Category Archives: Character Vignettes

Treasure Hunt

Bel, Age 15

Bel and Eduari carefully made their way through the thickets, guided by the light of Somal. In true Sergiu fashion, it was a quarter moon, just barely enough to see by in the open. Under the trees, they had to step carefully, working their way between patches of dim moonlight.

“I still can’t believe they paired you with me,” Ed complained as they stepped around a tangle of vines. “I mean, what were they thinking, anyway?”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Bel snapped, somewhat indignantly. “Am I not good enough for you, your majesty?”

“Oh, sure you are,” Ed said, sarcastically. “If we come across some wild animal you can fucking talk it to death.”

This was an ironic statement considering that Ed had spent most of the night complaining about, well, everything. Though mostly about Bel.

“Whatever, Ed. Get back to me when you’ve spent the night in the Cairn.”

He scoffed at this. “I don’t need to prove anything to anyone, much less you.”

“Sure, Ed. Nothing to prove.”

This time he stopped and threw her question back at her. “And what’s that supposed to mean, your majesty?”

Bel came to a halt a few inches from his face and rolled her eyes. “It means you’ve been complaining non-stop since we got out here, that’s what. You’re making a whole show of it. ‘It’s too cold’, ‘this scavenger hunt is dumb’, and ‘of course he used black cloth’. Stars, Ed, I didn’t ask for a performance, and I really don’t want one.”

There were four teams out. Sergiu had hidden three bags for each. They all got a map to their first, and then each bag had two small prizes and a clue to find the next. So twelve bags total, each in a unique space, with two unique items, and with unique directions. They had three hours to get them, and the first one to finish got an award on top of that. Bel had no idea where Sergiu got this kind of time. It must be nice to be rich, she thought.

“Well, it is dumb!” he exclaimed, tossing his hands up in the air. “We’re stomping around out here like a bunch of fucking kids looking for treasure!”

“We are kids, Ed.”

He scoffed again. “You are, maybe. I’m a year older.”

“Oh, wow. A whole year! I’m so sorry, Elder, I didn’t mean to disrespect your honored position in the tribe.”

“Fuck you, Bel. Let’s just find this thing and get back. Maybe we’ll actually be first, in spite of you.”

As he turned around to continue the search, a thought occurred to Bel and she burst out laughing. That stopped him again, and he whirled around to face her.

“What’s so fucking funny?”

“We sound just like them.”

Ed blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“We sound just like Alina and Sergiu.”

To her surprise, his expression actually softened, and he smiled. “I guess we do, don’t we? Only, I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you, either.”

“Sometimes I think they send us out like this so they have an excuse to make out. Like, with us knowing it’s happening.”

“I bet it makes it more exciting, that someone might get back early and interrupt.”

“Do you think they’re…you know…?”

Bel rolled her eyes again. “Stars, Ed. Now who’s the child? You can just say ‘fucking’. You say it all the time, anyway. And, also? I don’t need that image, thank you very much.”

Ed laughed in response. “Child, indeed. Come on, Miss Moppet. Let’s find the last bag and go.”

He turned and stalked off into the dark, Bel silently fuming behind him.

Just Making a Living

Erastus 20, 4720

“There has got to be a better way to make a living,” Cress glumly thought. He looked behind at the pair he was leading back to Kaer Maga. Their hands were tied, feet hobbled, and they were strung on a line by which Cress kept them moving forward. And they looked utterly dejected.

But their condition was better than when he had found them: hiding beneath the seat of an outhouse in some gods forsaken grubby little town and starving. It only took a few copper coins to encourage one of the locals to tell him where his quarry was hiding. After they climbed out Cress had tied them, but insisted they wash off in the nearby river. They made a pathetic sight, the pair of them. Barely able to stand, much less walk. Cress still winced at the thought of how they eagerly wolfed down the meager scraps he had tossed them.

It was Cress’ first solo recovery. There had been an attack on slave merchants in Kaer Maga some months back that had set free a large number of slaves. Obviously (to the city officials’ point of view) this could not stand. But while the city had hired a team of specialists to go after the perpetrators it was up to each slave owner to hire out whom they could to recover their merchandise. The merchant whom hired him simply handed him a list of names and descriptions, including the location and description of the identifying mark that had been branded onto each of his “assets.”

It was just a job. It was all perfectly legal and profitable. All perfectly above board and respectable. And so why did Cress feel like pig shit whenever he looked at his captives?

“Why am I doing this?” He asked himself.

“Why indeed?” asked an unfamiliar voice. Startled, Cress looked up and saw a woman standing by the side of the road, but he had been so engrossed in his thoughts that he had failed to notice her until he was nearly upon her. And had he asked that question out loud?

