Varris woke me up the next morning before anyone else. “Kyle, wake up,” he said, pushing me roughly.

I stretched and felt the ache in my back from sleeping on the ground. Camping had never been my thing.

I sat up, the coals of the fire from the night before giving off some welcome warmth from the coolness of the morning, a layer of dew covering everything.

“I need to go see a man in the next village before we go to the city. Want to come?”

I rubbed my face. “What about them?”

“They’ll be here when we get back. They won’t even notice we were gone.”

Kinda funny how that worked.

I got up and stretched the soreness from my back. I put on my boots and grabbed my sword and belt and buckled them on.

We mounted our horses and rode down a small dirt road. We rode for a while, Varris humming and singing songs I’d never heard.

After about an hour we came to a small village. Varris pulled his horse to a stop as we looked down in the little cottages.

He said, “Farmar mentioned there was a man here we could do a job for to make a little coin. Gonna need it if we want to stop sleeping on the ground.”

“Yeah, my back’s not a big fan of sleeping on the ground. So, what’s the job?”

Varris shrugged, “Let’s go find out.”

We rode down into the village, the morning’s daily activities beginning to start.

There was a woman dipping water from a well and a man at a blacksmith forge hammering red hot metal into the shape of a sword.

We rode through the center of town and dismounted in front of a large two-story building. We tied our horses up and went inside.

After we entered, I could tell that the building was some kind of inn. There were tables spread around throughout the place, and a man and woman standing at a counter arguing.

“You will not go, Harold. It’s too dangerous!” the woman was saying as Varris and I approached. “I won’t lose you, too.” She started to cry.

Varris cleared his throat and the couple noticed us for the first time. The woman composed herself and the man said, “Oh, good morning, didn’t hear you gents come in.” He looked around nervously as though he hoped we hadn’t overheard what they were saying. “You men want some breakfast?” he asked. “It’ll be ten gold for both of you.”

Varris said, “Breakfast would be wonderful, but we’re short of coin right now. We were actually looking for work if there was any to be had.”

The man scowled as if he didn’t have time to waste on fools with no coins to spend. “No work around here that I know of.” This was clearly all he was going to say about it.

The man turned and walked away, taking out a rag and wiping off tables, and picking things up. The woman smiled at us; her eyes red from crying. She took noticed the fact that Varris was wearing an ax strapped to his back and I was wearing a sword stuffed into my belt. She went over to the man and whispered something to him. The man glanced our way then shook his head. The woman whispered more and then the man looked right at us. He took in our clothes and the fact that we were wearing weapons. He walked back over to us.

“Looking for work you say?” the man said.

Varris said, “Yep, we’re adventurers. We’re looking for monsters to kill but we wash dishes when that’s all the work there is.”

“We do?” I said. Varris shushed me.

The man stuck out his hand and shook with Varris and said, “Name’s Harold. I own this establishment. And I have a job for you men if you’re up to it.”

Varris nodded and sat down at one of the stools at the counter, struggling to climb up onto it. I didn’t think he’d appreciate me offering to help him. “We’re up to it,” Varris said. “What’s the job.”

The woman looked upset and the man, Harold, said, “It’s my son. He joined up with some riff-raff that came through a couple of days ago. They filled his head with stories about a cave not too far from here that was filled with treasure. He’s always been a dreamer. Jeremias is his name. Always thinking about killing frost spiders and trolls and saving princesses. They convinced him all they needed was some gold for some supplies and they would go get a vast fortune left by Torben Clawsword, the great dungeon raider.”

Harold looked red-faced and frantic now as he told his story. “I mean, who would ever believe that Torben Clawsword left anything around these parts. Not to mention the man’s been dead for two hundred years. If he did leave anything in the ground, it would be long gone by now, wouldn’t it!”

Harold’s voice was starting to get higher now. “Well, he snuck off in the middle of the night and took three hundred gold from my secret stash. I was saving that money to renovate this place! They just wanted the gold, and he was gullible enough to give it to them. But I don’t care about that. I just want my son back.”

Varris said, “We can get him back.”

Harold nodded excitedly. “Haven’t heard from him since he left and we don’t know what to do. I was gonna go after him myself, but I’ll be honest, I’m not a fighter. And Margaret, that’s my wife there, don’t want me to die.”

“We can help, Harold,” Varris said.

