Author's Note: In case this isn't clear, the events in this chapter take place some years before the beginning of the game…

Ch. 2…Old Enough to Fight

Lorne and I sat in the deep shade under a large oak, taking a break from cutting hay. Lorne made using a scythe look easy but I hated every moment of it and felt fortunate I hadn't cut off my foot or any other essential body part. I ached all over too. I couldn't believe I was such an idiot as to get myself talked into this, although if I wasn't here, I'd be doing worse chores for Daeghun no doubt.

And there were special compensations for working with Lorne.

I had kept my shirt on while we worked, because my skin sunburns easily. Now the shirt hung over a nearby shrub to air out. We'd been up since well before dawn and the buzz of the grasshoppers made me feel more than a little sleepy. Lorne's hair was still pulled back in a club but I had untied mine. I ran my fingers through it to encourage it to dry but the day was so humid that it probably wouldn't.

"I guess my mama told your dad we have been, um, sleeping together," Lorne said. He gave me a little sideways look.

"Oh, yes," I said with a laugh. "I think she expected him to give me some sort of fatherly admonition."

"Well?" When I made no reply, he added, "And did he?" I laughed again.

"Daeghun? Not hardly."

"He didn't say anything?"

"Not about that. He asked me if I had reached my adult size."

"What?" Lorne stared at me.

I grinned back.

"That was my reaction. But he meant had I reached my full stature. He knows so little of humans that he didn't know if I was still growing or not. I told him this was about all I could expect."

"And why did he want to know?"

"Apparently he has some leather set aside to make me a breastplate and bracers. I guess if I'm old enough to have sex, I'm old enough to fight. Oh, and I can't come help with the hay tomorrow. He's got me scraping hides all day." I made a face.

He shook his head a little. Daeghun was the only elf in West Harbor and folks had a lot of curiosity about him. Lorne rolled his shoulders a little, working out the strain. I knelt behind him and began digging my thumbs into his tense muscles. He sighed a little and relaxed against me. I liked touching him and I knew I'd get my turn later. Lorne was good about that.

"So," I said after a few moments. "Why is your mother so disapproving?"

"Of us, you mean?" he asked slowly. I kept up with the massage. "Well…she thinks I'm a little old for you. That's all."

Liar, I thought amiably. Did he think I was deaf? You can't keep any secrets in a small farmhouse. She thinks we spend too much time together and not enough time working. She thinks I'm a bad influence on you. And I hope she's right.

Lorne lay on his belly in the thick carpet of leaves and I straddled him and started working my hands down his back. His family worshipped Chauntea but he had the kind of strong, athletic body that any of the warrior gods would love.

"Daeghun said I could take his furs to High Cliff to trade this fall," I said. "That merchant Galen that comes to West Harbor every year cheats him outrageously and I know I can get a better price. Orlen is taking a load of grain up the coast after the Harvest Festival and he'll give me a ride in his wagon."

"That sounds great," he said enviously. He made a contented sound as my hands made their way down to his waist.

"It will be. I'm not coming back."

Lorne made a restless move and I got off him so we could lie side by side. His eyes questioned me a little anxiously.

"Daeghun doesn't know this, but I'm going on to Neverwinter," I said. The coin from the furs would pay my passage and keep me going quite awhile. It should last long enough for me to meet up with some of Lewy Jons' old Shadow Thief contacts, assuming any of them were still around. Long enough to get myself established.

"But Karlas…" He buried his fingers in my hair. "I don't want you to go."

"Come with me," I said. He wanted to say yes. For a moment, his eyes lit up with the possibilities. Then they darkened.

"I can't," he said. "I can't leave my family now. They need me."

I put my hand on his shoulder and traced a languid line across the strong muscles of his chest.

"The harvest will be in by then," I said. "They don't need you over the winter. By the time spring planting comes around, we'll have made enough coin that you can hire help for Bevil, if he needs it." My hand had worked down to his hip. We were both hot and sweaty but I pulled him in closer anyway.

