Chapter Forty-five

Krissintha Arlonet Dar Ghelain was neither nervous nor excited. She stood in front of the cafeteria on the Third Ranger’s training ground, watching the sun rising above the trees, the paved clearings and buildings. Some trainees were already heaving breakfast inside, but she had already eaten, and all she had to do was wait.

Krissintha was early, but not by much. Timo appeared first, just on time. The man nodded to her, and that was all he did: not a single word of greeting came from him. Instead, he quickly checked if she had her gear in order. She rolled her eyes as the man went about peeking into her bag, checking her sword, her dagger and her heavy, dark green cloak. Of course everything was in order, but Krissintha didn’t feel like arguing with the man. She wished she could use Kevin’s weird storage power — Jack’s Room as he called it for some reason — but she knew she had to carry all her stuff herself, and team leader Tivarra Mor was not only entitled but required to check his team members’ state of readiness.

Hiraken Sala and Arde arrived together a few minutes later — Arde in good spirits, smiling and chatty, Hisa serious and quiet. Timo checked their gear, too, then he took a step back and addressed his team.

‘Sek Arthem is a good six days trek from here,’ he began. ‘Our orders are to be there in five, and to report to Fifth Rangers.’

‘Alright, so how do we get there on time, Master Timo?’ Arde asked, grinning at him.

‘This is a test of our endurance and resourcefulness,’ Timo said, then he looked at Krissintha. ‘We’ll make it there even if it kills us. We’re rangers.’

‘We’re nor rangers. Not yet.’ Hisa interjected, then looked at Krissintha. ‘Will you be able to keep up?’

‘Yes,’ Krissintha said, nodding.

Hisa didn’t look convinced. Neither did Timo.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Arde said, looking at the two of them, waving a hand to dismiss their concerns.

‘She’s human,’ Timo argued.

Krissintha wanted to retort, to tell him that she had a spirit’s power at her disposal, and she could do more than just to keep up. But that wasn’t something she could say. Not to Timo or Hisa.

Arde looked at her, eyebrows raised, waiting for her to respond, and by the look of it contemplating if he should say something more in her defence. But leaving this to Arde to handle wasn’t a good idea, so she said,

‘I have surprised you before, Timo, I think I can do it again,’ she said, almost succeeding in producing a smile to go with her statement.

Timo narrowed his eyes, looking at her.

‘Very well, do your best and don’t slow us down,’ he said, then looked at each member of his team, one after another. ‘Until our team is dissolved or I am removed as team leader, you will all address me as “sir”.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Krissy and the two elves chorused.

‘Good,’ Timo said.

‘Well, is it time then for our unceremonious departure, then?’ Arde asked, grinning.

***

The team walked the road for a while, passing Gal Themar by, but a few hours into the journey, Timo led them into the forests, saying they’d save some time taking the straight route, even if the human slowed them down somewhat.

Trekking along old trails and creeks, navigating by map and compass, wasn’t an easy thing to do. For the first time, Krissintha started not only to understand but to appreciate Toven’s ruthless endurance training. Walking on the uneven terrain with weapons and a heavy bag for days on end … that took endurance.

Timo had chosen a standard patrol formation. Hiraken Sala, being an archer and scout primarily, took the front of the formation, maybe a dozen paces ahead. In the middle were the two swordsmen, Timo and Arde, although Arde also had a bow and arrows, just in case, and by his own admission, he was pretty good with it, too. Krissintha brought up the rear, being the sole sword-brawler — as Timo had called her — and she was happy with that position. Timo kept the formation tighter than normal, accounting for Krissintha being slower and not having the kind of eyesight and hearing the elves had. Despite being an insufferably arrogant prick, Timo had done his “homework” — as Kevin had put it — learning what a human was or wasn’t capable of. It seemed the man was determined to carry out Fenar’s orders successfully no matter what, and his disdain for her had been pushed to the second or even third place in his list of priorities. Krissintha had no problem with it whatsoever. She walked quietly, pacing herself, remaining in hearing distance from the rest of the team.

***

The first day of Training Team Twenty-seven’s journey came to an end without incident. Timo had chosen a spot for making camp for the night. The place wasn’t a clearing, just a somewhat larger than usual stretch of mossy ground between trees. Krissintha’s legs ached, but no-one sat down yet, not without the team leader’s permission. So, she waited.

Timo was studying his map and consulting his compass. With the sun gone, Krissintha could barely see anything, and she silently bemoaned the inferiority of her human eyes.

