by Billy Wong
Derrick smiled. "Nice teamwork."
"It was," Rose said, daring to feel hopeful again.
Finn grunted. "If not for these monsters, you would've never betrayed me in the first place. So let's get them."
"Glad to see we're on the same page." She wiped Thorn clean, and they moved on.
#
From there it was a short trip to Count Brandon's manor, though Rose dreaded the meeting between Finn and her seducer. To her surprise, Finn kept his cool when Brandon appeared at the door, and the count smiled widely to see her. "Rose! I knew I could count on your help. Are you well?"
"I'm just fine. Do we know where these new monsters are coming from?"
"They've smartened up," he said unhappily. "We haven't been able to find a central location they're from, since they've stuck to scattered attacks all around."
"So what do you want us to do?" Finn asked, the anger in his voice just in check.
Brandon shrugged. "I suppose you could just find and kill what monsters you can."
"We're not exterminators. I mean, isn't that something your soldiers can do?"
"I don't have enough soldiers, and it's really tough for them to take these things down. So I'd appreciate any kind of help you could give me." His voice too grew tense, and Rose feared the two huge men would soon fall to fighting.
"Okay, we'll do what we can," she said quickly. "But I'd like if Derrick could stay here and help figure out the source of the problem, while me and Finn go hunting." Seeing Derrick's jaw drop before he caught it, she smiled inwardly. Fighting from behind the walls of a fort was one thing, but she wanted to protect him from the danger of battling monsters in open country, and might have found a cunning way to do it.
"Rose, what are you doing? I thought we came here to fight together."
"We came to help the people of Resnick as best as we can, and you'll be more useful here than on the field. Don't get me wrong, you're a decent fighter, but some monsters can slaughter decent fighters. We wouldn't always be able to watch out for you."
"You always let me fight by your side! Why have you changed?"
Because Julie died, she didn't say. They'd always been so lucky before, though she'd known what could happen, she hadn't really considered his safety like she should have. But now... "There wasn't anything for you to do but fight then. This time there is."
"I want to fight," he insisted.
Rose sighed. "That's what I'm afraid of. You're too eager to fight, all things considered. Please listen to me. You trust me when it comes to combat at least, right?!"
"She's right," Finn agreed. "We can't always protect you."
"I don't care," Derrick said stubbornly. "I'll take care of myself."
"Maybe you think it's okay for you to die, but I know different. Life's a precious thing, and you should never give up on it. Even when I thought Rose was dead for sure, in the end I couldn't let myself go. It hurt so much to see her torn apart, mortally wounded, but I took the salvation she offered. Of course she lived too, damn tough girl."
"What?!" Rose demanded, in shock. "You knew we weren't really in heaven, that we were both alive and I was trying to save you?"
He grinned. "I was dying, not blind. I could see we were in the pit, lying in puddles of blood and you with your belly ripped wide open. And you were obviously in way too much pain for an angel. Poor sweet you."
She couldn't help a little laugh, and realized, "We're going to be okay, aren't we?"
"Yeah, probably. I just can't stay mad at you, Rose."
"Me neither. How many times have we come within a hair's breadth of dying for each other? Nothing can ever break our bond."
Derrick interrupted. "I faced many of your toughest tests with you. The Clarities, Wilner, the man-dragon, Joghra, the Spelldrinker—I battled all of them. These things can't be much more dangerous. Don't push me away like this."
"We were foolish then to bring an inexperienced fighter like you along against those terrible foes. I often had to save you, and if we'd been less fortunate..."
"But I helped out a lot!" Derrick's voice trembled as he continued. "Julie's death hurt me more than anyone. But people die in battles. It doesn't mean everybody else should stop fighting for the right cause."
"He saved my life a couple times against Wilner," Finn recalled. "Are you sure you don't want him to come, Rose?"