"He can probably handle it himself though," I added. "You did all these years. It's time for you to do what you want." My hand drifted downwards and got very friendly. "I wish you would come with me."

His hand went to the back of my neck and he kissed me almost frantically. I started loosening the tie to his pants. He groaned a little and let me have my way with him.

"I can't go with you," he said. I scooted down and rubbed my face against his bare hip. I looked up into his eyes.

"Well," I breathed. "That's too bad."

xxxxx

Often the cooler fall weather has come to West Harbor by the time the Harvest Festival rolls around, but not this year. Even early in the morning, the air was warm and humid like a damp blanket. I didn't mind. I'd rather sweat all day than shiver one time. I hoped Neverwinter would live up to its name because I had always hated the cold.

The last several days, I had spent as much time as I could with Lewy Jons, soaking up what information he would give me of the Shadow Thieves in Neverwinter, and any other instruction I could cajole out of him. This cost me some of my jealously hoarded gold but I hoped the payout would be worth it.

Few words passed between me and Daeghun but I'm sure he had more than an inkling of my plans. Not only had he finished my armor, he had made me a new travel pack, and filled it with enough supplies for two or three trips to High Cliff. There were new bowstrings in a waxed pouch and a quiver full of freshly fletched arrows. The only parting gift I had for him was my absence but I was sure it would come as quite a relief. Why he had ever agreed to be responsible for my care was a complete mystery to me, but I had long since given up on getting any kind of explanation from him.

The excited voices of the children running around the village square only emphasized how much I longed to scrape the mud of West Harbor off my boots. I already wished the day was over so I could get on with my life—my real life.

Even Lorne seemed to look forward to the festival.

"Where have you been? Let's go sign up to compete for the Harvest Cup," he said, no more than a moment after I joined him in the square. I had already noticed the twins running around, so the family must have arrived quite early.

"Why?" I asked, grimacing. It was nothing more than the same four dull contests they did every year, with each team getting points for how they placed. The winning team got bragging rights and free mead for the evening. As usual, Georg was presiding over the contest. I didn't particularly want my last few memories of my birthplace dominated by his sour disapproval. Or by getting the crap beat out of me in the Harvest Brawl.

"You don't want to?" he asked and his face actually fell with disappointment. "But this is the last year I can compete." I slid my arm around his waist for a moment. I couldn't believe he wanted to waste my last day here on this nonsense. I had given up on persuading him to come with me and he had given up on persuading me to stay. Now he seemed to be basically pretending that nothing was going to change.

"I thought we might slip away for awhile and find something…else…to do," I said.

He smiled down at me but I could tell he was still disappointed. I almost relented, but no. It was my last day here and I was not going to ruin it.

"I can't. Mama is judging the Tourney of Talent so I have to keep an eye on the twins," he said.

"Oh. Well, if you want to compete for the Cup that bad, why don't you team up with Bevil?" Bevil might be small compared to Lorne, but he was still a big strong West Harbor lad and should be more than capable of knocking some heads in the Brawl.

"Bevil already has a team."

"You're kidding. Who?"

"Amie and…Cormick."

"Oh." A few things became unpleasantly clear.

Cormick and Lorne were the same age, and were both big, strong, good-looking young men. They had been friendly rivals for…well, forever. But something had happened a couple of years ago that had turned that rivalry mean. In the typical way of villages, everyone knew some of what had happened, but no one seemed to know the whole story and neither one of the principals were talking. Most people agreed that some harsh words had been said about Lorne's father and why he had deserted the family.

That may have been true but Lorne did let slip once that the two of them had been lovers for a time. He wouldn't tell me what exactly had happened to make them fall out but I had a guess or two. Lorne, I was discovering, had a very jealous and possessive nature. He also had a hasty temper. Cormick I didn't know so well but he had a reputation for being stubborn and out-spoken. The two of them together seemed a recipe for disaster.

