Brigands & Breadknives by Travis Baldree - 6

Dear Viv,

I have no idea how to write this letter to you. This is the fourth attempt, in fact. All the others have started the same way, though.

I’m sorry.

And every time I write that, I immediately want to cross it out because it looks so small and stupid and useless on the page.

I feel small and stupid. And I guess also useless.

But I can’t get around writing those words. This letter has to start that way.

In the previous three versions, it got really pitiful after that point, and there was a lot of blubbering and wailing and abasement, but that feels self-indulgent, so I’m skipping it this time. Maybe that means I’ll get further.

Fern looked up and made a sour face. “Gods, this is terrible.” She took a moment to survey the green swells of countryside through which they passed. After several skins of water, half of the bread-slash-rock Astryx had offered—the pungent cheese was a no-go—and a solid afternoon of travel, Fern’s hangover had fled at last.

Lupine bloomed along the side of the road, and hayricks studded distant fields. A windmill twirled lazily in the distance. The wind played through her fur, and the cart creaked gently beneath her, the motion of which was either very soothing, or like a hammer blow to the spine, depending on the condition of the road beneath. They were currently enjoying the nicer of the two options. It was a great relief.

She returned her attention to the parchment, and her charcoal pencil.

Cal may have already told you that I had a bit of a breakdown.

Fern rolled her eyes and scratched that out.

I am planning to return as soon as possible, and I am probably standing in front of you watching as you read this.

She put the pencil to her lips.

Or maybe I’m lying dead by the side of the road, and this letter found itself to you via some other mysterious means.

“For fuck’s sake,” she muttered, and furiously scratched that out, too. The likelihood of scrapping this entire attempt was growing by the word.

The upshot is that a terrible feeling has been growing in me for years. The new shop was supposed to fix that, but the feeling didn’t disappear, even with everything working out perfectly, and I guess I got scared. And then I got drunk. And on my way to explain all this to you, I crawled into the back of a cart and passed out, and now I’m far from home.

Well, that was essentially true, anyway. Even if it did sound preposterous.

I hope Potroast is all right. I can’t even write my apology to him. I don’t know if he’ll ever forgive me for disappearing. There might not be enough baked goods in the world.

Fern had to pause to arm away a tear. Bad as she felt about leaving Viv in the lurch after all her investment into Thistleburr, all the energy she’d poured into it . . . the realization that she’d left Potroast behind kept her stomach knotted long after the hangover had faded. She knew he’d be cared for, but . . .

I will find my way back.

Even though I’m riding in the wrong direction, Fern thought, but did not write.

You’re never going to believe whose cart it was.

Astryx jogged easily beside the draft horse, the pommel of her blade tracing a silvery figure eight behind her in the afternoon sun. The legendary adventurer didn’t seem to tire and never rode on the cart with the rest of them. Possibly it was a fitness thing. There didn’t look to be an ounce of fat on her body. She also did not appear to sweat.

Or my other traveling companion.

The goblin, whose name was apparently Zyll, slept upright on the buckboard beside her. Her sharp-toothed mouth was open, and a pointed pink tongue lolled halfway to her chin. Occasional snores whistled from her nose, like the peeping of a new-hatched chick.

She’s . . . unique.

When she looked up again, she startled. Zyll stared back with clear interest. Her mouth remained open, tongue still out, but she was very, very awake.

Another of those peeping snores escaped her nose, though.

The goblin did not seem at all uncomfortable, even swaddled as she was in hemp.

“What did you do to end up here?” Fern hadn’t intended to say it aloud, but she didn’t suppose it mattered.

“Maybe you should ask in goblin?” called Astryx, not even a bit winded.

Fern couldn’t tell if the question was pointed or not.

“Would she tell me?”

Astryx’s shoulders rose and fell. “Why don’t we find out?”

Well, that definitely felt like a test.

The rattkin’s mind raced, given that her goblin vocabulary was uniformly inappropriate for polite conversation.

“Spenka tu drott?” she managed, hoping Astryx didn’t know that one.

Zyll’s brows rose in surprise.

Which was only natural, Fern supposed, since she’d just been asked if she liked to drink her own pee.

An answer was not forthcoming.

“Tales vary. They usually do,” said Astryx later that evening in response to Fern’s now long-unanswered question about the goblin’s misdeeds. The elf unbuckled her baldric and slipped the sword from her back, still in its sheath. She propped it carefully on the fallen log she was using for a bench, and then squatted before their small campfire.

On the hill behind them, an ancient, craggy dolmen framed a black window into starlight. The mournful, far-off chuk-whooo of a nightbird made their campsite feel unfathomably remote.

“One of the more recent ones involves the Seventy Saint army, up in North Territory.” Astryx nodded toward the goblin. “Allegedly, she disrupted their whole supply chain, and they ended up stranded for an entire winter in the mountains, eating their boots for breakfast.”

