CHAPTER 13

Everything hurt. Vax felt like he’d been trampled by a horde of stone giants, and the very act of breathing was a struggle. He lay on soft blankets, with something hard underneath, and his back felt like it was on fire. The pillow beneath his head felt lumpy. He coughed, and someone pressed something cold against his forehead. “Good morning, sunshine.”

Vax tried to open his eyes, which was harder than he remembered. “Vex?”

“Don’t fight it. You needed a fair bit of healing to get you back on your feet.”

The voice was unfamiliar. The lilt to the words not like any he’d heard before. Not his sister.

The damp cloth dabbed at his cheeks and his throat, and soft hands pushed a strand of hair out of his face. “Come on now, try to open your eyes. You were so close.”

He blinked again. The room around him swam into vision. No, a stone chamber. Rough-hewn stone walls, illuminated by lanterns every couple of feet. Slightly damp air around him, and the smell of dirt. He turned his head and moaned. “Fuck.”

“That’s what you get for tangling with ash walkers.” Amusement made the voice sparkle, and Vax tried to locate where it came from. “You were bleeding out when we found you. That last one nearly tore through you.”

The hand with a damp cloth appeared again, and this time, Vax could trace the rest of the speaker, from the long, slender fingers, to the patched-up sleeves of a tunic, to the gentle eyes and the wavy black hair that fell over pointed ears. The half-elf in front of him had rough scars on one side of his face, like multiple claw marks across his brown skin. He looked as young and as world-weary as Vax, in his mid-twenties at most. But his hands were steady, as were his kind ministrations.

“You have to thank Emryn for the fact that you’re here with us at all,” the half-elf said. “He’s the one who saw you fall when they attacked. You looked like you were about to be devoured by the ash yourself, you were such a mess. Emryn got himself nearly torn to pieces as a result. Sencha, our healer, patched you both up as best she could. She may have left you with a few new scars, but you’ll wear them well.”

“Thanks,” Vax croaked, his throat dry and his voice unsteady. The half-elf placed the cloth to the side and helped Vax sit up so he could take a sip of water from a waterskin. His hands were warm on Vax’s arms.

“Don’t mention it. It’s the very least we can do.” He smiled wryly. “I’m Thorn.”

Vax took another sip of water and tried to speak. “Where’s my sister?”

Thorn didn’t flinch, though some of the merriment disappeared from his expression. “You were there with your sister?”

Vax nodded.

“You were the only one left behind. All the others were taken in by the Shadewatch. Your sister will be in Jorenn Village by now.”

Thorn’s words held an edge that Vax couldn’t place. He let himself fall back against the lumpy pillow—and immediately hissed when pain arched through his back. He vaguely remembered the glint of moonlight on weapons and insignias. If Vex was inside Jorenn, surrounded by the Shadewatch, she was safe. At least for now. She’d be able to take care of herself there.

“Where are we?” he asked.

Thorn spread his arms wide, like he was touring Vax around a castle full of miracles instead of a chamber with a makeshift cot and a damp glaze along the walls. The coat that he wore over his tunic fell open wide, showing what looked like a snake wrapped around his waist, but when Vax blinked again and focused, it was simply a belt. “You, nameless friend, are in my home.”

“Good.” Vax closed his eyes for a second, relief overwhelming him. “That’s very good.” He wanted to keep talking, he wanted to ask more questions, but with the pillow snugly beneath his head, the healing coursing through him, and Thorn’s hand on his shoulders, he promptly fell asleep.

WHEN HE WOKE AGAIN, ANOTHER person sat next to him. For the briefest instant, he thought it was Vex. Then his vision cleared and he realized the other person was a dwarven woman, who was seeing to the bandages around his torso. The lanterns that illuminated her were brighter now, the light as pale as the dawn, and reflected coldly off the gray stones around them.

The dwarven woman had her brown hair dappled with gray tied back under a headscarf, and she worked with quiet efficiency, unwrapping and rewrapping, renewing the poultice across the slash wounds. It smelled vaguely of mint and cinnamon. She placed one wrinkled brown hand over the bandages, and with the other she reached for a small copper hammer on a long braided chain. “All-Hammer protect you.” A soft glow emanated from her palms, warming him like the heat of a summer’s day. She must be Sencha, the healer Thorn had mentioned.

He followed her movements without saying a word, but when she tied up the last bandage, she didn’t seem at all surprised by his being awake.

“Junel is cooking breakfast,” she said. “With the healings you’ve had, you need good sustenance. A bit of moving around can’t hurt either. Emryn is sleeping, so I can walk you over.”

