Jonah, still crouched, returned his short sword to the small sheath hanging off his left hip. He stepped forward and jumped through the revealed shaft. The moment I heard the thump of his landing I moved to descend as well. I looked down to see him step aside, making room for me, with his side dagger drawn.  I dropped down the short distance down into the Guild’s Hole.

The hole was actually a small room with rows of shelves lining the wall and a small table with some chairs pushed towards the back wall. The room was a little over half the size of the tavern’s hall above us. It was tight quarters for a fight, so it made sense why Jonah grabbed his dagger instead of his short sword. Plus he was like a viper with a dagger.

Once I landed, I kept myself crouched in order to quickly reach behind me for my dagger with my right hand and retrieved a similar blade strapped to my leg with my left. As I brought myself to the standing position, I shifted my weight to my back leg and held my blades out, ready to spring into a fight at a moment’s notice.

The two of us slowly and silently progressed into the room, looking for whatever had made the noises before. I kept a listening ear, waiting for the slightest sound to give away whatever is in here with us.

We were almost to the final shelves and the table when I heard a whimper. Jonah and I stopped at the same instant, he heard it too.

Evil doesn’t whimper.

“Hello?” I said quietly. Jonah’s head whipped around to look at me, surprised that I spoke. “It’s alright. We won’t hurt you.” I said despite his questioning glance. It might be a lie, but I hoped it was the truth. There’s been enough death here today.

“A priest and a lord walk into a tavern and see an orphan beggar, both offer to take the child away.  Who does the beggar go with?” A small voice asked from behind the final shelf.

The code? Freyda must have had time to tell them of it before they got into the Guild’s Hole.

“Neither. The child goes with the sellsword in the corner” I said in response to the riddle.

Shuffling feet could be heard behind the shelf. Then a young lady, she might have seen fifteen or sixteen season cycles, stepped out into the open just far enough to be seen but holding something back behind the shelf still.

“Freyda said that anyone who came through the hole would either be an enemy or a member of the Guild.” She said, still a little suspicious.

She needs more convincing that we are friends and not robbers

“Yes. Freyda was the Tavern Keep here at Frigga’s. She used to be a Bastard like us but moved on to other tasks.” I slightly motioned to the building around us. “ Like taking over her grandmother’s tavern and namesake.” Lorelle slowly nodded at my words. Good, she’s starting to believe. She was starting to come out of that shocked fight or flight feeling that our arrival created.

“My name is Bronwyn Stone and this is my brother Jonah.” I motioned him as I lowered my left arm, putting the blade back into its sheath on my leg. I then returned my right blade to its sheath on my lower back.

“You’re with the Guild?”

I nodded with a smile. Trying to put the girl at ease.

“It’s alright now child, you’re safe” Jonah said softly. He lowered his blade to its sheath strapped his left side, following my lead of disarming.

“Stone?” She asked then paused, trying to place the name. “My father told me of that name. He used to work here when I was little. He said that the leader of The Guild is Chief Stone”

“Our father,” Jonah replied with a crooked half smile.

The girl nodded her head slowly as if mulling over the new information with what she has apparently learned of the Guild from her father.

Some of it was a bit inaccurate, but most common people’s knowledge of us is slightly skewed. Father was the Chief of The Tavern, which is a sect within The Guild, not the leader of the Guild itself. As Chief, he leads and counsels The Tavern and it’s people, with the help of his various advisors. The sects of the Guild mostly govern within themselves and protect the surrounding territory of the country. Members of each sect helped to grow food to support themselves and the rest of the people within the Sect.

Each sect of the Guild had a particular focus and through trade and the occasional smuggling, the sects share the fruits of their labors. The Tavern was a hundred miles for the Western Sea, it was charged with producing ale and wine for taverns across the country; The Port was located slightly west of the Capital City and the Smugglers hub of The Guild; The Farm which was located in the Far East, and was in charge of growing The Guild’s storages of food for the needy; and The Mine was located in the Northern mountains where Bastards go for harsh but necessary training; there was a fifth, The Ball, but it was destroyed when The Crown and The Guild separated a hundred cycles ago.

Every season cycle, all the Chiefs, and various members of their respective sects gather at one of the five Guild sects. The chiefs meet and discuss topics of import. Bastards, Flyers, and Artisans come together as a single Guild to celebrate the Guild’s continued success and remember their history. Artisans are those who work within the Guild as smiths, farmers, merchants, and smugglers. Though the smugglers tended to find themselves lumped in with Bastards more so than Artisans due to their more sinister means of work. Some return to their sects of origin, while others decide to leave and go to another.

Seeming to have accepted what she heard,  The girl stepped further out into the opening, pulling a small girl by the hand.

