“I don’t need you with me,” the sorceress said. “And I can’t take you with me anyway.”
Boos errupted from the surrounding tables, where adventurers and soldiers watched the exchange with rapt interest. She shot them a glare that cut off the noise.
“Bull. Shit.” Vergil glowered. “You’ve carried me before. Your…”
Sil was just about to kick him in the shin when he stopped, drew a sharp breath, and continued in a lower voice, “I can help you. I can handle myself now.”
Tallah took a long draw from her own tankard and regarded him over the rim. She wore her glasses, their lenses cracked after she’d accidentally electrocuted herself back in Grefe. When she finished drinking, she absently scratched at the scar on her face, as though giving herself time to think.
Used to be she’d just dismiss him, Sil thought, looking from one to the other. How times change. We were both so terribly wrong about him. Waste of breath…
She giggled, part amusement at their lack of foresight regarding the lad, part the effect of beer.
She was on her second drink, and it did nothing to dull the headache blasting away behind her eyes. Vergil had handled himself, yes, but he’d drained her of illum in the process. She’d fainted while sewing a soldier’s guts back in, giving Adella quite the scare.
The adventurers who had been with Vergil sat at a nearby table. She shot the elendine hussy a black glare and received a mocking smile in return. They would have to settle their little spat later. Not that they had anything to prove or share, but it was the principle of the thing. The cunt had elbowed her in the eye. Who does that? Well, technically, Sil had rammed her own sharp elbow somewhere memorable in return.
“I congratulate you on what you did today, but unless you’re about to sprout wings, you’re not coming with me,” Tallah said sardonically to Vergil. “If you can sprout wings and kept that from us, I will be very cross with you.”
The boy’s shoulders slumped. Sil had thought his backbone had grown tougher than this, but clearly he still had a long way to go. Still, it was a decent attempt at negotiating with Tallah.
“Where were you today, anyway?” he asked, conceding defeat.
Tallah planned to go over the wall into the Cauldron alone. She’d told them this over their first tankard of ale celebrating Vergil’s victory, sparking the whole debate.
“I was being held down by five big cowards,” she replied crisply.
Vergil’s eyes widened, then he frowned in anger. “Why? We could’ve used you.”
“Because they decided I need to preserve my strength if I’m to do what I said I would.” She drank deeply. “Bloody morons. Good thing you two were down here.”
“About that,” Sil said, recalling their original mission that had caused the entire debacle. “What did you want us to achieve there?”
“Ah, that.” Tallah shrugged. “I want to flood the tunnels with distilled night’s blood and set them alight from our end.” She shot Vergil a rueful smile. “Or wanted to, before this one blew it all up. If Aztroa Magnor didn’t hear that blast, it’s only because they’ve gone deaf.”
“I didn’t have much of a choice, now did I?” Vergil scowled and gestured with his ale. “The powers that be kept our biggest weapon sheathed. If I’d simply run back, that big troll would’ve gone into the city.”
“Ah, ever the bleeding heart,” Tallah said, though her mockery lacked real teeth. “It will be the death of you, Vergil. Mark my words.”
Sil had overheard something of the brass’s decision while treating day’s wounded. Vilfor had kept Tallah “held down” because he was confident his own men could handle the issue. What the sorceress planned to do mattered more than a single day’s skirmish. And the soldiers had, relatively speaking, repelled the invaders with minimal casualties.
Vergil quick thinking and suicidal determination had limited casualties to near nothing, but it was still blood the Rock could ill afford to lose.
Tallah opened her mouth to say something more, then froze. Sil had been around her for long enough to recognise when her friend stiffened for a reason other than anger. Following her gaze, Sil spotted the man standing in the gaping hole that had once been the tavern’s door. She didn’t recognise him, but Tallah clearly did.
He wasn’t a large man—shorter than Vergil by a head but broad of shoulder, slight of build. He carried himself like a soldier, scanning the room with a scout’s eyes. Sil recognised the type rather well.
