The next couple of days were hard. Meager rations, early mornings, and late nights were the start of our problems. Damian led us through a forest instead of taking the main road to Orten. Unlike the forests near Kent’s Crossing, these forests were overgrown. Thick thorny bushes covered the forest floor. For the smaller and more nimble harska, that wasn’t a problem. They expertly snuck through the undergrowth, avoiding all but a few pinpricks. I wasn’t so lucky.

Each night I spent an hour pulling thorns out of my clothes and boots. Only Smokey seemed to feel any sympathy for my dilemma. The others weren’t so kind. I learned after the first night to keep my complaints to myself, as Damian loved the chance to berate me. ‘Thin skin,’ ‘hairless ape,’ and ‘flute flounder’ were a few of the insults he threw at me. Bagheera and Patches didn’t voice their insults, but I knew they were thinking them.

I was able to learn why we were heading to Orten during those terrible days. Gunner had sent us to spy on the local blacksmith and learn everything we could about forging metal. Harska had never needed to learn how until Gunner took over. He wanted a military, and stone could only take you so far. Having learned our goal, I guessed that was why Henry and Tamara were taken.

“Why do you need to spy on them at all? Can’t you ask someone to show you?” I asked Bagheera while we were exchanging watches.

He shrugged. “The king’s will is the law.”

After making it out of the forest, we set up camp in a valley between some small hills. The five of us sat around a small campfire, cooking a rabbit Smokey had caught during the day. The terrain in front of us was rolling hills and farmland. Damian wasn’t comfortable lighting a fire, but the others changed his mind. It was cloudy enough that the smoke was well hidden.

Tired of sitting down on the soft grass, I stood up and made my way to Damian. I towered over his relaxed body, laying back on the grass. He gave no sign that this bothered him. His confidence only annoyed me even more.

“Damian, I’m still confused about why I’m here,” I said holding back my anger.

He grabbed a single blade of grass and set it between his teeth, using his tongue to slide it back and forth. “What about this is confusing? You are the leader. Be one.”

“I can’t be a leader if I’m treated like a threat or a liability. Either let me take control or tell me exactly what to do.”

The others glanced over as I raised my voice. A look from Damian made them look away, but we could both tell they were still listening. To be honest, I wanted them to.

Damian looked back up at me. “You want to take control? Then take control. I won’t stop you.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He shrugged. “My only job is to make sure you don’t run away or kill one of us. I could care less if you take charge, or even if this mission is successful. King Gunner can worry about that himself.”

“You aren’t worried he’ll get mad?” I asked.

“His Majesty always gets mad, no matter what. He’s got anger issues,” said Smokey from behind me.

Patches slapped him. “Don’t talk about the king like that!”

“It’s true,” said Smokey, rubbing his cheek. “The other day he got mad at me for walking too loud. How does someone walk too loud?”

“Well, when you weigh as much as you do…” muttered Bagheera.

Patches grabbed him by the ear and pulled, causing the dark-colored harska to howl in pain. “Stop it! Apologize to Smokey.”

The loud noise caused the hair on my neck to rise. With hills on all sides, we couldn’t see if anyone was approaching, or if anyone noticed us. Damian didn’t seem to mind his companions fighting, but I did. To protect my friends, I had to stay alive.

“Quiet! All of you!” I hissed. “The rest of you might not care about your lives, but I do.”

The three arguing harska looked away, muttering apologies under their breath. Damian had a smug look on his face, which made my blood boil. “Have you all forgotten how dangerous it would be if someone spotted you four? I’m not sure how this region treats harska, but I can guess. Especially a group of them camping on the outskirts of someone’s property. Now, what does that look like to you?”

Smokey looked up at me, a confused expression on his face. “Bandits?”

“Precisely. So stay quiet. You can argue once you’re safe back under the mountains. Besides, we need to come up with a plan to spy on the people of Orten.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be learning how to forge metal? Why would we care about anybody but the blacksmith?” asked Damian, leaning forward over the meager fire.

