Chapter 6: Diverse Contenders

Alcar shivered.

Granted, it was nearly dawn. All the same, the sky was almost completely dark, and there was a deep chill in the air that felt like it was cutting through him like gutting knives. Ahead of him stood a squat, square tower with a pitched roof. Maluhk’s residence – or at least, so he assumed. There was no sign yet of the rotund half-orc sorcerer.

He had persuaded Olynka to come with him, and she was now wearing a hood that half-covered her face in case the sorcerer recognized her – personally, Alcar thought this unlikely. Sprigg had given him a firm no to this and anything else adventure-related, and Alcar had sensed that his big friend would retain that attitude for some time to come. Nearby, though, several youthful-looking strangers had gathered – five in all that he could see. It appeared that the job that Maluhk wanted doing, whatever it was, was not going to be entrusted to him alone.

Or perhaps the sorcerer expected some casualties along the way. How dangerous was sorcery, anyway?

The nearest of the unfamiliar hopefuls was a halfling, around four feet in height, with a merry red-cheeked face a receding hairline. The next two figures looked more like farmers than adventurers, which to Alcar was something of a relief – nobody likes to look like the least experienced guy on the scene. Both were male dwarves with blond hair and beards, and they were alike enough to be brothers, both dirty faced and wearing smock-like canvas clothes sashed at their waist with cord.

The final pair were standing together, but couldn’t be more dissimilar; one was a lithe elven man, around five feet high and very dark skinned, while the other was a palid creature of what to Alcar’s mind could only be referred to as a weird, southern species. Something with horns.

Alcar yawned, and glanced sideways. Olynka was looking up towards the tower with a nervous grin visible inside her hood, and Alcar knew that she was dreaming of meeting the champion lizard warrior and getting trained in archery. He followed her gaze, hoping for signs of movement at the tower door. Where the hell was the big half-orc? And what reason – besides cruelty – was there for asking the applicants to assemble before dawn?

Alcar was rarely up and about at such an early hour. As it was, on waking up that morning, he had had to race to reach the gate in time, joining a short line of visitors that were showing their credentials to the city guards. Fortunately the black gem-like token from Maluhk had been accepted, and they had let both he and Olynka pass without question.

He shivered again, patting at his sides, and wishing that he had a cloak to cover his everyday canvas clothing. At least he had decent boots – his family had always seen to that. But in terms of ‘coming prepared as best you can’ – as Maluhk had instructed him to do – he didn’t really have any of the sort of gear that he supposed adventurers usually carried. Whatever that would be. Torches? Rope? Pitons?

Just as Alcar began to muse to himself about what the ideal set of equipment for a ‘real’ adventurer would look like, he noticed a trickling noise. His eyes narrowed as he looked around, only to see that the halfling was urinating against the side of Master Maluhk’s tower. Alcar’s eyes widened as the guy freely splashed the liquid up and down and side to side, waggling his member in one hand and scratching at one of his underarms with the other.

“Are you crazy,” hissed Alcar. “That’s a fine way to enrage the sorcerer and get us all sent away – if he doesn’t decide to just incinerate us all with a fireball.”

“Whatever, my friend,” said the halfling with a grin. “Take it easy.” As the stream of piss ended, he gave his penis a shake and tucked it inside his breeches. He then spat on his hands, rubbed them together, and held out one for Alcar to shake. “Good to meet you, man. My name’s Etienne.”

“He’s Alcar,” said Olynka, one eyebrow raised as she pointed at her friend. “And I am Olynka. They call me Olynka the Bow.”

Etienne grunted, looking as if he was struggling to suppress a grin. “Didn’t you get the memo, kid?” he said. “Sorcerers use staves, and they steer clear of weapons with sharp bits. After all, there’s always some dumb ranger or barbarian around to do the real fighting.”

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Just then, the door swung open with a bang, and Maluhk strode out onto the small balcony at the top of the steps. “Damn,” muttered the big sorcerer, looking around at the door again as it banged shut once more. “I really need to get that fixed.”