The most striking thing about him was his scarring. As he advanced through the rowdy common room, it became apparent he’d been badly burned; half his face was a mess of poorly healed tissue. If Sil didn’t know better, she would have sworn the pattern of scarring on this throat showed finger marks, as if someone had tried to throttle him.
A glance at Tallah confirmed Sil’s suspicion.
This was Caragill. Tallah had done a piss-poor job describing the man to her, calling him a “rat-faced bastard with a gash of a smile that could wilt flowers”. Yet, despite his scarring, he was rather handsome in a roguish way, bright green eyes shining beneath a mess of chestnut hair.
By then, even Vergil had noticed Tallah staring and turned to see what was happening. Before he could speak, the sorceress set down her tankard, slid off her high stool and advanced on the man with a stride that meant one of two things: either she would blast his head off or kiss him. When Vergil turned to follow, Sil grabbed him by the belt.
“Sit down. This should be good,” she said when he looked at her.
Tallah did neither. The man opened his mouth, but she grabbed him by the lapels of his uniform and dragged him away like a dog on a leash. The entire common room watched them vanish up the stairs that lead to the room they all shared.
Vergil tried to pry himself loose from Sil and follow, but she held him firm.
“She looked like she was going to kill him,” he said.
“That’s not what that look means, Vergil. Sit down. Drink your beer. Tallah has some…” She drew a deep breath, thinking how best to put it without sounding crass. “She has some tension to release. Let’s give her some space.”
Caragill. Without the scarring, she would never have guessed. He was the last member of Tallah’s old cell then, the one she’d tortured for information on how the Claws recruited. It had always struck Sil as odd that she left him alive after killing the others.
Funny—and not entirely surprising—how the sight of him had lit something in Tallah, and a whole different reaction in Sil herself. She didn’t even know the man, much less have any connection to him.
Why was she now hearing Dreea’s mocking laughter?
Funny things, minds. They form the wildest connections and added links where there were none exist. While she’d managed to push down the growing spectre of Dreea, somehow, seeing a random Claw of the empire brought every doubt and concern back up to the surface of her mind.
Tallah had been off tracking and killing her own Claws while Sil was in Aliana’s care. Sil recalled being with the priestess for some injury—an acid accident—but now she knew better. Dreea’s spectre loomed over her. Tallah had left her there to be… made. And she couldn’t recall if she’d consented or not. Prodding Dreea’s memories was something she dared not do, for fear of what more they might reveal.
She sighed took another drink. She’d never in her life—that she knew of—consumed so much beer. Before coming to the Rock she’d barely known its taste. Now it was becoming a concerning habit.
“Friend Sil is distraught?” Luna’s tiny voice asked from her shoulder. It was disturbingly easy to forget the spider was hitchhiked on her these days, having moved over from Vergil.
“Friend Sil is getting pished, and she doesn’t like it,” Sil groaned.
“What is pished?”
“Drunk and stupid.”
“Oh.” Luna stared over her shoulder. “Can this one sample the drink?”
Sil lifted the mug towards her shoulder, amazed at how little it bothered her that the spider dipped its palps into her beer. Luna shuddered.
“It is disgusting!” the spider declared, its voice laced with horrified fascination.
Vergil was still staring at the stairs when another figure walked in. The adventurers’ table all raised their tankards and saluted with a roar.
Arin, the soldier, passed between the drinkers, heading straight for Vergil. He wore a wide grin.
Sil looked from one to the other, noting how they couldn’t look more alive if they were brothers. Arin, like Vergil, was young, tall, relatively slim, and had a mess of dark hair threatening to overgrow his eyes. Unlike Vergil, he sported a decent beard that aged him some five or six summers.
He clasped Vergil’s hand, palm to wrist. She raised an eyebrow at their easy familiarity.
“Do you have some time, Vergil?” Arin asked, nodding towards Sil.
“Uh… sure. What do you need?” Vergil said.
“Violet wants her sword back, for starters.” He grinned. “And I want you to come pick up your new one.”
That made Vergil pause. “My… new… what?”
“Sword, man. Captain had me place an order for you . It’s waiting at Vilmo’s smithy. Figured you’d like to tag along in case you need it adjusted.”
