Hazelhearth Hires Heroes

by D. H. Willison

  “Guard at the gate with a peg leg. No stable boys…” Lady Isylnoir shut her jade green eyes, grimacing once again as she paused. “Let me guess, no armorer either?”

  Tillie motioned at Gnebnik.

  “First good news all evening.” Lady Isylnoir strode to their table, shooting each of the four an appraising glance that seemed to catalog their various deficiencies before settling upon Gnebnik. “You are the armorer?”

  “Name’s Gnebnik,” he said, standing and extending a hand.

  Lady Isylnoir glanced at Sam and Lee. “Move. Empire business. And fetch me a drink before you leave.”

  Sam shot her an icy glare. Lee’s curiosity seemed for the moment to override any hostile and/or snarky reactions.

  “These two are my assistants,” said Gnebnik. “Whatever your business is, it’ll go faster if they stay.”

  “It’s OK,” said Lee, standing. “Take my seat. I’ll fetch another. And your drink.”

  Lady Isylnoir pushed her cloak over her shoulders, revealing a low-profile set of armor with a combination of metal plates enameled in sage green and numerous smaller copper colored scale-like pieces. Intricate folds of fabric around joints and gaps served to silence her every movement as she sat in Lee’s chair.

  Shin glanced at a small emblem on the left of her breastplate: crossed lightning bolts below a stylized cedar tree. “Imperial battlemage, huh? What level?”

  “Thrr—two, actually.”

  “So what can we do for you,” said Gnebnik.

  “I was assigned to this… post… to manage the resupply situation.”

  “A battlemage on logistical duty?” said Gnebnik.

  “A more appropriate imperial officer for this sort of assignment was not available.” Lady Isylnoir managed a seething tone of practiced perfection.

  Lee returned, setting a wooden mug of ale in front of her. “So you’re a real noble?”

  “I am.” She glanced at the mug. “And forgive me. I should have specified that the drink was intended for my own consumption, not that of my mount.”

  Lee hesitated a moment, his mind weighing the novelty of being in the presence of genuine nobility with her less than hospitable demeanor. He returned to the counter to confer again with Tillie.

  Sam on the other hand fought hard to suppress a helpful suggestion involving anatomical locations where Lady Isylnoir might dispose of the offending mug.

  “Right. Imperial battlemage,” said Gnebnik. “So where’s your staff?”

  “I was informed they were to be here already.”

  “None have arrived that I’ve heard of.”

  Lee returned with a stool for himself, and a bottle and glass for Lady Isylnoir.

  She glanced first at the bottle, then at the glass, then at Lee, finally resorting to pouring a glass for herself.

  “Maybe you can find some help when the dimension brokers stop by,” said Gnebnik. “Should be here in about a week.”

  “They will not be coming here again,” she said, sniffing at the amber-colored liquid in her glass.

  “They won’t?” said Gnebnik.

  “What?” blurted Sam and Lee.

  “They have to come,” said Sam. “That’s our way home!”

  She took a tiny sip, wrinkled her nose, and set the glass back down. “The war situation is fluid. We had to adjust the transit points. They’ll be stopping in Halamar and Arania from now on. It works better with our supply lines.”

  “Just how far away are these cities?” said Lee. “Halamar and Arania?”

  “Halamar’s just over a week’s ride, Arania is a bit further,” said Shin. “But in the opposite direction.”

  “You have to call them back!” said Sam, slamming a fist against the table to notably less effect than if Lee had done it. “We’re not actually supposed to be here.”

  “I cannot do that. A special trip from one of the brokers, even one of the less reputable ones, is quite costly. The imperial treasury is stretched thin.”

  “But this was a mistake.”

  “This ambrosia is rather poorly aged,” she said, jade green eyes shooting daggers at the offending amber liquid in her goblet. “And your little mistake is none of my concern. There is a war going on here. This is not some amusement park. If you serve as stable hands or the like, perhaps there will be an opportunity to join with a supply caravan heading to Arania or Halamar.”

