With the horses and cart stabled and parked, Arden sent Valerie and List into town for supplies while he set about finding lodgings for the night and learning what he could about the status of the roads further north. When List's eyes went wide at the amount of scales he handed them, he made sure to emphasize that they were only supposed to buy what was on the list he'd provided them.
"Of course," List assured. "Only the essentials."
"No, only what's on the list," Arden corrected, immediately seeing the loophole the hellborn was trying to create.
"Come along, Valerie, lots to find," she said, ignoring him and dragging Valerie away.
Valerie gave Arden an apologetic look. He sighed, but waved for them to go on. He supposed as long as they got everything he'd written down, spending the excess funds on more frivolous purchases wouldn't be that much harm.
He shuddered as soon as he had the thought. Hedwig preserve him, he was growing soft.
Arden's shopping list wasn't anything exciting. Rations, camping supplies, some things they'd need to maintain their equipment. Valerie did most of the actual shopping, with List mostly just tagging along and taking in the city.
Lochmire Keep dwarfed Shadefall, and not just in square footage. The city was taller, with a towering spire or tenant building or cathedral on every corner. With so many buildings all obscuring one another,, it was almost impossible to keep track of any landmark for more than a block.
It was a miracle they didn't get lost.
The streets were choked with bodies of every size and color, with the only pockets of space being the one people tended to create to allow urks and elites to march past. It wasn't even from the elites using the King's Authority. People just wanted to avoid them as much as possible.
Valerie didn't blame them. She was beginning to understand why Samira Shen refused urk and elite presence in Shadefall as much as she could, even with her troubles with monsters and the Pavers. The army's presence was a constant implicit threat.
They did their best to ignore them and focus on the job at hand, which for Valerie, was trying to haggle out an actually acceptable price for a bottle of oil for their blades. Somehow, the price had gone up since she'd started talking to the merchant. Worse still, if something didn't change, Valerie was going to end up paying even more on top of that just to get the woman to stop talking.
"List, a little help here?" Valerie called. "List?"
The hellborn was standing a few feet away with her back to Valerie, staring at the intersection behind them with a dazed look on her face. When Valerie called her a few more times without getting any response, she got worried enough to actually walk away from the merchant without buying anything.
"List?"
Valerie put a hand on her shoulder, which finally managed to pull her out of the trance she'd been in. Solid red eyes blinked, refocusing.
"What?"
Valerie frowned. "Are you okay?"
They were stopped at an open-air smith's shop on a street corner that sat between rows of shops in either direction. From where they were standing, the tallest parts of the Chosen's Keep were just visible cresting over the rooftops of everything nearby.
For a moment, Valerie thought List was worried about the peacekeeper walking the street, escorted by a small team of urks, flagging down passersby to ask them questions and show them a wanted poster. But she was looking straight past them. If anything, List was staring at the street itself.
"I'm fine. I just . . . this place feels familiar." List said. "It's hard to explain. I can't tell you the names of any of these streets. I don't recognize the shops. But it's like . . . I know where I am. Like I don't feel lost."
Valerie asked the first thing that came to mind. "Do you think you used to live here?"
"I don't know."
It took Valerie a few seconds to work out List's tone, because she'd never heard it before. List was scared. The hellborn had faced death more times than any normal person could possibly imagine—at the hands of monsters, the noose of an angry mob—and she'd never met it with anything but anger and defiance. This street corner had her shaken to the core.
Now they were both staring at the street, List lost in the ghosts of her own memory, Valerie imagining a version of List with no amnesia, at home in this city.
What if she was from here? What if her real family was somewhere in this city, looking for her even now, praying that she was still alive? What if she had a real sister?
An unexpected pang of grief filled Valerie's chest, and she felt immediately guilty for it. She should want List to find her old family.
"Valerie?"
It wasn't List's voice that said her name, and the surprise of that alone made Valerie spin around with one hand on her sword. List reacted with her, tattoos flashing as she willed a dagger into her hand. A pair of wide brown eyes met their, widening in surprise before scrunching in sheepish embarrassment.
"Sorry!" Kaleb said. "I didn't mean to scare you."
The huntress blinked. "Kaleb?"
List cocked her head. "Wait. This is Mystery Boy?"
"Uh, hi." Kaleb gave an awkward wave. "I take it you two are friends."
"Sisters," List corrected.
Kaleb looked between the two of them in obvious confusion. Even discounting that one of them was hellborn and the other was human, Valerie was blonde, gray-eyed, and at least a few shades paler than List, whose dark hair and rounder features spoke to completely different ancestry.
"She's adopted," Valerie explained. That wasn't exactly accurate, but it was close enough. "But nevermind that, what are you doing here?"
"It's a long story," Kaleb said, already echoing their last encounter. He seemed to realize that, because he hastened to add, "But the short version is I need your help."
"The Pavers?" Valerie asked.
"Not just them."
Kaleb cast a wary glance at the peacekeeper and urks just down the street from them. The girls noticed.
"Can we talk somewhere else?" he asked. "Please?"
Valerie was tempted to say no. The last time she'd met Kaleb, he'd told her in so many words that he was dangerous, and connected to people used to dealing with violence. He'd killed several people and had the whole mess cleaned up before the lawmaster could arrive.