"His help did come in handy a few times," she had to admit, "even if it did also cost me a lot of pain saving him from his own recklessness at others. I mean, I think I could've taken the man-dragon by myself, but I can't be totally sure. Derrick, it's not that I don't think you're a fine, brave fighter, and I thank you for all your help in the past. But I'm so scared for you now. It might be foolish of me, but every time I think of you fighting, I imagine you dying like Julie did! But it's true, if you want so badly to fight these monsters, you've more than earned the right, and it'd only be appropriate for you to help bring an end to their misdeeds. If you really insist on going, promise you'll be careful and listen to what we say. I couldn't stand to lose you."
"I wouldn't like that either," Finn said.
Derrick looked at them, eyes conflicted while he tried to sort out his thoughts. "All right, I'll stay here. I still think I could be of help, but I know I might not be as careful as you'd like, and making you all worried and distracted might do more harm than I could good. So I'll let you two handle this one."
Rose exhaled sharply in relief. "Thanks. I'm sorry for being a bossy old woman. I just care about you, that's all."
"I know," he said, and hugged her. "I'll find out where these monsters come from for you, and then we can finish all this."
"I hope so," Finn put in. "We've been dealing with these annoying things for the better part of a year."
Rose bit her lip. "We sure get more than our fair share of distraction from promoting magic, huh? Hope we can actually concentrate on that soon, for once."
Both the men nodded in agreement. Then Brandon, who had stood there with an impatient look while being ignored for most of the conversation, asked, "So you want to know anything else?"
"Hmm, well... how's Ashleigh doing?"
"She's fine. Actually, she managed to kill one of the new monsters by herself like few others have, though she did get her arm ripped up in the process. Why?"
"I just wanted to know if she was okay, that's all. I like that tough girl. But is she out hunting the monsters too? Before she got hurt, I mean."
He chuckled at her last sentence. "She wouldn't let a little scratch on her arm keep her out of a fight, even if that scratch is really a long gash down to the bone. She's a good stout comrade. But no, she's too busy taking care of her place to hunt. Here and her fort are pretty much the only relatively safe places left in Resnick, for now."
"Have you offered people from the other towns shelter here, then?" Derrick asked.
"I did announce they could take refuge here if they want, though we could hardly support all of the county for long. But most of them are taking their chances at home, with these being scattered monsters rather than a whole army. I sent soldiers to watch out for them as best as I could, but it's tough to stop such beasts, and one village has already been forced to evacuate. Hence why I called for your help, along with others'. You're the best of the lot, though."
Rose smiled. "I'm glad for your confidence in us. Anyplace you want us to go first?"
"My men have been having a lot of trouble in Gitte, due south of here. I wouldn't mind if you'd check it out."
"Let's go, then." She turned away. Catching the venomous glare Finn shot Brandon, she shrugged helplessly.
#
"He must've been surprised you didn't give him a more friendly response," Finn mused as they walked down the road. "Glad you didn't pretend you were still open to his advances. It would've made me mad—madder."
Rose frowned. She still wanted to be friends with Brandon; he wasn't a bad person overall, though not too good in handling relations with
women despite what he thought. But she didn't know how to tell this to Finn, and just said, "I was never open to his advances. Only in my moment of weakness, and because you weren't there. Even if you had been there in dragon form, I wouldn't have given in to him, but taken comfort in your presence. But you weren't there at all, and I was hurt so bad, I would've tried anything to relieve my pain. I'm so sorry."
"I believe you, and forgive you."
"Really? For good this time?"
Finn thought about it for a moment. "I can't say I'll ever forget about it completely. But in the end, it won't matter much more than the routine arguments we're always having. No matter what, I still love you a thousand times more than I hate you. Doesn't matter if you committed adultery—or did anything else, really."
She kissed him passionately then. "Hope this takes away a little more of that hate."
"Not feeling any of it right now," he replied, and they shared another kiss. Just then an apelike monster stepped into their view. Rose rushed it, and as she drew close Finn hit it in the face with a thrown axe, leaving it open to her disemboweling strike.
