Mazik’s head hit the mattress, but he didn’t wake. Gavi hit him with the pillow until the situation was rectified.
“All right, all right, I’m awake.” Mazik sat up and rubbed his eyes. He looked at Gavi and blinked. “Oh. That makes sense.”
“What makes sense?”
Mazik yawned. “I thought we were in Houk. Thought Kalenia was here.”
Gavi did her best to keep her voice under control. “Must’ve been a dream. Now wake up.” She hit him with the pillow again. “Though we could be in Houk for all I remember. Is this the quest village?”
“Mhm.” Mazik stretched, and let out a satisfied groan. “They brought us here last night. You fell asleep in the cart. I carried you up here.”
Gavi hid her embarrassment with a frown, though secretly she was pleased. “You could have woken me up, you know.”
“Tried. You wouldn’t stay awake. Besides, we figured one of us should get a decent night’s sleep.” Mazik stopped stretching and looked around. He nodded to himself and flopped back onto the mattress. “Speaking of which, good night.”
Gavi was still trying to get Mazik out of bed when there was a knock on the door. The handle rattled, and then a voice came from the other side in polite, clipped Jihnsrian. “Good morning. Is one of you awake?”
“We didn’t order any room service,” said Mazik, not loudly enough for the visitor to hear.
Gavi ignored him. “Yes, we’re awake. Who is it?” she replied in Houkian, grateful once again for how similar the two languages were.
“Knapp,” said the voice. “We spoke last night. I’m the one who hired you for the defense quest.”
“Hold on.” Tossing Mazik’s pillow on the table next to her sword, Gavi moved across the room and opened the door.
Sure enough, she recognized the man in the doorway. Knapp was half a head taller than her, with brown hair swept to the side and a polite smile. He was wearing a plain tunic and trousers, and had no visible weaponry. He stood with his hands clasped and his heels together, and his back was to the handrail of the walkway outside. Behind him, Gavi could see a rising cliff of red rock.
Knapp bowed. “Welcome to the Nijāst village. Did you sleep well?”
“Uh, yeah. Didn’t remember getting here last night, so I was confused.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Maz, you want to wake up now?”
“Not really.” He rolled over.
Knapp smiled apologetically. “Ah, yes. I’m sorry for the way we brought you here. I know we originally said this morning, but our leaders decided it would be best for us to travel at night.”
“And you didn’t tell us beforehand so we would be groggy and have a harder time remembering how to get here,” said Mazik from his bed. It wasn’t a question, though Gavi didn’t think he had been told as much.
Knapp winced. “Yes. I do apologize.”
Mazik waved a hand, his back still turned. “Don’t worry about it. We agreed to your privacy nonsense. Just as long as you pay up once the quest is finished.”
“Of course.” Knapp bowed again, and Gavi caught a glimpse of several two-story buildings behind him. “We’re having everyone meet downstairs so we can fill you in on the details. Can you be ready in five minutes?”
“How about twenty?” asked Mazik. The other door opened and Raedren emerged, covering a yawn.
Gavi ignored Mazik again. “We’ll meet you there.”
*
Once the three of them had gotten dressed, they found Knapp waiting for them outside under the small awning over their door. He held out a key. “This is the key to your apartment. Please use it while you’re here.”
Gavi took the key. Once the door was secured, Knapp led them down the stairs affixed to the side of the building. At the bottom was an outbuilding. A woman in her mid-thirties stood at the stove inside stirring a large pot, a child tugging at her apron and chattering excitedly.
They moved around the outbuilding and onto the road which ran between two rows of identical two-story buildings, where nine people stood waiting for them. Gavi recognized several of them.
One of the adventurers they had met the night before, Yintour, a halvelin woman who came up to Gavi’s waist, waved them over. She, like the three taller men and women behind her, wore tempered steel armor on her shoulders, arms, and legs, and her helmet, which reminded Gavi of a rook chess piece, was under one arm. Her short dark hair stuck out at odd angles, and her ruddy face was full of laugh lines.
Yintour nodded to them as they approached. “Good morning. Y’all sleep well?”
