Vandals in the Night - Sorrel senses a storm coming
Oct 8, 2021 20:40:16 GMT
Queen Merla, the Sun-Blessed likes this
Post by stephena on Oct 8, 2021 20:40:16 GMT
The horror... the horror...
Sorrel stared at the corpse. When she’d first seen the thing power into view her reflexes had taken over and she’d unleashed three arrows in a blur, instinct and adrenaline sending them searing through the air into its heart almost as one.
Mercifully, the combination of the ancient spell she’d whispered as she loosed each shaft, binding every arrow with charms of protection and power so their mundane form could pierce magically protected flesh, and the flurry of radiant energy pouring from Zap the Hollyphaunt’s golden trunk was enough to stop the abomination’s charge.
By the power of the goddess, the damage they had wrought was so deadly that the fiend’s neck snapped back in anguish allowing the sting of Ragtag’s imp familiar to drive into its throat. And through this miracle, surely guided by Selune’s hand, the… she struggled to let the words form in her mind… the bearded devil had been slain before it could strike a blow.
And she had seen what happened when these creatures blows did land. There were few enemies as deadly outside the hollow ranks of the undead. Bearded devils’ glaives slashed with unholy savagery, causing dolorous infernal wounds that gushed without end until holy healing stopped the flow. Not for the first time, Sorrel cursed the absence of a cleric. Those godbothering sawbones might not be the handiest when it came to taking lives, but they knew how to preserve them. Any party – like this one – that faced a bearded devil without a cleric on the team would be a smaller band by battle’s end.
Then there was the beard. She nearly gagged as her eyes took in the snakelike growths still writhing blindly around the beast’s face and neck, trying to feast on the monster’s own lifeblood. She had seen a phalanx of well armoured pikemen decimated by just three such devils, so great was the reach of their weapon and so strong the wards of hell.
Sorrel’s two years in the jungles of Chult fighting rearguard for Duke Alaric’s Folly, as the Tethyrian aristocrat’s misguided attempt to reform the Knights of the Shield became known, had taught her too much about these fiends.
The half-made paladins and wannabe knights of his army tried to regain control of the Wyrms Throne but… she shuddered again… bearded devils, bone devils, chain devils…. She had never seen such carnage, so many young lives thrown away, so many imagined heroes turn to weeping schoolboys in the last few seconds of their short lives.
A small squad of bone devils could tear through a flank of fully armoured knights like they were kicking though a child’s toys – their stings and claws rending flesh from bone or, worse, leaving twitching poisoned bodies to breathe out their last as they watched their comrades die. Mercifully the bone devils were rare in that army.
Chain devils were more common. They could spread fear with their animated steel hawsers sporting razor edged barbs that slashed and grabbed but what really destroyed a unit’s morale was their cruel trick drawn from the soul of their enemies where you could see the face of your most beloved on the mask of your assailant. It was a rare warrior who could see beyond the eyes of their true love, or parent, or lost child to strike a blow with the full force needed to defeat these monstrosities. But chain devils weren’t always in the front line, preferring to unleash their flying savagery on prisoners behind the lines.
The swarms of bearded devils that mounted wave upon wave of attacks may not have been the hardest to kill but they were legion, and they relished violence and slaughter. They would not accept surrender and they loved to pick off a surrounded force one soldier at a time, killing each warrior slowly with a thousand bleeding cuts.
It took a particular kind of battle fury to face these fiends. The rearguard was made of the darkest warriors, those who matched hell itself with their disregard for mercy or quarter, killers who knew the art of battle and had no fear of death. This unit was feared as much by the Duke’s force as it was by the devils themselves – few in this world or the next had seen such a band of pitiless and relentless killers fight so efficiently together.
Sorrel had been deep reconnaissance for this force. In a four strong fireteam she had roamed the jungles at will, hunting down stragglers and doing her best to protect the weakest in the fleeing army. She lost count of the number of lockets she had promised a dying soldier she would deliver to his home. And though she had some rudimentary battlefield medicine skills, she had never seen such brutality inflicted on mortal bodies. She had rarely hated her enemy so violently and relished killing so much. And whilst, to be fair, she did tend towards the violent hating and love of killing in general, her top ten was very hard to get into.
As she stared at the twitching form of the bearded devil in the Kantas clearing, two things stole the moment of relief its swift death had given her. With its last gasp, the devil cried out – “the others will be so much worse than me.” And then an imp drove its poisoned barb into her throat. She sighed. Today had started out so well.
