"Up."
I got up. This had been the entire shape of the last hour — Hask saying one word, me obeying it, the ground and I renegotiating our relationship in between.
He came at me again, slower this time, which meant he was making a point rather than testing me. I got my mop up in time. Barely. He grunted — which from Hask was either approval or the sound he made before deciding something needed to be harder — and reset his stance, his own mop clutched firmly in his hands like a greatsword. "Again."
My lungs disagreed with the plan. I didn't tell them that wasn't really their decision to make. As I hauled myself to my feet yet again, I was infuriated to find that Hask wasn't even sweating. I, on the other hand, felt like I was ready to pass out.
The foreman had doubled our sparring sessions in the last few days, stating that I needed to be ready for the audited dungeon run. He also said that it was time he "stopped going easy on me". I had found the statement ludicrous at the time, but now that I had become so deeply familiar with the taste of dirt and the relentless screaming of my muscles, I understood what he meant.
I used my sleeve to brush my sweaty hair from my face and lunged at him, my mop swinging before I even moved an inch. I was about a foot from him before our weapons collided. My arms were already numb from all the impacts, but I still felt the hit in my bones. We stalled in a clash, wooden handles creaking.
As I scrambled to recover from the recoil, I saw his boot swinging out to sweep my leg, out of the corner of my eye.
An opening.
I pushed my mop handle against his, hard, and managed to move it maybe a half an inch. It wasn't much, but it was enough to give me just enough room to get off my back foot. I jumped at what I hoped was the exact right moment to avoid his leg, and I heard his boot skid in the dirt.
Before I had even registered that my plan had worked, I caught a massive fist directly in my face. Black spots bloomed in my vision and I was forcefully knocked backwards, tumbling and skidding out in the dirt.
Hask looked down at me. "Good."
I pushed myself onto my elbows. "You didn't say we could throw punches!"
"I didn't say we couldn't either."
My face burned, from exertion, embarrassment, and of course, being punched in the face.
Hask clicked the button on his mop handle and the wood telescoped in on itself, the head shaking and disappearing inside. "Monsters don't have values, Callister. They don't have rules of engagement."
I spat out a bit of dirt. "Fair enough. So it's no holds barred from now on?"
"Yep."
As soon as the confirmation was given, my mop was swinging. I didn't even bother to stand, simply lashed out from the ground. With every ounce of strength and speed I could muster, I sent the handle flying for his groin.
He knocked my mop away with his collapsed mop about two inches from impact, and in the same motion, extended the shaft and jammed the butt of it into my stomach. Hard. I felt all of the wind leave me. "You're getting it."
I curled into a ball, my reply barely a wheeze. "Good for me."
Hask gave a grunt of amusement. "That's enough for today. Go get patched up. Your first round at the Yak is on me. Have Vlod put it on my tab. You earned it."
And with that, he just walked away. Very Hask.
As his footsteps crunched through the dirt of the training grounds, I heard him speak to someone I couldn't see. "Mornin', Alara."
"Good morning, Foreman."
I groaned again, not able to look up.
Alara was here. Great.
I was still struggling to even catch my breath when I heard an incantation and felt warm, familiar healing magic coursing through me. "Thanks, Alara."
"Sure. Don't move. If you mess up my spell, I'll beat you some more."
I winced as something twinged in my arm. "You got it."
Eventually I was healed to the point where I wasn't in complete agony. Only partial. I managed to sit up and look at her. She was as pretty and put-together as she always was, but I did notice she didn't use product to manage her stray hairs today. I decided that was a good thing.
She looked at me thoughtfully. "I've never seen anyone dodge him before."
It didn't feel like a full compliment, but I felt my ears get hot anyway. "Got lucky, I guess."
"Maybe. Let's go sit in the stands."
With surprising magnanimity, she helped me to the ramshackle wooden bleachers at the far end of the training yard that people used to watch others practice.
Even after all these months, I was still somewhat in awe of how real these "outdoor" spaces felt. The sky above me was clear and blue, the sun giving real heat. But as always, we were underground.
Once I had collapsed onto one of the benches, Alara took a seat near me. Not next to me, but closer than she would usually be. "Honestly, after what we saw him do in the Maw, you jumping his foot was actually kind of impressive."