Vax sat up, and Sencha reached out to him when the world spun around him. “Careful, dear, your body is still recovering. My capabilities are limited, and it will take a while for those slashes to heal properly.”

“Ungh,” he said eloquently. His sister and he had certainly had their share of trouble doing odd jobs and working for hire these past few years, but those cuts and scrapes were nothing more than what they could handle. They could take care of themselves out in the wild, and once Vex had saved up enough gold to afford it they got into the habit of always carrying herbs and bandages to patch themselves up if things got dire. Usually that was more than enough. But usually didn’t come with skeletal creatures with sharp claws.

“Thank you,” he said.

Sencha patted his hand and gestured at a fresh set of clothes that lay beside him, next to his familiar fur-lined cloak and his daggers. His belt held a few pouches with necessities—travel rations, lockpicks, a small whetstone for his blades. He’d had to leave the rest of his belongings back in the camp. “It’s my pleasure. Try to make sure you don’t immediately get into another brawl. I know your type, half-elf.”

He had an inkling who she might be talking about. “Where’s Thorn?” he asked.

She stilled at that, but then she smiled. “That foolish boy went back to your encampment after you mentioned your sister. He wanted to be sure neither we nor the Shadewatch missed anyone.”

More flashes from the fight came back to him. Worry too. That edge to Thorn’s words. He reached for his clothes. “I should be there too. I have to find her.”

Sencha placed a firm hand on his shoulder. “You’ll do no such thing. You’re in no shape. He’ll do what he can. He always does.”

Vax waited for the nausea to pass. “Is this something you do regularly? Run in to help strangers fight those ash things?”

Sencha recovered the dirty bandages and swept them all up in a bundle that stood at her feet. The corner of her mouth pulled up in a half smile. “When the occasion calls for it, and the days are free of ash walkers. We’re careful with who we bring in here. I’ll let Thorn tell you all about that, if he wishes. Foolish boy or no, he calls the shots around here, and I will not betray his trust by telling you more than he wishes to share.” She waited for him to get dressed and take the first couple of steps, obviously to make sure she didn’t need to catch him if he fell. When he managed to cross the chamber without toppling over, she added, “Especially since you haven’t told any of us your name yet.”

“Vax,” he said softly. “It’s Vax.”

“Well then, Vax, come and I’ll show you where there’s food to be had and others to meet. Don’t worry about the rest of your clothes. We’ve saved them for you, but I’m not about to let those wounds get infected again.”

She showed him out of the room and through a long stone passageway, where the high ceilings were supported by tall wooden beams. The corridor was lit with similar lamps to the one in his chamber, and shadowed openings led to chambers on either side. Some were used as storage, some used as sleeping areas. Some looked natural, some looked like they were hewn and claimed from the stone itself. Everything around them had a peculiar earthy smell. It was cold and fresh but it also had a metallic aftertaste.

“We’re a way underground,” Sencha offered, noticing Vax’s curiosity.

“A cavern? A system of caves?” he asked. He tried to figure out if he’d seen anything of the sort, any entrance into the hills, while they made their way to Jorenn.

“A mine, actually.” Sencha tapped one of the wooden support beams. “Long since abandoned but its structure still holds.” She led him around the corner into a wider cave, and from there into another passage.

Vax tried to keep track of the various twists and turns while also trying to stay upright. The walk was harder than he wanted to let on. “Are you miners?”

Sencha looked over her shoulder at him and smiled. “We’re many things, dear. But that’s up to Thorn to share. For now, we’re the ones offering you health and breakfast. You’ll have to content yourself with that.”

He didn’t content himself with it. He also didn’t ask more. He held on to his questions and observed the underground world around him, the path that Sencha followed, and the various intersections they passed. Though their years of travel together had brought them to the strangest places, aside from his occasional foray into sewers, Vex and he hadn’t spent much time underground, let alone in endless systems of corridors and shafts, and it had nothing of the details he’d grown accustomed to in other places where he needed to find his way. The stone path in front of him was somewhat dusty from use, but still Sencha barely left any footprints. The light sources were evenly spread throughout the various tunnels and chambers, making it hard to gauge distance. It took him altogether too long to realize they’d been walking on a slightly downward slope, spiraling deeper into the mine. By the time he did, his head was spinning and the slashes across his back were aching. Though he was used to dark corners and small spaces, and he’d never been particularly claustrophobic, the mine’s innate disorientation left him on edge.

But when the smell of food drifted up toward him, along with the constant rumble of voices, his stomach at least responded with roaring recognition. “Smells good,” he admitted, when Sencha laughed quietly.

“Junel knows what they’re doing,” she said. “If you think my healing is magic, you should try their cooking.”

