Fireteam Delta by J. Halpin (ebook reader that looks like a book txt) 📕

the front, and as they arrived, each man began to kneel.

Summers looked around, trying to figure out if they were meant to respond somehow, only to have Pat hold out a hand to stop them.

He moved to the group, going to a knee himself.

“I’d have died outside the gates without your help.” Pat spoke in a solemn tone.

The fire crackled at their backs, the pyre beginning to burn in earnest.

Pat’s words were taken up by the others behind him. “We offer you our lives for a debt we could never repay, and as a final thanks.”

Summers stared back at the group for a moment, dumbstruck. The others just looked at him, waiting for the translation.

“Asle . . . how do I say, ‘you’re welcome’?”

Chapter 29: Shipping Out

“Asle, if we don’t go along with this, will it . . . you know, offend them?” Summers looked at the girl questioningly. Her eyes widened for a moment before she began to slowly nod.

“Fantastic,” Nowak groaned.

Asle had more or less walked Summers through accepting the elves’ vows, not that he fully understood what was happening. That was something they were still trying to sort out.

Summers took a breath.

“So, what does this debt . . . uh, involve?”

“First, they follow you until death.”

Cortez raised a hand.

“Hold up. You know you don’t have to do that, right?” Cortez looked at Asle worriedly.

Given what she’d explained, Pat and the others had more or less done exactly what she had. That is, vowed a life-debt to each of them.

“I know.” Asle nodded.

Summers let out a breath. Last thing he needed was knowing they’d dragged Asle through all of this because of an imaginary promise she’d made.

Cortez leaned back in her seat. “I’m gonna be honest with y’all, this sort of sounds like slavery.”

“No.” Asle responded with a little more emphasis than Summers would have expected. “You take care of their families, and they can break a vow.”

“So, it’s a give-and-take type deal?” Nowak had his head in his hands, clearly still trying to process things.

Asle nodded.

“Ah shit, I think I get it,” Cortez groaned. “Most of them are refugees, remember?”

“Christ, right . . .” Summers rubbed at his temple. “Without Rhodes, whatever deals they made are probably dead in the water.”

Summers realized there was a good chance most of them were just trying their damnedest not to starve. With the war over so soon, there was no guarantee the city would hold on to them.

“All right, fine.” Summers sighed. “Asle, a lot of these people saved my ass, too. If we were to give them some similar vow, would that cancel the other one out?”

“No. It would be stronger.”

“Fucking how?” Cortez looked at Asle, confused.

“You would be brothers . . . sisters?” Asle stumbled on her words for a moment. “Blood,” she said before nodding to Summers. “Like us.”

Both Nowak and Cortez looked at Summers questioningly.

Summers just looked back at the girl.

“You wanna run that one by me again, Asle?”

“Ugh.” Asle spoke with a tinge of anger in her voice. “You saved me. I saved you. I said thank you.” She gestured to herself, then Summers. “You said thank you.”

Summers blinked. He realized then that when he’d first recovered from the fog, and the girl had given him this same “vow” they’d been discussing, he might have done the same. If by accident. And so, he may have made a blood pact with a twelve-year-old girl.

He really needed to stop talking to elves.

“Not even going to begin to unpack that. Either way, doesn’t mean they have to follow us.” Nowak rested his head on his hand. “Comes down to it, I think you can have Pat set them up as permanent guards. Serving the city under an oath would still leave their ‘honor’ intact, right?”

Asle thought for a moment before she nodded again.

At least they had a plan.

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

The next day, they’d hidden in their quarters, mostly because they couldn’t get a minute to themselves otherwise.

“I know that you always planned to leave, but please, reconsider.”

The man in front of them was the same councilman Summers had seen kissing Rhodes’s ass back when they’d first arrived. His name was Sigurd, and he’d spent the last hour trying to convince them to take Rhodes’s title, something Summers couldn’t even pronounce.

“Again, while we’re, uh, honored . . .” Summers looked back to Nowak and Cortez. “We can’t accept something like that right now.”

The man looked down, thinking before he responded.

“I understand. You’re still in mourning,” Sigurd agreed. “Forgive my rudeness.”

He bowed.

While they were still recovering, both physically and mentally, that wasn’t why they were turning the man down. In truth, they had no idea what the position entailed, and it had seemed like Rhodes was struggling to hold things together, else he wouldn’t have brought them on board.

And if there was one thing Summers was certain of, it was that people would usually do what was in their best interest. Someone like the councilman was no exception. Knowing that, they’d be morons to blindly agree.

“It’s fine.” Summers heard Asle clear her throat, bowing to the councilman in turn. They each took the hint and bowed.

Etiquette was a tricky thing.

Pat, Orvar, and the twins stood flanking them with spears. They’d more or less barged into their rooms the next morning to report for duty. Summers had tried to dismiss them, but the men were annoyingly adamant.

“I’m in your debt as well.” The councilman glanced at his son, then back to Summers. “I hope you understand that I intend to repay it.”

Summers glanced to Asle, who bowed her head once again. Summers followed the motion.

“We’re honored.”

Asle had explained to him that tacking the word