Faye could not help but look at the still-quivering bolt that had slammed into the door of the tavern-come-deathtrap that she and Gavan had walked into.

“Answer or get a bolt between th’ eyes!” came the rough voice that had shouted at them after sending the crossbow bolt their way.

“Can you see him?” Faye whispered.

“No.”

Faye’s senses screamed again. She pulled Gavan up roughly, almost throwing him onto his back as another bolt flew through the air and impacted the door with another splintering sound.

“Hold fire!” Faye yelled.

“I asked who ye were, and ye didn’t answer me.”

“Isn’t this a traveller’s post?” she called out. She had put her shoulder against the thick wooden pillar that framed the small entryway from the rest of the room. She tried peeking out but could see nothing of their assailant.

“Aye,” came the voice, “but I ain’t had travellers fer months. More ‘n likely, yer with them.”

“We are adventurers, from the Guild town of Lóthaven, westward!”

The voice snorted. “I won’t fall fer it twice, what do ye take me fer?”

Faye frowned. Whoever this man was, whatever his past problems, it seemed that this was no simple waypoint on the road. She whispered again to Gavan. “Get ready to heal me.”

“I can’t heal a bolt through the eye!” came his rapid whisper in response.

She would just not get shot in the eye, then.

Peeking out with as little as she could, Faye activated [Mana Sense]. There were no unusual mana indicators in the room — which she realised was probably the common room, because there were enough seats around the place to host the entire cohort of travellers if the building had been full. It was, of course, empty. That did not tell her where the hidden marksman was — who she presumed to be the innkeeper.

“Tell me who’s been bothering you,” she called out, “and maybe we can do something about them for you.”

“Nah,” the voice called, “ye can both fuck right off, now.”

There was no mana visible, but her [Mana Sense] had been the thing to alert her both times the bolt came for them. She wondered how.

Deciding that she wanted to give this innkeeper less chance to move and get a better angle on them, Faye stepped out into the open entryway once more, took a step forward, then dashed to the side as her senses screamed.

She tried to keep watching, but something strange happened and before she knew it, the bolt was already in her leg. She cried out in pain, clutching the entry wound.

“Argh, bloody hell, you’re a good shot.”

“I was aiming fer yer head,” came the retort.

Faye held up a hand and filled it with mana, igniting it in a fiery ball that hovered there, spitting a little.

“So far, I haven’t shot back… because neither of us will enjoy it when this whole place burns down around our ears.”

Silence. The hearth crackled and popped as moisture in the logs was exorcised by the flames. Faye did not flinch, though.

There was a balcony above what looked to be a bar, the thick balustrade ornately designed but there were obvious signs of damage along its length. It was there Faye had assumed the man would be, but there was nothing to be seen.

The bar itself was a short, solid wood design that would have fit into any pub back home. Behind it, a doorway led elsewhere in the house, and there were various glasses stacked on a back bench. A dirty rag was left, haphazardly on the bar.

“Faye?” Gavan called.

She did not answer, but she did flare the mana in her uncontrolled spell. The fiery ball spat more sparks and grew much brighter. She was still looking at the balcony, but something of a strange visual disturbance to her right caused her to throw her hand out in that direction.

“Stop sneaking up on me, for God’s sake!” she growled out.

The visual disturbance stopped and vanished completely. A moment later, a man of middling height appeared from nothing. He was holding a loaded crossbow at the ready, its elegant design small enough to move around easily. He was scowling at Faye and did not lower his aim.

“How’d ye do that, then?”

Before she could reply, she felt a surge of energy as Gavan’s healing spell sunk into her body. She sighed at the minor pain relief, but that was little help against the bolt still stuck in her thigh. She risked a look down and saw that the pool of blood under her was quite large, which is clearly why Gavan had healed her.

“Do what?” she asked.

“Not many round ‘ere notice me when I don’t want to be seen, like.”

He had not moved, and his crossbow was still aimed straight for her. His eyes flickered up to the entryway that Gavan was still huddled inside.

“I have some experience with illusions,” Faye said, gritting her teeth. The mana in her hand fluttered, and she was suddenly uncertain whether she could control it fully. “I’m letting this go, don’t shoot me.”

Pointing her hand at the hearth, she let the mana go. Normally she would have reabsorbed it, but her leg was too distracting. The small ball of flames simply lashed out and joined the greater flames of the hearth.

The innkeeper followed the progression of the ball with his eyes, and the moment he was no longer looking at Faye, a small wall of ice formed between them — though small was relative to the size of the room. The [Ice Wall] effectively walled off half of the room.

