----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Whisper ‘Pretty’ Jinx
‘The Girls’
-Little Sister-
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Summer of 193NC
Morn Taras
Early evening
Psst.
The young girl raised her head from behind the other side of the bed and stared at the open window. For a moment she looked without understanding at the Gish suspended upside down, pink hair caught in a ponytail dancing under her head and Jinx’s arm already numbing from the effort to keep a solid grip on the rope.
“Come here,” Jinx hissed, her face slowly turning red.
“Why?” Inis-Mir asked suspiciously.
“So we can talk without interruptions?”
“Why are you hanging outside my window?” the little girl elucidated.
Ah.
“I don’t want Maeriel to see me.”
“Why?”
“We… it’s a grownups thing you do when you fight wit a special friend,” Jinx explained vaguely sweating and feeling a desperate need to piss, which wasn’t a problem usually as the Gish pee everywhere, but when yer hanging upside down then most of it will douse yer face.
He-he.
“What’s special about it?” Inis-Mir asked approaching, her small feet silent on the rich carpet. “It just sounds silly. You look silly. Are you a silly creature?”
Jinx swung once, twisting her body the right way like an acrobat and put a foot on the window, an eye on the rope’s hook she’d tied earlier. A long one, basically three ropes linked together to avoid killing another tree. She had a scratch running her face from forehead to chin that made crooks nervous, but it was the one on her arse that had hurt her the most.
And throwing the clothes away of course.
“Forget about that,” Jinx said, looping the rope around her arm again. “Do you wanna see the Temple?”
“How are we going to go there?”
“We’ll climb down this window,” Jinx glanced at the twenty-meter drop at the side of the citadel. Piece of cake, she thought.
“Will the rope hold two people?” Inis-Mir asked wise beyond her years sometimes.
“We’re small people,” Jinx explained getting tired in the uncomfortable position.
“You’ll get punished,” Inis-Mir chuckled at the thought.
“Not if you say otherwise.”
“Why would I?”
“You’re the Princess,” Jinx explained and tended an arm. “Are you scared Inis-Mir?”
The little girl narrowed her red eyes. Opaque irises filled with red and orange/gold dots they were spectacular to look at. Like Paws eyes, there was nothing human in them or Gish. Jinx didn’t much care about any of that though. She wanted to get the girl out of the castle that had turned into a prison for months now.
“I’ll think about it,” Inis Mir replied finally.
“Coming?”
“No, about defending you later,” the princess replied and grabbed her arm with surprising strength. “Wow, you smell funny.”
Jinx grinned, then grimaced when the girl closed both small arms around her neck.
“It’s the summer,” she explained. “I’m sweating buckets and need a bath,” adding with a smart wink. “Don’t scream.”
And the little princess didn’t.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Jinx reached the yard with a meter of rope left and gestured for Inis-Mir to stay quiet while she checked for the light of the patrol coming from the East tower.
“They already passed by,” Glen’s daughter said standing next to her.
“Fuck, yer a smart one,” Jinx glanced at her. “Maeriel will know soon though, or Qildor.”
“I covered Qodras and a pillow with a sheet,” Inis-Mir replied.
“Who’s that?”
“My gold wyvern.”
Ah.
Alright there kiddo.
“How did you know beforehand?”
“I saw you tying the rope.”
Jinx nodded very impressed. She stood up to look at the distant light again, Assara appearing next to her with the extra cloak giving Jinx a good startle. Jinx glared at the sneaky creature, but Assara just blinked those large black eyes and offered her the cloak. With a sigh Jinx helped the little girl climb on her shoulders and put the long hooded cloak over both of them.
“Why is she like that?” The curious Inis Mir asked.
Assara clacked her teeth at the princess.
“She’s a Ticu.”
“What’s that?”
“Keep quiet now,” Jinx cautioned her. “We need to pass the gate guards.”
“What if we can’t?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“Drink their blood?” Assara offered smiling with a mouth full of gnarly teeth at the small princess hidden under the large hood.
“She’s joking,” Jinx said quickly and Inis-Mir whispered creepily in her ear.
“No, she isn’t.”
----------------------------------------
The guard at the gates eyed the two cloaked girls under the brim of his helm. A Lorian from Raoz, he recognized Jinx.
“Lady Jinx, you won’t be staying the evening?”
