Sam

She had to drag Mongrel out of bed in the morning, getting him down to the common room and in front of a bowl of food before he was conscious enough to actually make conversation with. Sam noticed Apples the serving girl already making eyes at her across the room as she went about sweeping road dust off the floor, and figured it was probably best to get the whole affair over with as soon as possible.

"So," she said around a mealy apple, "I had a bit of a situation last night."

"Mmh," Mongrel grunted, draped low over his plate of eggs, his chin barely off the table.

"You remember that serving girl we spoke to? Well, I happened to run into her while I was going out for a leak. One thing led to another, and it turns out she wants to tag along with us for a bit."

Mongrel laughed a bite of food back onto his plate and shook his head ruefully, but gave no other reply.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm not surprised, that's all."

"What do you mean?"

"That girl was making doe eyes at you all night, kid. She's very interested in something you don't got, that's all I'm saying."

Sam blinked. "Oh. Then…"

"Yup."

"So she's…"

"Yup."

"Well, that's awkward." Sam fought a hard flush. "That aside, what do you think? She wants to tag along with us at least for a while up the road, until she can find a place to settle where she won't be harassed so much."

"What do I think?" Mongrel asked, cracking one bleary eye at Sam through his chaotic gray shock of hair. "I think it's a bad idea, obviously."

"Right. But—"

The old man held up a finger, ushering silence. "But you want to play the hero anyway. I get it kid, I get it. And I can't be bothered arguing with you, so do as you please."

Sam took a last bite off her apple and munched down the core as well, sucking the sugary pulp off her fingers. "All right, thanks!"

"Now, obviously, it'll be your responsibility to care for her."

"I can do that."

"And…" He shrugged, heaped some scrambled egg onto a thick slice of bread, took a bite of it, then said: "Not that it makes any difference to me either way, but you probably oughta think of a way to let the girl down easy. Things might get pretty awkward for all parties involved if you don't nip it in the bud right quick."

"Yeah, I… I'll figure something out. I mean, are you sure that she…?" Sam threw a glance across the room, found Apples waving back at her. "All right, yeah. Maybe she does."

Mongrel laughed.

As soon as they had eaten, Sam went and broke the news to Apples that she could tag along with them as far as she liked. The plump serving girl quit her job in rather dramatic fashion, throwing her apron at the innkeep and telling him in no uncertain terms what she thought of being in his employ. The pasty fellow was glaring venom at Sam and Mongrel when they paid up for the food and were getting ready to leave, but there was little the man could do with his bouncer off-duty until the afternoon.

Greensby wasn't any prettier at night than it was during the day, Sam decided as they stepped out of the shabby inn and into an equally shabby town. There was not much to indicate where the place had gotten its name from, exactly, as most of it was in dusty gray and brown and beige, hardly an inspiring sight.

Apples chattered the whole time as they got Zero out of the stables and made their way through town. The (former) serving girl showed them where to get travel rations at a decent price, then went home to change out of her tight-bodiced dress into more sensible travel wear, catching back up at a run with a satchel bouncing off her shoulder.

There were barges running from the eastern end of town, as the River Sterling grew calmer and steadier here, making ferrying goods upriver a tenable endeavor. Mongrel decided that the river route was too risky, however, as it would necessarily bring them into close proximity with people for long periods of time—people who might be able to identify them later—so they continued along the land route as before.

Sam quickly decided that if they were going to be traveling together, she might as well take the risk of putting her faith in Apples and hope she would prove trustworthy, rather than keep the lie going with her.

"Here's the thing," Sam said. "We're not really looking for soldiering work, all right?"

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"Oh?" the girl said.

"Yeah, we're actually trying to find someone, and once we've tracked him down, we're taking him straight back to Sheerhome again. You could call it a bit of a… sensitive mission, which is why we're traveling under disguise."

"Then… your name isn't really John?"

"Yeah, about that…"

All things considered, Apples took the news fairly well, though there was a lot of blushing and stuttering after the initial shock died down. As for the manhunt part of their journey, she appeared to have no issue with it, nor with the fact that they needed to work beneath the notice of the lord's men.

"You know anything about this Big Deal Buck fellow, then?" Sam asked.

"I suppose so," Apples replied, absently patting Zero's flank as she walked alongside the animal. "He made kind of a big show when he came through Greensby. Only stayed one night, and went under an assumed name just like you did. Guards found him out pretty quick though, and tried to detain him on charges of… banditry, or something, I think? Anyway, Buck slipped away, and that's the last I've heard of him. It was the talk of the town for a while, but he didn't stay at the Virgin, so I don't know many details. This was a while ago, too, like maybe a month or two?"

"Sounds about right," Mongrel cut in, walking a few paces ahead of them with one finger hooked through Zero's bridle.