With that, she turned a final corner and led him to a sizable dining-room-slash-kitchen where two long tables were set up, with at least a dozen people at each table. Some were talking and laughing, while others were eating quietly. A number of them showed signs from last night’s fight, in bandages and cuts and scrapes. At the far end of one of the tables, a half-orc woman was bent over a book, a pair of glasses clamped around her nose. A battered and tarnished glass sphere drifted above her, glowing with a soft blue light that illuminated her reading. Closer to Vax and Sencha, a trio of young halfling men were huddled together and having an animated conversation in hushed tones. Something to do with a hidden treasure—or perhaps a date. Vax couldn’t quite tell. One of them had a bandage wrapped around his head.

When he passed the table, the trio quieted immediately, wide-eyed and with spots of color on their cheeks. As disorienting as the tunnels of the mine was Vax’s sudden realization that he was only two, maybe three years older than the halflings. He felt at least twice their age. He tried to remember these hushed and stolen-moment conversations.

Sencha marched past both the tables, toward the far side of the kitchen, where a gnomish individual was cooking breakfast—pancakes and porridge—using magically heated stones instead of fire. Junel dashed back and forth between pans, juggling utensils, and mixing up ingredients, a similar headscarf to the one Sencha wore tied around their hair, and a dusting of flour on their dark skin. They were talking to themself constantly, only holding up for a second when Sencha walked over to them, Vax in tow.

Sencha sat Vax down in an empty seat, planted a kiss on Junel’s cheek, and pointed. “He needs to eat. He’s recovering from a fight and a healing and the shock to the system of being underground too long.”

“I’ll be fine,” Vax protested.

“You will eat,” Junel said, pointing their ladle in Vax’s direction, their tone brooking no argument. Soon he found himself surrounded by plates of food. Not merely pancakes, but dried fruit and sweet pastries and various types of meats. If he hadn’t held up his hand and cried mercy after Junel set down the first half a dozen plates, he was sure there would’ve been at least half a dozen more.

Sencha had been right. The food was excellent. Simple, and far better than the travel rations they’d gotten in the meager inn in Westruun. It was all the tastier for the company that came with it. Vax wasn’t merely surrounded by food, he was surrounded by comfortable conversations and laughter.

It didn’t take him long to pinpoint the feeling. Those present here, whether they engaged in conversations or not, all spoke the same language, they saw the same world around them, they shared the same experiences. The arguments sounded like arguments they’d had a hundred times. Across the table, one dwarf’s comments were met with groaning from all those around him whenever he so much as opened his mouth. A brown-haired dwarf with a bounce in his step walked in, took the book from the half-orc with a grin, and planted a kiss on her nose before muttering something under his breath.

It’d been like this back home, a lifetime ago.

He was surrounded by a sense of community, and he hadn’t felt that in years. All he needed now was Vex by his side.

But when Thorn appeared from another entrance, streaks of ash across his face, blood and mud on his coat, and a cut across his forearm, he was alone. All the conversations paused momentarily, as if everyone collectively inhaled to prepare themselves for what news he would bring.

Sencha immediately rushed over, but he waved her off, and his eyes found those of the half-orc. Anger simmered under his skin. “The package is gone,” he said. “Burnt to a crisp. I got rid of a stray walker or two, but the encampment was empty.”

The woman grimaced, then got to her feet, taking both the book and her dwarven companion with her, and walked deeper back into the mine. Others who’d finished their meal—or were concerned by Thorn’s words—got to their feet and left the room as well.

“Gods, I hate them,” Thorn growled. He ran a hand through his hair and took a seat opposite Vax, his movements jagged and abrupt. Thorn’s all-consuming anger left nothing of the playful gentleness he’d shown when Vax had woken up midway through the night.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t find your sister,” he said, before Vax could ask. “She and your fellow travelers have all been taken by the noble Shadewatch, who are either cursed, lucky, or smarter than I give them credit for.”

Vax hesitated, because Thorn’s words and his tone said two different things. “So my sister’s in Jorenn?”

Thorn grabbed one of the knives from the table and turned it around in his hands. “In the care of the great Shademaster Derowen, savior of Jorenn and hero to all.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

Thorn didn’t reply immediately. He twisted the knife around and ran his finger along the blade, then slammed it hard into the table. He looked up to meet Vax’s gaze, and underneath his anger was a pain so raw that it took everything Vax had not to flinch away. “The Shademaster may cloak herself in kindness to outsiders, but she controls every single thing that happens in Jorenn. She’s a dangerous woman if you cross her or if you happen to fall on her bad side. My sister did not live to tell that tale.”