“It’s pretty hot inside,” Jinx replied. “Thought of going for a trip down the lake.”
The guard gazed at the cloak she wore perturbed, but decided not to press the issue. “You need an escort for the road? Horses?”
“Nah, we have friends coming to get us,” Jinx retorted.
“Right. Well, have a good evening ladies,” the guard replied and stepped aside. Jinx walked through the gates pleased, stopped some meters outside of the massive portcullis with a curse and turned back. She walked through them again to find the Ticu. Jinx grabbed Assara’s hand when she found her. The Ticu had stayed behind still staring at the uncomfortable guards and a frustrated Jinx had to drag her out.
“What were you doing?” She scolded the Ticu on their way to their hidden horses. Nix who was waiting there for hours was fast asleep and Jinx had to kick the male Gish awake.
“He was interested,” Assara replied while Nix stood up with a yelp, but quickly recovered seeing Jinx.
“Damn,” Nix cursed rubbing his red-rimmed eyes. “You’re a tall one milady,” he mumbled looking at her, then added looking at the equally tall Ticu. “You too, ahm…”
“Assara,” the Ticu reminded him.
“Yep, Assara. I was always fond of your—”
“You used that line already Nix,” Jinx cut his flirting short. “We’re leaving afore they are on to us.”
“Why would they be on to us?” Nix asked thoroughly confused as Jinx had kept the operation on a need to know basis.
“No reason,” she deadpanned. “They are weird like that.”
“We are going to my place to pick up some provisions,” Jinx explained at a brief stop by the road, near the lake’s west shores. She also helped Inis-Mir climb down from her shoulders and onto the saddle, Nix staring at the small princess alarmed.
“She’s my niece,” Jinx replied to his query.
“She’s human.”
Eh, not exactly.
“So what? I’ve a diverse family,” Jinx retorted.
“Are those gold bracelets?”
“Yes,” Inis-Mir replied scaring him. “With rubies.”
“She talks?”
“Are all Gish silly?” Inis-Mir asked Jinx.
“Hah-ha, well… they probably are,” Jinx admitted with a grin. “Now, we keep our cool when we reach the city and by morrow we’ll be at the Temple.”
“We shall visit the city,” the princess said.
“Wait, why are you hiding her?” Nix asked and Assara seeing everyone talking at the same time added.
“Let’s go into the lake. Eat the fish.”
Jinx raised both arms, index fingers pointing upwards to stop them.
“Let me do the planning and all yer questions will be answered.”
“Fish?” Assara asked hopefully.
“Later,” Jinx replied. She turned to Nix who was about to speak. “We took her from the castle. It’s best if we move fast now.”
“What?” Nix croaked his face turning pale.
“Breathe,” Jinx counselled.
“We shall visit the city and my people,” Inis-Mir droned with a pout.
Jinx sighed and looked in her comely face. “Alright princess. We shall.”
Not a minute down the coastal road Nix probed again, this time sounding very worried.
“When you say we took her… you mean,” Jinx stared at him knowingly. “That sounds bad. Abrakas toes. Tell me that princess was an endearment at least!”
“Yes and no,” Jinx replied.
“What does that mean?” Nix queried riding next to them and Inis-Mir pointed a small arm his way annoyed.
“Stop talking. Silly Gish,” she ordered regally.
Nix grimacing in horror at the realization. “We’re fucked,” he croaked.
“He cussed,” the princess whispered to a peeved Jinx. “You should punish him. Ten strikes with the stick will suffice.”
----------------------------------------
“The princess—!” Nix gasped hours later, Jinx’s slap stopping him.
“Keep yer voice down,” she hissed at the Gish holding his right cheek. “People are sleeping.”
The guards at Fikumin’s place looking at them, but thankfully the Zilan street was wide enough to make it difficult to see in the dark.
“Is that you Lady Jinx?” One of them asked, apparently keen-eyed for a human.
“Aye,” Jinx replied through her teeth. “Have a couple of friends over!” then with a pause, she added half-hysterically. “Random people!”
“That’s nice,” the guard replied, his friend giving his approval with a nod. “Variety breaks boredom.”
Wow, thanks dude.
“The princess,” Nix repeated in a subdued voice this time, pointing at the girl standing at the porch of her villa, clasping at her hands behind her back just like her father. Jinx glared at him and waved an arm at the guards across the street in greeting.