Mazik shrugged. “Decently enough. I would have liked to sleep longer, but I guess we can’t let a little thing like being kicked awake and dragged here in the middle of the night stop us from getting to work bright and early.”
Raedren picked that moment to yawn. He covered his mouth. “Sorry.”
Yintour chuckled in a deep, throaty bass, befitting neither her short stature nor her rosy features. “There’s that, though I can’t blame them for being cautious.” She examined the three of them, then frowned. “Is that yer combat gear?”
The trio looked at each other. “Yes. Why?” asked Gavi.
“Hmm. What was the name of yer guild again?”
“Collateral Damage,” said Gavi.
Yintour shook her head. “Disgraceful. I thought that was just what you wore to the pubs. Does yer guild not furnish you with armor?”
Gavi frowned. She hadn’t even considered that possibility. “No. Should they have?”
Yintour rested her hands on her hips and sighed. “These Houk guilds, disgraceful. Our guild furnishes us with armor, even our newbies.” She reached up and patted the other woman in her group on her lower back. “Keeps ’em alive long enough to be good to us. Is what you’re wearing at least enchanted?”
None of them said anything, which said enough.
Yintour sighed. “Disgraceful. Look, even our cloaks are enchanted.” She turned to show them her purple cape. She squeezed it, and blue mana sparked from her fingers. The mana sloughed off like it was water and the cape was covered in pitch. “See?”
Raedren scratched his beard. “Hmm, that’s a good idea.”
“You just don’t want to work as hard to protect us,” said Mazik.
“Yes. That’s absolutely correct,” said Raedren.
Yintour picked at Mazik’s robes. “Where did you even get these, a thrift store?”
“No! Maybe. Shut up.” Mazik pulled his robes away from Yintour and glared over the top of them. Yintour laughed.
Gavi took this opportunity to look around. They were clearly in the mountains. Not only was the air thin, but mountaintops were visible on all sides. The village sat on a terrace just below one such peak, which loomed high to their right. To their left was another peak, separated from the village by a ravine. To the other sides were gentle slopes covered with trees with more mountains beyond.
She craned her neck. The nearest cliff face looked unclimbably sheer, like someone had taken a knife and cut the mountain down the middle. The other peak wasn’t as tall, but it didn’t look any easier to scale. Between the two peaks and trees on either side, someone would have to practically walk into the village to find it.
As for the village itself, most of it consisted of two-story buildings like the one they had slept in, with outside stairs and kitchen outbuildings. They were simple houses, practical.
In the middle of town, though, sat a large stone building, taller than the rest, with a bell tower that rose to double the height of its neighbors. While the rest of the village was compact and sensible, the stone building seemed large enough to swallow five or six of its neighbors with ease. To Gavi, it looked like an ancient church or temple with its weathered, mossy stones.
After she had taken in their surroundings, Gavi turned to Yintour. “By the way, thank you for helping us get this quest.” She bowed.
“Oh, it’s no problem. When you said you were involved in that mess in Saffir, it was easy
enough to check. I know a few people there. The general Saffirite might not know what really happened, but the guilds do.”
“Which guild do you belong to again?” asked Mazik.
“Alter of Tower.” Yintour fidgeted. “It’s from this quote that doesn’t translate well.”
While Mazik kept talking to Yintour and her guildmates, Gavi looked for Knapp. She found him speaking to two other Nijāst. That’s when she realized that a beautiful dog, tall and long, with glistening golden-blonde fur and a narrow, wolfish face had joined them. It was sitting next to Knapp, who was absentmindedly scratching the animal’s ear. The dog looked too much like a wolf to come across as friendly, until she noticed its tail thumping the ground.
Gavi nudged Mazik and pointed. “Look. It’s a spellhound.”
She wasn’t sure, but Gavi thought Mazik might have let out a squeal. “Ooo, puppy!” He kneeled down and beckoned to the dog. It ignored him. “Aww, I wanna pet the puppy!”
Gavi glanced at Raedren. He shrugged, though she could tell he was surreptitiously watching the dog as well. Gavi chuckled.
Knapp called for everybody’s attention.
