Self-Made Scoundrel (13 page)

Two people came around the corner and Derk smiled at the priestess Sindra, and the Wielder, Devra, arm in arm as they approached the kitchen. He whistled in greeting and Devra waved at him, both of the women smiling as they walked toward him. “Meal’s not done yet,” he said, holding the bag of greens at his side. “Asa’s fixing with some priestess in there. He’s quite the cook, apparently.”

“You’re in for a treat if Asa’s in the kitchen,” Devra said. “Hes a better cook then our mam, though he’d never admit it.”

“Do be sure to save me a plate,” Sindra said, pulling her arm out of Devra’s. “Maybe two?”

“Are you not going to share the meal with us?” Derk asked, genuinely curious. Apart from meal times Derk rarely had a chance to talk to the priestess. Last night she had turned in shortly after prayers and during the day she rode in the cart with Devra and Asa. There would be others at the meal but through careful planning he could maybe sit next to her or at least share an interesting story. He had to endear himself to the beautiful priestess somehow.

“I’m afraid not,” Sindra said, shaking her head. She tucked her hands into her sleeves despite the warm weather. “I have to go into the town and meet our guide, the one who is going to take us into the Freewild.”

“Well make it three plates to be saved because I’m coming with you,” Derk said suddenly. Devra seemed a bit surprised but Sindra’s smile dropped from her mouth, a bit of panic showing in her eyes. If Derk hadn’t been so focused on her he might not have seen it, as she wiped all apprehension from her face before answering.

“It won’t be necessary, Derk. I know where the tavern is and as a priestess, I don’t need protection.” She smiled warmly at him but Derk was curious as to why she wanted to go by herself, almost as much as he simply desired to go with her.

“It’s not for your protection, not that I wouldn’t lift a hand to keep you safe.” Derk tried to think of a reason to tag along without seeming to obvious. “I’d just like to go with you. I’m…well, I’m bored here at the temple, to be honest and I could at least pick up a game of cards at the tavern. Plus, I hear the band playing at the Last Stop is very good.” This was true. Kaela the priestess had mentioned it to him in an earlier effort to get him out of the kitchen. “I do like music. I’m a good singer, maybe I’ll take up with them and leave you lot to find the chalice yourselves.”

“I hope not! We like having your company,” Devra said, taking the bag of greens from him. “Sin, you should take him. He’s probably going crazy in the temple. Though promise me you won’t run away with the band, Derk. I’d come but I have studying to do.”

“It really isn’t needed,” Sindra said, insisting. “Besides, our guide might…he’s a bit…to himself. I don’t want him to feel surrounded.”

“So you’re meeting him in a tavern where a band is playing?” Derk chuckled. “Bad planning on your part already. What’s one more person? And besides, he’s going to have to meet the rest of us sooner or later. Half now, half later? Or one third, I suppose, since he already knows you, right?” The argument was sound enough. Sindra looked to Devra, defeated. Devra just smiled back, skipping into the kitchen with the bag of greens. Derk offered his arm to Sindra, hoping she wouldn’t snub him. A quick narrowing of her eyes is what she gave him before she took his arm in his and together they walked down the street.

“Have you ever been to the Last Stop?” Derk asked, trying to keep the conversation light. “Or Bluemist?” It was Derk’s first time in the town at the southeastern most point of the Tyeskin Barony. Last Stop was the name of many a tavern bordering the Freewild.

“I’ve been to both,” Sindra answered, seeming a bit distracted. She managed to look up at Derk and he wondered if her dark skin was as soft as it looked. Her dark grey eyes were large, flecks of black dotting the irises. A smile tweaked the corners of her full mouth; if she noticed Derk staring she didn’t say anything. “If you can manage to wake early, the Mist is a sight to see.”

Derk surprised them with his ability to fall asleep in the saddle. Asa had asked for lessons but Derk thought better of it. He laughed out loud, glad the priestess was joking with him. “I think I can pull it off. I like things that are a sight to see.” They walked for a few blocks without saying anything, Derk looking over the people in the town and glad to see a few were staring. He felt Sindra’s hand grip his arm a little tighter. “Are you afraid of something?” he whispered.

“No, it’s just…well, people are looking. You’d think they’d never seen a Forester before.” She laughed, sighing quietly afterward. Her grip on his arm loosened slightly.

