Within the Bone

XIV. A Southern Encounter

"The treasure hunters will be at the inn," Caliban said with certainty as they made their way through the little market, Aallotar walking stiffly at his side with Mara close to her back to offer comfort. "Drinking and telling tall tales of grand exploits." The contemptuous curl of his lip told them what he thought of the adventurous types.

Mara tried to ignore the discomfort of cold in her healing arm as she moved. Her demonic mentor tended little to her pain, only scouring every wound for any hint of infection that might harm his precious pupil. As a result, the burns and incisions seemed to sting even more fiercely in the cold than they had inside, the flesh around her freshly metal fingers aching and burning the most. Once upon a time it might have been enough to make her faint, even with the experience of a childhood full of beatings, but after channeling sorcery, all other pains seemed merely uncomfortable.

Aallotar's hand touched her good shoulder, the contact comforting even despite the weight of the wildling's heavy leather and steel gauntlet. "Are you well?" Mara's friend asked.

"Fine," Mara promised. "Just can't wait to be warm."

Caliban gave her a lupine smile. "How fortunate that we are almost to the inn."

"Have you been to Barri before?" the sorcerer asked, flexing her fingers inside their cloth glove to try and restore some body heat through motion.

"Upon occasion. Never with regularity," the demon's servant explained quietly, lingering near Mara's ear even though it earned him a fearsome glare from Aallotar. "Too many visits would inspire too many questions. A lesson that you would do well to learn. No longer are you so...ordinary."

"Trust me when I say that's never been a feeling I enjoyed," Mara said. "I've never experienced life as anything other than what I am, and I don't see any other spell-breakers running about."

The inn was a partially two story, half-timbered and half stone building. Caliban caught the large door and pulled it open for Mara and her wildling guardian, revealing a room dim except for firelight and the sunlight that streamed through the ventilation holes in the thatched roof. "Fair enough," Caliban acknowledged.

Aallotar inhaled reflexively, taking in the scent of the air even without her bestial nose. Mara suspected her friend's senses were still slightly keener than her own. The wildling made a face of disgust, though her expression was only half visible under her spectacle helm. "They need bathing," Aallotar murmured.

"Most in the Red Mountains don't bathe as often as we've been," Mara said. She'd learned from her mother to be fastidious, and constant injury ensured that she kept to that lesson with rigor. "Especially not in the cold of winter."

"It offends," Aallotar grumbled.

Mara laughed, enjoying the faint hint of a wrinkled nose she could see under the steel nose piece that guarded her friend's face. "Get used to disappointment," she teased. "Let's go in and get a drink before I freeze to death."

Aallotar immediately moved to go into the building, almost colliding with a tower of a man who stood more than a head over Aallotar's six feet. She looked up and her eyes widened as she took in his unusual appearance and smell.

His skin was a dull red, like the color of Sjaligr sandstone brick, stretched over a square face. The angular nostrils of his flat nose flared as they collided, the fearsome glare he leveled at them coming from eyes the same shade of feral gold as Aallotar's own. He wore furs over his armor, dull grey steel without a shine. His breastplate was one solid piece instead of mail and the curved sword he wore looked like nothing Mara had ever seen. The man's eyes narrowed as he looked over the three of them. For such a huge brute, the intelligence that gleamed in his eyes was dangerously present.