"Now that was decent teamwork. But a ranged attack? Are you getting lazy on me?" They shared a laugh, hers a girlish giggle, and she mused, "You know, I'm starting to think we actually can look forward to a happy birthday for our kids!"
"If we survive," Finn added for her.
She could hardly consider the possibility of dying now; Finn was happy to be with her again! "We will," she promised. "We will!"
They made it to Gitte in high spirits, and the half a score of huge beasts they met on the way didn't dampen those spirits. One of their foes however ripped Rose's thigh open with its giant axe, so that when they walked into town, it was with the mighty woman carried in her man's loving arms. She still didn't have the magical skill to heal the deep gash, though she was able to slow the bleeding a little with it. Managing the complex energies of even that simple spell fatigued her, reminding her why it was often less than ideal to use healing magic in the midst of battle.
Of course, she hardly needed to be carried, and Finn looked unsurprised when upon seeing a soldier walk their way, Rose readily hopped out of his arms to greet him. "I'm Rose," she said while she gave the man her usual crushing handshake, "and this is my husband Finn. Brandon sent us here to help."
"We've been waiting for help. Follow me, I'll introduce you to our captain."
Finn noticed the limp she tried to hide hurrying after the soldier heedless of her wound, and cringed apparently at the thought of the pain which accompanied her steps. "Rose, slow down! What are you trying to prove?"
"What's up with you? I've taken wounds many times worse than this and kept fighting." She chuckled at his familiar worried expression, though it'd traditionally been reserved for much more serious injuries on her. "I guess you must not be used to seeing me hurt in a normal sized view anymore, having spent so long as a huge dragon."
"Yeah, I guess I forgot how well you can take it."
"I'd be long dead otherwise. You know what makes me sad? We're out here doing this, when we should be at home raising our kids! We're the worst parents ever."
"They won't mind," Finn assured her. "They're not even two years old. Besides, we'll have plenty of good stories for them when they're a little older! They'll have lots of reasons to be proud of their mommy and daddy, right?"
"Disgusting reasons, maybe." She fingered her armor over where she'd last been skewered.
"Of course we'll have to warn them properly first, lest we make the kids think getting stabbed, crushed, electrocuted, shot, blown up, knocked off high places, poisoned, and all that is no big deal, because their mommy survives such treatment all the time."
Feeling proud despite herself, Rose grinned, imagining a joyous return home.
Chapter 12
After being informed of the situation—in short, the town was surrounded by wandering monsters—they spent the next week searching for and fighting beasts before they could find no more and restored a feeling of relative safety to the area. "Damn," Finn said as they left the cheering village, "took longer to get rid of those fifty or so monsters than the thousand plus we took down before."
Rose frowned. "Yeah, that's probably what whoever's controlling these things intended. With our enemies spread out like this, it's tough to get all of them. I shudder to think what they've been doing to the rest of Resnick while we were busy here."
"We might have been better off just trying to find their controller to stop them."
"I kind of wished we could do that, instead of fighting random lackeys. But these people did need help. I hope Derrick will have some useful information waiting for us."
Returning to Brandon's manor, they found the very opposite of what they hoped for. Not only was there no new information, but no Derrick to be seen, only a wrecked house and an embarrassed count. "They took him," Brandon said. "The monsters kept me busy, and only after did I realize Derrick was gone. At least they made it pretty obvious where they went. The townspeople told me they headed into the forest to the south. It shouldn't be hard to track them through there."
How had the monsters known Derrick was in town, and why did they want him in the first place? Finn supposed this was solid proof that a greater mind—Graham? The Earth Mother?—must direct the unintelligent creatures' actions.
Rose groaned miserably. "To think I insisted on him staying here to protect him, and this happens..."
"When did this happen?" Finn asked. He grew suspicious. "And why didn't you tell us?"
