When Arrow returned to the chapel of Ilmater in her gnomish disguise, bearing the pheasants, her offerings were not greeted with the usual hungry enthusiasm. A young acolyte ran past her carrying a bucket to the nearest drain but would not stop to tell her what was wrong. The priest of Ilmater, his eyes bloodshot and face drawn, greeted the ranger at the doors with grim news. Dysentery had broken out in the night.
"It is highly infectious," he said, shaking his head sadly. "And no doubt it will claim the lives of some of the very old and very young who shelter here. I have suffered it once before myself, and have never endured pain like it. Arro- I mean Alix- I will not lie to you. Your food deliveries are badly needed. If you were to succumb it would make the situation worse. Nobody would think less of you if you did not pass these doors for a time."
Arrow peered inside. Even from this distance the smell was terrible, and she could hear the sound of vomiting and wails of pain. As the acolyte ran back from the drain with his empty bucket as fast as he could, a second novice came to the door with a full one to swap. This was a small chapel, there were only the priest and his two students. They would not be enough to care for so many sick.
"I have the highest constitution of anyone here," Arrow argued. "And if I were to catch it, Coran will hunt for us until I recover."
She might have added the words, 'I think,' to that statement. Coran had been undeniably helpful in setting the snares and he was an accomplished archer in his own right. He was more than capable of hunting without her. The question was to what extent his desire to help the refugees was sincere. He never came to the temple with her after their hunts. He always told her that he was 'busy' and that his 'skills were needed elsewhere.' Was he going into the wood to hunt game meat for them, or was it his own meat that he was more concerned with? It was difficult to tell with Coran.
Nevertheless, Arrow took a deep breath and strode into the chapel. Knowing that she was a useless cook, she held out one hand for the acolyte's bucket and passed him the dead pheasants with the other. The young man made the trade with undisguised relief and bolted headlong toward their makeshift kitchen. Arrow was followed inside by the weary priest who began to sit and pray with his people. There were around forty refugees sheltering in a chapel built for a congregation of just thirty. By the looks of things at least a quarter of them were infected, and doubtless more would follow. The priest seemed to be holding back his limited healing spells for the most serious cases.
In addition to the old people, there were three babies and a pair of toddlers. Arrow had never encountered dysentery before but judging by the faces of their frightened, haggard parents they were in terrible danger. The floors were swimming with bloody faeces from those unable to make it to the bucket. One man was too ill to stand and was lying listlessly in filth. She needed to clean, but what was she even supposed to clean with? Most of the refugees only came with the clothes on their backs and the blankets were needed.
She ran into the kitchen, pumped water into a spare cooking pot and pulled her regular tunic from her bag. The fatigued acolyte did not even look up from plucking the birds. The shit was not his problem for a few hours and he would take his respite while he had it. She soaked the tunic, wrung them out and began to scrub, starting with the least heavily soiled areas. Every ten minutes or so she had to take the water outside to empty it and pump fresh. While the other acolyte ran the buckets back and forth, and the priest tended to the sick, she took on the unglamorous job of keeping the accumulation of bodily fluids under control.
Day gave way to evening, evening to night. She necked a small amount of the broth that came from the kitchens, ignoring how it burned her throat on the way down and scrubbed on. She drank a lot more of the potion to keep her looking gnome-like, though it was probably a wasted effort. Even had she turned into Freya herself, most of these people were long past caring. At some point she must have slept because she woke up, slumped over one of the pews, changed the water in a zombie-like trance and scrubbed on.
Morning was creeping up on her. She would need to get to the Ducal Palace soon or Coran would wonder where she was. Despite having slept she did not feel well rested and the hunt would be hard. Just as she was thinking this, the temple door opened and a man stood framed in it. Thinking it was later than she had thought, and that the elf had come searching for her, she raised her wrinkled head, blinking dully. As her tired brain registered who she was seeing, a wave of nausea hit her that had nothing to do with dysentery.
Rasaad yn Bashir. The last person in Faerun she wanted to see. Arrow blanched. What could he be doing in a temple of Ilmater? Grateful to already be disguised, she tried to duck out of sight, scrubbing the floor with renewed energy. His shadow fell across her. She paused her cleaning and looked up at him resignedly.
