“Tell me again why we’re going on a road trip outside the city when there is a perfectly good sewer to explore a half-bell’s walk from here?” Meg asks, face knit into a scowl as we trudge up the hill toward the Noble Gate that leads out of Oosal.

“The guys outvoted us,” I say.

She sighs heavily. “Who gave them that power?”

“I don’t actually know. We must have. Democracy, maybe?”

“Democracy is overrated.”

“It beats the alternative.”

“Not when the alternative is doing what I want,” Meg grumbles, which makes me laugh. She glances at me as we walk, raising an eyebrow before actually cracking a bright smile that eases the tension perpetually knit across her face, but she then shakes her head, leaving something unsaid. I’m finding that she does that a lot. Everything out of her mouth seems carefully considered to be as terse as possible, like it’s specifically designed to keep everyone at arm’s length. “You can’t persuade Flynt to come over to our side?”

“You can’t persuade Jonas? You’ve known him longer than I’ve known Flynt.”

“That is, unfortunately, the problem.” She sighs. “At least when this goes horribly wrong, we will have that to hold over their heads.”

“So, I’m not the only one doubting the sanity of this.”

“Was I not clear on that earlier?”

“Meg. I don’t think you say so much as a quarter of the things you think, so no, no you were not clear about that earlier.”

“Note taken. I shall try.”

“You guys!” I shout toward the men a few paces in front of us. “I still don’t think this is a good idea! Meg agrees!”

“Aw, come on, Keira! What’s the worst that could happen?” Jonas asks.

“No, you did not just say that to me!”

He turns, pausing and giving me a frown as we catch up to him. “What do you mean?”

“Have you never heard of tempting the wrath from high atop the whatever?”

He frowns deeper and looks at Meg who just folds her arms and nods toward me, which I take as support. Flynt and Tyrus have paused up ahead as well, close enough in distance to hear us without our shouting, which (to their unspoken point) did solicit a look from a nicely dressed couple passing by on the other side of the street.

“That sounds made up,” Jonas says. “Atop what whatever?”

“The whatever,” I state. “It’s a known fact in my… country… that whenever anyone says what’s the worst that can happen, then that’s it— that’s what ends up happening. The worst thing. It’s called Murphy’s Law.”

“I’ve never heard of that law.” Jonas shakes his head and flashes me one of his grins, his dark brown eyes sparkling at me. But his charm isn’t going to work on me. “What about you, Flynt? You’re the educated one here.”

“Don’t know how I got that reputation, but no, I haven’t either.” Flynt comes down the hill a few paces, pausing by Jonas. “Come on, Keira. It’s only a day trip. I have a good feeling about this.”

I heave an exaggerated (but well-deserved) sigh and hang my head. “And that’s called Solo’s Folly,” I mutter.

“What’s that?” Meg asks, leaning in toward me and matching my low volume.

“You really don’t want to know, but it involves a ship blockade and a giant…” I search for the best way to describe it. “Space kraken.”

There’s a long beat where all four of them just stare at me for a moment before Meg draws a breath, looks at the guys, and says, “Yup. This is going to go just great.”

She slaps Flynt on the shoulder as she passes by, hiking up to meet Tyrus. After a reluctant beat, the rest of us follow.

Oosal, I find out, is built between a natural harbor and the rolling foothills to the southern mountains of the range that rings the Qeth Valley, which makes up most of the island country. Walking the city is a lot like walking in San Francisco, only the streetcar hasn’t been invented yet. So, my companions and I find ourselves huffing up one of the hills through the upper middle-class portion of the city toward the Noble Gate in the northwest quadrant, closest to the road toward Dragon’s Pass. The pass itself is a good two days’ journey through the foothills forest, but the area where the goblins have been sighted is about six hours past the gate. Or so Flynt promises, anyway.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I say we’re huffing it, but I’m lying. It’s me. I’m huffing. I can do chin-ups. I can deadlift my body weight. My hip thrusts are pretty not bad either. But cardio? Ugh. Not my fav. And it’s been a few years since I hiked in the Andes. I can already tell I’m going to embarrass myself and hold the entire party back. After all, they’re from a walking culture. I’m from LA. I miss my Kia.

Flynt holds back and sets his pace to mine. “We don’t have to do this,” he says after a long beat of walking in silence. “You and I can go back.”

I try really hard not to be cranky or reactionary. The last thing I want to do right now, out here, in the middle of I’m-not-sure-where when I barely know what’s going on is to hit hard on the this guy is being nice to me, eject, eject! response. But it’s difficult not to because I don’t understand his motivations and that is getting on my nerves.

“I know you feel some kind of responsibility for me,” I say, “and I appreciate what you’ve done, what you’re doing, I do. But you really don’t have to. This is something you’ve been wanting for ages, and you shouldn’t sacrifice it for someone you’ve just met. I’m not going to let you do that.”

“I’ve just met all of you,” he replies (which I guess is true). “And I don’t know that you can really let me do anything here, Keira.”

