III
"So he's basically getting back at you for the whole mapmaking thing."
"Far as I can tell," Crispin grumbled, swirling his ale in his tankard as he shook his head in disgust. Sitting across the rough hewn, deeply scarred wooden table, Thierry simply laughed. "I'm glad you find this funny, kid."
"Come on, Crispin," Thierry chided, leaning forward to slap his older companion's arm. Thierry was a good ten years younger than Crispin and not nearly as brawny, and almost always wore a smile on his smooth, handsome face. The older ranger looked up into his one time student's sparkling blue eyes, and simply sighed in disgust. "If she's the one I think she is, all you have to do is scrape the mud off of her and she'd probably be worth the trouble," the younger ranger said with a broad smirk. "I know I wouldn't mind showing her around the forest, if you know what I mean."
"I'd be more than willing to turn her over to you," Crispin stated, setting his mug of ale down on the table. "She's probably never set foot outside her magic tower for her entire life. Look of a high born, she has. You're welcome to that."
"I'd take her if the marquis wasn't sending me north," Thierry said, pushing his sandy hair back from his face. "But, well, my specialty is the orcs and the northern peaks. You took goblins, worgs and the south."
"That was my mistake," Crispin muttered. Thierry laughed again, and drained the last of his mug of ale.
"Oh, by the way, that's probably your ward over at the door right now," Thierry said as he thumped his empty tankard on the table. Crispin looked over his shoulder to the partially open door of the Western Sun tavern, to see the young mage standing just inside the common room with an arm full of furled parchments and a vaguely worried expression on her face as she glanced around the brightly lit tavern. The Western Sun had never been noted for its hospitable clientele; most of the patrons were loggers, city militia, or rangers in from the wilds looking to lose themselves in their pints. Already Talia's expensive dress and cloak, along with the simple fact that she was a woman, had drawn stares from several of the unsavory drinkers towards one corner of the bar.
"She makes an entrance," Crispin said, bracing himself for the inevitable moment when she found him.
"She's getting a good, long look from Emeri and his men," Thierry pointed out, growing serious.
"I don't need another fight with him," Crispin stated, glancing over his shoulder at the man Thierry had mentioned. Well built even under his chain mail and the white surcoat marked with the black fleur de lis and crossed lances of the Tourant Lancers that he wore, the dark haired, barely shaven Emeri was not someone that Crispin would ever be able to trust. Although the Tourant Lancers were supposed to protect the merchants and travelers of the nation from highwaymen and brigands, Emeri and his patrol often saw fit to extort large sums of money from the few traders willing to travel the Timber Road. While it was true that those traders often gouged the loggers in their isolated settlements, Emeri used his extortion racket to his own benefit only. "Besides," Crispin added, surveying the group of Lancers, "there's five of them and only two of us."
"I'll take Emeri and you take the other four," Thierry suggested, leaning slightly forward on the table with a mischievous grin. Crispin rolled his eyes at the comment.
"He knocked two of your teeth out last time," the older ranger said. Crispin looked back over his shoulder again, and waved Talia over before Emeri could try to take advantage of the young woman. "You're lucky that wandering priest took pity on your ruined smile."
"It was a lucky shot," Thierry said with a shrug. The younger ranger looked up then as Talia reached the table. "Ah, milady Talia," Thierry said, standing to greet the newcomer. "Make yourself comfortable."
"Thank you," Talia said, taking a seat next to Crispin and setting the furled parchments on the table. Thierry took his seat again as well, leaning forward on his arms as he casually examined the papers strewn across the surface. Talia glanced over at Thierry for a moment, then turned hesitantly to Crispin.
"So, you going to introduce me?" Thierry inquired, looking to the older ranger.
"You got a tongue," Crispin replied. Talia was taken slightly aback by the curt remark, but the younger ranger simply laughed.
"My name is Thierry," the sandy haired man said, finally reining in his laughter. "You'll have to forgive Crispin. He was born without a sense of tact or civility."
"Pleased to meet you," Talia said, smiling across the table at the farm more sociable of the two men. "Will you be coming with us?"
"Unfortunately, I'll be heading north," the younger ranger answered with a shake of his head. "The orcs'll be coming down out of the mountains soon, and I'll be needed to watch the northwest border towns. But don't worry. I'm sure Crispin here'll warm to you eventually."
