SFC Book III – Chapter Thirty-Eight – Newsworthy
The inn sent their room more food for breakfast, including an entire carafe of charbrew, which Gray sipped happily. It was rich, bitter, and shockingly good, probably the best he’d ever had. Certainly, it was better than the brown water that the canteen served at First Field.
With breakfast came hardboiled eggs, roasted potatoes, and even some very flaky pastries filled with a creamy hazelnut mixture, which was a bit nuttier than normal chocolate, but still so very delicious. The meal was delivered on an elegant wood and brass cart with linen napkins and lace. With it came lust rock for the central fireplace, to keep the room toasty and warm even as the snow piled up outside.
Pinch was at a little table by the window, sipping her charbrew, when the knock came.
At first, Gray thought it was someone else bringing more food, but when he opened it, there was Rynn, her coat covered in snow, and her nose red from the chill.
She peeked in, saw Pinch, and let out a relieved a sigh. “Oh, good. Can I come in?”
Gray took her and hugged her. He held her for a long time and then kissed her. He then had to laugh. “Most wives wouldn’t be happy that their husband spent the night with a troubled fae girl in such opulence.”
“Troubled?” Pinch hissed. “I’m not troubled. Idiot.”
Rynn came in. “Of course I’m glad you spent the night in such opulence. And I never said Pamalee was troubled. But, well, I’m not not saying it. We love you, Pamalee.”
“The way you said that, you might as well call me Pinch.” The fae girl laughed, which made her wince and grab her head. She had dark circles under her eyes, and she was hungover, but it wasn’t as bad as Gray would’ve thought. “But you must love me, since you formed a search party. Did the entire squad scour the city for me?”
Rynn nodded. “Even Lilian joined us. We searched until the wind got dangerous. Then we went back to Ruin Manor. We were still so very worried for a while, until I felt you relax, Gray. I knew you had found Pamalee, knew you were safe, but she lost money, didn’t she?”
“Only a hundred thousand shekels.” Pinch laughed sharply, but from looking at her core, she was having a harder time with the loss in the light of day.
Rynn’s mouth dropped open.
Gray knew it was going to be a bit of a conversation. Gray took her coat, got her settled, and they all piled their plates high with all sorts of treats.
Pinch still seemed troubled. “Rynn, I’m an idiot. You know how much of an idiot I am.”
“No,” she said. “You’re not. You’re just…you’re just Pamalee Thornpinch. Maybe complicated is the right word? You’ve been through a lot.”
“And I put you through a lot.”
Rynn paused. “And you saved our lives, at least twice, if not more. You’re a part of Squad 23. It’s okay.”
Pinch searched the elf girl’s face. “But it’s not. I just vanished. I shouldn’t have done that. I just…I just couldn’t handle it. First Field. The cruelty. The danger.”
Rynn snorted. “And that was just the egg cookoff. You weren’t around for the duel to the death.”
Pinch lost some of her color “What happened?”
Gray told her about Grist, his bloodless blade turning red, and Lilian eventually killing him in self-defense. All the while Crewel floated above them, not intervening.
“It’s gotten worse,” Pinch whispered. “It’s only going to get worse. Especially when we go down into the Underdwell for the Reckoning. This isn’t going to end well.”
Gray saw her fear, her understood it, but for him, the situation was nothing new. “I grew up in a gladiatorial arena. Well, I grew up in a Children of Order temple, which is the opposite of the chaos house I experienced last night. I came of age in the arena as a slave. Some matches were to the death. Some matches only resulted in maiming. It was bloodsport, pure and simple. And while First Field pretends to be more, it’s not. All is the Testing. I suppose we should ask ourselves, are we going to pass the test?”
“What if we die?” Pinch asked.
Gray laughed. “What if? We’re going to die. Do we want to die afraid? Or do we want to show the assholes who hate us that we’re better, braver, and stronger than they are?”
The fae girl stared a bit too long at Gray before turning to Rynn. “Do you agree with him?”
“It was harder with five. We have seven now, and not just your normal seven recruits, but the best of the best. I think we can do this. He probably didn’t tell you that the Raiders and the Flyers tried to kill him, Ames, and Lilian.”
The fae girl nodded. “I’m not surprised. That’s three squads that we have to worry about, if you include the Winners, and we should. The money is still there for them to get you to drop out. There’s going to be more blood spilled. There has to be.”
“As long as we’re the ones to spill it,” Gray said. “We have one more event. Then we pass the Testing.”
“But we have the Training and the Hunt, remember?” Rynn sighed. “But for that, we’ll be working with active kill squads. It will be different.”
Gray shook his head. “It probably won’t be. The venue will change but probably not the money. Let’s just focus on getting through the Testing. It could be that problem will be fixed for us, and we can skip all the rest of this seacow shit. Pamalee and I have become best friends with Hama Hama Avarica. She’s the one who took all of our fae girl’s money last night.”
Rynn’s mouth dropped open. “You’re joking.”
Gray shook his head. “I’m not. Not even a little.”
Rynn leapt up, which bumped the table, but she was fast enough tograb it and steady it so nothing spilled. A second later, she had pulled Gray from his chair, and they danced around the room. “Hama Hama?”
