V

The sun had just set, leaving the sky mostly dark with a faint blue above the trees. The hot summer day had gone, leaving only a warm night and bright stars.

The day as a whole—at least after their incident with the bandits, was rather uneventful. Sorika had been correct about the stream, and so their horses had been rested and watered.

Most of them had complained through-out the day, but at least Lev didn’t pick on Dorrin so much. A part of Yoreno understood Lev’s discontentment with the other adventurer, but berating him wasn’t going to make Dorrin any better.

At least not during this adventure, Yoreno thought.

“Are you daydreaming about Dantera?” Dell had asked.

“What?”

“You know…” and he made a gesture with his head, indicating… what?

“Leave off,” Sorika had said.

“What?” Dell asked, indignant. “We all know it.”

“Know what?” Yoreno asked.

“That you and Dantera are… well—you know.”

Yoreno glanced toward Mai to see what she would say, but she was conspicuously absent from this conversation as a little smirk crossed her lips.

“No way,” Yoreno said.

“Yes way,” Dell insisted.

“The letter all but confirms her feelings for you,” Lev added out of the blue.

At one point it seemed that perhaps, maybe there was something there, between himself and Dantera. That night before their ambush on those men on the Isle of Morr. And then again later, but…

They finally left him alone, as Sorika had told Dellwyn to do.

And now they were in Crayvin. It was a town surrounded by a palisade wall, the structures of modest sandstone with awnings to block the sun.

The streets were lively with adventurers, townspeople and food stalls. Yoreno noticed the demihumans immediately.

“Is that…is that a fushi?” Mai asked.

Yoreno followed her gaze to a white-furred woman with multiple bushy tails that went up, then curved down on themselves. Her face was remarkably human, save for her ears.

“Yep!” Lev said. “A lot of ‘em here.”

“Not just fushi,” Sorika said. “I see cat eye, and canines, too.”

“In the past year in Aevalin I’ve seen a grand total of one demihuman,” Dell said indignantly.”

“During the fall,” Sorika said, “many of the races stuck to their own. There was too much infighting at first.”

“Is that the reason?” Mai asked.

“That’s what the books say.”

“Oh. I thought I read something like that before, but I must have forgotten.”

“I don’t like them,” Lev said.

“Why not?” Yoreno asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “There’s just… something about them.”

“Something monstrous?” Dorrin asked.

Their archer looked at him and nodded. “I guess you could say that.”

“No picking fights,” Yoreno said, booting his horse down the road. “Maybe we can find lodging for tonight and see if we can pick up Dantera’s trail in the morning.”

“I’m starving!” Dell said. “I’m sick of eating fire-roasted food. I want a honey-baked ham and some buttered bread.”

“Oh,” Mai said. “That sounds sooo good.”

“Lodging first,” Yoreno said.

They trotted down the street and as they got deeper into the town, Yoreno noticed an adventurer’s guild. It was a taller building with a painted front, slashes of blue and red and little white diamonds.

On the front of the structure was a shield and sword painted above the thick double doors of unstained wood. “That’s where we’ll find information about Dantera,” he said.

“Here we go!” Lev called.

Yoreno turned.

There was a sign hanging from an establishment that read THE COILING SERPENT.

“It’s an inn,” Mai said.

“You noticed?” Sorika asked sardonically.

Yoreno got off his horse. The streets were very well lit, and there were guards everywhere. He wondered if that prevented crime, or if the guards were so numerous because of rampant crime? “Be careful,” he said. “I bet a lot of rough types come through here.”

“It’s so nice, though,” Mai said. “I love these trees.”

“Those are palms,” Lev said.

“Hey, how do you know?”

“I read too.”

“What?” she asked incredulously. “You read?”

Lev chuckled. “Yeah, when I’m studying with you noble louts at the Roaming Lions. I’ve seen trees like this before. In my own travels.”

“His own travels…” Sorika said with a smirk.

“Really?” Mai asked, a genuine air of curiosity in her face.

Lev nodded nonchalantly. “Sure.”

Yoreno ignored Lev’s showing off and stepped into the inn. It was quiet, and in the common room a tiny fire crackled. There were tables, but no one was sitting at them. Yoreno went to the front desk where a man was making marks in a ledger book. “Hello,” he said.

The man looked up and nodded. He was a slightly darker shade of skin than what Yoreno was used to seeing in Aevalin and his dress was more like those bandits they had encountered earlier in the day.

