Chapter 7: The Scent of Flowers

Jace “Quickshot” Leál

Marcus gave me a once over. “Jace, you look just like yourself. All beat up and bloody. Just like you walked through time, right out of one of our campaigns. Except your face got old, so there’s that.” He eyed Ayla, his gaze lingering first on her ears, then her neck—conspicuously absent an iron collar—and then her bare legs. He whistled. “Interesting company you keep.”

Ayla’s glare could have melted glass, but Marcus didn’t seem to notice.

Marcus turned to the goblin leader, who was looking surly at the interruption. “Grak-man. I know how you work, so I’m just letting you know, I’ll be trading on my friend’s behalf, and you’ll be giving me my usual rate. No tricks.”

The bey grimaced and threw his hands up in frustration. Apparently, Marcus had negotiated a much more favorable bargain than I had. I never was any good with fairy deals.

Ayla eyed Marcus warily, and I tried to give her a look that said all was well to little effect. Her wariness for humans was a stark contrast with what she’d shown the goblins, despite the difference in the displays of aggression. She wasn’t looking at me that way anymore. Not that same intensity of hate, anyway.

Things went much more smoothly after Marcus got involved. He went aside to negotiate in private while Ayla and I were allowed to drink some much-needed water from a pail that one of Marcus’s companions—who introduced himself as Lars—brought to us. Lars was shorter than Marcus, taller than me, and wide. He had a bald head that he covered with a bandana after soaking it in his own pail of water.

“Ye know the Cap’n then?” Lars asked. His voice was high-pitched, a stark contrast with his tough exterior.

“Aeayhap,” I said, a combination of an affirmation and an exhale of relief at being able to taste something wet and cool.

“Soldiers?”

“Aye. Fourth Infantry, SB Spec Ops.” I hadn't said my designation for so long that I tasted the dust of ashes and blood on my tongue. SB—Soul Branded… anyone who’d served would know that.

“Then you and Marcus woulda’ worked a shit ton together, right?”

I wasn’t particularly eager to tell war stories at the moment. Especially in front of Ayla. So I just asked: “How about you?”

Lars didn’t seem bothered that I avoided the question. He nodded and pointed to himself. “I was a gunner with 10th Mountain: Front Line Support Core.” Then he grinned a gap-toothed grin that reminded me for a moment of Gaptooth, that Reaver I’d killed not long ago. “But that’s all behind us. We’re respectable Adventurers now.”

Basically, Marcus and his company were soldiers of fortune. They traveled the desert settlements doing odd jobs, running security, ruin diving for relics, and sometimes carting goods for merchants—which was the job they were on right now.

Ayla was eyeing my bandages. Was that concern in her eyes, or distaste for the stink of sunburnt blood?

Not long after, Marcus returned from talking with Grak’nar and clapped hands, wearing a smug grin. “Got y’all a bunch of great deals. You’ll get ammo, food, water… Anything you need. I’m footing the bill. You just give me the beast core in exchange.”

I gave him the core, noticing Ayla’s narrowed eyes once more. It was likely she didn’t like it, but was reluctant to say anything—besides, we were in a tough spot. It wasn’t like we had a choice.

Marcus turned back to me, still wiping his hands. "What the hell are you doing out here all alone?" His eyes flickered to Ayla for an instant, the unasked question—and who is she—hanging in the air.

I shrugged, wincing at the pain in my arm. "On my way to Hope’s End for a job. Gunsmith." I didn’t explain Ayla’s presence. I didn’t know what to say. He would draw his own conclusions, but I wouldn’t say that I meant to take her to an elf enclave. That ran the risk of bringing precisely the kind of trouble Ayla was concerned about. Besides, given that she hadn’t agreed to anything, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do with her.

Marcus laughed, the sound booming and carefree. "Pfft. You ain’t made to be a gunsmith. Okay, okay, don’t tell me. I bet it has something to do with that pretty elf girl, doesn’t it?" His grin widened. He was pushing the subject, but I shook my head, ending the conversation.

Marcus always did know how to read the room. "Fine, have it your way. What happened to your mounts? You don’t intend to walk the Waste do you?”

“Mounts croaked about a week back. Been hoofing since.”

“Shit. Sucks for you, man. We’re heading to Tempestt. You know...you and your elf ought to come with us. Safety in numbers and all that."

Tempest—the first city east of the Waste. It was a fortuitous offer. It would be a long hike on our own and we needed to make it to the city anyway if we wanted to resupply.

Traveling with Marcus was the obvious choice given our situation. Without mounts, crossing the Wastes alone was a death sentence.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I looked at Ayla, whose face was inscrutable. She hadn’t agreed to anything specific yet, but I felt a growing responsibility to see her to an enclave, or as close to one as she’d let me. There wasn’t really a choice. Running into Marcus was fortuitous.

I gave Marcus a slight nod.

“That’s great news! Roadtrip! Heh. I haven’t seen any of the old crew in years. Last one was Riley, but she’s dead now.”

I stiffened, the news hitting me like a fist to the gut. Not that I’d made any efforts to reach out to anyone from then, but Riley had been one of my more outstanding mates. Not someone who took any pleasure in what they made us do. I braced myself for another blow. “How did she go?”