"I'm certain," Talia said, glancing dubiously to the older ranger. Crispin simply turned a disgusted expression to Thierry. The mage hesitated a moment longer, then began to organize some of the parchments. "Well, I know you don't have much of an interest in my ideas, Crispin, but maybe you could help me decide on a place to begin our search."
"If I knew what you were looking for, I'd be able to help," Crispin said. "But you don't have any idea what you're looking for."
"Well, let's start with the obvious," Talia said, unfurling one large parchment to reveal a map of Tourant. "The storms are moving southwest to northeast."
"Like I said, that's a lot of ground to cover," Crispin pointed out, motioning for a waitress to bring another mug of ale. "You want something to drink?"
"Do they serve wine here?" Talia inquired. Thierry managed to keep himself from laughing out loud, letting only a faint snicker escape his lips.
"Just a hard port wine," Crispin answered simply, examining the map as the waitress made her way to the table.
"That sounds… all right," Talia decided. Thierry nodded, and looked back to the waitress as she reached the group.
"Two more ales, and a glass of port," the younger ranger requested. The waitress nodded without saying a word, and disappeared back towards the bar.
"Like I said, the southwest is very vague," Crispin said, not taking his eyes from the map as he spoke to Talia. "No one has really been much further south and west than the loggers from the settlement of Falloux, which is right about here. If anyone has seen anything… unusual, these would be the people that would have seen it."
"And how far away is Falloux?" Talia asked, trying to judge the distance on the map. The city of Montcalm lay just to the southwest of the kingdom's center, but the area that Crispin had indicated was near the southwestern border, where the nation's boundaries flirted with the Khairathi Mountains.
"That's about four days' ride, under good conditions," Crispin answered. The waitress returned silently with their drinks, placing them on the table as Thierry graciously paid for the round. "Almost a hundred miles away. With heavy snow and poor visibility, it could take almost twice that long. And that's pushing the horses. And with you being you, it'll probably take closer to a week and a half to two weeks.
"And once we're there?" Talia asked, ignoring the ranger's implication that she would only slow him down.
"Then we can at least stay a night at their inn," Crispin replied. "Their ale is cheap, their food awful, but they at least keep a good fire burning all night."
"So we'd be able to reprovision there," Talia concluded, looking up at the ranger.
"Reprovision, or turn around and come back," Crispin answered, rubbing at the scars along the right side of his face. "Like I said, if anyone has seen anything, it would be the loggers at Falloux."
"What is to their southwest?" Talia inquired, gesturing to the very boundary of the kingdom on the map. Crispin picked up his tankard, and took a long drink.
"Nothing," the older ranger finally replied, setting the mug back on the table. "That's the end of civilization. Beyond Falloux you have forest, some scattered, inbred goblin bands, a couple of human or ogre barbarian clans, and the frost giants of Sarektjakka Peaks. But they aren't exactly the magic using type."
"But they could," Talia deduced. Crispin turned to her for a moment. "Use magic, I mean," the mage clarified.
"They could," Crispin admitted.
"What about that goblin fort?" Thierry inquired, pointing to a more southerly spot on the map. "About thirty miles south of Falloux. What was the name of that place? Really weird name."
"Przasnysz," Crispin answered. "They don't use magic, at least not that I've seen."
"What about that hunchbacked little bastard two years ago?" Thierry asked, a bit of a grin on his face. "The one that hit you point blank with three magic missiles."
"I buried my axe in his forehead," Crispin reminded the younger ranger. "He's probably not casting spells any more."
"Three magic missiles?" Talia repeated. "Three missiles at once?"
"Yeah," Crispin answered. "I was teaching this fool how to track when we stumbled across one of their raiding parties. Thierry finally managed to hit something other than me with a bow."
"What about the goblin wizard?" Talia pressed. "Three magic missiles? He'd have to be a fairly good mage to manage three missiles."
"Some few are," Crispin explained. "But the goblins of Przasnysz don't like magic on the whole. Krysztof's court wizards are good, but most goblins hate magic. They're suspicious of anyone that can cast."
"But it's still a possibility," Talia countered.
"They need the spring at least as much as we do," Crispin said, sidestepping a direct answer. "You can't raise food, or raid other people for food, if there's two feet of snow on the ground."
"But it's still possible," Talia pressed. Crispin stared at the young mange for a moment, a hint of disgust in his features.
"Yes, it's possible," the ranger finally conceded. "They'd be committing suicide, but it's still possible."
"Well, what about the human and orc clans?" Talia asked. "The barbarians."