"Why in Tymora's name would Bevil team up with Cormick?" I asked. He always teamed up with Amie, for they were good friends, but he must have known Lorne would be upset about Cormick. Lorne's lips turned down a little.

"He's not happy about us," he said in a low voice. And that made some sense. Retta had voiced her disapproval. Bevil agreed with whatever his mama said. And besides, Bevil had been very shy around me ever since the day he had come into the barn looking for Lorne and found the two of us…together.

"Well…" I said, and he sensed I was weakening.

"We need to sign up now if you want to compete," he said hopefully. "The Tourney of Talent will start shortly." I made a face.

"And what exactly did you have in mind to do for the Tourney?" I asked. He put his arm around my waist and leaned down to nuzzle against my ear.

"I thought you might like to juggle."

"I hope that is a joke." Lorne gave me an extremely sheepish look. It wasn't.

The good news was that I only had to face one day's worth of humiliation before I was gone from this village forever. And the look on Georg's face when the two of us signed up made it almost worthwhile.

"Who is on your team?" Georg asked Lorne, pointedly ignoring me.

"Just the two of us," I answered, leaning against Lorne a little and smirking provocatively.

"Well, you won't have much problem with the Knaves' Challenge," he said sarcastically. Then he gave a little smirk of his own. "But good luck in the Brawl."

It was my turn to frown.

"We'll be fine," Lorne said reassuringly as we left the tent but I wasn't so sure. We walked to the food pavilion and I bought little fruit pies for Lorne and the twins and talked the cook out of three small apples.

Lewy had taught me the rudiments of juggling when I was eight or ten, claiming it was a good exercise for improving my hand-eye coordination. Like many small boys, I was excited by the thought of astounding my friends with this new skill. Like many small boys, I had vastly overestimated how impressed they would be by my fumbling efforts. Nonetheless I had practiced endlessly until I could keep four balls in the air, and even five, if I was lucky. But it had been a long time since juggling had amused me. I slipped into an empty barn to practice for a few minutes while the Starlings ate their pies.

Amie started off the show. Last year she had been disqualified when she cast a daze spell that affected half the audience, including the judge. (That was also the reason Retta Starling was judging the contest this year for everyone else had refused the honor.) This year Amie was being very conservative. She cast a couple of balls of light that bounced over Bevil's and Cormick's heads. It would have been prettier and more impressive at night. Then Bevil flung a bucket of water high into the air and she froze it. I suspect she had intended the water to come down as snow. That would have been nice. Instead of snow, chunks of ice pelted the audience like hail. I thought that was actually pretty funny but I stifled my laugh since she was my friend and she looked so embarrassed. That was the act. Everyone applauded except for those still picking ice out of their hair.

Some fellow from one of the outlying farms had trained his goat to count and do a few other cute little tricks. Unfortunately, the man was so painfully shy that his voice barely reached a whisper, and only those of us on the competitors' bench could hear him. It pretty much ruined his act when no one could tell what exactly the goat was supposed to be doing.

Then it was the Mossfelds' turn. For a big burly guy, Ward Mossfeld had an amazingly high-pitched falsetto and he used it to sing a silly little ditty while his brothers flitted about pretending to be pixies. They did this exact same act every year and they were the only ones in West Harbor who found it funny. Slow learners, the Mossfelds. Most of the adults were too polite to boo but the same could not be said for the children. I smirked at Wyl as they stomped off the stage and the look he gave me promised retribution.

Then it was my turn. There are plenty of things one could say about me, but I've never been accused of being shy. Instead of walking straight onto the stage, I walked around the benches and warmed up with a few disappearing coin tricks, pretending to discover coins in people's ears, under their feet, and the like. Then I moved onto the stage and started juggling the apples, slow at first, and then faster and higher.