And to get their attention away from the little girl.
“Open the door,” she told Assara out the side of her mouth, but the Ticu blinked and sniffed at the entrance instead. Assara was in her weird state all night. “Nix,” Jinx hissed, stooping to pick up the heavy little girl. Wow, I hope it turns into height baby, else yer going to get really big fast. “Get the fucking door!”
Inis-Mir slapped her once warningly, Jinx grimaced, Nix went to knock on the door, but it swung open and a disheveled Phinariel appeared, a hand trying to keep her short light-blue robes closed, the young Zilan showing as a lot of tit and leg in the process.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Hmm.
“Jinx,” a blushing Phinariel mumbled, desperately trying to get everything covered seeing Nix’s gawking and very indiscreet stare, Paws growling from behind the door at the Ticu and Assara responding with an irritated hiss.
“Phina,” Jinx replied, Nix pursing his mouth and raising a pink brow engrossed.
“Eh, I was… I’m having,” Phinariel tried to explain, glaring at the male Gish and then her eyes stopped at the short girl Jinx held in her arms. The young Zilan gapped her mouth in shock. “Is that?”
“Everyone get inside the darn building!” Jinx snapped, her mind on the guards across the street.
“Is this?” Phinariel tried to ask again, but Jinx shoved her aside and waltzed in, almost stepping on the Nimra lion resting in the dark. The lion snarled, but then recognized Jinx and went back to licking its balls.
“Why is the scribe living in your home?” Inis-Mir asked while Jinx urged everyone to get in, with curses and gestures. Nix stopping well into Phinariel’s personal space and staring up into the perturbed scribe’s eyes intently.
“Never have I seen such well-proportioned—” Nix started, but Jinx snatched his right ear and stopped him, then used it to guide the protesting Nix inside. Assara following after him.
“Close the darn door!” Jinx growled at the flustered and confused Zilan. Phinariel closed it, Jinx took a deep breath, then sniffed at the air once.
Twice.
Her eyes returning on the panicking young scribe.
“I have a visitor,” Phinariel blurted out quickly and Jinx grimaced. “I didn’t know you were coming back tonight!” She protested and rushed towards the living room that short robe giving everyone a nice view of her firm arse. It was Jinx’s robe, but Phinariel had started using a lot of her clothes as they had the same body type.
Other than Jinx being way shorter that is.
“It worth the fuckin’ risk,” Nix admitted arms crossed on his chest watching the bare-footed scribe trot away. “For the opportunity to know her.”
Jinx all but groaned.
“I think she’s having a lover in there,” she told him, but Nix gave a shrug remaining undeterred.
“That’s a lot of woman for one lover,” he retorted.
----------------------------------------
The white-haired aged Zilan -who wasn’t that old in reality by Zilan standards- jumped on his feet from the couch he was sitting on and grimaced comically glancing at Phinariel.
At least he was dressed.
“Alright,” Jinx told the worried Berthas. “I know ye were slurping at her honey. Calm down. I don’t care.”
“Ahm,” Berthas retorted and Phinariel opened her mouth to protest.
“We weren’t… he wasn’t—”
“Better you leave it at that,” Jinx warned her. “Else I’ll tell Fiku what ye do in the nights.”
Phinariel blinked in shock. “Lord Fikumin? Why would… what do you mean?”
Oh, shit. She didn’t know, Jinx thought and grimaced.
“Lady Phinariel would never—” Berthas tried to defend the scribe’s honor Assara hissing at him from her spot and Jinx cutting him off mid-sentence.
“She’s no lady. We picked her up from the woods,” Jinx retorted and glared at the blushing scribe. “Don’t get all worked up about it. It’s yer truth. Who you are. You want to climb up that ladder, you need to make better choices honey.”
“I’m an Elderborn’s son!” Berthas snapped pursing his mouth.
“And a bastard last I heard.”
“Lady Jinx, I’ve been recognized afore the Monarch and the Lord of Lo-Minas!” Berthas retorted angry. Jinx looked at the tall Zilan with narrowed eyes, sucked audibly at her front teeth once and said reasonably surprising everyone.
“Ye don’t seem that bad on a second look.”
“Thank you.”
“Yer still a noble bastard,” Jinx replied curtly. “And she’s too young for ye likes.”