“Isn’t the world a miserable enough place for the likes such as these without adding to their suffering?” She asked.

“The world is a hard place for anyone who has to work for a living,” Cress replied shortly. He didn’t feel like being preached to and her comment came a little too close to his feelings on the matter for comfort. “I am just trying to make a living. And besides, I don’t make the laws.” He added without much enthusiasm.

“Tyrants hide behind the laws that they create to benefit themselves.” She replied. “Perhaps you need a little encouragement to fully realize what you already know to be true.”

She gestured to Cress and formally proclaimed, “You shall track down each of individuals on your list and you will help them to make good their escape and establish themselves in a new community.”

Cress felt a wave of compulsion overwhelm him and he knew he must follow her decree or face intolerable consequences. How was he going to accomplish this? And how long would it take? And what would it cost?

He looked at the woman and miserably stammered, “I will do… must do the things that you demand, but know this: you have ruined me.”

The grey clad woman looked upon Cress with compassion and added, “You should consider the time spent on your quest as well spent. In this purse is more than enough to get started on your goal. When you are done you may find yourself in a far better state and be content with your place in this world than had you carried on with your mercenary career.”

She tossed him a heavy leather pouch and vanished, leaving Cress looking over at his two prisoners. “Where the hell can I take them so they can live without worrying about being captured again?” he wondered.

Desnus 16, 4722

“And that leaves just one left,” Cress thought as he looked at the weathered, creased and crumpled parchment in his hands. He was leaving Magnimar and heading east. So anxious was he to find the final person on the list that he had purchased a seat on a carriage heading toward Korvosa: a rare treat.

Looking back at the list he read KM Krafton 4701 M H/O 23323 and next to that was written Snagsby, male, half orc. They had all been half orcs, he thought glumly, and fortunately they had all known one another and with a little encouragement most were willing to tell him what they knew concerning the whereabouts of their comrades in chains. Those that were still alive, that is. He had found three from his list of two dozen already dead, which made them harder to locate and properly identify; the later requiring bribes to have the bodies exhumed so he could check the tattoos on their shoulders.

Cress consulted his journal and leafed back some pages. “Snagsby: last seen heading southeast from K.M. on the night of the escape.” He had already searched a number of towns in that area some months back before confirming that another two escapees were in Magnimar. Consulting a regional map he traced a likely route an escaped slave might have taken had he tried to keep a low profile. His eyes were drawn to a town called Diamond Lake. The map’s previous owner had written annotations for each town and city on the map, and next to Diamond Lake was scrawled, A real shit-hole. “Well that’s just great,” Cress said out loud as the carriage bumped and rocked on down the road.

Sarenith 8, 4722

“If anything the note on the map was overly kind,” Cress mused as he encouraged his horse to head back toward Korvosa. “And apparently I just missed him! At least he’s no longer keeping a low profile and is doing quite well for himself. And with the group he’s joined he should be fairly easy to find even in a large city like Korvosa.” He looked above him and called out, “Flit, you know the drill: keep a lookout for trouble along the road.” A familiar buzzing sound swooped by overhead.

Snagsby, one year ago

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It was late and the waning moon wouldn’t make its appearance for hours yet as Snagsby shooed the last of the usual drink until closing time customers from the Rusty Bucket. As the last one exited, Bel propped open the door to the kitchen, letting its bright light spill into the common room. She proceeded to snuff out the oil lamps over the bar as Snagsby extinguished the ones on the tables.

From the direction of the kitchen, there was a soft scraping sound followed by a thunk. Bel hadn’t set the stop properly: the heavy door pushed it aside and knocked it over. The light in the room faded rapidly as the door swung shut on creaking hinges, and with a loud slam Bel and Snagsby were plunged into darkness.

“Dammit!” Bel exclaimed. She turned around and stomped towards the kitchen. Without thinking, Snagsby called out, “Step a bit to your left to avoid the spittoon in front of you and then there’s the chair someone pulled over…”

Also without thinking, Bel cut him off. “I see them.”

Bel stopped in her tracks and turned to face Snagsby. There was a long pause as they stared at one another, and in near perfect unison, they both asked, “You can see in the dark?”

This was followed by another pause. Bel broke the silence. “You first.”

Snagsby cleared his throat but remained silent for a few moments as he considered how much to tell and how much to leave out. He looked at Bel for a few seconds before suddenly realizing, “I trust her.”