“There’s a smithy here?” Sil asked. “Do they have polearms or staffs?”
“Couldn’t say, lady healer. But they’ve have plenty of metal lying around. They could forge a staff if you need one.”
Casting a glance towards the stairs, Sil sighed, pushed herself away from the table, and rose unsteadily. She’d been drained of illum and didn’t yet dare infuse again. Her scars itched, and she didn’t fancy falling asleep at the bar again.
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“If Vergil’s going to stand there gaping like a cretin, I’ll take you up on that offer,” she said. “Show me the way. I’ve lost my staff again, and you lot blew it up.”
Arin grinned. “It would be my pleasure, lady Iluna.”
“Call me Sil. I don’t like the ‘lady’ stuff.” She belched for emphasis and swayed, prompting a bark of laughter from Licia somewhere in the cramped room.
“You got me a sword?” Vergil asked, his brain finally catching up with events.
“Aye. Come, come. Vilmo’ll go to bed if we tarry any longer.”
“But… why?” the boy insisted.
Sil elbowed him in the kidney; she’d aimed for his ribs, but swayed too much, prompting a pained grunt.
“Your new friends want to show their appreciation for your single-minded, suicidal tendencies,” she said. “Be a good lad, say ‘thank you’, and follow the nice gentleman where he leads you.”
“Uh… thank you,” Vergil stammered, blushing bright crimson all the way to his ears. This time, Licia didn’t laugh. Sil noticed her watching Vergil follow Arin out.
Well, that’s an interesting development. She chuckled as she caught up to the men.
There was singing out in the streets again—not the joyous tune that greeted them on arrival, but a lilting, sadness-tinged melody that echoed as several voices joined and dropped away. Mourning hung in the air, tempered by a subdued gratitude.
“How are you people still…” She lost the train of her thoughts as she saw a mother and child carrying a beastman’s corpse out of their home to throw onto a cart with others. Blood oozed off the flatbed, dripping black on the cobblestones.
The child—a girl of perhaps ten summers—wiped her hands on her apron, then turned to her mother. “I’m going to Petra’s. She’s got three of ’em to clean out. Won’t be long.”
They passed the grim scene, only to be met by more.
The Rock was hauling away the dead, carting them to the fortress to be bled and then burned. People worked elbow to elbow—a motley assortment of species that Sil hadn’t noticed before. She saw several elends washing walls and fixing broken carpentry, and several vanadals pulling flatbed wagons filled with corpses. Humans were the most numerous, but everyone was working. Not a single person lazed about, as far as she could tell, while they traversed narrow alleys and broad thoroughfares.
Groups moved from home to home, calling out damage, repairing what could be salvaged, and gathering the debris of what could not. It was a wonderfully coordinated effort, even through the strain showed on their faces.
Several groups of young girls walked around with skeins of water on poles over their shoulders, offering drinks to the workers. Others brought food.
Everyone wore armour of some kind—assorted pieces, half-scavenged and half-improvised. A young boy wore a pot on his head and repeatedly got underfoot, though the men only laughed instead of shooing him away.
This was new to Sil—this united sense of camaraderie floating in the air. An entire city centred on defending the rest of Vas from a threat most common folk had never even imagined.
Forty-three days of siege, three days since barely surviving utter disaster. Countless lost. Countless dead and buried. Daemons in their midst.
There was no despair here—or, if there was, it was a of a shade Sil couldn’t perceive.
“They sing,” Luna said from Sil’s shoulder. “What does the music mean? It is beautiful.”
Sil didn’t know so she posed the question of Arin.
“It’s normal to sing after battle,” the youth said. “We’ve survived another calamity. We’re still here. So we sing.”
“Why?” Vergil asked. “How aren’t you all…” He trailed off, as confused as Sil was. She knew where he was going, but it seemed he’d be too polite to get there.
“Why aren’t you despairing?” Sil asked bluntly. “You’re barely hanging on by a thread here. How is everyone acting so normal?”
