Fortress Al-Mir

“To summarize,” Arkk said, rubbing the side of his forehead. “Your father wants to marry you off and you object, so you ran away.”

Gretchen, seated on an old wicker stool, nodded with a hefty scowl wrinkling her face. “It isn’t just marry me off. I might have been happy to do it if it was someone agreeable. Earl Pritchard is eighty-five, has had six wives, and three of those wives have died in what I might call suspicious circumstances.” She shook her head. “The age difference alone is enough to make me vomit. I might have been able to put up with it for a few years if it meant I was able to claim his estate—he has no heirs—but I don’t intend to die for it.”

Arkk just frowned. “I assume the Earl offered something to your father in exchange?”

“Maybe. Maybe he’s just doing an old friend a favor.”

“Would he be open to alternate offers?”

Gretchen, who had been listlessly stirring a bowl of stew, froze as she shot Arkk an appraising look.

“Not for marriage!” Arkk said the moment he realized what he said. “I wouldn’t marry you.”

Gretchen huffed. “Well.”

“Not…” Arkk held up both hands, index fingers slightly raised more than the rest. “I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sure you’re a lovely woman but I don’t know you at all.”

“That hardly seems to be a requirement,” Gretchen said, scowl deepening. “I’ve never even met Earl Pritchard.”

“It matters to me. I would pay your father a great deal of money to not marry you.”

Gretchen’s eyes flashed in irritation. Dakka just started chuckling behind Arkk.

Arkk, rubbing his neck, cleared his throat. “What I mean to say is that I want to take you back to your father. As someone who thinks he has a proper sense of morality—not to mention a growing dislike for almost everyone I’ve heard of with a noble title—I don’t want to force you back. Especially if it means you’ll get… murdered?”

“How considerate,” Gretchen said, tone utterly flat.

“The Viscount clearly intends to collect more than he is offering for Gretchen’s return,” the alchemist said in a whisper. “You can pay that and more?”

“I’m… independently wealthy.”

“Why?”

Arkk blinked at Gretchen’s question. “Why… am I wealthy?”

“Why spend all this wealth on me? Especially if you don’t intend to… marry me.”

“Oh.” Arkk shrugged. “I need the renown.”

“Renown?”

“Clout. Prestige. Glory. Fame. Notability. Whatever you call it, I need it. The Duke has these parties every so often and I want in. Returning victorious with a viscount’s kidnapped daughter sounded like a great way to get my foot in the door.”

Disgust crossed Gretchen’s features as she looked from Arkk to Dakka and back. “You want to go to one of those parties? I’ve been twice and neither time has been particularly pleasant.”

“My best friend’s mother was taken by the Duke. We want to get her back. That’s the best idea we’ve got right now.”

“I’m… so sorry.”

“We found her,” Arkk hurried to reassure her. “She’s safe. We just can’t get to her. Or get her out of there.” He was about to ask about the circumstances under which Gretchen might be willing to return to her father, only to pause as a thought occurred to him. “Could your father get us into one of those parties? Or would helping him even help us? I guess I should ask that. If the answer is no, there is no point in even talking about this any further.”

Gretchen didn’t answer right away, frowning to herself as she resumed stirring her stew. She hadn’t offered Arkk, Dakka, or even the alchemist any. While it smelled alright, he had eaten before setting out for the alchemist’s workshop and would have refused the offer anyway.

“You are doing a job for my father. He is not the kind of person to recognize achievements in service. You’ll get your pay and he’ll send you on your way.” Gretchen paused, ate a spoonful of stew, then continued. “I’m not just saying that to get you to leave me alone either. It’s the truth.”

Arkk sighed, leaning back against the wall of the small cottage. Had this all been a waste of time? Although for the wrong reasons, Rekk’ar might have been right in rejecting this job outright.

Taking the lull in conversation to think, he spent a moment checking in on his other employees and Fortress Al-Mir. Rekk’ar was in a training room, apparently instructing the few orcs who were still at the fortress. Five others were camping out in the highlands, accompanied by an elf and a human. They were the group headed to that ancient pyramid. Arkk didn’t necessarily expect anything to come of that expedition, but so long as no real incidents occurred, it was a good way to get the orcs some exercise.

Ilya and Olatt’an’s group of ten were on a small riverboat. It had been over two weeks since they set off for the Marrowlands Fen and they had only just arrived in the general area in the last day. Increasingly worried about them, Arkk had been checking in at regular intervals. He didn’t think there was much he could do to assist from a distance if they did wind up in trouble, but checking on them made him feel marginally better.

