Twenty-Three
Hammer Smash
Benin
“Have I ever told you how stupid you look when you do that?”
“Yes.” Coll breathed in deeply through his nose as he raised his hammer slowly above his head with both hands. He expelled the breath out through his mouth as though he were blowing out candles on a birthday cake. “You should try it.”
Benin eyed the hammer, still poised above the warrior’s head. He wasn’t even sure he’d be able to lift it, let alone hold it in this series of crazy poses for minutes on end. “No thanks.”
They’d managed to catch a few hours’ rest after their sleepless night, despite Benin’s aversion to yet another day sleeping beneath the open sky. But there wasn’t much choice. They’d clearly been getting in the way down in the cave—or the Grotto, as the female sprite had informed him it was called—plus he’d been constantly worrying that Coll would accidentally stamp on a gnome or three.
Not to mention Benin’s own strange and somewhat irrational terror: that he’d wake to find himself tied up and staked to the ground with hundreds of the little people climbing over his body and jabbing him with their tiny spears in a sort of death-by-a-thousand-pricks situation. But he hadn’t mentioned that.
The emberfox flared slightly. Benin leaned back on his hands, the better to see the creature. Ears twitching, she lifted her face to the breeze, as though catching a scent, before her fur subsided to its usual smoldering dark orange.
From the Core’s own version of Arcane Sight, Benin had learned that the emberfox was female. After an unhelpful conversation with Coll in which the big man suggested about a hundred names, each more stupid than the last, Benin had decided to name her Pyra. Not the most imaginative of names, perhaps, but it suited her.
If he’d hoped assigning her a name might bring them closer to regaining the bond he’d briefly experienced in the Menagerie, though, he was wrong. Aside from a slight sniff, which he’d chosen to interpret as approval, she’d reacted to his pronouncement of her new name with as much indifference as she did everything else. Her attitude was more reminiscent of a housecat than a fox.
Did I do the right thing in taking her from the Guild?
Though Pyra hardly seemed grateful, she didn’t appear to be especially unhappy. Surely anything was better than the caged existence from which he’d rescued her. And besides, if she didn’t want to be there, she’d leave. Wouldn’t she?
Still, anxiety was a constant companion, a worm gnawing at his guts. His actions had surely put him in even worse standing with the Guild than he already was. What had he been thinking? Even if Tiri had it right and Varnell truly did have it in for the three of them, Benin would have a much harder time talking his way out if they were caught now that he’d committed an actual common-law crime.
Oddly, it was reassuring to know that he and Coll weren’t the only ones on the run. Even the Core was going to have to leave soon, along with its entourage of gnomes.
A pity, really. From what he’d seen, they were really starting to make this place into a home. A shoddy home, one which smelled of dirt and damp and spider farts and fungal infestations, but a home nonetheless. There were more houses than the last time he was here, and the ones that had been burned to cinders had been rebuilt. The mushroom forest—he assumed it was a forest—looked much better now, too. The mushrooms were growing vertically from the ground, for one thing, whereas last time they'd been strewn all over the place, their stalks brutally snapped as if from beneath their own weight. The absence of dead kobolds helped too.
In truth, he didn't much care about the Core, or even the gnomes. Sure, it would be a shame if they got wiped out, but he wouldn't shed tears over it.
Tiri would, though. And he owed her. She'd saved all their lives by keeping her head and leading them through the tunnels when all else had been lost.
She'd also been the driving force behind their decision to go against the Guildmaster's wishes and return to the red Core, for which he would probably never forgive her. But he owed her this at least.
And so here he was, about to throw in his lot with a talking crystal and its motley crew of bizarre miniature humans. It’s not like I have a lot of other options. Besides, traveling far away from the Guild and waiting for things to blow over is not the worst thing I could do right now.
For the hundredth time, he glanced over his shoulder, scanning his surroundings. A rising wind rippled the meadow’s long grass, and he shivered.
Still no sign of Tiri.
Lightning flashed to the north, and a second later the first raindrop plinked against the back of his hand.
“Rain’s coming,” warned Coll, not stopping his slow dance.
Benin squinted up at the gray-black clouds, now fully smothering the late-afternoon sun and dragging the world into early evening. Another fat raindrop splashed his forehead. “What was your first clue?” He climbed to his feet. “We should put the tent up. Quit your damn yoga and give me a hand.”
“It’s not yoga.” Coll’s eyes were closed and there was a serene expression on his face as he bent his knees and slowly brought his hammer down in front of him until it rested between his feet. “I’m practicing my forms. Don’t want to get rusty.”
“Fine, I’ll do it myself. You’re about as useful as a chocolate teacup anyway.”
Coll opened his eyes. “That’s not what you were saying when I saved your arse from getting caught red-handed in the zoo.” He grinned at his own pun, and Benin fought not to wince at the memory of the burns on his palms—a truly unpleasant and alien sensation for any pyromancer.
“That’s because you did cool warrior things. I realize
