Trouble With Horns

** Tami **

“We’ll see,” the guard captain told the Joret man gruffly. “I’m going to need everyone to stay here while we send a carrier spell to the palace for instructions.”

“What about us?” I asked, smiling innocently at the muscled, bearded man in charge of the guards at our backs.

The man grunted and gave Dawn and I an appraising look. His interest shifted to Kimmy as she slid into place beside me, her eyes darting all over the place.

After another moment, the captain smiled in what I was beginning to realise was about as much emotion as we were going to get out of him. “You have my thanks, as well as that of my men. We’d have lost some of our boys today if not for you two. I will, however, need you both to stay here until I have word from the Duke or the Duchess.”

“Nah that’s fine,” I agreed, turning to my companions to get their silent opinions. Dawn just shrugged, but Kimmy moved closer to the both of us, doing her best not to look at the bodies scattered around us. Ah, yeah. That’s right. Kimmy had issues separating the real world from the game right now.

What followed would rank in the top five most awkward minutes of my life. Like, nobody spoke, we stood over about thirty or so dead bodies, and the smell got worse and worse by the minute. God, if that courier spell didn’t hurry the hell up, I was going to do something drastic.

Thankfully, the little transparent blue bird had an outstanding work ethic, and it fluttered back to its parent mage in no time. Alighting upon his outstretched finger, it turned to look at the guard captain.

The voice of an elderly man, tinged with irritation, spoke forth from the bird. “Yes. Bring the Joret spies. The blessed troublemakers too. His grace is very busy right now.”

The captain grimaced, but turned to us and the Joret folks. “Alright, you heard the old bastard. Time to go meet the Duke.”

“Who is this old bastard?” Dawn asked, giving the captain a look full of suspicion.

“The Duke’s chamberlain,” the man grunted. “He speaks with his Grace’s authority, so I’m afraid your titles won’t be getting you out of this one.”

"Fine, fine," my girlfriend grumbled, looking almost mournfully back towards the unlooted Pagutum bodies.

The walk up to the palace was tense, to say the least, and it got progressively worse the higher we went up the hill. The guard was out in force, squads of them roaming around or loitering on street corners. Even the standing army was out, stationed around key choke points like bridges and such.

It was clear that the Pag presence in the city had been much greater than we'd anticipated. More than the Duke's people had anticipated too, actually.

Human players being stopped and questioned by the guard were everywhere, while non-humans were largely ignored. Now that word was getting out about who was causing trouble, I guess only the human population needed to be watched.

We were almost to the palace when a young faun boy in servant's attire raced up behind us on the road.

"Ladies, ladies!" He cried, staring directly at us. "Trouble at the manor!"

The procession pulled to a stop, blocking the main thoroughfare, and the captain looked at us expectantly.

"What's up?" I asked, giving the boy a calming smile.

Sucking in a few quick breaths, he rattled off his message at a pace that was difficult to follow. "Ladies, that hole you found has been makin' noises and we can smell smoke! You gotta come quick. Madam steward says there might be monsters!"

Shit. How was everything happening at once?

As if to prove just how many fucks the universe could fit into a cluster of fucks, an ornate horseless carriage clattered around a corner and came straight for us. Guards, Joret agents, and random civilians rushed to get out of the way as the driver yelled, "Make way for nobility! Make way for Baron Durham!"

Dawn and Kimmy shifted to give way, but I stood my ground and activated my impact shield spell. A second after it snapped into place, another shield shimmered into being over me like a second skin. Kimmy winked.

Having expected me to leap out of the way, the driver could only cry out wordlessly as the magical contraption rammed exposed-axle-first into me. Steel shrieked and bent, glass shattered, and the driver was thrown off his precarious perch. Someone should really explain seatbelts to the inventor of that magical car thingy.

The driver didn't hit the cobbles, though. I caught him with a casually raised gauntleted hand. Lucky for him, I still had a heart. Sure, it had been a little abused recently, considering that invasive nanites had ransacked it for Y chromosomes. They'd replaced them, of course, but with a little extra. Emphasis on the X in extra.

