come drunk to mine on a Saturday night. I didn’t know what that meant and suddenly felt too tired to figure out why. So instead, (and with embarrassing difficulty) I removed her boots and fetched a spare blanket, which I placed gently over her, pulling it close against the chill December weather that would find its way into the house once the heating stopped. I remained a few moments, finding real peace in watching this newly discovered Nat sleep while the last remnants of the old one deconstructed herself in my head.
Then I went and picked up broken things in my bedroom before going to sleep.
* * * *
Next morning Nat was gone. I paced my lounge wondering whether to call her until I couldn’t take it anymore, deciding instead to take my mind off Nat with a spot of X-mas shopping.
Of course, this didn’t work at all. As soon as I got into the High Street Complex I started to wonder about what I should buy Nat for X-mas. Antony, Wendy and myself had all bought each other presents the previous X-mas, so it was safe to assume that we’d keep up the... er, tradition(?) this year. Or, at least, that’d be my get out excuse if the whole thing turned out to be weird and awkward.
Three hours of crowded, stressful and temper-raising browsing later, I found the perfect gift. Well, 'perfect' meaning 'the best option considering that if I had to go on for even another five minutes I would have started taking out my festive spirit on random passers-by'.
My gift, though a great compromise for a guy who would get panic attacks if he shopped for too long, wasn’t exactly original. But for me, what was important was that the silver necklace that I sneaked another peek at as I left the jewellers was the most breathtakingly beautiful thing in the entire shop - and I somehow knew that Nat would see this too.
I crossed the main foyer of the southwest district’s top level, heading towards the Uncle Sam’s restaurant there and considering celebrating my successful buy with an Uncle Sam’s ‘Fat American’ burger for lunch. American food was so expensive with the addition of the cholesterol tax that the EU Council had levied on the fattier foods. What the cholesterol tax really was, was just one of many obscure pieces of legislation intended to reduce and control the EU public’s exposure to anything American. Uncle Sam’s had sprung up with Council funding, pricing the American corporation McDonald’s out of the whole of Europe and replacing the McMenu with a selection of unsubtly anti-American sounding meals, like the ‘Racist Hillbilly Fried Chicken Sandwich’ and ‘Radioactive New Yorker Spicy Wings – so hot your hair will fall out.’
No, this isn’t massively relevant to the story, but excuse me for trying to inject a little social and political learning into our tale...
You know, you have a mean tongue sometimes, m’lady. Sexy, but mean...
Yes, tongues can be sexy...
No, I’ve told you, this is a public place... You little hussy...
Slut...
Jezebel...
Okay, okay, you win. I hope you realise that you’ve completely broken the mood at a really emotional point in the story...
So, I’m standing at the window and navigating the menu, wavering on the ‘Fat American’ and considering a ‘Native Genocide’ with extra cheese, when I see a familiar face nestled in the window’s reflection between side dips and deserts. Her eyes have grown a little wide and she looks nervous to have seen me. I study her face for a moment, softened and hazy because of the dimness of the reflected world, and I make a decision about the road ahead.
“Hey Nat,” I said as I turned to face her. She seemed self-conscious, vulnerable and looked away momentarily before speaking.
“Look," she said hastily, "I really wanted to apologise about last night.”
“You don’t have to,” I leapt in. “N-ne-ver.” Oh great, stuttering. “You never have to apologise to me. It was nothing.”
She looked a little taken back by my words. Was that confusion? Or maybe relief that she might not have blown any chance to be with me. Or possibly the hangover that she must surely be nursing? Let’s go with number 2.
“Actually,” I carried on, buoyed by the way her wide eyes seemed to hang on my every word, every movement and change of expression, “I think it must be fate or something that we ran into each other again.”
“Really.”
“Yeah... yeah, I just bought you an X-mas present.”
“That’s nice,” she said, smiling an exquisitely sweet and awkward smile that shot straight up to her ocean blue eyes and made them sparkle.