“If we go into town and head straight to the blacksmith, it will look suspicious,” I replied. “We have to become a part of the community first.”

“Are you sure the community will even accept us?” asked Patches.

I almost blurted out a yes before I started to think about it. Back home, harska were relatively unknown. Only Henry knew anything about them. Who knew what the reaction would be like in Orten. Especially if this wasn’t the first scouting party Gunner had sent.

“Maybe… Maybe I should go in alone first.”

“Absolutely not,” said Damian. The others murmured in agreement.

“No, think about it. A group of five entering a city, much less a town, draws too much attention to themselves. But if I enter alone, then I’m one human amongst the crowd. I can find out what they think about harska and spy on the blacksmith at the same time.”

“And leave us while you run to the guards for protection? Not going to happen.”

“If I leave you, my friends die. I can’t allow that to happen. If you want me to be a leader, then let me lead. This is the best option for us.”

I was never going to convince them in one night. By the time we had grown tired of arguing, the fire was nothing more than orange embers and grey dust. They continued to dismiss my claim, led by Damian, and settled into the night to sleep. Patches and I took the first watch. We sat on opposite ends of the camp and listened for any sign of trouble.

Patches might have listened to me if I explained it more, but there was no point in causing more trouble. I could tell she was anxious about having to share a watch with me, especially after I had argued with them for so long. Instead, I looked up at the crescent-shaped moon, dreaming about home.

A couple of hours later, Patches stood up from her spot higher up the hill and made her way to the camp. Barely staying awake, I mimicked her actions. Damian was already awake as I found myself at his side. He groaned as he stood up, using my arm as leverage. As he walked past me, I fell onto the ground and drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, a furry hand shook my shoulder. It took a couple of seconds to wake up and remember where I was, but once the smell of breakfast reached me, I was awake. After waking me up, Damian moved near the fire and sat down. I rolled over onto my side to watch Smokey cook a collection of herbs and rationed meat over the fire. Maybe it was the lack of real food available to me, but it looked and smelled like heaven.

Reaching my arms over my head, I groaned and stood up. My back creaked as my muscles woke from their slumber. Patches stifled a laugh as I bent every which way. I could have made some sign of my disapproval, but it was too early for that. Instead, I muttered a morning greeting and yawned.

“I thought about what you said,” said Damian, using his claws to gently brush his fur.

“And?”

“Bagheera will go with you.”

I glanced at Bagheera, who was still asleep, snuggled into his bedroll. Unlike the rest of us who had to sleep on the hard ground, Bagheera had chosen to bring something to sleep on. If I had a choice I would have brought something as well. Since I was technically their prisoner, I wasn’t allowed to make such decisions.

“First of all, I think that’s a bad idea. Second of all, why Bagheera? I mean no offense to him, of course, but wouldn’t you want to be the one to go?”

“Bagheera is the most likable of us, he’s a people harska I guess. It only makes sense that he would go,” said Damian.

“What if they don’t react well to seeing a harska wander around town?”

“Then it’s your job to change their mind.”

After breakfast, Bagheera and I split off from the group. Once we were out of sight of the other harska, he abandoned his cane. Bagheera still limped, but he didn’t complain. “They make me use it,” he muttered before I could ask.

We snuck through fields of corn and wheat for a mile until we reached the main road. It was nothing more than a sunken dirt path scarred from years of wagon wheels and horses. At first, I would look back every few seconds to see if someone was coming from behind us, but the roads were empty.

Dandelions grew on the side of the road in bright patches of yellow. It made me think of Arienne, squatting in front of the house picking handfuls of the weed. Beth would scold her for getting dirty and then take her inside for a wash. I stopped and plucked a single dandelion, sticking it in my pocket. Bagheera didn’t wait for me, nor did he give any sign he had noticed.

The closer we got to town, the more the path diverged off into different directions. Thankfully, signs at each crossroads led us to Orten. I hoped they hadn’t been changed as a cruel prank on lost travelers, but didn’t speak my worries aloud. We followed the signs until we reached the top of a large hill. Down in the valley below was the small town of Orten.

