The little town of Clayfaire was pretty much like Mitchell had always imagined a small fantasy medieval town would be like. Squat wood and stone buildings, built in a vaguely European style, although the people here did seem to have a penchant for ornate roof decorations that he could make out even from the forest. Wooden carvings of animals and people seemed to dot most rooftops with some even having decorations on each individual tile.

They came out from under cover of the canopy around four hours after dawn, following the road that led to the town walls. It had been decided that approaching from the road would be a little less suspicious than emerging from the forest, so once they got close, and with orders for Vras to stay behind and stay out of sight, they’d circled the town until they came to where a rode cut through the forest.

As they neared the gates, Mitchell took a chance and hooked Lethelin’s fingers in his and, thankfully, she didn’t pull away. Despite her story last night, she wasn’t very talkative this morning and he opted not to try to push her further by pressing for anything new for a while. Given how strongly she’d reacted, Mitchell suspected that talking so much about herself had been difficult and she might be experiencing regret. So, as he had discovered so well with Allora, the best thing he could do with such strong women, was to give them the space to come to decisions on their own. Push them too hard and they would resist merely on principle. Never offer help unless they asked for it.

It was an oddity about women that Mitchell had never quite figured out. Sometimes, when a woman would have some issue or problem, she didn’t want you to fix it for her and she didn’t want help, she only wanted you to listen and sympathize. To Mitchell’s mind, if you brought someone in on your problem that meant you needed help or advice. But it wasn’t always so with the women he’d known. Sometimes it was best to simply hear them out, give them some space, and be there if they needed the support. While there might be women out there that were always waiting for a man to come rescue them, Allora and Lethelin were not those women and that was something he was very grateful for.

Suddenly Mitchell’s ears started ringing and then, clear as day, he heard Gilriel’s voice as if she were standing right beside him.

“Mitchell, have you made it to Clayfaire? Is everything well? You can reply to this message.”

Mitchell was so shocked he nearly fell over his own feet as he whirled around to see where the voice had come from, but Gilriel was nowhere to be seen.

“Balls and taint!” Lethelin cried out, almost as startled as by his sudden movement as he was by the voice. Luckily they were alone on the road and there was no one to notice. “What’s the matter?”

“Did you hear that?”

Lethelin looked around, releasing his hand and reaching for Mira.

“No, I just hear the sounds of the town. What did you hear?”

“I heard Gilriel. Like she was standing right beside me, speaking directly into my ear.”

Lethelin relaxed then and let out a short laugh.

“It’s a message spell. She’s trying to contact you. The spell should be good for one return message. But it has to be short. Do you feel the tingling in your ears?”

That information brought Mitchell up short.

“It’s a spell? You can do that?”

“Sure. Do you feel the tingle?”

“Yeah…”

Mitchell reached up and rubbed at his ears. It was not unlike the pins and needles you got when your leg fell asleep, but not as intense.

“The spell is waiting for a response. It will last a minute or two, so you should probably answer soon.

“What do I do?”

“Picture the face of the one who sent you the message, and then speak the reply as if she were standing next to you. I can’t cast it myself, of course, but I’ve done jobs with casters before who would use it. You don’t need mana to respond, only to send. Keep it short, though. Twenty-five or thirty words, max. Anymore and the message usually fails.”

Mitchell nodded that he understood and imagined Gilriel’s face in his mind.

“Yes, we’re approaching the town now. All is well.”

Once the image of Gilriel dropped from his mind, the tingle in his ears vanished.

“That is awesome! I need to learn that spell.”

“It’s not in your spell book already? It’s basic, as I said.”

“No,” Mitchell said, wobbling his head. “I definitely would have seen it.”

“You might not have the right mana to cast it.”

“What kind do I need?”

“How should I know? But if it’s not in the spell book, that’s probably why.”

“Well…” Mitchell said, suddenly dejected. “Shit.”

“Hey, none of that now. None of your Engish in town!”

It was only then that he realized he’d sworn in his own language, rather than a Common equivalent.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Sorry,” he said and grimaced. “No English from here on out.”

“Good boy,” she said with her old playful grin. “Don’t think I won’t thump you like we were back in the wagon. Because I will.”

She brought her thumb and middle finger together and made to actually do just that, and he danced back, laughing.

“Yes, ma’am. I promise!”

Just like that, she seemed to slip back into her old self. She gave him a side glance and held out her hand.

“Come on, we’ll find an inn and get to work.

He laced his fingers between hers and then pulled her in for a kiss. It was slow and gentle.

“Maybe one with a big bed,” he whispered to her as she leaned into him.

“Ha! If you’re lucky.”

Then she pulled away laughing.

Before she got out of arm’s reach, he lunged forward and landed a quick slap on her tight, leather-clad ass, making her jump.

“Ouch!” She turned back to glare at him, but he also saw there was something hungry in her eyes which gave him some ideas.

“After you,” he told her, nodding toward the gates.

***

They did find an inn easily enough, a few hundred meters through the gates and towards what served as the town square. It was a squat, three-story building called The Sleeping Giant Inn and Tavern. It was made of river stone and a honey-colored wood that had started to turn dark with age. But the ground around it was clear, with various topiary well-tended and it looked in good repair. Even the sign had been repainted recently. So, whoever owned it cared about it enough – and had the funds – to keep up appearances.