Harold looked relieved. “I don’t have much but you’re welcome to it. I don’t even care about the gold at this point. I just want my boy back. I was mad at first, but he’s my son and I just want him to come home. Save my son and you can keep the gold he gave them.”

Varris said, “Where is this cave?”

#

Harold told us where the cave was that the bandits had gone to and that he just hoped his son was still alive and they hadn’t killed him outright when they’d gotten the coins.

We galloped down the road and I found it easier to ride the big horse. I didn’t have to focus so much on not falling off, or keeping my legs squeezed tightly to the horse’s sides. I didn’t feel as nervous when my hand wasn’t gripping the saddle horn for all I was worth.

We rode for a while and just when my butt was starting to ache, we stopped.

There was a small path heading off the main road and Harold had said the cave was at the end of it.

We dismounted and led our horses in the woods a little way to get them off the road so no one would see them. We left them untied knowing we could call them, and they would come.

We headed down the trail, walking quietly, me following Varris’s lead when it came to sneaking through woods.

“Do you think they’ll be there?” I asked.

Varris nodded. “Oh, they’ll be there. They probably spent all of poor Harold’s coins on drink and are getting drunker than a monk as we speak. Hopefully, there’s enough to make this worth it.

We snuck down the small trail and eventually came to where it ended. There was a cave tucked into a hill, the mouth black and ragged like it wanted to swallow everything that came close to it.

At the mouth of the cave, there was a small campfire. There were two men there, one sitting on a log, one laying on the ground in an awkward way.

Varris stopped and we crouched down behind a bush. He removed his ax from the sheath on his back and I followed his lead and pulled my sword from its scabbard on my belt.

Varris said, “Be prepared for anything. You never know what’s in these caves.”

We peeked from behind the bust out at the two men. They looked oddly still.

Varris said, “They’re dead.”

That shocked me. I felt a cold shiver run down my back. “How?” I asked.

Varris shrugged. “Let’s go find out. Be careful and watch out.”

“Watch out for what?” I asked.

Varris laughed. “Anything that can kill us.”

We crept down the little hill to the mouth of the cave. The campfire was still smoldering, the coals glowing red under black logs.

Varris checked the man sitting on the log, he didn’t have any visible wounds, but he was certainly dead. He looked like a zombie. Like someone had removed all the meat and blood from under his skin and there was nothing left for his skin to be attached to so it was just hanging there.

“Check him,” Varris said to me, pointing at the dead man lying on the ground.

I didn’t want to do that. But I didn’t want to look like I was scared out of my mind. Which I was.

The dead man on the ground was lying facedown, his arms and legs at weird angles, clearly, the bones were broken. I crept up to him slowly, expecting him to jump up and try to eat me at any second. I got close and didn’t see any blood.

“Uh, yeah, he definitely looks dead,” I said to Varris.

Varris laughed at my nervousness. “Check him. Make sure he’s not alive.”

I really didn’t want to do that. But I didn’t want Varris to think he couldn’t rely on me here. I reached a hand out, slowly, reluctant to touch a dead body for the first time.

I’d seen on t.v. how people touched dead people’s necks to feel for a pulse. I didn’t know where to touch exactly, so I put my fingers on the side of the man’s neck. The skin was cold and clammy and felt like a dead fish.

“RAAAAAA!”

There was a loud explosion of a roar behind me and I jumped three feet out of my skin. I held my sword in front of me, looking all around for something that wanted to eat me.

Varris was doubled over laughing. “Oh, I got you good. You should have seen your face!”

My adrenaline pumped a raging heat through my limbs and I took a few moments to calm down. Then when I did I started laughing too.

“Yeah, that was pretty good,” I said.

Varris was still laughing. “OK… OK…,” he laughed. “I couldn’t help myself. We better get moving.”

I had my hands clenched around the hilt of my sword. “Wait, what killed these guys?” I asked.

Varris shrugged. “Let’s go find out.”

That seemed like a horrible plan.

Varris looked around and there was a stack of the things that obviously had belonged to the dead men. There was a rusty sword and two torches in the pile. Varris picked up the two torches, smooth wood wrapped with sticky linen, and used what was left of the campfire to light them.

We entered the dark maw of the cave, the light from the torches guiding us. The walls were solid rock and dripping with leaking water, green algae making them slick.

We crept down the dank and moist cave, the opening getting small and smaller the further we went. We finally turned a sharp corner and couldn’t see the opening any longer. The light from our torches was all we had now.