Saturday night and I just got paid...
She’d woken up in her new room at Lucan’s and luxuriated in the warm sun and lack of responsibilities. No training, no missions, no people around, just maybe a little breakfast from the basement bar two doors down, a little doze, a spot of lunch, an afternoon stroll, some rest, supper, a disco nap and then that new place that opened at 3am and played grinding Teutonic artificer beats. None of your bard crap. This was industrial level, and she had no idea what the word industrial even meant. It just sounded hardcore.
After polishing off some fried offal, black bread and a strange blue drink with a powerful morning kick to it, she’d gone for a quiet walk in the portal plaza, just to calm her mind. She loved the combination of space and bustle – families stopping to chat, traders hawking food and the odd adventurer with knitted brow striding self-importantly across the cobbles.
And then a moment of strange joy, a sense of unalloyed happiness followed instantly by deep concern. A voice echoed in her soul, asking for help. A cave dedicated to Selune vandalised by devils. A cry for help. Sorrel was running before she even knew where she was going.
Suddenly she saw Varga’s face loom out of the crowd. Sorrel screeched to a halt and warily eyed Varga’s weaponry, relived to note it was all strapped down. She stopped flinching and hailed her favourite half-orc. “Varga, crazy question – long time no see, by the way, love the new tatts… are they tatts? Never mind… Look, mad question. Ever heard of Selune’s cave?”
“Know it? I built it,” Varga snorted. “You saving it too?”
Sorrel nodded, a little deflated. “I’ll follow you,” she sighed. “As usual.”
Varga grinned and cuffed Sorrel affectionately, sending her spinning into the arms of a scruffy warlock, who was accompanied by two more warlocks, all apparently heading off in the same direction.
“Did you hear the voice?” said one. “I’m Ragtag, by the way, and this is Cam… Cam…” he seemed to be rehearsing a long speech in his mind, before shaking his head. “Cam. And Yinmaris. We heard the voice. The cave of Selune. But why?”
“Who can understand the mind of a goddess?” Cam murmured. “Who can tell what she wants?”
“She wants warlocks apparently,” Varga shrugged. “Let’s go.”
The elephant in the room
They had travelled to the cave and seen the wreckage – the walls scorched by flame, foul slogans smeared over holy prayers, and in the centre on an unmolested plinth a golden elephant – called Zap, for reasons best known to their creator - who welcomed them with a gentle voice that Sorrel recognised as the voice that had summoned them.
The party milled around, poking through the rubble and dust for clues. Sorrel, who had seen this before, spotted claw marks heading from the cave and started after them. Just as she did, an imp appeared but before she could draw a weapon it spoke to Ragtag warmly and she realised it was a familiar. Warlocks, she shook her head. Honestly. Sell your soul to a patron, you’d expect more than a large flying wasp as a new best friend.
They zig zagged about following a fake trail to what looked like a dilapidated outside khazi where they slew one imp and chased another back through the woods. It lead them on, taunting them, until they came to a clearing where… where the bearded devil, a hell hound and a swarm of imps appeared. The golden elephant bustled up behind them, with a trumpety trump, and said – “Don’t you worry, I’m here now.”
Phew, Sorrel thought. A toy doll elephant that lived on a cushion. For a moment there I thought the fiend with a glaive that left festering eternal wounds and a dog that breathed flame meant a party without a cleric was in danger. Fortunately, we now have a small flying elephant. What could possibly go wrong?
“I’m a Hollyphaunt, idiot,” Zap interrupted her thoughts. “Have you never been part of a Baldur’s Gate based party of adventurers sent to rescue Elturel from Zariel’s fiendish plotting in Avernus?”
Sorrel eyed the beast with a newfound respect. She hadn’t been in that particular crew, but she knew a wood elf cleric who had. Or rather, she knew how to get him talking. He had returned with a nasty limp, a dented moral compass, some weird coins and a feather which he seemed to think would bring him an angel and a Hollyphaunt.
And as the hellspawn charged she could see why he valued the feather so highly. Zap’s bursts of radiance probably did more damage than most of the party – although Sorrel took a certain pride in sending an arrow through the eyesockets of the hell hound, finishing the beast off as Varga mopped up the imps. She asked Zap for Selune’s blessing on the holy symbol Seraphina had given her and wondered where the gentle warrior priest had been recently. She resolved to visit the temple, but first…
Save my soul at the company store
She asked if Varga knew anything, and the puzzled barbarian suggested a name – Samed Mirass – and an address. Not for the first time Sorrel envied her enchanted weaponry but there were ways and means around that as Chult’s darkest days had taught her.
