Bruce had been quite explicit in his instructions, and so Melissa had gone about her day-to-day business without trying to make any attempt to stray and make contact. She had told her few girlfriends and her roommate that she was planning a little trip out of town, and that she'd be hiring an armed escort. She mentioned it only in passing, carefully weaving it into conversation in as natural a way as she could. If any part of her story felt false, it could eventually come back to bite them all.
Azira had not yet made contact, though that was no surprise; he had only headed off the previous morning. Melissa had overheard rumors around town about a vicious-looking goblin leaving Bronze Pot, and most folks seemed glad to be rid of such greenskins. She thought briefly about the prejudices Azira had to deal with on a daily basis; the Kingdom of Graneck was mostly a human territory, with some few elves, gnomes and lizardmen scattered here and there. Only a handful of lycanthropes lived in the kingdom, and not many minotaurs or jafts called it home either. Graneck was no Desanadron or Ja-Wen.
As she strode into Harrison's Travel Supply, Melissa took a moment to consider what she might need if their efforts at payback required broader travel. She only had about three hundred coin left to her name, a pittance if she had to make too many purchases. Food and lodging on the road, she'd learned from listening to patrons at the Rusty Tankard, could quickly run a man or woman into the poor house. But there were ways to mitigate those concerns.
She squared herself up and approached the long, low counter at the back of the shop, giving Daniel Harrison, a gruff middle-aged man and former mercenary of some repute, an even look. "Mister Harrison," she began, looping her thumbs into the belt of her plain blue trousers. "Do you mind if I pick your brain a little?" Harrison spread his arms wide to indicate the largely empty storefront, his wares, Melissa and himself the only occupants at this early hour.
"I have time, girlie," he answered with a chuckle. "What's on your mind?"
"I'm thinking of taking up some adventuring," she said, unsure of what the right questions to ask might even be. "But I need to start fairly frugally. I haven't much of a budget to kit myself out." Harrison scratched at his neck, several days of stubble standing thick on his skin.
"Okay," he said, nodding. "You look about the right age to be starting out. You a magic user of any sort?"
"No, I'm afraid not," she said. In truth, she had no idea if she had any latent talent for magic. Most humans would know by her age if they were naturally inclined toward the mystical arts, though, so she assumed she was not.
"Okay. Any weapons training," he asked, pulling a yellow legal pad out from behind the counter, along with a pen.
"A little, with a short bow," Melissa replied. Her father had taken her hunting on numerous occasions, though she never proved to be a very good shot. She was functional, however, with a bow. Harrison jotted down a few quick notes, forming a structured list, from what she could tell.
"Good. And any familiarity with modern sciences? Clockworks machines, alchemy, firearms?" Here Melissa felt a little awkward, because she had indeed excelled at chemical studies in school, marking her as an oddity among her peers.
"I'm actually quite fond of chemics work," she admitted. "I have a copy of Megrat's Guide to Useful Combinations at home." Harrison snapped his fingers, set his pen down, and held up one finger. He disappeared through a false wall panel behind him into what she assumed was a storage room, returning moments later with some kind of hardened black suitcase. He set it on the countertop, turned it toward her, and popped the latches. What sprang up was what looked to be a kind of portable alchemist's kit, complete with mortar and pestle, alembic, calcinator and empty tempered vials and powder pouches. Melissa marveled at it for only a moment; there surely had to be a pretty steep price tag on it.
"I almost never get customers through here who have any interest in stuff like this," Harrison said. "It was my brother's, his first travel lab before he got himself set up with a nice, fancy lab in Bios, up in the Freeholds. Consider it a gift, miss," he said, easing it shut and sliding the handle toward her. Melissa gasped aloud, hand to her chest.
"Really?"
"Sure," said Harrison with an impish grin. "Just let me tote up the tally for these other supplies," he added, turning his supply list toward her. Melissa chuffed a quick snort, and agreed, handing Daniel Harrison thirty-eight of her remaining coin in exchange for an auto-tent, a simple short bow, a quiver with twelve arrows, camp hammer, road cooking kit, compass, and a long knife with a smoothly polished wooden handle. She could barely carry it all in the Wayfarer-style duffel he crammed most of it into for her for an extra coin, but Melissa determined to be able to do this on her own.