‘About twenty-five miles,’ Timo announced the result of the day, glancing at Krissintha. ‘Should have been at least thirty, but …’

‘It is what it is, sir,’ Arde interrupted before the other could finish the sentence or Krissintha could open her mouth to protest. ‘Hellspawn Fenar has accounted for it, we’ve accounted for it, you’ve accounted for it, and in all fairness she’s keeping up well.’

Krissintha appreciated Arde’s comments. She also came to the conclusion that Arde had no idea that Hisa was Hellspawn Fenar’s granddaughter — he wouldn't have used the nickname in front of her if he did. She glanced over at Hisa, curious if she reacted in any way.

Hisa didn’t say anything. She didn’t even look at Arde, she was looking at her — not glaring, just looking. She stood close enough to Krissintha so she could see her face: the woman looked curious rather than annoyed. Maybe she knew she was a spiritualist, maybe not. Krissintha wasn’t sure. Should she try to find out? She wasn’t sure about that either, and she didn’t think asking directly was an option.

‘Is there something wrong?’ Krissintha asked the woman.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Hisa looked away immediately, looking somewhat embarrassed.

‘No. I just … uh … haven’t met a human before. That’s all,’ she said.

‘Not many of us in Gal Themar, that’s for sure,’ Krissintha said. Then she thought maybe she could ask whether Hisa or Timo knew about her after all. She looked at the two of them. ‘So, do you know how I came to be here? Why I’m doing ranger training? Or why Hellspawn Fenar even agreed to train me?’

Hisa just shook her head. Timo, on the other hand, looked up from the map and stepped closer to her.

‘No. But you’re not here to become a ranger, thankfully, that much I can tell. So, why are you here? Really?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I wasn’t volunteering to tell you, I just wanted to know if you knew, sir,’ Krissintha said, shrugging. Timo clearly didn’t know anything. Hisa … well, Krissintha still wasn’t sure about Hisa. It was time to change the subject, so she said, ‘Are we treating this as being on patrol, or can we set up a small fire, sir? I’m dying to have a cup of tea.’

Timo thought about it for a moment, then sighed and said,

‘Set up a small fire.’ He turned to Arde and Hisa. ‘Wood and water.’

‘On it, sir,’ Arde said, and the two of them rushed away, leaving their bags behind.

Krissintha put her bag down, and picked a place on the ground to dig a small fire-pit, as far from any trees as it was possible. Arde came back with a bunch of broken up tree-branches, and Hisa brought water in her large flask. Krissintha set the wood into the pit, used her ranger-issue tinder-box to kindle the fire, then she produced a folding frame and a small pot from her bag. She set up the frame over the fire, filled the pot with water and put it on the frame. They all sat down around the tiny campfire, each of them taking their cups out of their bags.

‘Misery, first watch. Arde second, Hisa third, I’m last,’ Timo declared the order of things, and no-one argued with him.

The water boiled, and Krissintha produced four tea bags.

‘Try this,’ she said to the team, and gave one to each of them.

Arde poured hot water into his cup and put the tea-bag in, stirring it with a small spoon. Krissintha smiled as she brewed her own tea — Timo and Hisa were watching them, holding the tea bags in their hands, looking to see where this was going. Arde of course knew Earl Grey already — Deni had wanted a third taste-tester before mass producing the tea bags, and that task had fallen to Arde.

‘What are you waiting for?’ Arde asked the other two elves. ‘You’ll like it.’

‘Is this … that new … grey tea people are talking about?’ Hisa asked, her voice small and uncertain.

‘Oh, you’ve heard of it already?’ Arde said. ‘Yes. This is it.’

‘I was told it’s expensive. And limited in quantity,’ Hisa said, finally putting the tea bag into her cup of hot water.

‘I have a lot of it. We can have it every evening and morning,’ Krissintha offered.

‘How do you have so much of the grey tea?’ Hisa asked.

Krissintha couldn’t help but grin at the woman.

‘Well, it’s called Earl Grey. And it’s my friends who manufacture it,’ she said, smirking. ‘And I’m a partner in the business.’

‘You’re what?’ Hise asked, looking at Krissintha incredulously. Or maybe impressed.

‘A partner. You know, someone who has percentage ownership of it,’ Krissintha said.

‘I know what a partner is, but you’re …’ the woman said.

‘… human?’ Arde chimed in again before Krissintha could. ‘Being human isn’t something the trade committee considers a problem. Plenty of humans in Rit Dhamal. They’re all doing business.’

‘What I meant was that she’s supposed to be training. How does she have time to do business?’ Hisa said to Arde.

