Chapter 29 - The Day Before

  Present Day

  People were still gathering as Cal left the mayoral offices. Some to see what the commotion was, others to mourn their lost friends. Kaila and Veil stood apart with their three horses, waiting for Cal to return. He made a beeline for them as soon as he noticed them and flashed the key at them.

  “We’ve got the house over there.” Cal nodded across the square at a big building, the biggest one in the area besides the church with what looked like a small stable and secondary house - presumably for staff of any important persons who were visiting.

  “Fancy.” Veil noted, leaping up from the floor onto Kaila’s hip and then bouncing off onto the back of Melt who was busy nuzzling Kaila’s shoulder.

  “Yup, it’s the nobles guest house.” Cal explained, walking around Root and Steel to take their reigns to lead them. At first Teth’s horse didn’t want to go, but Cal was able to entice it with some treats. “It’s where lords from out of state or visiting officials stay when they’re here.”

  With Kaila leading melt, they took the horses over to the little stable, which turned out to be almost as nice as the mayor had suggested, and got them situated.

  Having only ever used her magical horse and never a real one, Kaila was unsure of how to work with the living horses so Cal did the brunt of it. He stripped them of their riding equipment, putting it away on the stands that the stable provided, then gave Kaila a quick tutorial on grooming and left her to work on Root while Cal finished off what he’d started on Teth’s horse - Cal was sure that Teth never did this sort of thing, or didn’t do it well. There were knots in it’s fur and places where it was matted so it started out fighting Cal. It was a big animal and there wasn’t much Cal could do but try and reassure it. By the end however, the animal was standing patiently, nibbling gently at Cal’s hair whenever he was up at the front, much more comfortable without all the tightness of it's skin caused by the hair pulling on itself.

  Once he finished with Teth’s horse he gave it some hay and made sure there was water in it’s trough before moving on to Melt who hugged him and nuzzled him when he arrived.

  “Hey girl.” Cal said, stroking and scratching her face, especially around the bump which she seemed to really like. “You did great today, pulling that carriage, I know that’s not what you were trained for. So great job.”

  She whinnied her appreciation for his words and for the treats that he slipped into her mouth and then allowed him to brush her down. When he was done he gave her food and water, and went to check on Kaila.

  Veil was sat on the wall of Root’s stall watching as Kaila stroked the horses head. She had long since finished grooming it, and was now just enjoying it’s company in quiet.

  Carrying a heavy load of hay, Cal cleared his throat at the stall entrance. “I’m just going to come in to put the feed down,” he said.

  She looked over at him and moved around to root’s side, stroking her back and side. “She’s a good horse.” Kaila noted.

  “Yeah, we got her back in Westridge, a ranch called Breaker’s Ranch.” Cal explained dumping the food into the hay bin and then going back for a bucket of water for the trough. “Got melt there as well.”

  “Melt is lovely as well. Very obedient.” Kaila noted. “And her colouring is amazing.”

  “And smart.” Veil said, suspiciously. “Like, too smart for a horse.”

  “Yeah, they thought she was half fey.” Cal told them stepping back out of the stables.

  “Maybe.” Veil said unsure. “It would make sense with her colouring, but… I don’t know, it seems like she’s too smart and not mischievous enough to be fey.”

  “Well what else could she be?” Cal asked.

  Veil shook his head instead of shrugging. “No idea. She’s not half awakened. They don’t exist. Even if an awakened were to break the law and mate with an animal it would form an awakened, not something in between.”

  Cal nodded. “Very strange.” He agreed. “Regardless of what she is, she’s a member of the team now.” He sighed after saying that and shook his head. He wasn’t supposed to be in a team. Things didn’t end well when you were in a team. He looked over at Melt and realised, even once all of this was over he still had her. He’d still sort of be in a team. That terrified him.

  “You okay, Cal, you seem a little… I don’t know. Off?” Veil asked.