She only hoped she would find the investment worthwhile.
**
"It's just, I'm amazed neither you or Melissa realized what a walking cliche the guy is," Steve said, swiveling his head around to take in the high grasslands to either side of the path. Azira had started east on the main trade road, but only for a couple of hours before angling south a bit to take to an older, lesser-traveled path. "I mean, it's like he walked right out of a manual of tropes, what with the whole 'two weeks from retirement' thing."
"What do you mean," Azira asked.
"Swinton said he was two weeks from retirement in Harip when Pel Droma's people showed up, right? Well, there's a ton of books and radio plays where some long-suffering veteran copper, right on the verge of retirement, gets aced, and it spurs on the hero of the story to avenge them and get the bad guy. It's Action Story 101," said the rat with a chortle.
"Bruce survived, though," the goblin skirmisher observed, straying from the path up a slight grassy incline toward a cluster of bushes, plucking some wild berries from them. He passed a pair over his shoulder to Steve, filling one of his spare pouches with more before returning to the path, snacking as he marched at a decent clip. "What do your tropes say to that?"
"Hmm," Steve mused, scratching his furry chin. "Fair point. You really think it's wise to let him bare honed steel at you?"
"It's the only way it'll look right," Azira said, halting in his tracks and putting his binoculars, hung on a strap around his neck, up to his eyes. "Shit."
"What is it?"
"Get in the pocket and close it," the goblin skirmisher answered quietly. He had spotted a pair of creatures up ahead, stalking parallel to either side of the path in the tall grass. They were long, low things on four legs, purple and yellow streaked fur all over, with heads shaped like bony lightning bolt statuettes. He didn't know what they were called, other than rashum, monsters of the realms; this specific mutation was unknown to him, however.
Azira drew out his hook blades and continued walking along the path, measuring his breaths, spacing out his steps so that at any moment, he could pivot in either direction into a ready stance. A skirmisher didn't rely on heavy armor or massive weaponry, instead relying on swift hit-and-run tactics. These creatures would likely try the same, he assumed.
He was twenty paces further down the path when the rashum on his left bounded out at him, forelegs extended, arched claws stretched forth. Azira spun right, lashing out with his left blade in a sweeping slash. His arm and shoulder buckled from the impact, carrying his body faster round his spin, but he felt the splash of blood on his leathers, heard the wounded yowl of the beast as it landed behind him in a skid. The second monster slammed into his right side, a horrific-smelling breath hot on the side of his face as it tried to latch its claws into his stomach and back in a kind of grapple.
The chain links under his cuirass held, though, and as he stumbled sideways under the thing's weight, he pivoted toward it, ramming his blades into its stretched out neck. The beast thrashed violently, sending him sprawling into the nearby grass with a grunt, his hands aching from the effort of keeping hold of his weapons. Gotta get up, Steve could be crushed, he thought as he rolled over and sprang upright.
His timing proved unfortunate, as the first of the beasts, wounded but still very much deadly, must have caught sight of the motion of the grasses. It rushed up and clamped its squared maw on his left leg, its teeth easily breaking the chain links of his leggings. Azira screamed through clenched teeth, sweeping his right blade down in a curve, slicing open the soft throat of the rashum. Despite the mortal wound, the creature would not let go until Azira sheathed his blades momentarily and pried its jaws open with his bare hands.
The whole of the brutality could not have lasted more than a minute, but it left the goblin skirmisher panting. He drew out his blades once more and unslung his bag from his back, opening the pocket where Steve crouched cowering. "You okay," Azira asked with a wince as he sat in the edge of the grass beside the second dead monster.
"Warm, wet, a little sore," Steve replied, squirming out and rolling in the grass. "Pissed and shit myself when you hit the ground," he added as he rolled. Azira snorted, opening the main pocket of his bag and reaching in for a small red packet. He pulled it out and tore open the top of the brownish paper, stretching his wounded leg out and sprinkling the mixture over it. He grumbled through the burn of it, watching as thin tendrils of white steam wafted up off of the area. "What is that stuff?"
