Bobbick knew something was wrong as soon as the field came into sight, so he pulled the group into a small alcove.

  “The village Youlost is just around the next outcropping for around a hundred feet before it disappears behind the mountain until we get down into the flats. Get yer looker out and be ready to scan the area. If we were a military outfit, I would assign different areas for each of you to look toward. You, however, in your great wisdom, chose to be rangers, so you have to act as you would if you were alone. We will stop on the other side of the exposure, Jonath, cover those buckles on your pack and don’t let anyone see the glare of your looker.”

  They had all seen smoke or dust in the distance and two of them saw what looked to be lurkers within the tree line to the west. The other two had seen small rivulets of smoke off to the east of the city, they were proving to be very observant for their respective youth, but none of them had noticed the signs of what had happened, and recently by his estimation.

  Bobbick knew from experience that the young will focus on the obvious so hard they miss the subtle things.

  “You fools, you saw what any trained ranger could see within a hundredth of a second scan as they focused on what really mattered. I’m not going to tell you what you missed, instead I am going to let you find out on yer own,” Bobbick said seeing their skepticism in his claim. “To prove it, I will tell you now that we will not reach the flats without first running into armed breeds blocking our way. I will also tell you that they are flying full banners, meaning they are or recently have been in battle.” He paused and studied the looks of dismay that they had missed something so obvious.

  “Did you even hear the horn, lads?” Bobbick ground his teeth and shook his head in disappointment.

  “Keister heads! That’s what ya are is a bunch of silly keister heads. Be glad we are in such tryin’ times or I’d be bringing ya back to school today. Move it out, we don’t have the bloody time to teach y’all enough to survive a week on your own tonight.”

  He watched the four young dwarfs pass, more proud of them than he would ever let on before he signaled to a jutting spire where a breed had been watching their entire exchange.

  Bobbick was savvy toward the ways of strangers, though he could know someone twenty years and they would still be strangers. It was the opposite of impersonal in Bobbick’s case. He understood that people grow and experience life changing situations every day. Some of those experiences can change a man, make him somewhat unpredictable. He had stopped here on a relatively regular basis and for the first time, he had no idea what to expect.

  31

  Intervention

  Tic awoke late to a banging on his door. He shook the cobwebs out as he went and opened to door to find Frodeg, a sheriff of Riverhouse glaring at him.

  “I had a pile of complaints about you last night. Peoples are saying there was an explosion, is that true?”

  “Ah, yeah…sorry. I was trying to mix up a new dye and it got away from me,” Tic replied quickly.

  “I can’t believe a dye could be so…volatile, young master Rowen.”

  “Yeah, well, some leathers require that type of penetration to take a color,” he said truthfully.

  “Did you have any damage?” he asked with sincere concern.

  “No…no, a few pictures rattled off the wall is all. I am sorry to have disturbed my neighbors,” Tic said and wondered if he should invite him in for coffee, but decided it would take too long to brew a pot and the sheriff would have way too much time to snoop around his abode.

  “Very well then, sorry to have bothered you, sir,” he said gallantly and turned to go.

  “No bother at all, Sheriff,” Tic said and closed the door. He walked back into the living room and almost fainted at what he saw. The room itself looked pretty much the same, although a bit smoke stained from the blast, but it was the vision sitting in the easy chair with its legs crossed…a giant winged man sipping hot coffee as if there wasn’t a care in the world.

  “You handled that quite well, young man.”

  “Ah, thank you. Where did you get coffee?” was all that came to his mind to ask.

  “I made it while the rest of you slept. Your kitchen is pretty self-explanatory and not much different than what we had in the aeries.

  “Oh. What are you?”

  “What, or who? You humans have always been lacking courtesy, it was one of the reasons we decided to enslave you, but that is in the past. My name is Nigel and I am an aerial. That doesn’t mean much now, but there was a time when that claim would have made you and all of your kind piss your pants,” the aerial said and chuckled at Tic being somewhat immobilized by shock or fear. “Oh please, go get yourself a cup and let us chat for a bit. It has been a very long time since I have had decent company.”

  “I resent that,” a weak voice from behind the sofa chimed in. “Where are we?”

  “Yes, do be a good man and tell us where we are,” Nigel encouraged.

  “Riverhouse.”

  “Riverhouse? I got us to Riverhouse?” The elven head popped up from behind the sofa with a proud smile, to which the aerial rolled his eyes.

  “Well, not exactly.” Tic hesitated, then began, “I could tell where you were that someone or something was negating your rune, so I brought you here where you could try again. What were you trying to do?”

  “Get out of there,” Juil replied as if that was the most obvious thing in the world.

  “Oh, I guess it worked then. Welcome to Riverhouse, I am Tic.”

  “Riverhouse? Hm, what day is it?”

  “Third day,” Tic replied.

  “Date, what is the date?” her tone impatient.

  “Oh, ah…third day of the fourth week of Octavia,” Tic replied more than a little put off by the woman. Leldeif, who was suddenly nowhere to be seen, had mentioned some connection to royalty, but Tic didn’t know what. After being raised in an upper income family he had been exposed to royalty enough to recognize their self-obsessed mannerisms.