  Cal shook his head. “It’s nothing. Just tired. Sleeping in a caravan isn’t nearly as restful as in a bed. We should finish up here and open up the house. The others wont be too far behind.”

  The three of them closed up the horse stalls and then left the stables, locking it up. It seemed unlikely that anyone would steal the horses after they just rescued members of the village, but you never knew.

  They left out the front of the stables and walked around to the house’s front door. The building was three stories tall with beautiful wood panelling that went vertically for the most part but was decorated with a few horizontal rows at the base of each floor. The windows were ornate and the carvings all around the door were so fine and intricate that Cal was genuinely surprised that they hadn’t been lost to simple wind erosion.

  It was a beautiful house, but one that stood empty eight of the nine months of the year - only being prepared for when distant lords or local officials like the region’s governor visited - did not feel like a good use of the village’s budget to Cal. He supposed, however, that if a lord or official did decide to visit and they didn’t have something this opulent for them then they would have a harder time of it than just living on fewer funds year round.

  Cal used the key on the door and it unlocked. He pulled the key out, turned the handle and pushed the door open without much effort, noting the well oiled hinges. Despite the key's size it slipped in and turned with ease. Of course, it wouldn't do to inconvenience those who visited.

  The inside was almost as nice as some of the most opulent places Cal had ever been. Certainly nicer than anywhere he’d ever stayed, with the exception of a handful of times that he’d worked for lords while with the Black Blades. They, from time to time, had contracts with nobility from cities or towns and every now and then they’d need to stay in their private properties. Guard missions and the like.

  To have the full run of a place like this though… it felt unreal to him. Cal looked back at Kaila and Veil, the former of which was near to tears looking past Cal into the building. Of course, she’d been nobility in Zeroden but she’d been more or less on the streets since she was ten. He doubted that she’d stayed anywhere this nice in many years. It must have been a painful reminder of her childhood.

  “Wow, isn’t this clean.” Veil said, walking forward and jumping across the threshold. “It’s not trapped, you can come in.”

  “When you’re ready.” Cal said, looking away from Kaila, deciding not to attempt to comfort her, it was a personal moment that he didn’t feel she needed him to interrupt.

  He stepped inside and as he did so magical lights popped on all throughout the entryway, startling Veil for a moment before the fox looked back at Cal to see if he noticed. It occurred to Cal then that all the lights they’d seen since arriving in Silverdale were gas, oil or candles. The ones on the street had been oil powered, the ones in the peoples homes had been candles and the ones in the mayors offices had been gas. It made sense, the cost to light the whole village with magic or even gas would be far too much. The mayor got gas because it set him above the people and this building got magic because it set the lords and officials above the mayor. Oil lamps were more cost effective than torches and they stayed alight without intervention for far longer.

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  “They really spared no expense.” Cal noted.

  Lighting was an easy way to recognise the wealth of a location, and how much the people in charge cared about it. Back in Westridge the Noble circle and the Upper city were powered on every road by magical lanterns while the lower city was sporadically lit by oil. They had oil street lamps on the main roads, but the ones that the upper class citizens never had to go down were either not lit or lit only by torches supplied by the citizens themselves.

  This house being powered by magic just went to show how much the nobility or at least the mayor, valued their seniority.

  The entry way of the house had beautiful dark wooden floors with patterned paper covering the walls, all of which were lined with beautifully framed paintings of the surrounding region. There was a hat rack, a shoe rack and a stand for canes parasols and the like. Cal left the door open and wandered in. On the right, behind the door was a staircase up to the next floor, and one down to the basement.

  “Food is downstairs.” Veil told him.

  “Great. Let’s do a quick search of the house-”

  “For expensive nick-nacks?” Veil asked, excitedly. He liked shiny things but didn’t understand their value to the people of the 'civilised' world and so would often take them without thinking more on it.