"Mixture," the goblin answered after half a minute, when the steam dissipated and the pain began to subside. "An antivenom and something to stop the bleeding. Not as effective as a healing potion and antidote mix, but far less expensive and easier to get components for." He pried the broken chain links free and tossed them aside, surveying the damage. "No need for stitches, I should think," he muttered mostly to himself, taking a wide square adhesive bandage and pressing it into place over his wound. The torn pant leg was a trivial thing, cut away with one swipe of a knife. He used the discarded cloth to wipe his weapons down before sheathing them again, then closed up his bag and got back up. Steve climbed up his back and took up on his left shoulder like a parrot, and the goblin and rat headed eastward once more.
**
Bruce didn't much care for what they were proposing to do, but it was without a doubt one of the safest ways to take a proverbial shot at the lizardman Savior of Graneck. For the time being, Ko was also the only one of the four Saviors they had come up with an idea of how to effect. Bruce had briefly considered sending a letter to the publishers to clarify the record regarding Harip, this putting Jacobson under a magnifying glass, but thought better of it when he recognized how stacked the odds were against him. A year and a half after publication, Jacobson's memoir was still one of the best-selling mass produced books in the realms. Her reputation wouldn't budge even an inch.
Moving forward on this scheme, he had instructed Melissa to keep her distance from him but drop hints to friends and acquaintances that she was taking a trip soon. He also told her to look for a black 'X' on the bottom front corner of the library's overnight drop box; on the day she saw it, she could meet him the following day on the eastern edge of town to 'hire' him. Bruce liked Melissa well enough, but wasn't sure she would be able to keep more than that straight, so he left well enough alone.
Only now, holding the helmet up for inspection in his living room, did he realize there could be a problem. He'd brought the helm out of storage in the crawlspace because it featured a full face grille plate, which allowed him to see but which also obscured his face. He was too easily recognized around Bronze Pot, so wearing the helm when he met up with Melissa would reduce the odds of word getting out that he was her escort on her little adventure. Nothing would be tied back to him, or their previous meet-ups with Azira.
But she wouldn't know to look for him with the helmet on. Bruce grabbed a sketch pad from his writing desk and quickly drew a rough approximation of the helm, jotted a short note beneath it, and put the paper into an envelope. A jog to the library later, he had the situation handled, the messenger snapping him a smart salute when Bruce offered an extra three gold coin to keep this delivery unrecorded. He felt dirty doing this; obfuscation was against everything he'd stood for as an officer of the law.
Most of what we're going to be getting up to will do that, he thought with a grimace. Or will it? The current scheme was a prank, really, and wouldn't bring anyone to physical, tangible harm. His desired outcome as regarded Toka Mano, the elven mage whose reckless spellcasting had been the actual cause of Harip's destruction, was to have that come to light. He wanted, at best, for Mano to be stripped of his title as a Savior of Graneck, to have his hails as a hero silenced. As for Jacobson, he could only hope that if the truth came out, she would issue a retraction on the statements in her memoir regarding Harip.
He had read the memoir three times since it had been published. When first he'd settled in Bronze Pot, he had fairly obsessed over it, wanting to howl like a maniac every time he read through the chapter concerning his hometown. But what could he do?
Back home once more, Bruce headed into his bedroom and pulled the memoir off of his short two-shelf bookcase, taking it to the recliner in the living room. "I must have missed something," he said to himself. "I must have."
**
Azira tossed the last of the berries as hard as he could, watching the terrachnids scurrying after them up the hill they'd arced toward. The six oversized spider-like rashum made odd clicking noises as they scampered along, but Azira didn't stick around to observe them any further. It had been blind luck that the first of the creatures had seemed to take a liking to the berries when he tossed the few in his free hand at it, drawing one of his blades with the other. Seeing its happy reaction, he'd poured out most of his pouch of them, the pack of critters swooping in and fighting each other over the sweet little morsels, forgetting all about him until they were mostly gone.
"That worked out well for us," Steve commented as the goblin sprinted down the path and hopefully out of view of the eight-legged creatures. In ones and twos, he could easily handle terrachnids. They were simple-minded creatures, and didn't adapt well in battle. But in a pack of seven, like these, he would eventually succumb to the venom in their fangs or be cut to ribbons by the blade-like barbs on the ends of their front two legs. He'd been prepared to distract them with the berries, slash and stab a couple of them, then run like hells through the tall grasses and hills north, toward the main trade road.