Marcus looked down and kicked dirt, the first time so far he’d broken his smile. “Put a blunderbuss to her chest and pulled the trigger. It…wasn’t pretty. But that was something like eight years ago? Don’t let it get you down.”

I grimaced. There were more questions I wanted to ask, but I pushed them back—to that black chest in the back of my mind where all the dark things waited.

“Hey!” Marcus said, bouncing back to his affable self. “We got a lot of catching up to do on the road. So you better get yourself washed up and wounds tended. I already made arrangements.” He raised a hand and gestured to a little girl goblin in a white tunic and headwrap. She had pink foxglove embroidered along the sleeves and chest. It was the brightest color I’d seen among the goblins so far.

The goblin raised bowed politely. Her voice was higher pitched and smoother than other goblins I’d heard before. “Please, this way.”

Foxglove—as I decided to call her once I learned that she had yet to be given a proper name—led Ayla and me to a bathhouse. It was a single-story structure with adobe walls and sloping wooden beams for a roof.

She took us past the changing rooms and straight to a room with several wooden tubs, positioned with enough space around them and separated by linen curtains.

There was, however, only one wooden tub that was full, whether the water was pumped or hauled with buckets was hard to say. In my estimation, there hadn't been a lot of time to set this up since Marcus came to terms with the goblin leader, and I suspected magic was involved.

“This is your bath.” Foxglove said, gesturing to both Ayla and I, and then to the tub. “Place your soiled clothes and boots on the table there outside the curtain. There are tunics available for you to wear until they have been washed.”

Then the goblin just stood there. Watching.

Ayla’s neck and cheeks grew so red it overwhelmed her sunburned skin. “Unthinkable.” Ayla growled. “Do you think I am his slave?”

The goblin shrugged. “I just did as was agreed.” She continued to stand. There was an unmistakable crook in the corner of her mouth that advertised she was thoroughly enjoying the situation.

Ayla gaped.

I was about to suggest that we go outside and correct this misconception, when Ayla began arguing with the little goblin. It was a fast paced back and forth that was spoken in the goblin’s native tongue.

Never learned gobbo.

I caught the occasional word I sort of recognized that I thought were a string of curse words from Ayla. The little goblin’s grin kept widening, until at the end her smile faltered and she pouted.

“Agreed?” Ayla asked.

“Ya ya ya! You win Jeen—” using the goblin word for elf— “By word and bond, it shall be so.”

Then Foxglove stomped off.

Ayla sighed and smoothed her filthy robes.

“What was that?” I asked.

Instead of an answer, Ayla pulled me by my good arm toward the water. Then she began undoing the buttons of my vest. “Hey, what are you— ”

“Quiet.” Her words held almost as much animosity in them as the day when we first met. But I got the feeling it wasn’t wholly directed at me.

When she began working on my shirt, I opened my mouth to protest, she snapped at me. “Jace!” I shut my mouth. She growled: “Do not get the wrong idea. I will help you because otherwise you will struggle and reopen your wounds. So be quiet and allow me to navigate my distaste for what I am doing without adding your disgusting, annoying, hideous voice to the mix.”

It’s a funny thing. It’s not easy to describe how Ayla seemed to me then. Vulnerable, angry, frustrated. But there were shadows that kept passing over her eyes as she helped me out of my clothes and out of the dirty bandages. I knew those shadows. So many times had I seen them in the mirror back in Valenheim. Ghosts of the past.

How long had she cultivated her hate for humans? An entire race which I represented—and now here she was, touching one, undressing them, tending to them.

There was nothing I could do but grant her wish for silence. She bathed me. It was far from what could be considered gentle. But nothing she did injured me further.

Of course, I took care of what I could with my right hand. And when I was done, she applied the healing grease and rebandaged my arm—both things the goblins had left for me. Then she put on my tunic. Then she met my eyes for the first time since she’d started tending to me.

Her sclera were red-veined, and I could see the tears starting to form.

I never learned much about elven culture beyond what was necessary or taught to me by my superiors. But there was one thing I had seen enough times to understand. Something I first witnessed in the Sisters when I was a child, and I knew to be one of the oldest customs shared by all elves.

I didn’t say anything. Instead, I placed a hand to my heart, and bowed.

When I raised my head, Ayla’s back was to me.

“You may leave now, Jace. I have already bargained for fresh water for my turn. Make…no mistake. I only helped you because I felt filthy and could not wait until you finished floundering one-handed.”

I smiled at that. Then I felt the faint chill of magic and the water from the wooden tub cleared in an instant, and steamed slightly. Fairy magic was something truly impossible for me to comprehend. The fresh scent of a field of flowers reached my nose—that hadn’t been a part of my bath—and I wondered if that was something Foxglove added of her own accord, or something Ayla insisted on.

It was a bittersweet smell that made me oddly nostalgic. It conjured imagery in stark contrast with the desert. I had a suspicion it was a rogue idea of the mischievous goblin to send a message beyond my ken.

“Aye.” I said to Ayla. Then I put on the sandals that had been left near the doorframe, and exited the bathhouse, glad to leave that scent behind.