  “No Veil, we’re leaving everything here. We’re not thieves.” Cal sighed, walking across the entryway to the first of three rooms. After a quick look around the house, he returned down to the main floor and down to the kitchen where Kaila finally joined him and Veil to make a meal.

  The house was beautiful. There were three rooms on the ground floor, a small Dawnian church chapel, a formal receiving room much like a throne room, and a meeting room with a big table and chairs for any official business.

  On the middle floor was a sitting room, a dining room and three small bedrooms. Finally on the top floor was a large master bedroom and two medium sized bedrooms.

  Each of the bedrooms had their own bathrooms and the entire house was beautifully decorated with what Cal gathered - after reaching the master bedroom and finding their coat of arms emblazoned everywhere - was the governor’s colours.

  The kitchen itself, which was found in the basement, was big enough to create a feast, which it probably did whenever people were staying there. The pantry was filled with plenty of food, a room as big as any bedroom Cal had stayed in with enough to make said feast. Cal thought, as he looked at the vegetables and meats, that it must have been re-stocked recently, and that it was incredibly wasteful to store so much food here when nobody would use it.

  “They’ll use it regularly and replace it.” Kaila explained from a stool by the work benches, calmer now that she was in a servants area. “Lords and probably officials don’t always give notice when they’re visiting, so to make a good impression they probably use this pantry as a sort of… village store. If you look at the back of the pantry there’s probably a stairway up where more common folk and the servants who would be staying in the neighbouring building can enter.”

  Cal stepped into the pantry and found the door she was referring to up a staircase and at a slight angle from the floor outside.

  “Authorised people will come and use this store and replace what's taken so that it’s always full and if an official or a foreign lord or ‘heroes’,” she made quotes in the air as she said the word, “like us show up they can make an immediate good impression.”

  Cal stepped back into the kitchen with a hunk of beef and grinned. “All the better for us then,” he said, plopping the meat down on the worktop and pulling a knife out of a draw to cut it.

  #

  “What smells good?” Meliana asked fifteen minutes later as she came down the stairs with Teth in tow.

  “Meat and veg skewers, roasted potatoes and roots and some boiled greens.” Cal replied throwing another log into the wood oven. “As nice as your stews are I thought that after two weeks of it, something dryer might be a pleasant change of pace. Plus the greens to make sure it’s not too dry.”

  “I like stew.” Meliana replied, in a show of false defensiveness.

  “I like Apples, but I’d still want an orange if I ate nothing but apples for a week.” Cal retorted as Teth and Meliana pulled a table from the edge of the room to the middle and then gathered chairs. “We’ve probably got a little while left.” Cal said, picking up a tea towel and wiping off his hands before throwing it aside. “What did you find out from the mayor?”

  “No, I want to hear what you didn’t want to say earlier.” Meliana replied, sitting down.

  “We’re not going to wait for food?” Veil asked, hopping up onto one of the free chairs.

  “By the brawler-” Teth started, jumping in his seat. “I forgot about you.”

  “You forgot about the talking fox?” Veil asked incredulous, cocking his head to the side. “That seems unlikely.”

  He shook his head. “Never met an Awakened before, it’s… disconcerting to see a fox speak.” he shivered.

  “You’re a man made out of rocks and you think it’s weird that an animal can speak?” Veil asked, narrowing his eyes in an expression that seemed to say ‘that sounds stupid’.

  Teth eyed him for a long moment then grinned. “I like the fox.”

  “Anyway,” Cal said, looking back to Meliana. “The map location?” He asked. “Why I told him where his people were, beyond common decency?”

  “Yes.” Meliana replied. “And anything else you noticed.”

  “Well first thing; they’re planning to send a group to collect the bodies.” Cal explained. “They might send some normal people, but mostly they’ll be sending guards. They don’t want to send people to die just to have to send more people.”

  “So that means, the village will be without their full guard contingent for a while?” Teth asked.

