“I’m not a toddler,” said Fern, peevishly, standing and flapping her cloak in a failed effort to shed some water. “I can getdown.”
“Do you want mud up to your armpits?” Astryx squinted at her, hair plastered to her forehead and shin-deep in muck. Behind her, Zyll shook herself so vigorously that her orange pigtails slapped against her cheeks.
Fern muttered something ungrateful under her breath, clutched her satchel to her chest, and managed a begrudging, “Fine.”
Astryx caught her easily and set her down next to Zyll. “Besides,” she continued, “as far as I’m concerned, youarea toddler. I’ve had boots that were older than you.”
“That’s very funny,” replied Fern. Then she blinked.Is shebanteringwith me?But she was too wet to seriously consider the possibility.
“Get us a room,” said Astryx. “I’ll see to Bucket and the wagon.” Without waiting for a reply, she slogged through the mud to investigate the smallish stable that adjoined the inn.
Fern flipped back her sodden hood and heaved an enormous sigh of relief as she led Zyll into the great room of the inn. The door thumped closed behind them, subduing the roar of the storm to a low mutter. A fire snapped merrily in an enormous, misshapen hearth. The taxidermied head of a massive prairie-ox regarded them with sleepy alarm from above it. A crooked stairway at the back led to a second story. Water leaking from the roof dribbled into a scattering of mismatched tin pots, which threatened to over-spill onto the flagstones.
There were no patrons amidst the sprawl of old tables and chairs. Along the wall to the right, a counter ran in front of a line of cubbies and stacks of plates and cutlery, with a burlap curtain obscuring a doorway to a kitchen or office in the rear.
“Hello?” called Fern.
“Just coming!” hollered a rough voice from beyond the curtain. After a series of clatters and thuds, the broad back of a man preceded the rest of him through the burlap.
When he turned to face them, bristle-bearded and expectant, his face experienced a tortured journey which began with confusion, took a sharp detour into shock, and eventually arrived at outright dismay.
He nearly dropped the tray of tankards he was carrying.
“You!” he cried.
It only took a second before Fern realized that he wasn’t talking about her.
Zyll grinned at the man and then made a curious motion with both hands, hooking her thumbs together and flapping them like a bird’s wings. “Howdy howdy,” she said.
“Do youknowher?” asked Fern.
“Aye,” he replied sourly. He slammed the tray down on the counter and pointed one thick finger accusingly at the goblin. “Ain’t got no grackle piethistime, neither!”
Fern didn’t know what to do with that, and she was too wet to want to sort it out. “We just need a room for the night. Three of us, actually. Our, uh, companion is out in the stable, so, a night for the horse, too? I don’t know how that works.”
“Can’t help you,” said the innkeeper, crossing his arms. “This’n’s nothin’ but trouble, and I’ll be damned to all eight hells if I’ll have her under my roof for one night more.”
Staring back and forth between the two of them, Fern couldn’t help but ask, “What sort of trouble?”
“Chairs shattered to flinders. Gouges in the wall. Cutlerymissin’,” the innkeeper railed, flinging his hands toward all corners of the room. “And I only just got the damned ox head clean enough to hang again!”
“She did all that?” Fern eyed Zyll with skepticism.
“Well . . .” The man looked uncomfortable. “Maybe notpersonally.” But then his resolve firmed. “She’s aninstigator. And I won’t have it.”
The goblin chose this moment to withdraw a fistful of spoons from a pocket, which she used a wet pigtail to polish.
“Myspoons!” bellowed the innkeeper, at which point he became incapable of further speech. His mouth flapped open and closed, and Fern thought he might actually be approaching detonation.
They were all saved from the explosion by the door behind her banging open, whereupon a very soggy, very muddy one-eared elf entered the room. Nigel’s pommel gleamed menacingly over one shoulder, and she had a leather haversack slung over the other.
“Good evening,” said Astryx, in a dangerous voice. “You know, I feel absolutely confident that we can come to an agreement.”
The innkeeper’s open mouth snapped shut, and he gulped.
The chilly room had two beds, a rag rug, a small fireplace, and a wardrobe, all dimly lit by lantern glow through the rain-battered window. Upon shutting the door behind all three of them, Astryx strode to the opposite wall, kicked off her boots, unbuckled her baldric, tossed Nigel onto a bed, yanked open the haversack, and grabbed a bundle of dry clothes. She then immediately began shucking the ones she was wearing in a series of short, sharp motions.
Fern glimpsed a pale, heavily muscled back latticed with old scars before whirling around to give her some privacy, although the Oathmaiden clearly couldn’t have cared less.
