Chapter Seventy

  The sun was still up when we arrived at the restaurant. The place was similar to the teahouse we’d once visited in Gal-Themar — not particularly fancy, but not at all shoddy either. It was pleasant, and I appreciated that whoever owned the place had refrained from using too much ornamentation of the interior. Restaurants really didn’t need the kind of gaudy opulence elves liked.

  A tall man — wearing an outfit that almost passed for a suit — greeted us as we entered and immediately asked us to follow him to a private dining room away from the main restaurant area. I supposed the guy had been told to expect us, and since Krissy was probably the first human in a long time — or just the first — to visit the establishment, I doubted it was difficult to identify us.

  The private room opened from a short corridor at the back, just as the kitchen did. I stuck a tentacle through the opposite wall as we entered the dining room, and I had the pleasure of simultaneously observe the busy elven chefs as well as the people waiting for us at the dining table.

  I wished I had a sense of taste or smell — I really wanted to have at least a sniff of all the raw and ready foodstuffs in the kitchen. It was somewhat frustrating not to be able to do that, and I decided to shift my attention to our dinner companions for the night.

  While the black-clad elven cooks practiced their craft in the kitchen — marinating slices of meat and … fresh fish, chopping up vegetables, baking bread and such — three people rose from their seats to greet us in the dining room: Fenirig Arte, Korolan Mirei, and their granddaughter, Hiraken Sala.

  This was the first time I’d seen Fenar wearing something other than ranger gear. He looked … civilized. I supposed the saying “clothes make the man” did apply to elves as well.

  Still, Krissy instinctively snapped to attention like a good soldier, despite leaning on her crutch for support. Kiwa simply stiffened and froze, either scared or awestruck by the sight of our very own, pointy-eared Chuck Norris. Honestly, after seeing him in action, I did not blame Kitala Iwani at all.

  Then it occurred to me. If he was that good, why weren’t he and the other masters of rangers participating in the fight against the ork invaders? He could make short work of them, as we’d seen, so … oh. Well, in the end even Elf-Chuck was just one man, and I doubted he could be everywhere at once. At best he could make one ranger team’s life easier, the rest would still need to search and destroy the marauder teams the old fashioned way. It was probably more efficient for the masters to use their organization skills in this battle rather than their martial skills. Regardless, I was still impressed by the man’s abilities — who would have thought an elf could reach this level of badassery without using Mana. It was … frightening.

  I wondered if I’d be able — or if I should even try — to introduce a series of “facts” about him to the elven population. Something like “When orks go to sleep, they check their closets for Fenirig Arte.”. Hm. I looked him up and down — the man still had the small chunk missing from his soul. I could work with that. “Fenirig Arte once gave a small chunk of his soul to a familiar. That spirit became the first god.” Yep, that sounded about right. Now I just needed to find out if he could do roundhouse kicks.

  ‘At ease, trainee!’ Fenar barked the order as if we were on the training ground.

  Krissy relaxed, and so did Kiwa. Komi turned to glare at her husband and said,

  ‘Come now, darling, no need to be so rangery.’

  Fenar glanced at his wife, sighed, then gestured everyone to take a seat. Hisa was grinning at Krissy.

  ‘How are you, Misery? Or should I call you … Krissintha? Is Kevin with you?’ she asked as everyone sat down.

  ‘I’m here. Say hello to her for me, please!’ I said excitedly. Finally, someone was happy to see me. Well, not to “see” me, but to know I was here.

  ‘He’s here. He says hello,’ Krissy conveyed my greeting, then asked, ‘Where are the others? Are they alright?’

  ‘Arde took Timo to look around town. They’ve never been to Sek Artem,’ she said.

  ‘It’s a nice town,’ Komi commented. ‘Good soil around here and so close to the sea as well. I haven’t visited for years. I think you will like the fish dishes.’

  As if on cue, the same man who’d escorted us here entered the room, all smiles, ready to take our orders for food and drink.

  Krissy and Kiwa left it up to the councilwoman to order for them. So did Fenar. As a result, the evening’s culinary repertoire was decided by Korolan Mirei and Hisa. The waiter rushed away, and I followed him with a tentacle and observed as he relayed our orders to the kitchen staff, then went on his way to check on the diners in the main restaurant area.

  While we waited for our food, Hisa and Krissy exchanged compliments about the dresses they were wearing. Komi complemented Kiwa’s purple dress, saying she had good taste, to which Kiwa obliviously revealed that it had been Krissy’s choice. Fenar sat through the small talk as quietly as I did, and he looked relieved when our food finally arrived.