Once everyone quieted down, and once Knapp apologized—again—for how they had been brought there, he rested his hand on the dog’s head. “Everyone, this is Crash. She’s a Nijāst Golden Spellwolf. She’s one of the reasons you’ve been brought here today.”
“Puppy!” cooed Mazik. Gavi elbowed him.
“As you may know, this village breeds and trains the most highly sought-after spellhounds in the world. Dogs like Crash here”—Knapp ruffled the dog’s ears—“sell for a lot. That’s because we make sure they’re not only well-bred, but well-trained, in obedience and magick.”
Knapp pursed his lips and whistled. Crash sprang to her feet. He pulled a stick from behind his back and tossed it into the air. He pointed as the stick fell. “Crash, blast!”
The dog’s hackles raised as she growled. Sparks ran up her muzzle, and then she barked. Golden mana shot out, and the stick exploded.
Some of the adventurers nodded appreciatively. Several clapped. One cheered. Mazik hopped from foot to foot, giggling and applauding.
Gavi sighed inwardly. That dog’s better at casting than I am.
She fingered the focus crystal necklace she was borrowing from Mazik and keened the dog. Sure enough, it had a mana pool. It wasn’t as large as Gavi’s, but the dog was also half her size, which meant her mana could be stretched further.
“We keep our village’s location a secret precisely because our spellhounds are so sought-after.” Knapp snapped his fingers, and Crash sat. “If people knew where we were, they would undoubtedly come and try to steal them. Which, unfortunately, is exactly what’s happened.
“Old foes of ours, the Riders of the Noble Hunt, found our village.” Knapp turned on his heels. The spellhound hopped up to follow him. “Please follow me. I’ll explain everything once we reach the kennel.”
*
Mazik hummed as they made their way through the village. He was still sleepy, but he was setting that aside for now. Once they found out what was going on, maybe he could find time for a nap. Besides, puppies!
He glanced at his friends. Gavi was in tourist mode, her eyes scouring the village and its people as she took in this new place. Raedren was silent, as he so often was, and his expression was inscrutable, though Mazik assumed he was just lost in thought as he also so often was.
Not wanting to bother them, Mazik turned to the adventurers in front of them. The Nijāst led the way, with Yintour and her guildmates coming next and two adventurers in robes behind them. That left one adventurer, a man dressed in dark colors and with a pair of curved swords on his left side, as Mazik’s nearest target.
He tapped the man on the shoulder. “So, have you been here before?”
The man glanced at Mazik, but said nothing. Mazik dimly remembered having had a conversation with him the night before, though, now that he thought of it, he also remembered doing most of the talking. Mazik wracked his brain for what he knew of the man. “You’re from Cajival, right?”
“Aye.”
“What city?”
There was a long pause, so long that Mazik wondered whether the man had heard him or if he was being ignored. Then he said, “Olihás.”
“Ooo, really? So I’m sure you’ve been to the Aulítra Festival before, right?”
The dark-clad man again said nothing, though he nodded.
“Awesome.” Mazik hopped forward until he was walking beside the man, which he was sure probably annoyed him, but Mazik didn’t care. “We heard it was a great party, so we’re thinking of going this year. Any tips?”
“No.”
Mazik tried again, but got nothing out of the Cajivalan man. He only quit when they arrived at their destination.
As they passed through a waist-high stone fence and entered a wide clearing, maybe twenty-five meters across, Mazik noticed a chalk circle in the center. It looked like a training area, or perhaps a fighting ring, judging by the blackened, scarred, and occasionally cratered ground. Looking back, he saw that the stone fence they had passed was interspersed with several guard huts, where two or three people could take cover under a basic overhang. All around them, Nijāst wearing green vests and carrying swords or bows watched the new arrivals closely. Guards, thought Mazik, recognizing their native mistrust.
Just past the training ring, the group ambled to a stop before the large stone building. On the front steps stood an older man in a dark blue tunic and creased trousers with a white-blonde spellhound at his side.
The older man smiled, though any happiness in the expression didn’t reach his eyes. “Welcome to our village.” He bowed so low that the spellhound licked his face. He wiped at his cheek. “I’m Chief Boern. Thank you for coming.”