"It happened just last night, but I did send a message to Gitte. I knew you'd want to know about your friend's plight as soon as possible. But I guess you left already."
Rose exhaled. "Did you and Derrick manage to figure anything out before this?"
"Not really, nothing certain. Though, when these monsters first appeared, they were all concentrated around the swamp east of here, but since then it's been pretty random. Could the ones spread around now all originally be from the swamp?"
Her eyes lit up. "I fought Graham in the swamp, remember? So it's suspicious that the monsters were gathered around there. I'm beginning to think Graham is alive, and somehow he's gained control of them. It wouldn't be too far-fetched if he is the direct servant of a god. But why he does he continue to have them ravage your land?"
The theory made sense, and Finn snapped at Brandon, "So why didn't you send anyone to check it out?"
"I don't have enough soldiers in town as is, and even I shouldn't go out there alone. So I waited for the two of you to get back, and now we can go hunting together."
Finn sneered, but Rose put her gentle hand on his shoulder. "Relax. We need all the help we can get, and he's a strong fighter."
"He all but got you killed last time. Not to mention his wife-stealing."
Brandon frowned as she hung her head in guilt and shame. "So she told you. No wonder you've been so terse around me."
"I'd still be mad at you if you hadn't been told on. The damage to Rose's guts took because of you would be enough to warrant it."
"It was nobody's fault," Rose said in a soft, pleading voice. "He fought bravely, but couldn't stand against an overwhelmingly powerful enemy. No shame in that. If you want to blame someone, you might as well blame me for not watching my step, or yourself for not saving me. But I'm fine, so let's not fret about the past. I'm over that little scratch—mostly." Smiling now, she added, "The headaches lasted longer."
Unable to avoid returning Rose's smile, Finn mused, "Bet there's a piece of metal still stuck in your head, huh?"
"Maybe... probably. But I'm still good, even if these days my memory's not the best."
"Really good," he agreed, and kissed her. He noticed that Brandon was smiling too. "What are you so happy about?"
When he spoke, the count's voice held surprising admiration. "I see knowledge of the affair hasn't broken your love for each other. I suppose it's time for me to give up."
"That
easily, really?" Finn wasn't about to be fooled by simple words.
Instead of addressing him, Brandon turned to his wife. "Rose. I adore you. I always will. But I see now you truly do belong with your Finn, that your love will never die and my intrusion upon it can only bring misery you don't deserve. So I'm sorry for my past deeds; let's just be friends again, and nothing more. I want you to be happy, and look forward to having you in my life even if not as the wife I dreamed of. Now, shall we go kill monsters? I'm about ready to have words with Graham, if this is indeed his doing."
"Yes, my friend!" she said readily.
Though his words sounded sincere, Finn remained wary. But Rose seemed fully convinced by Brandon's speech, and he didn't want to argue. "It wouldn't be fair to Derrick to waste any more time here, when we've got an idea where he might be. Let's get going."
Rose hugged him. "Thanks for being so understanding."
Well, it wasn't like he had that much of a choice. "So Count, just the three of us?"
"It'll be tough to excuse my own absence as is. But I'll do it for Rose."
Finn glowered at him, but he pretended not to notice. Why wouldn't he just leave her alone already?! But she clearly didn't share Finn's disapproval, as she laughed and patted Brandon's shoulder. "I guess it's battle time. First let's go to the forest, and we'll see about the swamp after. Anything we need to do before we go?"
"I have to tell the men," Brandon said. He walked off, leaving Finn alone with Rose.
"He's still trying to charm you," he growled.
Rose looked guiltily at him and shook her head. "Finn, don't worry about it. I know that it's hard to forget what happened after you were so greatly wronged, and I'm sorry. But you can't put all the blame on Brandon. I let him do what he did, and didn't lift a finger to stop him. Things are different now that you're back, and I certainly won't go along again. So let's give him a chance to see if he'll stay true to his word."
