Strife & Valor: Book II of The Rorke Burningsoul Saga by Regina Watts (red queen ebook .TXT) 📕

way they are in El’ryh,” I warned not just Odile but all three durrow. “He’s a friendly old man, and men of his sort tend to show their friendliness in a very forward way. Let’s count our blessings he’s well-tempered and not inclined to spread idle gossip as long as we keep him paid.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Odile with a snort, draping her hand over her eyes. “Oh! Darkness. That feels delicious. I’m going to fall right to sleep.”

“How can anyone sleep?” Buzzing with excitement, Valeria hurried to the window and peered through the curtains at the small town square beneath us. Girlish delight that seemed almost unknown to her glowed in her face, and she looked delightedly between me and the vision of sleepy townsfolk waking up to go about their days. “How wonderful this is! It reminds me of illustrations I’ve seen…why, what’s that, what’s that woman leading there? That’s a horse, isn’t it?”

I peered out past her, swallowing back a light laugh. “Yes, it is most certainly a horse—you mean, you’ve never seen one!”

“Of course not. Where am I going to have seen a horse in El’ryh outside of a book?”

“By Weltyr…then I suppose it’s useless hoping you already know how to ride, right?” At her somewhat blank look, I exchanged with Branwen the silent realization that we had quite a task ahead of us. “Do any of you know how to ride a horse?”

“I was sat on one as a girl a couple of times,” said Odile. “Fewer times than I was invited to the surface, even…but I don’t really know how to ride, no.”

“I can ride a spider,” Indra offered, loosening her hair from the long plait that held it.

“He didn’t ask if you can ride a spider, Indra,” the terser of the two rogues said. “He asked about horses.”

Blanching quite adorably, Indra scoffed. “Well! It’s a similar principle, I’m sure.”

We would see about that…for now, I tugged open the tie of the leather purse at my hip and considered the coins within. There would be enough for a suit of armor in there, with some negotiation, maybe. But for a suit of armor and the rooms? The horses? New equipment for Branwen, for whom the plunder from the bandits proved inadequate?

I was not quite sure how we would manage it. There was no doubt that, one way or another, Weltyr would allocate his riches to help us acquire what we needed, no matter how different what we truly needed was from what we thought we needed…but the murkiness of our monetary future kept my busy mind all the busier while I put my gold away at the knock upon the door.

Lively, I should not have been surprised, appeared about twenty years older than her husband and was certainly a great deal more pleasing to my eye. She glanced shyly about the room, a towel over her shoulder and a washbasin in her hands. All the while, she smiled, the expression cutting early wrinkles into her tan features with the kind of pretty effect such mirthful lines often had on a woman who took care of herself. “Hello, hello—my goodness, it’s a crowd in here!”

“We’ll separate ourselves out into reasonable groups soon enough, ma’am,” I told her, thanking her for the basin she set upon the nightstand. While Valeria hurried to make immediate use of it for her hands and face, Lively set her towel down with a wave of her hand.

“Oh, it’s no trouble at all. You’ve no neighbors on this side, so if you’re going to be chatting at this hour, it’s best to do it here.”

“You’re both too kind to see to us so well,” I told her, meriting another wave of a hand she then reflexively wiped upon her apron.

“Happy to do it, happy to do it. It’s not often we get elves of any sort coming ‘round!”

Not wanting to risk more annoyance of any kind from Branwen, I stayed on the point. “Would you do me a favor, Madame”—Lively glowed at the appellation, but not near as much as she did when I placed a casual hand upon her shoulder and gestured with the other toward the window—“and point me toward the smithy where Rigan works?”

“Of course! You’re going there right now? Cor, you lot look so tired! I’m surprised you were even awake to answer me knock, I was ready to leave the washbin at the door for you.”

“As the temple priests used to tell me, there’ll be time to rest when I’m dead.”

Lively laughed in sympathy, patting my hand, as charmed by me as her husband was by my companions. “Sure enough, my mother used to say that, too. We’ll be lucky if we even get the chance to rest then, so far as I can see it! All right, come on…let me show you where Rigan’s at. Erdwud’s so terrible with directions…”

Bless her, Lively was much clearer than her husband had been, and far less brimming with nosy curiosity about just what our business together was. All number of questions had been bubbling under the man’s mustache, but if Lively was curious about anything, it was durrow fashion. “Aren’t you cold in that short little dress, love?”

Valeria looked down at herself with a shake of her head. “No,” she said, studying the dark legs left bare by the golden party dress she had not had a chance to change out of since our escape from El’ryh. “It doesn’t bother me any—if anything, it’s quite warm up here compared to my home.”

“Well, you just let me know if you need something to go about in. I might have an old dress that’ll fit you, if you don’t mind a moth hole or two…”

Yes—clothes for Valeria, now there was another cost to consider. Finding myself biting back a sigh, I thanked the innkeeper’s wife for her directions and said to my comrades, “I’m going to speak with that smith and see if he’ll be willing to work with