She was more worried of that foreign Zilan taking advantage of Phinariel more than anything else. And a little for the always pensive dwarf that seemed to like her.
“I’m not that young,” Phinariel argued with a small voice.
Apparently not, but still…
“How old are ye Berthas?” Jinx asked.
“Just over a century,” he replied vaguely standing back.
“She’s not even twenty.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’m sure you are,” Jinx retorted. “Ye seem to have searched her up thoroughly.”
“Jinx!” Phinariel croaked.
“Hmm,” Jinx murmured and walked to a table with a couple of goblets. Grabbed the first one, but found nothing in it and went for the other. She downed its contents, burped and stared at the frustrated scribe. “Where did you get the good wine?”
“Lord Fikumin’s gift,” Phinariel replied.
“Uhm,” Jinx said.
“What?” Phinariel queried narrowing her eyes.
“Ye know very well.”
“I’m bored,” Inis Mir declared and everyone turned to look at her. “We shall go to the city.”
“Jinx,” Phinariel said her demeanor changing. “What is—?”
“Ye keep your pretty mouth shut now,” Jinx cut her off. “And I’ll keep mine. Nix, we’re leaving.”
“I was thinking of staying with mister Berthas and Phinariel,” Nix argued. “They shall require a fresh hand to augment their activities further after all this tumult.”
“No, we won’t Gish,” Berthas retorted. “Best you go with her.”
“Phina, not a word,” Jinx warned the nervous scribe.
“I can’t allow you to do this,” Phinariel replied.
“I’m not doing anything and you should stay out of me business,” Jinx hissed. “To keep yours. This doesn’t concern you.”
“What does she mean?” Berthas asked.
Phinariel gulped down.
“He’ll listen to me,” Jinx reminded her. “And you’ve weakened yer position fooling around wit him.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
They cantered down the relatively empty roads of Taras, some corners illuminated and noisy despite the time. The shores of the lake were crowded though, a row of lightposts lighting up the surface of the peaceful waters and the open-air taverns packed with visitors of all races.
The sound of music rowdy.
People had moved on. Life continued after every misfortune.
Not all people.
“They are partying,” Inis-Mir commented, sitting in front of her at the saddle.
“Each has something small to celebrate on,” Jinx replied. “A bit of profit, a new lover, the promise of a rich yield from his fields or just the summer and the good weather. There’s a world outside yer castle princess.”
“We better get away from the crowds,” Nix cautioned them.
“Let’s go to Folen’s place,” Inis-Mir decided.
Hah-hah. Yeah, nope. Let us not do that.
“That we can’t do,” Jinx argued. “But we can visit the temple.”
“The Wyvern’s Den!”
“Sure, we’ll climb down the catacombs,” Jinx murmured not very keen on the idea.
“Let’s go then,” the princess ordered.
“Eh, we shouldn’t travel at night,” Jinx countered.
“Nix,” Inis-Mir said turning to the anxious male Gish. “Will you take me to the temple tonight?”
“Ahm, sure…” Nix glanced at the scowling Jinx and lost his words. “That is… eh, perhaps we ride the night out sort of speak?” he asked, adding with a nervous smile. “Princess?”
“Hmm,” Inis-Mir thought about it. “No. We shall go to the temple, or Folen’s place. Ah, there are some city guards,” she added and raised an arm to get their attention.
Damn it.
Jinx turned the horse around to hide the small girl waving at the guards and with a hiss of frustration galloped away from the lake. Nix following after her after a moment of confusion. Assara was riding behind him.
Jinx intended to get the princess outside Taras briefly and then bring her back, when the dark roads towards the large lake with her mother’s name and beyond the Old City Towers scared her. As always in most plans hatched by the Gish, the princess was unafraid of the dark, very stubborn due to her genetics and Goras riches had brought all manner of folk to the peninsula.
Some of the unsavory kind amongst the lot.
Or most of them, as Glen would have said.
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Jinx spotted the wagon stopped in the middle of the dark road and pulled at the reins of her large horse, an arm around the small body of Inis-Mir protectively. She glanced at the sides of the road for any movement and then examined the closed wagon. A couple of mules at the front and sacks of produce marking it as a merchant’s or farmer’s vehicle.
The owner slumped next to the front wheel with an arrow sticking out of his chest.
