Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (66 page)

“You see that?” Odin asked, extending a finger. “I
’m not just seeing things, am I?”

“No,” Virgin replied, somberly, as if unable to
relate. “That’s Drianna all right.”

“I didn
’t realize it was so close.”

“We
’ve been walking for hours, Odin—it’s been anything but close.”

Regardless of how close they
’d been or not, and despite the fact that Virgin looked ready to collapse, the knowledge that civilization lay in the near distance was enough to give birth to a shining glory in Odin’s heart. Given the circumstance and the temperature, he shouldn’t have felt the way he did—like his heart was on fire and his veins were laced with venom—but either way, he couldn’t discount the fact that this was the best thing that had happened tonight.

No wolves,
he thought, assembling his mental checklist to be marked by the imaginary pen that existed in the sky.
No Harpies, no bandits, no one to bother us or give us shit.

Nothing
had hindered them after they’d departed from their place beneath the rocks. For that alone they’d practically won life’s greatest lottery, especially given all the hell they’d endured over the past few hours.

Lowering his hand and sliding it into his pocket, Odin bowed his head to look at his feet and found that the snow had risen above the tail of his pants, decorating his trousers like exotic fur wrapped around a nobleman
’s boot. How he hadn’t noticed he couldn’t be sure. He’d been paying attention to the landscape and hadn’t once seen the snow rise. However, with Drianna on the horizon and lights signaling them forward, he decided it mattered little and shook his head, freeing flakes from his hair like dandruff.

Beside him, Virgin bow
ed his head and let out a sigh. The Halfling’s breath appeared on the cold wind before snuffing out entirely.

“Are you all right?” Odin asked, reaching out to press a hand against his partner
’s back.

“I
’m fine,” Virgin said, raising his eyes to regard him. “Don’t worry about me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you cold?”

“Of course.”

“Do you want me to—“

“Conserve your energy. There’s no point in wearing yourself out when we’re so close to town.”

All right,
he thought, drawing his hand away when he felt his touch had strayed one moment too long.

With his heart hammering and his mind alight with unease, Odin raised his eyes to loo
k at the distant village.

Soon, they would be passing into its borders and sequestering themselves within its inn.

Not a single window was lit as they passed
into Drianna and began to make their way up the street, toward the only visibly-lit settlement that could possibly be an inn. It seemed, as far as Odin could tell, that the lights that had beckoned them had come from outpost towers aligned upon each of the four corners of the settlement—all of which appeared, for the most part, to be constructed out of nothing more than wood. Faintly, judging from the ones they’d just passed behind them, they were suspended by nothing more than wooden poles holding a box-shaped platform about twenty to thirty-feet up in the air. Whether or not fires were truly lit within their confines could be debated, as Odin couldn’t help but wonder how such mechanisms would allow something to burn. As much as it stifled him to think about such things, he chose to ignore it and instead set his attention on the building before them, which lay no more than a few hundred feet away.

Beneath the silence of the falling snow, Odin thought he heard something resembling crackling fires.

Maybe they are going.

Though in the current atmospheric co
nditions he could not tell if the houses were emitting smoke, he could easily see that the building ahead was broadly lit and producing an orange glow that could only come from a fire. The sight forced tendrils of excitement along his bones and up into his head.

“We
’re here,” Virgin said.

The Halfling
’s voice, out of the cold blue, had regained some semblance of emotion, though what little there was drowned in the near-earsplitting silence that ruled their world.

You need sleep,
Odin thought, tempted to reach out and touch his companion, but not sure if he should.
And warmth.

Hopefully the following days
’ travel wouldn’t be hindered by such horrible weather—or, at the least, wouldn’t be filled with too much snow. Maybe they could even buy a tent and take it with them after they secured horses for the rest of their travel.

Directly before the building—which
Odin deduced was an inn by its interior layout—he took a deep breath, reached forward, then pushed the door open.

Almost immediately, what few eyes there were in the bar turned to look at them.

“Hello,” a woman said, drawing Odin’s attention to where she stood at the bar.

“Hello,” he replied. Both he and Virgin st
omped their boots off at the door before closing it behind them.

“I imagine the two of you must be travelers, given that you
’ve come in so late and all.” The woman crossed the distance between them before extending her hand. “I’m Yolanda. I own this establishment.”

“My name
’s Odin, ma’am.”

“Welcome, welcome. Here—come sit. The two of you must be cold. I
’ll pour you each a drink on the house. Is cider fine?”

“Anything warm,” Virgin said.

Odin reached out to pat the older Halfling’s back before leading them to the bar, upon which they sat away from the individuals drinking stronger liquor or wine.

A short moment after they took their seats, Yolanda placed a pair of steaming mugs of cider befo
re them. “They’re hot,” she warned.

Virgin ignored this, blew in
to his mug, then took a deep sip before wrapping his still-red fingers about it.

Poor Virgin,
Odin thought, taking a sip of his own mug of cider.

To think that his companion had been buried beneath the snow was enough to dampen his spirits, but to know that he
’d been silently suffering the whole night without so much as a word of complaint? Given his frostbitten hands, the swollen tip of his nose and his trembling lower lip, it was any wonder he hadn’t broken down during the night.

In knowing that he had such a strong companion, Odin couldn
’t help but grieve for the fact that so much had happened over the past few hours.

