She didn’t seem annoyed or angry. But she didn’t seem interested, either.
She might as well have been waiting for her horse to finish relieving itself.
Which, yes, it was currently in the process of doing.
Fern performed some mental arithmetic. A day and a half by horse cart. On foot, that was . . .
With her head in her hands, she whispered, “Questioning my existence from the comfort of a warm bed sounds pretty gods-damned wonderful right about now. Fern, youninny.”
“Hm?”
The elf’shmwas as precisely calibrated as Cal’s.
She hefted the food meaningfully.
Fern tried for an endearing but slightly pitiable smile. “Is there any chance I can convince you to take me to the next town or crossroads or someplace I could book passage back . . .” Fern trailed off, and her eyes widened. She patted at her waist with the sudden realization that she was wearing neither her belt, nor her purse. In a wild burst of optimism, she flipped open the satchel and rifled through it, hoping against hope that—
Nope. Not so much as a lonely copper bit gathering dust at the bottom. Only parchment, pencils, and a book she’d already read that was intended for somebody else.
Astryx had no trouble guessing her thoughts. “Seems like the walk might be the best bet.”
It was very clear that the legendary Astryx One-Ear had no intention of retracing her steps to return a hungover rattkin to her shambles of a life. In astory,the heroine would have gallantly changed her plans to usher a naive villager back to the safety of their own home, no matter how inconvenient or obviously impractical that might be.
This clearly was not one of those stories.
“Luffing shunks!”chirped the goblin.
Both Astryx and Fern switched their attention to the girl on the buckboard.
“My thoughts exactly,” muttered Fern, who knew alotof goblin profanity.
“You know what she’s saying?” Astryx cocked a brow at her.
Something canny in Fern that wasn’t entirely debilitated by alcoholic low tide said, “Oh, sure. Why?”
“You speak goblin?”
“Does she not speak Territories?” Fern neatly avoided the question.
Astryx frowned. “Not so far as I can tell. What’d she say?”
“Well,” Fern hedged. “Nothing polite.” Not that politeness had ever governedFern’sspeech before.
“Never really got on with the goblin tongue myself. They didn’t even have one five hundred years ago. I understand it’s mostly curses, so, that sounds about right.”
Fern thought that ifshehad lived for a thousand years,shemight have picked up a few more languages that were relevant to her line of business, but was wise enough not to say so.
Instead, she said, “Look, I’ve got a proposal. For the sake of argument, let’s assume you take me with you to the next real stop. I can listen to what she’s got to say? That’s bound to make things easier foryou,and as a bonus, I don’t expire by the side of the road on my way home.”
The elf pursed her lips in speculation. “You still don’t have any money. How are you planning to hire your way back?”
Fern spread her paws. “You don’t have to worry about that, right? I’ll just have to find a way to scrape together the silver when I get there.”
“Mmm. What’s your name?”
“Fern.”
“And what is it that you do?”
