“I told you, I get you to the pass and I go home.” Cormag squirmed under her vacant yet piercing gaze. “I’m not sticking around to do your shopping, and I’m for certain not traipsing into a literal den of wolves!”
“I have no intention of fighting Chance’s battles, but my destination is Balalaika, and we do need more people if I am to make it their unscathed.”
“I am not traipsing across the buffer zone to get eaten by Dusk born beasts, waylaid by bandits, or murdered by the bloody Wolves of Balalaika!”
Morana took a bite of her pastry, unmoved by his speech. “Then I shall double your rate.”
“I’m not a mercenary, and you aren’t paying me!”
She slowly chews and swallows, her eyes giving no clues to whether she comprehended or heard his words. “You make a convincing argument sir; hence I shall triple your wages. Let not my magnanimity go unnoticed.”
“Your impossible…”
“You don’t care for him, do you?” Morana slurped on her tea, frosting covered her face.
“What?” Cormag held out a handkerchief for her. “And wipe your mouth.”
Morana took the offered handkerchief and drew a small blue rune on it with her finger, dampening it. “Chance.”
“I know his type.”
Any anger he held washed away as he watched her wash the frosting from her face. He was reminded of a cat, cleaning itself after a meal.
“Oh?” she held out the now soiled handkerchief for him to take. “Is that concern for my wellbeing I hear?”
Cormag gently pushed her hand back, urging her to keep it. “Yes, actually because I’m not always certain you are paying sufficient attention. Or maybe you’re some kind of black widow that gets her kicks playing with men. I’m not sure.”
Morana turned towards the road and beckoned for him to follow. “Can’t I be both?”
“…You’re in a rare mood.”
“So, I am.”
Cormag struggled to weave around the pedestrians down the road, a task Morana did effortlessly.
“Care to elaborate?” He asked, slightly winded from trying to keep her pace.
“…maybe later.”
Final caught up to her, he guides her towards the side of the road where it is less congested. “Suit yourself. We should pick up some food, and a mule if possible. How much did you make in tips?”
Morana stops and pulls out her wad of cash, and Cormag quickly shoves it back into her pouch.
“Are you trying to get robbed?” he hissed.
“How else am I supposed to count it?”
“Discretely.” Cormag pointed to a general goods store that was more hastily assembled shack than storefront. “Here, we can go in there.”
The stores offerings were equally disappointing as its façade, mostly gear looted from corpses of unlucky mercenaries, he could not find a single piece that was not moth eaten, rusted over, or otherwise dingy.
“…looks like…one hundred and sixty kroner.”
Cormag nodded, genuinely impressed. “That is a decent haul for two songs, but don’t expect those kinds of tips out here in the frontier. People just don’t have that kind of coin to spare.”
“Can we get through the buffer zone with this?”
Cormag examined a cooking pot that’s bottom had rusted out. “hmm…unlikely.”
Morana giggled, or what passed as a giggle for her, a truly disconcerting sound, nonetheless.
“Why are you smirking like that?” Cormag demanded.
“Me? Smirk? Never. Let’s keep moving, this place has nothing but garbage.”
The high canyon walls virtually eliminated the winds, but the air was still crisp to say the least. The walls were covered in a sheet of ice, rising up highest than the ancient trees of Alfheim, or the redwoods in Saoirise woods, allowing only a thin sliver of gray light to filter down into the pass. Gas lamps were lit and the crowds had begun to disperse as the afternoon began the short transition into evening.
“The last time I came through this pass was with ten thousand soldiers. Before that, My father brought me up this way to sell armor and minerals to the passing mercenaries and bounty hunters that used the pass as a staging ground.”
“Is he still alive?”
Cormag knew he shouldn’t be surprised that talk of mortality would be the one thing to break her reticence. “No, he was a miner for most of his life. His lungs just quit on him; a fate common to those that make a living in the mountains dredging up ore.”
“Is that why you became a soldier?”
He smiled bitterly. “No, I fell for the romanticized tales spun by the mercenaries and bounty hunters we sold to.”
“Were you close to your family?”
Cormag paused to vigorously rub his hands together. “Yeah…but those days are long gone now. What about you?”
She slowly shook her head. “I never knew my parents. I was raised by Master Drogo.”
“One of your necromancer friends?”
“…I wouldn’t call him a friend. I was promised to him centuries ago as part of a bargain my ancestors entered into.”
“What? You know what, never mind. Forget I asked.”
She looked up at him with a quivering lip and pleading look in her eyes, cementing the comparison to a cat he noticed earlier.
“Go on then. You have that look like you desperately want to say something.”
“How…?”
“You’re a strange woman, but a fairly straightforward one.” Cormag said, chuckling to himself. “Frankly, I’m surprised you chose to show restraint. Go on, ask your question.”
“Very well then, what happened to you in Sarevon?”
Even though he knew it was coming, he still found it difficult to respond. “….That’s….I was betrayed.”
“By whom?”
Cormag was silent, walking as if in a daze, bombarded with painful memories of a past life. “My teacher, commander, friend, lover….”
“Oh.”
“Yeah…”
“Is that why you quit being a knight?”
Cormag pointed her towards the next shop, and slowly made his way towards it. “One of the men that died under my command that night was the son of a Thane, what the Aes Sidheans would call an Earl. I suddenly found the campaigns failure placed solely on my shoulders.”
“That’s hardly fair, surely you protested such unjust treatment.”
“No. I didn’t”
Morana pushed the door to the store shut as he tried to open it. “Why? Are you a masochist or just stupid?”
“Because I fucking deserved it alright?!”
Morana let go of the door and took a step back.
“Now just drop it.” Cormag opened the door and took a step inside. “We’ve got supplies to pick up.”
