Chapter 14: The Journey Begins

"Are we there yet?" Casandra asked aloud in a very irritating voice, like a child's really.

"We make camp at the base of that mountain, after that, it will take a few more days to arrive in Ivarstead." Vorald responded, annoyed.

"Oh. Are we there yet now?"

"We're no closer than when you asked literally ten seconds ago." Vorald replied, even more annoyed than before.

"Hm… are we-" She began, but was soon interrupted by Vorald.

"If you're that bored why don't you go find some woodland critter to slaughter?"

Cassandra brightened at the prospect, "Yes! It feels like it's been ages since I last killed something! I wonder if there are bunnies out here." She began muttering, trailing off. They were well away from the city, a few miles from the area where they had first met Runilus. There were plains as far as they could see in most directions, but there was a forest several miles to the south, and their destination, the Throat of the World, looming in the east. They were still about a half day from where they planned to camp.

Gro'bak was walking in front of them, Joneif was out of sight but near enough, and Runilus was walking some distance from Cassandra and Vorald, pretending he didn't hear them. Before Cassandra could run off, Gro'bak signaled a halt, and pointed straight ahead to a group of armed men some distance away. "You see the people over there? They aren't a threat in and of themselves, but we should be on guard as we approach their camp." He warned.

With the warning, they continued on in silence. After an hour or so they arrived at the campsite, where a group of mercenaries was resting and recovering after a battle with a group of bandits, the corpses lying on the ground some distance away. "Be careful travelers, you enter the camp of the Iron Hand mercenaries." One man sitting on a box nearby told them. When he laid eyes on Gro'bak, he did a double take. "Well, as I live and breathe. If I'm not mistaken you are Gro'bak the Steel Hearted, right?"

"I've never liked that nickname, but yes."

"Steel Hearted?" Vorald looked to him with a quizzical expression.

"Ha! You didn't know his reputation before you hired him?" The man laughed, "I assume that this is a typical escort job, yes? Although these people hardly look like they need protection. Anyways, I heard that he once had a choice between saving an entire village filled with children, and chasing down the man who had put them in danger, the man he was hunting down. He chose the contract. That's how he got the nickname, for his willingness to do anything to finish the job."

Gro'bak frowned, "That never happened. I got the nickname when I was hired to kill a noble, convinced the noble to hire me, and then killed him to complete the mission." At Gro'bak's words, Runilus got a surprised look on his face, then slowly began backing away. Cassandra had already gotten bored and wandered off, presumably to cull the local wildlife.

The man waved his hand dismissively, before opening his mouth to speak, "Mere semantics. Listen, we at the Iron Hand could use a guy like you. You've got your head on straight, and we need more experienced warriors. I'm the Captain of this outfit, and we are gathering reputation quite quickly. I believe you can make us much better that we are now. So what do you say? A stable pay check means that you won't have to live between jobs anymore."

Gro'bak frowned, "Sorry, but I work solo."

"Oh come on! Don't be like that! Look, I'm sure with your skill you could easily become a leader, probably even second in command, in no time at all."

It was tempting, he did have to admit. He'd heard of the Iron Hand, and they did have quite the reputation. If anything, they were better than the man before him was making them out to be. Still though, he'd never worked for anyone before, at least not with any loyalty beyond a contract. However… it would be a waste to let something like precedent stand between him and this opportunity. The leader of the group had just said that he could be second-in-command, and he was smart enough to realize the second could be the true leader without being the one to get blamed for mistakes. Maybe he could go with them. He'd lose his contract with his current companions, but that wouldn't matter really. Although, now that he thought about it, he wasn't sure that he wanted to leave. Sure this outfit was downright insane, and that was excluding the literal bastion of insanity in the form of Cassandra, but they had grown on him. Besides, even if they didn't really need his help, could he live with himself if he found out several years later, when dragons were destroying the world, that he could have made a difference? It was tempting to accept the man's offer, but he would have to decline.

"I'm sorry, but I can't join you. My current job is too important for me to just leave." Gro'bak replied honestly. Vorald and Runilus both looked surprised, they had seen the indecision on the mercenary's face, and assumed he would leave. Gro'bak himself was surprised that he had actually displayed loyalty to the group.

The captain, however, was confused, "What? Is this about money? Look, what are they paying you? Whatever it is, I'll double it."

Gro'bak's eyes widened. "You don't even know how much I'm getting paid. How can you afford to make such promises?"

