74. Beating Around The Bush (Patreon)

I truly regret the moment I began naming chapters. Ah, well!

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The next several days passed rather peacefully. The sisters’ nightmares grew a little less frequent and a little less intense, and a week after their rescue they could both usually go back to sleep after waking from one, which did wonders for their general mood. They were also filling out a little, a diet of frequent meals full of carbs slowly undoing the damage of a week of healing-induced starvation.

There was no repeat of Mak’s outburst of violence, though how much of that was thanks to Ardek keeping his distance was hard to tell. He wasn’t so much fearful as wary, speaking to and helping her as necessary but watching his words and keeping a careful eye on her whenever they were close. And Mak must have gotten some small catharsis out of it, because after that night a little of the quiet strength I remembered returned to her eyes, bit by bit.

If he was holding a grudge I wanted to know, but when I asked him about what had happened he didn’t look angry or anything. His face fell and he shrugged. “I’m not an idiot. She was pretty clear with why she did it. It’s not like she’s wrong, either. It just surprised me, that’s all. She’s good at hiding her anger.”

“You didn’t even try to defend yourself,” I said. “She’s a lot smaller than you. Aren’t you embarrassed?”

“Like I said, I’m not an idiot. This is basically a gang, right?

I narrowed my eyes at him, but he continued quickly. “A small one, but basically a gang. I don’t know what else to call it. I’ve been in a few gangs, and one rule is always the same: if someone higher up than you decides that you need a beating, you take it. Fighting back gets you beat worse if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, you’re dog food. Or fish food, if the gang’s turf is near the water. Then you either fuck off, you swallow your pride and keep going like nothing happened, or you find a way to kill the bastard.”

He looked across the small clearing we were in, at Mak who was napping in the sun. “I can’t go anywhere. And I don’t want to hurt Mak, or Herald. She’s right. I didn’t do anything. I don’t think I could have, I would have probably got killed if I tried, but yeah. I was there, I knew what was happening, and all I did was look away.”

He had a thin, green stick in his hands, and started peeling the bark with his thumbnail. “You know, when we were offered to join, it was the best day of my life. We’d made it, you know? Berek and Ava and me. The Night Blossom, she doesn’t run a gang. She runs an organisation. And no ganger fucks with you when you work for the Night Blossom. And all we were supposed to do was to guard her businesses, run messages, maybe move some less than legal stuff from one place to another. Nobody ever told us about any slaves or any torture prisons or shit like that.

“I won’t lie to you, boss. I’d like to just run off and pretend that none of this ever happened. Maybe use my stash to buy passage to Tavvanar or Marbek. But I can’t. When I think about skipping out on you and the ladies it’s like… I feel sick, in my soul, if you know what I mean. I owe them, for being part of all that, and I owe you, for letting me live when there was nothing stopping you from killing me. I’m not going anywhere. Can’t say I love being out here, though.”

“You’d better get used to it. I won’t feel comfortable sending any of you back to Karakan until Tam and Val are back, and we don’t know when that’ll be.”

“That’s the brother and his man, right?”

“Right. They’re the swordsmen of the team. The frontliners. Once they’re back I’ll probably send you all back.”

“I think I’ve seen the brother before. At one of the Blossom’s gambling places, down by the harbour. Not many ‘teki in the city, you know, and the merchants don’t speak Karakan like a native. Luckiest bastard at dice I’ve ever seen. The house boss banned him after a couple of nights. Wanted a couple of us guards to rough him up to really get the message across, but there was a guard patrol passing by and he slipped away.”

“Lucky you. If you tried to lay hands on Tam, Val would have fed you your own spine. Possibly in the company of some of the Grey Wolves. I thought the Tekereteki adventurers were fairly well known?”

“I’m sure they are in the Adventurers’ Guild. Maybe among the guard? But it’s a big city. Why would anyone know anything about them who doesn’t need to? Besides, the house boss was an arsehole. He barely tolerated Barleans. I’m sure he was overjoyed to have an excuse to give a ‘teki a beating.”

“This isn’t the first time I hear about Tekereteki being disliked here, though I haven’t seen it. Is there an actual reason for that, or is it just bigots being bigots? It’s not like you’re at war with them or anything, right?”

“I mean… war? Not right now. Next one is probably just over the horizon, though. But even when we’re not at war there’s always ‘teki pirates attacking ships and raiding fishing towns for slaves. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s who the Blossom was selling her prisoners to. So, you know, they’re villains, right? In stories and theatre plays and all. Plus they enslave anyone with magic just for having it, which is just uncivilised, isn’t it?”

“Karakan enslaves people who can’t pay their fines. That’s sick.”

