“She’s going with us?” Eadric asked, looking at me with uncertainty in his eyes. “Then, uh, I’d like to know her name.”
“This is Haydith Thorn,” I said, casually speaking a half-truth. “As you saw last night, she’s being pursued by a dangerous organization. I offered for her to join our group last night. Is that a problem with anyone?”
“No,” Eadric said, and Kinro was completely silent.
I introduced Eadric and Kinro to Haydith, informing her of their relationship to me. She looked surprised when I told her that Eadric was a knight who technically still served Count Armond.
With a faint smile, Eadric said, “The Count of Northwind has plenty of men-at-arms under his command. He has no use for me as part of his retinue, so I serve him by protecting his heir.”
“The less we talk about my father, the better,” I said with resentment obvious in my voice.
“Yes, sorry about that,” Eadric said.
Confused, Haydith asked, “Count Armond Feldrast, he’s the commander of the Band of Bastards, right?”
The Innkeeper, overhearing Haydith’s question, swiveled her head nervously to look at Eadric and me as she heard the vulgar name of the First Army of Northwind. It was an unspoken rule in Etronia that you did not say “Band of Bastards” in front of nobles.
Eadric let out a bark of laughter, and a smirk pushed up the corners of my lips. I said, “That’s right. My father has spent the past few years providing gainful employment for every violent psychopath with a sword in Etronia. They spend their days murdering the monstrous races and burning down churches to Nyx, and they spend their nights at gambling dens or whorehouses. Truly, they are the righteous champions of our great nation.”
My anger at the mention of Count Armond Feldrast pushed a malicious tone into my sentences. The militaristic culture of Etronia heavily incentivized nobles to pay lip service to soldiers. It was easy to gain political capital by complimenting the strength and the virtue of the “men-at-arms of the First Army.” Needless to say, my words were not very politically popular. A commoner could very easily be executed for saying such a thing.
“They’re called the ‘Band of Bastards’ for a reason,” Eadric said quietly into his drink.
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“Are they really that bad?” Haydith asked.
I took a deep breath, calming myself. “Yeah, but they’re not particularly worse than any other large military organization on Ferrum. Everyone with the power to stop them benefits from them causing a bit of mayhem, so moral decay is somewhat inevitable.”
“My brother left Etron with them a few years ago,” Haydith said quietly.
“Uh, I’m sure he’s okay,” Eadric said with an awkward smile, trying to pump the brakes now that he heard such information.
I drained the last of my tea and clinked the ceramic cup onto the wooden table. “You mean Erasmus, right? We can talk about him more on the road.”
As I lifted myself to my feet, I looked Haydith in the eyes, trying to subtly communicate that her brother would have to be discussed in private. Understanding that the time to leave had come, Eadric got to his feet and started dragging Kinro to the wagon. Haydith reacted a bit slower due to her inexperience with the group, but she got up to follow once she understood what was happening.
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Within the hour, the carriages had left the stables, and we were on our way toward the capital city of Etron. Haydith rode with me in the passenger seat of my carriage.
Haydith pulled her hood low over her face as we made our way onto the main road, but I could see a broad smile under the hood’s folds. She turned her head toward me at regular intervals as if she wanted to confirm that I wouldn’t disappear.
Sherlock pulled up next to Haydith’s side of the carriage, looking at his master with curious eyes. His large canid skull easily reached Haydith’s shoulder as she sat on the raised seat, and she happily brushed Sherlock’s head as he walked next to us.
“I hear that you healed him last night. Did you use magic?” Haydith asked with a smile.
“Yeah. I gave him a healing potion,” I answered.
“Hmm. I’ve never seen one of those. Are they hard to make?”
I reached into my pocket and passed my replacement healing potion to Haydith. Ever since Beltane’s life was saved by one, I made sure to always keep a healing potion on me.
“The process of making one takes five years and requires materials that only grow in exceedingly dangerous parts of the world,” I said as Haydith took the glass bottle from me.
“Sounds expensive,” Haydith said, suddenly aware that she was even more indebted to me than she originally thought.
“You have no idea,” I said, trying to keep any annoyance out of my voice. “Actually, it’s funny. Did you know that I was a priest two days ago? I could have healed him myself pretty recently.”
“A priest, you?” Haydith laughed as if it was hard to imagine.
We talked back and forth about our past for the next several hours. It was a nice experience, and I felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders by the end. We started talking in English after a while so that Thale couldn’t hear our conversation. Before that day, I had never been completely honest with someone in that world of violence and deception. That was the happiest I had been in a long time.
We laughed and reminisced about a world that, for all intents and purposes, was dead to us. Passers-by looked on in confusion as they saw two teenagers talking in a language that almost no one spoke. It was our own private conversation on which none of Ferrum’s denizens could intrude.