Abrakas rotting fingers.
“Nix,” Jinx whispered. “Get your weapon out.”
“I’ve no weapon,” Nix replied sounding spooked. “I’m a dancer, dabbling as a pleasure worker to make ends meet.”
Jinx grunted, turned the horse around, her ears listening for sounds coming from the dark trees by the sides of the road and glanced at the distant but visible giant towers they had passed by earlier.
Assara had jumped from her horse in the meantime and was walking towards the wagon.
“Assara,” Jinx hissed. “Get back on that horse.”
“Blood,” the Ticu replied in her strange voice. “I smell sweat.”
A branch snapped, the sound carrying down the empty road. Jinx reached for her bow, but stopped as a human voice was heard, plenty of surprise in it.
“Smell she says from ten meters away. Never saw a dog wit such a pair of tits again,” the man said sounding fascinated, afore his voice changed into a more ‘professional’ tone. “Where are ye lonesome kids going?”
Jinx scrunched her face, but got her bow over her head, Inis-Mir putting a small hand on her arm to stop her.
“There’s another man hiding there,” she told her and Jinx turned right to check the spot for herself, the first man getting out from behind the bushes from the other side. He carried a longsword in his right arm and wore quite a few pieces of different type of armour on his fit body.
“Several,” the man said as he’d heard the girl speaking, the night very silent.
Abnormally so, Jinx thought angry with herself. She should have been more cautious.
“Posco and Rutilo,” the brigand elucidated. “Good wit the bow as well. Name’s ‘Jolly’ Larsa by the way. We are roving suppliers lookin’ for good deals.”
“We go our way,” Jinx haggled, the numbers not in their favor. “We’ve seen nothing of yer deals.”
Larsa nodded politely. A forty year old Lorian with a weathered face and heavy wrinkles at the sides of his mouth. “It’s a fine suggestion this. Aye,” he said pretending he was thinking it through. “Had we been common burglars let’s say caught in the act, but as I said we’re suppliers young lass,” Larsa smacked his lips and Jinx heard more commotion coming from the top of a tree further behind them. A very tall tree.
The sound of nibble feet landing on the ground next.
“We have nothing of value,” Jinx argued.
“You have a mature voice for a girl. Quite the asset in me line of work,” Larsa replied. “Is that yer mother? Yer little sister?” He pointed at Assara first and then at the princess.
Greed in his eyes.
Fuck, Jinx thought.
They weren’t just brigands. These were slavers.
“You really should let us go,” Jinx warned him and whispered to Inis-Mir. “Hug that saddle tight Inis and keep yer head low,” her fingers closing on the nock of an arrow.
“Lose the arrow Gish,” a voice said coming from the wagon. This voice didn’t belong to a human. “I can see you.”
Motherfucker.
“That’s Sorn,” Larsa explained in a reasonable manner. “Skilled in all kinds of weapons he-he. A Gish eh? Well then. This turned out a nigh profitable evening. ‘Scurvy’ Webb will be pleased.”
“Two Gish,” Sorn replied, the clad in leather armour Zilan coming out of the wagon. Paused to check on the dead driver and then eyed the silent Assara three meters from him. The Ticu hadn’t moved at all since the start of their conversation. “And a…” Sorn blinked, furrowing his brow. A dark-skinned Zilan with bright green eyes, Jinx hadn’t seen before. “… by Luthos grace,” he grunted in alarm. “A Ticu.”
“A what?” Larsa gasped turning his head around, just as the two other brigands appeared from the other side of the road. A Cofol and another Lorian armed with short-bows and long knives. Jinx’s mouth turned into a snarl, Sorn reached for a blade he carried on his back, Larsa’s face distorting as the strange Zilan’s answer dragged and in the light of the two moons a cloaked figure appeared in the middle of the road behind Posco and Rutilo.
Its long shadow reaching the two men and Jinx who caught it out of the corner of her eye.
Then the encounter turned really weird.
----------------------------------------
Sorn glanced briefly at the newcomer and the Ticu moved the moment no one was looking at her. She did it so fast Larsa almost had a heart attack seeing her popping out in front of his face, the tall female creature a couple of inches taller than him. Larsa cursed and raised his arm, the one with the longsword but Assasa stooped nimbly and closed her cavernous mouth on his wrist.