She followed Varga’s directions through the western fringes of Lower Daring towards a huge stone building with a grey slate roof giving off enough heat to cause the air itself to shimmer. Across a cobbled yard, past sturdy outbuildings, charcoal kilns, stables and stores she made her way cautiously until she reached two huge doors that stood open, allowing wave up wave of heat to broil out. She felt as if her skin was shrivelling in each blast.
The cavernous space, lit with a fierce red glow, was surrounded by high gantries circling three enormous clay furnaces. Huge, horse-driven bellows pumped air constantly, each one expelling gouts of flame and sparks from the open top. The sound, heat and fumes battered her senses, and she took a few moments to focus before she noticed two dwarves in thick leather aprons and gloves watching her patiently.
“You’ll be looking for Mr Mirass then,” one said eventually.
Sorrel nodded.
The other pointed back out behind her.
“T’other side,” the deep gruff voice was barely audible above the clanging for the forges.
She found the forge’s owner haggling over something called bituminous with a richly dressed merchant in the far corner of the yard. Sorrel waited a polite distance away, but Samed caught sight of her, sighed, turned and yelled “can’t you see I’m busy? Come back tomorrow or just go the armoury,” he shook his head. “Why adventurers always think they can get a better deal… I don’t have any quests that’ll give you a discount, no missing sons, no strange hiccups in the supply chain. Buy in town like normal people.”
“They don’t silver weapons in town,” Sorrel shrugged and turned.
“Wait!”
She looked back. Samed was handing over coins to the merchant, absently shaking hands on whatever the bituminous deal was, whilst keeping his eye fixed on Sorrel. He walked a few steps towards her.
“Because you’ve read about silvered, or…?”
“Because I need silver tipped arrows,” the chill in Sorrel’s voice stopped the departing merchant in his tracks, and she could see he was listening hard whilst pretending to count his coin.
Samed hustled forwards. “Keep your voice down. We’ll talk in my office.”
Up close Samed Mirass was clearly a half-elf - another bloody half-elf Sorrel sighed inwardly. She reckoned him to be approaching fifty, built like someone who’d lugged his fair share of ore and steel and yet with soft enough hands to suggest the forge was doing good business. As they walked towards a long low brick building, he spoke rapidly.
“Actual sighting or suspected?”
“Actual. My own eyes. Today.”
“Were-touched?” he asked hopefully.
Sorrel shook her head. “Devil,” she said quietly. He stopped walking.
“How many?”
“One, with hound and imps,” she flinched at the memory. “But as it died it warned of more to come. Do you know anything about devils, Mr Mirass?”
He gave a small smile. “You must still be new to Kantas. I know enough.”
He walked the last few paces in silence, kicked open a battered wooden door and indicated a low wooden chair in front of a large, ornate desk. Sorrel preferred to stand. Samed leaned against the desk and stared at her for a moment. She could see the same unspeakable darkness in his eyes as she’d seen in her comrades that survived the rear guard’s desperate last days.
“Alright, here’s the deal,” he said finally. “I’ll do you silvering at cost. Arrows, that’s 100 gold for ten. One dying fiend’s warning isn’t enough to bring this to the council yet, but if you use a single one of my arrows in anger you come tell me,” he was speaking rapidly. “No, wait, I don’t want to see you here, that fat coal digger is already going to start spreading panic. I need to damp that down. I’ll have your arrows made up and delivered and if you need to contact me… where are you staying?”
“I have a room at Lucan, the…”
“Lucan’s running a boarding house now, is he?” Mirass raised an eyebrow. “Zoning rules are clear, he’s got residential and retail use only.”
“I’m his apprentice,” Sorrel cut in.
Mirass looked her up and down. “Most people would say a bounty hunter is an unlikely pupil for a shoemaker,” he mused. “But there’s truth in your eyes and voice.” He shrugged. “Whatever. If you use a single one of those arrows, tell Lucan…” he paused. “Assuming you live, of course. Cash now and the arrows will be over tomorrow. We have two delivery slots – 4am to 9am or 11pm to 2am.” He held his hand up. “I can’t be more specific than that. Which do you want?”
