Chapter 3

Ned watched his baby adventurers slog off to the longhouse dorm. They were dead tired after the fight and the march. So was Ned, for that matter. He’d read that combat was one of the most singularly exhausting experiences a person could have, and he kept on finding it true. Too bad he had, you know, ‘miles to go before I sleep.’

Robert Frost, of course, was talking about rest and death, but whatever.

He looked over at Hattan on his shoulder. “Do you know where Cadmin is?”

“The garden bench,” said Hattan. The big white squirrel twitched his tail, leaped off, and scurried into the inn.

It was the second tallest structure in the camp, only Ned’s three-story tower was taller. He was proud of it, though most had been built by professionals. The remodeled longhouse was attached as an eastern wing of the inn, and, tall as it was, remained a single level. The inn ran at a ninety-degree angle from the longhouse. It had a railed porch and a veranda, its twin, above, where the five largest, and most expensive, rooms shared it. It could also serve as an elevated firing platform in the event of an enemy breaching the walls. If the Namastery qualified as a fortress, the inn was the de facto keep. It was a big, fancy log cabin, really, like all the structures at the Namastery. It’d likely remain that way until Ned found some time to learn how to make and lay bricks. Or someone else there did.

Ned watched his friend climb the left side of the door frame, which was something squirrels did in mixed company, and vanish inside. He wanted to follow. Magrid would be in there, preparing things for dinner with her cooking class. It was polite to let people know you were alright after a patrol. She would know already, of course. Folks would know Cadmin came back before the others. They would know what happened. The squirrels would have said. Still, it was the right thing to do and Ned wanted to do it.

But Cadmin couldn’t wait.

Ned sighed and walked around the side of the inn to the garden.

It wasn’t a big garden. It took up about twenty yards between the inn and the wall, and was about thirty yards long, with a bit sticking out past both sides of the inn. It was a working garden, meant to supplement the various meals and appetites of the diverse group of folks within. That wasn’t to say it didn’t look nice. There was a flagstone walkway that wound its way through. The trellises were in good repair. And there was a wrought iron bench Gritta had donated that sat against the wall under an arbor that wasn’t quite ruined by the firestep above. The well wasn’t far away and Ned and his students had dug an irrigation ditch that ran from there, through the garden, and ended at a small pond in front of the bench.

It was a good place to come and think when the garden wasn’t being worked, which it wouldn't be this close to suppertime.

Cadmin was there, elbows on his knees, his dark hair hanging over his eyes to hide them.

He looks upset, thought Ned as he considered the boy. That squares with my idea that his running away wasn’t an attempt to kill me or sabotage things. Though this still might be a ploy to get me to trust him. Ran off knowing I’d have to deal with him, knowing that would build a rapport, no matter how false, so he can pry what secrets I have out of me. That could be what’s going on.

It didn’t matter. Ned would treat Cadmin like his student because that was what Cadmin was, whatever else he might be. That, and it was the best way to get Cadmin to trust him.

Ned strolled along the garden path, giving the boy enough time to realize he was approaching.

Cadmin had manspread himself over the entire center of the bench.

“Scoot over, kid,” said Ned.

Cadmin did so without comment. He wasn’t looking at Ned.

“You okay?” said Ned.

“The squirrels would’ve told you if I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant. I was being polite, see? I know you’re not okay even though those goblins didn’t physically hurt you any, bud.”

Cadmin said nothing.

“You screwed up. It happens to everybody. It was just your turn." Ned tossed a pebble into the pond. "You know, Kattick nearly killed Grig one day sparring.”

Cadmin said nothing.

“Nermin picked that fight with that elven merchant. Remember that? Had to fix or replace every stick of furniture in the inn’s common room.”

Cadmin said nothing.

“Lettie ate that mushroom.”

Cadmin laughed despite himself.

Lettie had been so sure that the wobbly white mushroom was a white trumpet even though Ned and the squirrels had told her it wasn’t. She ate the thing on a dare. It had been an owl’s prick mushroom, one of the more powerful hallucinogens on Home.

She still got teased about it.

“You ran,” said Ned. “We all think about running. I’m surprised it hasn’t happened before this, really. I mean, goddamn, it looked like the forest just puked all the goblins it had at us, didn’t it? All the goblins in the world.”

Cadmin said nothing.

Ned waited.

He looked at the ripples in the pond. Too many for just one pebble.

Huh. Someone had put fish in it. Was it even big enough for fish? It was only about six feet long and maybe five feet across at the center where it was fattest. He’d have to ask somebody.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Those tomatoes were coming along nicely. Those peppers. The corn looked a bit short though. Have to ask somebody about that.

Ned sighed. “Okay, Cad. If you want to talk later, you know I’m available. We’ll patrol again day after tomorrow.”

Cadmin looked at him in surprise.

“Yeah, if you want to go, you can," said Ned. "Nobody will say anything. People screw up. You screwed up. You are a people. You’re our people. At my school. You get another chance if you want it.” Ned got up. “Adventuring isn’t for everybody. Hell, I don’t particularly like it myself. It’s important here because large parts of the economy depend on it. Half the reagents I use in my lab are from our patrols or bought off merchants who bought theirs from some adventurers who found them in odd places or cut them from strange monsters. That isn’t to mention the goods sometimes found in dens or tombs or caves or whatever. Monsters and the dead do seem to collect valuables, don't they? Huh. Anyway, there’s lots of opportunity for adventuring out there, which is, no doubt, why you picked it. But the world needs smiths and cooks and herbalists too. And lots of other things that we either teach here or soon will. You’ve got choices. You get to make them. It's not always easy to choose wisely. I once wanted to be a lawyer.”

He patted the young man on the shoulder and left.

He approached the back door of the inn which opened into the kitchen where Magrid was sure to be tossing things in a pot or stirring something on the stove, only he never made it.