Now, blissfully, he could avoid that. The rashum incidents would be far less likely near the main path, owing to the routine patrols of the Kingdom's Wilderness Rangers. But even that path would be questionable; the Rangers had not yet recovered from their losses during the Pel Droma Conquest.
As the began its final descent below the horizon, the goblin skirmisher left the secondary road, making his way up a hill to a likely copse of cottonwood trees. He discovered only normal woodland animals within, some squirrels and raccoons, a pair of grown deer that hoofed away at the sight of him. He gauged his options, took an anchorbite chain out of his bag, and started ascending a solid trunk. When he settled into a hollow about fifteen feet up, stretching his legs out along a thick, sturdy branch, Steve clambered down into his lap.
"No fire, then," the rat asked glibly.
"Not out here," Azira said, shutting his eyes. "It'd scare off the small stuff, but risk drawing the attention of things best left undisturbed." Steve cast his beady eyes down into the deeply shaded wooded area, suddenly wondering what sort of horrors might come creeping after the sun disappeared for the night.
"Az," Steve prompted. The goblin skirmisher grunted in reply. "What do you suppose our odds are, here?"
"How you mean," Azira asked.
"Of making a difference, I mean," Steve said. "Of getting one over on the Saviors." Azira made a long, low humming noise before he cracked one bloodshot eye open and gave answer.
"Honestly? Pretty slim," he said, closing the eye again. "But the effort beats picking ore and drinking myself blind every day."
**
When the paid awoke the following morning, in the hour before true dawn, Azira rubbed the sleep from his eyes and surveyed the area below. "And that's why we slept up here," he said to Steve, pointing down at a set of deep, sizable clawed tracks. He took up his binoculars to get a better look, spotting a few stray purple-blue hairs around the tracks. "Chimera," he mused aloud. "That would've been sure death for us."
"Is the coast clear then?" Rather than give an immediate answer, Azira swept the binoculars around, then started his descent. He made his morning necessary quickly, then took out one of the egg and bacon wraps he'd packed for himself, tearing off a small part for Steve and handing it up and over to the pocket where the rat took up a seat once again. "Thanks."
Azira headed back to the secondary road, pausing about twelve yards back. Close to the road lay the ravaged remains of what appeared, from the tufts of fur and general skeletal structure, like a pack of wolves. Four of them, all torn apart and mostly eaten from what he could tell. "We were fortunate it had bigger game to hunt than us." He felt the rat tremble in his bag, but made no comment, striding right up to the largest of the lupine corpses. He crouched down in front of it, reaching to the back of his belt for a small pair of pliers and an empty pouch. He pried several of its teeth out, starting with the canines, and deposited them into the pouch, repeating the process with just the canines of the others.
It took him another four hours of marching before he saw the outskirts of Denkirit another ten minutes' walk ahead, and he ducked off the road behind some thicket, stashing away his hook knives and positioning the batons into place for quick draw and swinging. It would make no good sense for the skirmisher to be seen wearing blades before getting in a fight with a 'mercenary' with batons. If the people of Denkirit saw a goblin come to town with blades, they would expect the goblin to use them.
Thankfully, Azira had a goodly deal more cunning than the average skirmisher. Rather than simply stashing his hook blades in his travel bag, he first poured a small measure of a thick black liquid over them, rubbing the substance over them with an oil cloth until the visual effect was accomplished. The weapons now looked rusted, ancient, and practically useless. The oil, colloquially dubbed 'chameleon drip' was often employed by trader caravans to conceal their finer metallic goods, rendering them visually unappealing to would-be thieves or raiders. In Azira's case, should any perimeter or interior guards of Denkirit demand to see his goods, they would assume he was wearing the batons because the blades were worthless as weapons.
With his cover in place, the goblin skirmisher took back to the road, took several slow, deep breathes to steady himself, and then proceeded to Denkirit.