But he'd also saved her life. Fought side by side. And gone out of his way to return their money when he easily could have just pocketed it himself. She didn't know what to make of Kaleb.
Except for the fact that when he had said he needed help, she believed him.
Next to her, List's tail flicked and curled with obvious interest, but the hellborn herself said nothing, deferring to Valerie.
She sighed, and wished Arden were here, so she would know what the right decision was. But in his absence, she had only her gut instinct to refer to.
Kaleb was in trouble. With the Pavers, and probably the law, and he needed help.
She sighed. This was a bad idea. But she wanted to at least hear what was going on.
"Lead the way."
He nodded, immediately taking them away from the peacekeeper—and from most of the people in the streets in general. Valerie kept an eye on their surroundings as they walked. If she spotted anything that even resembled an ambush, she and List were gone.
As they moved through an alleyway, Kaleb cleared his throat. "So, I can explain the whole situation and why I came to you specifically, but you should know I have a friend waiting for us up ahead. Just so you're not surprised when you see him. It's not a trap. He's just a little more conspicuous than I am and . . . he was worried if you two saw him, you'd try to kill him."
Valerie gave him a confused look. "Why would we try to kill him?"
"Is he that ugly?" List asked.
Kaleb gave a noncommittal noise just as a hooded figure stepped out from behind a dumpster. Valerie had a moment of confusion when she caught sight of blue scales before Xigbar pulled the hood back, revealing himself.
And then List attacked.
Her dagger was in her hand in a flash of red light, and it was by inches that Xigbar ducked out of the way. Crackling with red lightning, List's blade carved a chunk out of the stone wall behind where Xigbar's head had been.
Kaleb reacted an instant later, knocking aside List's weapon before she could take another swing. She drew a second dagger and swung, cutting a gash along Kaleb's cheek before he grabbed her wrist, pivoted, and shoved her with his whole body into the alley wall.
While he held her wrist out and against the wall, he used his other arm to press against her, pinning her other arm to her body and her body to the wall. She shoved back against him with everything she had on instinct, but he didn't so much as budge an inch. It was like being wedged between two stones.
List's eyes widened. Holy shit, he's strong.
Kaleb's eyes were just as wide. Stars, she actually cut me.
Their gazes locked for a moment, faces inches from one another, until Kaleb heard the click of a crossbow, followed immediately by the rasp of a blade.
On his left, Valerie was pointing her wristbow, locked and loaded, straight at his temple. Standing close behind her, holding a blade to her neck, was Xigbar.
For a tense second, none of them moved.
"I told you they hated me," Xigbar said. "Hellion, Blondie. Nice to see you."
"What the fuck are you doing here?" List spat, before shifting her glare to Kaleb. "You're friends with this piece of shit?"
"Well—"
"I'm standing right here," Xigbar said.
"And if you don't put that knife down, I'm going to shove it up your arse!" List hissed.
"Everyone just stop!" Valerie cut in. Even with Xigbar's steel on her skin, she didn't lower her wristbow. "Kaleb. What's going on?"
"If I tell you, will you stop pointing that at me?"
Valerie looked over her shoulder as much as she could without opening her own throat. Xigbar gave a shrug.
"I'll drop mine if you drop yours," he said.
List tried very hard to murder Kaleb and Xigbar both with her glare as Valerie internally debated, but eventually, she lowered her weapon. Xigbar followed suit, sheathing his blade. Kaleb loosened his grip on List's wrist, and when she didn't immediately try to stab anyone, he stepped away from her.
An uneasy truce passed between the four of them, as each waited for the other to break the peace first. When it finally seemed like none of them would, Valerie prompted Kaleb.
"Start talking."
The eastern gate of the city was meant specifically for larger vehicles to use when entering and exiting the city, but in practice, it served the same function as the main gates most of the time. So it was with a degree of surprise when Tien Ro, newly appointed to gate duty after bungling his previous post, spotted a massive wagon pulling up.
It took four horses to drive the thing, and it had what looked to be some kind of cage covered in a tarp taking up the entirety of the room in its bed. A battered and weary looking band of scavs escorted the wagon, their armor dented and scraped, and all of them sporting fresh bandages.
Tien Ro gave a hard swallow. This had all the makings of trouble. And he really wasn't prepared for more of that so soon after the mess from before.
"Stop."
The scavs dutifully obeyed his command, though several of them looked annoyed.
"The Twelve Swords, here to collect the bounty on this monster," the leader of the group introduced. "We were told to use this gate."
Tien Ro nodded. "Alright. I'll need to take a look under the tarp. Procedure."
The leader nodded. "Just be careful. It's not actually—"
As soon as Tien Ro lifted a part of the tarp, he was met with two things: a pungent body odor so thick and strong it nearly knocked him on his ass, and a thunderous shout that nearly blew out his eardrums.
"GORPMORP!"
Tien Ro staggered away, heart pounding. The leader gave a sympathetic nod.
"The bounty guy said we might be able to get more if we brought it back alive? Something about a gladiator pen or someth—"
"You can go in," Tien Ro interrupted. "Go. Please."
The scav leader nodded appreciatively, and the Twelve Swords began wheeling their captured monstrosity into the city. Tien Ro shuddered. He couldn't imagine how anybody, even scavengers, could have captured a beast like that.
He was just glad it was in a cage, and being taken very far away from him.
