A Bard's Story: Here There Be Dragons

Chapter Six

Being back on the road is comforting. Leyha shouldn't really be so surprised by that knowledge, given how much of the last few years she has lived without a constant home. It's not exactly luxurious, but there's something soothing in the infinite footsteps. She misses the horses; with the snow gone, they'd be making no worse time mounted. She tries to tell herself that getting away from her family is worth having to do a bit more with her own two feet, but she's not sure that it is.

They're wading through dense forest when something occurs to her. "Hey, Kehdem?"

He carefully detaches his cloak from a bramble bush. He inspects it briefly for tears; finding none, he moves on. "Hmm?"

Leyha gives the bush a wide berth. "Do we have any kind of... plan?"

Kehdem pauses. She's impressed until she sees the large fallen tree blocking their distant echoes of a path. Of course, she thinks with a frustrated sigh. And I'm sure that the way around is full of brambles.

"Oh, please," Kehdem says dismissively. "This will only take a minute."

"But it's so exhausting," she complains. "This part will only take a minute, sure, but we're still hours from sundown."

"Are you sure that none of your princess lessons were on complaining?" he teases. She grins, but goes to help him with the simple spell that will get the fallen tree out of the path. It's not difficult, but like any spell of its size, it takes the energy right out of her. Leyha yawns as they set off again. "Oh, come on, you're not that tired."

"I am too," she says, stifling another yawn. "Just because you've got four years on me—"

"Five."

She gives him a dirty look. "You are not five years older than me, mister. I know for a fact that—"

"No, I just mean — I've been doing this sort of thing since I was thirteen. I only picked you up two years ago, when you were fourteen."

"Two and a half," she corrects, but it's far less venomous. "Fine, Mr. I-know-everything-about-adventuring. Do you have a plan, for when we show up at the dwarves' outpost? Assuming, of course, that it's inhabited."

Kehdem shrugs. "I was kind of hoping that they'd help us out of the goodness of their hearts," he admits.

"You're useless," she says in frustration. "Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we can achieve one of your life's goals, but have you thought about this at all past showing up?"

"Not really," he says brightly.

"Fine. I hope you don't mind if I come up with a plan."

"Knock yourself out," he says.

Leyha sighs. "What do you know about dwarven culture?" she asks.

"Not much," he admits. "I think they have some kind of clan structure?" He shrugs. "Most of what I've read is about their runecraft, not really about them. They didn't really like foreigners..."

"Well that would have been something to know when we explored that first outpost," she says, thinking back to all the warnings they had ignored on the path to getting the marks. "What makes you think they'll help us at all, much less when we're strangers?"

He shrugs. "I really haven't thought about it," he says. "I've been trying to avoid it, if we're being honest. There's not much I can offer the dwarves that would be worth anything to them."

"And you're alright with that?"

The shrug she gets in response is somewhat infuriating. "Let's just wait and see if it ends up actually being a problem," he says. "We've always managed before."