“I never knew my parents and so I am not sure of my ancestry, but my entire life until quite recently was spent among half orcs,” Snagsby began. “They considered me one of their own and despite the occasional joke about being a ‘pretty boy’ I had no reason to think I was any different. We often worked below ground without light and I gave it little thought until I realized that whenever the human overseer came down he brought a lamp to inspect our progress.”

He thought back on his journey here and continued, “And when I left and made my way… here I found that the the humans I met along the way were often rude or even hostile. But I discovered that with a few alterations in how I dressed and kept my hair they just assumed I was also human, which made my life much easier. And so I have just continued to let people believe what they will. But I was never in doubt that I had some amount of orcish blood running through my veins. Half blood, quarter blood — it doesn’t matter: either a single drop is too much for some folks while no amount matters at all for others. I prefer the company of the latter.”

He stopped, wondering if he had said too much or too little and turned back to Bel. “But you were born here, correct? You know your parents. How is it that you can see in the dark places where humans cannot?”

“Yeah, I was born here. Turns out my great-great grandmother shook the sheets with a dragon posing as a human,” she says, grinning. “At least, that’s what my Aunt Esma thinks. She’s apparently got some old letters and diaries and such.” She stops and studies Snagsby. “I would never have figured you for part orc, so you are hiding it well. Kind of a shame that you have to do it, though around here maybe it’s for the best. It’s not exactly a progressive town.”

Snagsby snorted loudly in agreement.

“You’ve figured that part out on your own, I see,” Bel says, grinning. “Kullen doesn’t have many problems, but that’s probably not a standard you want to hold yourself to.

“So, assuming you had some choice of where you went when you, uh, left your overseer,” she says, slowly pronouncing the last words in a way that suggests she gets the meaning behind them, “I’ve got to ask. Why here?”

“Do you know how a lobster trap works?” Snagsby asked. Bel arched an eyebrow, inviting him to continue. “A hole in a cage is made such that it is easy to get in but not so easy to get out. For people without resources Diamond Lake is just like that. I was looking for a place to hide and followed the road here. But by the time I realized maybe I wanted to leave I found it difficult to get back out. I could just walk to someplace else like a refugee, but that’s just another form of slavery and I’d rather not fall down into that hole again.”

Legacy of the Night Walkers

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Five years ago

Bel took the vials and jars out of her knapsack and placed them on the table, one after the other. It was a motley collection of clear and tinted glass in various shapes, made even more so by the array of fluids and powders contained within. Most of the former were clear or a light brown, and the latter came in shades of white.

Masildi looked on in growing horror as Bel pointed to each, rattling off their contents. “Skunk essence. Wolf urine. Clove oil. Ammonia. Capsaicin powder. Cinnamon oil. Lye. Powdered sulfur. Cat urine.”

“Stars, Bel…This is…This is disgusting.”

Bel resisted the temptation to roll her eyes. That would be pejorative and would run counter to what she was trying to accomplish. Convincing people meant bringing them along, not judging their thinking.

“Look. I know this isn’t pleasant, but animals make their way in there from time to time. Some lair there. Others are lured by the scent of potential prey. You don’t want to be surprised.”

“‘Isn’t pleasant’? You certainly have a gift for understatement. I am not covering myself in…in any of this,” Masildi replied, disgust still registering on her face. “I can handle myself. I don’t need to smell like… Stars! I don’t even know what this would smell like.”

Bel stood firm. “Look, you don’t have to use all of these. I only needed the first two. But going in there with nothing to mask yourself could attract unwanted attention, and this way you have options. This isn’t the Ritual, Masi! It’s a whole night.”

“Fine. Fine. I’ll take your gross alchemy kit with me if it will get you off my back!”

“Good,” Bel replied tersely, not rising to the bait. She quickly but carefully placed the collection back in the sack and held it out to Masildi. Her friend grabbed it and slung it roughly over her shoulder.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” she said. The usual warmth in Masildi’s voice was gone, and irritation had filled the vacuum. She left quickly, without saying another word and without looking back.

Bel never saw her again.

Three years ago

Bel awoke to an urgent pounding at her front door. She looked around groggily, it slowly registering that she had dozed off. It was a rare Starday where she had the afternoon off.

Her flat was one of the smaller ones in the tenement house, and much more cramped than the quarters she used to share with her family, but it was clean, reasonably well maintained, and mostly free of pests and vermin. It was also relatively free of furniture. Most importantly, though? It was hers. She could barely afford it, but sleeping alone instead of with a colony of roaches meant living on the financial edge.

The pounding continued, unconcerned that she was not fully awake.

“I’m coming!” she yelled, hoping that it would be enough to make the noise stop while she got to her feet.

