The girl looked up.
“You saved my life,” she told them in such a solemn tone Hadrian stopped laughing. “I don’t remember a lot of last night, but I remember that much. And for that you deserve my gratitude.”
“I would settle for an explanation,” Royce said, moving to the windows. He began closing the drapes. “Straighten up for Maribor’s sake, before a sweeper sees you, thinks we’re noble, and marks us. We’re already on thin ice here as it is. Let’s not add to it.”
She stood up straight, and Hadrian could not help but stare. Her long yellow hair, now free of twigs and leaves, shimmered in waves over her shoulders. She was a vision of youthful beauty and Hadrian guessed she could not be more than seventeen.
“Now, why have you been looking for us?” Royce asked, closing the last curtain.
“To hire you to save my father,” she said, untying the purse from around her neck and holding it up with a smile. “Here. I have twenty-five silver tenents. Solid silver stamped with the Dunmore crown.”
Royce and Hadrian exchanged looks.
“Isn’t it enough?” She asked, her lips starting to tremble.
“How long did it take you to save up this money?” Hadrian asked.
“All my life. I saved every copper I was ever given, or earned. It was my dowry.”
“Your dowry?”
She lowered her head looking at her feet. “My father is a poor farmer. He would never-I decided to save for myself. It’s not enough, is it? I didn’t realize. I’m from a very small village. I thought it was a lot of money; everyone said so, but…” She looked around at the battered loveseat and faded curtains. “We don’t have palaces like this.”
“Well, we really don’t-” Royce began in his usual insensitive tone.
“What Royce is about to say,” Hadrian interrupted, “is we really don’t know yet. It depends on what you want us to do.”
Thrace looked up, her eyes hopeful.
Royce just glared at him.
“Well it does, doesn’t it?” Hadrian shrugged. “Now, Thrace you say you want us to save your father. Has he been kidnapped or something?”
“Oh no, nothing like that. As far as I know he’s fine. Although I have been away a long time looking for you. So, I’m not sure.”
“I don’t understand. What do you need us for?”
“I need you to open a lock for me.”
“A lock? To what?”
“A tower.”
“You want us to break into a tower?”
“No. I mean-well yes, but it isn’t like-it’s not illegal. The tower isn’t occupied; it has been deserted for years. At least I think so.”
“So you just want us to open a door to an empty tower?”
“Yes!” She said nodding vigorously so that her hair bounced.
“Doesn’t sound too hard,” Hadrian looked at Royce.
“Where is this tower?” Royce asked.
“Near my village on the west bank of the Nidwalden River. Dahlgren is very small and has only been there a short time. It’s in the new province of Westbank, in Dunmore.”
“I’ve heard about that place. It’s supposedly being attacked by elven raiders.”
“Oh, it’s not the elves. The elves have never caused us any trouble.”
“I knew it,” Royce said to no one in particular.
“Leastways I don’t think so,” Thrace went on. “We think it’s a beast of some kind. No one has ever seen it. Deacon Tomas says it’s a demon, a minion of Uberlin.”
“And your father?” Hadrian asked. “How does he fit into this?”
“He’s going to try and kill the beast, only…” she faltered and looked at her feet once more.
“Only you think it will kill him instead?”
“It has killed fifteen people and over eighty head of livestock.”
A freckle-faced woman with wild red hair entered the parlor dragging a short, pot-bellied man who looked like he had shaved for the occasion, his face nicked raw. The woman was laughing, walking backward as she hauled him along with both hands. The man stopped short when he saw them. His hands slipped through hers and she fell to the wooden floor with a hollow thud. The man looked from the woman to them and back, frozen in place. The woman glanced over her shoulder and laughed.
“Oops,” was all she could manage. “Didn’t know it was taken. Give us a hand up, Rubis.”
The man helped her to her feet. She paused to give Thrace a long appraising look then winked at them. “We do good work, don’t we?”
“That was Maggie,” Thrace told them after the woman hauled her man back out again.
