Ranulf looked at the motley group he was nominally leading. He reminded himself they still knew him as Thome, but it was possible they were just following that polite fiction out of respect to him and Beka.
They all faced him and the biggest figure among them was Hild who was lightly tossing her heavy war hammer back and forth between her hands. Amella stood next to Hild, holding hands with Jan, Hild’s assistant. She was quiet and reserved in her heavy gray woolen cloak. The halfling who had been on the stage with Beka stood on the other side of Hild. Her rotund appearance and her stature of just over three feet made Thome more comfortable around her than Lushanna. Sparrow stood off to the side; an outsider even when she was invited.
“I know the rest of you. What’s your name?” he asked brusquely, pointing at the halfling.
“Lidda Greenbottle. You don’t have to be so…abrupt.”
He could tell she wanted to say rude, but she was too polite.
Seeing Amella holding hands with Jan and knowing some of the history they shared, Thome asked his next rude question. “Do I need to know which ones of you have fucked each other or are you going to make a big deal out of it?”
“What difference does that make?” Hild asked, glancing at Jan.
“I’ve fought alongside men who had fallen in love with each other. They tend to make stupid decisions in battle to protect their lover.”
“She’s not coming with us,” Amella said, indicating Jan.
“I’ll take that to mean you all know how to handle yourselves in a fight and are willing to make whatever sacrifices are best for the…for the village.” Thome focused his attention on Sparrow. “How long a march is this going to be?”
“I can get there in a day…as a cat. It’ll take us at least two.”
“I can fix that,” said Beka who had suddenly appeared just behind Thome.
“How?”
She unslung a water skin from her shoulder and produced five small wooden cups. Thome was starting to desire drinking from anything other than a wooden cup. Beka handed the cups to those who would be traveling and started pouring out the contents.
Thome was certain he smelled alcohol. “I hardly think getting drunk this early in the morning will help our journey.”
“It’s not alcohol,” said Beka. The group all looked doubtfully at the healer who dabbled in alchemy as well.
“Smells like orc liquor that’s gone bad,” complained Hild.
“It’s perfectly fine to drink,” Beka assured them.
“You first.”
“What does it do?” Thome asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.
Not wanting to waste any more time, Beka took the cup from Hild and sipped from it.
“See?” she asked, perfectly fine. “Watch.”
Beka then ran with alarming alacrity to the far side of village commons and back in the blink of an eye.
Even Thome was impressed.
“Haste,” she said. “The effects should last all day and not leave you exhausted when it wears off.”
With a shrug, Hild downed the entire contents of her cup. The rest of the group followed suit with Thome going last.
He gagged slightly as the vile liquid went down his throat. It was worse than anything he had ever tasted before in his life. He tried not to think about when he and his comrades had been forced to eat half-rotten rations in order to survive during one campaign.
Taking two cautious steps, Thome suddenly found himself halfway across the commons.
“This might work.”
Sparrow led the way. Thome had been worried about Lidda being able to keep up. The potion that Beka had supplied proved more than sufficient in allowing her to keep up with the group.
Because they were so focused on where they were going, they were unable to talk amongst themselves. Thome found that to be a good thing. It meant that he didn’t have to answer any uncomfortable questions and didn’t have to deal with the women interacting either. Though the potion made them more than twice as fast as normal, they needed to fully concentrate on where they were going so as not to trip over rocks or accidentally slam into a tree.
Sparrow stayed in her human form, not reverting to either cat or tabaxi. She led the way unerringly. They had started in the morning but none of them felt a need to stop for a midday meal. The tracker brought them up into the mountains and into the hardscrabble where, even with the potion, they all found it hard going.
It should have been impossible for the tracker to find her target, but using her near-mystical skill, they stopped at the rough opening to a cave an hour before the sun set.
“This is the place,” she announced, coming to a skidding stop.
“We should go in right now,” said Hild, swinging her hammer back and forth. “We’ll have an incredible advantage with Beka’s potion.