"Gotta watch where you're driving, pal," I said conversationally, placing him back on the ground.

He did have time to fix up some words to give me before his lightly bruised boss tumbled out of the wrecked machine. All wrapped up in a bundle of anger and curses as he was, he didn't seem to realise what had actually happened.

"You useless filth! You were supposed to be trained in the operation of this machine!" He exclaimed, wiping blood out of his eyes. "I'll have your miserable hide as a doormat by the time I'm—"

That was about the moment he saw me, the guards, the Joret, and my party members all staring at him. It was also about that point that he realised just what his car had struck.

"You!" He hissed, acid on his tongue.

I smiled like the idiot he thought I was. "Hey there! Looks like your carriage hit me! Good thing I'm tougher than your average noble lady, eh?"

"H-how are you untouched?" He demanded, incredulous. "My arcanocart can reach speeds nearing that of a horse's canter! You should be crying out for a healer!"

An idea bounced up and down excitedly inside my brain. Time to twist this little conversation to my benefit.

"Oh, I'm not human like you," I said, doing my best to hide the laughter that was echoing around inside my skull. "Us elementals are made of much stronger stuff."

There it was. Any doubts I'd had over his true thoughts and allegiances were scattered as his face crumpled into a sneer. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite as stupid as he appeared, and the expression was very quickly replaced my his usual haughty one.

"You had better be paying for the repairs to my property, Lady Bativaraosa," he said. "This is a very expensive piece of equipment. I'm sure the estate you inherited has enough gold to foot the bill, yes?"

The last was said with a sly, greedy grin. He thought we were still broke.

Rather than humour his stupid demand, I laughed and bent down, gripping the bent axle of the machine in both fists. Flexing, I twisted it back into position. It would hold up until he could get it properly replaced.

"Can't fix the glass, but I'm sure a rich man such as yourself can get that replaced, right?" I said with false politeness. "We do, of course, have the coin to reimburse you. Much easier to simply remedy the situation here and now, though, wouldn't you say? Arranging payments and such with the banks is so tiresome."

Gritting his teeth, he made to say something fiery, but thought better of it at the last minute. Instead, be said, "That may be, but it is the honourable thing to do. We will discuss this at a later date, however. With the axle restored, I'm sure the contraption will be able to make it to the Duke's castle."

"Absolutely, my lord," I smiled, finally stepping out of the path of his recklessly driven roadkill machine. "I'll have my people call yours."

"What?" He blinked, already halfway into the carriage.

"Just a saying from my homeland."

His driver, shaken as he was, tottered back over to the vehicle after his master and climbed up back into his seat. Only then, when the Baron was safely inside, did I step out of the way.

“Hey, driver!” I called, and he looked down at me with wary curiosity. Miming tying myself down with rope, I continued, “You should invest in some sort of safety harness. Maybe take things slower too.”

“If my master allows it,” he said, as quietly as he could.

I just shrugged. He chose his employer as much as his employer chose him. It was quite literally his funeral if he didn’t start practising safe driving techniques.

“That was a rather ballsy move,” the guard captain said, once they were gone.

Laughing, I shook my head. “Nah. My shield reverses kinetic energy, up to a point. Unless he’d somehow shoved a V12 into that rickety machine, he wasn’t going to be able to hurt me.”

The man gave me another long, discerning look, then grunted and turned back for the road ahead. “Keep walking, people. Show’s over.”

So that’s exactly what we did. The city was mostly flat, but the Duke’s palace, or castle, or whatever you wanted to call it, was sat atop a hill that commanded a great view of the docks and the cliffs along the coast. The exterior was all functional grey stone blocks and deadly looking murder holes, but from what I’d heard, the interior and seaward facing buildings were much more luxurious. I guess I was about to find out? I just hoped I didn’t see it briefly on my way to the dungeons. Had word suddenly gotten out about our heist? As far as I was aware, nobody was alive who could pin the whole affair on us. Unless the Joret had seen something?

"Ma'am?" A small, timid voice asked. "What about the manor?"

QuietValerie