The man simply shrugged, "We have quite a bit of money. And I think you would make quite the investment."

The deal became even more tempting, but then Gro'bak imagined Alduin destroying everything, and he took a deep breath. "That's quite a generous offer, but I really need to refuse." Runilus and Vorald were both to a jaw-dropping state. They had held no hope that he would stay with them with an offer like that.

The man looked disappointed, a bit frustrated, and even slightly angry. "Oh. I see. Well, fine. I think it would be best if you leave now." His look softened a little. "Please reconsider. You wouldn't want to regret this decision."

"I already don't regret it. If we're not welcome here, that's fine; we needed to get moving anyway." Gro'bak spoke in a tone of finality, the conversation over.

It was getting close to dusk when the group arrived at the mountain's base. As the path between their camp and Ivarstead was full of hills and valleys, as well as snaking around the mountain, they estimated taking at least three days to get there.

They set up a small campsite, with three small tents in a row and a campfire a short distance away. Cassandra would not sleep, and if Joneif could manage any sleep he preferred to do it on the forest floor without any camping equipment. As the resident hunters, Cassandra and Joneif had both captured plenty of food, which was then eaten. Unfortunately, Joneif had eaten all of his when he killed it, leaving them with what Cassandra had caught. So they all sat in front of the fire, watching a rotisserie of rabbit carcasses spin over the fire.

They all sat in silence, not really having much to say to each other, until Cassandra started humming a tune from her prone position on the ground. She continued for several minutes in peace, until Joneif snapped. "Would you cut that out?!"

Cassandra stopped, then propped herself up on her elbows so she was facing Joneif, "Make me." She said, and then completed the taunt by sticking her tongue out at him in a childish manner. Joneif started snarling at her, but she then dropped back to her original position and started humming again, completely oblivious

"Just, stop already!" He snapped out, exasperated and annoyed with her.

"Do you have anything better to do?" She asked.

"I wouldn't mind sparring you."

"Fine, whatever." She said, but made no move to stand.

"Usually that involves you preparing in some way to fight."

Cassandra sighed in exasperation, before rising to her feet in a great show of reluctance and then dropping into her fighting stance. She was unarmed and unarmored. "That's it?" Joneif asked sarcastically, also getting into a fighting stance.

"I don't really feel like wasting any time trying to get my armor on. Besides, it would be unfair if I used armor or a weapon."

Joneif snarled again, "So, what then? I'm not a threat to you?"

Cassandra blinked, "What kind of question is that? Of course you're not. On top of being a God, I'm a world-renowned warrior. What makes you think you can fight evenly with me?" The rest of the companions watched the unfolding events with mild concern, but mostly with amusement as they saw that Joneif was trying to pick a fight with the God. Some wondered why, but their questions were answered when they looked up and saw the full moon. It was a well-known fact that werewolves became more aggressive and lost some of their control when the moon was full. It was just that time of the month for Joneif.

Snarling, Joneif transformed into a full werewolf and charged Cassandra. The bystanders felt sorry for Joneif. As he got close to her, she ducked down and punched him in the gut, knocking the wind out of him. Rolling away from the werewolf, she grabbed a fistful of dust and threw it into his eyes. She finished up with a kick to the crotch while he was stunned from the sand in the eyes, causing the wolf to be launched into the air a foot or two and land about a meter away. Joneif reverted to human form on the ground, and then passed out from the pain shooting through his body.

"That was dirty." Gro'bak stated, although he didn't seem to be judgmental.

"Yeah, going right for the balls like that," Vorald shuddered, "I could feel his pain from all the way over here."

"Whatever. He started it. And I would've gone easy if he hadn't completely attacked me. The claws were out, so I was perfectly one hundred percent justified. There's no such thing as a fair fight anyway, I thought you two would have learned that by now." She rolled her eyes and sprawled on the ground once again. "Now, does anyone else want to start something? No? Good." There was a temporary silence for a few moments, "Does anyone have a lemon tarte? I've found the sudden craving for pastries."

"Noo, we didn't bring anything like that with us." Vorald reminded her.

Cassandra frowned, "Hm, pity that. Oh well. At least we have grilled bunny here."

The silence in the group was painfully awkward since Cassandra had knocked out Joneif, but she seemed oblivious to it, and had gone back to humming her tune. In an attempt to break the silence, Gro'bak glanced around the group, "Hey, Runilus, did I ever tell you about the time that I got in trouble with the guard for killing a bandit?"