The half-orc then took a further step forward, and leaned on the small iron railing that lined the stone steps. “Applicants,” he said, and then snorted, breathing heavily and looking from one face to the next. “Some of you have been invited here on the basis of recommendations from my trusted companions, and others“ – he glanced down in Alcar’s direction – “approached me of your own accord. Either way, your job today is the same. I have work needing done to put things right among my magical books and with the structure of this tower, too.” The young elven man groaned at the back of the gathering, but the sorcerer continued: “This might seem trivial to some of you, but a sorcerer’s home is a key foundation of the magical...”

Just then, Maluhk fell silent, sniffing the air. He then looked down at where Alcar and Etienne were standing.

At least, to where Alcar thought that Etienne was beside him...

When he looked around, he couldn’t help but notice that Etienne was now several yards away, standing beside the dwarves with his arms folded. And it was Alcar alone who was almost standing in the halfling’s puddle of piss.

“Damn it,” said Alcar, pointing at the offending liquid. “I was just saying to the others here, the standard of street cleaners has slipped. I mean, I am from the poor quarter, where the streets are coated with dung. We get used to the stench after a while. But we should expect better around here, right?”

Without waiting for an answer from the sorcerer, Alcar stode past Olynka and approached the elven man, giving him a shake of the shoulder as if to wake him up. “Hey, you there – you look like you’d be the swiftest on your feet among us. Why don’t you go and report this mess to the city guards? On you go, now.”

“Umm... but I am here for...” began the elf.

“Now!” snapped Alcar.

And with that, the lithe elven man ran off towards the center of Katresburg.

Alcar turned back towards the tower with what he hoped was an innocent smile on his face.

Maluhk was standing motionless, glaring at him, yellow eyes glinting through the early morning gloom. But after a moment, the big sorcerer sighed, and proceeded down his steps, then walked out into the middle of the street. “Gather round for a moment, gather round,” he growled.

Tentatively, obligingly, the six remaining applicants came closer. Etienne slapped Alcar on the back as he approached him. “Good work getting rid of that elven loser,” he murmured.

“Silence from all of you,” said Maluhk airily, raising one finger in the air. “One thing any apprentice needs to know is that listening to your master is the most important thing of all. Focus on his voice. Nobody wants an apprentice who can think for himself.”

The half-orc was speaking quietly now, and this caused the six youths to gather closer, forming a tight circle around him.

“Go on, please, master,” said Olynka quietly.

Maluhk spun to look at her. “What did I just say, kid? Silence, correct?”

“Ahh...” The young woman lowered her hooded head, opening and closing her mouth without responding, and then nodded.

“Good. I will give warnings, but only once – all of you should note that. Now – to business. If you can show yourself capable and reliable by helping with certain chores around my home, I have another task which I think you will find more exciting. I find myself busy in town these days, and it gets harder to travel abroad on adventures like I used to. Besides, some missions require a certain sensitivity, and that is hard to achieve for a high-profile magic user such as myself.”

Alcar was intrigued, and he looked around the others. The demonic woman looked similarly engaged, and was rubbing her clawed hands together. The dwarves looked bored, as if they were barely listening. Etienne was now fiddling with a pipe – a smaller one than Maluhk had been smoking the previous week, but an ornate thing all the same. When he saw Alcar looking, the halfling winked, and then resumed the business of packing the pipe with weed.

“But as I said, you must prove yourself first. As there are six of you here, I will divide you into two groups. One of the groups will help to organise the books in my study – they are well overdue for dusting and being filed away alphabetically by title. The other group will repair the damage to the roof which was caused by an unfortunate griffon incident a couple of months ago. Understand?”

There were some nods; nobody spoke a word in response, and Maluhk grunted with a look of satisfaction. “Needless to say, if your group fail, none of you go any further. If the group succeeds, then I will proceed to test your suitability for magical work. Sound fair?”

The six youths nodded – clearly, all had taken on board the instruction about listening in silence.

“Very well then. You there” – the sorcerer pointed to Alcar – “together with the halfling and the archer woman. Come inside with me. The other three, wait right here. You” – he paused, looking the dwarves up and done with a sly glance – “look like you might be suited to working with tools.”

Maluhk now turned and walked back towards the steps, and Alcar followed along behind, keen to get the chores out of the way quickly so that he could hear more about the master sorcerer’s mysterious errand.

And privately very glad that he had not already been sent back to the poor quarter.