I brought up the box containing the necklace that I had been hiding behind my back. She took the box and looked at it.
“Don’t people usually wait until X-mas?” she asked.
“Not when they’re in love with someone as wonderful as you,” I said. I hadn’t thought it, I’d just said it. If I’d thought it, I’d have wrapped it in chains and dumped it in the ocean of cheesy lines you don’t want to say when asking a woman to go out with you...
Yes my love, it’s true, my psyche really does have an ocean for every occasion, like I said.
And, just as had happened with Rowena Wots-Her-Name all those years ago, the colour drained from Nat’s face. She stuffed the box back into my hands and backed up a step, shaking her head sharply, nervously... convulsively, one way and then the other. Then she seemed to catch herself, willing the colour back into her cheeks with pure concentration and pulling free from that store of masks (that store of masks that I guess we all have) her most conciliatory face.
But I had already seen all that I needed to see emerging from the public toilets across the way.
“I was lost last night, Tim, and too drunk and embarrassed to say anything. It wasn’t your place I was looking for.”
“But what about our hands in the club?” I muttered almost distractedly as I continued to watch the figure cross the foyer.
After a silent moment, I looked back at her to find she had looked away a little, her expression guilty. “I- I’m sorry. I used you to make him jealous, to get the big, lazy ass to ask me out like I knew he wanted to. I didn’t know you wou-”
“-Hey Tim,” said Antony as he reached us. “Been buying jewellery?”
I looked at the box in my hand and back up to see Nat stood a pace behind Antony with her eyes wider than ever; they were speaking to me in their width: Please don’t say, please make up any lie you like.
And, with an inner sigh, I knew straight away that it would not be in my nature to be anything but obliging, even here with my heart cracked open and my humiliation so complete.
“Oh, for my aunt.”
The big man snatched it from me and opened the box before I could protest. “Wow,” he said, peering inside, “you must really like your aunt. She hot or something?”
Nat chuckled and playfully slapped his arm, evidently relieved to take comfort in some little ritual joke that their brief relationship had already developed. I hated that moment, so wanted to be anywhere else right then.
“Right mate,” said Antony, “we’d better get on. See you Monday.”
And soon I would be about as far away from there as any human being could be.
“Yeah, Monday guys.”
Chapter 3
The moon hung low in the sky, so big that the tower on the ridge above us was completely silhouetted against it, making it even more forbidding than it would already have been. There were only three of us – there should have been six at least – and there were two ways up to the ridge and the watch tower we had to take and silence before they could light their beacon, and raise the alarm. There could be as many as six up there; weren’t likely to be less than four.
I briefly wondered whose bright idea it would have been to launch a series of night attacks against the Naulaeg stronghold’s outer defences on a nearly full moon. We were just clearing the way for the main force, a several-hundred-strong raiding party that would fall upon the stronghold itself near dawn, hopefully with the defend
ers having no warning of their arrival. The aim wasn’t to capture and hold the place, but merely to cause damage and catch the inhabitants unprepared, thinning their numbers enough that the lands of the North Fold might be bought a month or two’s peace from the incessant raiding over the border by the various goblinoid races spawning there. The Fold could then spend that precious time shoring up its own defences and diverting a few resources to the actual heart of the war for a while.
“Frinn,” said the barbarian Teini beside me. He was speaking to me; that was my name. I chose it because it sounded a little like Tim. By the way, have you picked up on the fact that I’m doing that thing where you jump ahead and straight into the action before explaining how you ended up there? You got that, yeah? Good. “I think you should go round to the other approach.”
“Why me?” I complained. “What about Bubeh,” I suggested, indicating the nearly two-point-five metre tall ogre beside me, “he’ll last longer when they spot him and shoot the crap out of him with arrows.”
“No way,” the big, bumpy-headed ogre whined, “I’m a bigger target.”