"Oh no," she groaned. The man seemed puzzled by this response, and she remembered that she was Alix the gnome. As far as the monk was concerned, he did not know her.
"Pardon me," he said, "The priest was resting and I do not wish to disturb him. My name is Rasaad yn Bashir. I am working with the refugees sheltering in the Iron Throne Building."
"Alix Gardnersonson," lied Arrow. "Lovely to meet you. Well we'd best get back to work. Have a nice day Mr Bashir."
She turned her attention back to removing the red-brown stains with a determined focus. Her heart was hammering. She was terrified that the wobble in her voice would give her away. A treacherous part of her was so excited to see him again. She had to keep reminding herself that he had broken her heart repeatedly as they'd travelled through the sword coast. The last time they had split up he had practically blamed her for the death of his brother, Gamaz.
"Your dedication is an example that I will endeavour to follow. I beg only a moment of your time," he told her earnestly. She tutted, threw the ragged tunic to one side and glared up at him. If she left him in no doubt that he was unwelcome here, then hopefully he would leave quickly.
"Be brief young man," she snapped.
Rasaad was full of admiration. This tiny elderly gnome, in her blood and crap-stained clothes, was scowling at him in a most intimidating manner. Her white, fluffy hair was growing even out of her ears and hunching over a scrubbing brush on the hard stone floor must be uncomfortable at her age. Yet here she was, humbly doing what she could for these poor people. Arrow would have approved of her, he thought wistfully. Perhaps they had met, the ranger was also an Ilmatari after all. He pinched the back of his own hand discretely to snap himself out of thinking about Arowan. He had been trying this tactic for weeks and the patch of skin was quite sore now. At this rate he was likely to leave himself with permanent scarring.
"Yes ma'am. You were able to secure food, a whole deer, for the refugees at the temple. I'm not asking for gold," he added hastily, "Only the name of your contact so that we too might purchase fresh meat."
"We do not have a supplier as such," replied Arrow. "We have ordered grain from Beregost but it will not arrive for at least a week. A ranger has been hunting and setting snares for us in the woods outside the walls. Enough to keep this modest temple supplied but not to feed all those people sheltering in the former Iron Throne building. I'm afraid she won't be able to help you. The people here eat more than she can catch, yet they are still hungry. I fear if she were to supply your shelter as well, fights would break out over the meat."
"A ranger?" Rasaad felt a sudden rush of butterflies. He looked toward the door as if Arrow might come strolling in at any moment. "Does she catch much?"
"Yes actually!" snapped Arrow defensively. Her lack of success in this department had been a standing joke among the party during their last journey together. She remembered herself and got back into character. "Excuse me young man. As you can see, I have a great deal to do. Is that everything?"
"It is," said Rasaad, bowing respectfully. "I apologise for taking up your time."
"Goodbye," she said firmly. Arrow returned to her scrubbing, white hair dangling around her face. She tried to focus on the interesting wrinkly patterns on the backs of her small hands, and not on how the monk was making her feel.
She waited for him to go but he paused with his hand on the temple door as if suffering some internal struggle. Finally he turned and walked back to her.
"Go away!" she thought desperately.
"Alix?"
"Mrs Gardnersonson," she corrected him sharply, hoping he had not seen through her disguise.
"Mrs Gardnersonson," he said apologetically, "This ranger, her name isn't Arrow by any chance is it? Or Arowan, sometimes she goes by Arowan?"
Rasaad berated himself internally for asking. It wasn't as if he didn't know where to find Arrow if he chose to. She slept in the Ducal Palace after all, all he need do was go to the gates and ask. He didn't even know why he asked if it was her, except that it made him oddly happy to think that she might be out in the city helping the refugees too. Almost as if they were helping them together.
He bit his lip. The gnome had gone far too long without answering the question. She had fixed him with what he interpreted to be a suspicious scowl.
"We are friends, I was one of her travelling companions for a while," he explained hastily. Of course, the gnome would be suspicious. There had been many assassination attempts on Arrow over the last few months. A stranger turning up and asking about her was bound to ring alarm bells.
"If I did know this Arrow would you like me to pass on a message?" the old gnome croaked.
"I… no. No," said Rasaad. "No, thank you. You've been very helpful. I…" his eyes flickered to the poor abused tunic in the gnome's shrivelled hands. "I will arrange to have firewood and fresh cleaning rags sent from our shelter to yours."