We followed the thin entrance what felt like a long way until we could see a large opening ahead of us. The opening was light with torchlight.

Varris said, “Put these out,” as he dunked his torch into a stream of water leaking from the roof of the cave. I got my torch wet and we were now in total darkness, the light from the opening ahead the only thing to guide our way.

We snuck forward, Varris ahead of me until we got to the opening. It was large enough that we crouched together and the opening.

We looked down into a large cave. It was as big as a basketball court. There were torches strewn about sporadically throughout that were lighting the cave up enough to see what was in it.

There were a bunch of dead men.

Six men lay dead throughout. All of them looked like zombies.

My stomach turned upside down inside my body.

There was a stench that smelled fouler than anything I’d ever smelled before.

I thought I was going to be sick.

Varris examined the men from our spot at the opening. “I don’t see anyone young enough to be the innkeeper’s son,” he said.

“How can you tell?” I asked not wanting to look at the dead men.

Varris climbed down into the room and motioned for me to follow. I held my sword out in front of me and listened for any sign of movement around us.

Varris checked each of the men. They were absolutely dead. It’d be hard to be alive with all of your blood and tissue gone. He rummaged through their pockets and I realized he was looking for the coins the innkeeper’s son had stolen. He looked disappointed when he didn’t find them.

“What did this?” I asked Varris as we scouted around in the cave, looking for a way through. We took two of the torches off the walls to replace the ones we’d put out.

He said, “This looks like something a cave spider would do. But to squirrels or rabbits that found their way in here. Not to men. Cave spiders aren’t big enough to do this to men.”

“How big do cave spiders get?” I asked.

Varris shrugged. “As big as a dog usually.”

Great. I was in a cave with spiders that were as big as dogs.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

Varris pointed at an opening on the other side of the cave. “We go through there and hope the innkeeper’s son is still alive. Or that we find the coins.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.”

We went through the opening in the cave wall opposite of where we’d come in at. It was another small, tight space that allowed us to barely pass through one at a time.

I tried not to think about the fact that there was something in here that could a full-grown man. We pushed through, the walls closing in so tightly that I had to turn sideways and crabwalk through, the pass too narrow for my shoulders.

We came to another opening in the cave, this one much small than the previous one. It was the side of a small living room.

It was dark and stunk and our torches cast light onto our new problem. We’d found someone. There just wasn’t a way to tell who.

There were three people wrapped up in large white webs like mummies, their whole bodies wrapped tightly from their toes to the bottom of their faces, everything covered with the white silky string.

Varris and I looked around but the opening seemed sealed other than the crack we’d entered. Nothing was in there with us.

One of the three was a young boy who looked like he was around sixteen years old. The other two looked like grizzled men who’d seen a lot of time out in the sun, their skin leathery and tanned.

“Oh thank the gods,” one of the men said. “Cut us free dwarf.”

Varris ignored them and stood there, assessing the situation, his torch throwing shadows on the wall.

He turned to the boy and said, “Jeremias?”

The boy said, “Yes, sir. How’d you know? Did my mother and father send you?”

The man who had spoken before called to me this time. “You! Cut us free damn it.” I looked at the men and Varris shook his head.

Varris pulled out a small dagger from his belt and went to work cutting the boy free of the webbing. “They did. They’ll be glad you’re alive. I think I know the answer but what put you here? A cave spider?”

Jeremias pulled the remaining web from his body and stepped free from his trap. “Oh no, sir! It wasn’t a cave spider. It was something else!” The boy was shaking and looked like he was almost about to cry. I probably looked the same way. “I just want to go home. I don’t want any more adventures.”

Varris patted him on the back. “Let’s get you out of here and back home. But what happened to your father’s coins?”

The boy pointed a shaking finger at the man who had asked us to cut him down.

Varris rolled his eyes. “Of course.” He turned to the man who was strung up in the webbing. “Where are the coins?” Varris took his dagger and started to cut a hole where the man’s pocket would be. He reached in and felt nothing.

The grizzled bandit said, “You want the coins dwarf? I can get you something better. How about the treasure of Torben Clawsword himself?”

Varris stopped searching the man’s pockets. “You expect me to believe Torben Clawsword’s treasure is here? In this cave? And you know where it is?”

The grizzled bandit said, “Name’s Fast Fingers Ogden. This here is Robbing Randy,” he gestured to the other bandit that was encased in webbing, a wild-eyed man that looked like he belonged in a mental institution for homeless murderers.

