She retired to a port-side inn and spent most the rest of the day passed out in a straw bed built for degenerate urbanites. She awoke to twilight beyond her window, groggy and confused, uncertain whether the sun was rising or setting, before deciding it was most likely night. So it always was after a nap. Eris detested sleeping during the day.

She supposed that was an inhibition best overcome immediately.

Jason returned with his things in tow—there wasn’t much—some hours earlier, but Astera was not yet back. Apparently she had given Rook half the proceeds from the orc’s sword the previous night before disappearing again, saying that she would look for others interested in joining their expedition.

More power to her, Eris thought. There were always uses to be found for ablative party members. For her own part she ventured to the cramped and uncomfortable common room and joined the strategizing.

“I’ve thought the plan through,” Rook said. “We land at Sam’al and provision with beasts of burden. You’ve seen what they use in place of horses, those reptiles. That will make the going easier.”

“They’re called agama,” Jason said. “And we should take a few with us. But hold on. You’ve been prancing around looking for your girlfriend for the last four months—”

“‘Girlfriend?’” Eris said.

“Dominatrix. Whatever. The point is, the three of you haven’t been here. You haven’t heard the news.”

“I heard the Archon’s Men opened Theschylos’ new play,” Rook said.

“I meant the news from Darom.”

“Oh, that news.”

“Arqa is far away, so it’s not like any of us are well-informed. But there are whispers everywhere in the city’s streets. People know something bad is happening across the Hepaz. I heard two Magisters at the Grand Library whispering about Lord Arqa—the bastards took the book I was transcribing about vampires.”

“That must make you feel very accomplished,” Eris said. “Not every scribe can say he has had influenced the thinking of magicians half a continent over.”

“Put it on my tombstone. Anyway, more refugees are showing up. More stories of the dead rising, even as far south as Ya’diya. As far as I can tell he’s turned Arqa Valley into one huge necropolis. There are stories of corpses piled up a mile high and fields of bones that animate to attack you when you walk by. They say he’s leaving the villages completely abandoned, just to teach a lesson.”

“If this ‘Lord Arqa’ is a parasite like you say he cannot have killed everyone,” Eris said, “for he would have exhausted his own supply of blood.”

“You didn’t meet him. He isn’t what I’d call rational.”

“Then we should leave him and allow time to solve the problem for us.”

“That won’t work either. He was locked in that vault for centuries without any blood just fine. Mostly fine. He’ll go hungry, but he can’t starve.”

“I am merely saying that these stories of outrageous destruction are better taken for wives’ tales than sources for arcane knowledge. We should not plan around what we learn from dockworkers.”

Rook took a deep breath as a wave of pain crept across his torso. His eyes closed. He said, “We go to Arqa either way.”

“Right,” Jason said. “My only point is that the fighting might start well before we get to Arqa. Now—I was too poor to drink or gamble on a scribe’s salary, so I did a bit of extra research on Darom. There are faster ways to Arqa than sailing back around the peninsula. The Sea of Shemesh would lead us far inland, if we can find a captain to take us there.”

“If,” Rook said.

“Just an idea.”

Their conversation quieted for a while. Robur, who had been sent to retrieve their next round of drinks, had been distracted by a prostitute in a dress so white it was translucent. She traced a hand across his jaw. He stared at her intently, eyes fixed on hers, until at some point he withdrew a scroll from his pack—and began to read it. Eris watched his moving lips.

“What is he doing?” Jason said. He looked to Eris. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Perhaps he is teaching her to read?” Eris said.

“That kid is going to end up paying fifty drachs a night for the privilege of story time. And we still don’t have our drinks. Aren’t you going to do something?”

“No,” Eris said.

Jason looked to Rook.

Rook was still in immense discomfort. “He can handle himself.”

“Kings,” Jason said. “Some friends you are.”

He stood up and left their table, heading straight to Robur. Eris didn’t bother watching further. She had faith that Jason could handle any whore by himself.