  “Thank you, Tic, I am Juil,” she said. “I appreciate the help, but we have to leave right away.”

  “Ah, you can’t. At least not until nightfall. I just had to lie to the sheriff and to have an aerial suddenly walk out into Riverhouse in broad daylight could probably get me in trouble. So, just stay here and I will rig something to cover up his wings today in the shop.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t thinking about that. Aerials are actually banned from Riverhouse, so we do have to have some disguise.”

  “I’ll take care of that, you just stay here and rest, take a shower or whatever, and we’ll get you out of here tonight.”

  “I’ll take you up on that, but after that I will head out and commission some horses.”

  “Oh, um…do you have money?” Tic asked, not even registering whether it was rude or not.

  “Excuse me?” Juil replied, more than a little offended.

  “No, ah…I mean that, I brought you here so you are my responsibility so to speak.”

  “Take the boy’s money, princess,” the winged Nigel said haughtily.

  “I will not take his money. I have a credit line here as well as accounts with enough money to get what we need. How big of a horse do you require?” she asked the aerial and Tic had a vision of the winged man atop a huge plow horse.

  “Are you fucking nuts? Look at me, princess. I eat horses… I don’t ride them. Neither will you, I will fly us to where we need to go ten times faster. Providing you know where to go.”

  “I am torn, we’ll just see what the day turns up and then we will make a determination.”

  “Sounds good to me, young Tic here has a lot of food and drink so I certainly won’t hurt for comforts while you’re out.”

  “Don’t eat all of his food, Nigel, it might be all he can afford for the month.” Juil talked as if Tic wasn’t even in the room and it annoyed him.

  “Don’t worry about it, Nigel, eat and drink whatever you want. Besides, how many opportunities am I ever going to get to have lunch with an aerial?”

  “Pickings are slim, I would guess. I will do you the honor of lunching with you, considering your help in escaping that pit.”

  “Pit? It looked very nice actually.”

  “Yes, well…we will discuss that at lunch as long as you promise not to sketch out any archaic runes.”

  “Runes? Ah yes, I hear they are quite prevalent around these parts. They don’t make much sense to me to be completely honest.”

  “Really?” Juil said skeptically as well as a tad offended by the implications that her skills might be lacking. True, she wasn’t a mage or even a minor warlock, her duties as princess were too demanding to provide the time for it, but she wasn’t bad. In fact, some had said that she was actually quite good.

  “How so?” she pressed

  “Well for instance, with rune magic…what would you have to do to start a fire in the fireplace on the other side of the parlor?” Tic asked, feeling an immature desire to show this woman her place. Royalty was no different than being a commoner, the responsibilities were different, but they were still flesh and blood like everyone else. They all looked toward the fireplace to see it sitting with logs and tinder ready for the next time of need which was never, seeing as how Riverhouse was so temperate.

  “That would be rather simple. I could just sketch a rune in the air, and providing I use the right one, I would float it to the logs and feed magic into it until it held fire,” Juil said, knowing that there simply wasn’t a quicker or easier way.

  Tic listened intently as if he could actually learn something from her. He didn’t like playing the ass, but sometimes people needed it and those people usually come with a societal title…in other words, royalty. He caressed his chin with one hand as he turned and winked at the aerial at the kitchen table, his kitchen table.

  He turned back to the elven princess and smiled. A whoosh of air sounded in the room and she turned to the fireplace and gasped at the crackling fire that had suddenly appeared.

  Nigel started to laugh uproariously, enough to be obnoxious. Tic expected her to turn and stamp off like the spoiled little royal she was, but to his surprise, she didn’t. Instead she smiled and looked at the cobbler with a new eye.

  “Your powers are strong for a human,” she said with an appreciative smirk.

  “Yeah, for a human. Or a dwarf or even an elf.” He paused knowing that he was laying his ability on way too thickly to be appreciated so he decided to break the ice.

  “Except that it isn’t my magic.”

  “Excuse me?” Juil asked more than a little surprised by this turn. Wizards were always arrogant about their powers, even when their power was minimal.

  “Not mine. I couldn’t conjure a candle to light or a blade of grass to float, but then I don’t have to. The magic…it is here, this place is magic and I just draw from that. The fire was just a matter of the natural stones of the fireplace sharing their energy. All I did was draw it out,” Tic said in a tone that said this made him human, fallible, and back to their level, but the elven princess stared back at him wide-eyed. Her features seemed frozen between shock and…was that rage? Tic wondered.

  “A reader,” she whispered.

  “A what?”

  “I…ah, it isn’t important,” she quickly covered. “You said that you had a bath?”

  “A bath or a shower actually, down at the end of the hall. Set your laundry outside of the door and I will see that your clothes are cleaned before you leave,” Tic said and started to head out to the shop for the day’s labor when he stopped.

  “Sorry to ask you this, Nigel, but the maid is coming in in about a half hour, do you mind wrapping up in a blanket and sitting in front of the fire while she is here. She is pretty nosy so she will probably figure it out, but we don’t need to advertise those wings to the world.”

