Page 31 of Wanted: Rogues and Bards

Hapi yawned and pushed up enough to blow out the candle. “We can talk with the others tomorrow to see if they’re ready to move on. I’ve no reason to stay here any longer.”

Fenric’s fist twisted in the blanket as he stared at the black ceiling. The rain had slowed to a gentle pitter-patter on the roof and against the windows. He’d gotten nearly everything he wanted in Pomor and then some. He’d followed up on a couple of leads about his mother’s lost treasures. The main thing was to get his hands on more coin. His funds had been running dangerously low when they’d rolled into Pomor roughly a month ago. He’d hoped to make himself a tidy pile of loot while here to hold him over for a while so he could afford to focus exclusively on finding those lost items—and possibly killing the people who’d stolen them, but that was just icing on the cake.

Instead, he’d gotten a couple of shreds of maybe useful information and a puppy who was killing them off again and again with his cooking. Yeah, they needed to get the fuck out of Pomor before anything else weird happened.

“Are you any closer to finding what you’re looking for?”

Fenric was startled out of his wandering thoughts by Hapi’s question. He thought the elf had fallen back to sleep. “Huh? What are you talking about?” He’d not told anyone he was searching for something. The other men definitely didn’t know anything about his mother.

For a heartbeat, it felt like his stomach had fallen out. He wasn’t ready for anyone to learn about his mother. Doing so would have the group learning more about him than he was prepared to share. Stuff he might never be ready to share. It was all a dark pit he didn’t want to talk about.

But to climb out of that pit, to put the past behind him at last and reclaim those lost pieces of himself, started with getting back those stolen treasures.

An irritated noise escaped Hapi and he yawned again. “We all have something we want. Our private little quests. I’m willing to bet they all fall into the same three categories.”

“Which are?”

“We’re either searching for something, wanting to kill someone, or running from something.”

Wow. Hapi’s words were frighteningly accurate. Fenric needed to reconsider bunking with him so much. The elf noticed far more than Fenric gave him credit for. Couple more years and Hapi would know all of Fenric’s secrets.

“You don’t strike me as the type to run from something, and I really feel that if you wanted to kill someone, you would have done it already. That just leaves looking for something.” Hapi’s speech was getting more slurred the longer he spoke. He sounded half asleep already.

“Which category do you think Puppy falls into?”

“All of the above,” Hapi mumbled.

Fenric grinned into the darkness at Hapi’s answer as his heart slowed back down, his fear passing, but the smile slid away almost as quickly as it had formed. Maxie couldn’t be more than eighteen or nineteen, with little to no practical experience in the world, and if Hapi was right, he was already so in over his head. They had to get serious about giving him the training and tools he needed to survive. Hopefully he learned to ask for help.

Fenric snorted and rolled over. Yeah, Maxie would probably learn to rely on others as quickly as Fenric had.

Fenric woke to someone pounding on the door, and they didn’t sound friendly.

He scrubbed a hand across his face as he stumbled down the stairs. His sleep-addled brain briefly conjured up the town watch showing up on their doorstep after his escape from jail, but that was incredibly unlikely since he hadn’t given a real name and had told them he was merely passing through town.

The sun was barely up, so who the hell was knocking at such an early hour? As Fenric hit the last step and moved to approach the front door, he found Rain and Malfas half hunkering down near the table, still wearing the rumpled clothes they’d slept in and seeming to cringe against the knocking. Or maybe just the person demanding entry into their place?

“What’s going on? Who’s out there?” Fenric demanded, jerking his thumb toward the door.

Malfas hissed and waved his hands at him to keep his voice down while Rain tiptoed over to shove Fenric into the main sitting area. His eyes skimmed over the area to find Malfas’s mending spell still whirling away at the mess he’d made with Maxie. Pieces of broken furniture were crawling back together, and the scorch marks were gone from the ceiling but still marred the floor. The acrid scent of burned wood and hair was mostly gone after two days of ventilating the space. It was a vast improvement over how it had looked originally but still had a ways to go.

“What’s going on?” Fenric repeated, though his voice was softer this time.

“It’s the landlord.”

Shit.

Fenric glanced around a second time. This was really bad timing. Like, stupendously bad. The place wasn’t so much in “never getting their deposit back” shape as it was “getting kicked the fuck out” shape.

“We can’t let the blighter in here,” Rain stated.

“No shit!”

“You mongrels! Let me in my house!” The landlord’s deep voice echoed throughout the first floor. Fabulous. He’d added shouting to his hammering on the door.

“What are we going to do?” Malfas crept nearer the couch, his club clutched to his chest.

Fenric shoved a hand into his hair and grabbed a hunk as his mind raced for options. “It’s not like we can keep him out. It’s his place. He has a key.”