‘My friends handle most of it. I just … provided the ideas,’ Krissintha said, shrugging, then she sent a thought to Kevin. It still doesn’t feel right to take the credit for this.

Well, we can’t just go around saying the best tea in Solace came from an evil spirit, can we? Kevin replied.

‘Are you not going to taste it?’ Arde asked, pointing at the cup in Timo’s hand.

‘Hm,’ was all Timo said, and he took a sip of his tea.

His eyebrows rose a little. It wasn’t exactly the reaction Krissintha wanted to see — the man could have at least said it was nice, but he seemed to like it.

Hisa glanced at Timo, then she drank, too.

‘Hm,’ she said, just as Timo had, but she at least had the appropriate expression of surprised delight on her face.

They all finished their drinks.

It’s obvious they like it, just look at their faces. I have a lot more of it in Jack’s Room. We shall spread the love to the north. Kevin said, his thoughts sounding more than jolly.

That we shall. Krissintha sent a thought back, smiling.

‘Long trek ahead of us tomorrow,’ Timo announced, while pouring some water from his flask to wash his cup. ‘Misery, don’t fall asleep while on watch!’

***

Krissintha was bringing up the rear of the formation, just as she had been the day before, but Timo and Hisa were dictating a faster pace this time. Maybe they were doing it on purpose, maybe not, she didn’t know. But she was getting tired, finding it more and more difficult to keep up with the elves. Constantly slaloming around an unending supply of trees was a lot more difficult she had thought it would be. By the afternoon of the second day, she was drawing on Kevin’s power just to be able to keep up with the elves and remain in hearing distance from the rest of the team. The tingling sensation in her legs as her familiar’s power permeated her bones and muscles was pleasant enough, but she was heaving for air as she walked.

Kevin did not recommend using his power to aid her lungs as well, partly because of what he called the long term “MP cost”, and partly because he thought her lungs could use the exercise. The resulting dichotomy of her legs feeling just fine and her lungs almost aching from overuse wasn’t a new thing, but she had never done this for longer periods of time before. If nothing else, it was a good opportunity to practice and get more used to coordinating and controlling the way she moved while using a spirit’s power.

Despite having had only limited opportunities to practice, she was getting the hang of it. Krissintha wasn’t sure if normal spiritualists experienced it the same way she did — Kevin was sort of an evil spirit after all — but at the very least it felt similar to the few and vague descriptions she had heard from her father and his retainers, before things had gone wrong in Thyssa. Power tingled.

Night came. Timo picked a spot to camp, and Krissintha provided more tea bags so the team could have a nice, hot drink to go with their dinner of dried meat and bread. Timo and Hisa were mostly quiet — they only spoke when discussing the team’s progress and consulting their map. Only Arde was willing to enter into idle conversations with her, mostly about tea or trees.

***

The third and forth days passed the same way as the first two: walking, walking, more walking, and not a lot of talking, not even in the evenings.

Krissintha was glad she wasn’t going to be a ranger — going on seemingly endless and boring walks wasn't something she wanted to do on a regular basis — and she was beginning to understand why Deni was trying to gently and unobtrusively nudge Toven towards quitting rangering. Well, Deni always seemed have things to do — the garden, some dressmaking, some housework — but now the woman was hopeful that their new venture would generate enough money to tempt Toven away from Third Rangers and into the business.

The initial popularity and decent sales of Earl Grey made Krissintha hopeful, too. If what Kevin called a “customer base” grew to a certain size, it would mean a lot of money. But more than that, the civat-fruits they used came from Thyssa. It was a little taste of home, a tiny bit of nostalgia and longing. She couldn’t help but think about how it could help her with her own goals. Perhaps the tea business could give her a plausible and legitimate way to return to Thyssa in the future, posing as a merchant looking to buy the fruit in bulk. Perhaps something else. A way to search for her brother without rousing suspicion. If he was alive. But all this was for another day.

The fifth day started exactly as the previous four days. Timo woke everyone up when the sun was about to rise, and after a quick breakfast and a cup of tea, they were on their way. They weren’t far from Sek Arthem — according to Timo and his map they would reach Fifth Rangers’ compound outside the city long before nightfall.

Kevin complained a little bit about her using too much of the MP-thing for too long, but she was sure the spirit could handle it, whatever it was he needed to handle. She wanted to keep up, and she wanted the team to succeed.

Hisa was walking ahead of the team as usual — even if they hadn’t been in the endless forests of Solace, she wouldn’t have been able to see or hear her. Timo and Arde weren’t too far ahead.

It was around midday when one of them whistled a signal. A short, bird-like tune. Possible danger ahead.