**
Melissa opened the envelope and examined the sketch and note, thinking, He's quite talented. Wonder why he never took up art as a hobby or profession. The note was unsigned, but she assumed it came from Bruce, given the instructions and blocky handwriting. It fairly screamed 'copper', rigid and orderly as it was.
She was in the process of reviewing her gear when the knock had come at her door, the kobold runner taking off the moment she'd taken the envelope. Her roommate, Kayla, was rummaging about in her gear, spread out over the apartment's living room floor, and she made no comment when Kayla twanged the bow string, listening to the hum of its vibration. Instead, she gave her roommate a raised eyebrow, ducked into her own room, and opened the envelope. Now that she had read it, Melissa tore it in half, then again, until she had a pile of tiny shreds to stuff into her pillowcase, zipping the case shut when she was done.
As she came back out of her room, she said calmly, "Kayla, put the bow down." Kayla, another young human woman who worked frequently at the copper mines, was built much more like her father, a stout, burly block of a man, than Melissa. Her biceps alone were near as thick around as Melissa's neck, and where the former bar server was graceful and quiet, Kayla moved and spoke like a bull.
"Don't know why you'd piss away money on an escort," Kayla said, setting the bow down amid Melissa's gear. "I could use some time away from the mines myself."
"I just want to try a little travelling without people I know," Melissa replied. "Bringing you along would sort of defeat the purpose. Besides, I've been bugging you since we were living in Southberg down the street from one another, pestered you into moving here with me." She started packing her essentials into the heavy duty travel bag she'd purchased for the road. "And hey, you could bring a guy home and not have to worry about being all hush-hush," she offered with a grin.
"I'm not exactly beating them off with a stick, Mel," Kayla grumbled. "Most guys I'd go for wouldn't reciprocate the interest." She shook her head, but smiled faintly. "Though, there is a guy in the mines I've seen checking me out."
"Could be fun for you, just saying." Melissa paused in her packing, giving Kayla an inquisitive look. "Do you know anything about the kind of rashum we might run into between here and Denkirit?"
"Well, I've heard there's a chimera in the area," Kayla cautioned. "And there's always terrachnids. But the chimera would be really unlikely, they're pretty rare. Oh, but maybe keep an eye out for sherigars."
"What're those?"
"They kind of look like leopards with these weird, jagged stone heads," Kayla said, moving her hand in a zig-zag like a lightning bolt. "They've got this venom that acts crazy quick, but can be counteracted by just about any kind of antitoxin if administered in a few minutes. Did you get antitoxins?"
"A couple of vials, and a couple of healing spell scrolls," Melissa said. "Cheaper than potions right now. Any idea why those've jumped up in price?"
"Pure salveroot's become scarce," Kayla replied. "The supply out of the Elven Kingdom's been clamped off by royal decree. No salveroot, no potions. Even the best alchemists can't duplicate the process without the stuff." Melissa didn't much understand the political realm, but she grasped basic economic theory readily enough; if the only reliable place to get salveroot was the Elven Kingdom, it made good sense for them to control the supply and drive up the price. "You used a bow since moving here?"
"Only once or twice at the practice range on the north end of town," Melissa said. "I was thinking of heading over there today to get back in the hang of it. You want to come?"
"Nah," said Kayla, stretching to her left, then her right. "With the hubbub from the parade all died down now, I think I'll go work a shift in the mines. Don't hurt yourself." Melissa finished packing up most of her gear, then took her bow and quiver and headed out for the practice range. The walk there did her some little good, alleviating the tension she'd felt mounting with Kayla; her roommate hadn't said anything yet about it, but Melissa had yet to offer to leave her any rent money before taking off on her little excursion.
At the range, an impossibly thin, grayish illeck man of indeterminate years cautioned her to never release when someone was out in the target area setting up. She wanted to scoff, but the dark elves of Tamalaria were not known for their ability to deal with an attitude. Instead, she silently nodded, then waited patiently while he set up four different targets for her. Melissa knocked her first arrow, tried sighting down the thin shaft, and eased her arm to stop the shot when the illeck cleared his throat a few feet away. "A tip to offer, sir?"