That was a compliment. Definitely a compliment. "You feeling sick, Alara?"
She grimaced. "Sick of you maybe."
I smirked and said nothing more about it. Instead I chose to address the other part of what she had said. "I feel like I've been going crazy about that. Nobody's talking about what he did in that Core Chamber."
Alara nodded. "I think I'm still in shock over it."
"And this team doesn't exactly address its issues directly like it should."
"Correct."
"But it was amazing right?"
"Both the most incredible and terrifying thing I've ever seen."
"Tempest Striker…what the hell is that?"
"I tried to look it up, but there's nothing to be found anywhere about it. I think it's the foreman's unique skill."
I blinked slowly. "Seriously?"
"Yes. That would mean that his console had to codify something he already had in him."
"That's insane."
"Truly."
I sat in silence with her for a long time, both of us just looking off in one direction or another. It didn't escape me that this was the first real conversation the two of us had ever had. It was nice. The moment in the library the other day was the start. She said she'd find me later, and, apparently, she decided that post-ass-beating was the perfect time to talk to me. "You didn't come to talk about Hask, though, huh?"
She shook her head. "No."
"Well what's up?"
She pursed her lips and let the silence hang for an excruciating moment. "Are you in love with Tessa?"
I felt the color drain from my face. I could only stammer a response. "W-w-what are you talking about?"
Her face was somber. "I see the way you two look at each other."
"Why is everyone so invested in my love life?!"
"I'm not, I'm just messing with you."
I exhaled loudly. "Okay good."
She didn't change her expression. "You two would be cute together though."
"Stop!"
I saw the corners of her mouth lift ever so slightly into what could almost be considered a smile. If she was going to tease me, I'd give it right back. "Why are you asking? Jealous?"
To my surprise, I watched her face run through multiple emotions before landing on anger.
Oops.
Her brow was furrowed and she spoke severely. "Not even in your wildest dreams, Callister! That would imply that I have feelings for you, and I don't. And even if I did, which, again, I do not, you'd never know it because I wouldn't be swooning and fawning over you like Tessa does."
Swooning and fawning? Was she just jabbing at me, or was she seeing something I wasn't? "So…since you're not swooning and fawning over me…you're keeping your feelings for me to yourself?"
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
I didn't know why I was poking the bear. But I watched the tips of her pointed ears go bright red and it wasn't not amusing. "Why you insufferable –"
I held up a hand. "Relax. If you get to mess with me, I get to mess with you. That's how friendship works."
"We are not friends."
"Sure. What did you want to talk about?"
She went quiet, all the fight leaving her.
The silence stretched long enough that I almost said something just to fill it. I didn't. "My sister's letter."
Her voice had lost the edge it usually carried. Flatter. More careful. "We haven't spoken in years. It wasn't — "
She stopped. Started again. "It wasn't something I chose."
I didn't ask what had happened. I'd learned that much, at least.
"Her name is Veyla."
She said it like she hadn't said it out loud in a long time and wanted to see if it still worked. "She's a mage. Silver Fang."
That landed somewhere I hadn't expected it to. I remembered the tense encounter on the street we'd had with Silver Fang weeks ago. The somber, serious elf woman that looked both beautiful and extremely deadly.
Looking back on it now, I didn't know how I didn't clock the resemblance. "She's older than me. Was always — "
A small, humorless breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "She used to drag me into the garden when I wanted to read indoors. Told me I'd waste my whole life with my nose in a book if she let me."
"Did she?"
"Let me?"
Alara looked at the sky for a moment, the false sun doing nothing to soften her expression. "No. She never made me do anything. She just wanted me there. With her. Eventually I stopped reading indoors. I'd sit in the garden and wait for her to come home from some quest…she started off in a C-rank party called 'The Radiant Accord'."
She paused, shaking her head. "Stupid name. But I remember them. They were like my uncles…"
She stopped again. I waited. "The letter asked me to come somewhere. A specific place. A specific time."
Her hands were very still in her lap, which somehow felt louder than if they'd been shaking. "I don't know if I'm going to go."
"Do you want to?"
"That's not the question."
"What's the question?"
She didn't answer right away. When she did, her voice had gone somewhere I hadn't heard it go before — not cold, not sharp. Just tired in a way that had nothing to do with the morning.
