Chapter 1 Sage #3
The Graywood is a vast pine forest in a wide valley encircled by the Kald Mountains.
It’s perpetually awash in thick fog—hence its title.
Little grows between the trees but fungi, and the beasts that creep and stalk are paler than the fog, white as snow and bone.
Sage scoffs, handing back his pipe. “You expect me to find adventurers of quality willing to travel this time of year,” she asks, “and to the Northlands at that?”
“If you’re willing, others will be. What about those two fighters you left in the tavern? They seemed sturdy.”
“No,” she says at once, then more quietly, “no. I don’t work with party members twice. People get…The job changes when things begin to feel personal.”
The Agent shrugs. “Regardless, I don’t expect you’d have a problem finding takers.
I’ve been spreading word and made sure to mention the prize pot, which I should say is substantial.
The Client isn’t short on denaris, and is willing to spend more of them than you’ve seen in your life in exchange for discretion and expedience.
Besides, I’ve already found you a fixer—one of the best in the business.
You’re welcome!” With a flourish of his self-satisfied grin, he pats his broad chest.
“You?” She grimaces. An agent joining a party is far from standard. In fact, she’s never heard it done.
“While anonymity is critical to the Client, lest their competitors or ill-wishers catch wind, they’ve a lot riding on this venture, and wanted the option to remain in contact throughout.
They offered plenty of coin to compensate me fairly, and then some.
Besides, it’s been some time since I’ve felt anything but cobblestones beneath my boots.
Perhaps I miss the unbeaten path,” he says, a wistful shine in his dark-brown eyes.
Certainly, Sage can relate to that. “But if you’re coming along anyway, why not lead a party yourself?”
“Leadership isn’t my area of expertise, alas.
No, I’m going to serve our purpose as I can and make sure our findings are delivered safely and swiftly to the Client’s man in Kingfisher at the end of the expedition.
I’m an asset, I assure you. Now just find yourself a spellcaster… unless you can cast?”
She can’t. At least, not in the way of natural casters like her best friend, Margot, who holds organic reserves of magic inside her just as some plants and animals do.
Or like warlocks, who perform rituals and favors for patrons in the planes beyond in exchange for a small share of their magic.
Or wizards, who spend the bulk of their lives bent over textbooks in libraries, studying the languages of those planes in order to request or command magic without the necessity of obedience to any particular devil or deity.
What Sage can do is her job, and preternaturally well; her mother once theorized that she was blessed by some divinity of the woods at birth.
She can smell the ghostly embers of a campfire days after it’s been extinguished.
She can tell the direction of a branch cracking in the night by the difference in time it takes the sound to arrive in each ear.
And she swears she can sense danger like a physical thing, even in pitch-dark and perfect quiet, the moment before it presents itself.
But all of that is difficult to explain, and since she can’t, for instance, mutter a charm and turn the Agent into a ghostbear, she shakes her head. “I’m not a caster.”
“Well then, get one. We’ll need them for the job, and there’s no point even trying without one.”
“Casters are rarer than ever these days, natural or not, or haven’t you heard?”
“And yet I have faith in you. Get a brute or two as well, while you’re at it.”
“I want a healer,” Sage insists. “An acolyte, a woods priest, a medicinal potionsmith, I don’t care. I won’t go without one.”
The Agent quirks one craggy eyebrow. “Aren’t rangers capable of tending to wounds? Haven’t you all got some divine sense for finding blood mushrooms and the like?”
“I can wrap a wound if needed, and yes, I’ve a cursory knowledge of plants with healing properties—in familiar terrain at least. Outside the boundaries of civilized Harrow, less so, and greater injuries are beyond my skills. Besides, I can’t fire a bow and dress a wound at the same time.”
“Very well. Have a healer if it pleases you, and then it’s nothing but clear skies and smooth seas ahead.
Figuratively speaking. It’s a week’s journey to Briarwall,” he says, naming the northernmost village on the Queens’ Road—little more than a final military outpost before the crown cedes its hold on the kingdom to the wilds of the Northlands.
“Just a day or two’s journey into the Graywood after that, perhaps three, and then the return trip to Kingfisher to meet with the Client’s man and collect our pay.
We’ll be gone three weeks, and home before winter really gets going.
Then you’ll be rich enough to spend the season in fine style.
The whole year, if you wish. What do you say? ”
Sage doesn’t like the Agent much.
But he’s right: She is reliable, she is skilled, and she is hungry.
And how long will it be before she gets another chance like this?
Besides, Sage never meant to be stuck in Kingfisher for months.
When she thinks of resting in one place all winter long, she starts to feel the old panic that’s never born of danger, only silence and stillness, when there’s nothing in front of her to chase.
Luckily for her, there’s always another job to be had…
and this one could be the break Sage needs to finally make a name for herself.
“One week till we leave?” she asks.
The Agent’s full lips curl into a triumphant grin.
“Shall I buy you another Mare’s Milk to celebrate and start the contract?
Or elsewhere. I’ve a room above the Pearl and the Grit; that’s where we’ll hold three days of party auditions starting on the morrow.
It should be enough time to give the seeds I’ve planted in adventuring circles the chance to sprout. ”
Sage shakes her head and hoists her pack again. “I’ve got preparations to make tonight, but I’ll find you there in the morning.”
“Very well. Until then.”
“Oh, and, Agent?” she calls out, stopping him as he turns toward the mouth of the alley.
“Yes?”
“So you know, we’re putting an injury clause in that contract.”
The Agent smirks. “See? You’re a natural.” He tugs on his knit cap as though tipping the brim, then strolls away.
Tomorrow she’ll begin to plan, to gather supplies with the small advance portion of her pay, to pore over maps as she waits to meet with prospective party members.
Tonight, she’s going to find a room to rent, fall asleep on a real mattress instead of a pile of pine needles, and hope to feel like a brand-new ranger when she wakes.
Especially since a trip to the healing house is currently out of her budget.