“Porridge? Fine. But there’s enough eggs to go around.”
“I know. I saw there’s still some left from—”
“No, I mean, they ain’t having breakfast. They ain’t having nothing. They’re gone.”
“What?” Ainsworth yelped, standing up and almost toppling his mug off the wall. “Impossible! They have not yet stirred from their room. I would have heard them,I—”
“Ashe said they departed before dawn, headed away from the mountain. Left a note and coin for Honey on the counter, thanking us for the food and song, and that’s it.”
“But— They were supposed to be my research participants!” Ainsworth wailed. No, no, it couldnotbe happening again. He stormed through the kitchen, heading toward the reception desk and front door.
Three separate traveling parties had arrived this past week.
And three separate traveling parties had turned away from Mount Vengeance and gone home the next day.
The first had been a party of four warrior dwarves, looking tohone their fighting skills as they looted the mountain for its treasure. Their leader, Tirius, was able to drink even Bren under the table, yet seemed nothing but stone-cold sober all night. She had been hesitant at Ainsworth’s proposition to get in touch and share their adventures with him afterward. “I’d rather talk to a bard myself,” she had guffawed as he explained his intentions.
“Well, my work will give something for the bards to work from. Many of them come to our halls, seeking legends and myths to compose their verses; it saves you the hassle of looking for one who composes rather than merely recites. And only the best gain access to our work.”
She had accepted his proposition after that. Tirius was someone, he thought, who knew what it was to be featured prominently in song and tale: free meals and berth at most establishments, a constant supply of work, always being sought after, and never having to seek for a path to a secure future. And there was no questioning her ferocity. When Ashe heard telltale signs of gretlems flying overhead, coming for the livestock, Tirius insisted Ashe continue enjoying her meal while she took care of them. She also dragged Ainsworth outside to watch, and he suspected Ashe would have enjoyed witnessing him tremble and cower as he tried to make note of Tirius’s battle descriptions, which she called out during the grotesque fray.
But upon waking the next day, the party did not seem downhearted as they decided not to pursue the mountain. “We have no need for money, and we realized we have nothing to prove,” Tirius had remarked, puffing out her chest as she handed Ainsworth back the postage money. “It’s not worth the risk. We’re heading back to Cawle to take part in a combat competition instead. I can write to you about that, if you want?”
Ainsworth had smiled weakly and told her she could reach him at the Skarrow Library if she so wished, but privately vowed never to open a letter penned to him in the rough, scrawling hand of Tirius Nartport.
The second party consisted of one elven ranger and his monstrous badger—much, much larger than any Ainsworth had seendepicted in scrolls and books. “Pip won’t hurt you,” the ranger laughed when Ainsworth jerked away from its wandering nose. Considering that, on its hind legs, it came up to Ainsworth’s waist and wore a light suit of armor, he very much doubted the ranger’s assurances. The ranger had promised his beloved he would find her a drà-leug gemstone to embed in the lifelong-band he would soon place upon her finger. “It is the only way I can prove how serious I am about her,” the ranger remarked over a shared meal. “They are so rare, formed when the heat, acid, and magic from a dragon seep into stone and change its very nature. They fetch a preposterous price, but from what I’ve heard, even if I do not find any on Mount Vengeance, I will instead find an abundance of treasure that will let me pay for one!” He promptly agreed to seek out Ainsworth and tell him about the adventure afterward, thrilled his love would be immortalized by a historian.
The following morning, he was teary-eyed as he held Honey’s hands in his own; Ashe was crouched in apparent conversation with the badger just outside the front door. “I don’t need to do this,” the ranger sniffed. “There is no token of affection worth my life, no token of affection that can prove to her how much I love her more than the commitment I offer her.”
He kept Ainsworth’s parchment and postal seal, but returned the gold. He insisted he would invite Ainsworth and the whole staff to their joining ceremony.
And now—
“Is it true?” Ainsworth demanded as he stormed out the front door.
Ashe stood leaning on the inn wall. Ainsworth was surprised to see Honey sitting cross-legged on the grass at her feet, mending a rip in Ashe’s trousers. She had a needle in her mouth, thread dangling, as she pieced the fabric together. “This would be much easier if you took them off,” she murmured.
“The last time I did that, I never got them back.”
“It was no fault of mine! That was the day Ruraidh lost the laundry.”
Ainsworth gave a pointed cough, forcing them to look at him. Ashe smirked. “Told you he’d come out in a fury.”
Honey considered the tear in Ashe’s trousers. “Again, it is no fault of mine.”
“I am not ‘in a fury,’ ” Ainsworth said after a deep breath. Admittedly, his temper had been bubbling at the surface ever since Lyria’s letter—so much pressure, and so little to show for the weeks he had been here so far.
But that was his problem, not Honey’s or Ashe’s.
“I just…They were so eager. They said their future career as a hunting party depended on it. That to slay a dragon would ensure they had their pick of clients across the kingdom and the republic.” It truly was difficult to believe they had simply departed without achieving their goals. The sheer amount of weaponry had stunned Ainsworth, and River’s assortment of spells and enchanted items was striking. Enach, a sorcerer himself, possessed not even half as much as the huntsman had. River had been the one to inspire the most confidence in Ainsworth. He had treated Ainsworth’s proposition as more of a transaction, something he expected to happen. Why wouldn’t their journey be documented, and why wouldn’t they be the ones to find and slay the rumored vengeful dragon?
“Well, they decided against it,” Honey murmured. Ashe flinched as if Honey’s needle struck, but she did not say anything. “A note on my desk this morning suggested that River had previously been contacted by a colleague about another job in Dunbea. I suppose they realized they’d rather do that job instead of heading out to Mount Vengeance.” She looked up at Ainsworth, a flash of genuine disappointment on her face. “They kept your coin and special parchment. They said they will give you the tale of that adventure instead.”
“Very well,” he said, rubbing his forehead as a dull ache began to form. The spending report for this project was already so much longer than any actual work he had to show for his studies, and the thought unleashed his temper. “There must be something that makes these people turn away! Is it some sort of magic, something inthe food? What curse lies atop this wretched inn?” Perhaps it was time to finally admit that there was something at work here. When Ainsworth had pressed the ranger and Tirius as to just how they had come to their revelations overnight, they simply repeated their reasons for leaving, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to follow a path completely opposite to what they’d intended without anything to trigger such a decision.
Honey yelped as Ashe strode toward Ainsworth, needle still in her trouser leg, and grabbed him by the collar. Ainsworth was taller than her, but the strength in her grip made him certain she could lift him into the air. “Goodness! Ashe, what—?”
“Are you suggesting foul play, scholar?” Ashe’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting we are running some sort of scam? Some sort of trickery?”