Cassandra immediately perked up, "Ooooh, sounds like a story! You have to tell it, you just have to!"

Gro'bak just held up a hand, "Alright, alright. I'll tell you. Well, it started out when I was…"

Gro'bak had been passing through High Rock. He had become a mercenary to have adventures, although he knew the life often wasn't that glamorous. Just recently, a woman had approached him in the streets to ask him to kill a bandit group, offering him five hundred gold for the job. She must've heard of him. He had gathered intelligence to find out what kind of opposition he would find, although surprisingly little was known. By the time he was actually finished with the job, he felt slightly insulted at the simplicity of the task. They could hardly even be classified as a threat. Still, he received his payment and moved on.

As he was walking through the city a few days later, he saw a group of guards notice him and begin walking his way. Gro'bak raised an eyebrow as he realized that the guards wanted to speak to him. "Is there a problem, guardsmen?" He asked as politely as he could manage.

"Yes, there's a problem. You're wanted for the murder of Danstar Vannrrane, the son of the local lord."

Gro'bak frowned, brow knitting together in confusion. "What are you talking about? I don't know that name."

"There's no point denying it orc. An eyewitness confirmed that it was you."

"Do you have any idea how flimsy that evidence is? Can I at least speak with this eyewitness?"

The guard snorted, "Don't be ridiculous. It's already obvious that it's you, why bother wasting the time. All you orcs do is murder. Now, you can come quietly, or we can do this the hard way, which is it going to be?"

"How about the way where you at least give me a chance to find out what's going on?"

"So it's going to be the hard way then. Fair enough." The man drew his sword, along with his allies. Gro'bak knew that he didn't have much chance of escape, not unless a miracle happened. Fortunately for him, a large crowd began exiting a nearby theater in unison. He jumped at the chance and ran straight for the crowd, weaving through the patrons. Eventually he managed to shake off the guards enough to find a hiding place away from where they would be looking. He got out of the city as quickly as he could without being spotted.

Gro'bak yawned at this moment. "I'm kind of tired. I think that I'll turn in now."

Cassandra frowned, "No! Don't leave yet! You still haven't told us what happened! Was there an execution? Or did you eviscerate all your enemies? Ooooh! I know! Everyone got together and started singing about peace and forgiveness!" She started guessing randomly.

"None of those. I found out the woman who wanted me to kill the bandits had framed me. She was the lady of the estate and wanted me to get rid of her husband's bastard, who would run with a gang in rebellion against his father. She manipulated me well, even turning me in to the guard when people started asking questions about where he had gone."

"So? Did you ever get revenge?"

"No, revenge against her would have been a waste of time. I just didn't care enough to come after her, especially since there was no way that I would be able to reach her to make the kill anyway."

Gro'bak stood and made his way to his tent, and the others soon followed, leaving Cassandra to wait for the next day.

A/N

Ughh, I really suck at naming shit. "Iron Hand" mercenaries? Could I have gotten any more clichéd? And then there's Gro'bak's epithet, which sounds incredibly lame, but I couldn't really think of anything else. I mean, his character is smart merc with impressive tactical skills, but nothing that references any of those character attributes would have been the kind of name to inspire fear. Plus, I sort of half-assed the explanation of how he got the epithet, because I couldn't really think of anything that would be in line with his character but still notorious enough to actually get him a reputation.

The mercenaries are pretty good, but they're still rookies which is why they are searching for skilled and experienced members. That's why they wanted Gro'bak to join so badly.

If anyone's wondering why Cassandra and Joneif fight, well, aside from me trying to develop Joneif further, it's because this chapter was kind of boring. I also wanted to establish just how good Cassandra was without her bow. If you'll recall, Gro'bak-one of the group's strongest front-line fighters-lost to Joneif in a sparring match, and he wasn't even provoked into calling on the wolf. Of course, Cassandra does have the fact that Joneif is a single opponent working in her favor; she might have a bit more difficulty fighting against a group. And there's the fact that she fights much dirtier than Joneif or Gro'bak would, as not using their force wouldn't even occur to the two, they sort of rely on the strength of their punches.

Did you like the mini-story of Gro'bak's? I can do more like them from more characters' perspectives if you do, but as it stands they aren't really that important. I probably will do at least one every time the characters go somewhere, but if people hate them than I will stop, and if people love them I will do them more frequently.

Anyway, this chapter marks my return from the abyss of procrastination! Yes!