“No,” said Amella. “We should rest and enter in the morning. We need to rest.”
The group looked to Thome for his opinion.
None of them had military experience. Only Hild knew how to fight hand-to-hand in real combat. Between Amella, Lidda, and Sparrow, not one had any adventuring experience. Amella claimed to be an accomplished sorceress, but it was one thing to cast a spell in a calm environment, it was another to do it in a fight. Lidda was a complete unknown. Thome had some hope for Sparrow, but he feared she might be unreliable and unpredictable.
After a moment’s reflection Thome realized he wasn’t exhausted, just as Beka promised. “It’s a terrible idea to camp outside an enemy’s home, especially since we know so little about what’s inside. Beka’s potion worked. We enter now.”
There was no grumbling. Apparently his authority and experience was good enough for the group.
He was grateful for that.
“Smell or sense anything?” Thome asked Sparrow as they took off their packs and readied themselves for the infiltration.
She rolled her shoulders. “Just a vague whiff of drake. And there is a presence, mostly human, I think.”
“Probably the wizard’s,” Thome said thoughtfully.
“Probably.” She didn’t sound convinced.
Thome was uncertain as well, but he wasn’t going to let anyone know that.
“Weapons and essentials only,” he told the group.
To their credit none of them looked nervous. He didn’t comment on it.
“Single file. Follow me. Stay quiet. We don’t know what we’re getting into.”
“Ain’t we supposed ta be killin’ whatever monstrous wizard is inside this cave?” Hild asked.
“Yes, but…we don’t have a plan. We scout and spy for now, but stay together. Hild, bring up the rear.”
A sneer curled on her half-orc lips. The expression was enhanced by her lower incisors jutting out. “I’d rather lead. Smash the fucker first.”
Thome just shook his head and adjusted his armor, admiring the excellent job she had done in fixing it. “Information first. Protect the others from obvious attacks. Don’t let anyone sneak up on us.”
Either his leadership was better than he thought or Hild saw his logic or maybe she was obeying orders just to obey him and move the event along.
Hild nodded and grunted assent.
The cave itself wasn’t natural. Or maybe it had been natural decades ago, but the floor was unnaturally flat. The walls were mostly natural. It wend and wound its way back into the mountain. They were forced to use a magical light provided by vials Lidda handed out. The light was discrete and Thome saw the advantage of it over torchlight.
The going wasn’t difficult but Thome worried about making it out of the mountain even though there were no branches to the tunnel. He had a foreboding feeling and didn’t like the weight of the mountain pressing down on him.
Sparrow, right behind Thome, made a soft hissing noise and grabbed his shoulder. She hissed in his ear, “Tunnel opens wide up ahead.”
Despite the situation, he found a smile tugging on his lips. “I bet it does.”
“Aren’t you the one who’s supposed to take this seriously?”
He nodded and prepared himself. “Wait here. I’m scouting ahead.”
The women crouched down against one wall and looked to him. Hild glanced back down the tunnel and pressed her back to Amella.
Sparrow’s ears and other senses had been spot on. He moved forward twenty feet in the dim light offered by Lidda’s vial half tucked into his belt. At that point the tunnel took a sharp right turn and opened up into a huge natural cavern.
He almost tossed aside the light vial in frustration. Sufficient unnatural light filled the cavern. He couldn’t see fine details, but crystals of some sort illuminated the space so nothing else was necessary.
Carefully scanning the cavern from the entrance, he saw nothing of interest or dangerous. He only saw natural rock formations.
“Wild goose chase,” he muttered to himself. “Only no goose at the end for a feast.”
Backing up he went to the women and informed them of the situation. They carefully advanced and moved just inside the cavern.
It was his plan to search the cavern with their assistance, but Lidda stopped them. “It’s fake,” she announced firmly.
“Looks real ta me,” said Hild tapping her hammer against the wall.
Thome winced at the noise.
“It’s an illusion.”
“How can you tell?” asked Thome right as the room exploded in brilliant light.