Rogue Magick, part 9 by Rillan macDhai (Fallfeather's real world alt)

Rough draft as of 4/29/10, copyright 2010 by Rillan macDhai, World of Warcraft setting and all that are not mine. Original characters are. And no, no one's paying me to do this; though once I get it out of my head I might send it to Blizzard… maybe they'll pay me, ha ha ha….

Part 9: At the House of Purple Hyacinths

More Rogues

There was still some fish chowder and it was still warm, half a loaf of good fresh bread from the morning baking and cheese. Given how much food I'd watched them preparing, I did wonder where the rest of it had gone. I hadn't seen anyone else in the house, but this was the first day I'd been downstairs.

It had been a busy day and by the time I'd helped carry our bowls to the sink I was feeling every bit of it. Mana recharge or not, I was badly out of shape and just getting downstairs had been a challenge. It took Richelle and Anna to get me back up to my room. I was shaking with exhaustion by the time I got into bed, so I didn't bother to do more than peel out of my jerkin and boots before stretching out on the quilt.

I remember thinking my hair would just have to wait a little longer and then a sort of falling feeling, but not unpleasant. When I dreamed, it was of the nighttime sky of Nagrand and Firesworn sleeping peacefully in a tent nearby. It seemed perfectly natural to keep guard, as I had done in the Stockades. It wasn't until I saw Bobby taking watch that I relaxed and rolled in beside the mage. I lay there for a moment, thinking about waking him, but I was tired and sleep was heavy on my eyes. Bobby and the white horse could keep guard. It was good just to be near him, it finally felt safe to sleep.

I woke up, completely disoriented to find myself in a bed. Firesworn's scent lingered, at least in my mind, and I actually looked around the room, trying to find him. "Nightfrost, you have got it so bad," I scolded myself. Giving up the hunt I lit a couple of candles and went to work on my hair, determined if I couldn't control anything else, I would at least finish subduing the knots.

It was maybe an hour later when someone knocked at my door. I opened it to find Richelle standing there. "Dinner's going to be served in a few minutes, if you feel up to joining us. No one's here but the family tonight."

I almost said no, I was that tired, but Giselle waved to me from down the hall and decided me. "You might have to drunk-carry me back up the stairs again, but I'd like that, give me a minute to tie back my hair."

"You finally got it brushed out. It looks nice."

"Yes, thanks, but if I don't tie it back, it'll get in my mouth."

"I've always wondered, why do the elves wear their hair so long?"

"All the 'Dorei? Not a clue. We do it to be contrary, to look good, and annoy our enemies. Yes, I know it can be grabbed in combat, I've had that misfortune, and my hair did used to be longer. But the idea is to never allow anyone close enough to be able to do it. It's a matter of pride."

"So that's why some of the troops have braids," she said.

I knew what she meant; I'd seen it in Hellfire and again in Netherstorm, braids woven of hair from dead or captured sin'dorei, worn by Ally troops. Some of the orcs and trolls carried them as well, though usually woven with a strip of uniform from one of Kael's loyalists.

I realized I was starting to be very annoyed by that particular memory and cast around for another topic. "Do you have a practice area where I can throw things?"

"What?"

"Grandmamma said I should try to stay calm and think happy thoughts, just not in those words. Some sin'dorei meditate, like the quel'dorei, the high elves. I throw things. Please, I need some knives, throwing stars, darts, something, and somewhere I can practice with them."

"Darts," she said brightly. "I think we can trust you with darts. We've a dartboard down in the common room."

Trust me with darts? After what I'd done today, would anyone be seriously worried? Little did she know the carnage I could wreck with a handful of darts, I thought. I finally finished wrapping the leather thong and had my hair looking reasonable. Eartails had escaped and framed my face, but the majority of it was out of the way. Wondering again at my status in the household, I followed her downstairs.

Dinner was amazing, with fresh spring greens, potatoes, a venison and rabbit ragout, and lovely small loaves of brown bread. Conversation at the table was mostly about planting, when to lift certain bulbs, whether the peacebloom had sprouted yet. Indeed, most of the conversation revolved around when and where to go looking for certain herbs; I'd have never understood it if Giselle hadn't been there.

I felt well enough to help with the dishes; Richelle washed them, I dried, and Giselle put them away. Once again I noted things hinting at a good amount of wealth, the number of dishes for one. There were a lot more dishes than even a huge farming family could allow for, and on the upper shelves tureens and gravy boats and casseroles and others I couldn't name, touched with blue and true red and delicate gold accents. Then there was the fine iron stove and the ovens. Again I wondered if this was not an inn, what was it?

The dinning room table could easily seat twelve. Woolen rugs graced the floor, heavy curtains, the windows, and the chairs were leather or night elven carved woods, pleasing to the eye and padded with colorful pillows and soft woven throws. Pewter and silver tankards decorated the mantle of a large fireplace, heavy wolf-headed andirons the hearth.