Broken stone walls reaching my hip littered the landscape. I wondered if they were some form of protection from invaders, or built for decoration. If only I had more time to explore the town and learn its secrets. A large cloud of smoke emanating from the outskirts of Orten told me they did have a blacksmith. Or maybe some poor fool was having a really bad day. Bagheera and I made our way down the hill, stepping carefully to avoid all the holes.

The buildings of Orten were normal for this region. Most were made with timber frames filled in with whatever rubble they could find. Some decorated their houses with vines creeping up from the ground. Others used wooden troughs hanging on the walls to grow flowers in. All of the roofs were made of wood and painted in various colors. It made what would have been a dull grey landscape into an inviting little refuge.

The dirt path we were walking on slowly changed to stone the closer we got to the town. Most of the stones were a dull grey, but some had some color. I noticed a few had children’s handprints, faded from years of being stepped on. Did the kids who made those still live here? Were they even alive? Distracted, I almost tripped over a stone sticking out of the ground.

“Woah there,” said a tall hooded figure, grabbing the back of my shirt. “Be careful, these roads are not as nice as they used to be.”

“Thanks,” I replied, staring down at the ground. My face was bright red as the figure let go of me. Before I could say anything more, the figure nodded their head and walked off toward town. Well, I say walk, but it was more like an uneven waltz. They swayed from side to side, almost falling with every step they took.

Bagheera eyed me carefully. “You okay?”

I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yeah, just got distracted.”

As we got closer to town, more and more people joined us from the connecting roads. Humans, elves, and dwarves were the most common. All of them headed into town to begin the day’s work. I nervously glanced down at Bagheera, worried that someone would freak out at seeing him. He walked calmly through the crowd, making sure not to bump into anyone.

Unlike a larger settlement, Orten had no city gate or guards standing at the border. The only sign that you were in the town proper was the number of buildings increasing. They went from one or two to being surrounded. It was a bit like Xalir in that way, though my hometown was nicer, of course. Certainly, the people would give a passing greeting back home. Here, you were lucky to get a passing glance, which I guess was useful for a stealth mission.

We walked into the center of town, stopping at the fountain. Shaped like an oval, at the center stood a meticulously carved marble statue. It depicted a woman wearing a loose-fitting dress with a gold belt around her waist. Draped over her shoulder was a cloth flowing down into the fountain. Two glass bottles filled with a misty-looking liquid were attached to her belt through a loop. Water poured out of the bottles into the fountain below. On the side of the fountain’s basin was a plaque that read, To the goddess, Panacea. May she protect our health evermore.

The blank expression on her face in combination with her marble eyes unnerved me. It was like she was judging me for what I was doing. Though the sensible side of me knew the real goddess wouldn’t care. They never cared about mortal matters. Still, the possibility that I was disrespecting a god didn’t sit right with me. Feeling around for my money pouch, I planned to throw in a gold piece as a kind of tribute, but my money was gone.

“Where’s my gold?” I asked Bagheera.

He sat down on the ground near the fountain, attempting to use the statue as shade. “King Gunner took it.”

I had guessed as much, but it still didn’t feel good to hear. “Well then, do you have a gold piece you could spare?”

“Why?”

“For the goddess, doesn’t feel right ignoring her, what with us doing what we’re doing.”

“Oh,” he said, scratching the ground with his claws. “Then no, I don’t have any money.”

“So neither of us has money? We’re going to look even worse if we walk around town with no money.”

“Why?”

“Imagine you’re a merchant, right? You set up your stall on the side of the street and look out into the crowds each day. You start to notice stuff. Like those two guys who come into town, don’t talk to anybody, don’t buy anything, and hang out around the blacksmith. One of them is a creature not usually seen around here, and the other looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. They stand around all day and then leave at night to come back the next morning. Does that sound like suspicious behavior to you? Because it should.”

“Alright, so what are you going to do then?”

“Me?” I asked, shocked.

“You’re the leader, right? Come up with a plan, Mr. Benson.”