NPCs (12 page)

“You’re going to miss Thistle’s event?” Gabrielle asked. “Don’t tell me your nerves are upsetting your stomach again.”

“No, I’m… it’s probably nothing. I just need to go check something quickly.” Without another word, Eric was off, moving through the pen as inconspicuously as possible while still keeping up a steady pace. He flowed through the crowd without thought, which was good, because he’d never have pulled off such grace had he been conscious of his movements.

“Odd,” Grumph said, then turned his attention back to the contest. Thistle hadn’t bull’s-eyed his second target, but he’d come close. The mighty half-orc’s hand still thundered with applause as the targets were changed and daggers retrieved.

* * *

Thistle thanked the attendant who returned his dagger to him, noticing Sierva at his side, doing the same. Once the attendants had moved on to other competitors, he voiced his curiosity.

“Couldn’t help thinking you could save the folks some trouble and bring your own daggers back like yesterday.”

“Perhaps, but in light of the extra disqualification rules, I’ve decided to handle things the old-fashioned way,” Sierva replied. “The calling magic on them doesn’t give me any advantage, but people can be touchy about magic in a martial competition. Technically, the only events allowed to use it are Magical Duel and General Melee.”

“Best to play it safe then,” Thistle agreed. His vision turned forward, toward the new targets being put in place. “This seems even smaller than last round.”

“I noticed. About half the size of the originals,” Sierva added. “Makes a bull’s-eye nearly impossible.”

“And missing far more likely.”

“So it would appear,” Sierva agreed.

“Makes you wonder how small the ones in the final round will be,” Thistle said.

“Let’s just focus on staying in long enough to make it there,” Sierva suggested.

“Aye, good thinking.”

They let the words fall away as their attention became focused on the targets in front of them, each no bigger than the lid of a small vat. This one, Thistle was confident he could hit. Any smaller, though, and he’d be tossing a prayer to Grumble. He wondered if that counted as cheating, given his new position in the god’s employ. Oh well; even if it did, it likely wouldn’t make much of a difference. Grumble was a fair god, but not well-known for his attentiveness.

* * *

The cart had woven around the arena, moving all the way to a building on the other side. Though the building connected to the arena in the stands, near the mayor’s position, it was technically outside the fence marking the area. Outer doors, manned by four guards, halted the cart’s haulers. Words were exchanged — words too soft for Eric to hear at the distance he was keeping — and two of the guards went to check out the contents of the delivery. Doing this required lifting up the tarp, and should have provided Eric with a glimpse inside. Unfortunately, the angle they lifted at only made more material flow over the part Eric wanted to see. Whatever they observed satisfied the guards, because they pulled the tarp back into position and motioned for the others to open the doors.

Then, when they were tugging the material back to the edge to secure it, Eric caught another flash. Perhaps the first glimpse he could have written off as imagination, given enough time, but this one he’d been watching for: a dull red pulse of light from a barely-exposed crystalline surface. Four days ago, it would have meant nothing to him. Four days ago had been before he saw the gleaming red gem in the goblins’ camp, mere hours before denizens of hell sprang forth. It could be a coincidence, true; the goblins had hoarded many magical items in their storage hut. But the similarity between the gem’s color and the blood-red tinge of the demons’ skin was undeniable.

Eric still heard the clacking of their claws at night during the worst dreams, and sometimes, for a few heart-stopping seconds after waking. It could be a coincidence, but a twisting splinter of worry in his gut refused to let him accept that possibility and move on. He had to be sure that the gem was innocuous, or that it wasn’t the same kind the goblins had found.

That meant he had only one option. Eric, the former guard, was going to have to break into that building.

* * *

“What do you think, about the size of a coin?”

“I’d say that would be a fair approximation,” Thistle agreed.

Of the six remaining competitors, they were taking the size of the fourth round targets with the most calm. The other four were raising a ruckus, while the crowd was cheering and tittering at the new challenge. Likely, they didn’t realize the implications of such tactics: to them, this just made for a better show.