  “Hold on a minute,” said Lee. “Stable hands? We can’t be stable hands!”

  She looked Lee up and down. “You sell yourself short. You may be a bit old for a stable hand, but with proper training, I’m fairly certain you can manage.”

  Chapter 9

  Sam and Lee met Gnebnik at his workshop the following morning. Breakfast consisted of clay bowls of porridge and sullen silence. Sam and Lee had tolerated the rough accommodations and simple meals: no tinned meats or fruits or vegetables to add variety. It was a novelty not having the comforts of the industrial world just a trolley ride to a general store away, but a temporary one. These past three weeks, there was always an end in sight. Like a summer holiday. With a bit more danger. Now, hope seemed as far as the west coast must have been before the transcontinental railroad was built.

  “Where’s Shin?” said Sam.

  “Late night scavenging trip,” said Gnebnik. “Should be back around noon.”

  “Isn’t it dangerous to be in the forest at night?” said Lee.

  “Dangerous any time,” said Gnebnik. “But nekos can see better than most creatures at night. And his ospherant has a keen sense of smell.”

  “So what do we do?” said Sam.

  “Wait for him to come back and see what he found, I guess,” said Lee, staring at a workbench as empty as his soul felt at the moment.

  “No I mean us. How are we going to get to Arania? Or Halamar.”

  “You could wait for a caravan to come through,” said Gnebnik. “Go from town to town, switching caravans till ya reached Halamar. But you’d have to pay ta travel with them. And you’re likely to run into a swindler along the way.”

  “We have no money anyway.”

  “And before ya ask,” said Gnebnik, “the two of you traveling alone would be suicide. Absolute minimum party size is three, assuming all members are experienced. But five is better.”

  “So we need to find a party,” said Lee. “Where do we find adventurers in town?”

  “Right here,” said Gnebnik. “Shin and myself are technically members of the Adventurer’s Guild. The only members at that. Though neither of us has gone on a quest in over a year. Too busy tryin’ ta keep the town together.”

  “And with the luck we’ve been having, we could go there and find they’ve changed the stopovers again.”

  “Maybe Lady Isylnoir will change her mind,” said Lee.

  “Her? Maybe if we poison her tea first.”

  “Sam!”

  “Nothing fatal! Maybe just make her horribly sick for a few days. I had this concoction I wanted to use on my old nemesis, Priscilla—”

  “Best to stay clear of her for a while,” said Gnebnik. “If I know her type, she’ll be surly about the lack of a proper manor in town. There’ll be several days of grousing and bullying the local officials to find the best place in town for her residence.”

  “So I suppose there’s nothing better to do than train,” said Lee.

  “And I’d be trainin’ extra hard, too. Ya’ don’t want to get conscripted.”

  “I thought quests were voluntary,” said Sam. “How can adventurers get conscripted?”

  “Adventurers can’t get conscripted. One of the perks of guild membership. You two are not adventurers yet.”

  The two smallest training dummies bore the brunt of Sam and Lee’s frustrations for the next hour, followed by several hours of drudgery making wrought iron hinges. The long shadows of late afternoon fell across the workshop by the time Shin returned from his scouting patrol. A detour to avoid a sabertooth cost him several hours and he had noth
ing to show for the trip.

  “Nothin’ left here ta repair,” said Gnebnik. “I’ll ask at the forge, maybe they still need help fixin’ mine carts.”

  “Forge was empty when I passed,” said Shin. “She’s probably at the mine.”

  “Well then.” Gnebnik looked at Sam and Lee. “We’re done here, so it looks like you two have time for a bit of extra training today.”

  “No.” Sam put his fists firmly against his hips.

  “What?” said Lee. “Why not? If we don’t want to be conscripted into whatever schemes Lady Isylnoir comes up with, we need to train to become adventurers.”

  “Oh yes. We might become adventurers. And then we might find a party heading to Arania. And we might find those shady dimension brokers. And, and, and.”