Arin laughed. He had a pleasant, sonorous laugh. “Being one step away from calamity is what’s normal for us, Sil. There are monsters scratching at our gates every night, and every night we push them back.” He paused to help a woman lift a corpse onto a cart. “Some of us have never known anything else. This is what’s normal to us.”
“You were nearly lost when Tallah arrived. Other places would have seen soldiers break and run for the hills with even a quarter of your losses.”
“We aren’t other places,” Arin said, puffing out his chest. He banged a fist against his breastplate. “We are rock hearts. We protect the realm to the last. As long as one of us draws breath, the Rock endures.”
Admirable sentiment, she had to agree. It was lunacy, of course, but admirable all the same.
“How did you all survive when you lost your cadre?” she pressed. Honour was good to have, but not enough to last through forty days of siege.
“Daemons only got bad in the last tenday before you arrived,” Arin said. “They held back a lot so we had time to prepare for the worst. It was both our biggest stroke of luck, and our biggest curse.” He smiled sadly. “They sent small forces to test us and keep us on the walls. When they hit in force, our losses were great, but we still had plenty of healing stock and weapons, so we endured. Then they started bleeding us, and everything got harder.”
And then they’d arrived and tipped back the scale of the fight.
Sil had learned from other healers that on that night, the Rock’s commander sent soldiers into the field hoping to break the enemy’s back in a single clash. They would have failed had Tallah not arrived exactly when she did.
Had Panacea intended for events to unfold this way? Had it truly been she who sent them that night?
Without Tallah’s arrival the defenders would have been crushed between the daemon armies and the walls. The city would have been breached the very next day.
There was no doubt in her mind—and Tallah had confirmed the possibility—that the city was planned to be taken via the secret tunnel after the defenders would have fallen outside. Or probably while they were still fighting.
The bleeding edge between survival and calamity. Were they upsetting some plan here? Or serving it?
It couldn’t have been Panacea’s. Too much should have gone right for their departure from Grefe to be planned. And while the thing calling itself the Goddess of Healing was powerful, it couldn’t be omniscient. The text written in scars on her arm confirmed that beyond the shadow of a doubt.
But if Panacea could communicate, why hadn’t she made her intentions clear? Sil was certain she had plenty of skin for the creature to send an entire treaty on what her desires and plans were. Why let them stumble about blindly when she could influence events more directly?
She pushed the questions aside, at least for the moment. Right now, she wanted a proper staff she wouldn’t fear breaking in a fight.
There was no way to control events beyond herself. Whether all this was planned or not, it was moot. They were here and Tallah was committed to her plan. Sil could only support her.
That didn’t mean she had to let herself be jerked about by every gust of fate. Ever since the spiders caught her in Grefe, she’d done nothing but react, stumbling in the direction of every shove she’d receive.
That had to change.
It took a full bell to reach the smithy. Arin proved himself a learned young man with impeccable manners, asking Vergil about his life and then quietly dropping the subject when the boy stumbled through obvious lies. It was rare to see such grace in a soldier who saw as much fighting as the defenders of the Rock did.
Vilmo’s smithy was a small shop that might have all fit into Mertle’s receiving room. And there would’ve been room left to spare for a training dummy. In a place like this, Sil supposed, every foot of space was used with utmost care.
Vergil received a black sword.
Sil had seen one like it before, though she couldn’t recall where; thinking on it made her head ache.
It was a beautiful weapon even to her untrained eye: smooth and shining, double-edged, with a finely worked hilt and cross guard. It came win an equally dark, gleaming scabbard.
Vilmo, the smith himself, fitted it to Vergil’s waist and then gave him advice on caring for the blade. It wasn’t silver, but Sil saw the runes gleaming along its length. She recognized several from Mertle’s work; the others formed an intricate pattern that made the weapon a lethal implement. Vergil was holding back tears.
She let the men talk swords while she wandered the cramped room. She hadn’t seen anything resembling a staff and, for the moment, would have settled for a simple rod of pig iron at the right length.
Then something caught her eye.
Nestled among the swords, axes, and dented armour hung a mace. Its haft was steel, dressed in leather straps. Its spiked ball head was the same black steel as Vergil’s blade. The entire weapon was forged from a single piece.
