“Business in the city?”
“None. I intend to spend money on food, drink, and bed.”
He looked over her shoulder again. “Your horse?”
“It… would appear so.”
The guard shrugged. “Well-trained. Anyway, keep out of trouble. We got no mercy for troublemakers of late. Still, long as your gold’s good welcome to the Bastion City, Drow.”
He moved aside and pulled open the wicket. The horse followed her through as well and the door was closed behind them. She remembered the rooms she had stayed in on her last trip to the desert city were passable enough and that the ale was good. She had a mind to fill herself with it until she was near to bursting. The city was curiously quiet as she walked down the main run. It did not stop the stares. Perhaps they would start more legends, now, with a horse keeping pace behind her. She could imagine them now. Potshop drunkards raving about how Drow can control the minds of horses and enslave them. Perhaps she could. There was little reason for the horse to be following her. Little reason that she could understand, anyway. Had it enjoyed riding without the chariot so much? It was possible the animal thought she was also a horse or something similar. At the very least, it was quiet. The rhythmic clacking of the hooves was a common enough sound that it did not annoy her too deeply. And there was undeniable use in a horse that followed her.
She found the tavern she had occasioned the last time she came through the city and pushed open the door. The horse began to follow so Aile stopped. She turned to the horse.
“No.” She waved her hand away from the door and the horse dutifully trotted to a wall a few yards away and laid down. She eyed it curiously and turned back to enter the tavern. It was empty aside from a grim looking elf in the far corner nursing a mug and the woman behind the counter. The worker did not look familiar to her, but she could not remember elf faces that well if they had not been accompanied with an exchange of money or blood.
“Whas a Drow want in ‘ere?” The woman behind the counter had a crude voice and a nose upturned too far. Aile felt as though she’d have been able to see in it were the light not so dim.
“A room. And ale. And food.”
“We got ‘em. You got coin?”
Aile came to the counter and threw three cubes of gold onto it.
“Strange lookin’ for coin.” The woman picked one up and looked it over. She put it to her teeth and bit, pulling it away to see light marks where she had put the pressure. She stared at the cube for a moment and then swept the other two from the counter and put them into her apron. “Squares is as good as circles, I reckon. Take whatever room you like. All of ‘em’s open. Bit early for lunch. Be an hour or two. We got leeks and ham. Dinner’s roast chicken. Hard to come by of late, but you come by the right place.”
“Ale.” Aile said, looking at the man in the corner. He was passed out from the looks of it.
The woman nodded and filled her mug. It was foamy, rich, and dark. The smell was enticing and Aile wondered if it would have been so if she had not been so desperate for something made half decent.
“Anythin’ else you’ll be needin’?”
Aile took a swig of the ale and pulled a deep breath through her nose to take the aroma into her body. “My horse,” she said finally.
“Horse? We don’t…”
“I need no stable. If you see it sat outside, I would ask that you give it whatever scraps you have.” Aile tossed another two gold cubes onto the counter. The woman raised her eyebrows at the gold and shrugged.
“Alright. That all, then?”
“Yes.”
Aile took her mug and ascended the stairs to find the vaguely familiar layout. She turned right and took the door nearest the stairs. When she entered, the look of the place reminded her of an elf girl that had broken in. Tiny by elf standards from every conceivable angle. She took another drink from her mug. The girl was like to be dead if she’d not grown a brain. Good riddance, Aile thought.
She threw her pack to the ground and laid herself in the bed. It was lumpy and a bit too soft but her body could find no complaint. A wave of warm comfort rolled across her from her shoulders down to her feet. The ache in them radiated and pulsed and began to dim. Aile could not decide whether she would allow herself to sleep. The day seemed as though it would be a good time to have her resting done. After lunch, she decided.
The hours seemed to pass by too quickly on the lead up. She made a count of her coin beyond the gold cubes. They had been taken in enough places but she could not expect that to work everywhere. She had just over two hundred, more than enough for resupply and any frivolities she might want to indulge in. There was still work to be done, however. This was a brief respite and nothing more. The thought of it turned her stomach, returning to the satyr camp. Her poisons were low, especially her paralytic. It had seen more use than she’d expected and far less than she’d have liked.
When lunch was called, she went and ate in the tavern area. A lighter ale was served with the food. She asked, on a whim, if the elf had ever heard of faun. A confused look answered the question amply. The proprietress was more helpful in pointing her toward an apothecary. Aile finished her meal and went to find the man. The horse had been waiting and followed her