Mercifully, it did just that. Bel reached the door and cracked it open, leaving the security chain in place. She kept a dagger mounted on the inside of the door where she could grab it quickly in case of trouble. If someone really wanted to get in, they’d probably not knock at all, but there was no sense in taking chances. Trouble was rare, but this was still Diamond Lake.

Alina’s face was visible through the narrow opening.

“Alina!” she exclaimed. She was still groggy, and the unexpected appearance of her old friend left her flustered. She fumbled with the chain at first but got it unhooked. Alina wasted no time coming in, pushing the door open and pushing Bel back with it.

“Bel! Who is leading the Night Walkers these days?”

“What?” was the best she could manage. Bel was just getting her mental footing, and Alina had knocked her off it again.

“The Night Walkers, Bel. Who is leading them?”

“There are no Night Walkers, Alina. Not anymore. Not since…” Bel let the sentence die. There was no need to finish it.

“Are you certain? There’s no one trying to start them up again?”

Bel shut the door, finally recognizing that it was still open. “I mean, we were never as secret as we thought we were. Half of the town knew there were kids running around out there. They just didn’t care enough to try and stop it. If someone was doing that, we’d all hear about it. What is this about?”

Alina bit her lip and took in a deep breath. “Sergiu heard a rumor that someone is planning to spend a night in the Cairn.”

If Bel wasn’t fully awake before, she was now. “What?! Who? For Stars’ sake, why?! When? Stars, we have to stop it!”

Alina snorted. “You are asking questions I don’t have answers to. I was hoping you had heard something. And, I agree with you. Problem is, we don’t know who to stop, or even when they are going to try.”

“Who else have you told about this?” Bel asked.

“So far, I’ve only spoken to you. Sergiu is asking around, too. He’s trying to find Eduari. Sergiu heard it from Hassi, and Hassi said he heard about it from them.”

“Eduari? I know where they are.”

Bel and Alina found Eduari at the Lakeside Stables, grooming one of the horses.

“Bel. Alina,” he said warily, looking back and forth between the two. “Stars, Alina, I haven’t seen you in ages. What are you doing here? What are the two of you doing here?”

Bel never really got along with Eduari. He was prickly, frequently a jerk, and quick to verbally cut someone else down for whatever offense he deemed them to have committed. But he had earned his spot in the group like everyone else, so she had respect for his skills, and for his nerve.

Alina answered him. “We heard a rumor that someone is planning to spend a night in the Cairn.”

“So what? Several of us did that.”

“The last one that tried it died, Ed,” Bel answered angrily.

“She died because she told her idiot watchers they could wait in the house. She wouldn’t listen to anyone, not even you. She even sent your little gift bag with them!”

“She died,” Bel repeated, raising her voice, “because doing this was always dangerous and stupid, and our luck finally ran out!” Respect for his skills and nerve didn’t automatically imply respect for him, personally, and she didn’t have a lot of it.

Alina intervened before their exchange could escalate. “Don’t be an ass, Ed! Spending the night in there was always a bad idea. You know it. I know it. Bel knows it. So, who is it? Is someone trying to resurrect the Night Walkers?”

Eduari snorted derisively. “The Night Walkers. I can’t believe we actually called ourselves that.” He saw Alina’s expression darken, and quickly added, “No, Alina, no one is trying to make more Night Walkers. It’s just someone trying to prove themselves as tough as we were. That’s all.”

Bel stepped forward and glared at Eduari, her feet apart, hands on her hips, and elbows out. She cut an imposing figure, and he flinched as she spoke. “Who, Ed? Give us a name!”

“Lennick Grasu, OK? He’s just some kid. I don’t even know him. But you’re too late, because I heard he’s doing it tonight.”

The two girls looked at one another, a silent exchange passing between them. And then Alina said, “Fuck.”

Bel and Alina dashed out of the stables, breaking into a moderate run. It was a pace they could both sustain for a significant distance, a skill they had honed from night after night under moonlit skies.

“Bullshit, we are ‘too late’,” Alina said as the stables retreated. “We can’t stop them from going in, but we can sure as stars yank them out!”

“Agreed! I’ll run home and gear up. You find Sergiu. We can be there a couple hours after nightfall.”

“I’ll meet you in the square.”

Gearing up didn’t take Bel very long. Keeping a bag packed and ready to go was another one of her old habits, and she was in and out of the tenement in less than five minutes. She arrived at the square first but didn’t have to wait long for Alina to show. She had found Sergiu, and he was jogging beside her.

“Bel,” he said as he came to stop.

“Sergiu,” she replied.