  With the exception of Fenar — who had some kind of meaty stew in front of him — everyone received grilled fish with a side of vegetables, bread, and a thick, black sauce. The presentation of the dishes was nice but not overly pretentious, and the portions were a good size. Back in the day I had eaten at a few restaurants boasting a couple of Michelin Stars, but in all honesty, this type of place had always been more to my liking. And curse be upon Wensah who had turned me into a spirit, depriving me of the ability to enjoy an evening of good food.

  Mr Instinct immediately pointed out that there was plenty of food around, and I had to take a few moments to exert my will and silence the bugger. Other than that, the evening so far was … pleasant.

  ‘Here.’ Fenar took out a piece of folded paper from a pocket on his jacket and pushed it over to Krissy.

  Krissy wiped her hand and mouth with a napkin and took the paper, unfolded it, and looked over the contents. It was the contract she had supposedly signed with Fenirig Arte, and lo and behold, her signature was there. She nodded approvingly.

  ‘Close enough,’ she said, then scowled. ‘It says here that the training I’m receiving is in exchange for my participation in the Counter Evil Spirit Exercise, and any other assistance I provide to Third Rangers will be compensated at the current pay rate of a scout-master first rank.’

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  ‘Correct.’ Fenar nodded, and pulled a pouch of jingling money from somewhere, and pushed it over to us. ‘Eight-hundred Kyns, rounded up, based on the yearly stipend of a scout-master and on the number of days you actively participated in hunting down the evil spirit back then, and the damned barbarians now.’

  ‘That’s … generous. Thank you,’ Krissy said, lifting up the contract and the pouch.

  I touched them with a tentacle, and both the paper and the money vanished, finding their way into Jack’s Room.

  ‘See? I told you Kevin can do that!’ Hisa exclaimed, patting her grandmother on the shoulder.

  ‘Interesting.’ Councilwoman Komi nodded.

  ‘So … is this training exercise going to happen? With all that’s going on?’ Krissy inquired.

  'Soon,’ Fenar said, nodding. ‘We’re already planning an expedition to get our people back and to give the damned orks a bloody nose. We moved up the schedule for the exercise. We wanted to do it near Gal-Themar, but we’ll do it here instead, before our trip to the barbarian lands.’

  ‘Three days from now,’ Komi said, looking at her husband. ‘Isn’t it a bit too soon? We don’t even know if this attack will be over by then. Maybe a little rest for the men?’

  ‘It will be over by tomorrow, councilwoman,’ Fenar said to his wife, his tone as official as he could manage. ‘Resting is for marines and militias. Rangers are always ready.’

  ‘And that’s why I elected to be on the council, my dear.’ Komi grinned at her husband.

  ‘Huh!’ Fenar laughed. I was not sure whether it was in good humour or something else. ‘You’re just more comfortable giving orders sitting in a chair. Don’t you miss trekking through mud and storm and fight idiots who think they can swing a sword?’

  ‘Not particularly, no,’ she said with a sweet voice, the smile on her face rather sinister. ‘But I’m very comfortable being able to order you around, Master Fenirig Arte of Third Rangers.’

  ‘Oh my god! This is too much. Can you try and change the topic?’ I begged Krissy to put a stop to this weird power-flirting. The image I had of Master Fenar and of Councilwoman Komi would never be the same again.

  Krissy seemed to be just as uncomfortable with the turn the conversation had taken, and didn’t hesitate to fulfil my request, much to the relief of a red-faced Hisa, who was busy looking all around the room except her grandparents.

  ‘Uhm, so, about the hearing,’ Krissy began, looking at the councilwoman. ‘What was it about? We thought we’d be the targets of all accusations, but it was Master Fenirig Arte, wasn’t it?’

  Fenar and Komi stopped their little back and forth.

  ‘That witch and her cohorts on the committee are hell-bent on being stupid, trying to do stupid things for fucking stupid reasons,’ Fenar spat the words, his mood taking a sudden one-eighty from almost personable to not so personable. Not to mention not very informative.

  Komi immediately hushed the man and took over.

  ‘Krisoret Itani and many of the younger council members have a different vision for our … military, as they call it,’ she explained.

  ‘Impressionable, brainless children,’ Fenar scowled. ‘They take a few trips to the mainland and suddenly they think they know how to organize armies.’

  ‘Armies?’ Krissy asked, raising her eyebrows, looking at the two of them.

  ‘Armies.’ Komi nodded. ‘I imagine by now you are aware that our main defensive forces are the rangers and the navy. And that works well for Solace. But Krisoret Itani and her friends proposed to the Council that we establish a standing army in the fashion the nations of the Mainlands do it.’

  ‘Is that a bad idea?’ Krissy asked innocently, and that was enough to bring Fenar back into the conversation.