The illeck reached out one hand silently, and when she tried to hand him the bow, he shook his head. She offered the arrow, which he plucked away gently, looking critically at the feathers. "These arrows are not fletched very well," he offered. "These feathers, they're quite pretty, yes?" Melissa tilted her head a little, considering the red, blue and green feathers on the arrow, each one slender and flitting slightly in the faint breeze.
"Yes, they are."
"But they're not waxed or smoothed, and not even all from the same type of bird," said the illeck, pinching the blue one between thumb and forefinger. "This one is from a valka," he said, moving to the red one. "Robin." The green feather he pinched last. "Emerin. A proper feathering comes all of a single bird, and they should be waxed to make them aerodynamic. Here," he said, giving her back her arrow and taking one from a bucket on the ground near the chalk firing line, holding it aloft. He pinched one of the dull bluish feathers on this arrow, which looked largely the same as hers, but a little shorter. "Pigeon feathers, set as a triangle and waxed. Makes for better flight and balance."
Melissa took the second offered arrow after slinging her bow over her shoulder, hefting each one several times. "Yours feels a little lighter, too."
"Same wood, oak from the woods to the west of town," said the illeck rangemaster with a nod. "But I make mine narrower and shorter. Their impact is reduced, but they fly quicker and truer to target."
"I should have come here to buy my weaponry," Melissa said with an awkward smile and shake of her head. The grayish man, arms folded over his chest, regarded her with lips pooched and eyebrow raised.
"It's going to be your first time out in the wilds," he said, less a question and more an observation. She nodded mutely. "Don't be too hard on yourself. Most human girls your age are even less prepared than you to go traveling the open roads and wilderness. Will you have companions?"
"I've reached out to a mercenary for escort," she replied, holding to the group's scheme. "A man with Ko Protection Professionals." The rangemaster nodded.
"What sort is the mercenary?"
"A swordsman," she said. "A human from Ja-Wen."
"Do you know what kind of sword he wields," asked the rangemaster, putting one hand out and pointing to her bow. Melissa unslung it and handed it over. The illeck man took a small tool from his belt, and began fiddling with the draw string on her weapon. Melissa had no clue what he was doing, but she trusted him; he was the pro here, after all.
"Does it make a difference?"
"Immensely, yes," said the illeck, squinting at his work. "A two-hander requires a great deal of space to work with, and hits everything in their immediate vicinity. They've no hand free to help or hold a shield. Their maneuvers are slow to develop, but once they are in motion, you need to stay clear or be cut down. On the other end of the spectrum, you have your fencers, lightning quick and lithe, can poke and slash a man to ribbons in a blink, but their techniques don't do a lot of damage individually." He handed her back the bow.
"I believe he uses a one-handed longsword and a shield," she said. "He used to be a constable." The illeck grinned, but scoffed. Melissa tugged at her bowstring, noting the subtle adjustment he'd made; it would be easier now to pull to a full draw. "Something wrong with that," she asked.
"Constables and lawmen have a kind of simple nobility to them, miss," he replied. "At least, most do. They serve their community, or their country, or just the rule of law. They commit themselves to a purpose beyond themselves. Mercenaries, though," he grumbled, looking down range. "Their only loyalty is to their precious payments. You can never fully expect their devotion. Keep your man paid, miss," he said sourly. "Because he no longer serves an idea; only his purse."
**
Azira made sure to let himself be seen about town, kicking at free-roaming cats and dogs in the streets, tossing a group of children's kickball down Denkirit's central town well, and making rude comments to local merchants before heading to the local postmaster's office. He already heard disapproving murmurs by the time he was asked by a lizardman clerk there what he wanted, rather curtly.
"I need to send a message to Bronze Pot, care of an old constable friend," the goblin skirmisher said. The clerk, dressed in a dun colored robe, merely grabbed a pen and a sending sheet. "His name's Swinton, Constable Swinton. Message is this," he said, flipping the clerk off with a sneering smile. The clerk just gave him a half-lidded glare, jotted something down, and began stuffing the folded paper into an envelope.
"How do you want it sent," the lizardman hissed unhappily.
"Bird, swiftest you have," Azira said, slapping five gold coin on the counter. The clerk's eyes flashed wide. "There's two more just for you if I see you send it right now." The goblin had never seen a man tie a letter to a raven's leg so quickly in all his life.