Once he’d worked out the meaning of the words on the hanging sign, his eyes went wide.

“Are there giants here?”

“Hmm?” Lethelin looked up at him from where she’d been scanning around, then saw where his gaze was pointed. “Oh, no. Not anymore at least. There are some very old tales that talk about how giants used to live here, but there was a great war between them and the dragons and all the giants were wiped out. It’s a really old story, though, so who knows if it’s actually true.”

They had gotten a couple of looks from the locals as they wondered in. Mitchell’s sevith stood out, of course, but didn’t draw any comments, although he did see a couple of sets of eyes widen as they counted the stones. Not that Mitchell knew how to cast much. At present, he was up to six spells and was working on a couple of others, but they didn’t know that.

As for Lethelin, besides being beautiful, her cloak looked nondescript, still that same forest green it had been since they’d left the mountains behind, and seeing anyone carrying a bow, especially walking through the woods on foot, would not be remarkable. She did seem more at ease with the weapon on her back, though. Her bow had been destroyed in the fight that freed them, and Mitchell knew that being without it and her rapier had caused her no end of annoyance since they’d met. But she’d said this one was far superior, so it more than made up for it.

Glancing around as they closed the distance to the inn, Mitchell guessed it to hold less than a thousand people inside the walls which looked more decorative than functional. Gate houses were boarded up, stairs to upper levels were in various levels of collapse, and thick weeds sprouted up around the base and doorways. Lethelin said it had probably been a generation or more since anything serious attacked the town so there was little need for keeping the walls manned or in decent repair.

She reminded him that they weren’t deep into the Shadow Glen, still just the outskirts, really, and the truly nasty things lived farther in. Trolls, tribes of frog men and goblins, giant spiders, lesser elementals, even harpies, as well as forest and river drakes, or so the stories said. The Shadow Glen was mostly wild and untamed. As long as the monsters didn’t wander too far outside the woods, the rangers and the knights had left well enough alone. Lethelin said that occasionally bounties were posted for a hunt, even as far away as Varset, but it was dangerous work and not many took them up on it.

Before Milandris, these outer parts of the forest were patrolled pretty heavily to keep the nasty things from gaining a foothold and spreading out into the settled lands. Even if whoever was in charge of the rangers these days wasn’t as diligent, it would be a while before the darker things of the forest crept back out.

“We should be safe here,” Lethelin said quietly as they approached the inn’s large oaken door. “If a squad of soldiers or mercenaries come through while we're here, we’re no one to them. If we keep our heads down, then we should be out of here by tomorrow. Maybe the day after if there’s some extra information we want to tease out.”

Mitchell nodded his understanding, and they entered the inn together.

Inside was a large common area that was dominated by a fire pit sunk a few feet into the river stone floor and which currently held the roasting carcass of something about the size of a pony. There was a stout, bare-armed dwarf with skin the color of river clay clad in a leather apron sitting off to the side of the pit next to a large handle and crank that was connected to a chain. Mitchell saw that it was connected to the gear wheel of the spit, meant to turn the animal whenever he deemed it ready. The bottom of the pit was thick with coals and the radiated heat created a noticeable shimmer in the air. The air itself was several degrees warmer than the outside, but not as bad as he thought it should be as he took in the size of the fire pit. Then he allowed his gaze to explore the rest of the inn.

The central hall opened up all the way to the top, and he could see both upper floors and the ceiling above, braced by thick tresses the same honey color as the rest of the wood in this place. And in the roof, he could see actual skylights that were cranked open to let the smoke out and which was pulling a steady flow of fresh air in from the windows at his back.

Beyond the fire pit to his left, he could make out what was clearly a bar, only not like one he’d ever seen before. It sat at three different heights with three different stool sizes.

Beyond the fire pit was a large dining area, and he could see twelve or fifteen tables of various sizes, only a couple of which had any customers at this early hour. There were carvings on almost every surface of various animals, beasts, monsters, and the humanoid races engaged in everything from pitched battles with each other to tilling fields and weaving baskets. Everywhere he looked, there was some type of display. It was also obvious to tell that it much of it had been done by different hands, as almost no two tableaux were alike. It was both beautiful and dizzying to look at.

Mitchell finally brought his eyes back to the dwarf at the fire pit. He was hunched over some sort of game that looked a little bit like a Chinese checkers board, except it was a little smaller and made of a dark wood, rather than rainbow colors. But it had small holes cut out in a hexagonal pattern in a nearly identical way to the game remembered from childhood. Mitchell suddenly had memories of Christmas at his mother’s parents’ house with cousins playing old board games.

Set into the holes in the board were a series of black and white marbles, mostly grouped up around the center, but with lines of two or three marbles at different angles near the edge of the board. As they watched, the dwarf glanced up briefly from the board, eyed the meat, then reached over to the handle and cranked it enough to give the roasting animal a quarter turn. Only then did he notice the newcomers.

Mitchell hadn’t met many dwarves yet, but this one looked younger than Nothok. His face was still flat and rock-like with a bulbus nose and a long, trinket-filled beard, but his skin was not as lined, nor did his hair have any gray. Instead it was a ruddy sort of brown not too different than his skin. He had dark black eyes that glittered in the firelight coming from the coals and Mitchell saw him give them both a once over, pausing, as many did, on the sevith, before taking in the rest of them.

“Aye, welcome to the Sleeping Giant. Be ye needing a room?”