Chapter 3
Cause and Effect
They had been on the road for an hour when the attacks started.
A smokepowder bomb here, a small volume of arrows there. Tav had managed to catch a glimpse of what he had thought was a goblin fading into the tree line after the second volley of arrows but, upon investigating, neither he nor the others had been able to discern where the goblin had come from. None of the attackers had shown their faces yet, which made the frequency all the more disconcerting–the last attack had been two hours ago, and the break had finally allowed the eclectic group to absorb their surroundings.
Their feet kicked up fine dust as they trudged along the dirt road as it slithered through the swaying trees, each one thick with leaves. The sun forced its way through the trees' boughs, shaping a pattern of dappled shadows on the ground. Tav noticed that, ahead of him, Shadowheart had set her gait to a pace that kept her bathed in the dwindling shadows. He looked to the sky to gauge the time of the day and saw the sun nearly at its zenith. He cast his gaze forward again to see the other three–Shadowheart, Lae'zel, and Astarion–had stopped. Shadowheart and Lae'zel were engaged in what seemed to be a heated conversation. Shocker, he thought. Astarion had bent over and, frowning, was trying to brush the fine dust off his well-tailored boots. Tav heard him sigh dramatically as he stood back up, defeated.
"What I do not understand," Lae'zel was saying as Tav approached, "is why such inferior creatures are engaging in hit-and-run warfare when in the past they have settled for less tactical strategies in our previous encounters with them." She sniffed in a superior way. "They have not the intelligence for planning and strategy. On the other hand, my people, the gith…"
As Lae'zel droned on, Shadowheart caught Tav's eye and rolled her eyes dramatically, earning a chuckle he couldn't quite keep in.
Tav covered his mouth melodramatically as Lae'zel turned a withering gaze on him.
"War is not a laughing matter, half-elf," she spat. "I mean to determine the reason these goblins are acting so intelligently."
Tav–decidedly unwithered–opened his mouth to deliver a well-thought out retort, but Shadowheart beat him to it.
"Lae'zel," she began, a condescending tone creeping into her voice, "did it occur to you that the goblins may just be as stupid as you think, but that they are simply not the head of the snake we're hunting?" She leaned back, her weight on one leg, and began to casually inspect her fingernails.
Lae'zel's brow scrunched, "Yes, Shadowheart, the thought that goblins are stupid had crossed my mind." She frowned. "I thought we were hunting goblins, not a snake."
Shadowheart looked up from her fingernails to raise an eyebrow at Lae'zel. "Lae'zel, it's a metaphor."
"Metaphor? I know not what a metaphor is."
"No kidding," Tav heard Astarion mutter.
"You know?" Shadowheart asked. "A figure of speech? Symbolism?"
Lae'zel frowned again. "You may keep your metaphors. Go and hunt your snake. I go to find the goblins' leader, who I suspect is the reason the goblins seem so intelligent." She shouldered her pack, as if to move on.
Shadowheart shrugged, as if to say, "See what I mean?"
Now Tav let out the laugh he had been holding in, and Astarion soon joined in.
"Now," Astarion began, wiping tears out of his eyes, "I wish to rest and have a drink. Join me, fellow adventurers," he added with a mock bow. Without waiting to see if the others were following, he walked off the road and into the woods, landing himself in a small grove of dogwood trees. The dogwood's canopies were less dense than those of the pines, maples, and oaks lining the road, but the party was still able to find shelter from the sun's noon rays in the trees' shadows.
Astarion sat first, reclining against a tree trunk that angled from the ground in a way that almost shaped a high-backed chair or throne. He looked almost regal in his nice pants and waistcoat, tailored black with red and white trim.
Lae'zel got down on her knees directly across from him, about six feet away. Her armor clinked as it shifted, and a ray of sun caught some of the inlaid rubies on her breastplate, seeming to light her on fire for a moment.
Shadowheart sat between them, on Astarion's left, and began to unpack bread and apples from her pack. The faint scent of incense lingered on its insides, spilling out and bathing the grove in an earthy yet distinctly sweet aroma.
As Tav said down across from her, a gust of wind blew through the grove from the direction of the tree-lined road. With the wind came the scent of pine sap, and a recent memory of green eyes, dark hair, and a shy smile… Gods, not again. Tav refocused his attention on the conversation at hand. Astarion was speaking.
"You know, my dears, I'm feeling rather generous right now." He paused and adopted a horrified look. "Oh no. Am I sick?" No one laughed. He coughed. "Would anyone like a sip of my Sangreál?"
Tav's blood temperature dropped to freezing. Fuck, he thought. If he realizes some of it's gone, last night is no longer my and Shadowheart's little secret. He chanced a glance at Shadowheart and saw that her shoulders seemed slightly more tense than before Astarion had begun speaking.
"It's really quite delicious," he continued. He looked to each of the others while he undid his own pick.
"I will taste this drink," Lae'zel declared.
Tav and Shadowheart exchanged a glance.
"I'll try it," Shadowheart offered.
"Me, too," confirmed Tav.
Astarion beamed. "Wonderful! Now, I don't have cups, so let me just find the battle and we can pass it around." He fished the bottle of Sangreál out of his backpack and cradled it like a child. A frown shadowed his features as he looked lovingly at it. He murmured something, too quiet to hear.
"Speak plainly, elf," barked Lae'zel.
Astarion's head shot up and he glared daggers at each of the others in turn. "This bottle," he started, quivering with rage, "was completely full before now. I had hidden it in my tent so no one save me could get to it. Now I look closer, and clearly there is Sangreál missing from this bottle. Who was it?
How the hells can he tell? Tav wondered. Shadowheart must have only taken a few drops. He sighed to himself. I can at least save Shadowheart from the wrath of our vampiric friend, he thought resignedly.
"It was me," both Tav and Shadowheart said simultaneously. Tav winced inwardly and then looked at Shadowheart. Why, Shadowheart? Why'd you have to tell the truth?
Astarion's posture immediately shifted, and he set his back against his tree again, smiling fiendishly. "Well, well, this is interesting, isn't it? The deceitful Sharran and the truth-telling Selûnite, both saying the exact same thing." He leaned forward hungrily, looking back and forth between them, like a snake trying to decide which rat to feed on. "So, who's telling the truth? And, more interestingly, who isn't?"
Tav looked at Lae'zel, who had watched all this unfold patiently and without comment. Her eyes had narrowed, despite her body's otherwise casual posture and then made eye contact, again, with Shadowheart and raised his palms in concession. If she wants to tell the truth, I won't tell her to do otherwise.
"It was me," Shadowheart repeated, more firmly this time. "I wanted to try it, so I stole a couple sips. That's all I had, though."
Astarion frowned as if the truth disappointed him. "Truth is tedium," he declared. "And frankly, dears, I am much more interested in who's lying to me." He flicked his eyes from Shadowheart to Tav, then smirked knowingly. "And why."