“You’re the first I’ve met though my father told me my great-grandfather met one.” The people from the Forest of Clouds showed up in the older, first stories of the Valley but now they were rarely seen. Derk had never thought he would meet one and now he was walking down the street with a Forester, a beautiful Forester woman.

“You’ll be meeting your second in a bit,” she said, nodding her head in greeting to someone who waved. The Last Stop appeared in the distance, a lone building standing apart from all the others. A girl fed some chickens in the yard and the aroma of dozens of suppers made Derk’s stomach rumble. He grinned at Sindra’s words.

“Another? You mean our guide-”

“Is a Forester, yes,” she said. “Very knowledgeable about the Freewild. He…spends a lot of time there.”

“Oh?” Not only was the guide a Forester, which was strange, but he spent time in the Freewild. Was he a criminal? From what Derk understood only miscreants and social rejects lived in the Freewild, though he never said this to Old Gam. The Freewild was strange with land often fertile one year and dead the next. Not to mention the threat of Freemen, the strange creatures living in the crevices and hollows, beaten back by the Barons. Derk remembered the depictions and stories from his youth, how the Freemen raided villages and stole food and weapons, having no language but shrieks and cries. Their numbers had dwindled to the point where they were almost just stories. Still, most people chose not to live in the Freewild. It was safer in the Baronies.

“Was your friend born there?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation back to the guide. It occurred to him maybe Sindra and the guide were more than just acquaintances. Perhaps this is why she didn’t want anyone to come along.

“No, we were both born in the Forest.” Derk and Sindra walked through the door of the Last Stop and Derk was glad to be within the walls of a bar again. It was noisy and warm, the way it was supposed to be with the aroma of sawdust, beer and food cooked all day wafting through the air. People played cards and dice at tables and in the corner a quartet of musicians were setting up. Sindra looked around and Derk did too, out of habit, though he had no idea who he was looking for. Instead of a guide he found a free table and pointed it out, the pair of them picking their way through the occupied tables and chairs.

“What’ll you drink?” he asked. “Some food, maybe? A snack? A dance when the music starts?” That got a smile out of her. She seemed nervous, her arms crossed over her chest. “A drink?” Sindra nodded eventually and smiled without showing her teeth, keeping her eyes focused on the door. In the dim light of the bar her eyes seemed almost black but they were still pretty.

“One pitcher of your summer brown,” Derk said. “Three cups. And a bit of whatever you have that’s fried.” The sinewy man behind the bar went into the back and came back with the pitcher and glasses, handing them over only when Derk laid down the money to pay for them. He raised the pitcher, showing it off to Sindra before sitting down with her and carefully pouring her a glass. Sindra took it all too quickly and gulped it down.

No sooner had she set her cup down when she stood up and waved, Derk looking to see who. Derk tilted his head to the side, slightly confused at the person who walked in. He was a Forester to be sure. His dark skin was a touch darker than Sindra’s and when he pulled back his hood Derk saw they shared the same raven black hair. However his mouth was thinner and looked like it rarely smiled, his steely grey eyes hard as mirrorstone. On a face so young it was almost a shame.

What really made Derk stare was the armor he wore and the sword at his side. Who showed up to a tavern in armor? In this weather? The sword he could understand. Swords didn’t fit in packs. But the guide looked like he was there for a fight, not to meet a friend for a job. Derk half expected to see dead animals hanging off of him but the sword was the only thing he saw.

Well, they aren’t lovers, Derk mused, watching as the two Foresters regarded one another. They looked related. Sindra tried to display a happy face but the guide just sat down, letting his pack slip to the ground with a rather ominous thump. Maybe the dead animals were in there, Derk thought. As if sensing his thoughts the guide shot a glance at Derk, as if trying to stare him down. Derk smiled and waved two fingers in greeting. “Hi, I’m Derk.”

The guide slid into his chair and raised his eyebrows at Sindra in a way which could only be described as annoyed. Then he started to talk. It must have been in Forester because Derk didn’t understand anything he said. He could tell the Forester was not happy. He wasn’t surprised when Sindra answered the guide back in the same foreign tongue, both of them seeming to whisper though no one could have possibly understood what they were saying. Derk wrapped his hand around his mug and took a pull off of it before he set it back down, pouring their guest a cup. Without missing a breath, the guide took the cup once it was full and took a drink.