Fast Finger’s continued. “We found Clawswords treasure. It’s true. I’ll admit, we took the kids gold, was going to lead him on a grand adventure and leave him in this cave, all alone and with his throat cut. But he figured us out and ran off with the gold. He stumbled right into it. It’s down there. We were just about to load it up when that thing attacked. Clawsword must have put it here to protect his treasure. We ran. It caught up to us in the bigger chamber. You saw what it did to my men.”

“And the coins?” Varris asked Jeremias.

Jeremias said, “I dropped them when I saw the monster.”

Varris looked bitterly disappointed at that. He thought about it for a moment, then asked Fast Fingers, “Why can’t the kid show me the treasure? Why do I need you?” He turned to Jeremias.

Jeremias looked ashamed. “I don’t remember the way. And I don’t want to go back down there.” Jeremias looked scared and alone and I knew how he felt.

“Fine,” Varris said. He flashed his dagger at Fast Fingers. “I let you free, you show us the treasure, we work together to retrieve it, and then we split it.”

“Deal,” Fast Fingers said with a grin that showed black teeth.

Varris pointed the dagger at Fast Fingers. “And I get the innkeeper’s coins. Oh, and if you double-cross us, my friend Kyle here will burn you alive. He’s a powerful mage.”

I didn’t know what to say to that but Fast Fingers didn’t look worried.

Varris cut Fast Fingers down and turned to cut Robbing Randy loose when there was a loud shriek from above us. I looked up and saw the largest spider that anyone had ever seen. Ever.

In my world, there’s a spider called the goliath bird-eating spider. Contrary to its name it rarely eats birds. It does, however, eat pretty much whatever else it wants. But you get the idea. It’s big enough to eat birds if it wanted to so that’s what it’s called.

What was on the ceiling in this cave probably would have been referred to in the real world as the super-duper big ass scary hippopotamus-eating spider. Or maybe the super-duper big ass scary rhinoceros eating spider. Something along those lines, if we’re looking for animals to use a reference point that it could have eaten in one sitting.

Whatever we were going to call it, we wouldn’t be calling it that long before it snacked on us.

The spider screeched again, an ear-splitting, blood-chilling call that made you want to run and never ever stop until your heart gave out on the off chance if you did stop it’d be right behind you to scream like that again.

The spider dropped down from the ceiling and we all jumped back, its heavy, hairy body landing with a thud and almost squashing us. There wasn’t much room in the chamber to move and my back was pressed against the wall.

The spider had two hairy mandibles jutting from its face and they clacked together like some noise from hell.

Varris hadn’t finished cutting Robbing Randy free from the webbing so he was twisting in what was still holding him in, one arm and leg free, one arm and leg still stuck. The spider moved so fast it was almost a blur and with its hairy jaws bite Robbing Randy’s head off. Blood squirted from the spot where his head used to be.

Everyone screamed. We were suddenly running or trying to run, with no place to go. I felt a hand push me and suddenly I was scurrying down another tight corridor, headed anywhere but where there was a giant, man-eating spider.

Someone was in front of me, although I didn’t know who, and someone was behind me, Varris I assumed because he kept head butting me in the small of my back so I’d run faster. I scrambled through the small split in the cave, the rocks ripping at my shoulders with every step, the walls getting tighter and tighter.

Suddenly we emerged into another cavern in the cave, this one larger than the one the men had been tied up in, but not the one we’d come through where the dead men were. I ran into the back of someone and heard them grunt and we went down in a heap of humanity, elbows, and knees slamming into each other.

We managed to get up and to our feet. I reached out and caught a hand and helped its owner up and realized I’d tripped over Jeremias.

“Where are we? Where’s Clawsword’s treasure? How do we get out of here?” Varris demanded.

“Forget the treasure” Fast Fingers said.

“Where to now?” Varris yelled.

“Back the way we came. The entrance is back that way,” Fast Fingers

“The treasure,” Varris said. “I want Clawswords treasure.”

There was that shriek again and I thought my eardrums were going to explode.

“Watch out!” Varris yelled and pushed Jeremias and me out of the way. Suddenly the spider’s huge body fell from the ceiling again. It must have had another way to travel the caves than the passages we used.