Vezta and Zullie were both in the fortress, together at that, inside the room with the large crystal archway. It was the portal, he knew, or at least it had been at one point in time. Arkk wasn’t quite sure how Zullie was going to help with that. Vezta seemed like the kind of person capable of accomplishing her task on her own, but then again, Vezta had already admitted a deficiency in magical knowledge.

How soon would he be able to open the portal? Vezta had mentioned potential assistance coming from the other side. Beings and boons granted by the Cloak of Shadows and other members of her [PANTHEON]. With this plan to rapidly boost their renown being a bust, he started considering what his next plan might look like.

According to Vezta, the [PANTHEON] would be able to grant remote extensions to his territory. Arkk wasn’t quite sure what form that would come in, but if he could plant an extension within range of Cliff, thus allowing for teleportation out of the city, hiring Alya would be all he needed to teleport her out of the Duke’s manor. Of course, that meant he still needed to reach her. Or someone he was associated with, so long as an agreement for service occurred on his behalf.

Arkk jolted out of his reflections on his other employees, startled by Dakka clapping a hand on his shoulder.

“Your eyes were red,” she whispered, nodding her head toward the other two in the room.

“Honestly didn’t realize my eyes were open,” Arkk whispered back as he took in the wary look of alarm on Gretchen’s face. The alchemist’s face was still covered by their full mask, but Arkk read their readiness for fight-or-flight in their posture. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to startle you. I was just thinking.”

“Does that happen often?” the alchemist whispered.

“Increasingly,” Dakka said.

Arkk just shrugged. He was about to say something when he felt a strong tug on the link between him and his employees. Jolting, fearing that Ilya had run into trouble, he followed the link only to find himself drawn to Orjja, standing just outside the small shack. With a wince, he realized that he should have invited the other two inside once it became clear that Gretchen wasn’t going to try running if only to keep his employees out of the rain.

When he noticed the reason for Orjja tugging on the link, he realized what a stroke of luck it was that he had left them out there.

People were approaching the shack.

Not just any people, but ones he recognized from the stayover. Other bounty hunters and mercenaries.

Arkk started wondering how they were here only to grimace as realization hit. While following the alchemist, he hadn’t bothered trying to hide, secure in knowing that the alchemist wouldn’t be able to notice them. Someone else would have been able to follow him without trouble. And of course people would. After having asked around at the stayover, people knew that he was after Gretchen just as much as any of them.

“It appears as if we have company,” Arkk said, guessing that his eyes had flashed red again based on the expressions around him. Ignoring them, Arkk pulled out the crystal ball. While his employee vision was useful, it wasn’t as versatile as a proper crystal ball. “Five armed men, all bearing an emblem of… is that a goose?”

Dakka, peering down into the crystal ball, shrugged. “Ferocious creatures.”

“I guess.”

“Time to go, I suppose?”

Arkk nodded his head, pushing off from the wall he had been leaning against. He froze as he spotted the horrified look on Gretchen’s face.

“You’re leaving? Just like that?” she asked, voice tense.

Arkk grimaced. There had been nothing here for him in the first place. Now knowing that, there was no reason to stick around any longer or get into a fight with a group of bounty hunters that, as a fellow mercenary, he should theoretically be at least on speaking terms with. Even if he fought them off, word would spread and others would show up eventually.

“I feel bad about leading them here, but… Can’t you just hide under your cloak like you had been planning when I showed up?” Arkk asked with a small sigh.

With what the Viscount was offering for her return, anyone looking for her wasn’t likely to leave this building or the alchemist in peace if they thought either were relevant. She wouldn’t have been able to stay hidden forever. With him having dragged bounty hunters to her doorstep, the time she had left shrank abruptly.

Gretchen knew that as well. He could see it in her eyes.

“Maybe I could claim you as my bounty, getting rid of them for now, then have you escape on the way to Cliff?”

Gretchen bit her lip, shooting a look at the alchemist. There was something in her eyes there as well, making Arkk wonder if some romance had blossomed since running away from her father. It would help explain this house she lived in. It was either the alchemist’s home or simply one they had been able to procure for Gretchen. Arkk wasn’t sure which.

“Can she trust you?” the alchemist whispered, stepping closer.

“If I still wanted to take her back to her father at this point, I wouldn’t even be having this conversation.”

“Why not hire them?” Dakka asked absently, drawing her axe as she peered into the crystal ball. “Nobody would find them in the fortress.”

