Khelendra took a long swig of ale from the flask as she scanned the Grim’s roster update for the week - and nearly choked, eyes going wide and then narrowing suddenly, when she saw a particular name. Sister, she thought - at least, she thought she thought it; it was getting hard to tell - you’re going to ruin everything. The other voices babbled, making suggestions that ranged from the merely profane to the outright sickening, and she took another several swallows of ale to make them recede.
“This is not going to work, Khelendra.” Zarindrel crossed her arms and leaned back against the bar in the suddenly-quiet tavern, managing to pick one of the few spots that wasn’t covered in fresh blood. “It’s mind-bogglingly stupid. They’ll never fall for it.”
“It’s going to work because it’s mind-bogglingly stupid,” the other elf replied, carefully crossing out ‘his’ on the letter before her and replacing it with a hasty-looking ‘her’. “The arrogant fucks will assume I’m such an idiot that I can’t be truly dangerous.” The orcish corpse next to the table continued to twitch, one foot hitting the floor with a rhythmic thump, and Khelendra gave it an irritated look. “Can’t you do something about that?”
Zarindrel looked down at the corpse idly. “What do you want me to do, kill him again? It’s nothing. Like when you pull the head off a chicken.”
“Cut the head off a chicken, Z.”
“Whatever.”
She sat crosslegged in the dust with her eyes closed, shutting out the noise of the brewfest celebration around her and the constant babble of voices within, seeking that center as she’d been taught years ago. It doesn’t mean she’s going to rat us out. You didn’t say where you were going, your name wasn’t on the list of those banished or you’d have been caught already - they didn’t know who all of Umbric’s disciples were. Right. You can cope with this. She opened her eyes, finding herself face-to-face with someone’s racing ram. She offered it a drink.
Razor Hill smelled of dust and pigs, baking in the hot sun; Khelendra walked - staggered - towards the small gathering, humming to herself as she got her first real look at the Grim. More elves than she was expecting, but - fortunately - nobody she recognized. Through the haze of too much rum she eyed Qabian up and down, then hid her wince with an only-half-feigned drunken stagger as the maddened babble of voices surged in her mind.
And one voice, surprisingly lucid, the peace he seeks is not peace.
She tried to take another long swig from her gourd, stopped, shook it in confusion. She turned it upside down and peered in at the bottom with an expression of disappointment. “The brew’s gone,” she said, by way of introducing herself.
A continent away, Khorshah read a letter from an old friend. Khorull’s corpse had been found in Brill, recovered in a tavern with a half-dozen others by scavengers equipped with masks and sealed clothing. But he hadn’t died of blight, if the cracked skull that had come with the letter was any indication. The big Tauren settled back in his chair, musing. Something would clearly have to be done.
