Fae and Fare, page 52
part #2 of The Wandering Inn Series
Ryoka knew what a Wyvern was, but she couldn’t believe the other thing Hawk had said.
“Snow Golems? Do you mean giant snowmen?”
“Snow things.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Common mistake. I suppose you’ve seen what happens when some stupid brats make a snow Drake and forget to give it clothes? Imagine that, only ten times bigger and with icicles with claws and teeth. Plus, they can hurl snowballs filled with rocks.”
Hawk shuddered.
“I hate them so much. If you ever know you’re getting close to a group of them, bring some kind of fire spell with you.”
“And Wyverns—keep an eye on the sky. If you see anything overhead, even if you think it’s an eagle, make sure you’ve got somewhere to hide where they can’t reach you. They can dive incredibly fast, so be careful if it’s cloudy.”
“And you’re not going to talk me out of this, despite the danger?”
Ryoka looked at both Couriers, amused. This sounded almost as bad as the High Passes, but then she’d just been told by everyone that it was suicidal to try to go there. Both Val and Hawk shook their heads. Val gestured at her as they began to circle back in the direction of the inn.
“If you’ve taken the contract, you’re bound to deliver it. And if you’re the type to give up just because you might die, you’ll never become a Courier.”
Ryoka grinned, and Hawk and Val returned it. It was odd, being in sync with other people.
“Anything else?”
“The undead. Be very wary of them.”
This time Hawk looked completely serious.
“You weren’t here for the undead that attacked, were you?”
“I saw the aftermath.”
“Yeah, well…they weren’t nearly as bad as the ones you can find around the Blood Fields. I mean, there was that big one, but individually, the worst undead out there were Crypt Lords.”
“That’s nasty enough. They’re commander-types.”
“Yeah, but they were commanding zombies, skeletons, and ghouls. Not scary. But a lot of the undead you can find down there are leftovers from the Necromancer.”
“Oh.”
Ryoka looked between human man and rabbit man.
“The Necromancer? You mean the one who raised the undead army? What kind of undead are we talking about here?”
Hawk shuddered.
“Horrible ones. Smart ones. He enslaved wraiths and ghosts and built new types of undead. Look—just before you go, buy some emergency gear. Something to get you away quick if you run into a group of them.”
Ryoka felt at the potion at her belt, and remembered the ones she’d gotten from Octavia.
“I’ve got some stuff. And four healing potions and three stamina potions. Enough?”
“Should be.”
“As long as you don’t stray too far from the roads. Healing potions are only useful if you’re alive to use them. Best trick is not to get hurt.”
“Agreed. Just don’t get hurt.”
“And don’t give up! Delivery or die!”
Ryoka had to laugh. Both Couriers were like her. It was amazing! She took a breath and quoted from memory.
“‘Neither rain nor snow, nor gloom of night shall stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds’, huh?”
Both Val and Hawk looked at Ryoka in astonishment.
“That’s quite good! Where did you hear that?”
“Oh, it’s a quote from my home about Couriers.”
“‘Neither rain nor snow’…yeah, I like it!”
Hawk nodded his head and Val did as well.
“We might just have to use that line! Thanks, Miss Ryoka.”
“Call me Ryoka.”
‘Miss’ seemed to be this world’s way of being polite, almost like Japanese honorifics. She bowed her head at the other two Couriers as they slowed on their approach to the inn.
“Thank you, both of you. I owe you a lot. I’ll repay the favor someday.”
“Bah. It was nothing.”
Hawk waved a paw dismissively. And then he grinned at Val and Ryoka.
“Talk is cheap, but meeting other good Runners? It’s great to meet other people who can run! You wouldn’t believe how slow the ones around here are. And hey, maybe we can go back to that inn for some more hamburgers afterwards, hey?”
Val and Ryoka paused. Ryoka remembered how many she’d eaten yesterday, for both lunch and dinner. Val was clearly thinking the same thing.
