The area around Fort Reach is pretty. For the last mile or so the path elevates and then travels alongside a river, the Rolinden it's called, and then widens into a road the closer we get to town. Wooded hills surround us but fall away on the other side of the settlement, and I’m slow to realize that Fort Reach is situated above a waterfall and that most of what I’m seeing in the air above isn’t just smoke. It’s mist. A sturdy wooden palisade and towered gatehouse has been erected for defense, the buildings are all within the walls, the tallest consisting of two stories, and the whole quarter near the gates is a tent city.

The people inside look healthy and strong. It’s cleaner than I expect. Even the tent city is well-organized, with little trash in evidence. There’s a designated latrine area and the first two buildings on its edge are a public baths and a restaurant.

Frent leads us to a new structure, just past the baths. We pull the wagons up to its front. I hop up onto the wooden planking of the sidewalk and watch the other guards secure a perimeter as the drivers take care of their animals.

“My store!” he says, near bursting with pride and satisfaction. Frent’s clearly excited to start his new life here. He’s beaming and greeting anybody and everybody who passes.

Wendy puts her arm through mine and lays her head on my shoulder to watch. Caedi is behind her, smiling as broadly as Frent.

The shopkeeper walks over to us. With him standing in the street and us on the raised platform, Wendy and I are only a little shorter than he is.

“Thank you for helping me,” says Frent. “Us, I mean. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I think we’d all be dead. If there’s ever anything you need from me, all you need do is ask. Er, within reason, of course.” He laughs. “I am a businessman. Please, return here tomorrow and I’ll have your letters for you as well as the bonus pay I promised.”

We all shake hands with him and while we do Captain Gray saunters over. She’s tied her helmet to her belt and her wavy blonde hair is flowing past her shoulders.

Gray says, “Mr. Frent? If it’s okay with you I’d like to report to the mayor.” She looks around. “I don’t think you'll have any trouble from here. My guys will help you unload and keep an eye out.”

“Of course,” says Frent. “Of course. Have a good day and get some rest when you can!”

“Will do,” says the captain. “Oh! I was hoping to present these three to Mr. Thalazar too. Maybe he’ll make them an offer to join the caravan guards. Mind if I take them with me?”

“By all means,” says Frent.

They’re beginning to unload the wagon. “Good luck!” he says and then disappears into his store.

“Right this way,” says Gray, extending an inviting arm down the street toward the center of town.

 

 

“People will be pleased,” says Gray. “A new store means prices should come down and maybe a few more jobs.”

“You said this is only the second store?” I say.

“Aside from the armorer and the blacksmith and a few other craftspeople that keep adventurers supplied with mundane essentials, yeah,” says Gray. “There used to be two for about a month, but Mr. Hairleaf was bought out by Mr. Gorminiel so now there’s just the one.”

“Think he’ll try to buy out Mr. Frent?” I ask.

Gray snorts. “I haven’t known Mr. Frent long,” she says. “But he’s excited to be on his own. He was bound up pretty tight contractually back in Blackstocking. He got free of it somehow. I think he might have a powerful backer or two. Anyway, he’s way too happy to be his own man. He won’t sell. If Gorminiel isn’t careful, Frent might buy him out. I mean, if Frent seemed the type, which he doesn’t. Better for everybody to have competing stores.”

I nod.

Wendy puts a hand on my arm to slow me.

There’s a disturbance ahead. A man has pushed another man out through the swinging doors of a saloon. Honest! Swinging doors and everything! The shover has his hand on his sword but hasn’t drawn it.

The other man has his hands up.

Gray sighs and hurries over. We follow.

“You fucking cheat,” says the first guy. “I ought to gut you right here!”

Three more men appear behind him. They look just as angry and, if anything, they’re more heavily armed and have drawn their weapons. Two swords and a maul. Everybody is lightly armored and looks a bit beat up. Like they just got in from adventuring, which they probably have, even though it’s almost noon.

The fellow they’re confronting is an elf. Willowy and wiry with no weapons in evidence, I wonder if he’s a spellcaster or maybe a rogue given the circumstances.

“I never cheat,” he says. “I don’t have to.”

Gray steps between them. She says, “Look fellas, I’m tired. Just got in myself. Twist here is probably telling the truth. He’s good at cards. Hasn’t cheated since last year because he knows the sheriff’ll cut his legs off next time he does it and the sheriff doesn’t kid around.”

The elf, Twist, says, “See? I’m innocent.”

I look at Wendy with her five ranks in Perception. She flicks her eyes at Twist then back at me. She gives a faint shake of her head. Then she looks at the guy with the huge maul and nods once.

Goddammit.

I say, “What were you guys playing?”

“Roundabout,” says the swordsman in front. The one that hasn’t yet drawn. He looks down at me and sneers. “What business is it of yours?”

“Cards?” I say. “Dice?”

But the swordsman doesn’t seem inclined to answer.

Gray says, “It’s both.”

The swordsman says, “Came up sevens three times, Gray. Then he pulls an owl. An owl.”

She arches an eyebrow and looks at Twist. “I think you might be a lot shorter by the end of the day,” she says.

“Yeah,” says the swordsman, feeling much better now that the authorities are handling it, even if Captain Gray is a caravan guard she must have some authority or standing in town as well. “And when I grabbed the deck, do you know how many owls were in there? Five! Two of ‘em red.” He levels a finger at Twist. “He cheated.”

I nod at Wendy and slip into the saloon under the doors. You know, I’ve always wondered about them. They're on the front of every saloon in every western I ever saw and I never thought they made any sense, but now I see the woman dancing on the stage… an orc maybe? Wow. She's... gifted. Anyway, I realize that, for most races, the doors make sense. If you’re short enough to see under them as you pass by, you’re too little to understand what you’re seeing. If you’re tall enough to see over them, you’re old enough to look. Probably. 