There was grunting and I heard Fast Fingers run back the way we had come and towards the exit, we had used to get into the cave. The spider shrieked at losing its prey and jumped to the ceiling, then jumped to the floor between us and the opening. We were cut off, in the dark, and facing a giant spider.

Varris called, “Kyle, your fire spell. Use it.”

I had forgotten all about it. I heard Varris yell and then chopping sounds. The spider shrieked. I pulled my sword, hoping I wouldn’t die in here somehow.

I focused on the motions Leomorn had shown me and thought about nothing but fire. Suddenly a fireball shot from my hand and streaked across the room.

The light from the fireball illuminated the room for a second and I saw Varris chopping at the spider’s legs, then saw one of the legs kick out quickly and stick right into his thigh. Varris yelled and swung his ax and chopped the leg in two at the joint.

The fireball I’d summoned hadn’t hit the spider and had only lit up the room for a second. I needed another one. I focused on the motion and thought of nothing but fire and aimed for where I thought the spider was.

The fireball shot from my hand and slammed into the body of the huge spider. The spider shrieked its awful sound again, the fire singing its body.

“Again,” Varris yelled.

I shot again and this time the spider was facing me, its mandibles clicking. The spider jumped and the fire hit it in the tail end of its body, setting one of its legs on fire. It jumped around to face me, the smell of its burning body causing my stomach to turn.

The spider tensed on its legs, ready to pounce on me. I tried to form another fire spell but the spider rushed in, its jaws closing in on my neck to bite my head off like it had done Robbing Randy. I swung my sword wildly, trying to chop it to pieces. The spider thrust its front legs at me and I tried to block them with my sword. I felt the cold stone wall against my back and then saw a leg shoot for me from the left. I swung my sword down to block it, then felt agony in my right thigh. I looked down and one of the spider’s legs was sticking out of me, my blood running down my leg.

The spider opened its jaws wide…

I heard a scream and it in the dim light saw a two-handed sword blade crush down on the one of the spider’s legs.

Jeremias. But where had the sword come from.

“Fire! Again!,” I heard Varris yell.

I moved my hand and swung it up and thought of nothing but seeing this monster’s body engulfed in flames.

My hand felt like it exploded and a humongous ball of flame sprung forth and hit the spider in its thick body. Suddenly the whole thing was on fire.

And we could see. The flames were engulfing the spiders’ body and lighting up the room.

The spider was confused and disoriented, not knowing whether to put itself out or try to attack us.

We all three moved in, the flaming spider twisting and turning, not knowing which one of us to attack.

I swung my sword and brought it crashing down on one of the spider’s legs, then another. I saw Varris do the same. Then Jeremias, with his two-handed sword, brought it down on the spider’s back, almost cutting it in half. Varris ran it with his ax and cut the beast's head off.

We stood there panting, the disgusting smell of the burning spider filling the room, black smoke rolling off its body, making it hard to see and harder to breathe.

“We need to go!” I yelled.

“Where’d you get the sword?” Varris yelled over the roar of the flames to Jeremias. Jeremias pointed to a chest in the corner of the room.

It was a simple wooden chest, one that I didn’t think a two-handed sword like that would fit in. Varris limped over, his leg bleeding, and threw open the lid. He started to pull out more weapons.

He pulled out a mace, a shield, a pair of boots, a knight’s breastplate, and then finally, a large sack that he struggled to lift.

“Got it,” he said. “Clawsword’s treasure. Let’s go.”

Jeremias grabbed some of the gear Varris had pulled from the chest and we stumbled our way back through the crack in the wall. We passed the room where Robbing Robby laid with no head, then the room where the six men were, their bodies like dried-up raisins. I kept thinking we’d encounter Fast Finger’s but we didn’t.

We made it to the mouth of the cave and I never thought I’d be so glad to see daylight.

We stumbled out into the daylight and I laid down on the ground, the wound in my leg burning with fire.

Varris looked like he was in bad shape, all the color drained from him. He examined his wound, then mine and didn’t say anything. Jeremias looked like he was in shock.

“How bad is it?” I asked.

Varris said, “Pretty bad. I guess Clawsword left that monster there to defend his treasure. It did a pretty good job.”

“But how?” Jeremias asked. “Clawswords been dead for two hundred years.

“Monsters like that can live for a long time,” Varris said. “Might even be more than one down there. Might even be babies.”

I laughed at a thought I had. “That might have been the baby.”

Varris laughed too. “If that was the baby, I’d hate to see the mother.”