  Lee cocked his head. “I don’t like it either, but if we—”

  “No more double talk!” Sam glared at Gnebnik. “What exactly is necessary to become adventurers? You’ve been dangling hints in front of us, giving catchy phrases and bits of jargon. First you say you might train us in a month, then it’s ‘but there’s so much more to it.’ ”

  “Aye.”

  “Give us a straight answer already,” snapped Sam.

  Shin jumped in. “There are five separate tests to become an adventurer or to advance a level. Combat skills overshadow the rest in most people’s minds, but adventurers must prove themselves in all five.”

  “If I told you straight out what was needed, you’d be feelin’ as low as a gastropoid’s gonads,” said Gnebnik. “It’d seem daunting. Too much for those wee shoulders to bear.”

  “Hey! Sam may not be strong, but he’s plenty smart.”

  “I meant nothing by it,” Gnebnik sighed deeply. “The thing is, most folks don’t start at zero. Say you grew up around here. You’d probably know enough about herbology to pass that test straight away.”

  “You might know a bit about the local fauna as well,” added Shin.

  Lee drooped his head. “And since we aren’t from around here…”

  “—And yer city slickers as well,” said Gnebnik.

  “Oh dear,” said Sam.

  “So, basically…” said Lee. “We’re fucked.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Shin. “You do have skills. Gnebnik was evaluating how you would adapt.”

  “So what are they?” said Lee. “These tests and skill categories.”

  “No beating around the bush, no doubletalk!” added Sam.

  “Combat skills you already know about,” said Gnebnik. “Simple attack and defense. A level one must demonstrate proficiency with the weapons and equipment of their class against the training dummies. You prove you know how to hold and swing a weapon, reliably and consistently hit a target that’s standing still, or moving on a predictable path. That’s what the dummies do.”

  “Defense can mean any number of things, depending on class,” said Shin. “Some, like fighters might demonstrate skill with a shield, while others like a ranger or a thief—”

  “I do not like the term thief!”

  Shin paused a moment, waiting for Sam’s temper to subside. “For classes like a ranger or a thief—which you are not obligated to become, even though you may show great aptitude—there is a greater emphasis on not being hit.”

  “Sounds well and good in theory,” said Lee. “But how would you test for…”

  “You might need to pass the balance beam test, or other feats of agility.”

  “Very well,” said Sam. “So what about the others. You mentioned herbology, I assume we have to identify edible plants?”

  “Yes,” said Shin. “That’s one part of it. You’ll need to identify the most common plants in the region that are edible. And also in the categories of medicinal, utilitarian, and predatory.”

  “Predatory?” blurted Sam, teeth clenched as if he were holding back a phrase such as ‘are you fucking shitting me.’ He took a slow breath and muttered, “oh dear.”

  “Your world doesn’t have carnivorous plants?” said Shin, a look of genuine surprise within his slitted, ice blue eyes.

  “Yes, of course we have carnivorous plants,” said Lee. “It’s just that they feed on insects. I take it plants on Arvia feed on… larger creatures?”

  “Yup,” said Gnebnik. “Many types prey on small mammals, birds and reptiles. A few on humans, a few on creatures even larger.”

  “I thought you were supposed to be the expert on life in the wilderness,” said Lee. “What’s the point of having a ranger around if we all have to…”

  “Shin here may have had to pass the same types of tests,” said Gnebnik. “But as a ranger, his test in herbology was three times as difficult.”

  “I have to demonstrate that I can use the wilderness to my advantage,” said Shin. “To the party’s advantage.”

  “You two just have to demonstrate that you’ll not die stupidly by stepping in range of a deathbrush while Shin scouts ahead.”

  “A deathbrush?” said Sam. “No, never mind, I don’t want to know.”

  “Not native to this area,” said Shin.

  “Actually,” said Lee, struggling to imagine what a carnivorous plant large enough to prey on humans might look like. “I sort of do want to know.”

  Sam glared at him.

  “Zoology is the same, just with creatures.”