“Where might you boys be coming from?” Yolanda asked, raising her eyes from her work at lifting and replacing mugs along the back wall. “It
’s not often we see strangers in these parts.”

“We
’re merchants making our way from the Abroen Forest,” Virgin said, filling the lapse of silence before Odin could even begin to speak. “We’re heading to Ornala.”

Merchants?
Odin thought, frowning, but offering a slight nod of agreement.

“What might you be selling?” Yolanda asked. “And might you be Elves?”

“No. We’re not.”

Racial stereotypes?

Rather than say anything, Odin lifted his mug and sipped it again, only giving a partial nod to the barkeep when she turned her eyes to look at him.

“Can I ask what you
’re selling?” she asked.

“Nothing in particular,” Virgin said. “We
’re jacks of all trades.”

“Apparently you fellas weren
’t expecting the snow. Hell—neither were we. It never snows this far away from the mountains. Harpie’s Summit, sometimes, yes, but never here in Drianna.”

“We weren
’t expecting the snow,” Odin said, popping each of his knuckles until they no longer felt sore or swollen. “Do you know where we might be able to purchase a tent or a pair of horses?”

“I
’m surprised the two of you were walking all that way,” Yolanda frowned. “But as to your question, yes—come morning you can head to the stables and speak to Robert about your horses. As to tents, though… you shouldn’t be needing any if you’re planning on stopping in Kalen’s Rise. It’s only a day’s travel between each of the villages.”

“Thank you, ma
’am.”

“No need to thank me. I assume the pair of you will be staying the night?”

“Yessum.”

“We should have a few rooms left,” she said, cocking her head to the far side of the bar. “Peter! Peter!”

A boy who looked to be around thirteen or fourteen raised his head from a table he’d been sleeping at. “Yes Yolanda, ma’am?”

“Go see if we have one of
the rooms available for these gentlemen.”

“Yes ma
’am.”

While the boy ran up the
stairs, Odin fingered the bulbed centerpiece on the mug’s handle and turned his attention to Virgin, who only lowered his eyes to his drink and took another sip.

“If it
’s all right,” Odin said, reaching down to dig out the sack of coins, “we’d like to pay now.”

“That
’s fine,” Yolanda replied.

When he
’d retrieved around ten copper pieces and offered them to Yolanda, she gave them a slight nod, turned, then pulled two bowls out, those of which she set on the shelf next to the cauldron before reaching in with a spoon and pouring out soup. “Dinner’s free, especially to the ones who pay good and late.”

“Thank you,” Odin said.

Virgin said nothing.

We
’ll be out of here soon enough,
he thought, patting the Halfling’s shoulder.
Don’t you worry. Tomorrow we’ll get our horses and we can get to Kalen’s Rise.

She said it was only a day
’s worth of travel between them.

With horses, hopefully the road would be much easier.

“How com
e you didn’t tell her we were Elves?” Odin asked, drawing his hands up and down Virgin’s body and channeling warming magic into his clothes to further dry them. “I mean, not that we are or anything, but it’s not like we’re causing any trouble.”

“Being an Elf in the human world is just as big a death sentence as being a Drow in the Elven one,” Virgin replied, seating himself on the bed before reaching down to unlace his boots. “You should know how bigoted humans are.”

“I’ve never had any problems.”

“Maybe not, but have you ever pulled your hair back?”

“No.”

“Then you see my point,” the older Halfling replied, tossing his boots into the corner of the room before spreading out along the mattress. “You haven
’t had anything to worry about because no one’s ever mistaken you for anything but human.”

“They
’ve thought other things though.”

“Your eyes may give you a dark moniker, but even then they could only consider you albino, or something of the sort.”

“I’m not though.”

“Yes, but most humans are stupid, aren
’t they?”

“I wouldn
’t say that,” Odin said, seating himself on the bed beside Virgin.

“What would you call them then?”

“Ignorant, I suppose.”

If any a term there w
as, ignorant would describe humanity as a whole. For their distrust of other races, for their slaughtering of innocents, for driving those who ruled the world before them to the ends of the earth and then calling them things akin to animals—ignorance was a disease, just as its brother and companion arrogance was, but it was not bred lightly. No. For ignorance to be born, one need only slap a child, call a name, disrupt the ebb and flow of things that shouldn’t have been disturbed and to make anything they had not the knowledge of bad and wrong. First it was the Centaurs, whom they killed without mercy, then it was the Giants for whom they considered a nuisance. The Leatherskins came next, driven across the land bridge that existed thousands of years ago to places where only could dwell, then followed the Elves, forced to the forest because they were misunderstood. Even the Dwarves faced their share of discrimination, for they were thought greedy and only concerned with their wealth. As he had come to learn over the past several years of his life, Odin had found that the other races, if anything, were to be respected and appreciated, not torn apart and reduced to name calling and servitude.

Just think,
he thought,
what ramifications it would have if the court knew you were a Halfling.

They
’d call him a bastard—which, technically, he could be considered as, given the fact that his father had never raised him—and they’d say he was tainted and as such could not represent Ornala as a whole, for no creature of Elven lineage could have humanity’s interests in mind. Of course not. What need did a human king have for a warrior that was born of two bloods?