Chapter 18: The Razorback

There was something pleasantly surprising about waking up when one seriously suspected that one would not. Similarly pleasant was the knowledge that despite forging a career in service to the King’s army, Nydra had no intention of constantly imposing the same kind of military discipline on their little band and that morning he was allowed to wake up of his own accord.

“Dang, and here I was already eyeing your portion if you didn’t get up in time,” Hima said when Miro had stepped into the kitchen.

“Focus on your food, you wouldn’t want it to get warm,” Miro answered, his eyes not yet fully open.

“Morning,” Sgobor said as he stood in front of the stove, still in his usual gruff way, but notably less hostile. It was hard to tell anything about his facial expression from within that beard, but Miro considered that it was possible that he was similarly pleased that the four strangers he invited to his house, two of whom were impressively armed, had allowed him to see the light of day.

Miro sat down at an empty chair beside Hima and placed his hands on the table, watching Sgobor busy himself at the stove, until he received a sharp elbow to the ribs.

“Ow, what?”

“Get your own food,” Hima mumbled, leaning over her plate, “This isn’t an inn.”

Miro got up dutifully and plated his food, avoiding eye contact with Sgobor but muttering an apologetic “thank you” before returning to his seat and saying, “Breakfast is weird.”

“What?” Hima clearly anticipated regretting even asking.

“You know, you eat a big meal at dinner. Then you go to bed, essentially doing nothing for eight hours, and then you have to eat again. The hell do you have to eat for, if you didn’t do anything?”

“Ah, to freely wonder the open plains of your mind, Miro.”

“Kids, please, it is far too early for this,” Nydra said, not yet dressed in her suit of armour and rubbing her temples.

“I’m not a kid,” Hima said, her voice dropping to that cold register that had Miro expecting snowflakes to blow from her mouth

“Oh hush,” Nydra answered, somehow sounding both tired and chipper, “Miro’s a kid and you’re hardly two years older. You’re both kids to me.” And as if to prove her point, loaded up her plate with a portion that was more than theirs combined, and began putting it away with silent gusto.

The archer Peteri, who had the uncanny ability of make his presence so subtle that you almost forgot you were in the same room with him, came up to get his breakfast last, whispering his own words of thanks to their host.

“Are you from Vidkeri, by any chance?” Sgobor asked Peteri and picked up his own plate to go eat at the head of the table.

“How do you figure?” Peteri asked back, a look of faintest curiosity coming over his face

With his elbow on the table, Sgobor traced a few small circles in the air with his fork. “You’ve got the same way of talking, real quiet.”

“You got a good ear.”

“I have to in order to hear what any of you lot are saying.” The bearded man chuckled, though Miro didn’t seem to catch any malice in it. “It’s a beautiful country by the way,” he said to no one in particular, glancing over the table.

“Thank you,” Peteri said with a slight nod.

“He’s being modest,” Sgobor turned to Miro as he said this, possibly pegging him as the most likely candidate for not knowing anything about Vedkeri. “That whole land is one enormous river delta. Everything’s so lush there’s shades of green you’d never seen. And the birds. My gods, the birds. Every colour you can imagine, flocks of them blotting out the sky. They’ve got whole cities built entirely on stilts and bridges, the river a part of the city as much as anything else. I left my heart in that country, in more ways than one.” Sgobor’s gaze grew distant for a moment and a melancholy softness touched the corners of his hard eyes, until a noise from outside knocked him back to his usual demeanor.

“Gods blast it, not again,” he growled, jerking himself away from the table and then heading out the door after first grabbing a shovel that was leaning by the entrance of the house. The four guests exchanged a few brief glances and hastily followed their host outside. There they tracked the sounds of the commotion –wet guttural snarling and the shouts of Sgobor himself – to the back of the house. Sgobor was standing with his shovel raised, putting his body between one of his cows and a dog-like creature; slightly smaller than a wolf and with a longer narrow snout, and dark triangle scales, almost like arrowheads, standing on end all over its body.