"Whether I can handle seeing her."
I wanted to ask more questions. I did not.
She stood up before I could say anything else, brushing nonexistent dust from her sleeves with more attention than the gesture required. "I shouldn't have told you that much."
"You can tell me more. Or less. Whatever you want."
She looked at me for a long moment. Something in her face wasn't quite as closed as it had been before. Not open. Just not quite as closed. "Go get patched up properly. You look terrible."
"Thank you."
"I mean it as an insult."
"I know."
As she turned to go, she spoke again. "I appreciate you listening. Maybe, if you're lucky, we'll talk like this again. But I want to be abundantly clear: I still think you're an idiot and I don't like you."
I grinned at her back. "Of course."
She left. I sat in the stands a while longer, watching the false sun do its work on a sky that wasn't real, thinking about a sister named Veyla and a garden and a question that wasn't the one I'd asked.
The following day, I decided it was time to make my move. I had the coin, I knew where the tavern was. It was time to get that second conversation with Dan. I did my best to slip out of the Guild Hall unnoticed.
The market was busiest in the early afternoon, which made it the worst possible time to cut through if you were trying not to be noticed and the best possible time if you wanted to disappear into a crowd entirely. I wasn't sure which one I needed more. I picked the route anyway — it was faster than going around, and the Tangle would still be there in twenty minutes regardless of how I got to it.
I was halfway past the produce stalls, doing my best impression of a man with somewhere ordinary to be, when someone called my name. "Lorne!"
I turned, already smiling before I'd fully placed the voice, because there was really only one person who said my name like that — like she was delighted and mildly suspicious of me in equal measure.
It took me a full three seconds to recognize her.
Ojola stood between two stalls with a basket on one hip the size of a small boulder, haggling — successfully, by the look of the vendor's face — over a wheel of cheese roughly the diameter of a wagon wheel. But it wasn't the cheese that had stopped me cold.
It was her hair.
I had never, in all the months I'd known her, seen Ojola without her hairnet. I hadn't realized, until that exact moment, that I had simply assumed there wasn't much under it — practicality, maybe, or just habit. I had been incorrect. Her hair fell well past her shoulders in thick, dark waves, and threaded through it, with the same care she showed to her food, flowers of all shapes and colors. She wore a plain, light blue dress that contrasted nicely with her green skin and a simple gold chain around her neck.
She looked, frankly, magnificent. And also like she could still snap a man in half if he said the wrong thing about the cheese, if the rippling muscles that stretched her dress taut were any indication. "You're staring."
She didn't look away from the negotiation. The merchant clearly wished she would.
"I — sorry. I've just never seen your hair before," I stumbled to explain.
"Nobody who works the line needs to see my hair, honey. It's a kitchen. I'd find it in the soup."
"Fair enough."
She spoke again to the cheesemonger. "Two gold and I won't go a copper higher."
"But ma'am, I'd be selling it to you nearly at cost."
"You and I both know you didn't pay two gold for this wheel."
The bicep of the arm holding the basket flexed so hard I could almost hear it. I was not sure if she did it intentionally or not, but the poor man noticed. "Very well ma'am. You drive a hard bargain but I can respect that! Two gold it is."
I could tell that his statement was followed mentally by "please don't hurt me."
She slid two gold across the counter and hefted the massive cheese wheel onto one shoulder like it weighed nothing.
She fixed the merchant with a winning smile. "Have a wonderful day, now. I'll be back for more cheese next week."
The man's voice audibly wavered. "I look forward to your next visit!"
Ojola left the stall and strode toward me, her massive basket bouncing on her hip. "You're still staring."
I shook my head. "You're beautiful."
I wasn't trying to be flirtatious, just stating the truth. There was something about the combination of Ojola's fearsome orcish build and features and the delicate beauty of her clothes and hair that had me lost for words.
She grinned at me. "Well thank you. You're out of luck though, I already have a husband."
"OH! Oh, I didn't mean –"
"You and I could never be together... My husband does like to watch though."
"OJOLA!"
I was flush with embarrassment. She laughed that boisterous laugh of hers. "Relax. I'm only playing. I would break you."
On that, I knew she wasn't playing. She shifted the basket on her hip. "Where ya headed?"
I shrugged, gesturing in the general direction I had been walking. "Perfect! I live that way. Walk with me."