Sorrel started counting the coins out. “The evening slot, but make it the day after tomorrow. Don’t rush this job, Mr Mirass,” she stopped counting briefly and held his gaze. “If you botch it, it won’t be me coming for you.”
Sorrel stared at the corpse. When she’d first seen the thing power into view her reflexes had taken over and she’d unleashed three arrows in a blur, instinct and adrenaline sending them searing through the air into its heart almost as one.
Mercifully, the combination of the ancient spell she’d whispered as she loosed each shaft, binding every arrow with charms of protection and power so their mundane form could pierce magically protected flesh, and the flurry of radiant energy pouring from Zap the Hollyphaunt’s golden trunk was enough to stop the abomination’s charge.
By the power of the goddess, the damage they had wrought was so deadly that the fiend’s neck snapped back in anguish allowing the sting of Ragtag’s imp familiar to drive into its throat. And through this miracle, surely guided by Selune’s hand, the… she struggled to let the words form in her mind… the bearded devil had been slain before it could strike a blow.
And she had seen what happened when these creatures blows did land. There were few enemies as deadly outside the hollow ranks of the undead. Bearded devils’ glaives slashed with unholy savagery, causing dolorous infernal wounds that gushed without end until holy healing stopped the flow. Not for the first time, Sorrel cursed the absence of a cleric. Those godbothering sawbones might not be the handiest when it came to taking lives, but they knew how to preserve them. Any party – like this one – that faced a bearded devil without a cleric on the team would be a smaller band by battle’s end.
Then there was the beard. She nearly gagged as her eyes took in the snakelike growths still writhing blindly around the beast’s face and neck, trying to feast on the monster’s own lifeblood. She had seen a phalanx of well armoured pikemen decimated by just three such devils, so great was the reach of their weapon and so strong the wards of hell.
Sorrel’s two years in the jungles of Chult fighting rearguard for Duke Alaric’s Folly, as the Tethyrian aristocrat’s misguided attempt to reform the Knights of the Shield became known, had taught her too much about these fiends.
The half-made paladins and wannabe knights of his army tried to regain control of the Wyrms Throne but… she shuddered again… bearded devils, bone devils, chain devils…. She had never seen such carnage, so many young lives thrown away, so many imagined heroes turn to weeping schoolboys in the last few seconds of their short lives.
A small squad of bone devils could tear through a flank of fully armoured knights like they were kicking though a child’s toys – their stings and claws rending flesh from bone or, worse, leaving twitching poisoned bodies to breathe out their last as they watched their comrades die. Mercifully the bone devils were rare in that army.
Chain devils were more common. They could spread fear with their animated steel hawsers sporting razor edged barbs that slashed and grabbed but what really destroyed a unit’s morale was their cruel trick drawn from the soul of their enemies where you could see the face of your most beloved on the mask of your assailant. It was a rare warrior who could see beyond the eyes of their true love, or parent, or lost child to strike a blow with the full force needed to defeat these monstrosities. But chain devils weren’t always in the front line, preferring to unleash their flying savagery on prisoners behind the lines.
The swarms of bearded devils that mounted wave upon wave of attacks may not have been the hardest to kill but they were legion, and they relished violence and slaughter. They would not accept surrender and they loved to pick off a surrounded force one soldier at a time, killing each warrior slowly with a thousand bleeding cuts.
It took a particular kind of battle fury to face these fiends. The rearguard was made of the darkest warriors, those who matched hell itself with their disregard for mercy or quarter, killers who knew the art of battle and had no fear of death. This unit was feared as much by the Duke’s force as it was by the devils themselves – few in this world or the next had seen such a band of pitiless and relentless killers fight so efficiently together.
Sorrel had been deep reconnaissance for this force. In a four strong fireteam she had roamed the jungles at will, hunting down stragglers and doing her best to protect the weakest in the fleeing army. She lost count of the number of lockets she had promised a dying soldier she would deliver to his home. And though she had some rudimentary battlefield medicine skills, she had never seen such brutality inflicted on mortal bodies. She had rarely hated her enemy so violently and relished killing so much. And whilst, to be fair, she did tend towards the violent hating and love of killing in general, her top ten was very hard to get into.
As she stared at the twitching form of the bearded devil in the Kantas clearing, two things stole the moment of relief its swift death had given her. With its last gasp, the devil cried out – “the others will be so much worse than me.” And then an imp drove its poisoned barb into her throat. She sighed. Today had started out so well.
Saturday night and I just got paid...