And one side of the room was a dartboard and a knife target.

Grandmamma was knitting something when we came in, I was aware of a pause in the clicking of her needles. "Still awake? I'm surprised, but you are looking much better." Two white dogs, looking like smaller versions of frostwolves, lifted their heads to study me before going back to sleep by her feet.

"I don't feel cold into my bones anymore, thank you," I replied; content to ignore the dogs if they were willing to ignore me. I inspected the darts. They were well feathered and had good balance. Holding them, I felt a little knot of tension release.

Pacing back across the room, I practiced. Throwing darts isn't like throwing knives or axes; you need to be closer to your target. Or have a blowgun and smaller darts. And something nasty to coat the darts with…

Throwing was soothing, not quite mindless repetition. Finally satisfied with a fist-sized cluster, I wished the ladies of the house a good night and carefully got myself back upstairs. I was tired, really, really tired, but I wasn't cold and there were no horrors nibbling around the edge of my thoughts.

I latched the door, peeled off my clothes and, shooing the little black and white tom out of his nest, crawled into the bed. The tom came back, purring loudly, and proceeded to stomp around on my pillow, randomly pulling hairs and bunting me with his head. I finally pulled the quilt over my head to thwart him and sometime shortly after that I was asleep.

Morning came with a cat yowling at the window. I rolled over and looked up to find Black Tom was puffed up to twice his usual side, expressing his displeasure with the buff orange cat outside the window.

I reached up and tapped sharply on the window, popping up to startle the other cat into a retreat. Black hissed, and I opened the window to let him out to defend his home and women.

I was sore and stiff and spent the next minutes limbering up. I pulled on my clothes and my troll boots, splashed my face with some water, and ran the brush through my hair. Such a simple thing, but it felt so good. With Dream peeking out of my shirt like a boutonniere, I grabbed my jerkin and, leaving my hair loose for the moment, trotted, yes, trotted down the stairs. I was still sore, but there was a dancing anticipation along my nerves, and I was hungry enough to eat a kodo.

Okay, maybe just one of the human's cows.

Maybe just a sheep.

I was fairly certain I could devour an entire sheep by myself at that moment.

They put me to work brewing tea, my stinky tea and something that was more of an herbal infusion for them. After I got the teapots properly warmed, I started peeling potatoes. In the course of my career I have probably peeled my weight in potatoes more times than I have years. Despite that, I love them, especially mashed creamy with butter and herbs and a more than healthy sprinkling of salt.

Breakfast was well started when the dogs began bellowing and there came a frantic knocking at a side door. Grandmamma pulled a wand out of one of her sleeves, Giselle and her sister produced knives, and Anna took a better grip on the cleaver she'd been using to chop chickens into quarters. Nothing sharp was immediately to hand, except for my paring knife, so I joined the general arming by lifting a poker from the hearth.

Grandmamma peered out a window, and then yanked the door open. Two human men and an entire pack of white dogs flooded into the room. Both of the men were covered in blood, but the dogs didn't seem to have any on them. Nor were they attacking, seeming to be more dancing around in greeting and confusion than hostility.

Anna took a quick glance out the door, yelled, "Out, heathens!" and the pack flowed back out the door in a white rush. One of the humans was sagging on the other, leaking fresh blood all over the clean floor. The other was wheezing like a wind-broken horse. Grandmamma took one look at the wounded men and began clearing the kitchen table. I tucked Dream's head back into my shirt and went to help Richelle with the more injured of the two.

The wheezing man gave me an incredulous stare before Giselle turned him away. I had a feeling he recognized me, but there was no time for a confrontation while we tried to keep his friend among the breathing.

It was a long bloody morning. At the end of it, it seemed the human might live, but someone had worked him over professionally. Without major magicks, he would never be whole again. Or see. We put him in a room similar to mine on the ground floor.

Giselle had gotten the other man calmed and bandaged and tucked in a corner out of our way. Anna had somehow managed to keep everything that had been cooking from burning. Grandmamma had me pour drinks for us all. She took a mug of my tea, though without the herbs she was mixing into mine. She did something arcane to warm all our drinks.

No one spoke, but the human kept watching me while we ate. I tried to ignore him, but the tension in the room, at least to me, just kept building. When Giselle was sent for the priestess, I grabbed my jerkin and followed. I wanted away from the man and I wasn't inclined to let Giselle out of my sight with such an exciting start to our day. One of the dogs trailed along with us, too, as though it knew something was out of the ordinary.

I let Giselle explain things to the priestess, who, other than giving me a quick appraisal, grabbed her healing supplies and left at a sprint that would do a rogue proud. I'd been expecting to escort her back, but Giselle had other errands in mind.