  “And you said there are five tests total.” Lee drooped his head, an uncharacteristic gloom painted across his face. “And only one of those five we’ve had any practice with so far. This’ll take forever.”

  Gnebnik slapped him on the shoulder. “Buck up. The other two are campcraft and special skills. Those we can teach you as we go along. As long as you don’t do anything stupid, they’re usually not life-or-death.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid, huh?” said Sam, glaring at Lee.

  Lee rolled his eyes, picked a training sword from the barrel in the workshop’s store, and a battered round shield from the upper shelf. “If anybody needs me, I’ll be hacking up a few training dummies.”

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  Four days passed. Sam and Lee trained morning and evening, and assisted Gnebnik in the repair of three mine carts with worn couplings and the creation of several hundred wrought iron hinges. Yet the feared summons did come, late morning on day five. Coincidentally this was the exact day that Sam and Lee had originally planned to recuse themselves from the daily risk of becoming monster fodder. Yet this day brought a summons from a disgruntled battlemage, not a dimension broker of questionable reputation.

  Gnebnik trudged to the specified address, halting his fist just short of the polished mahogany front door. He’d passed this house front before. The door was neatly lacquered in black with decorative burgundy—a typical door to one of Hazelhearth’s more upscale residences. It was clear that nothing good would come of the meeting, and the novelty of knowing precisely how badly things would turn out didn’t pique his curiosity quite enough to rush things. But although things could go badly for him, it could go far worse for those without a guild affiliation. And though the two newcomers were certainly not friends, they had proved competent assistants and amicable drinking companions. So he made a mental note to dial back any sarcastic quips from ten to nine and pounded on the door.

  Lady Isylnoir barely registered the knock. She’d spent the morning attempting to wear down the polished tile floor of the second-story breezeway with the heels of a pair of elegant suede boots, her mind occupied with two lists. These were the strengths and weaknesses of the city of Hazelhearth, and technically it was not the lists themselves that chafed her, but the difference in their length.

  The flooring of the breezeway was as unimpressed with her efforts as she was with the manor itself. It was far less grand than any imperial manor had the right to be. And technically it was not an imperial manor at all, but rather the mayor’s home. The mayor had been relocated to an aunt’s house with a few biting words. Some of which may have included: ‘fire-jets,’ ‘acid gas cloud,’
and ‘underwear,’ in no particular order. Most people were wary of angering any imperial official, and one who could cast magic was treated with a degree of caution reserved for active volcanoes. And battlemages.

  The town’s defenses were substandard, even for a town this size. The fifty-foot-tall stone wall encircling the town was in a reasonable state of repair, but several towers were half-finished. A plan to expand and upgrade them to accommodate cannon was carried out up to and including the ‘disassembly’ phase, but reconstruction was stopped half a dozen years back as more and more able-bodied citizens were conscripted to support the war effort. There were no magical defenses at all. Plans to mount a lightning-thrower, a type of magical artillery, had progressed to the point of mostly completing a tower. The device itself, which resembled a cross between an ornate chandelier and the central fire of a lighthouse, had been located after a two-hour search, under a generous coating of dust in the lowest sub-basement of the city armory. It was mostly complete. But it had neither transmuter gems nor power crystals, both of which had apparently been diverted to support more pressing campaigns many years back.

  As bad as the town’s defenses were, the basilisk in the room was clearly manpower. Or lack of it. The city watch and militia were so thinly manned that they had been merged into a single organization last year. A town this size would normally warrant a dozen and a half in the watch, enough to man all towers day or night, along with a militia of thirty or so members. Militia, in groups of ten or twelve, would make regular patrols of the surrounding countryside—deterring bandits or predator attacks on surrounding farms or other infrastructure. Total complement of Hazelhearth’s combined organization: nine. The captain of which had been made captain primarily on account of the fact that his peg leg made him more suitable for organizational and administrative duties rather than skirmishes in the wilderness.

  Yet this desolate situation would certainly not improve on its own. No, it would require diligence, industry, and effort. Starting with the bothersome chore of answering one’s own door.