Of Gods and Warriors ✓

Chapter 64

It had been a rather tiring day, even by a God's standards. Or perhaps a God who had been sitting still within a rock for centuries had different standards--for Xenro was exhausted down to his very immortal soul.

He fell face down on his bed, hair undone, travelling cloak tossed somewhere unimportant and one boot--which he hadn't the energy to get off--dangling down his foot.

Footsteps shuffled across creaky floorboards, clothes rustled and boots thunked as the mercenaries settled in their own little corners, some stretched out on the roughspun rug before the hearth, others dozing off in their beds.

The mercenaries, all being battlemages, seemed to boast seemingly endless reserves of energy. Yet the cold remained unrelenting, pushing Spring Fest further into the next month and perhaps causing the Foreseers to lose their employment due to their wrongly predicted forecasts. Snow fell steadily outside, and Xenro was sure his brother was out in his realm, raising chaos.

Yet all inconveniences aside, Princess Lysandra couldn't have found a more excellent place to serve as the company's new hideout than this homely loft above a rather unassuming bakery down in the market district, for the owner himself was one of the many spies working under her command. Tapestries covered the wooden walls and beds with straw mattresses lined the hall. A warm smell of baking bread and spices lingered in the air.

She'd housed fifty of them here, others in equally unsuspecting places--each connected to the palace with hidden shortcuts for the battlemages to be at her aid the moment the need arose.

"Journey's been hard on ya, Captain Xen?" asked Bjorn from the other side of the hall, where he crouched before the grate to stoke a fire.

He mumbled his inaudible response into the pillow covers.

"You all Midaelians are so, so weak," he grumbled even as he pulled the blanket over Xenro and shucked off the lone boot to meet its companion and quite literally, tucked him in. "It's all in the diet, I say. Hardtack and stew and bread--only fills your bellies. You need meat. Ah, and freshwater fish," he said, making Xenro's stomach growl.

"Bold words coming from someone who got bested by a Midaelian lass in arm-wrestling!" called Hilda from across the room over the tings and twangs of her lute which she was busy tuning.

"Fair point. Also, I am not Midaelian," added Xenro with a grin, eviscerating his argument.

"Drisian, then? You don't sound Velan. Nor look it."

Conversation with mortals never ceased to amuse him. "Neither," he said smugly.

"Oh? Did you descend from the heavens to bless these mortal lands, milord?" said Captain Walric, who'd just entered the hall. Behind her, doors squealed open and banged shut. More people came through, stowing snowy cloaks and scarves before the hearth to dry.

Xenro turned over to meet her eyes with a lazy grin. "Something like that."

Captain shook her head. "Such cheek. I'll let this one slide--for you did quite the performance back there," she said, reaching out a calloused hand to ruffle his hair which was already worse than a haystack. "It almost scares me, lad, the way you change guises at the blink of an eye!"

"Best you pay me well, then--or I would switch sides and you would be none the wiser." He leaned back, crossing his legs much in the way the captain did when she propped her boots atop tables.

"Getting too full of himself, this bloke," commented her second-in-command, Gunvald.

On the contrary. Xenro felt at home. "Not at all, lieutenant sir. I merely seek payment for my humble service."