“I guess not. My point, though, is that what you want matters too. Even if I decide to go back and start tending bar at the Wide Sky, you should still go on and follow your questing adventurer dreams.”

“Do you want to go back?”

“I’m not hot on the idea of hunting goblins, I don’t think I’ve made a secret of that. But no. I don’t want to go back. I need to know if I’m cut out for this.”

“This is only going to work if we’re all committed,” he points out.

“You’re right,” I agree, nodding as I try to keep my breathing steady, and my eyes focused on the gate starting to come into view at the top of the hill. “And I am. Sorry for being a pessimist. We just… I have certain superstitions that feel applicable in the current situation.”

“If we can’t handle it, we’ll disengage. We can come back here, report in what we found, then go investigate whatever is probably not in the sewers.”

“Oh, there’s something there,” I say, remembering the light glow of the notice board sheet. “And I’m not worried about the goblins. We can handle goblins. I’m sure of it. It’s what else might be out here. Did you see the notice about giants? Those are some high-level random encounters just waiting to happen.”

“Random en…” He lets his voice trial off but then shakes his head. “I wouldn’t worry about it. There are always people saying they’ve seen giants around Oosal. Those sightings are never confirmed.”

“So you said earlier.”

“And it’s true. I’ve lived here my whole life, Keira. I’ve traveled this road a hundred times. I’ve never even seen signs of a giant.” He cringes as I sigh again and shake my head. “Walk into another superstition, did I?”

“More like tap danced.”

He chuckles at that and shrugs. “I’m just going to stop talking.”

“Probably wise.”

We catch up to the others just ahead of the gate, which marks a break in the ancient-looking wall surrounding the city, though for as old as it appears, it still looks like it’s in daily use as centurions stand along the ramparts and walk between the sections, carrying bows. They wear black and gray uniforms and also have swords at their hips.

Others stand by the gates themselves, several posted on the other side, interviewing those entering the city, while two stop travelers going out.

“They must be on high alert after what happened yesterday,” Meg says. “Everyone, get your papers out.”

Since we were taking up a posting on the notice board, we had to go into the municipal building and register our intentions, which ensured we each got a piece of paper with an official stamp saying we were acting in the interest of the city. This (I was told) would, among other things, give us an official claim to the bounty: five silver per goblin slain with left ears as proof. This felt a little barbaric to me, surely there were other ways to confirm our actions, but the others didn’t seem to flinch at it.

I reach into my bag and pull out the rolled piece of parchment that has my name and my business scrawled in the elegant hand of the dwarven woman at the counter. And it was a counter— there were waiting numbers and everything, like some high fantasy version of the DMV.

“No family name, Keira?” asks one of the guards. He’s a burly looking pale man too short for a human but taller than any dwarf I’ve seen since I got here— though he has a robust copper colored beard longer and fuller than Tyrus’s. He studies my paper closer than the others’, giving me an up and down as he does so.

“Titus, don’t give her a hard time, just give her the pass,” Tyrus scoffs from my left. “Not all of us know our families.”

“An elf without a family name is unusual,” Titus the guard says.

“Trust me, this is an unusual elf.”

“Gee, thanks,” I reply.

“It’s true. It’s why I like you.”

“You like me, Tyrus?”

“I don’t dislike you.”

It’s my turn to scoff and shake my head, and the guard, Titus, does similarly.

“Believe it or not,” Titus says, “that’s high praise from this one.”

“You two know each other?” Jonas asks.

“Grew up together,” Tyrus replies. “He’s my big brother.”

“Half-brother,” Titus amends, and gives me my paper back. “You’ve finally found your party, huh?”

“Giving them a trial run,” Tyrus says, looking around at us. “We’ll see how the day goes.”

“Well, keep an eye out. We’ve had more than a few travelers coming in complaining about these wretched things. Should be just a few hours walk from the gates. We’d go out ourselves, but Leadership has us on double watch after the disturbances the last couple weeks.”

“Disturbances?” I ask.

“That wasn’t the first attack, yesterday,” Flynt says. “There have been a few others of late.”

“That too. The bigger worry, though, is on account of the governor’s caravan getting robbed a couple days back. They’ve kept it quiet, but they’re not having any luck finding those responsible.” Titus glances up at Flynt. “It was said a big half-ork was leading the marauders.”

“Isn’t it always?” Flynt asks, raising an eyebrow. “I’m only a quarter.”

“Big enough to be half.”

“Not really, though.”

There is an awkward pause between them and Tyrus clears his throat. “We’re wasting good daylight. We should head out. Goblins won’t kill themselves.”

“Be safe,” Titus says, chuckling. “There’s giants out there.”

Tyrus waves over his shoulder as he all but ushers us out of the gate.

“So, your brother,” Flynt says as we get a safe enough distance away.

“Half-brother,” Tyrus replies. “And you don’t need to say it.”

“He’s a real— what was that word you used, Keira?” He glances back at me. “Ah. Douchebag.”