Hadrian moved to the sofa and gestured for Thrace to sit, while taking a seat across from her. She sat gingerly and straight, not allowing her back to touch the rear of the sofa, and carefully smoothed out her skirt.
Royce remained on his feet. “Does Westbank have a lord? Why isn’t he doing something about this?”
“We had a fine margrave,” she said, “a brave man with three good knights.”
“Had?”
“He and his knights rode out to fight the beast one evening. Later, all that was found was bits and pieces of armor.”
“Why don’t you just leave?” Royce asked.
Thrace’s head drooped and her shoulders slouched a bit. “Two nights before I left to come here, the beast killed everyone in my family except for me and my father. We weren’t home. My father had worked late in the fields and I went to look for him. I-I accidentally left the door open. Light attracts it. It went right for our house. My brother, Thad, his wife, and their son were all killed.
“Thad-he was the joy of my father’s life. The reason we moved to Dahlgren in the first place-so he could become the town’s first cooper.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Now they’re all gone and my father has nothing left but his grief and the beast that brought it. He’ll see it dead, or die himself before the month is out. If I had only closed the door. If I had just checked the latch…”
Her hands covered her face and her slender body quivered. Royce gave Hadrian a stern look, shaking his head very slightly and mouthing the word “No.”
Hadrian scowled back and moved to sit beside her. He placed his hand on her shoulder and brushed the hair away from her eyes. “You’re going to ruin all your pretty make-up,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I really don’t want to be such a bother. These aren’t your problems. It is just that my father is all I have left and I can’t bear the thought of losing him too. I can’t reason with him. I asked him to leave, but he won’t listen.”
“I can see your problem, but why us?” Royce asked coldly. “And how does a farmer’s daughter from the frontier know our names and how to find us in Colnora?”
“A crippled man told me. He sent me here. He said you could open the tower.”
“A cripple?”
“Yes. Mister Haddon told me the beast can’t-”
“Mister Haddon?” Royce interrupted.
“Uh-huh.”
“This Mister Haddon…he wouldn’t be missing his hands, would he?”
“Yes, that’s him.”
Royce and Hadrian exchanged glances.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He said the beast can’t be harmed by weapons made by man, but inside the tower of Avempartha there is a sword that can kill it.”
“So, a man with no hands told you to find us in Colnora, and hire us to get a sword for your father from a tower called Avempartha?” Royce asked.
The girl nodded.
Hadrian looked at his partner. “Don’t tell me…it’s a dwarven tower?”
“No…” Royce replied, “it’s elvish.” He turned away with a thoughtful expression.
Hadrian returned his attention to the girl. He felt awful. It was bad enough that her village was so far, but now they faced an elven tower. Even if she offered them a hundred gold tenents, he would not be able to convince Royce to take the job. She was so desperate, so in need of
help. His stomach knotted as he considered the words he would say next.
“Well,” Hadrian began reluctantly, “the Nidwalden River is several days travel over rough ground. We’d need supplies, for what, a six-seven day trip? That’s two weeks there and back. We’d need food and grain for the horses. Then you’d have to add in time at the tower. That’s time we could be doing other jobs, so that right there is money lost. Then there is the danger involved. Risk of any kind can bump our price and a mass-murdering phantom-demon-beast that can’t be harmed by weapons, has got to be classified as a risk.”
Hadrian looked into her eyes and shook his head. “I hate to say it, and I am very sorry, but we can’t take-”
“Your money,” Royce abruptly interjected as he spun around. “It’s too much. To take the full twenty-five silver for this job, ten really seems like more than enough.”
Hadrian raised an eyebrow and stared at his partner but said nothing.
“Ten silver each?” she asked.
“Ah-no,” Hadrian replied, keeping his eyes on Royce. “That would be together. Right? Five each?”
Royce shrugged. “Since I will be doing the actual picking I think I should get six, but we can work that out between us. It’s not something she needs to be concerned about.”
“Really?” Thrace asked looking as if she might explode with happiness.