For a few moments she and Rook were left alone. He looked up at her.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.

“That depends if ‘what I was looking for’ is one and the same with ‘what I went to find.’”

He gave this lengthy consideration “I don’t know what that means.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“It means I knew I was stepping into a sewer when I left your company last night, yet wading through the excrement was not so gratifying as I thought it might be. And what of you? Did wrangling this charming man,” she glanced over toward Jason, who now had his arm around Robur’s shoulder and was leading him away from the prostitute, “require any heroics?”

“There was only one dragon. You’ll be sorry to hear you missed me slaying it.”

She smiled. “‘Tis a title that would suit you well. And for my part, to be able to say I had been with a dragonslayer…”

She kicked him playfully beneath the table. He didn’t reciprocate, but instead flinched in pain. That hadn’t been her intention.

“I am sorry,” she said, “I did not mean—how are your injuries?”

“I’ll be well soon, with enough new scars for the both of us.”

She smiled. “I am eager to see them more closely…”

This time she teased at his hand with one of her own. A gentler flirtation. He gave her a long, hungry look; in that moment Eris recalled weeks of pent-up frustration at his disregard for her plan, at the way he nearly got her and himself killed—and she felt it all dissipate away in a cloud of desire. It had been too long. When she looked on him in clear light she felt a strange fluttering in her heart and a need to touch and an overwhelming desire to taste.

She needed him again if she was to be rid of such distracting thoughts.

Clearly her look mirrored his, because he leaned toward her. “Soon,” he said. His mouth opened again—but just then Robur and Jason returned with drinks at hand.

“Are you certain she was a prostitute?” Robur said.

“No,” Jason said as he took a seat, “she was dressed like that to feel empowered.” He glanced at Eris. She adjusted her top, straightened her hair, and glared back. “Case in point,” he continued, nodding toward her, “if someone who looks like Eris ever tries initiating a conversation with men like us, she’s after something.”

“‘Tis most likely true. I would sooner approach a wild hog than you.”

“She seemed very interested in the treatise on Analytic Aethereal Topology—” Robur started.

“Yeah. She wasn’t. She was trying to rip you off.”

Their conversation followed after this pattern for another hour. It was very strange to be party to it. She stayed mostly silent, except when there came an opportunity to say something malicious, but for the whole time she was there, listening, participating to some extent. She hadn’t felt so much a part of a group of ‘friends’ since her time at the Ancient Cheeseman in Kaimas. Robur and Kauom had never offered company like Rook and Jason did.

She wasn’t certain whether she liked it. Jason was irritating and unattractive, but the time passed quickly in his company, and she found herself almost disappointed when Astera returned to end the revelry.

Eris was not nearly drunk enough to tolerate the idiot elf.

“There are seven of them,” Astera said. “All have heard stories of the dead rising in Arqa, and the terrible vampire responsible. They wish to make their names as demonslayers.”

“I say we welcome them aboard,” Eris said.

“No reason to stop short of an army,” Jason said.

Rook grimaced. “Who are they?”

“I’ve instructed them all to gather on the docks tomorrow morning. I will introduce us then.”

“All right. It’s late now anyway. The rest of us should retreat to bed.”

----------------------------------------

Seven volunteer adventurers stood arrayed. Three dwarves, two halflings, a human, and a troll.

The dwarves were more indistinguishable than normal even for their kind. All were male, all wore similar clothes, had dark hair, cut to the same length, with the same braided beards and the same gray eyes. Eris guessed them to be siblings.

“What are your names?” Rook asked.

“Ye kin call me Kas,” one said.

“Ye kin call me Ras,” another said.

“Ye kin call me Mas,” the other said.

Rook glanced between the three dwarves. “You’ve come far.”

“There’s no distance too far when it comes to protecting the innocent,” Kas said, or perhaps it was Ras—Eris already had lost track of which was which. “We’ve brought our pa’s hammers, and by the Stonemother we’ll make him proud.”