Larsa started screaming, the Ticu’s teeth ripping through flesh and thin bones, Sorn returned his eyes on Assara and their two friends raised their bows to fire at her. Only to pause in profound bafflement realizing they were missing their arrows. Posco blinked and went for another, Rutilo the Cofol twisting about, right hand reaching for his knife.
He’d spotted the stranger out of the corner of his eye.
The newcomer casually poked Rutilo in the aforementioned left eye, long finger penetrating the soft flesh with a loud pop, very surgically.
In and out.
The deflated eyeball plopping out, watery fluids and blood following. In the meantime Posco’s hand almost found his arrows, the man carried a short round leather quiver on his right side, but the newcomer had kicked a leg out while plucking out Rutilo’s eye and caught the quiver’s bottom pat.
Jinx had almost missed the second part of his assault.
The timely kick pushed the quiver out of Posco’s fingers and spilt the arrows everywhere.
Posco cursed in great bewilderment, turned to see who the culprit was, the desperate groans of pain coming from his friends unnerving him and Jinx raised her bow to fire at Sorn that was attacking Assara.
She loosed her arrow, but Sorn dodged and it smacked Larsa at the right shoulder and twirled him around, blood spraying from his maimed hand. Jinx went for another, a gloved hand stopping her. She cursed and tried to turn around, but the man moved faster keeping out of her sight.
What in allhells?
Posco got his knife out, but then he got stabbed just behind the toes with Rutilo’s blade now in the hands of the newcomer. He groaned, the blade skewering his foot through the boot and bent instinctively at the waist to get it out, getting a raised knee right in the mouth in the attempt.
Posco’s bloody head and distorted face snapped back, while the newcomer stepped aside calmly to avoid the spray of gore and broken teeth. He stooped nimbly to pick up one of the spilled arrows and stabbed it savagely in Posco’s right ear, the tip exploding out of the other.
----------------------------------------
“Oras fiends in the night!” Sorn cursed and jumped away from Assara, his ogling eyes on the newcomer and his friend now standing on the other side of Jinx’s horse. “It can’t be!”
She knew that man.
The Issir from Eikenport.
“There is no coming back,” Sorn hissed sounding very spooked and retreated away from the bloody Ticu. “You died when Larea Macar went down!”
“Sorn,” the newcomer said in his refined accent. “Ask thyself. Could I have gotten out of those chains?”
“The gods helped?”
“Just a talking gnome,” the stranger replied.
Sorn grimaced, then stared at the crying one-eyed Rutilo, the dead Posco and the groaning in pain Larsa, afore returning his eyes on him.
“Is Valydra still around?” the stranger asked and Nigel Grim gestured for Jinx to keep quiet.
“Maybe she is,” Sorn replied regaining some of his confidence. “Maybe she isn’t.”
“Give her my greetings,” the dark-skinned Zilan said with an easy smile. “Leave what you took near the wagon. You’ve lost it in the trade.”
Sorn pursed his mouth one way then the other, but nodded and dropped a small sack he had on his back next to the front wheel. Eyed Nigel once and then walked away.
“Mister Grim,” Jinx hissed turning to the man of the Thieves Guild, but she had to pause and turning her head yell at Assara. The Ticu had pinned Larsa down and was eating his face. “Assara leave him!”
“Blood,” she protested, her pretty face covered in gore.
“Ye had enough,” Jinx grunted and Nigel Grim nodded his eyes on the Ticu.
“I see you always keep the most exotic of companies,” the thief told her and glanced at his silent friend that was playing with one of Inis-Mir’s bracelets. The Zilan had approached her like a seasoned pro.
“Another licensed thief I presume?” Jinx asked, when the stranger returned the bracelet to Inis-Mir with a kind smile. The princess stared at him enthralled.
Nix’s stunned voice drowning Nigel’s answer.
“Allgods help us!” The Gish cried out snapping out of his stupor. “We’re under attack!”
“Go get Assara,” Jinx barked at him. “You could’ve helped a bit you know!”
“Are you insane?” Nix retorted and flinched at a cry of pain coming from the maimed brigand/slaver named Rutilo. “I did the best I could do. Stayed out of yer way!”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
or enjoy it again at Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/series/542002/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms/
& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/
The chapters are re-edited and re-posted regularly at both places