dealing with sadness and loss, ways which rarely allowed me to experience either for long. She did not.
“They’re alive, aren’t they,” I said.
“Who?” she said, not bothering to conceal the twitch of her thin, pale lips.
“Mithos and Orgos. They’re alive, damn them! After all the effort I’ve put into not grieving. . Where are they?”
“Come downstairs,” she said, turning for the door.
“They’re here?!” I exclaimed, leaping out of bed, depressingly safe in the knowledge that she wouldn’t turn to catch me naked.
“Of course not,” she said. “But they are alive.”
I grabbed my breeches and stepped hurriedly into them.
“How do you know?” I said, trying to keep my balance as I tottered about the room pulling up my pants.
“A spy was taken late last night from a company of goblins which has moved out of the mountains to raid the surrounding villages. If the creature is to be believed, Mithos and Orgos are alive, and being held in their mountain stronghold.”
“So what are you so bloody happy about?” I said, fastening my belt and turning her to face me.
“Sorrail knows a way in,” she said, unsuppressable excitement breaking through her veneer of calm dignity.
“What?”
“We can rescue them!”
“Did you see how many of them there were? Or the bears, or the. .”
“It won’t be a battle, idiot,” she laughed. “It will be a small party breaking in unseen and getting them out.”
“Wishful thinking, if you ask me,” I snorted.
“Fortunately, I’m
“You and your friend Sorrail are going to get yourselves killed. And that,” I said, “is a promise. A guarantee. If I had a farm, I’d bet it. This is the most harebrained exercise in self-annihilation I ever. .”
“It’s not Sorrail,” she said. “He has to go on to the White City to report on the goblin movements, and the other men will be defending their own homes. It’s you, Hawthorne. You’re coming with me, so you’d better hope the odds improve. Good thing you don’t have that farm, huh?”
I just stared at her with my mouth open. For once I could think of nothing to say.
SCENE VII Hawthorne to the Rescue
Given that my general dislike for wild animals had recently taken an alarming new turn, and that creatures which had always seemed dodgy even in folktales had turned out to be real and meaner than reports had suggested; and given that the word of a goblin spy who assured us that our friends were alive was about as reliable as mine; and given that the mountains bristled with sinister troops and our mission was therefore destined for death (ours) and destruction (ditto); and given (finally, I promise) that Renthrette was a maniac only content when poised for slaughter, and that she valued my skin a good deal less than that of her horse, the fact that I had agreed to go with her on this sortie into the Abyss made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
Still, what the hell.
I am not, alas, without feeling, nor (and this was the real spear in the buttock) without principle. Not utterly. I had fallen victim to a rising sense of guilt which I had been beating into silence every step of the way from Stavis. Now, with Renthrette’s careful prompting, it leaped to its feet and started roaring about talking to Empire guards, throwing stones at wolves, and generally laying the fate of our trusty comrades squarely at my door like an unwanted child. In short, she had me where she wanted me. As we trekked back into the reedy grasslands which I had fled through the day before, I couldn’t help considering how wildly different this was from where I wanted her.
This playing on my sense of responsibility had been accompanied by that hint of a threat which her family relied so heavily on with varying degrees of subtlety. While his sister talked wistfully of how sad it would be if something unpleasant befell me, Garnet preferred the grab-him-by-the-throat-and-shout-about-cutting-his-liver-out approach. This difference in form belied the basic similarity between them, an endearing little detail of sibling character which made me glad I had never met their parents.
Of course, all threats aside, it was the thought of my friends that made me agree to this little excursion. We weren’t exactly popular at the Refuge (I suggested they consider renaming the inn to something more suitable: the Hostile, perhaps, or the Surprisingly Unwelcoming) and Sorrail looked at me like he was wondering if I might be part goblin after all. I felt more comfortable with Renthrette, however distant she was currently being. But it was the thought of other friends-Orgos in particular-that made me steel myself for another encounter in the mountains.
And it wasn’t like we were going to knock on the front door and then fight our way in. This was a stealth mission, one which-if it went right-wouldn’t involve any fighting at all. I wasn’t thrilled by the prospect of Heroic Deeds, but if they came disguised as sneaking about and going home quickly if anyone spotted us, I’d consider it. Factor in my sense of responsibility and genuine desire to be back with people I actually liked, and I was in.
So as the inn emptied of its clientele, all beetling off home to bar their doors and windows against rampaging goblins, and Sorrail galloped off to the White City carrying his lance and Renthrette’s all-too-sincere good wishes, I got what little money I had together and tried to drum up a few basic weapons. The innkeeper wasn’t thrilled with the idea of parting with anything that might help him against the demonic attackers which would soon come howling out of the night, but Sorrail had had a word with him, and a few extras had been found and set on the bar. Renthrette had got herself a hunting bow, a quiver of arrows, and a small shield to supplement her sword, but she was making do with a leather hood and corselet. What little metal armor there was in the area was being held onto, and our few silver pieces couldn’t loosen the owners’ grasps. I got a large round shield, about a yard across. It was oak, covered with reddish hide, and rimmed with copper. It was also heavy and old. With it came a one-handed axe: not a weapon I was used to, but my skill with a sword was so meager it made little difference. The one real find was, inevitably, a crossbow: a two-handed thing bigger than the Cherrati toy I had wielded in Stavis, though nothing like the massive Scorpions we had mounted on the wagon back in Shale. It was slow and difficult to load, but had a hefty punch which might save my neck if I could aim the thing straight. It would, more importantly, keep the enemy at a distance. Briefly.
I had, in a crazed moment, thought that a regular bow might be better, it being lighter and faster than the crossbow, but after an embarrassing experiment with Renthrette’s bow in which I came close to blinding several of the innkeeper’s family members, I decided to stick to what I knew. All these tales of marksmanship with a bow, splitting arrows at five hundred yards and such, are a lot of old horse manure. Renthrette could hang a plate on a barn and hit it at a hundred yards if she was composed and there was no wind. On a good day, I could hit the barn. The beauty of a crossbow is that, unlike with a regular bow, the stretching of the string, the aiming, and the firing are all quite separate actions. You bend over, brace the thing against the ground, and use your body weight to pull back and latch the cord. After that, casually and whenever the mood takes you, you slip an arrow in. Then, when you’re well rested and at one with the universe, you point it at something, put a little pressure on the trigger with one finger, and there you are: the hero of the hour. With the kind of bow Renthrette used, all those actions were pretty much simultaneous. I could do each one by itself, but put them all together and I turn into some kind of random death machine. That anyone can hold one of those things steady when it’s bent tight, let alone aim it, is a mystery to me. But I digress.
The inn also boasted a two-handed sword with a hilt almost a yard across. It hung on a wall over the fireplace. I lifted it down and hefted it thoughtfully. It was a weighty piece, and the blade was as long as a spear and broad as my hand. I couldn’t see myself using anything so unwieldy, since I figured you’d need arms like tree trunks to brandish it effectively, but it had a kind of powerful menace and I wondered if a warrior who could carry such a terrifying weapon ever had to actually use it.
“How much for this?” I inquired of the landlord, idly.
“Not for sale or rent,” he said, in a tone of finality. “That’s an heirloom, that is. My great-grandfather bore it