It had taken almost three years, but he had eventually warmed up to her. Just in time for him and Alina to leave the Night Walkers and run off to get married, just like everyone but the two of them knew they would do, eventually.

“Good to see you,” Sergiu said. “Now let’s go save this jackass from themselves.”

It had been six years since Bel had been here. For Alina and Sergiu, it had been even longer. Without the regular visits by Night Walkers, there had been no one to trample the weeds, clear the underbrush, or cut back the vines and roots that draped over the entrance. Even knowing exactly where it was, the Cairn was difficult to find until they were nearly on top of it.

“Well, this place has certainly gone to shit,” Sergiu said quietly.

They were studying the entrance carefully from a distance, crouching behind a tangle of bushes. The waxing gibbous moon provided just enough light for them to see.

“We had to let the landscaper go,” Bel said, dryly. “I don’t see any watchers, do you? Did this kid really come out here alone?”

“Let’s get a closer look,” Alina suggested.

Alina and Sergiu lit the lanterns they carried with them and swept the clearing in front of the Cairn as they approached. It was weird to see former Night Walkers using light like this, but they were searching for someone, not playing games in the dark. To do a proper search, you needed to be able to see.

“There,” Sergiu said, pointing to a patch of crushed weeds. “Looks like they were here recently. Either they abandoned their friend, or something scared them off.” He studied the trails of flattened grass and bent stems. “They came in this way, walking. Then one walks off to the cairn; I assume that’s Lennick. And there: two sets of tracks, much more recent than the others, running away. Roughly towards town. We took a more direct route in, so they probably didn’t pass near us.”

“I see a set of tracks over here, too,” Alina said, about twenty feet off to the side. “Bipedal; they don’t look human and they aren’t coming from town. Seem to lead in, then back out.”

“That is not good.”

Bel didn’t wait for either of them to act. She ran into the entrance, calling out, “Lennick! Lennick! Are you in here?” Her voice echoed down the long hall. There was no reply.

“Bel! Wait!” Bel heard Alina and Sergiu scramble into the entrance and she saw her shadow dance ahead of her as their lamps bounced with their footsteps. She was running far ahead of them because she didn’t need a lamp to see in the dark.

Bel stopped at the junction and checked both alcoves. The was nothing in the one to her left, but in the one to her right she saw a young boy crumpled on the ground. He wasn’t moving.

“Up here! Hurry!” she called out. She bent down to him and saw that he was unconscious and taking ragged breaths. There was a gash on his forehead, and blood was starting to pool on the ground. “He’s hurt! Bad!”

Alina and Sergiu reached the junction and light filled the alcove. The blood was more obvious now, as was the wound. It looked like he’d been hit with a rock. Said rock was on the ground a couple of feet from him.

“He’s been attacked,” Bel said.

“Yes, we can see that,” Sergiu replied, annoyed.

“Who or whatever did this,” Alina said, looking at the rock, “wasn’t really trying kill him, if that’s what they used.”

“They weren’t trying not to, either. You two prop his head up.”

“That could hurt him worse,” Alina said.

Sergiu pulled a vial out from his waist pack and kneeled on the ground. “If he bleeds out here, which he seems to be doing very fucking quickly, he could die. We need to get this in him.”

He pulled the stopper from the vial. Bel supported the boy’s neck while Alina lifted and turned his head.

Sergiu poured the contents into the boy’s mouth and said, “Now tilt his head back so it goes down his throat.”

Bel had heard of healing potions, but she had never seen one, much less seen one in action. Within seconds, the gash on his head had not only stopped bleeding, but had disappeared entirely. The boy spasmed and coughed, spitting out some of the liquid. Then his eyes fluttered open.

“What… What’s going on?” he asked in a raspy voice. “Who are you?” He looked disoriented, and about five seconds from a full-on panic.

Bel gave him a smile and spoke in her most soothing voice. “It’s OK,” she said. “You’re safe.”

From behind her came Sergiu’s voice, as diplomatic as ever. “We’re your rescuers, asshole.”

Bel, Age 13

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Bell led the group towards the run-down farmhouse that sat, improbably, miles from anywhere.

“Run-down” was perhaps being kind: the sagging roof likely had leaks if not outright holes, several stretches of the eaves were warped, mold and moss were growing in large patches on the siding, and there was peeling on nearly every painted surface. All the windows were boarded up, though some of the planks had rotted away leaving gaps in the barriers. The surrounding fence was losing its battle to contain the tide of overgrown shrubs and weeds.