Rook nodded. “You’re welcome, if that’s your choice.” He continued down the line.

The halflings were a male and a female, both dressed in normal working clothes.

“I’m Kestutas,” the man said. “This is my wife, Rimante.”

“Can you fight?”

“Fight?” Kestutas said. “Oh, jeeze—no, no way. I’m a cook, you know.”

“Ya,” Rimante said, “we thought—you know, every adventurer needs a good cook, right?”

“A cook,” Rook said.

“Or two of ‘em!” Kestutas said.

“Famous back in our hometown. Worked for all sorts here,” Rimante said.

Rook craned his head toward Astera, who shrugged. He continued onward.

The troll was a hulking creature about seven feet tall with blueish-purple skin, draped in scarves and cloaks instead of proper clothes. Walrus-like tusks extended from its mouth.

“Do you have a name?”

For a long moment the troll stared past Rook, but at length it looked down at him. “Yes,” it said.

“…I see. Are you willing to risk your life to put a stop to the end of Lord Arqa’s reign of terror?”

The same reaction. “Yes. Zombies need to die again.”

“Then we’re in agreement. You can come.”

Lastly the human. He was impressive. He was Daromese; his skin was a rich brown, his head shaved, and he wore a hauberk of tightly-fitting male. His forearms were both exposed, and on either were tattoos in hieroglyphics which Eris did not recognize. He was neither tall nor strong, but he was handsome and had a seriousness in his look, an intensity and dignity, that compared favorably to the fodder arrayed to his sides.

“You may call me Absalon,” he said.

“Well met,” Rook said. “How came you to Katharos?”

“I left my home some years ago to seek my fortune as a mercenary in the Moonlands. For weeks since I first heard of this shadow that descends across my homeland, I’ve tried to return. Yet there is no threat the men of this city will respond to until it is reached their gates. You are the first I have met who are willing to venture back across the Hepaz to help my people.”

“We’ll do more than help,” Rook said. He stepped backward and dressed the line as a whole. “Our goal is one of absolute completeness. We aim to strike directly at Lord Arqa and cast him out of this world forever. The mission will be dangerous. Not everyone is likely to survive. Before I welcome you into our party, I want to make certain you’re all prepared to make that sacrifice.”

“Some sales pitch,” Jason muttered.

“Death en battle sends us quicker back to the Stonemother’s earth!” said one of the dwarves. His two brothers cheered.

“I will gladly die for my people,” Absalon said.

The troll didn’t say anything, which was perhaps just as well. Rook turned to the halflings. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I can’t let you come. You’ll be in too much danger.”

“Are ya sure?” Kestutas said. “We can always stay behind—”

“The dead will rise behind us every step of the way. For a trek like this, we need warriors—not chefs.”

The halflings nodded, but after only a few moments of consideration they slinked away and vanished in a crowd.

“The rest of you,” Rook said, “be ready to depart. We leave as soon as we find a ship.”

----------------------------------------

“What were you thinking?” Rook said to Astera.

“They wanted to come,” she said.

“They had no idea where we were going. You would have gotten them killed.”

“Have you forgotten Zydnus? A halfling can be a valiant warrior.”

“These were no warriors.”

“Yet still perhaps useful, in slowing down the oncoming hordes,” Eris said. She folded her arms. “I think we should have let them come along myself.”

Rook glared at Astera. “We aren’t bringing anyone along for the purpose of sacrifice. As for the rest of them—at least they seem informed enough to make their own decisions.”

“Or delusional enough,” Eris said.

“Those who make a living through arms are often delusional,” Astera said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Rook said. “This makes ten of us. Two magicians, an elf, five fighters, a troll, and Jason. That force should be small enough to move through to Arqa undetected, yet large enough to fend off the worst of what we encounter.”

“We still may find we need an army.”

Rook smiled at Eris. “We’ll have to make do with Eris instead. Now let’s find a boat.”