"They hate magic too," Crispin said.
"He's right on that one," Thierry confirmed. "They've been known to lynch mages."
"But not shamans," Talia observed. Crispin appeared to be ready to protest, but realized that the young mage was correct.
"They have tribal elders," Thierry said. "Some of them worship the old gods, the gods of nature. But they would suffer at least as much as us from a long winter. They can't hunt if all the deer and elk are dying from cold and hunger."
"Well, it has to be someone," Talia pointed out.
"It doesn't have to be," Crispin argued. "You could be looking for an enemy that doesn't exist."
"Well, who do you think it is?" Talia asked, turning to Crispin as she finally picked up her glass of wine.
"I don't think it's anyone," the ranger answered. Talia scowled as she took a gulp of wine, but her irritation with Crispin's uncooperative demeanor vanished as she nearly spit the wine back into her glass.
"This is not wine," Talia gasped, almost choking with revulsion on the port.
"I should have warned you," Thierry said with a smirk. "They don't make very good wine down here. Almost no one drinks it, unless they import something from the north. And in this inn… well, let's just say that your wine has probably been fermenting in the cellar for three or four years."
"I'll keep that in mind," Talia said, pushing the glass away from her. With the wine out of the way, the mage turned back to her partner. "Just work with me for a moment, Crispin. If you thought that someone actually was behind this, who do you think it would be?"
"Someone that doesn't understand that they'll die without food come the spring," Crispin answered.
"So, you want to say the goblins?" Talia concluded.
"Sure," Crispin decided, more to end the conversation than to put forward any useful information. "It's as good a place as any to start.
"Then that's where we'll start," Talia said, ignoring her companion's skepticism. "We can head to Falloux, gather some information there, and then head south to this… Prisniz?"
"Przasnysz," Thierry corrected with a bit of a smile. "Goblin language is weird. Ask Crispin. He speaks it."
"Then I don't have to worry about a spell to translate," Talia said with a bit of a smile for her new partner. Crispin shook his head in irritation as he turned back to the map. "So we go to Falloux, and then move on to Pri… well, whatever that fort's name is. How long will it take from Falloux to the goblins?"
"High side of two days, again under the best conditions," Crispin replied, gesturing to the map. "By the time we reach the goblins, the weather'll break and it'll be spring."
"I hope so," Talia remarked. Crispin let out a sigh of resignation as he picked up his ale. "But just in case I'm not wrong, it won't hurt to check. I'd like to get started as soon as possible. Can you be ready by tomorrow morning?"
"Can you?" Crispin asked, turning to the mage.
"I spent today packing and preparing," Talia answered with a bit of a smile. "The marquis has provided me with my mount, some warm clothing, and rations for the trail. Despite your surly attitude, I also took the liberty of procuring rations for you. The marquis said you had your own horse, and that you were already prepared for such an endeavor."
"Unfortunately, the bastard is right," Crispin grumbled.
"Great," Talia said brightly, standing and rolling up the map. "Then I'll expect you at the keep's stables at sunrise?"
"Sure, whatever," Crispin muttered, waving the mage away. Talia gave Thierry one last, sunny smile, then turned and sauntered out of the tavern. Crispin watched her until she disappeared through the door, then turned back to Thierry.
"So I'll see you at the stables at sunrise?" the younger ranger asked, trying a horrible imitation of Talia's voice as he batted his eyelashes at Crispin.
"Shut up," Crispin grumbled, standing up and heading for the stairs to his room on the second floor.
_________________________________________________
"He wouldn't try to back out, would he?"
"He'll be here," Thierry said, standing just outside of the stables with Talia in the bright, cold morning. The sun had risen almost half an hour earlier, but still Crispin was nowhere to be seen. Despite the appearance of the sun, however, the day was bitterly cold, and the winds continued to come from the west. "You're cutting in on his down time, though. Almost every year, Crispin takes the first week or two of spring to do some heavy drinking at the Western Sun."
"You'd think he would try to find a better establishment to do his drinking," Talia said, drawing her cloak tightly around her as she continued to watch the west gate of the marquis' keep. "I hope he's not hung over."
"No, he's naturally belligerent," Thierry commented, absently checking some of his own equipment for his journey to the north. "But he's not a bad guy. He'll complain about it constantly, but he won't let a single thing happen to you."
"I still sort of wish you could trade places with him," Talia said, turning to the younger ranger. Thierry smiled, taking the statement as a simple compliment.