Fern wrinkled her brow, gingerly extending a hunk of the detestable cheese toward Zyll’s deadly-looking mouth. “That’s enough to warrant a bounty on your head?”

The goblin’s jaws creaked wide, her tongue lolling. Still bound and tethered on the ground next to the wagon, she waited, unblinking, until Fern tossed the rind of cheese, as though flinging meat to a starving dog. Zyll snapped her smile closed over it and swallowed without chewing once.

Astryx shrugged and prodded the fire. “The Seventy Saints seemed to think so. Probably objected strongly to the taste of boots.”

“It’s not . . . evil, though . . . ?” tried Fern, making a game attempt to tear a heel off the loaf of bread Astryx had provided for the evening meal. Boots were probably more appetizing.

“A bounty isn’t a moral judgment,” replied Astryx patiently. “Usually it’s someone offering money for a person to be delivered someplace, usually a person who doesn’t want to be delivered to that place.”

Fern prepared to respond, but Astryx continued.

“Trust me, good and evil become a lot less easy to spot after a few hundred years of doing this.”

Fern observed Zyll for a moment, wondering seriously whether she’d asphyxiate on the bread if she gulped it down like she had the cheese.

The goblin had developed a keen interest in Astryx’s sheathed blade and appeared to be studying it. She caught Fern’s gaze, winked at her, and said, “Alstroon.”

Fern had no idea what that meant, so apparently it wasn’t profane. “So I could just pay to have anybody hauled to my doorstep if I wanted? Isn’t that kidnapping?”

“Doesn’t work that way. There’s a system. Requirements.” Astryx waved a hand dismissively. “It’s not very interesting.”

“I imagine it’s pretty fucking—I mean, I imagine it’s pretty interesting if you’re the one with a bounty on your head.” For some reason Fern felt weird swearing around Astryx. Like she was cursing in front of her grandmother.

“If there is one on your head, then there’s likely a good reason,” replied the elf, with a mildness that Fern found very confusing and not at all in keeping with the swashbuckling mental image of the legendary Blademistress the histories had conjured. In fact, she was having a hard time squaring the entire situation with her heart-pounding first impression of the elf in the swamp-lands, too.

Fern fidgeted with the calcified bread, and then blurted, “It’s just . . . I’ve read books about you. The Flight of the Silver Hawk ? You’re a living legend! And this . . . kind of makes you sound like a postwoman? Is this really what you mostly do?”

Astryx sighed, and for the first time her placid expression became something Fern recognized. Something a little weary. A little hollow. “Everyone always wants it to be exciting. For it to be worthy of a song. To buy you a beer and hear about a thrilling escape or a fierce battle or a vanquished demon. To write a book about it.”

“But those are all things that happened, right?” asked Fern, hopeful.

“After ten centuries of doing this, do you want to know what’s really exciting?” asked Astryx, ignoring the question. Her gaze was direct, and almost hungry.

Fern nodded.

“Dry socks.”

Fern dreamed of Viv.

A distressingly realistic dream.

“I guess it’s the risk we ran,” the orc said, sighing deeply. She curled an arm around Tandri’s back as they surveyed the empty interior of the new bookshop. “I didn’t figure Fern for the sort of person who’d sneak off in the night and leave her obligations behind, but maybe the years changed her in a way I didn’t expect. Or maybe I expected more than I should’ve. I’m sorry.”

“No apologies from you,” replied Tandri, cupping Viv’s chin with a slender hand. “I know this is a huge disappointment, but we’ll make do. You did nothing but try to help an old friend, and there’s never any shame in that.”

With no body and no agency, Fern was reduced to a powerless, floating perspective. She tried to speak but had no mouth. She tried to shift her gaze but had no body to direct.

I know this is a dream, Fern thought. Of course it is. Because I might as well be reading this in a story. If it were real, I could change it. If it were real, I’d be here, and none of this would be happening.

“I can run the place until we find someone to sell it to,” said Tandri.

“Sell? There’s still the chance she might come back . . .” said Viv, trailing off hopefully.

Tandri shook her head. “I doubt that’ll happen. Besides, this bookstore deserves real commitment. It’s something special. It needs someone special to care for it.”

Fern’s dream self had no stomach, but it knotted anyway.

Potroast whined, and her point of view tilted so that she could see the gryphet curled at Tandri’s feet, giant golden eyes beseechingly pitiful.

The succubus patted Viv’s hand and dropped to her haunches to run her fingers through his feathers. “I can’t believe she left Potroast behind.” The gryphet hooted mournfully, butting his head against her hand.

Viv smiled down at them both, hands on her hips. “At least he’s found the home he really needed.”

Oh fuck you, you fucking dream, thought Fern.

“We all just have to come to terms with the fact that she’s gone,” her old friend continued.

Then her gaze shifted and caught Fern’s.

“She’s gone.”

Fern’s eyes snapped open.