"We'll make sure people see you with me and pick up your knives," she said firmly and led me to a house hidden in the trees beyond the graveyard.

She deliberately made a good deal of noise as she approached the house and a small green-haired figure stepped into view, inspected us briefly, waved and ducked inside the building.

A gnome.

Of all the Ally races, they disturb me the most, manic little folks like a cross between a dwarf and a goblin, with a sugar rush thrown in. Wicked fighters and let's not even consider the ones who dabble in demon magick. Their rogues are nasty as a pudding bag full of knives.

I went from merely alert to hyper alert.

Giselle had stopped, and I was just fine with not getting any closer. "How many are there?" I asked her.

"Seven or eight," she said. "They keep switching people in and out. Most should be out scouting right now.

I heard something, a faint creak not fitting in with the background sounds. Grabbing Giselle, I swung her behind me.

"Hey!"

And dropped into combat stance with the poker I was still carrying, a dart I'd absently slipped into my hair from last night ready to fly in my other hand.

Giselle's "Don't!" was all that kept me from putting it in the eye of the human who dropped silently out of one of the trees above us.

We stared at each other for several long seconds before he spread his hands and bobbed a graceful half-bow to me. I inclined my head in return, neither of us taking our eyes off the other.

"If you're quite done," said Giselle crossly, tapping her foot in a good imitation of Grandmamma.

The human stepped back and relaxed his guard. "So you're the old man's new recruit," he mused. "Glad to meet you, finally."

New recruit? Interesting. I only remembered signing on to protect Giselle and that for a limited time.

"Stef, we need to get Sky his knives. We've got injured."

"Who?" he asked, all business as he pivoted, walking sideway toward the house with a gracefulness that I, still working stiffness out of my muscles and lax from months of confinement, could only envy.

"Don't know, never seen them before. But one's been tortured."

Stef hissed through his teeth and his eyes narrowed. Then he whistled, shrill and high. The dog with us barked, as did dogs further away, back toward the village. I felt a sense of movement, of re-directed purpose, but saw nothing.

There was no one in the house when we went in. Stef pointed us toward a table with a good two dozen throwing blades and combat knives laid out on it. "Take your pick," he said, tousled Giselle's hair and left.

They had lovely knives, blacksteel and froststeel throwing blades, serviceable fighting daggers, and a few light swords. I made my selections, re-equipping while Giselle watched and asked questions about my choices.

Satisfied with the blades I'd chosen I asked her a question of my own. "Where do they keep the spare armor?"

"Ummmm," she hedged, apparently not certain whether she was allowed to say or not.

I dropped down on one knee – ouch! – and looked her in the eye, trying not to be condescending and thinking I was failing at it anyway. "Giselle, I promised Great-Uncle I would protect you. I'll do that better if I've got something to slow down another person's blades. Besides, Stef thinks I'm the new recruit."

"But you aren't, are you, Sky?" she asked, giving me a measuring stare.

"Might help if I knew what I was being recruited for," I looked around the room, "though I'm beginning to get an idea. Great-Uncle and I are going to have some interesting conversations when he finally returns. Giselle, if you're willing to let me have blades, what difference does it make if I have armor?"

"Easier for you to pass," she whispered, suddenly very interested in her toes.

I understood what she meant. Chainmail is chainmail, but other armors, especially Horde and Ally leather armor, seldom look the same. "Little rogue, do you need to know why I was in Stormwind?"

She looked out at me from under her eyelashes and nodded.

I sat down on the floor, deliberately putting myself at a disadvantage. Having watched her this morning, I had no illusions I should treat her with any less respect than I would a journeyman in my own school. "I was drunk, Giselle, very, very drunk. And I was fishing. I wasn't there to kill anyone or steal anything, other than the fish. Some boys coming to fish saw me and set the guard on me."

She studied my face. "Truth?"

"Truth. May the Hangman take me if I speak a lie to you, Giselle."

She shivered and made the rogue's quick averting gesture of Death's shadow, then launched herself into my arms. "I was afraid you'd leave."

"I promised I'd protect you, and I make that promise to you now, too. I'm not going anywhere for awhile." I kissed her lightly on the forehead. Noble gestures, damn me, but I'd done it again.

She helped me find armor and find the leather punch to adjust the straps. Humans and sin'dorei are generally of a height, but humans are heavier, bulkier, and the armor needed tightened to fit me the way I wanted. Fitted, I secured my blades, explaining to Giselle where I put them and why.

"The masters don't let anyone watch them," she said. "They get annoyed."

"I know, mine did too," I smiled at our shared spying. "I want you to know where I keep my blades. Just in case."

She didn't ask in case of what and we headed back to the house, with minor detours taking me past a number of the shopkeepers. She didn't stop to talk, just waved or gave a short greeting, but she let them see me, and me, them.