I could see that he wanted to argue, but instead he said, “Maybe. But enslaving someone because they got magic as an advancement, that’s just… it’s supposed to be something to celebrate, you know? They twist it into something ugly. There has to be something wrong with a city like that.”

“Herald and Mak’s parents would have agreed with you. They were refugees who fled Tekeretek, from what I’ve been told.”

“Yeah? But to most people that won’t matter. When you see a ‘teki who speaks our language like they grew up here–”

“Which Herald, Mak and Tam did. They’re all citizens. Herald was born here.”

“Sure, but nobody’s gonna know that. You see a ‘teki with perfect Karakanian and you think they’re a spy. I don’t know what else to tell you. I mean I know, now, that they aren’t. Right?”

“Not as far as I know,” I said flatly. He was clearly aware of the hole he was digging, and was trying to find a way out.

“Yeah, yeah, of course, but, uh, where I was going with all this was that there are real reasons people wouldn’t like ‘teki–”

“Can you say the whole word? I’m pretty damn sure that what you’re using is a slur.”

“What, ‘teki?”

“Yeah. Stop.”

“Alright. Uh, so yeah, there are real reasons someone wouldn’t like ‘teki – Tekereteki people, I mean – like if they have friends or family on the sea, or on the coast. They could have lost someone, you know, or they’re worried that they will.”

“Are the Tekereteki pirates the only ones?”

“Nah, there’s lots of Barlean pirates too, and they usually have crews from all over the League, I think. Any sailor desperate enough could become a pirate, I guess.”

“Yeah. Ardek, if you’re not already, I want you to convince yourself that Herald and her siblings are neither spies nor pirates. Understood.”

“Yes, boss.”

“And when we’re back in the city, if you could try to help their reputation without getting your ass kicked, I want you to do that, too. Maybe point out how these three particular Tekereteki were instrumental in saving three or four dozen Karakanian citizens from slavers, stuff like that.”

“That… I mean, I’ll try, boss. I’m not a lawyer or a politician, but I’ll try.”

“Come on, where’s your self confidence? People like you, right?”

“I don’t know if that will help if I’m trying to talk up someone they hate. But I’ll try, boss. I’ll try.”

Five days after I’d brought them all to the mountain I had their days all turned around. I’d told them what I was doing. They agreed with my reasoning, and as far as I could tell they were being honest, though Ardek had been pretty uncertain until I told him about Mak’s night vision spell. After the second night they’d started sleeping just inside the gate, and I had gone back to sleeping in my nest. I’d started worrying more about someone setting up camp and seeing the gate open when we came out than I did about Ardek betraying us, and I wanted to be able to check the situation out before opening.

On that fifth day I woke them a few hours before sunset. That night we were going hunting, and the humans had spent most of two previous days preparing wooden racks that Herald told me were for drying skins and meat. I’d offered to bring them fresh meat myself, but Mak and Herald had resolutely refused. Mak because she thought that a hunt would be a good activity for them as a team, and Herald because she just wanted to go hunting, which she couldn’t exactly justify if I did it for them.

“Besides,” Herald said when I talked to her about it, sitting away from the others. “Ardek can reliably hit inside the lines on the trunk now. I was hoping that we might find a deer, and he could take a shot at it.”

“And if he misses?”

“Then he can look for the arrow in the dark. It will be good practice for him.”

“You are taking his training seriously.“

“I do not see the point in teaching him anything at all if I am not to be serious about it. And I feel bad for him. I could so easily have been in his position.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I was nearly a street kid myself, though I at least had a roof and one warm meal to return to in the evenings. Mak and Tam worked themselves to the bone to provide me even with that. If they had been a little less determined, or caring, or lucky, I might have ended up like Ava.”

“Ava… that was–”

“The woman you killed coming out of the prison, and Ardek’s friend. Yes.” Herald sighed. “It turns out that I knew her, once. Not well. She was with one of Mag’s friends a few years ago, and she was not on the street when I knew her. I did not even realise until a few days ago when I was talking to Ardek and he mentioned her. I do not know what happened, but it must have been shortly after I stopped seeing her that she joined the gang that Ardek was in. Perhaps her parents were ruined or died without leaving her an inheritance. Such things happen.”

She looked at me sadly. “My point is, that could so easily have been me. Neither her nor Ardek were there because they were bad. She could be rude and condescending, but she could also be funny, and kind. Ardek told me that Ava couldn’t look when they brought me past. I guess she must have recognised me. And it is true that neither of them did anything to intervene, but they had few options and less to fall back on.

I suppose I want this to be a second chance for him, which Ava will never get.”