Wendy says, “That’s the only possibility?”

The swordsman says, “Oh, come on! Sevens three times and an owl? Then an extra in the deck? There's only four of 'em supposed to be in there.”

“Anybody else win?” says Wendy.

The man with the maul is about three times taller than I am. He’s two and a half of me across. I think I could live comfortably in his beard for a time and, given its state, I wouldn’t starve either. The top of his boot comes even with my hip. There’s a sliver of white there, deep in its shadows.

While Wendy keeps talking to the swordsman, I pull on the real culprit’s tunic.

He looks down at me.

I put a finger to my lips and, before he can do a thing, I filch the card from his boot.

The blood leaves his face for a moment and then returns with a vengeance. He starts to raise his maul, the business end of which Wendy and I could use as a loveseat, but stops when he feels the tip of my spear prick him at the base of his skull. I’ve been holding it in my right hand out of sight behind him. I sink the tip in until I hit bone.

The man freezes.

I look at the card. I say in a loud voice, “Is there an eight of dragons missing from the deck?” I mean, I guess that’s what it’s called because there’s a dragon and a number eight on it.

The swordsman reaches into a pouch which causes everybody involved to flinch towards their weapons except for Wendy, who has a hand on Gray’s wrist. I think if she hadn’t been restrained, the swordsman’s head would be in the gutter right now. It’s the deck he’s got, of course, and he’s sorting through it. “Yes,” he says once he’s gone through it twice. “There is.”

“Can we all agree now that Mister I’m-Not-Compensating-For-Anything-At-All-Nope is the cheater?” I say.

The swordsman growls, has a thought, and says, “He was in on it with Twist!”

I say, “You think about that for a second. You’re saying Twist’s master plan was to roll three sevens and pull an owl? Wait, who dealt Twist the owl?”

The guy on the other side of the cheater is putting his sword away, slamming it into its sheath. He grunts a laugh. “Compensating here did,” he says. He gives the other man a friendly pat on the upper arm. “I think that nickname might stick, Elias.”

I look back at the angry swordsman. “Elias deal him the owl? Why? To get his partner killed by you?” I look up at Elias. “Where you trying to get Twist murdered by this other guy, Compensating?” I indicate the swordsman with my chin. “I mean, that’d be attempted murder, right?” I look at Captain Gray. “What’s the punishment for murder in Fort Reach?”

Gray says, “The sheriff drowns ‘em in a puddle in the middle of the street on a dry day.”

“And for attempted murder?” asks Wendy.

Gray shrugs. “He might find a cleaner puddle,” she says.

Jesus, this is a rough town. Unless she's kidding. She's kidding. Gotta be.

“So, to review,” I say. “Your argument is that Elias here, who was also winning?” I arch an eyebrow.

The swordsman nodded, frowning, deflating.

I continue, “Elias set up Twist to be murdered by you in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, by making it look like he was obviously cheating? Wouldn't it make more sense that he was using Twist here as a patsy for his own bad deeds?” I say. "He wins too much, get's nervous, and sets Twist up?"

“Yeah, okay,” says the swordsman. He’s sullen. “We was friends, Elias. Damn.”

I look up at Elias. I say, “Elias is having trouble responding right now because my spear’s about a quarter inch away from his spinal cord, but he can blink. Elias, it’s one blink for no. Two blinks for yes, okay? And don’t worry, we’ll be real careful. Now, I doubt you were really trying to get Twist murdered and set up your buddy here for execution, right? That’s two counts of attempted murder. One for Twist and the other for this other gentleman, your friend. You wouldn’t do that, right?”

Elias blinks once.

“That a no, right?” I ask. “That you wouldn’t be that stupid?”

Elias blinks twice.

“Yes, you are that stupid?” I say. “Well, there you go. I was wrong. I’m surprised. I—.”

Elias makes a whining noise.

“I'm not wrong?”

Elias blinks twice.

“You wouldn't do that?”

Elias blinks twice.

“This is trickier than I thought,” I say and sigh. “Okay, were you, Elias, cheating at the game and didn’t mean any more harm than that to anybody?”

Elias blinks twice.

“And you would never have allowed your friend here to try to kill Twist, right?”

Elias blinks twice.

Wendy reaches up and pulls the cuffs of Twist’s long-sleeved shirt up a bit to show that he’s got a throwing knife palmed there.

I say, “Which he would’ve died trying to do? Twist was ready for him. You weren’t trying to get anybody hurt, right?”

Elias blinks four times.

“Yes, you were or no, you weren’t? Damn, this is confusing.”

Elias starts to cry.

I look over at Captain Gray. “What’s the punishment for cheating?” I ask.

“He leaves town,” she says. “Immediately. Banished for a year.”

Twist shrugs. “It’s what I got that one time," he says. "After I got my ass kicked a little bit."

“Yeah, but you cheated me,” says Gray. She winks at me. “The sheriff likes me.”

Twist shrugs and grins, “Everybody likes you, Wilma.”

I look up at Elias. “You ready to go, big fella?”

Elias blinks twice.

I take my spear away.

Elias hunches over and starts to hyperventilate.

Gray says, “Sheriff’s gonna like you too, you two.” She laughs. “So’ll the mayor.”

She does a double-take when Caedi heals the back of Elias’s neck. Her face softens and gives the healer a nod. “All three of you, I think, though you might be too kind to be real, Caedi. Come on, let’s go meet him and get paid.”