“No.”
“Not for at least a month.”
Both Val and Ryoka said it at the same time. Hawk looked slightly hurt.
“Why not? You were both at the inn last night, weren’t you? The one with the music? It was great! I must have eaten eight of the things, and then I got some tail, if you know what I mean.”
He grinned at Val and made a wiggling motion with his paw.
“Drakes. So slippery, you know?”
Val and Ryoka exchanged a look. Val looked at Hawk.
“Tail? You don’t mean—”
Ryoka’s mind literally shut down at the idea of Hawk eating eight hamburgers and then finding a female Drake and…
Neither human spoke, but they both accelerated at the same time. Hawk had to increase his stride to keep up. He glared at them as he kept pace.
“Oh come on! Do you think I’d be into fleshy people like you? I’d rather kiss a Minotaur first. At least they have something covering them! Furballs, you humans are so touchy.”
—-
Olesm was not a Drake given to arrogance, but he still had his pride. It had been badly crushed, beaten, and stomped by a certain human and the undead, but it was still pride nevertheless.
He’d leveled up, risked his life, and tried to learn to play his favorite game as best he could. He’d learned from the greatest chess player in the world—Erin, and he thought he’d made something of himself.
But now he knew the truth. The cold waters of reality were lapping around his head, and Olesm was too downtrodden to even bother trying to swim.
He felt Erin come over, and wished, wished, he was the kind of person who could capture her heart. But he was a [Tactician] – not a good one, not nearly as good as one in Liscor’s army – but he had a special skill. He could read people, and she wasn’t interested in him.
At all. Oh, she liked him, but Olesm knew it wouldn’t be more than that. And of course, he’d found someone—
It was just that she was like a beacon to him, a font of knowledge and unexplained mystery that stirred his soul. And he had let her down. He could barely look at Erin. Shame made Olesm’s tail droop.
“I—lost. Three games in a row. I couldn’t even put up a fight.”
Erin stared curiously at the chessboard as Olesm cringed. He couldn’t even bear to see how badly he’d been demolished. It hadn’t even been a battle, really. Just the other player pushing Olesm’s head down into the waters and holding him there while he drowned.
“Huh. That other guy’s good. Or girl. Probably a guy, though.”
“You can tell what gender he is just by looking at the board?”
Olesm’s tail drooped ever further. Erin was so far above him—
“No! I just mean—well, all the Grandmasters back home were mostly guys. Girls didn’t play chess as much so I meant…hm.”
She stared at the board, and then started resetting the pieces. Olesm stared glumly at the board.
“I think I made him mad. Or—disappointed him. I’m so sorry.”
After the first game, the other player had reset the board quickly. But this time he – or she – let Erin put all the pieces back. Yes, Olesm could feel the disapproval radiating off the pieces. It scourged him, and he couldn’t deny it. If he had found out that the player who’d come up with that marvelous puzzle was just someone on Olesm’s level.
Olesm lowered his head to the table. He would apologize, leave the inn, go to the city, and not bother Erin again until he was ten levels higher. He would—
A hand brushed the spines on Olesm’s head and he jerked. Erin patted him gently on the head as she took a seat at the table.
“There’s no reason to be mad for playing someone worse than you are. Everyone has to learn. If this guy’s mad, I’ll teach him a lesson for you.”
Erin flipped the board around, and moved a white pawn. Olesm hesitated, but his pulse suddenly began to speed up.
“He’s quite good.”
“I know. I could see. So—I guess I’ll take this seriously.”
“I’ll just—I’ll give you some—”
Olesm backed up until he was a table’s length away from Erin. He waited, with bated breath as she stared at the board. Then, almost reluctantly, he saw a knight move to F6. His spirits sank again.