Bel had stumbled across the house several nights ago while the Night Walkers were having an informal orienteering run. She misread the crudely drawn map Sergiu had created and wandered a quarter mile off course. After figuring out her mistake, she righted herself with a bearing towards the next navigation point and found the abandoned structure directly in her path. She noted the location on the map, and came back during the day to get a better look at it.

Its potential was obvious, and she told Alina about it that evening. Alina told Sergiu, because of course she did, and he wanted to have a look.

“The upstairs is a dump,” she said as they crossed through the gap in the fence line, “but the main floor is in good shape. And there’s a cellar, with an entrance there.” She pointed to the large wooden doors in the ground as they crossed what used to be a manicured yard and was now just a thicket of weeds. “There’s even a well in the back, though I haven’t tried it out.”

“Fireplace, too,” Sergiu said, looking at the brick structure climbing the wall up past the roof.

“Yup. C’mon inside.”

The door protested loudly on failing hinges as Bel pushed it open. Alina and Sergiu went in first. Neena, Hassi, Eduari, and Patia followed. Bel came in last, closing the door behind her. They were all clumped in the entry, looking it over. Their ingress had kicked up a large dust cloud, and Patia had a brief sneezing fit. They could see the sunlight in the air where it shone through gaps in the makeshift shutters.

It was dim inside, but not dark. Not that either would stop a Night Walker.

Sergiu let out a low whistle. “Damn. This would make one hell of a clubhouse for us. A little inconvenient, but you can’t beat it for privacy.”

Alina added, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much dust in one place.” She rubbed her foot on the floor, kicking up another small, gray cloud. “No one has been in here for a long, long time.” She pointed to Bel’s boot prints. “Until you came along, of course.” Alina grinned.

Bel smiled back and continued her sales pitch. “The ground floor has a couple of large rooms–the fireplace is in one of those–and a kitchen. Oh, and there’s access to the cellar in here, too.”

She led Sergui and Alina into one of the larger spaces. The others followed closely, murmuring excitedly.

“Looks like the leak is making its way down here in a couple of spots,” Sergiu said, pointing to discolorations in the ceiling. “There and there.”

“But it’s not too bad,” Alina added.

“No. Not too bad.” Sergiu paused. He pointed up with his index finger, and shook his hand slowly as a thought came to him. “I bet I know what this was. I think it’s an old mine office. We should be careful outside; the mine entrance may be nearby. Even if it’s boarded up properly, it’s still dangerous. Last thing we need is someone falling in one and fucking breaking something.”

From behind them came Eduari’s voice. “Was this from one of your dad’s mines, you think?” He was asking the question everyone was thinking.

“I dunno, Ed. I don’t think so? There were a lot of small mines around here a while back. Several of ‘em shut down when they stopped producing. The ones that lasted eventually got bought out, then shut down over the years.”

“You mean ‘taken over’, asshole,” Alina corrected.

Sergiu shot her an annoyed look. “Same difference.”

“But you don’t know,” Eduari replied.

“No, Ed, I don’t fucking know. Dad and I have an agreement. He doesn’t involve me in his business, and I don’t fucking ask about it.”

“So it could have been one he bought out,” Neena suggested.

Bel stayed silent, trying to will the others to do the same. This subject was a sore point with Sergiu, something she learned early on.

He turned to address the group. “Do you geniuses know why I hang out with you all? There’s a lot of reasons, but a big one is that none of us fucking talk about my dad’s fucking mine. Also, because he and his cronies are always talking shit about the people who work in them, and laughing about it like it’s a fucking joke, and I hate being around them. You all aren’t jokes to me, and I don’t want to ruin this thing we have by talking about my dad’s fucking mine!”

This speech was followed by an uncomfortable silence, which Alina broke by saying, “You’re going soft on us, Sergiu.”

“Fuck you, Alina.”

“Is that a promise?”

Everyone else snickered at this, most of the kids trying and failing to hold it in. Though they acted otherwise, Bel was pretty sure the two of them were a couple and just went to great lengths to hide it. It was a suspicion shared by every member of the Night Walkers.

“OK,” Sergiu said, sighing heavily and rolling his eyes, “If we are all done being children, can we please go upstairs and see how bad it is up there?”

Bel was eager to move on. She grinned and said, “Right this way!”

She led them to the decaying stairs, and carefully up to the second story. The musty smell of mold assaulted their noses as they reached the top.

Everyone agreed that the upstairs was, indeed, “a huge, fucking mess”.

“Gods,” Alina said, staring at the gaps in the roof. “I’ve seen colanders that hold more water.”

Sergui snorted. “Fuck. Of course it had to be too good to be true. That roof is not long for this world, and it just might take someone with it. Fuck! I really wanted this to work out.”