“I’m Lorelle.” The girl said without making eye contact. She lifted her and the little girl’s conjoined hands “and this is my sister Ella.”

Ella was holding onto Lorelle’s hand with both of hers. Ella tucked herself into her sister’s side. Her eyes bounced between Jonah and I. Together they slowly progressed over to stand in front of us.

“Will we go back with you? To The Guild?” Lorelle asked.

“Well, not exactly. The Guild is a people, not a place. We will take you to our home, The Tavern. You will be safe there” I  nodded with my response as I looked them both over.

I finally had the chance to get a good look at the girls. Lorelle’s dark hair was matted from dried blood with her clothes stained an ugly reddish brown. The little one, Ella, was a less bloody miniature of Lorelle.  “Is any of that blood yours?” I motioned between the two as I asked. Ella clung to Lorelle’s side and slightly behind her when I spoke to them.

She must still be in mild shock.

“No, we are both relatively unharmed. Got a cut on my leg from where one of those things grabbed me.” Lorelle spoke for them. “Most of it came from others at the settlement and here.” She said and pointed up.

I looked up to see small strips of light pouring down from the tavern hall above. A gross image. The blood of the dying must have dripped down into the Guild Hole below. I looked down at the dirt floor for the first time and saw small splash lines of blood from where it dropped through the floorboards into the small room.

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Before I could ask any other questions, the floorboards above us started to creak from the movement above. Ella squeaked in fear and shoved herself behind Lorelle and pushed her face into Lorelle’s cloak, hand over her ears.

“It is alright little one.” I lowered myself to my knee so that I was at the same height as the little bundle of fear. “That’s my friend, Roy. He’s a Bastard in the Guild, like us.”  I motioned to Jonah and myself again. “Don’t fear Ella. You are safe with us. I promise.”

I looked up to Lorelle. “We need to go up.”  I said. She nodded as a response and started to guide Ella forward towards the Guild’s Hole entrance.

Ella was hesitant to move as if her feet were held firm by the bloody dirt. But With Lorelle’s pushing yet comforting hand acting as a guide on her shoulder, Ella finally started to move towards the exit. Jonah led the way and stood aside for me to climb up the shaft that had handholds cut into the wall’s side that I didn’t see when we entered.

Once I climbed to the top of the shaft, I quickly moved to the side in order to let my companions through the door. First Lorelle emerged, followed by Ella, and finally Jonah. Together we made our way out of the tavern’s kitchen and into Frigga’s main hall.

Roy was standing behind the bar and filling a mug from the closest of the three ale barrels behind him. On the bartop were two more mugs, filled to the brim with a dark colored liquid and an iron birdcage sitting beside them. A carrier pigeon squeaked at our entrance into the main tavern hall.

Jonah walked down the side of the bar to stand alongside Roy. I brought the girls around to the other side of the bar and picked up a couple of the stools. They found seats and tried to ignore the chaotic scene of the tavern hall. As I sat down beside them on one of the only still standing stools, Roy pushed one of the two dark filled mugs towards me and another to Jonah.

“I see Freyda managed to stow away some survivors,” Roy said with a sad half smile towards the girls. Ella shrank away from him, scared of this wild-haired man. He turned back around and filled two more mugs from the center barrel.

“The name’s Roy if it pleases you little misses,” Roy said.

He pushed forward two mugs, the clarity of the liquid showing that the contents in their mugs were water. The girls hesitated for a moment, afraid of the imposing stranger before them.

“You’ve got nothing to fear from me,” Roy encouraged.

“Thank you, sir,” Lorelle said. With that, she and her sister quickly drank down the water. Running for safety is thirsty work, and there were no supplies down in the Guild’s Hole. Roy took the empty mugs and refilled them. They both quickly went to drink more from the mugs

“Take things slow, you don’t want to throw it all back up,” I said. They took a sip and then put the mugs back down, showing some restraint before raising the mugs back to their mouths a moment later.

I directed my attention back to Roy. “What were you able to find out?”

Roy’s expression quickly went stone cold. “Nothing good,” He said. He nodded his head slightly to the right, towards the children. The girls were terribly pretending that they weren’t listening to every word.

“We should get back to Tarik and the horses,” I said, nodding in understanding. “We need to send word to the Guild. It’ll be late, but it should get there before they send out a sect to get us.”

Jonah, as if by silent command, walked out from behind the bar, passed us and took the stairs on the side of the hall up to the loft.

I unstrapped the water bladder from my side and placed it on the bar counter. Roy did the same to his. “Could you fill these while we prepare to leave?” I asked Lorelle.