Mazik examined the chief as he hobbled down the steps. Boern was the first local Mazik had seen carrying extra weight, most noticeably in his cheeks and fingers. He moved with pronounced stiffness, though Mazik suspected that was from stress and exhaustion more than age. In fact, signs of stress were etched all over Chief Boern. He looked frazzled, like he was one step away from an anxiety attack—and not a large step, at that. Boern wore a bulky necklace that looked like a symbol of office, each thumb-sized chunk of wood engraved with a different strange figure.
Chief Boern’s hobble disappeared once he cleared the steps. He took in the small crowd of adventurers. “Ten! Excellent work, Knapp.”
Knapp bowed.
“Are those some Alterites I see?” Chief Boern scuttled over to Yintour and her guildmates. “You’re Yintour, correct?”
“The one and only.” She extended her hand, angled up so that Chief Boern could grasp it without having to stoop. “It’s nice to meet you, Chief Boern. Our leader has told us about you.”
“Only good things, I hope!” The two of them laughed.
Once Chief Boern had exchanged words with all of the Alter of Tower members, he moved down the line. He thanked the other three adventurers for coming to the Nijāst’s aid again—I guess they’re frequent hires, thought Mazik. Then Boern arrived at Mazik’s group.
The old chief inspected them. “And you three are the ones who helped with that orck situation in Saffir.”
“I’m surprised someone who lives in a hidden village has heard about that,” said Mazik.
Chief Boern smiled, and once again, it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I try to keep abreast of matters that could impact our community. Also, Knapp told me about it this morning.”
“Ah.” Mazik inclined his head. “Nice to meetcha. What exactly do you want us to do?”
“Right to business. Of course.” Chief Boern retreated to the stone steps. “What has Knapp told you?”
It was Knapp who spoke. “Just why we brought them here the way we did, and that the Noble Hunt found us. I haven’t gone into detail.”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.” Chief Boern cleared his throat. “The Riders of
the Noble Hunt are old enemies of ours. They worship a deity called Wildan the Hunter, and—stop me if you all know this, by the way—they’re familiar users. In their case, they tame and mutate animals to create special familiars, through which they can cast their magick.”
“They create aku?” asked Gavi.
Chief Boern nodded. “That’s why we’ve always been selective about who we sell our spellhounds to. We don’t want them falling into the hands of the Noble Hunt.”
The Nijāst chief turned and climbed back up the steps. He slapped the building’s wall. “This is the kennel, where we raise, train, and house our spellhounds until they’re sold. Four days ago, the Noble Hunt invaded our village, broke into the kennel, and made off with nearly two dozen spellhounds.”
Mazik winced. The last time he had seen an aku, it had been created by mutating fresh corpses into a giant, angry, raging insult against nature. Those dogs probably weren’t alive anymore.
“We brought you here because we lost a number of people in the initial attack, and the Noble Hunt’s numbers appear to have been growing since. We need your help to defend our village, and to prevent them from taking any more of our spellhounds.” Chief Boern looked around, searching for something, and then turned to Knapp. “Knapp, could you go find Captain Sie? It looks like she didn’t make it here on time.” He smiled thinly. “Again.”
“Of course.” Knapp departed.
Chief Boern turned back to the adventurers. “Captain Sie will be the one who will give you your assignments. I believe some of you will be defending this building, while others will be stationed on the edge of town. If we get an opportunity to strike back at the Noble Hunt, you may be asked to help with that as well. But first, I need to tell you more about what you’ll be defending.”
He rapped a knuckle on the wall. “The kennel is our most defensible building. It’s constructed entirely of fortified stone, and the inner walls have been plated with tempered steel. There are a few windows in the upper reaches”—he pointed to the top of the building—“around the bell tower, though they have been enhanced as well. There are ventilation ducts inside, but they’re too small for anything larger than a mouse. By the way, if you hear that bell ring three times or more, that means the kennel is under attack. If you’re not otherwise occupied, please rush here immediately.”
Freelance Heroics (Firesign Book 2) Page 28