Gavan came rushing out from the entryway. He reached Faye in a second, dropped to his knees, and assessed the wound.

“Shit, it’s hit the bone.”

Faye looked down at it. “Are you serious?”

“This will hurt.”

Oh, it hurt.

When Faye’s senses returned, she blinked at the ceiling. She looked down and saw that the bolt was gone, and feeling through the hole in her trousers, she felt the fresh flesh that Gavan’s spell at knit. It was tender, but not painful.

“God, I love magic,” she breathed.

She looked around, but Gavan was nowhere to be seen. The [Ice Wall] was still there, blocking off the part of the room the innkeeper had been standing in. There were no sources of light on the other side of the wall, which made it impossible to see what was happening through its translucent light-bending surface.

She pushed herself to her feet.

It seemed that they were at an impasse, but there was nothing she could do that would not make things worse with their defensive host. She decided the best course of action was to do nothing.

Well, maybe not nothing.

She wandered over to the bar. There was a small section cut out near the back wall, so she walked behind it, glancing over her shoulder at the ice as she did. It was still there.

Rummaging through the bottles underneath the bar, she found something that looked ordinary and pulled the cork out to sniff. She recoiled.

“Ugh, worse than paint thinner.”

The innkeeper had started thumping on the ice. The sounds of his strikes were faintly coming through. Though, now that she thought of it, perhaps he had been attacking it the entire time. She shrugged. He would get through or tire himself out.

The next bottle smelled much sweeter. She found a glass that was as inoffensively dirty as possible, because it seemed that truly clean glasses were a rarity in this part of the world and poured a small measure of the liquid out.

Taking the smallest of sips possible, Faye tasted the liquor. It was probably made of a local fruit, she reasoned, but not something she knew the name of. She took a bigger gulp.

Gavan reappeared, a few minutes later, taking the stairs at a quick pace. He looked alarmed at first, but he looked over and saw her behind the bar. She waved.

“Oh, good, you’re up.”

“Where’d you disappear to?” she asked.

“Wanted to see if there was anything to find. He’s right, the place is deserted, and the rooms look unused for weeks.”

Faye pulled out another glass and poured a second cup for Gavan and refilled her own. “Try this, it’s good.” It had settled in her belly with a pleasant warmth.

Gavan picked the offered glass with a shrug and smelled the tipple before necking it.

“Oh, wow,” Faye said, “did you even stop to taste it?”

He smacked his lips. “Normally something you want to avoid with places like this,” he said, “but truthfully that wasn’t bad.”

She held up the bottle and offered him another, which he took with a smile. He leant against the bar with one elbow and slowly nursed his second drink.

“How long do you think he’ll take to get through that?” she asked.

Gavan looked over and paused.

“Probably all night,” he replied, looking over his shoulder at her and grinning, “considering that I keep sending mana into it to thicken the wall.”

Faye paused and looked at the ice, stretched across the room. She shook her head. “That’s evil.”

“I assume he’ll be too tired to do anything by the time we let him out.”

Faye snorted. “Just make sure there’s something between you and him when he does get out, or he’ll impale you with a bolt this time.”

“That was stupid, you know,” he said, suddenly. “As much as I have experience healing the team, there are quite moderate limits to my spells. I am not a real healer.”

Faye nodded. “I know, but he must have been using a skill, or perhaps it was his concealment. Something was alerting me to his shots. I was able to get out of the way… mostly.”

“Sometime, ‘mostly’ will kill you, Faye.”

They lapsed into silence. They heard the man’s shouts and flailing hits against the wall of ice every so often, but it was at least an hour later that Gavan let the wall reduce enough that they could hear everything the innkeeper said.

“Blasted bloody mages and their bloody magic! Let me out! In me own bloody house!”

“Good innkeep,” Gavan called, to the sudden silence of their host, “I am willing to let you out.”

“Oh, are ye now?” the man called, sarcastically. “Well, how nice of ye.”

“Provided you realise that we had all the opportunity we needed to do you harm and chose not to.”

“Aye, I suppose,” the man called back.

Gavan looked at Faye and she gave him a grimace in return. The innkeeper had been unpredictable so far, but it was not as if they could keep him imprisoned. She nodded and pulled out another glass, pouring the liquor inside, ready for a third set of lips.

As the [Ice Wall] faded into its constituent motes of mana, the form of the innkeeper was once again revealed. He was holding the crossbow in the crook of his left arm; the bolt was still loaded but at least it was not pointed their way.