  ‘Tell me, trainee, what do rangers do?’ he put the question to Krissy, glaring at her with the intensity we were used to.

  ‘Rangers are the first, last and best line of defense against those wanting to harm Solace and her people,’ Krissy recited the mantra we’d heard more times I ever wanted to.

  ‘Correct. How do rangers do that?’ he demanded, scowling like there was no tomorrow.

  ‘Ranger patrols cover every inch of Solace. If something happens, they’ll know it and they’ll deal with it immediately, bringing in more teams if necessary and for as long as necessary.’ Krissy offered the answer.

  Fenar nodded in approval, but he wasn’t done.

  ‘You’re from the Mainlands. Are you familiar with how armies operate there?’

  ‘Yes. My father had one,’ she said.

  ‘Tell me: how would a large army react to the situation we’re in?’

  ‘Well,’ Krissy started to say, then stopped to actually think about it for a moment.

  I saw where this was going: this was a quantity versus quality issue, wasn’t it? It was about what would suit Solace more: large armies and formation warfare, or highly mobile units, able to act quickly and independently without oversight from the brass.

  Sure, an army of elves — even if half as well trained as rangers — would be a devastating force. In a pitched battle or a siege. But it would be slow to mobilise, slow to move, would require serious logistical support and this was just the top three on the list of issues. An army wouldn’t have been able to react to an ork invasion this quickly and effectively, and if they came across an evil spirit, the spirit would simply rejoice at the sudden appearance of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Krissy had come to the same conclusion and said the same thing, much to Fenar’s delight. When Krissy finished with her analysis of “Army vs Rangers”, the man turned to his wife and said,

  ‘I told you she’d make a good ranger. If she wasn’t human, she could have become my aide in fifty or so years. She has the brain, the spine, and the stubbornness. She has Krisoret Itani and her ilk beat in every respect.’

  Krissy’s face started to burn, turning a deep red. I could almost feel as her heartbeat doubled or tripled. This was the highest praise Fenar had ever given her. Going so far as the claim she was better than some of the elves — granted, it was elves Fenar apparently loathed — seemed to have a profound effect on Krissy. Well, as far as I was concerned, there was no-one who deserved the foul-mouthed ranger-general’s praise more.

  ‘Yes, I heard you the first time, dear,’ Komi said to Fenar, then turned to Krissy. ‘After reading the reports of what you’ve done, no-one would dare put you on some sort of trial. The hearing was something Krisoret Itani arranged, mostly to convince poor old Levoten Armat to vote in favour of establishing an army. Despite how he looks, the man is over five-hundred years old. One of the oldest among us. He has a lot of influence.’

  ‘Did Krisoret Itani manage to convince him?’ Krissy asked.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Komi replied. ‘Rumour is he’s more interested in enlarging the navy and leaving the rangers as they are. It’s difficult to know what he’s thinking, even more difficult to get anything out of him before a vote. I wish he’d talk more.’

  The waiter returned to our private dining room. He walked around and lit the lanterns on the walls — the sun was down now, and soon only darkness would be coming through the single window of the room. He collected our plates, rushed away, then returned with a tray with teacups, jars of hot water and a pot of tea-leaves.

  I leaped at the opportunity — I brought out a box of Earl Grey from Jack’s Room and put it on the table.

  ‘Oh, the grey-tea!’ Hisa whispered excitedly, recognizing the box, and reached out to open it.

  ‘Grey tea?’ Fenar looked at the tea-bags inside with suspicion, then at Krissy. ‘Trainee! Did you at any point present this tea to the old git Sivaren Tal, pretending it was a gift from me?’

  ‘Uh, yes, sir!’ Krissy replied, glancing towards the door, then at the window — two possible escape routes to get out of the way of Fenar’s wrath.

  ‘Hm. He said it was on par with Darak’s Special Blend,’ the man said and picked a tea-bag from the box. ‘He even said thank you to me for the first time in … well, ever.’

  Hisa poured hot water for everyone and showed them how to use the tea-bags. Kiwa, who had been silent the whole time, finally let out a sigh as she took a sip of her tea. Fenar and Komi were a little more cautious than those of us who had already experienced the wonders of a good cup of Earl Grey, but they nodded approvingly as they tasted it.

  Krissy explained how we ended up manufacturing and selling the tea, and Komi promised she would recommend it to her friends — friends who were the cream of elven society, no doubt. That was good news for our joint business venture — I was sure Deni and Toven, as well as Quenta and Tommi would welcome the news.

  ‘One more thing I’d like to discuss with you, Krissintha,’ Komi said as she finished — and thoroughly enjoyed — her tea. ‘As I’ve said before, I would like to meet with your patron god.’