Had kingdom borders still been drawn, this would be a different country. But now, after the Age of Darkness, they were in no man’s land—borderless, kingless. It was a wild frontier of cutthroats, monsters hunters, adventurers and treasure seekers.

“What do you need?” he asked, his accent unfamiliar to Yoreno. But at least he spoke the common tongue—or what passed for the common tongue in and around Aevalin.

“We need a room.” He gestured to the group. “Something that can accommodate us all.”

The man nodded. “Ten coppers apiece—and no fakes.”

“We wouldn’t dream of giving you fake coins!” Mai blurted.

Yoreno glanced at her, then back to the skeptical innkeeper. “Why is there no one down in the common room?”

The portly fellow wagged his finger. “We do not serve food here. Beds only.”

“Oh,” Yoreno said, counting out the necessary coppers for them all. He didn’t have them, so he dropped a silver coin down on the desk.”

The innkeeper eyed it suddenly, then made to seem like he barely noticed the coin. He then gave Yoreno four big copper coins and ten small ones.

“These coins look… different,” Mai said as she turned them around in her fingers.

“Yeah,” Yoreno said. He wasn’t certain if he was somehow getting scammed. He suspected his silver coin was worth more than the silvers they used here, but without looking at them—and having none—he couldn’t say.

Perhaps they had less silver in them, or maybe they were smaller.

The innkeeper told Yoreno their room number and handed him a large key. He thanked the man and then led the way up.

They came into a room with six small beds.

“Well,” Dorrin said. “It’s a warm place to sleep, I guess.”

There was a cold hearth in the corner, but they probably wouldn’t need it. The summer winds in this town were quite warm.

“It will suffice,” Yoreno said.

“Better than sleeping on rocks,” Dell said. “Right?”

“Gods yes!” Lev said and dumped his pack onto his bed. “Now we need to find something to eat. How about Dell and I go out and find us some grub while the rest of you tired old folks rest?”

“Hey,” Dell said. “I’m tired and old too.”

“At least someone should stay and watch over our things,” Sorika said. “How about Mai and I stay behind. The rest of you louts can go scout out some food for us.”

“Fine,” Lev said.

Yoreno followed.

As they stepped out into the street, Yoreno wondered what their next plan of action would be. He didn’t want to go to the guild and every inn in town and ask about Dantera. That would put the word out about people looking for her.

Since she was on the trail of an assassin, that was not a wise move. It was best to ask questions that hinted at what they were looking for, then parse out the answers to see if Dantera had come through this way.

But according to the map, there were few places she could have gone without wandering through the wilderness for some time. So it was logical that she stopped here in Crayvin and then headed in some other direction as she tracked the assassin.

Even king killers needed food and beds.

But this clan—or cult—whatever it was, had resources. So it was entirely possible that they had set out over the wastes and through monster-infested territories to lose any possible trackers that might be on their tail.

It’s what he would do.

And yet, he thought, hardly any knights left Aevalin in search of the assassins. Mostly the word was that anyone who went out that far wouldn’t come back alive. Cowardly talk, surely.

But even Yoreno had to admit, wandering out into these badlands was easier said than done. And the assassins had had a sizable force. Perhaps they felt safe enough not to do something so drastic.

Knowing nothing about these assassins, only time would deliver the information Yoreno needed into his hands.

“This looks good!” Lev said and gestured to a roast pig on a spit. There was an apple in its mouth.

Yoreno noticed the structure further up on the hill. It looked somewhat illustrious—like a large temple or a tiny palace. He wondered what that building was.

Perhaps the governor of this town lived there?

“Sir,” Yoreno asked the man behind the suckling pig. “That structure there.” He pointed. “What is that?”

The man leaned out of his stall. “Oh, that is the king’s palace.”

“King?” Lev asked. “This place has a king?”

“Kingdoms have kings, no?”

“I guess,” Lev said, scratching his head.

“I didn’t know Crayvin had a king,” Yoreno added.

“Crayvin?” The food seller laughed. “This place has not been called Crayvin for fifty years. This is Shunavar!”

“So much for your map,” Dell said.

“Right?” Lev asked with a chuckle.

“My apologies,” Yoreno said to the food seller.

“Yes, well—are you going to buy some food or not?”

Yoreno nodded. “We will.”