I heard a snicker and saw a movement out of the corner of my eye, and that gave me enough warning to shift my juggling pattern to two apples in one hand and one in the other. So when Wyl Mossfeld tossed the egg at me, I was able to catch it. Tymora's grace kept the egg from breaking in my hand. I juggled it with the apples for a moment, to the laughter of everyone but the Mossfelds. The audience laughed even harder when I tossed the egg back and it broke on Wyl's chest, letting out a wonderfully rotten stench.

"Boy," Lewy hollered and he tossed me a pear. After that, several other people tossed me small objects until I finally came to grief when I tried to juggle the cork out of a mead bottle. It was too small and too light and I ended up dropping everything. I laughed and gave the crowd a low bow, and that was how I came to win the Tourney of Talent.

Tarmas called all the competitors together and recited the rhyme for this year's Knaves' Challenge. Every year three carved and painted wooden feathers were hidden around the square, and the teams got points for how many were found and recovered.

In an irritated voice, Tarmas began.

"Blue sky up above.

Red rose stands for love.

Green frog in a log."

I couldn't decide if this year's rhyme was even stupider than last year's. The blue feather would be somewhere high. I had a pretty fair idea where the red feather would be, but no clue to the green. We had all day to puzzle out the location of the feathers, but meantime the archery contest was about to begin.

I felt confident I would do well, for Daeghun had put a bow in my hand as soon as I was strong enough to draw one. Turns out I was a little overconfident. If we had been allowed to use our own bows, I would have been fine but we were handed out the pathetic crossbows used by the militia for training. Even with a few practice shots, I still struggled with the damn thing. Cormick shot for his team. He won first place and I took second.

"You did great," Lorne said, "And we're still ahead on points." I realized then that he cared nothing about winning, only about beating Cormick. For some reason, that irritated me but I said nothing.

We had several hours before the Brawl. While Lorne went to check that the twins hadn't managed to kill themselves, I headed straight for Chauntea's shrine at the edge of the square. Roses are sacred to Chauntea, and sure enough, I found a little locked box tucked under one of the rose bushes. It was a puzzle lock, meant to be opened without tools, but it was quicker to pick it open than to figure it out. I tucked the red feather into the pouch at my hip.

The blue feather would be high above the ground, and the problem was that Tarmas, the wizard, could have levitated somewhere that a normal person would have great difficulty reaching. It would be just like him to put it somewhere impossible to retrieve. Still, the village elders would likely frown on any of the competitors actually getting killed during the contest (except during the Brawl) so I spent my time gazing at rooftops and trees of reasonable height and accessibility.

There was a ladder leaning suspiciously near Orlen's house, so I ruled that out immediately. It did catch the attention of a couple of the other teams and I grinned to see them start to tussle over it. I noticed some shingles out of alignment on Georg Redfell's house. I grabbed Lorne's arm and pulled him to the back of the house, out of sight of the others. I didn't need a ladder when I had a giant handy. He gave me a boost and I scrambled onto the roof. There were three or four loose shingles (tricky wizard) but I searched them all and at last I found the blue feather.

Then we had a spot of bad luck. We saw Amie and Cormick winching up the bucket at the well and the look on her face when she slipped her hand inside the bucket told me she had found the green feather. 'Wet frog in a log.' What a stupid clue. She handed the feather to Cormick and he put it in his tunic pocket.

Well, that was a mistake. Heh, heh.

"Quick, go say something to Bevil," I whispered to Lorne. He frowned at me, confused, but approached the other team. Lorne asked Bevil if he had seen the twins, and I put my arm on his shoulder and gave Cormick a sweet smile. He scowled at me, which made me feel good, but I felt even better when I 'accidentally' bumped him and lifted the green feather.

I interrupted Lorne and dragged him over to Tarmas. I gave him the feathers. I almost laughed out loud at his look of bitter distaste when he had to award us the bonus points for finding all three of them. But it was even funnier when Cormick, staring at us in consternation, put his hand in his pocket and discovered he'd been robbed.

And to think I hadn't wanted to enter this contest.