“You better be saying ‘calamity’ in an affectionate way,” said Mizuki, pointing a finger at Verity.
“Obviously.” Verity smiled. “You’re the one bringing calamity down on our enemies.”
Hannah beamed. Whatever else was true about her, it seemed that Verity had a good work ethic, and she already seemed to be orienting it toward the dungeons. For a moment, Hannah listened to Verity’s song, a jaunty tune about a mighty sorcerer throwing thunderbolts around, and then she went for a more advanced miracle, something that would give Mizuki as much to play with as possible.
Chapter 13 — The Nature of Travel
When Isra woke up, it took her a moment to realize where she was. It was her second time staying at an inn, her second time in any house that wasn’t her own, really, and it was strange just how disorienting it was. Isra had camped out in the woods plenty of times, and she had never felt the sheer sense of dislocation that she experienced that morning in their small room in the Hare’s Rump. Gradually though, she came to herself and listened to the birds chirping outside the window. They were tame creatures, scavengers of the town, but pleasant all the same, in the way of birds.
Alfric was still sleeping at first light, but he stirred as soon as Isra began moving. They had decided to share a room, which had taken a little negotiation, in part because they were so unsure of each other. Isra had worried, briefly, about sharing a room with a man, but Alfric hadn’t had so much as a brief moment of physical contact with her. She had wondered, as she was about to drift off to sleep, whether she needed to be worried.
In the morning light, things were more clear. Isra had woken in the middle of the night and seen Alfric sitting up straight, but she’d fallen back asleep and wondered whether she had dreamed it. He hadn’t crossed to her side of the room. The dagger she’d kept beneath her pillow hadn’t needed to be drawn.
“All right,” said Alfric as he stretched out. He went to look out the window and judge the time of day. “Early start then?”
“Yes,” replied Isra. “Breakfast on the road.”
Alfric frowned at that, but said nothing, and Isra decided not to inquire. She wondered whether he hadn’t brought his own food, but if he hadn’t, then he was in luck, because she’d brought plenty to share. It was better not to inquire, given that there were so many mistakes she might inadvertently make. Even offering him food was a risk, since it might mark her as weird in some unexpected way. Her father hadn’t had enough time to teach her all the ways to avoid missteps. Silence was the easiest path, she’d found.
“I think the others will be happy with the results of the sale,” said Alfric as they took their first steps away from Tarchwood. “Even if it’s quite a bit less than I thought. Still a windfall.” He glanced at the bow on her back but said nothing about it. She looked at his pack, which had the large book, now with many of its pages filled with rocks. He’d found that odd, but she didn’t care. “It’ll make it easier to convince the holdouts that it makes sense to do more dungeons.”
“Mmm,” said Isra. She now knew Alfric better than the others, if only by virtue of the scant conversation she’d had with him during the twelve miles of walking they’d done thus far. “It’s easy money.”
“There’s some risk,” Alfric admitted. “It’s easy money until it isn’t. One bad dungeon and everyone winds up dead.”
“Does that happen?” asked Isra. She kept her voice level, but the thought of it made her heart beat a bit faster. There could be anything in the dungeons, that was part of the allure, as she understood it, and if you found something that you couldn’t fight, or worse, that you couldn’t run from… well, she could understand how a person could die. The creatures there were so wrong, so disordered.
“Every now and then,” said Alfric. “You hear stories. Usually it’s younger groups that go places that are too tough for them. Sometimes there’s an uproar, and people try to put a stop to it. The League does help stop the worst of it, but they’re a bit of a trivial roadblock. Between the entads and the ectads, there’s too much profit to be had. We made out well in terms of rings, but the things we sold will almost immediately turn into profit for the people we sold them to, to the tune of twenty to thirty percent. They’d no more shut down the dungeons than they would shut down the mines or stop the foresters from chopping trees or—well, I hope you get the point.”
“There’s nothing from the dungeons that people need to live,” said Isra. She was thinking of her own trade, hunting. If she was forced to stop, it would mean less meat in the village, and people did need meat to live.
“Well, yes and no,” said Alfric. “Strictly speaking, I suppose you’re right, but those pipes we took from the dungeon will be used to make waterstones, and without those, people would be reduced to drinking well water or river water.”
“I drink water from the stream,” said Isra.
“Oh, well,” said Alfric. “Is that… safe?”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” asked Isra. She was getting that tight feeling, like she’d once again said something wrong.
“Disease, I thought,” said Alfric.
“In the cities, maybe,” Isra replied. “So long as people follow the rituals, there should be no problem.”
“The rituals?” asked Alfric.
“For waste,” Isra replied.
“Oh,” said Alfric, in a way that suggested he didn’t know the rituals for waste, or thought her odd for mentioning it.
They walked in silence for a bit. That was how it went with Alfric, and seemed to be how he preferred to spend their time together, silence punctuated by verbalizations. They were silences that she didn’t particularly like, because it seemed as though he was carrying on the conversation in his head, looking for ways to keep it going, which made her feel uneasy.
The silence was interrupted though, as a rustling of grass came from the grazing field beside them. By the time a ball of black fur leapt up over the stone wall, Alfric had his sword drawn and Isra’s dagger was in her hand.
It had to turn a bit to find them, but when it did, the dog started barking its head off.
“Back!” shouted Alfric, brandishing his sword. He lowered the point of it, aiming it at the dog, which was barking ferociously and showing teeth.
Isra slipped her dagger back into its sheath and stepped forward. “That’s not how you handle a dog,” she said. She moved to step in front of Alfric, between him and the dog, while the dog continued his barking. “Stop,” she said, using her best commanding voice.
The dog stopped immediately, closing his mouth and straightening up somewhat to look at her.
“Sit,” she said.
The dog sat on his haunches, now fully at attention. Isra got closer and stooped down, patting him softly on the head, then feeling around his neck for a collar, finding none. She frowned slightly, then stood back.
“You’re not a wild dog,” she said to the dog. “Someone should have put a collar on you. Go back to your owner.”
Without another sound, the dog hopped back over the stone wall and could be heard rustling through the grass, away from them. Isra turned to Alfric with a smile, but he was staring at her, and her smile fell.
“What?” she asked.
“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Have you never had a dog?” she asked. “They must be less common in the city.”