She’d woken up in her new room at Lucan’s and luxuriated in the warm sun and lack of responsibilities. No training, no missions, no people around, just maybe a little breakfast from the basement bar two doors down, a little doze, a spot of lunch, an afternoon stroll, some rest, supper, a disco nap and then that new place that opened at 3am and played grinding Teutonic artificer beats. None of your bard crap. This was industrial level, and she had no idea what the word industrial even meant. It just sounded hardcore.
After polishing off some fried offal, black bread and a strange blue drink with a powerful morning kick to it, she’d gone for a quiet walk in the portal plaza, just to calm her mind. She loved the combination of space and bustle – families stopping to chat, traders hawking food and the odd adventurer with knitted brow striding self-importantly across the cobbles.
And then a moment of strange joy, a sense of unalloyed happiness followed instantly by deep concern. A voice echoed in her soul, asking for help. A cave dedicated to Selune vandalised by devils. A cry for help. Sorrel was running before she even knew where she was going.
Suddenly she saw Varga’s face loom out of the crowd. Sorrel screeched to a halt and warily eyed Varga’s weaponry, relived to note it was all strapped down. She stopped flinching and hailed her favourite half-orc. “Varga, crazy question – long time no see, by the way, love the new tatts… are they tatts? Never mind… Look, mad question. Ever heard of Selune’s cave?”
“Know it? I built it,” Varga snorted. “You saving it too?”
Sorrel nodded, a little deflated. “I’ll follow you,” she sighed. “As usual.”
Varga grinned and cuffed Sorrel affectionately, sending her spinning into the arms of a scruffy warlock, who was accompanied by two more warlocks, all apparently heading off in the same direction.
“Did you hear the voice?” said one. “I’m Ragtag, by the way, and this is Cam… Cam…” he seemed to be rehearsing a long speech in his mind, before shaking his head. “Cam. And Yinmaris. We heard the voice. The cave of Selune. But why?”
“Who can understand the mind of a goddess?” Cam murmured. “Who can tell what she wants?”
“She wants warlocks apparently,” Varga shrugged. “Let’s go.”
The elephant in the room
They had travelled to the cave and seen the wreckage – the walls scorched by flame, foul slogans smeared over holy prayers, and in the centre on an unmolested plinth a golden elephant – called Zap, for reasons best known to their creator - who welcomed them with a gentle voice that Sorrel recognised as the voice that had summoned them.
The party milled around, poking through the rubble and dust for clues. Sorrel, who had seen this before, spotted claw marks heading from the cave and started after them. Just as she did, an imp appeared but before she could draw a weapon it spoke to Ragtag warmly and she realised it was a familiar. Warlocks, she shook her head. Honestly. Sell your soul to a patron, you’d expect more than a large flying wasp as a new best friend.
They zig zagged about following a fake trail to what looked like a dilapidated outside khazi where they slew one imp and chased another back through the woods. It lead them on, taunting them, until they came to a clearing where… where the bearded devil, a hell hound and a swarm of imps appeared. The golden elephant bustled up behind them, with a trumpety trump, and said – “Don’t you worry, I’m here now.”
Phew, Sorrel thought. A toy doll elephant that lived on a cushion. For a moment there I thought the fiend with a glaive that left festering eternal wounds and a dog that breathed flame meant a party without a cleric was in danger. Fortunately, we now have a small flying elephant. What could possibly go wrong?
“I’m a Hollyphaunt, idiot,” Zap interrupted her thoughts. “Have you never been part of a Baldur’s Gate based party of adventurers sent to rescue Elturel from Zariel’s fiendish plotting in Avernus?”
Sorrel eyed the beast with a newfound respect. She hadn’t been in that particular crew, but she knew a wood elf cleric who had. Or rather, she knew how to get him talking. He had returned with a nasty limp, a dented moral compass, some weird coins and a feather which he seemed to think would bring him an angel and a Hollyphaunt.
And as the hellspawn charged she could see why he valued the feather so highly. Zap’s bursts of radiance probably did more damage than most of the party – although Sorrel took a certain pride in sending an arrow through the eyesockets of the hell hound, finishing the beast off as Varga mopped up the imps. She asked Zap for Selune’s blessing on the holy symbol Seraphina had given her and wondered where the gentle warrior priest had been recently. She resolved to visit the temple, but first…
Save my soul at the company store
She asked if Varga knew anything, and the puzzled barbarian suggested a name – Samed Mirass – and an address. Not for the first time Sorrel envied her enchanted weaponry but there were ways and means around that as Chult’s darkest days had taught her.