“Then you should’ve played a halfling,” I grumbled. “What’s the use of being a giant if you don’t want anyone to see you?
“I suggested you because you’ve got your companion,” Teini said wearily, “and also you’ll get to the ridge quicker, so you can lay us some covering fire if need be.”
“Oh.”
I was an elven ranger, deadly with a bow in my hand and master to a giant spider called Fes that I had raised since it had hatched and eaten its mother. Giant spiders grew quickly (with a name like that, you’d never have guessed), so that had only actually been three weeks ago and we were still bonding. In this instance, 'still bonding' meaning that I could not be sure that he wouldn’t do the sensible thing and run the other way when – as was at least ninety-five percent probable – our stealthy plan failed and all hell broke loose.
“Fine, fine,” I agreed reluctantly. It was our best plan but that didn’t mean I had to like it. “I’ll be the sacrificial lamb.”
Teini laughed at my overly dramatic turn of phrase. He really did look like a truly legendary hero, his exposed pectorals shaking in the moonlight in rhythm with his hushed chuckle. The real guy was probably an even bigger nerd than me - that was just one of the many things I loved about CyberV.
“Well, if this doesn’t go right,” Teini said, once he’d finished laughing, “Me and Bubeh won’t be far behind you.”
I gave a sigh. “I’ve enjoyed Frinn, you know. First time at level 6.” I got to my feet and turned to drop back down and circle round to the path that would take me to the opposite side of the ridge. “I’ll see you boys in Cymbo.”
“I’m actually a woman in real life,” said Bubeh.
I stopped and turned back to look at the big, smelly and undoubtedly male ogre that I’d shared more than one life and death adventure with in the last few months.
“Oh,” was all I could come up with.
Fes followed me without needing any instruction, his leg joints quietly emitting something between a clicking and a scraping sound as he moved which, despite our time together, still tended to give me the creeps. The black and royal blue hair that covered his body provided great camouflage at night in the barren, rocky landscape and rendered him almost invisible to anything or anyone more than twenty metres away, even on a moonlit night like that one.
We made our way round to the more direct path that climbed straight up the spine of the ridge. I drew my bow, notched an arrow and moved behind Fes. We advanced slowly up the path in our mini combat formation that we had almost perfected in the last three weeks. It pretty much involved Fes acting as a shield to soak up any surprise missile fire and then charging into whatever fray might present itself, while I sat back muttering missile charms and firing my bow. If a battle got to the point of me actually having to draw my short sword, well... it was probably just time to run away.
A couple of minutes later and we had reached the top of the ridge without incident. I looked up at the watch tower, the base of which was now less than fifty metres away. It looked quiet and empty from where I was. For a moment I let myself think that maybe we’d got lucky and all the defenders were asleep inside, but I knew that the tower was sure to be filled with NPCs and NPCs were never asleep when you needed them to be.
Teini and Bubeh would be approaching the base of the tower from the other path. Theirs was the more secret path – the defenders would have to be looking at the right spot to see them coming. Me, I could only have been more exposed if I’d removed all of my clothing. My trusty bow seemed puny in my hands and the tower loomed menacingly large above me, even more intimidating for its deserted appearance.
Tensed, waiting for a sickening thud and the white tunnel that would suck me back to Cymbo, I approached the base of the tower and one of the two walls which formed a protective ‘V’ around the entrance. Fes crawled up the side of the tower and paused to scan the area around the entrance before making his way atop the four metre wall and dangling a leg over to pull me up.
He may have been incredibly creepy and I had to be careful where I grabbed his leg to avoid the fluid that occasionally leaked from his joints and the sharper of his body hairs – some of which had already given me a few scars – but I found myself thinking about what a great companion I had chosen. He seemed so much brighter and more aware of the little things (like my inability to scale a four metre wall) than most of the companions I had come across.