That was when Hassi finally spoke. “I think we can patch it.”

Neena practically laughed in response. “You think we can patch it? Why is that? Because of all your experience working on roofs?”

“Hey! My parents are carpenters!”

“And because ‘your parents are carpenters,’” Ed mocked, “You are suddenly a fucking roofing expert?”

Bel found this sort of childish bickering exhausting. As much fun as the Walkers could be, they could also be equally exasperating. She stomped her foot and yelled, “Enough! Unless there’s anyone here who does have roofing experience, can we at least listen to the one person who might actually know what they are talking about?”

To Bel’s surprise, Sergiu came to her defense. “Bel’s right. Unless one of you lot knows more about this than Hassi, just shut it and let him talk.”

No one spoke.

“Hassi? Go ahead.”

“Well,” Hassi said, glaring at Eduari, “to patch it properly we’d need plywood and some tar. But that’s not practical.”

“Right,” Alina said. “None of us are carrying hot tar and sheets of plywood half a day from Diamond Lake.”

“But we could do a temporary patch, with a water resistant tarp. We drape it over the apex so water doesn’t just run under it. I’ve seen my folks use them. Not in this exact way, but it should still work.”

“Great!” said Alina. “So where do we get a waterproof tarp? One big enough to cover that?”

Bel knew the answer to this. Her mom worked a lot of odd jobs, and a couple of years ago she spent a good part of the summer making tents. Tidwoad had gotten a large order from the garrison, and didn’t want to lose the sale due to a lack of supply. “We make it from a cloth sheet and linseed oil. You stretch the sheet out and make it as taught as you can. Nail it down around the edges to keep tension in it. Then paint it with linseed oil. I’ve seen my mom do it.”

“Right,” Hassi said. “The tension and the angle help keep the water from dripping through. It just rolls off. The linseed oil makes it more durable. It wouldn’t last forever, or keep the water out like a proper repair, but it’d be loads better than just letting the rain in.”

Alina and Sergiu looked at one another, considering this new opportunity. Finally, Alina nodded her head, and then Sergiu did too. “OK. This is good. This is really good. I think we have a place we can call our own, and a plan for fixing it up.

“Now. Let’s go take a look at that well.”

The well turned out to have drinkable water. It had an odd taste, but not a bad one, and it looked clean. Bel watched from the porch as several of the teens took turns lowering and raising the bucket. They had made some sort of impromptu game out of it, and Bel was trying to work out the rules when Sergiu came over and stood next to her.

“You did good, Bel.”

Bel looked at him warily. Sergiu had stopped being outright mean to her a few months ago, but he’d never even graduated to “indifferent”, much less “nice”. She wasn’t sure if he was being honest with her now, or setting her up for a backhand to the compliment.

“Look,” he said, taking on a serious tone. “I’ve been a real shit to you and I just want you to know that I’m sorry. It wasn’t right. I’ve not been fair. I’m still not happy that you came in so young, but that’s on me. Truce?”

He held out his hand for Bel to shake.

Bel was sure his change in tone was, in very large part, a result of her finding the abandoned house, and not some spontaneous change of heart. But, that was still something, and it was a trade Bel was willing to make. It was, in fact, one she was hoping for. So she gripped his hand in hers, and shook it firmly.

“Truce.”

Bel, Age 12

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The entrance to the cairn looked as though an enormous maw had opened in the side of the hill, ready to swallow Bel whole. In the light of the nearly-full moon, she could make out the stone pillars that framed it, an obvious sign that this was not some natural cave formation. It was a clear night, and as the wind kicked up she could hear the strange, unmusical tones that gave the Whispering Cairn its name.

She, Sergiu, and Alina stood a dozen paces back from the gaping hole. Behind them, in a loose semicircle, were the rest of the eleven teenagers that made up the Night Walkers.

Sergiu pulled his arm back and then snapped it forward, throwing a dimly glowing rock right through the center of the mouth. Bel watched the blurry streak get swallowed by the darkness, heard the rock hit the ground and skip, then skip again, and again, and again, each one fainter than the last. Alina had assured her that they “never throw it far” and if that was true then Sergiu wasn’t sticking to tradition.

Alina turned sharply to face him, clearly furious. “What. The fuck. Was that?”

Sergiu met her gaze, with an annoying, see-how-clever-I-am grin on his face. “A lucky throw, obviously.” He shrugged his shoulders, trying apparently for sheepish, but he just couldn’t let go of that stupid grin. Bel didn’t believe a word of it, but said nothing. There was nothing she possibly could say that wouldn’t make this worse.