She reached for it. The weight felt like nothing in her hands, though the mace was nearly as long as her forearm. Sure, a little heavier than her normal staffs, but not quite as heavy as Iliaya’s. Nicely balanced, easy to swing, it made her want to smash some pottery if she could find any.
Finally, she gave in to temptation and brought the spiked head down on a full suit of armour hanging on a dummy. The helmet caved in with a satisfying crunch; bits of straw-filled “head” burst through the dented face plate. The jolt travelled up her arm, sending a spike of pleasure right down into the pit of her stomach.
It felt right—and dangerous enough to be useful.
Vergil emerged from the overcrowded shelves, sword in hand, eyes wide.
“What happened?” he asked as Arin joined him.
She grinned at them both. “How much for this?”
Vilmo let the mace go for a paltry three Valen griffons. Sil would have to work on the weapon, do some engraving, add in the words that would make it into a focus. But she’d been for too long without a real weapon and was tired of being surprised, abducted, carried and generally treated like a sack of potatoes to be passed around and fought over. From here one, she intended to take teeth in payment for her pains.
You dealt with fate’s shoves by shoving back.
“The lady healer is making a frightening face,” Arin whispered theatrically to Vergil. “Is she all right?”
“She once used my helmet as a cestus,” Vergil said, pretending to whisper. “Told me she’d punch my teeth in if I made fun of her again. I don’t want to tempt her now that she has that mace.”
That earned a chuckle from of Sil.
Well… now what?
She doubted Tallah had finished her conversation with Caragill and had no desire to return to the crowded tavern. She would enjoy brandishing the mace at that elendine twat just to see her flinch, but that could wait.
“I need a work table,” she said at last. “Somewhere quiet, preferably.”
“I live nearby, if that’s all right with you,” Arin said. “My father’s workshop is available if you need it. It’s dusty, but I can air it out for the lady’s work.”
“The lady,” Sil sneered, “can handle some dust. Come, show me the way.”
“What about me?” Vergil asked, stopping in the middle of the road where people nearly tripped over him.
“What kind of stupid question is that?” Sil asked. “What about you? Do you want to go back to the tavern? I think you can find your way back easily enough.”
“Uh, no… I mean… I don’t want to impose.”
Arin wrapped an arm around Vergil’s shoulder and steered him down the side-street. “I have some excellent wine we can share while the lady—”
“Sil,” the ‘lady’ in question corrected.
“…while Sil works. Come, you can tell me some stories of what life’s about outside our walls and the Cauldron. I’ve grown bored of the tall tales of adventurers; they lie as they breathe, if I’m honest, and do it poorly.”
Vergil laughed and wrapped an arm around Arin’s waist, the two walking off, talking in low voices. Sil didn’t try to eavesdrop. She was just glad to see Vergil making friends. She only wished it were with people less likely to die within a night or two. Still, at least the boy seemed happy. After the disappointments of Grefe, she had feared he might snap under the pressure.
Arin’s home was a charming little place shaped like an overgrown mushroom, standing at the forefront of a cluster of similar homes. Inside, the rooms were cosy and warm, with carpets draped on the walls—homemade, judging by the loom pushed against one wall. He led her to his father’s workshop, where she found a goldsmith’s work bench.
Apparently, Arin’s father had honoured the deep traditions of the Rock, by working gold into jewellery—a dwarf would have been proud.
Luna skittered off Sil’s shoulder and went about exploring, the small spider fitting into every nook and cranny.
“What are these, friend Sil?” it asked, pointing at some instruments on the wall. The spider trembled, and Sil understood why: the tools resembled rough medical implements from Erisa’s domain.
So Sil explained what she knew about gold-smiting and the tools the spider indicated. All the while, she set down her things, took out the engraving tools she’d purchased, and began to work.
Sil, the healer, was tired of feeling trapped and useless when fists flew and swords rang out—tired of needing saving.
And she was tired of feeling lost.
The first word she carefully engraved around the mace’s haft, just above her grip, was Mertle.
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