"Trust me, after a week and a half in the snow, you'll realize that he's the best there is," Thierry said. "He knows the land, and he knows how to live off it. And eventually, I bet he'll start warming up a little bit. He's got a thing for brown eyes. If you get in trouble with him, just bat your eyes."
"That's… good to know," Talia said, uncertain how to take the remark.
"Well, here he comes," Thierry said, making one last adjustment to the long sword belted on his hip. Talia turned back to the west gate just as Crispin strode into the courtyard, shouldering a magnificent long bow and carrying a pack and roll of blankets in his left hand. With his hood thrown back and his hair wild even by Crispin's standards, the surly ranger looked thoroughly angry at the early morning departure. "Morning, Crispin!" Thierry called out cheerfully as the ranger started to the pair. Crispin said nothing in reply, but tossed an odd wooden mask with only a slit to see through at Talia. The mage caught it easily, but turned a curious eye to the ranger as he plodded past her through the frozen mud to the stables. "Did you sleep well?"
"I'd still be sleeping well if it wasn't for this… expedition," Crispin called out over his shoulder as he entered the stables.
"He's not a morning person," Thierry commented as he and Talia started after the ranger. The two caught up to him just as Crispin reached his horse.
"What is this?" Talia asked, holding the mask out to Crispin.
"It's a snow mask," the ranger answered as he threw his saddle onto his horse and began to buckle the bindings. "You won't need it for much of the journey, but I'd advise you to use it if we cross any large fields. Since you don't travel much, it'll be pretty easy for you to get snow blindness."
"Snow blindness?" Talia repeated, a bit nervous.
"Yeah, snow blindness," Crispin repeated. Although she could not be certain, Talia almost thought that some of the surly irritation had disappeared from the older ranger's voice. "Sunshine reflects off of the snow and back into your eyes. For a little while it's okay, but after a few hours your eyes'll be in such bad shape that you can't see. That's snow blindness."
"It's not… permanent, is it?" Talia asked.
"No, it's not permanent," Crispin replied. "I'm glad to see you got some heavy leggings instead of that stupid dress, at any rate."
"Well, I thought the dress would be inappropriate," Talia said, glancing down once more at the heavy, fur lined boots and woolen tunic and leggings that the marquis had provided. To defend against the winds and swirling snow, she had also been given a thick, smoke colored cloak, far warmer and less obtrusive than the royal blue cape that she usually wore. Crispin turned back to her as he finished with his saddle, his eyes dropping quickly to her bare hands.
"You got gloves?" he asked simply.
"I need my hands free to cast," Talia explained.
"Not while you're riding you don't," Crispin countered. "Your hands'll freeze through after twenty minutes on the road, and then you won't be able to cast anyway. I know the marquis gave you gloves, so make sure they're on your hands before we leave. Understood?"
"Understood," Talia confirmed.
"So, go get your gloves," Crispin directed. Talia nodded, and hurried across the stables to her own horse and provisions. Thierry leaned on the timber railing for a moment as Crispin tied his pack and bedroll to the saddle.
"You sound like you're actually going to try to keep her alive," the younger ranger said. "You're not going soft, are you?"
"The last thing I need is to have to carry back a frozen Arcanist," Crispin replied. Thierry nodded, a ghost of a smirk on his face.
"She's got brown eyes," the younger ranger pointed out.
"I'm not blind," Crispin reminded him. "Don't you have any place to go?"
"Not yet," Thierry answered with a smile. "We leave at noon. Neuville wanted to sleep in, so he said to tell you good luck. You know how he is. He makes you seem friendly."
"Tell him the same," Crispin said. "And you too. I don't want to hear that you two embarrassed me by getting yourselves killed by a miserable, inbred band of orcs that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a bow."
"Yeah, your reputation would be ruined," Thierry said with a broad smile. "Don't worry. We'll see you back here in about two months. And you can tell me all about your adventures with Mistress Talia of the Arcanists' Guild."
"It was a mistake to ever train you," Crispin grumbled, leading his horse out of the stable. Talia was already waiting just beyond the stable's ring of mud, her horse's reins in her hand.
"We're ready then?" the mage inquired expectantly.
"Just to be certain, you do know how to ride," Crispin said.
"I've done it a few times," Talia answered, a sarcastic tone to her voice. Crispin took a deep breath, and turned to mount his horse.
"This is going to be a long trip," the ranger stated as he pulled himself into the saddle.