“Is that why you asked me to spare him to start with?”

“I have no idea what I was thinking back at the house. I remember very little from when you rescued me. When we spoke in the cellar I suppose that it had some part in my motivation, but I meant what I said. I really do think that he will be useful. He knows many places and faces connected with the Night Blossom, so if we are to find her, having Ardek’s loyalty and cooperation will be a great help. And I think that he is sincere in his desire to help.”

“I got the same impression,” I said. I wasn’t the greatest judge of character, and I wasn’t too proud to admit that, but as far as I could tell Ardek had been honest with me. “But he knows everything there is to know about Mak and myself. If he betrays us…”

“If I even suspect that he might, then I will kill him myself,” Herald said solemnly. “So take his continued survival as a sign of my confidence in him.”

I looked at the seventeen-year-old in front of me, the girl who wanted nothing more than to be taken seriously as an adult and an adventurer, who had just declared that she would murder a man only two years older than her if she even suspected him of being disloyal. A young man who, according to himself, had an ability to make people like him. IT wasn’t that I doubted Herald’s determination or sincerity. It certainly wasn’t that I doubted her ability and willingness to kill when necessary; she had killed men in front of me. But this was different, and if push came to shove I wasn’t sure that she could do it, to kill a man in cold blood like that. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to.

“If you suspect something, come to me before you do anything about it,” I said, not wanting her to think that I doubted her. “If you catch him in the act, use your judgement.”

“As you wish,” she said with a small shrug. I might not have hidden my concerns as well as I wanted to, but if she didn’t want to make a fuss over it I was happy to call it there.

*****

The hunt went about as well as could be expected. We all went in a group, of course, and Ardek showed a remarkable inability to learn from his earlier mistakes, crashing through the trees like a drunk moose. At least that’s how it felt compared to the rest of us, who all moved almost soundlessly. Perhaps he was still distracted by his amazement at Mak’s spell, which let him see in the dark. Herald and I, of course, didn’t need it, since there was plenty of moonlight for us to see by.

Once the stars aligned and Ardek managed to move quietly enough for long enough to get within sight of a deer that I’d sniffed out, he took his shot. The first one missed so wide that the deer was barely alerted, only looking up and around for a moment before going back to stripping leaves off a bush.

The second arrow hit, badly.

Herald had talked for a long time, using sketches, about where to aim on a deer and a boar, the two prey we were most likely to come across. The area you wanted to hit was smaller than I’d thought, but still fairly large, covering most of the upper torso. Ardek put his arrow two feet off target, hitting the poor deer somewhere in the gut.

The deer, of course, jumped and ran. Was the hit lethal? Probably, on a long enough time scale. It could be hours before it bled out, or in the worst case days before it died from massive infection if no major blood vessels had been hit. And the deer would be in horrible pain the whole time. Luckily, Herald and I had talked about this ahead of time. When she’d learned to hunt, Lalia had shot her own arrow at the same time as Herald, so that if Herald’s shot was bad, Lalia’s was likely to kill the animal quickly. We only had one bow, but we had something better: me.

The moment the deer ran I went after it. It was entirely instinctive; even if we hadn’t discussed it, I’m certain that I would have done the same. The prey ran, and I pursued. That was just how it worked. When food or fighting was on the cards, my dragon side came out in full force. I'd felt it slowly growing stronger all night, and now it was let loose.

The deer ran for its life, not knowing that it was already as good as dead. It ran full tilt, and it was hard for me to keep up with it, but the smell of deer and blood was strong, and it was easy to follow. I used my wings for bursts of speed whenever possible, sometimes keeping the deer in sight and sometimes not, but it was a matter of endurance, not speed. Thanks to my fortitude advancement, I had endurance in spades as long as I didn’t sprint dead-out, and the deer couldn’t keep up its pace for long, not with an arrow in it.

It didn’t collapse, but it did slow steadily, and in the end I ran it down. I felled it the way I’d seen big cats do on TV, getting my claws in its hindquarters and knocking it off balance enough to make it stumble, which let me tackle it to the ground properly. I didn’t want to make a mess of it, so I sunk my teeth into its throat and tore it open, vein, arteries and all. God, gods, Mercies or whoever, it felt good! I thought back on my first kill, an injured mountain goat, and I almost laughed. I had been so… maybe not weak, but soft. I’d cried, actually cried, when I killed the poor thing. Why? It had been in pain, as good as dead, and I had been hungry. Sympathy is one thing, but to cry when I had been practically doing it a favour, ending both of our suffering at once? That was just sad.

Humans can be so weak, I thought fondly. That’s why they need dragons to look after them.