A squirrel chittered at him from the roof. It was Schoteka. “Ned? Lord Kax wants a word,” she said.

“Scho? Any idea why?”

“He didn’t say.” She twitched her tail. “He’s in your office.”

“Thanks, Red,” Ned said then headed away from the inn toward his tower.

Lord Kax Halftail was the biggest squirrel Ned had ever seen. The squirrels of Home tended to be a bit bigger than those of Earth but the king of the squirrels was the size of a housecat. Currently, he was propped up on a fluffy purple cushion on the corner of Ned’s desk placed there for his squirrel visitors. He wore a silver circlet above his brow and studded leathers under his harness, the peculiar armor squirrel front-liners wore. The harness was a thick steel frame, the equivalent of roll bars on a motorized vehicle. It was supposed to keep the wearer from being squished beneath a boot.

The office itself was a simple affair. There was a rough desk, a couple of homemade chairs for guests, a nicer one for himself, and the cushion. The desk didn’t even have any drawers. Gritta and Ned were planning something nicer and one day they’d get around to it.

“I hear you tangled with some goblins,” said Lord Kax.

Ned sat after offering a slight bow. Squirrels weren’t very ceremonial, but they knew humans were and so expected a tiny bit. “Yes, my lord. My students did very well.”

Lord Kax rose an… eyebrow? Did squirrels have eyebrows? They had a ridge above their eye sockets and attendant musculature, at any rate, and Kax raised his, but said nothing to contradict Ned. He must have known about Cadmin. The whole camp probably did by now, but Kax only cleared his throat and said, “How many, would you say?”

“I think, maybe thirty-some. Total.”

Kax nodded. “That tallies with what our scouts have said.” The big squirrel took a breath. “Ned, something is going on in our forests. Something unusual. That is too large a group of goblins. True, they could have squeezed through the Thornwall in several different areas and then joined together, but different groups are much more likely to slaughter each other than anything else. That and we’ve been seeing much more activity than usual. Something is wrong.”

“What do you think it is?”

“We must find out.”

“How do we do that?”

Kax shook his head. “You misunderstand me, Ned. My people will find out. You, in the meantime, must lead heavier patrols that range farther out, and maybe more than one at a time.”

Ned leaned back in his chair. “The kids aren’t ready for that.”

“No, they are not. I've set some funds aside. Use it to hire guards from the caravans. I propose that we keep your students as a rapid response unit that responds to threats my people find. Hattan can command your students if you are unavailable. He is capable. Schoteka commands two or three squads of scouts.”

“Things are that bad?”

“There are reports that the outskirts of Laggisport and Fort Smith have suffered raids by monsters. You will have noticed that merchants are back to well-manned escorts as it was in the days of Red Betty, and some of those have gone missing.”

Ned scratched an eyebrow and looked out the window. The breeze was still blowing high in the trees, making their tops glitter like a trove of emeralds. “I think my students will be on board for that,” Ned said after a moment. His kids liked a fight, especially if they knew what they were in for, and Hattan was really the commander in the field anyway. The cleric had forgotten more about small squad tactics than Ned had ever read about or experienced. Schoteka was accounted one of the best scouts on the peninsula, of any species. He didn’t like the idea of them going out to deal with something awful without him, but that was part of teaching too. Sometimes the kids had to have the opportunity to fall on their heads and, hard as it was, he had to let them. But that wasn’t the only thing bothering him.

“This kind of thing hasn’t happened before?” he asked Kax.

The big squirrel smiled. “On the contrary, it happens every once in a while despite the efforts at the Thornwall.”

The Thornwall he’d been told was exactly that. A huge wall of thorn bushes and briars that had been cultivated between the Kingdom of Wyere and the Border Mountains that ran across the entire neck of the peninsula. The wall was fortified and commanded by the king’s brother, Aldmon, Duke of Thornwall. That’s all Ned knew about it. That and he’d been actively discouraged from ever going there.

“Sometimes there’s some kind of pressure in the wilderness that causes goblins and other horrors to slip through the thorns in greater numbers. A hundred years ago the orcs united under a great warlord, for example. Thirty years ago, there was a dragon. In both instances, adventurers from Wyere crossed the wall and put an end to the problem.”

Oh shit. “I see.”

Kax put his head back and laughed. “Not you, my friend.” He made an expansive gesture, indicating everything around him. “Your talents lie in another direction,” he said. “This would be a job for one of the established guilds or mercenary groups. The Wolf Brothers perhaps, or Fin’s Six Dozen? Maybe the Weird Sisters I’m hearing about in Wyere City. Besides, you won’t be powerful enough for that particular area of the world for some time yet.”

“Well gee, thanks.”

Kax continued to laugh and wave a hand, and in truth, Ned wasn’t offended. He knew who he was and was entirely satisfied. It was politic to pretend otherwise. Ned supposed it was a man thing.

“Those are all, what, heroes for hire?” he asked.

“Hmm?”

“The Wolf Brothers, the Weird Sisters, and Fin’s Aunts and Uncles or Whatevers.”

“Fin’s Six Dozen. They operate out of Fort Smith most of the time.”

“Should we try to employ them?”

“They only work for the nobility,” said Lord Kax. “Human nobility, that is. The king and his family. By law, alas. Besides, they are very expensive. You'll have more luck hiring people away from the caravans.”

“But if there’s something wrong at the wall….”

“I shall discover it and inform the Lord Duke. Of Thornwall, that is. It’s his solemn duty to ensure the safety of the kingdom. The House of Wyere has maintained the wall since before they were elevated to rule. They have safeguarded it for hundreds of years with the full confidence of their subjects.”

“And yours?”

The king of the squirrels considered. “We shall go and see for ourselves.”