I keep saying ‘he’, but in truth I had no idea what sex Fes was or, indeed, if he even had such a thing. All I knew was that, great companion or no, the point where he started laying eggs was probably going to be the point where we went our separate ways.
Atop the wall, I looked at the entrance below me. The door was wide open and no light issued from within. The area outside the entrance was clear as well. As I watched, Teini – evidently on Bubeh’s shoulders – appeared to levitate gracefully up from behind the opposite wall and made a nimble, virtually silent leap onto it. Moments later, Bubeh made a less graceful appearance. We all shared a look that said, ‘Is it me, or is this too easy?’
Suddenly taken by that bravery that only comes with accepting the inevitability of your situation, I was the first to leap down into the potential killing ground that was the area before the entrance. Bow already in hand, I notched an arrow again and held it aimed into the inky blackness beyond the open doorway.
The others leapt down as well and a few moments passed as we all looked pointedly at each other, ending with Bubeh looking pointedly at Fes, Fes letting out a low, irritated hiss, and Bubeh rolling his eyes and stepping up to the doorway, his mallet-like two-handed war hammer held tense and ready. I thought about pointing out how useless that great big weapon was going to be in the tight confines of the tower, but Bubeh was already at the doorway and if they attacked while he (well, she) was trying to change over his weapon, things could be even worse.
Inside, the stone tower was dank, cold and empty, not to mention exceptionally dark, save for the odd patch where moonlight spilt through a small window or arrow loop somewhere up above. From what could be made out, the room was empty except for a few pieces of rickety-looking furniture. Spiral stairs following the outer wall of the tower led upwards to (judging by the placement of windows on the outside) probably about three more levels above us.
With concerned looks, we headed as stealthily as we could upwards.
Those three more levels proved equally empty and soon we stood with only the roof and the readied fire beacon that we were tasked to destroy above us. A ladder led up to the roof through an open hatch and more pointed looks signalled everyone’s reluctance to be the first one up there. This time I relented and asked Fes to go up first, not really thinking about how impractical it was to be sending a giant spider up a ladder.
After two noisy failures that would have let anyone up above know that we were coming, Bubeh helped Fe
s conquer the ladder with a firm push on the abdomen.
“Yeugh!” Bubeh exclaimed, turning back with his hands held out and, in a narrow strand of moonlight, showing them to be covered in web. “The little bastard shat on me!”
Suddenly there was a loud and worryingly familiar sucking whoosh from somewhere beyond the top of the ladder. Not even a second later Fes was ripped from the top of the ladder in a bright violet blast that sent him flying from my view.
“Fes!” I cried out, and instinctively (although, I presume, not using the instinct for survival) I raced towards the ladder, but a second explosion obliterated the top half of the ladder and a great deal of masonry around it, sending Teini, Bubeh and myself scattering for cover.
There was a powerful wizard up there, too powerful for an NPC watchtower guard in this region. They had to be players up there and they had the high ground. I prepared to say goodbye to Frinn and briefly wished I could have had longer with Fes.
We could have tried to run, but with hundreds of Cylives potentially depending on our success there, it certainly seemed a better option to take death in the front rather than in the back for the slim chance of escape. In a beautiful moment that one remembers later like it had happened in slow motion, the three of us made our decision simultaneously and turned to attack.
Teini hopped onto Bubeh’s shoulder who then leapt to his feet, launching the barbarian and his fearsome Bastard Sword of Kanoch through the gap and out into the night air beyond. I rolled back to my feet and brought my bow up, losing a shaft at a shape moving somewhere up on the roof as the clangs of battle started to ring down from above. A pleasing cry of pain gave me my echoed response, and with that I drew my short sword (the one I had bought for just ten copper pieces and usually only used for running away) and took a run up at Bubeh, landing a foot in his (we’ve settled on his) waiting hands to also be propelled upwards as Teini had been moments before.
The Love I Found: Contemporary Romance Mystery (Ariadne Silver Romance Mystery #3) Page 14