Lorelle grabbed the bladders in silent assent and handed one to Ella. They walked back around the bar to fill the bladders while Roy hopped over the bar, with an unnecessary show of nimbleness, to stand beside me and to give the girls plenty of space behind the bar to fill the bladders. Lorelle started to fill the first bladder with water from the middle barrel but held her body slightly angled. It was as if half of her attention directed at what we were saying and not the menial task was given to her.

She’s sharp. Near death experiences will do that to a person.

“Tell us on the way ” I said to Roy. I grabbed and downed my mug in two large mouthfuls. Years as a Bastard of The Guild has given me an affinity for drinking ale.  

Rustling could be heard above as Jonah rifled up in what was probably Freyda’s loft. Not long after the rustling stopped, loud thuds, sounded his descent back down the stairs. In his hands were parchment, an ink well, and a feather pen. Jonah placed the items in front of me on the bar and returned to have a sip from his mug.

“Thanks,” I said a he nodded and untied the leather bladder from his side. He placed it beside the empty bladder remaining on the counter. “Fill this one with ale,” Jonah said.

“Please,” I interjected, not removing my eyes from the blank parchment in front of me but still feeling the need to correct the err in manners.

“Fill this one with ale...please.” He grumbled in response.

I smiled and looked back to the blank parchment in front of me. Roy was starting to fiddle with the birdcage, preparing to release the bird when I was done with the note. I needed to report what happened in as short a letter as I can make. Hopefully, the bird won’t get shot down for a meal or intercepted for intelligence.

Stone and Bastards delayed. Settlement near Frigga’s attacked. Providing aid to survivors at Frigga’s. Will return with them after the preliminary sweep of settlement.  Another sect will be needed for process and containment.

B

Roy came up beside me with the carrier bird perched on his arm. There was a small capsule attached by a strap attached to the bird’s leg. I rolled up the strip of parchment and handed it to Roy. He stuffed the rolled note into the capsule and walked towards the exit.

Jonah cut in before Roy got to the final row of tables. “Tavern’s that way” he pointed northwest. He then finished the contents of his mug. Whatever he saw up in the loft seemed to have been drinking inducing, like the rest of this place.

Roy freed the bird from the doorway, in the direction Jonah pointed towards and walked back into the tavern hall. He made his way back through the rows of tables without nudging a single one, having to maneuver his body this way and that as he was a bit wider than the rest of us; too much muscle and ale. He continued to walk back behind the bar, grabbing Jonah’s and my cup to refill for a final time.

“May I have a mug of ale to toast with?” Lorelle asked, looking down not making eye contact with anyone, but speaking loudly enough to be heard by all.

“How many cycles have you seen?” Roy asked as he walked back through the tavern and went behind the bar. He was a bit skeptic of giving a youth ale.

She looked up and made eye contact with Roy. “Enough to have dead to drink to,” Lorelle retorted, a bit of iron present in her voice.

Roy looked over to me; Your call, his eyes said.

I looked from him to Lorelle. For a moment, I saw a different girl. She was in a fine, cream-colored dress that was stained, torn, and covered in dirt. Her long dark hair was matted down and cut in different sections. Her arms dirty with mud and flakes of rust. So young, but had already gone through so much, too much.

I nodded once, partially to knock the girl out of my mind’s eye but also in answer to Roy’s silent question.

Roy grabbed Lorelle’s drained cup and filled it halfway with the same dark liquid we had. He hesitantly handed the mug over to Lorelle. She looked down into the mug to see how much she got. She seemed satisfied. She stood up with her mug held high. Everyone stood to join Lorelle and raised our mug, even Ella had a small amount of water left in her mug.

Though our group was divided by the bar, we still came together in a half circle. Roy was behind the bar with the girls with Jonah and I standing in front of it, standing with one on each side of the back line. Each of us faced the carnage within the tavern hall. Roy was behind the bar with the girls I couldn’t help but look out the dilapidated doors and out to the path that leads to the settlement. Somewhere that doll was staring back at me.

Roy’s somber voice echoed through the tavern’s hall “May the Highest Above look over the souls of the departed... and guide the dead to join their ancestors,” he said, momentarily feeling the loss of whoever Freyda was to him.

I spoke from my chest with the honor befitting of those who were lost. “May the Highest Within help the living find peace in their loss, knowing that they will one day join the departed,” I said.

“To the Dead,” Jonah finished.

“To the Dead” everyone echoed. We each drank in silence, alone with our thoughts.

I couldn’t help but think that The Guild and I failed these people, failed these girls. The Guild offers protection throughout the country. Freyda did everything The Guild taught her, everything I would have done, to keep the people within this tavern and the fleeing settlers safe. But it wasn’t enough to change anything.

“Let’s go,” I said, breaking the pregnant silence. “We’ve done all we can here.”