The idea had occurred to Arkk. The alchemist in particular had skills that he was sure he could make use of. Especially if he could make a top-of-the-line potion brewery using the fortress magic. Gretchen, however, didn’t have any skills he thought he would need. Not that skill was a requirement to be hired, but it was a factor. “I can’t just hire everyone I come across,” Arkk said, shaking his head. There was a much bigger reason why he couldn’t just hire everyone he spotted. “The alchemist has a shop here. They have lives here—”

“Had,” Dakka said. At his pointed look, she gave an unapologetic shrug. “They’re almost here. Better at least hide for now if you don’t want to get caught.”

With one last gnawing of her lips, Gretchen rushed to the rack and threw her invisibility cloak over herself.

“Dakka, stand in the corner, leaning against the wall. Gretchen, hide behind her. That will keep them from bumping into you.”

“Sure thing, boss,” Dakka said, moving to the wall. Her large hand felt around in the air until it bumped into something solid. Nodding, she angled herself such that there was a small corner behind her where Gretchen could stand.

“Alchemist,” Arkk said, pulling out the wrapped treatise that he had bought earlier.

“Morford.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name. Morford. If you’re helping, might as well have you call me by name.”

Arkk nodded slowly, waiting a moment. This seemed like the kind of situation where the alchemist would pull off their mask and reveal themselves. When they didn’t, Arkk continued. “Is this your home?”

“It is.”

Arkk frowned at that. In the time he had been observing the alchemist in search of Gretchen, the alchemist hadn’t left their shop. They slept there and took meals there, mostly delivered by Gretchen. Assuming that they had been steering clear of the place for her sake, Arkk shrugged. “You invited me here to tutor me. We’ll—”

Two heavy thumps against the door rattled the entire small home. Arkk quickly crossed the floor, taking up Gretchen’s stool. He opened the treatise to a random page as if he had been reading from it and, leaving it open on his lap, picked up the half-eaten bowl of stew. As he did so, the alchemist, Morford, crossed the room and opened the door just as they had done when Arkk had been the one knocking.

Unlike when Arkk had knocked, those on the other side of the door forced it open the moment the alchemist undid the latch.

Three men barged in. The other two, he knew, were outside in a tense standoff with Orjja and Farr’an. Neither side had come to blows yet, but it wouldn’t take much to set them off.

“Where is she?” one of the bounty hunters asked. They didn’t have anything like the White Company’s uniforms. Just the goose emblem somewhere on their outfits. If Arkk had passed them on the street, he doubted he would have looked twice at them. The only reason Arkk recognized them as bounty hunters was that he had seen them in the stayover. He had spoken to the bald one on the left, asking about Gretchen.

“She?” Morford whispered, masked face shifting to the side.

“They must be talking about Gretchen,” Arkk said with a frown. “The First Legion, was it?” A grandiose name considering they were just a small group. From what Arkk had gathered, there were only ten members in total.

“We know you were looking for her.”

Giving them a flat look, Arkk nodded his head. “Yes. I mentioned that.” Arkk paused, then frowned. “Were you following me in the hopes that I would do your job for you? If the girl had been here, she would have been my bounty. Not yours.”

The apparent leader of the group, a shorter man with a thick mustache, sneered while the other two started poking around the place. It wasn’t a large place. There were only two hiding spots. Under the bed and under the table, the latter of which wouldn’t have saved anyone from one who simply leaned over.

“I heard the alchemist here had contact with Gretchen, but upon finding nothing, I elected to receive some tutoring in the subject of alchemy. It has always interested me,” Arkk said with a half-shrug, keeping his tone cool and casual even as the bounty hunters tried scouring the tiny home.

The First Legion didn’t seem all that impressed or convinced. Hawkwood had warned him about this. A vast number of mercenaries weren’t exactly pleasant people. Thieves trying to claim legitimacy, former soldiers who only knew war, people who wanted an excuse to shove around those weaker than them… For every Hawkwood in the business, patient and willing to help out as he was, there were ten thugs ready to backstab everyone else for a quick coin.

One of the bounty hunters got a bit too close to Dakka. She bared her tusks and, when he didn’t back off, she slammed her fist into his face.

Of the remaining two, one drew a cudgel while the other drew a sword.

“Electro Deus.”

Two lightning bolts leaped from his fingertips, striking each before they could take a step toward Dakka. They weren’t full-power bolts capable of frying them. That didn’t stop their muscles from seizing up, forcing them into heaps with small bits of steam wafting off their rain-soaked clothing.

The alchemist jumped back. He heard a startled squeak from Gretchen behind Dakka. Although Arkk winced at the sound, none of the three were in any state to pay attention to their surroundings.

Interestingly enough, the only one of the three who didn’t get back on their feet in short order was the one Dakka had punched.