Derk sat back in his chair and watched the two talk. It was obvious the guide was not pleased to see Derk there. He appeared to be trying to back out of whatever arrangement they had and Sindra was trying to convince him to help. Then Sindra said something and the guide corrected her, which made Sindra laugh, not in a kind way. She said something else to him and took a sip of her drink. Now the guide looked serious. He crossed his arms on the table and brought his tankard to his lips, setting his eyes on Derk. Derk just waved back.

“Why are you going?” the guide asked him. His words were accented, his Rs rolling too much as if he was still speaking Forester. Just then the tender brought a plate of food; vegetable fritters with sauce.

“Why, so you can steal my reason? Find your own!” Derk picked up one of the fritters and frowned, finding them to be too greasy. He took a bite and watched as the guide stared at him for a few breaths. Derk raised his brows at him and sat back in his chair, watching as the guide turned his attention back to Sindra and asked her something.

Finally Sindra laughed and the priestess stood. “I’m going to step outside for a bit. Don’t let him leave.” She pointed to the guide and addressed Derk.

“Maybe we’ll leave together,” Derk chided, taking a sip of his drink. Sindra narrowed her eyes at them both before she made her way out of the bar. The guide stared at Derk. It almost made Derk shiver.

“Come on, let us leave,” The Forester said, grabbing his pack. Derk grasped him by the wrist and shook his head.

“Are you serious? I was only kidding, we can’t leave!” Derk waited to let go of young guide’s wrist, once he was sure he understood. “I mean, we could but Sindra’d be angry. They’re counting on you.”

“I do not want to take you into the Freewild,” the guide said, shaking his head. “It is not a good idea.”

“Why?” Derk said, lowering his head. “You afraid to take us? We can hold our own.”

“No, it is not that,” the guide said. “I simply do not like you.”

“What?!” Derk wasn’t sure if he had heard the Forester correctly. “You don’t like us?” He couldn’t believe it. But the guide nodded. “What are you, ten?” Derk sputtered.

“Ten what?”

“Ten years old! Is someone playing a trick on me?” Derk ran his fingers through his hair, trying to wrap his his mind around what the guide just said. “Look. What’s your name?”

“Jezlen.”

“Jezlen,” Derk said. “I didn’t give you a reason to come along with us because you have to have your own reason for doing things. Otherwise you’ll just jump off the cart before you hit the gate. Sometimes you do things even if you don’t like the people you’re working with. Though to be fair, you haven’t met all of us. I’ve been told I am very likeable. And Asa is fun. Devra’s good to look at, sweet as well. And well, do you have anything better to do? Honestly?” Maybe Jezlen did. From the looks of his armor and his pack, he’d done a few things before this meeting. But obviously he had free time or he wouldn’t have shown up at Last Stop. “Plus, what about Sindra? She looks like she needs you. Like…it would mean a lot to her. You’re what, cousins?”

“She is the sister of the first wife of the brother of my father.” Jezlen said it with a straight face so Derk tried not to laugh or make a big deal out of it. Instead he drained his beer cup and poured himself another glass, seeing Sindra enter through the door.

“So your…aunt. She needs you. I bet that means something.” Derk tried to read Jezlen but when he wasn’t talking he was hard to gauge. Sindra sat down and picked up one of the fritters, wrinkling her nose.

She talked to Jezlen in the strange language again, leaving Derk to try to figure out what they were saying. After a breath, he leaned forward. “You know, it would be nice if you would speak in Valleymen.”

Jezlen stared at Derk and laughed, not with his mouth but with his eyes. “Do you speak Forester, Derk?” he asked, pouring himself another drink.

“No,” Derk replied curtly, wondering what was his point.

“I speak Forester and Valleymen. How is it my problem if you do not know a language?” Jezlen rolled his eyes and reached into his pack, pulling out a pipe and some smoking herbs. “I am fine with switching. Your Forester is not very good anymore, Sindra.”

“You’re a terrible nephew,” Derk said. He didn’t care if Jezlen didn’t like it.

“Everything I am, I am terrible,” Jezlen said, pulling a match out and bringing it to his pipe, lighting the bowl with a few puffs.

“But you’re an excellent guide,” Sindra interjected. She was holding her cup in both hands and she leaned forward, drawing closer to the Forester. “Please, Jezlen. I…I already told the temple we had a guide–”