The village of Wartha Mull housed no more than fifteen hundred, with a few streets and outlying farms with barley or maize growing in patches. There was a palisade wall over a small ditch, to keep out as many wild animals as possible, and a single guard on duty where the trail entered the town.
The mine was defended by a much larger garrison. It looked like a simple shaft mine, from the entrance. There was no hill or mountain or pit, just a rain shelter built on wooden logs, and a pair of shutter doors leading down into the earth. Close to twenty guards were positioned around the opening—some of them were patrolling a fenced perimeter while others engaged in practice drills or simply warded strategic positions.
Vaenuth and her friends reunited with Arloe a few streets from the mine, with a view of it through an overgrown alleyway. Krebin had almost regained his strength, but he was eating little under Hulean’s directions. His stomach needed to heal, while the muscles in his abdomen had been thoroughly burned by his own acids. Hulean had repaired as much as he could, and now enforced a strict regime of fitness and diet to help Krebin recuperate as quickly as possible. Arloe shook his friend’s hand and listened to the story behind the wound.
“What about Old Man Jorath?” Vaenuth asked. “We can’t take on that many guards in an open field.”
“You’re right. And his estate is just as bad. We might be able to plan something at night, if we’re stealthy and lucky,” Arloe explained. “But I have a different plan, if you’ll listen. And follow.” They waved him onward, and Vaenuth followed curiously as they made their way ten houses down the street, toward the large Jorath estate on the hill. They stopped halfway, and he led them up a ladder onto a rooftop.
“Anybody live here?” asked Tagg, tapping the end of his sword pommel.
Arloe shook his head. “They use it for storage for a few of the shops down the road. Look at the view though. Old Man Jorath and his escort walk right down there to get to and from the mine shaft.”
Hulean nodded, and looked toward the mansion up the small hill. “Is there a missus?”
“No sir,” Arloe said.
“Children?”
“A few, but Alrin was the only one who mattered to the business,” Arloe explained. “I spent a few days in the Wartha Mull drink-house. Master spy, I say.”
Vae smiled. “No doubt. Pressip?”
“What?” the archer asked.
“Can you do this?”
Pressip sighed and scratched his head. One of his many colourful tattoos, a yellow one, looked white in the sunlight. “I can make the shot, if that’s what you mean. Can’t believe we’ve come to this… sniping an old man unawares.”
“Spare more lives that way,” Tagg said. “Theirs and ours.”
Pressip nodded. “I suppose. We’ll meet on the edge of town after? Am I staying here alone?” he asked. He pulled his bow off his shoulder and leaned on the railing of the housetop.
“We’ll leave as soon as you’re back,” Vaenuth said. “And not by the road to Lo Mallago. Through the wilds. They’ll be waiting on the roads after Alrin’s death, I suspect.”
“I’ll stay with Pressip,” Hulean said. “If it’s alright with you, Vae.”
Vaenuth blinked. “Anyone who stays is at risk. Why would you?”
Hulean shrugged. “I can make it easier. Quicker,” he explained. The man looked neither like a fighter, nor a scholar. Just an overgrown boy with powers none of them could understand. Vaenuth shrugged and led the others down the ladder.
“I owe you one, Pressip,” she said, as she climbed down to the street. She scratched the hem of her torso wrap as she strode away, and then wrested her wrist off the sword hilt at her waist. Tagg reassured Arloe that things would go well, but Vaenuth kept her tongue quiet. Things always went sideways when they were least expected to—Krebin had taken a blade through the gut in the middle of a skirmish that should have been smooth otherwise.
The flatland east of Wartha Mull was dotted with cypress and tall grass. A few young boys were playing with sticks near a small creek. They watched in fear as Vaenuth and her armed guards navigated upstream toward the growing darkness on the horizon. The sun started to set on their backs, warming up Vaenuth’s skin as it sunk lower than the clouds.
The hardest part was the waiting. They sat around in a small dale the creek had once carved, where Vaenuth rested on a log with her feet dangling down. The others sat below, save Tagg, who lounged on the grass nearby, watching for Pressip. They must have been there an hour when Vaenuth remembered something similar. She had been sitting on Belmyre, her beloved horse, outside the Logren village’s gate, waiting to see how many of her caravan survived. Pressip had been the first to stumble out, dazed by the shocking turn of events.
She prayed she’d see him striding through the cypress with the same reluctant fatigue…
“Dice?” asked Krebin.
“Dice,” Arloe decided. The little bone cubes clattered as he pulled out his pouch.
Vaenuth snorted and put her head in her hands, feeling the wave of her brown hair on her tattooed wrist. No sooner had she lowered her gaze than Tagg blurted, “There he is!” She glanced up to see Pressip jogging toward them, and, in a smooth push, she shifted off the log and onto the grassy soil.
“Let’s go,” she ordered. Soldiers could already be looking for them—Arloe snatched his dice back into their pouch.
Pressip panted as he approached. Hulean wasn’t there. “He vanished again. Magic,” Pressip panted. He was pressing his hand to his side, it came away with a small line of blood. “Just grazed,” he explained. “Keep moving. The guards are in the field.”
They charged eastward, into the ever-thickening forest. Vaenuth nearly tripped on vines, but she caught her balance and followed Tagg around a cluster of bamboo. “Did you get him?” Vaenuth asked, glancing over her shoulder at Pressip and his dangling quiver.
Pressip shook his head grimly. “Guard got in the way of my arrow. Hulean said he’d do it, no matter what.”
Vaenuth bit her lip and kept running. She didn’t trust Hulean. Not far enough. They’d have to regroup in Lo Mallago, come in the eastern gate on the Barren Road again. At least long enough to hear what Hulean accomplished, or failed to. She kept running and felt sweat drip down her scalp and trickle down her nose. She swore under her breath and didn’t say another thing.