She followed Varga’s directions through the western fringes of Lower Daring towards a huge stone building with a grey slate roof giving off enough heat to cause the air itself to shimmer. Across a cobbled yard, past sturdy outbuildings, charcoal kilns, stables and stores she made her way cautiously until she reached two huge doors that stood open, allowing wave up wave of heat to broil out. She felt as if her skin was shrivelling in each blast.
The cavernous space, lit with a fierce red glow, was surrounded by high gantries circling three enormous clay furnaces. Huge, horse-driven bellows pumped air constantly, each one expelling gouts of flame and sparks from the open top. The sound, heat and fumes battered her senses, and she took a few moments to focus before she noticed two dwarves in thick leather aprons and gloves watching her patiently.
“You’ll be looking for Mr Mirass then,” one said eventually.
Sorrel nodded.
The other pointed back out behind her.
“T’other side,” the deep gruff voice was barely audible above the clanging for the forges.
She found the forge’s owner haggling over something called bituminous with a richly dressed merchant in the far corner of the yard. Sorrel waited a polite distance away, but Samed caught sight of her, sighed, turned and yelled “can’t you see I’m busy? Come back tomorrow or just go the armoury,” he shook his head. “Why adventurers always think they can get a better deal… I don’t have any quests that’ll give you a discount, no missing sons, no strange hiccups in the supply chain. Buy in town like normal people.”
“They don’t silver weapons in town,” Sorrel shrugged and turned.
“Wait!”
She looked back. Samed was handing over coins to the merchant, absently shaking hands on whatever the bituminous deal was, whilst keeping his eye fixed on Sorrel. He walked a few steps towards her.
“Because you’ve read about silvered, or…?”
“Because I need silver tipped arrows,” the chill in Sorrel’s voice stopped the departing merchant in his tracks, and she could see he was listening hard whilst pretending to count his coin.
Samed hustled forwards. “Keep your voice down. We’ll talk in my office.”
Up close Samed Mirass was clearly a half-elf - another bloody half-elf Sorrel sighed inwardly. She reckoned him to be approaching fifty, built like someone who’d lugged his fair share of ore and steel and yet with soft enough hands to suggest the forge was doing good business. As they walked towards a long low brick building, he spoke rapidly.
“Actual sighting or suspected?”
“Actual. My own eyes. Today.”
“Were-touched?” he asked hopefully.
Sorrel shook her head. “Devil,” she said quietly. He stopped walking.
“How many?”
“One, with hound and imps,” she flinched at the memory. “But as it died it warned of more to come. Do you know anything about devils, Mr Mirass?”
He gave a small smile. “You must still be new to Kantas. I know enough.”
He walked the last few paces in silence, kicked open a battered wooden door and indicated a low wooden chair in front of a large, ornate desk. Sorrel preferred to stand. Samed leaned against the desk and stared at her for a moment. She could see the same unspeakable darkness in his eyes as she’d seen in her comrades that survived the rear guard’s desperate last days.
“Alright, here’s the deal,” he said finally. “I’ll do you silvering at cost. Arrows, that’s 100 gold for ten. One dying fiend’s warning isn’t enough to bring this to the council yet, but if you use a single one of my arrows in anger you come tell me,” he was speaking rapidly. “No, wait, I don’t want to see you here, that fat coal digger is already going to start spreading panic. I need to damp that down. I’ll have your arrows made up and delivered and if you need to contact me… where are you staying?”
“I have a room at Lucan, the…”
“Lucan’s running a boarding house now, is he?” Mirass raised an eyebrow. “Zoning rules are clear, he’s got residential and retail use only.”
“I’m his apprentice,” Sorrel cut in.
Mirass looked her up and down. “Most people would say a bounty hunter is an unlikely pupil for a shoemaker,” he mused. “But there’s truth in your eyes and voice.” He shrugged. “Whatever. If you use a single one of those arrows, tell Lucan…” he paused. “Assuming you live, of course. Cash now and the arrows will be over tomorrow. We have two delivery slots – 4am to 9am or 11pm to 2am.” He held his hand up. “I can’t be more specific than that. Which do you want?”
Sorrel started counting the coins out. “The evening slot, but make it the day after tomorrow. Don’t rush this job, Mr Mirass,” she stopped counting briefly and held his gaze. “If you botch it, it won’t be me coming for you.”