"We do not wish to deprive the other refugees," Arrow began carefully, though there was a note of hope in her voice. The threads were coming loose from the scrubbing-tunic. It would not survive much more ill treatment, and fire to sterilise the plates and laundry would certainly help.
"We have an anonymous donor," Rasaad gave her a small reassuring smile. "They have been keeping us supplied with more gold than we can use. Unfortunately there is no…"
"…no food to buy," Arrow finished for him. Her brown eyes met his dark, sincere gaze and she melted a little inside. Suddenly the door opened and the man she thought had been looking for her in the first place strolled in.
Rasaad bowed to her and stepped out. He passed Coran at the door to the shrine and the two of them exchanged brief pleasantries. The monk was not pleased to see the elf. He had heard rumours that the notorious seducer had been spending a lot of time with Arowan. There could be no other reason for him to be here. Coran's mind was not on the monk and his purpose there, however. For once he was not thinking with the content of his pants. He was looking around the dysentery-struck refuge and turning pale beneath his green mask.
"I was enquiring as to the source of meat in the temple," Rasaad said. His tone was a mixture of defensive and apologetic. If Coran were romantically involved with Arrow (the thought turned his stomach) he would not wish him to think that he had come here in search of her. "But their hunter cannot supply both temples."
"Yes, the hunter. That would be me," said Coran, hefting his bow. He was still staring in horror at the afflicted refugees.
"You?" Rasaad blinked. "Forgive me, Mrs Gardnersonson said that the ranger was a woman."
"Mrs who?" fumbled Coran. Then he remembered Glint and cottoned that Arrow had stolen his surname for her alter ego. He glanced at the elderly gnome who was watching them both with a worried expression. "Oh yes, Alix. Well you know how it is. She is obscenely old and all tall folk kind of look alike to her. She tells me that I am a very sweet young lady and I do not have the heart to correct her."
The ranger was not Arrow then. Rasaad felt rather foolish. The city was huge, what were the odds? So, Coran was the one supplying food to this shelter. Perhaps he was a more suitable mate for Arrow than he had supposed. Clearly he had misjudged the man. He returned to the Iron Throne feeling crushed.
Coran, meanwhile, stepped gingerly around the shivering, moaning people. A man shoved him roughly out of the way on his way to the bucket. He made no effort to be discrete in his use of it. Dignity had no place in this situation. The elf stumbled and his hand shot out to catch himself on one of the pews. When he lifted it, it came away dripping with blood and slime.
"Oh gods," he whispered.
"Coran?" asked Arrow.
"I never imagined it would be like this," he said quietly, looking around. "It isn't enough… they need more…"
Talk like this was hardly going to help morale. Arrow huffed impatiently and steered him through the temple and out of the back door. There was a small courtyard there.
"Why did you come here?" she demanded. If it was some sort of romantic surprise, then he had sorely misjudged the situation. Indulging his flirting was a fine bit of silly escapism out in the woods, but here she was not in the mood.
"They're looking for you," he said. "You didn't go back to the palace last night and there was an attack. They hurt Imoen. No don't worry, she's ok, but the assassins were sent by the woman who displaced all these refugees, Caelar Argent. This means war Arrow. It means war."
"But Coran, war will mean-"
"More refugees," he replied heavily. "I know."
As an elf, Coran did not age as a human would, and with his light-hearted demeanour it was easy to forget how much older than Arrow he actually was. He looked it now though. Frown lines were spreading over his forehead and his jaw was tense. What's more Arrow could actually see the shape of his jaw. His double chin was gone. She hadn't noticed the change but over the last few months he had lost weight. It didn't suit him. It made him look ill and stretched.
She called the priest out into the courtyard and had him dispel magic to turn her back into human form. Though it seemed she would be forced to leave the city with Freya and the Flaming Fist, she did not want the Dukes to know about her disguise. That and navigating the streets as a gnome was a pain. Tall people were inconsiderate to the vertically disadvantaged. She changed into her normal trousers but had to keep the tight gnomish tunic, stained and constricting though it was. Her own was lying on the floor of the temple where she had used it as a scrubbing brush, beyond restoration.