"What is it you want someone like that for, anyway?" Apples asked. "He seems dangerous."

"We're planning on putting Brimstone out of a job, and Will—my boyfriend, that is—thinks we need this Big Deal Buck guy to get it done." It still gave Sam butterflies whenever she thought about the fact that her and Will were really together, somehow, after all this time she'd spent with the bitter knowledge that such a thing would remain forever impossible.

Apples went a bit pale at hearing about the Brimstone bit.

"D'you really need to tell her everything, kid?" Mongrel asked with a snort of annoyance.

"I'd rather not string her along without letting her know what she's getting into," Sam explained.

The old man let it go with a shrug. "Whatever. Your responsibility, just remember that."

Sam turned her attention back to the plump young Farmer. "Things might get a bit dangerous for us along the way, so if you decide you don't want to travel with us anymore, just let us know and we can drop you off at the next town. If things don't work out well for you there, we can bring you back down to Greensby on our way south. What do you think?"

Apples considered carefully for a while, then gave a slow nod. "I've heard things about Brimstone—about what kind of leader he is. If you're standing against him, that must mean you're the good guys in all this. I'm not… well, I'm not brave or strong or anything like that…" She blushed, and cupped her cheek in her hand to hide it. "...But I want to help you if I can. The way you helped me."

Sam nodded, grinning. "I like your fighting spirit, Apples. I think we're going to get along great."

As with the day before, Sam insisted on carrying some of the packing to hopefully help her level. She took Apples' satchel as well, weighing herself down to the point where the hike was actually moderately challenging as the hours wore on.

They stopped sometime after noon, meeting up with the chimps in a forest clearing not far from the road. They took their midday meal there, and Sam supplemented one of Will's rations with bread and cheese they'd picked up in Greensby.

Naturally, the newcomer to the team was more than a little startled to find five full-grown chimps bearing down on her, but she regained her composure quickly enough. She grew a bit more relaxed around them after Number Five gifted her a handful of blueberries, which she ended up sharing with the young chimp, both of them picking berries out of her upturned palm.

The chimps were not pleased at having to travel under such ignoble conditions, and communicated this to their father both loudly and at length. There was nothing Mongrel could do to amend this, but he gave them a pipe and a tobacco pouch to share as a small consolation gift for when their cigarettes ran out. This, apparently, was good enough to stop their bellyaching for the time being.

Continuing along the Iron Road, they kept it up until dusk, when they pulled in at the rest stop sitting at the halfway point between Greensby and Timbryhall. Plenty of caravans and smaller traveling parties were already occupying the open space, a staggered double-row of wagons making a sort of shield against the wilds to the west.

Plenty of cook fires burned about the place, with voices of merriment and argument rising in equal measure above the din of everyday activity.

Mongrel picked out a spot for them near the edge of it all and set up a fire for them to cook their dinner on. Apples handled that part, doing a fair job at it. They ate and told stories until after it got dark, stars winking down at them, and the fires about the rest stop began to burn low.

"You know," Sam said, "I don't really know anything about this Buck fellow, myself. What's his deal?"

"Ach, he's not all that special," Mongrel said, sucking on his teeth as though he found the subject distasteful. "Just another jumped-up cutthroat, an altogether too common breed on the Frontier. Only thing sets him apart is that he's got a higher opinion of himself than most of those other knuckleheads."

"I heard he's a hero," Apples said, and immediately shrank into herself at the glare Mongrel gave her. "Sorry. I mean, that's just what I heard."

The old man scoffed, arms folded tight atop his spherical belly. "Hero indeed. Yes, I'm sure that's what he'd like you to believe. Always been one for spreading tall tales about himself—then again, that's Entertainers in a nutshell, every rotten one of 'em."

"You and Will had some kind of… fight with him, right?" Sam asked.

"You could say that. We murdered some of his, he murdered one of ours, we parted on less than agreeable terms. Stole Nyx off his hands while we were at it."

"Nyx was with him?"

"Yeah. Wish we'd left the demon behind and picked up the bounty reward for the sorry bastard instead. Meaning no offense, of course, seeing as you wouldn't be here without the bitch."

"So you fought Buck… and won, I guess?"

"Yeah. Will did."

"Then why do we need him, if Will is stronger?"

Mongrel chuckled. "I wouldn't say he's stronger, exactly. Credit where credit is due, the bandit has got one hell of a sword hand. No, our Will fought dirty, got the better of him with one of his little tricks. Those kinds of tricks won't work on Brimstone, though. He's too wary of that kind of thing. And then there's all that stuff Will said about Buck being a good candidate for taking over the lordship and bla bla bla. You remember."

"I remember."

"Good."