This was…what had Erin called it? Oh, yes. Alekhine’s Defence. It was an aggressive opening to counter with, and it hinted that the other player had grown tired of playing Olesm. At first he’d played very cautiously, but now—
Erin smiled. She moved another piece forwards—a knight to C3. Almost instantly, the other player countered, moving his knight again, but Erin didn’t stop. She started playing pieces rapidly, as soon as the other player moved his.
Olesm could feel the shock running through the board. The other player had probably just realized someone else was playing—Olesm hadn’t moved his pieces so quickly, and certainly not with such skill.
For five whole minutes, the game paused, and Olesm could feel the other side recalculating. When the game resumed, it was slower, and the other player took his time thinking his moves over.
“Oh.”
It was a soft sound, in the gentle silence of the inn. It came from Erin as the game was more than halfway done. She’d made a mistake, and the other player had taken her queen. Olesm stared at the board in shock, and then at Erin. She was surprised, but she just looked at the board and started recalculating her position. He heard her murmur as she tapped her chin.
“He’s quite good. Yeah.”
And then—
She grinned. It was an expression like many of the bright smiles Olesm had seen and felt before, but this one was different. It made his scales tingle.
Because there was a light in Erin’s eyes he hadn’t seen before. And as she moved the next piece, punishing the bishop that had stolen her queen, he thought she looked…
Hungry. Yes, that was it.
Whatever else you might say of Erin, her skill at chess was indisputable. In this world, chess had lived in the minds of a few players for less than three years. But Erin had grown up playing chess as a child. She had breathed and lived the game, playing more matches in a year than Olesm had in his life.
Erin had grown up studying over 1,500 years of chess. She’d learned from Grandmasters and countless games she could look back on. Chess strategy had evolved much since the origin of the game, and Erin had learned to play at such a level that even among the 600 million players in the world, she still stood close to the top.
To Olesm, she was a god of chess that had come to this world. He had never beaten Erin; never even come close. But it is lonely, standing alone at the top. Only once he’d seen Erin challenged—only once had he ever seen her lose.
She’d played a hundred Workers at once and then taught them an Immortal Game. And then she had played one of her own. Olesm still remembered that game.
It must have been so lonely, afterwards. To play against players who couldn’t even make her take the game seriously. But now. But now—
Erin played silently, sitting with her back straight against the chair, posture perfect. She didn’t look around, didn’t chatter happily as she played. For once, she was concentrating completely on the game. And as the game drew close to its ending, her responses got faster, her concentration even deeper.
At the end, Erin took the black King, and Olesm remembered to breathe again. Erin sat back in her chair and laughed in delight. And that sound was pure and made him realize that she was happy.
Happy to have won. But happier to have played.
“Come on. Another game?”
Erin started resetting the board, but she tapped one of the ghostly pawns on the chess board once. And Olesm saw the black pawn move up and gently tap the board as well.
They understood each other. They were two players separated by hundreds, possibly thousands of miles, but they understood each other. They were here to play. So they did.
Another game. And another. Erin won both. Olesm watched as the fourth game began, and realized the truth.
Yes. Whoever was on the other side of the chess board was not Erin’s equal. But they were close. So close. And in each game, they sent a message to Erin, one written in every closely-contested exchange, every lost pawn and checkmate.
You are not alone.
Olesm wiped tears from his eyes. His heart ached, and he knew it would be silly to anyone watching. But there was a beauty in this that only someone who loved the game could see.
It took so much to look away, but he had to. Olesm walked into the kitchen and found what he was looking for. He’d found a bunch of parchment Erin had bought when he was helping out. It was still there, in a cupboard with an ink pot and quill.
Olesm returned to the living room and stared at the game. It was going slowly, and he looked at Erin’s face just for a second. She was closing her eyes, smiling gently, and his heart hurt for a moment.
He slowly picked up the quill and dipped it into the ink. Olesm began to write, noting down each move in the shorthand notation Erin had taught him.
And Erin smiled, and the chess pieces moved. They danced on the board and the Drake listened to history being made.