The creature snapped at Sgobor with admirable ferocity and each time it did, he leveled the shovel in the way of its several rows of small pointed teeth. Sgobor shouted at it with such authoritative fury that Miro had to admit that the creature was far braver than he was. Undeterred, the scaly beast managed to grab the head of the shovel in its jaw, at which point Peteri, who seemed to just always have the bow on him, let an arrow loose at the creature. With a metallic clang, the arrow bounced off the beast. It now noticed the newcomers, dropped the shovel, and bolted in their direction. Miro caught a glimpse of its eyes – two cold grey slits hungering for flesh and not caring much for whose – and then Hima stepped up, raised her right arm with the palm up, and a ball of icy spikes popped out of the ground under the running creature and launched it into the air. The wolf-life menace landed with a heavy thud beyond the other side of the fence and then ran off in the opposite direction, limping slightly.

Before the metallic beast was out of sight, Sgobor walked over to a hole in the ground near the fence and began to shovel dirt into it. “Cracking razorbacks are getting too bold,” he muttered as he worked.

“Are they a common problem around these parts?” Hima asked with an unusual level of curiosity.

Sgobor straightened up and wiped the sweat off his brow before gesturing into the distance. “They have a nest somewhere in those hills. Normally they go hunting on the planes on the other side, but more and more they been coming over to our parts and taking our livestock.” He looked at his pants and leaned down, moving aside a torn flap that revealed a wound from halfway up his calf down to his ankle. “Quick one, that one was.”

“We need to go take care of that nest,” Hima said, turning to face Nydra, who straightened up and graced the ice mage with a sour questioning look.

“We can’t do that,” Nydra said flatly, “Our orders are to keep a low profile.”

“Fine, then Miro and I will go alone.” Until that point, Miro was just staring at Sgobor’s bleeding leg even as the man returned to his shoveling, but now his ears pricked up and he drifted closer to where Hima and Nydra were talking.

“Why do you need Miro to take care of a nest of razorbacks?” Nydra asked, sliding a sword back into its scabbard.

“Because, let’s face it, Miro is useless.”

“Hey, I’m standing right here.”

“Yes, you’ve established that you’re a great stander,” Hima said without turning in his direction. “If I ever need someone to stand around, I’ll be sure to call you first.” She let her words sink in for a moment, and then continued to address Nydra, “You can’t honestly expect him to make any kind of impact right now, but this is the perfect opportunity. Clearing a den of razorbacks? It’s a classic quest scenario to get him some experience. He might even level up. And if it’s a low profile you’re concerned with, we’re going to be out in the wilderness at the edge of town. There’s only one person who will even know we’re heading out there.”

Nydra stared off into the direction of the hills, her hands on her hips, letting out a low rumbling sound from the back of her throat.

“If you really think this is the best way to train him,” Nydra said finally.

“It’s the only real way to train him right now.”

“Alright, go,” Nydra nodded at Hima who returned a slight nod back and then headed for the fence.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” Sgobor looked up as he patted down the dirt in the newly-filled hole.

“Taking care of your razorback problem for you.”

“Then I’m coming.”

“Sgobor, please,” Nydra stepped in. “You should tend to your wound. They’re more than capable of handling it themselves.” Miro did not so much enjoy how Nydra’s questioning eyes rested on him when she said this. But having already gotten used to everything being decided for him without even the opportunity to remind anyone that he may have an opinion on the subject, let alone be able to express it, he followed Hima. As she approached the fence, she fashioned herself an ice staircase that she used to ascend over it and then walk down to the other side, letting the ice dissolve behind her so that Miro got no use out of it. The joke was on her though, since he was an expert coraller of sheep, and therefore hopping fences was probably one of the few physical activities that he was entirely comfortable with. He vaulted over it smoothly, landing firmly on his feet, with the only downside being that Hima couldn’t care less and didn’t bother to turn around and see how he fared.