The weight of his dagger shifted as Thistle readjusted his grip. What he wouldn’t have traded for a better set of blades. These were functional, and he’d overcome their rudimentary design and lack of balance so far, but the margin for error was narrowing by the round. At this point, there was no longer any need to keep score. Whatever one got in the first three rounds would be the deciding factor; now it was just a matter of making it to the end.

Eventually, the other four competitors realized what Thistle and Sierva already knew: no one was listening to their complaints because no one cared. The money had been collected; all that remained was to take out as many competitors as possible. Good service for adventurers was for the tavern, not the tournament. Once this sank in, they moved back to their throwing positions, and tried not to let the anger cloud their focus.

“I wonder how they’ll handle the other contests,” Sierva speculated.

“They’ve got something, I’ve no question on that,” Thistle told her. “I’m glad this is my only one.”

“Perhaps that would have been a better strategy. I still have Magical Duel remaining.”

Thistle’s eyebrow rose slightly. “You do magic?”

“Of course. I am a wizard, after all. Throwing daggers is just a favorite hobby.”

Thistle looked her over once more, taking note of the flexible, sturdy armor. She didn’t look like any wizard he’d encountered, but then, neither did Grumph, so perhaps he should stay such judgements.

“You’re quite good, for it being a hobby.”

“I suppose we’ll see if that’s good enough.”

* * *

Eric had never been a very adept guard, but that hadn’t come from lack of trying. Quite the opposite: knowing how unskilled he was, Eric had studied harder than any of the others to improve. He’d gone over the floor plans of the mayor’s house, constantly searching for undefended points that needed more attention. In his free time, Eric read books on trap-making and methods for breaking and entering so that he could be steps ahead of any intruders. He’d even tried a bit of lock-picking, to see if he could find a way to improve the models’ designs. That ambition failed, but it still left him with a working knowledge of most common locks. No one in Maplebark knew more about guarding than Eric, which made it all the more frustrating when he’d consistently failed to keep Gabrielle from getting kidnapped.

Now, stepping carefully into the guarded building, he was grateful for all that research. Learning how to stop thieves had inadvertently also given him a good background on how to be one. He’d realized that the outer doors would prove impossible to assail without drawing a ruckus and sneaking in on a cart was unlikely, since those were searched. No, the weak point of the structure was the outcropping that connected to the stands. There was a tunnel leading from it to a spot deeper in, a place where Eric assumed it opened up in the mayor’s area. The beams and columns surrounding it were dense, too dense for anyone to move freely through them. For that reason, the guards only walked around to check it infrequently, and then, it was more a glance than a thorough scan. Eric understood: guarding meant it was impossible to see everywhere at once, so you had to allocate your time to the places where the chance of intrusion was the highest. In this case, it meant the outer doors.

Of course, that also meant a lean, nimble man had enough time to work through those beams, making his way to where two of the tunnel sections joined. It was still slow going, but the inattentiveness of the guards gave him the freedom needed to accomplish the task. The shoddy construction of the hastily built arena also assisted him, as it meant the sections were joined loosely, making it easy to wedge open a gap and wiggle inside. Had Appleram spent any real time or money on their impromptu tournament, such tactics would have failed catastrophically. Thankfully, the emphasis had been on getting the structure built quickly, before the adventurers lost interest.

The actual contents of the building were approximately twenty boxes, six small chests, and three carts. A quick inspection of the chests revealed they were filled with coins, so presumably this was where the prizes for those who won were stored. The boxes held various bric-a-brac: tunics and scrolls and banners all emblazoned with an “Appleram Tournament!” logo — probably souvenirs they were planning to sell sometime during or after the contests.

The carts held other prizes: a gilded buckler that Eric suspected was more paint than gold, a silver statue of a dragon with blue gems for eyes, and a very ornate hat with an odd, mismatched design. Eric picked up the hat and turned it around in his hands. He was amazed by how truly hideous it was. Perhaps this was the fashion in the kingdom, but he’d take a good wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun at bay. With that thought, the gaudy hat shifted and was replaced by a simple one with a wide brim, just as he’d envisioned. Eric set it back down and it took back its original form when it left his hand. The magical, style-changing hat was interesting, but he was already worried about one magical item; he didn’t need to mess around with a second.