  “Let me peruse your bookshelves and I will be set for the day, disguise intact.”

  “Thank you, I greatly appreciate it. You’re not at all like they make your people out to be,” Tic said, referring to the horror stories he had heard about the aerials.

  “Bah! Silly elves wouldn’t recognize compassion if it jumped up and bit them on the ass. Thank you kindly for your hospitality, sir. I will do my best to keep your secret.”

  “Ah, um, it’s kind of your secret too.”

  “Nonsense, my lad. I am an aerial…we don’t have secrets. Ask anyone,” Nigel said as he walked over to the bookcase and started to thumb through the selection.

  With a shake of his head Tic left his quarters and headed out to find Leldeif and spend some time in the factory. He stopped short as soon as he left the abode, stunned by what he saw on the river.

  Barges filled with dwarfs, floating south, equipped in full battle rattle. Other barges filled with rams and mules as well as wagons and supplies followed.

  “It’s amazing isn’t it?” Leldeif surprised him when he came up to Tic’s shoulder and spoke.

  “Whoa, oh…yeah. What’s going on?”

  “Not sure, the drums have said that there is a great battle going on up in the Spires. Sprints should arrive sometime today; they will have more detailed information about what’s going on. It sounds as though the situation is bad enough to warrant the entire garrison here, as well as send requests for more support from Smith Town,” the elf replied.

  “It sounds bad,” Tic said, turning and heading back into the shop to get some work done.

  “Hey,” Leldeif waited for Tic to turn around.

  “Don’t you feel a pull to join with them and ride off into battle like so many your age do? You know, prove yourself and establish your honor on the field of battle,” Leldeif asked, his tone signifying that the answer to his question would be indicative of Tic’s nature. Tic picked up on it right away. People had been comparing him to other boys his whole life and they were always disappointed.

  Tic simply smiled after turning back and facing the elf.

  “Yeah, I’ll get right on that.” He then shook his head and walked back toward the shop.

  Leldeif cocked his head and out of pure curiosity followed the young human. He watched as Tic checked over the apprentice line, which now sported eight skilled workers and gave some tips here and there before he took up his own mallet and started in on a smaller pair of boots.

  “I have to say that I am surprised by your attitude, Master Rowe,” Leldeif said when they got back into a quiet area of the shop where Tic could work his specialty saps.

  “I have been dealing with local and kingdom governments my entire life. We pay exorbitant taxes and promote our products under their banner which brings much gold to the city’s and duchy's,” Tic said without looking at his friend as his wooden mallet worked the first layers of sawdust into the composite sole.

  “Once a distant grandfather in LaVonne, made the mistake of calling out a minor baron for lying and stealing from his people. It was a good bust and the evidence was practically crystal clear. The royals turned on my family and our tariffs and taxes doubled. We also got robbed by highway men and plagued by cat burglars. Our business dropped off to nothing until it got so bad that he sold everything and moved to Lemure with nothing but twenty gold pieces in his pocket where he once had several thousand. That was over three hundred years ago.” Tic paused to let that sink in.

  “That’s a nice story, but stil—”

  “Not done yet, I just paused for dramatic effect,” Tic said with a smile. “My family’s mantra was developed at this time. Play their games, but never be a player in their games.” They can go off to war and do whatever it is they do there to gain their honor and I will give them ten percent off for doing so, fifteen percent off if they already own a pair of our boots. As always we repair old ones for free right up to the point of replacement.”

  “Really, that’s it…business?”

  “Yep.”

  “People will think you a coward.”

  “They can tell me all about it when they place their next order,” Tic finished without missing a beat, giving Leldeif the urge to lash out at him, but then another part of him felt differently. Here was a man who, though he be young, knew his place in the world. By sticking to his craft, he was providing the most valuable thing to any soldier, supplies. In Tic’s case it was footwear and across the avenue the tanners and shield makers. If all of these ran off to war, the war was over before it even started. Tic and people like Tic were what created the logistics to supply the army. In fact, you could argue that there wouldn’t even be an army without people like Tic and his family.

  Tic smiled knowingly at the expression of understanding on the elf’s face.

  “We got an order this morning for three hundred pair of dwarven boots with toe protection. I have put a call out for more apprentices and hired workers to help with stocking and retail. If you haven’t noticed, the retail area that you built is full with people waiting for their turn. I can’t help out there since I have to make the composite for the toe shields. We are keeping that recipe a family secret and only allow the apprentices to make our earlier products. My point is, I need you to watch the aerial for me.”

  “No, it…it’s personal, but I can’t. Have me do something else.”

  “Leldeif, my friend, my employee.” Tic let that rest in the air for a second before continuing. “Today, I need you to watch the aerial for me, I don’t care what your personal issues are. Unless of course you are heading off to war, then good luck and tell everyone where you got your boots.” Tic kept his tone pleasant, but left no doubts as to the seriousness of it. Leldeif was his friend, but he also tried to get away with shit from time to time, and Tic did not have time for games. Also, leaving him to face the elven princess and aerial on his own this morning really pissed him off.