—-
Far away, and in a large tent on the middle of a hot and humid day, Niers Astoragon, second in command of one of the Four Great Companies of Baleros, and highest-leveled [Strategist] on the continent, gently pushed over the king and stared at the chess board.
He ignored the sounds of battle around him. His soldiers would emerge triumphant, and his lieutenants had the battle well in hand. Interfering with them would only impede their growth.
No, instead, he stared at the shimmering board and the magical pieces arranged on it. He had lost. For the fourth time. It had been close—ever so close! But he had lost. For the fourth time.
Niers did not rage. He was not, in fact, angry. Instead, he smiled, in much the same way Erin had. He put one hand on his chin and stroked it, feeling stubble rasp under his fingers. He had forgotten to shave, or sleep for that matter. He had been waiting to play the puzzle-maker and after an initial disappointment, his patience had been rewarded tenfold.
For a second, Niers debated hunting for his razor. He would have borrowed one of his lieutenant’s blades, but he hated how they fussed over him. A dagger as large as he was was still a dagger, and he was more than strong enough to lift it. It was just awkward, that was all.
Appearance trumped desire. Niers was a Level 63 [Strategist], and on his shoulders the fate of his company rested. He could not let his soldiers down. But—perhaps after he had played another game?
Niers reached down for a chess piece, and then he paused. A sound was coming from outside—a dissonance in the sounds of battle. Niers listened, and sighed. Some fool had just deployed the other army’s elite vanguard against his soldiers, turning this skirmish into a far bloodier battle.
His soldiers would need his help. Niers raised a hand and said two words.
“[Assault Formation].”
The air on the battlefield changed. Satisfied, Niers turned back to the board, ignoring the roar that came from his soldiers as the tide shifted once more.
He looked back at the board. He had sent it on a whim, judging the cost worth the possibility of a decent game. But now a bigger question loomed in his mind, one he’d wished he had asked sooner.
“Who are you?”
The chess pieces didn’t answer out loud. But as Niers saw the white side reset itself, he knew he would find part of the answer in the game. He sat down, concentrated harder than he had for what seemed like years—
And began to play.
2.19 G
The King of Goblins rode through burning fields and across battlefields filled with death and ash. Blood ran from his sword and the dead grew in heaps and mounds tall as mountains.
He roared, and a hundred thousand Goblins in his vanguard rose to follow. His armies swept across the land, burning, pillaging. Killing.
No quarter! No mercy! The playthings must die! Kill them. Burn them. All that the Gods have wrought must be destroyed.
His rage was endless. The Goblin King threw himself into battle, killing Humans, Drakes, Gnolls, and every species that got in his way. He only paused when the half-Elven archer raised her bow. The Goblin King’s last thought was regret as the arrow pierced his skull—
Rags sat up and screamed. Her tribe leapt to their feet, shouting as she struggled to sit up in her dirty blankets. Rags looked around wildly, and realized it had been a dream.
No—not a dream. A memory. One of her visions of a time long past, when the most recent Goblin King had lived.
Only a fragment, though. As Rags shouted her Goblins back down and waved her hands, she knew her tribe wasn’t large enough to let her truly focus on those memories. This was more like a…bubble, floating up into her mind.
She still remembered the rage. Endless, consuming rage. Had that been the last King? In Rags’ mind, he was more like an avenging nightmare, driven only by death and slaughter. She couldn’t understand.
But then, the Goblin King had been leader of a tribe that was nearly limitless. He would have been able to look back—perhaps a thousand years! If Rags had a tribe that large, she might understand more of his rage, his past, and most importantly, his death.
Rags had never heard of a Goblin dying of old age. Their kind had lives like matches; they burned out in seconds in the cold winds of this world.
But Rags would be different. She would never die.
The still very young Goblin rubbed at her eyes. She was awake. The memory of dying was too vivid to sleep on. She pulled the blankets up around her shoulders—yanking it from three Goblins who protested until she kicked them—and looked around her new home.