The weight loss was not all that was different about Coran. As they walked toward the Ducal Palace, Arrow noticed him limping slightly on his right leg. He had not been doing so the previous morning when they went hunting, but he did not seem to want to talk about it. When she asked him how he had hurt himself, he brushed off the question and changed the subject.
"You look tired," observed Coran.
"Well that's a drastic change of strategy," replied Arrow dryly. "My eyes are not shining like the stars in the heavens? My smile is not the candle that lights your heart?"
"Your eyes are heavy like the saddlebags of a trading camel," replied Coran in the exact same tone of voice as he used to deliver his most gallant of compliments. "Your smile is absent and your chest is covered in what I can only hope is mud."
His efforts actually earned him a weak laugh.
"You hope in vain" she replied. She paused from massaging her temples to look up at the elf with a drained expression. She was too exhausted to be sad. "There's been an outbreak of dysentery at the temple. One man died in the night. Three more arrived to take his place. Soon they'll be sick too."
The ranger ran her filthy hands through her short, pixie-cut hair. Her head was pounding, her back was killing her and her knees were red and blistering from scrubbing the floors. Not even Coran could consider her worth pursuing in her current state. Arrow felt like shit, looked like shit and smelled like shit. Mainly because she was covered in shit. What's more, she was long past caring.
"They're leaving first thing tomorrow," Coran told her as they approached the Palace. Already guards had spotted her and were pushing their way through the people to bring her back. "They've asked you and Freya to regather your parties first."
"That's not possible," replied Arrow with a grim smile. Her party was well and truly disbanded. Xan had fled to Evereska. Viconia and Edwin had tried to kill her to get to Dynaheir. The only two she would have liked to accompany her were her adopted parents, Khalid and Jaheira, but they were not in the city. As for Rasaad… no. She would rather scoop out her own spleen with an oyster fork and eat it than beg the monk for help.
Inside the palace, she found that Freya was finding gathering a party equally problematic, but for different reasons.
"Skie, I am not taking Eldoth. I would not take Eldoth if Selune herself descended from the heavens and threatened to fuck my arse with the rough end of a broom if I refused," Freya argued forcefully. She would bring Skie the moon itself if she asked for it but there were limits. Even when Skie's arms were folded and angry tears were rolling down her cheeks. "Besides I couldn't recruit him if I wanted to, he fled the city weeks ago!"
"Well maybe he wouldn't have done that if you'd been nicer to him!" Skie wailed.
"I was nice to him!" said Freya, holding her arms open in a helpless gesture. "He's still alive, isn't he? Come on Skie, please don't be mad at me."
"You threatened to kill him and eat him," Skie pouted, "Multiple times!"
Duke Silvershield noticed Arrow come in and nodded curtly. His eyes roved disapprovingly over her stained clothes. She looked over her shoulder and gave a guilty start as she realised that she had tracked stinking footprints into the palace. Not that she cared much about spoiling the Duke's finery given the circumstances, but some underpaid servant was going to wind up scrubbing that. She would warn them but if the palace staff became infected… Arrow winced. She ought to have considered that.
"That was a joke!" Freya appealed imploringly to Skie.
"Was it though?" grinned Coran unhelpfully.
"Well... the part about eating him was a joke," Freya admitted.
"We could send out runners to find him-" Skie began. Her father, Duke Silvershield, shook his head furiously but Freya responded first.
"No!" she thundered, using her elevated charisma to fire the words with such force that the palace portraits seemed to tremble in their gilded frames. "If Eldoth ever comes within twenty miles of Baldur's Gate again I am going to end him. I will rip out his bladder with my teeth, stuff it with what passed for his brain and give it to the local kids as a football!" She paused, wilting somewhat under Skie's furious eyes, and glanced up guiltily at the Duke. "Erm... pretend you didn't hear that milord."
"Not at all, werewolf," replied Duke Silvershield silkily, "Your murderous attitude toward my daughter's paramour is one of your very few redeeming qualities. I have located some of your former allies, however. You may be interested to know that one of yours, Arowan, turned up at the Flaming Fist asking to sign up to fight Caelar within an hour of the call to arms going out."
"Rasaad?" she asked, half-baulking, half-hopeful.
"No," replied the Duke, stroking his pointed beard between his fingertips. "Your cleric, Viconia DeVir."