I happily did so. As people moved to make space for Ojola and her massive amount of shopping, I wondered if I should ask if she wanted me to help carry something. But taking a second look at that basket told me I'd break both my arms trying to lift it. "Are you…shopping for the Guild?"
She chuckled. "Guild buys all of its own ingredients. This is for me. I've got two hungry children at home. And my husband. So three hungry children."
"You have kids?"
"I do. Two sons."
"I had no idea. What are their names?"
"Well their True Names are Thrakka and Soren."
"True Names?"
She nodded. "Orc children are given utility names at birth. And as they grow and become who they are, the parents will give them names fitting their personality. Thrakka was born as Gareth."
"Those are two very different names."
"Mhm. He got his True Name when he was two."
"Is it Orcish?"
"Yup. 'thrakka' means 'punch' in Orcish."
"Really?"
"Mhm. Kid earned it quick. He's got his father's temperament. Always wants to scrap. Loves fighting, not really the academic type. We figured it out pretty quick. Kid's seventeen now. Wants to be an adventurer."
"Definitely as a mage, right?"
She laughed jovially, the basket shaking in a way that made me worried for passersby. "You're funny! He wants to be a barbarian like his dad. We've been arguing about it a lot lately."
"Too dangerous?"
"Nah. If anything, Thrakka's too dangerous for the dungeons. I'm more concerned about him doing something stupid and getting himself killed."
"I mean, adventuring is itself a stupid thing that can get you killed."
"Exactly."
I chewed on that for a few moments. A human couple passed us by with a small child in tow. The little girl was turning bodily to keep her extremely wide eyes on Ojola. "Whooooaaaaaa."
Her father picked her up. "It's not nice to stare, Rosy."
"But she's so pretty! BYE, PRETTY ORC LADY!"
I'd never seen Ojola blush before, but I saw that her face was now a deep shade of crimson.
We continued on. "What about your other son, Ojola?"
"Soren? Such a sweet boy, he is."
"Is that his True Name?"
"Mhm. He just got it on his twelfth birthday."
"Is it Orcish?"
"No. We named him after a river in the Verdant Expanse. The elves call it 'Sorenstrom'."
"That's beautiful. Why that name?"
"Soren's the exact opposite of his brother. He loves to dance. Wants to study at the Imperial Ballet Academy. Orcs dance, but we're not like the fancy folk with it, so we wanted something pretty. And boy, can that kid move."
"That's really cool."
"Well thank you. We're hoping to have his tuition saved up by next harvest. Been taking overtime at the Guild."
"What does your husband do?"
"Shagga's a farrier."
"Horses? He's not an adventurer anymore?"
"He was until he got kicked in the head by his mount while he was traveling. Almost killed him. When he was better, he said he'd never been hit harder by an opponent and devoted his life to horses."
That was far more adorable than I thought it would be.
By this time we had cleared the market and the most bustling parts of the city. Ojola adjusted the wheel of cheese on her shoulder. "Well, I'm this way. Gotta hurry, boys are probably getting antsy and I've gotta get all this cooked up for their dinner."
I stopped walking. "Wait…that's one meal?!"
"Three orc men? I'm practically starving them with this. Or so they'd tell you."
Just the thought of eating that whole basket of food made my stomach hurt.
The orc woman chuckled. "You'll have to come by some night for dinner. You and the rest of the gang."
"I'm sure they'd all be as excited as I am. You might need a second basket for Tessa though. She packs it away."
"Oh I've seen it."
As we went to part ways, Ojola fixed me with a serious expression. "And Lorne. Be careful where you're going."
Her voice convinced me that she knew exactly where I was going and why. But I knew that was impossible. I figured it was mother's intuition or something.
I scratched the back of my neck awkwardly. "Don't you worry about me."
As I waved her goodbye, I took a deep breath and headed for the Tangle.
The Tangle looked different in the daytime.
Not safer — that would be giving it too much credit — but more navigable. The shadows that made it genuinely difficult to get around at night were just narrow streets in the afternoon light, and the people moving through them were just people: a woman hanging washing between two buildings that leaned together like old friends, a group of children arguing over something in the gutter, a man asleep against a wall who was either very tired or very dead and seemed unconcerned either way.