I didn’t want to think about a spider even bigger than the one we’d just faced.

“What do we do now?” I asked.

“We need some healing potion or an antidote,” Varris said. “Or we are both going to die.”

That sounded unpleasant. My leg was on fire and I wasn’t sure I could even get up and walk.

“How are we going to get that? Or get out of here?” I asked.

I heard a voice come from behind us and didn’t have to look up to see who it was. Fast Fingers said, “I don’t think you boys will be having to worry about anything much longer.”

It took all I had to raise my head up. Fast Fingers was standing there with a curved blade in his hand.

Jeremias scrambled to his feet from where he was sitting. Fast Fingers told him to get the gold from the dwarf.

I heard Varris say, “Not gonna happen. I should have left you down there.”

Fast Fingers said, “Yep, you should have. But you didn’t. And I’ll be forever grateful. I’m surprised you boys made it out alive. That was one big monster. You should be proud of yourselves. But those wounds look nasty. You fellows don’t look like you’re in fighting shape right about now, so just give me the gold and you boys can take your chances with the poison. Maybe someone will come along that can help. But I doubt it.”

Fast Fingers gestured to Jeremias again to take the gold from Varris. “Get the gold and bring it to me, boy. Do it and I’ll spare you. If not I’ll gut you like I’m going to gut them, then I’ll head back to that inn.”

I laughed out loud. I’d had enough of this shit for one day. We didn’t have time to mess with Fast Fingers anymore. We needed help.

“Something funny, shithead?” Fast Fingers said.

I pushed myself up to a sitting position. My leg felt like someone was holding it over a fire, but I didn’t care. “You’re funny. Funny you ran out on us down there and now you think we’re going to let you kill us. I don’t think so.”

Fast Fingers grinned. He started toward me with his knife.

He stopped in his tracks when I said, “What did my friend tell you I was going to do to you if you messed with us? I can’t remember?” I winked at Fast Fingers.

He looked nervous. “You aren’t a mage. You look like a scared kid.”

“Yep, that’s right. That’s exactly what I am. But you know what?” I held my hand up and made the moves and a fireball shot out and hit Fast Fingers right in the chest. His leather clothes caught on fire and he screamed and ran around slapping at himself. He ran into the woods, his clothes on fire and I tried to yell, “Stop, drop, and roll,” but my voice was weak and I was pretty sure he hadn’t heard me.

The last thing I remembered was watching the world turn sideways when I couldn’t keep myself upright anymore.

#

I woke up in a rough, uncomfortable bed. I stared at the wooden ceiling and assumed this was not death.

I had on a long wool shirt that hung to my knees. I had no idea how that had happened. I looked at my leg and saw that where the spider had stabbed me with its poison foot, there was a bandage. I managed to get on my feet and out of the bed. I found my leather pants and my blue tunic and chainmail draped over a chair in the corner of the room. I put them all on and left the nightshirt.

I found my way out of the room and down a set of stairs. I recognized the inn we had met Harold and his wife at. I came down the stairs to see Harold and Varris drinking at a table in the corner. It was daylight outside, but they each had three empty mugs in front of them. There were three bowls of stew on the table as well.

I stumbled over and sat down. “What happened?”

As he pushed one of the bowls over in front of me Varris said, “Jeremias ran back to town and got some help. It was touch and go, but we made it. I’m told the town doctor took a good portion of our gold for his efforts.” He took a drink to hide the annoyed look on his face.

“How long were we out?” I asked as I greedily ate the stew, my stomach angry that it hadn’t been used in a while.

Harold said, “This is the third day you’ve been here. You needed to rest. The poison almost killed you.”

“We need to get back,” I said. “Continue our journey before Dennis thinks I’m taking too long.” Harold and Varris both looked at me like I was insane. I didn’t blame them.

“He’s right,” Varris said. “Our companions will be wondering about us.” Varris took the sack of gold from his pocket, it looking considerably lighter. He counted out some coins then said, “Harold, this ought to cover our accommodations and your missing coins.” I noticed his disappointment at how light the bag was now.

“Oh thank you, Varris. Thank you so much. You saved my son. That’s the most important thing.” We shook hands, then Harold hugged us both.

We got up and walked outside, it was early afternoon.

“Three days,” I said.

“They won’t even notice,” Varris said.

We mounted our horses and walked them down the road. “How much did we get?”

Varris sighed. “Not enough.”