“Sure,” Royce replied, “After all…we’re not thieves.”
***
“Want to explain why we are taking this job?” Hadrian asked, shielding his eyes as they stepped outside. The sky was a perfect blue, the morning sun already working to dry the lingering puddles from the night before. All around them people rushed to market. Carts loaded with spring vegetables and tarp covered barrels sat trapped behind three wagons mounded high with hay. Out of the crowd in front of them, a fat man charged forward with a flapping chicken gripped tightly under each arm. He danced around the puddles dodging people and carts and offering a muttered “excuse me,” as he pressed by.
“She’s paying us ten silver for a job that has already cost us a gold tenent,” Hadrian continued after successfully skirting the chicken man. “It will cost us several more before we’re done.”
“We’re not doing it for the money,” Royce informed him as he cut a path through the crowd.
“Obviously, but why are we doing it? I mean sure, she’s cute as a button and all, but unless you’re planning on selling her, I don’t see the angle here.”
Royce looked over his shoulder, displaying an evil grin, “I never even considered selling her. That could defray the costs considerably.”
“Forget I brought it up. Just tell me why we’re doing this.”
Royce led them out of the crowd toward Ognoton’s Curio Shop, whose window exhibited hookahs, porcelain animal figurines, and jewelry boxes with brass latches. They ducked around the side into the narrow bricked space between it and a confectioner shop that was offering free samples of hard candy.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered what Esrahaddon has been doing,” Royce whispered. “That wizard was imprisoned for nine hundred years then disappears the day we break him out and we don’t hear a word about him until now? The church must know, and yet the Imperialists haven’t launched search parties or posted notices. I would think that if the most dangerous man alive was on the loose there might be a bit more of a commotion.
“Two years later he turns up in a tiny village and invites us to come visit. On top of that, he picks the elven frontier and Avempartha as the meeting place. Don’t you want to find out what he wants?”
“What is this Avempartha?”
“All I know is that it’s old. Real old. Some kind of ancient elven citadel. Which also begs the question, wouldn’t you like to get a peek inside? If Esrahaddon thinks there’s value in opening it, I’m guessing he’s right.”
“So we’re going after ancient elven treasure?”
“I have no idea, but I’m sure there is something valuable in there. But for that we need supplies and we need to get out of town before Price lets loose the hounds.”
“Well, as long as you promise not to sell the girl.”
“I won’t-if she behaves herself.”
***
Hadrian felt Thrace leaning again, this time gazing at a two-story country home of stucco and stone with a yellow thatch roof and orange clay chimney. It was surrounded by a waist-high wall overgrown with lilacs and ivy.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
It was early afternoon and they were only a few miles out of Colnora, traveling east along the Alburn road. The country lane twisted through the tangle of tiny villages that comprised the hill region surrounding the city. Little hamlets where poor farmers worked their fields alongside the summer cottages of the idle rich, who for three months a year, pretended to be country squires. Royce rode beside them or trotted forward as congestion demanded. His hood was up despite the pleasant weather. Thrace rode behind Hadrian on his bay mare, her legs dangled off one side, bobbing to the rhythm of the horse’s stride.
“It’s a different world here,” she said, “a paradise. Everyone is wealthy, everyone a king.”
“Colnora does alright, but I wouldn’t go that far.”
“Then how do you explain all the grand houses and palaces? The horse carts have metal rims on their wheels-metal! The vegetable stands overflow with bushels and bushels of onions and green peas and it is only spring. Look how smooth the road is, even after the rain, and do you see all the cows on that hillside? They even put street names on posts and back there a farmer was wearing gloves-gloves on his hands while working. My father won’t believe it when I tell him. In Dahlgren, even the church deacon doesn’t own fancy gloves, and he certainly wouldn’t work in them if he did. You all are so rich.”
“Some of them are.”
“Like you two.”
Hadrian laughed.
“But you have nice clothes and beautiful horses.”
“She’s not much of a horse really.”