Then, a few feet over, Eric saw it. There was no question; it was almost exactly the same as the gem he’d seen at the goblin camps. Same dull red glow, same egg-like shape, and same shifting patterns if one stared long enough. There were, however, two differences from the gem Eric had seen previously. This gem’s glow wasn’t constant; it brightened and dulled rhythmically at regular intervals. As he stared at it, Eric thought he caught the slightest increase in the tempo. That, he imagined, couldn’t be a good thing.

Because the other difference between this gem and the one from the goblin camp was that the gem currently in front of Eric was bigger. Roughly three times bigger.

* * *

Thistle stared in amazement at the protruding dagger, barely imbedded in the wooden target, yet holding firm all the same. He was sure he’d felt it slip slightly on his throw, a minor error that should have eliminated him from the game. His saving grace had been an unexpected wind gust that moved his dagger’s course. Only by half an inch, but it was enough. Of course, one gnome’s good fortune was several other competitors’ oblivion. Only a single other dagger had found its target besides his own, one that belonged to a long-haired human several spaces down from him.

“Damn wind,” Sierva cursed, accepting her dagger as the attendant rushed it over to her.

“Sorry,” Thistle said.

“Don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault,” she assured him. Thistle felt a kernel of doubt, though. Perhaps the wind had been chance, or perhaps Grumble was showing favoritism to his newest recruit. The gnome shook off such thoughts forcefully. If one looked for the will of the gods in every turn of fate, it would soon overwhelm them. Better to take things as they were unless the deity physically showed themselves.

“Good throw,” Sierva complimented a moment later.

“Not really. It would have gone wide if not for the wind.”

“Your form was fine; I think the issue is, without meaning offense, that you’re using daggers ill-suited for throwing.”

“Aye, no argument here, but we work with what we have,” Thistle agreed, accepting his own blade from the attendant. He heard a rustling sound to his left and glanced over to find a leather belt dangling in front of his eyes.

“A loan,” Sierva explained. Her daggers were sheathed on opposite sides of the belt, silver handles gleaming in the light of the relentless sun. “Whatever the next phase is, you need a better blade.”

“Are you certain?” A weapon, especially one with that much worth, was a precious and personal thing. To hand it off to a stranger was quite odd indeed.

“I’d like to see one of us win; didn’t we agree on that? Besides, I detest this town’s greedy trickery. Separate them from at least some of the gold that’s been spent in the last week.”

“With all the skill I possess,” Thistle promised, accepting her gift. He wrapped the belt around himself twice in order to get it to fasten, then pulled the blades from their sheaths. They were light, delicate things that belied the danger in their sharp edges. Up close, they were even more beautiful than before, the intricate etchings weaving across the surface in a pattern that shifted as the eye moved. Though slightly bigger than his goblin daggers, they were easier to hold, and their balance was immaculate.

“Good luck,” Sierva told him, walking back toward the pen with other, now-disqualified competitors.

That was when Thistle looked forward and saw the final round’s trial. The good news was they hadn’t shrunk the targets. Each was still about the same size as a coin. The bad news was they had tied those coin-sized targets onto the foot of two crows, each of which were squirming for freedom in the attendants’ hands. A cheer went up from the crowd as they pieced together this next challenge, still unaware or uncaring about the ramifications it had on the competitors.

Thistle chanced a glance to the mayor, who sat stalwart as he watched the proceedings. He, at least, wasn’t celebrating. So, he was likely a man who was doing this because he saw it as necessary, rather than to be overtly stingy. Thistle filed this mental note away, then stopped looking at the crowd and focused on the near-impossible task in front of him.

If the wind had been Grumble, Thistle hoped that wasn’t all the god was ready to contribute. The chances of winning without some divine aid were about as good as if he went one on one with a great dragon. Still, miracles happened, so there was no reason not to at least give it a throw.