“Oh, helping yerself to me drink, are ye?” he said upon seeing them.

“It really is good,” Gavan said. “I commend your taste.”

The innkeeper stalked toward them. His eyes bulged when he saw the bottle that Faye had been pouring from.

“By Edwin’s left nut, are ye drinking me good brandy?”

Faye looked down into the glass, swirling it around with a flick of the wrist. “Not sure I’d call this good brandy.”

The innkeeper stormed over and snatched the bottle from the bar. He glared at them both, crossbow all but forgotten.

“By the gods, yer worse than them!”

Gavan raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

The innkeeper muttered something and grabbed the third glass Faye had filled, downing it in one before pouring himself another. Both Faye and Gavan held out their glasses for more and the man’s eyes narrowed.

“And how, exactly, were ye goin’ to pay fer these drinks?”

Faye grinned at the man.

“Let’s talk about that.”

The innkeeper was called Knossai, he told them, and he had set up his tavern a year or so ago. “Aye, wanted an easier life than what I’d had so far.” He snorted. “Fat lot of good wanting one does, lemme tell ye.”

“So, who has been causing trouble for you?” Faye asked. She was pleasantly buzzed from the drink. Her insides were warm, and she felt more relaxed than she had for a long while.

Knossai sighed. “Not sure what they call themselves,” he said. “But they came through a few weeks back. At first, it were a good thing. They were customers and I wanted people filling rooms. But, after a day it were clear they weren’t the type of customer that helped.”

Knossai shook his head and stared into his near-empty glass as if looking at something else.

“What did they do?” Gavan prompted.

“They decided I were some fool that would be content to let them get away without paying. First, though, they decided to raid me kitchen for a damned hearty breakfast. About cleaned me out. Stuffed what they could in their fat gobs, and the rest into their packs. When I told ‘em what I thought of their behaviour…”

The man put the rest of his drink in his mouth and savoured it for a moment before finishing.

“Well, I used to have five fine animals. Now, I got nothing.”

Faye shook her head. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “I’m guessing that was not the end of it.”

Knossai looked her dead in the eye and grimaced. “Aye, and ye’d have the right of it. They came back, a few days later. Said they were in need of food and water. Though, I could say with certainty that none of them drank water the entire time they were here.”

“How many of them, what level are they?” Gavan asked.

“Half a dozen,” Knossai said, “upper crested, all. One might be pushing adept.”

“You seem like you know what you’re doing,” Faye said, pointing at the crossbow, “what were the chances they were able to do what they wanted in here?”

The innkeeper blinked. “I’m just one man. You saw what happened with just the two of ye, and you reckon I could have taken six?”

Faye shook her head. “Not what I meant. They’re trained for combat?”

The innkeeper shook his head. “Ah, nah, not that I saw. Brute force, that lot. Honestly, thought they had wisened up and hired a mage to do their dirty work when I saw you light that fire up.”

Faye grimaced. “You said they pretended to be from the Guild?”

Knossai’s face darkened as she reminded him. “Aye, that was why I let them in and eat and drink for so long before asking for payment. Used my goodwill to lend ‘em the credit.” He sighed and made a disgusted noise at the back of his throat. “Stupid.”

“Well,” Faye said, “that sounds like something we should not really encourage, doesn’t it?”

Gavan looked at her with a strange expression. “There are six of them, Faye. One may even be level twenty.”

She pointed at Knossai, who was silently watching them talk back and forth. “He said that one might be an adept. Plus, they’re all ‘brute force’. We’d have the advantage there.”

“We would only have the advantage if we were doing two things. One, trying to kill them, and two, fighting on ground we chose.”

Faye conceded that point. Her spells and skills were not geared toward subduing an enemy so much as scorching them from the face of the planet.

“So, we just have to go find where they go when they leave Knossai’s inn alone,” she said. “That way, we fight when we want to—”

And just then, the front door slammed open. The sound of steady rain was punctuated by many heavy boots as five men trooped inside the room.

Knossai cursed under his breath and Faye did not have to ask who these newcomers were to realise that they did not even have to move to figure out where their bandits had gotten to.

“Oh, what’s this? Knossy has some customers!” called the man at the front, loud and boisterous, his grin five shades too sinister to be called anything but fake. His mates fanned out behind him, each one standing somewhere in the vicinity of six-foot-odd and made more of muscle than anything.

Faye sighed; this would be interesting.