“No one in Dahlgren but the lord and his knights own horses, and yours are so pretty. I especially like her eyes-such long lashes. What’s her name?”
“I call her Millie after a woman I once knew who had the same habit of not listening to me.”
“Millie is a pretty name. I like it. What about Royce’s horse?”
Hadrian frowned and looked over at him. “I don’t know. Royce, did you ever name her?”
“What for?”
Hadrian glanced back at Thrace who returned an appalled look.
“How about…” she paused, shifting and twisting as she scanned the roadside. “Lilac, or Daisy? Oh wait, no, how about Chrysanthemum.”
“Chrysanthemum?” Hadrian repeated. As funny as it might be to have Royce riding a Chrysanthemum, or even a Lilac or Daisy, he had to point out that flower names just did not fit Royce’s short, dirty, gray mare. “How about Shorty or Sooty?”
“No!” Thrace scolded him. “It will make the poor animal feel awful.”
Hadrian chuckled. Royce ignored the conversation. He clicked his tongue, kicked the sides of his horse and trotted forward to avoid an approaching wagon, but remained there even after the road was clear.
“How about Lady?” Thrace asked.
“It seems a bit haughty, don’t you think? She’s not exactly a prancing show horse.”
“Then it will make her feel better. Give her confidence.”
They were coming upon a stream where honeysuckle and raspberry bushes crowned the heads of smooth granite banks with brilliant springtime green. A gristmill stood at the edge, its great wheel creaking and dripping. A pair of small square windows, like dark eyes, created a face in the stone exterior beneath the steeply peaked wooden roof. A low wall separated the mill from the road and on it rested a white and gray cat. Its green eyes opened lazily and blinked at them. When they drew closer, the cat decided they had come close enough and leapt from the wall, darting across the r
oad into the thickets.
Royce’s horse reared and whinnied, dancing across the dirt. He cursed and tightened the reins as the horse shuffled backward, pulling her head down and forcing her to turn completely around.
“Ridiculous!” Royce complained once the horse was under control. “A thousand pound animal terrified by a five pound cat, you’d think she was a mouse.”
“Mouse! That’s perfect.” Thrace shouted causing Millie’s ears to twist back.
“I like it,” Hadrian agreed.
“Oh, good lord,” Royce muttered, shaking his head as he trotted forward again.
As they rode farther northeast, the country estates became farms, rosebushes became hedges, and fences that divided fields gave way to mere tree lines. Still Thrace pointed out curiosities, like the unimagined luxury of covered bridges and the ornately decorated carriages that still occasionally thundered by.
They climbed higher, losing the shade as the land opened up into vast fallow fields of goldenrod, milkweed, and wild salifan. Flies dogged them in the heat and the drone of cicadas whined. In her discomfort, Thrace at last grew quiet and laid her head against Hadrian’s back. He became concerned she might fall asleep and topple off, but occasionally she would stir to look about or swat at a fly.
The broad road narrowed to a single carriage width and rose steadily upwards. To their left lay Chadwick. They steered clear and this drove them east toward Amber Heights. The prominent highland stood out as a bald spot of short grass and bare rock. Part of a long ridge that ran along the eastern edge of Warric, it served as the border between Colnora and the kingdom of Alburn. Reaching the crest, Colnora could be seen spread out below them along with the southern villages of Chadwick to the north. Ahead to the northeast lay endless miles of dense forest.
Amber Heights was a curiosity even to the local residents due to the standing stones, massive blue-gray rocks carved into uniquely fluid shapes. They appeared almost organic in their rounded curves, like a series of writhing serpents burrowing in and out of the hilltop. Hadrian did not have the slightest idea what purpose the stones might have originally served. He doubted anyone did. Remnants of campfires were scattered around the stones etched with messages of true love or the occasional slogan: “Maribor is God!”, “Nationalists are Barmy”, “The Heir is Dead”, and even “Gray Mouse Tavern-it’s all downhill from here”. Because the wind on the hilltop was cool and strong enough to drive off the flies, it made a perfect place to break for a midday meal.
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