“You barge in here, harass us, and thought you might steal my job?” Arkk ignored that he had done practically the same things, minus the last offense. With a shake of his head, he wiggled a finger back and forth, letting the lightning still sparking on the tip do a lot of the talking. “I’ve turned goblins to ash before. That was the least I can do. Attack us again. I dare you.” Arkk paused just long enough for the sparks at his fingertips to die out, then he started again. “Electro De—”

“No! No…” With an angry snarl, muscles in his neck twitching, the leader of the First Legion grabbed the one Dakka had punched and hauled him to his feet. None of the three were entirely steady, but they made their way back to the door and quickly rushed out.

“Nice meeting you!” Arkk called out with forced cheer as the alchemist closed the door. His shoulders slumped the moment they were gone and he let out a long breath. “Making friends already,” he mumbled.

“Friends,” Dakka scoffed. “If you want, we can drag them back for a proper fight. They can’t have gotten far.”

Arkk just shook his head, barely avoiding rolling his eyes at her quip, before settling his gaze on the spot behind Dakka. The orc still hadn’t moved, but the smaller girl behind her had thrown off her hood creating the odd effect of a floating head peering around the side of Dakka’s spiked shield.

Aside from the noise she had made, which hopefully nobody would remember after they had a chance to get their bearings, she had been utterly undetectable. If Dakka hadn’t been standing in the corner, maybe nobody would have walked over there in the first place. She could have hidden there until they left.

Arkk had to wonder at its limitations. Were there spells that could pierce that invisibility? If so, were such spells commonly used? Perhaps not among mercenaries, but among guards of noblemen’s keeps? How hard was it to get an invisibility cloak like that?

Turning his head to the alchemist, who was now peering through a crack in the door, presumably watching the First Legion flee, Arkk considered his earlier question about a soakless solution. Something, presumably, to keep rain from soaking into cloth. “Morford. Is invisibility something that you can brew and apply to cloth like a soakless solution?”

The beaked mask turned first to Gretchen then over to Arkk. Morford didn’t respond right away, going a bit stiff. Arkk had to bite back at his frown, especially once he realized that Gretchen hadn’t come out from around Dakka yet and wasn’t making any move to do so. Rather, she was barely peeking out from around the large shield, looking at Arkk with narrowed eyes.

Was it the spell? Hopefully, they didn’t think he was going to hit them with lightning bolts. Maybe they knew enough to recognize that it was some forbidden magic that the inquisitors didn’t like.

“No,” the alchemist eventually whispered. “More accurately, I can’t. Distilling magic into a liquid form is advanced alchemy, but it is possible. However, I have never seen a cloak like Gretchen’s before. I do not know how it was made, whether its fabricators used pure magic or alchemy and, in the case of the former option, what rituals or incantations were used in its construction, whether the material matters, and so on and so forth, is unknown to me. It might be possible to discern some of that through deconstruction, but I wouldn’t want to damage such a useful artifact.”

Arkk pursed his lips in annoyance. There went another plan. Admittedly, it was a plan he had only thought of since meeting Gretchen and Morford. Simply being able to waltz into the Duke’s compound unseen by all would have been a perfect way to hire Alya and then teleport her to that nearby fortress expansion that didn’t exist yet.

“I don’t suppose you would be willing to sell the cloak?” Arkk asked, looking over to Gretchen.

Her eyes narrowed further. “It is the only thing keeping me safe from the likes of… them.”

Arkk just sighed, wrapping the treatise back in its protective leathers. “I hope you enjoy living under it for the rest of your life.”

“Better living under it than dead.”

Conceding the point with a slight nod of his head, Arkk headed toward the door. “Dakka, we’re leaving at first light. No heavy drinking tonight.”

“I can sleep in the—”

“Dakka.”

The orc crossed her arms with a snort. “You’re the boss.”

“Morford. Gretchen. I won’t tell anyone where you are, but…” Arkk shrugged as he stepped out the door. “Good luck.”

With that, he started walking down the road. A whistle from Dakka called Orjja and Farr’an.

“So,” Dakka started as they neared the stayover. “All that for nothing?”

“Maybe. I’m hoping the alchemist remembers your comment about taking them to the fortress and asks to either shelter Gretchen or both of them.”

“I thought you didn’t want to drag them away from their lives here.”

“I don’t. I’m not a kidnapper,” Arkk said, mildly offended. “But if they want to come willingly, that is a different story. Regardless of their decisions, I can’t justify spending more time here trying to convince them. There will be other ways to reach Alya.”

He just had to figure out what those ways were.