  Cal nodded, leaning forward on the worktop. “Two days is my guess. They’ll leave first thing tomorrow with a number of wagons. There won’t be time to get there, load up the bodies and get back. So they’ll get there, load up the bodies and camp for the night. Then they’ll leave first thing the next morning, just like we did and get back probably a little later than us since there will be more of them.” Cal considered a moment longer and added, “They might try and get the other bodies from the goblin cave as well in which case I’d guess they wont get back until the following morning if not later.”

  “So if we’re being safe we have a day and a half to get this job done.” Meliana replied.

  “Wait.” Kaila said, frowning from her seat by the counter. “Why does it matter if the guards are here? We’re not stealing from someone’s house, we’re searching for an old tomb. There’s no law about searching ancient ruins- no, in fact there are laws about it, and the law is that it’s finders keepers, whoever gets the stuff owns the stuff.”

  “Hate to admit it, but the necromancer’s right.” Teth said. “Why do we care about guards?”

  Cal looked over at Meliana. “Did you see it?” He asked.

  “The miners?” She asked. “The maps, the history books and the folk tale books? The very obvious signs that they unearthed the tomb while mining and the mayor has locked it down so that he- or maybe the village - can reap the benefits and nobody else?” She raised a brow. “Are those the things you’re asking if I saw?”

  Cal nodded, smiling. “Yup.” He replied grinning. “You’re as sharp as ever.”

  “And you’ve grown sharper, Little Blade.” Meliana replied. Cal rolled his eyes at his old moniker. Nobody had used it wit him in a long time. If Cal was honest, however, he was surprised she hadn't called him it dooner. “Six years ago I’d be sat at the back of one of these meetings whispering to you what was going on so you weren’t ever lost.”

  “Not exactly how I remember it, but sure.” Cal replied.

  “So,” Veil said, “The target is in the mines, and the mines are guarded by the village guards so you sent them away?”

  “Exactly.” Cal said, picking up a spare piece of carrot from where he was working, popping it into his mouth, crunching it and swallowing. “So while we aren’t breaking the law we’re still circumventing the legal establishment of the village.”

  “Is there anything else?” Meliana asked.

  Cal considered for a moment as he turned away and checked the food. It was ready so he started gathering everything together and plating it up as he spoke, “the rest is conjecture. If that’s okay with you.” She nodded so he continued. “The mayor’s not been able to get into the tomb yet. He thought it would be easy so he sent everyone home, expecting to quickly get in and out, but it’s taken longer. People are getting mad that they can’t work - he had forms on his desk to give out discretionary funds to compensate or at least placate the people for their lack of work. He’s stressed because he can’t placate them long and he can’t figure out how to get in, probably because he doesn’t have anyone who can do death magic.” He picked up one of the five plates of food and motioned to Kaila with it, handing it over. “There’s also going to be another way into the tomb, or- no, not into the tomb, but another route to the entrance.”

  “Why?” Teth asked, frowning as Cal placed a plate in front of Veil, then Meliana.

  “The front door wont just be underground, pressed against the stone of a silver mine.” Meliana explained. “How would the owner get in. There’s probably a tunnel that leads up to the door that they accidentally mined into.”

  “It’s probably full of traps though.” Cal added kicking the oven closed and bringing the last two plates of food to the table where he placed one by Teth and one in front of the last free chair. They now all sat around the table with food in front of them, except Kaila who was by the worktop on a stool.

  Meliana nodded and turned to Veil. “Veil, after eating can you go scout the mine out.”

  Veil nodded and swallowed the chunk of meat he was chewing on. “What am I looking for?”

  “For starters: see if we’re right and the tomb is in the mine. Then see if there’s a way we can get in without going through the mine.” She explained.

  “I can do that.” Veil agreed.

  “All right.” Meliana said, considering everything that Cal had told her, and that she had seen herself. “Regardless of what Veil finds, we go tomorrow night.” She thought for a moment longer and let out a long breath, looking around at them all. “Okay, here’s the plan...”

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