“Hama Hama. Or Miss Hama. But your highness. She didn’t like it when I called her that.” Gray caught Rynn and twirled her across the floor. “If we win, she is very interested in taking us on. She had all these magic rings on her fingers, and she had a kill squad with her, maybe two, or they might’ve been her guards. I don’t know. But they had magic items as well. So many enchantments. And we’ve been killing demons with simple swords, hardly magical at all. Being a kill squad doesn’t seem all that hard to me.”
Rynn continued to dance, snapping her fingers. “Hama Hama. The Avarica family. They want us.”
Gray nodded. “They want us. But we have to win.”
Pinch watched him and his bonded dance with a little bittersweet smile on her face. Her eyes showed she was happy for them—for Rynn in particular, but there was still a bit of sadness there.
“My father is going to be so happy. I should write him a letter.”
Gray went to protest.
Rynn held up a hand. “Just to say that you talked with her.”
Gray nodded at Pinch. “Our real contact is the disgraced fae duchess over there. Or at least that’s what Hama called her. They had a great time gambling with each other.”
Rynn sat back down. “See? You’re not a fucking idiot. You’re a genius!”
Pinch rolled her eyes. “I got drunk and gambled and basically risked my life going to the chaos house alone. Miss Hama took pity on me. Her real interest was Squad 23, and I arrived late to the party. No, it was the thing you two built. And I watched it. You were a squad of two, and how Tillwick Duskdrop and I laughed about that. We thought you both were as idiotic as the supposed disguise that Settie wore. But you showed up, day after day, training with Mama Cinders, fighting in the pavilions, studying in the pink palace archive. Day after day after day. And I’ll never forget.”
The fae girl’s smile went from bittersweet to just sweet. “When we fought, you and your idiot stick, and I won, and you paid me. I asked how you could fight me when you knew you couldn’t win. You said, and I quote, ‘I don’t want to win. For three shekels, I get to punch you in the face. Really, I would’ve paid double.’” Pinch then laughed and didn’t stop.
Gray and Rynn looked at each other in wonder, and they started laughing as well.
Gray felt the joy in his heart right then. The food, the room, his bonded, and the troubled fairy woman who had come such a long way, but still had a long way to go to be freed from her sadness.
They talked more, enjoyed the room, and then they were asked to leave around noon—or pay the ten thousand shekels to extend their stay.
A pretty half-orc woman, maybe the owner, stopped them at the door before they braved the cold to make their way home. “We know who you are.”
Gray felt his heart stop for a moment. “Is that a good thing?” he asked with a laugh.
“You’re part of Squad 23. We all…well, everyone in Pity City loves you. We’re so glad that that the Nully joined you. What is here name? Oh, yes, I remember. Princess Lilian Everheart. Is she a princess?”
“She is the Sea King’s daughter,” Gray said. “How do you know about us?”
“Everyone follows the games at First Field.”
Gray had to think about that. Games. It was such a simple word for something far more complex and deadly. It didn’t feel like a game when the flying snakes were trying to rip the flesh from his bones…all the while he fought them off with several shattered bones.
“But how did you find out Lilian was a princess?” he asked.
The half-orc woman seemed taken aback. “We talk about all the recruits. No one thought Grist Gulnash would make it. He was on the town guard for a while, but he was removed for being too brutal. And his ego, so very fragile. But to threaten to kill the princess? It was too much.”
Gray couldn’t help but ask, “Should’ve Crewel stopped the fight?”
The half-orc laughed. “Anywhere else in the Belly, they would’ve. But it’s First Field. It’s brutal for a reason. We’re orcs. We are warriors. Weakness is worth than death. Crewel would’ve been seen as weak if he stopped the fight. Then? I would bet the duke would find someone else to run First Field. Besides, there were only a few minutes left. We all thought that both Lilian and Grist would run out of time and not be allowed onto the squads.”
“So you were there?” Gray asked.
She nodded. “Yes. At every possible event. I’m a little upset the Reckoning will be at the Underdwell, but they will have updates. And every day, there will be announcement sent out in the broadsheets.”
The half-orc aw his confusion. “Wait right there.”
He turned to Rynn and Pinch, who were all bundled up and starting to sweat.
The fae girl saw it right away. “You don’t know what a broadsheet is.”
He shrugged.
The half-orc woman came back with a large piece of paper, folded several times. Unfolding it, there were columns about First Field, the end of Redemption Midnight, and Lilian turning as Grist fell onto her sword, killing himself in the process.
“Who gives out the information on the recruits?” Gray asked.
“The sponsors. Your sponsor just might be making a comeback. It’s true, we all hate her, but then, it’s fun to hate people you don’t know, right? For years now, we hated her and her squad because it was simply fun. But now, you have Squad 23, and her redemption story. Who knows? If you win it all, we just might throw Captain Sette Sevanya a fucking parade. Stranger things have happened. You know they have.”
Gray asked to keep the broadsheet, which was called Rabbia’s Postings, and the half-orc agreed, and it wasn’t long before he was with Rynn and Pinch, trudging through the snow, with a great deal on his mind.