Bel knew he was both lying and not. No one’s aim was that good all the time, so yes, there was no doubt that it was a lucky throw. But he had also been trying to pitch it as far as he could. So lucky throw or not, he was deliberately being a dick, and he had managed to strike gold.

Alina had him pegged, too. “A lucky throw. You’re such an asshole,” came her retort. She turned to Bel and said, softly, “You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes! She does! If she wants to be a Night Walker, she has to do it.”

“Shut up, Sergiu!” Alina snapped, turning her head to glare at him briefly before facing Bel again. “You don’t. This is bullshit. We never do it like this and he’s being an ass. We’ll redo the throw.”

From behind them, a girl’s voice called out, “No redos! You only get one throw.”

Alina didn’t even turn around. “You don’t get an opinion, Neena! Stay out of it!”

“She’s right, though,” Sergiu said, smirking. “One throw. If it goes in, it’s good. That’s the rule.”

“We don’t throw past the first junction, Sergiu, and you know it.”

“But it’s not a rule, ‘Lina.”

Bel knew he had her there, and she could see Alina knew it too, the way her eyes sank, the slight–very slight–drop in her shoulders.

“I can bring them around. Trust me,” Alina said quietly, her voice gentle and encouraging.

The spats between Alina and Sergiu were all but legendary among the members and initiates. For the two years that the Night Walkers were a thing, they had argued and fought as if it were the whole of their existence. It was a power struggle in miniature, each jockeying for higher status in the family they had created, neither able to permanently usurp the other. Word was, one of the Walkers’ members thought themselves clever, and made a joke one day about Alina and Sergiu “bickering like a married couple”. Neither was amused, and they issued a scathing correction. No one had made a joke like that since.

Bel knew how this argument would end: Alina would lose by winning. If she convinced the others to do another throw, she’d be spending much of the capital she’d built with them. They’d think her going soft. Of playing favorites. Even if they never said those things out loud, the damage would be done.

Bel liked Alina. She was kind, she was smart, she didn’t mind hanging out with someone three years her junior, and she was loyal to her friends, even covering for them when they were in a pinch. And, most importantly, it was Alina that encouraged Bel to join. She didn’t want to be the one that cost Alina her standing.

Bel didn’t know for sure why Sergiu had a problem with her–he was the only one in the circle that voted against her initiation–but she could make a guess: it was probably her age. No one had joined before they turned thirteen, and Bel was barely twelve. Sergiu didn’t like it, and as one of the two de facto leaders of the group he was obviously put out. The rules of the Night Walkers were clear on this point, though: it took only a majority to bring someone in, so no matter how Sergiu felt about it Bel was in–assuming she passed the Rite of the Stone, of course. This was clearly Sergiu’s response to being outvoted ten to one.

“I’ll do it,” she said, meeting her friend’s eyes.

“Bel, it’s…” Alina lowered her voice further, speaking softly so others couldn’t hear. “Look, there’s a reason why we don’t throw the stone that far. Sometimes there are animals living there. They think it’s a cave. The farther back you go…” Her voice trailed off. It was a rare admission that what they were doing wasn’t exactly safe–far from it, in fact. Bel understood all that, but she was still determined to see this through. And she was eager to turn it into a victory for Alina.

“I’ll do it,” she repeated.

“If you do it, he wins.”

“No. If I do it, he loses,” she said slyly, and paired it with a matching smile.

Alina thought about this, then smiled back. “Okay. Go show him what you’re made of.”

Bel turned to face Sergiu and said, loudly, clearly, and with conviction, “Give me the lantern.”

Sergiu’s expression was one of disappointment with hints of frustration. Bel knew he wanted her to chicken out. Forcing Alina to ask for concessions would have been a silver medal. Now he had nothing. Slowly, and somewhat reluctantly, he picked up the lantern at his feet and handed it over.

“OK,” he said tersely, “You know how this goes. You get one turn of the sand glass. Find the stone, bring it out.”

The Rite of the Stone was ingenious. Bel didn’t know how it worked, whether it was magic or alchemy or something else, but it worked: Sergiu’s rock glowed faintly in the dark, but in the light it was just a dumb rock. Only it was more than that, too, because it was a rock taken from inside the cairn, itself, so you couldn’t tell it from any of the others. To find the right rock once you were in, you had to extinguish the light. This is where the Night Walkers got their name.

Bel opened the shutter in the lamp and let the red light spill out ahead of her. This bit was Alina’s touch: red light, she explained, didn’t interfere with your night vision, and some animals, including a few predators, had trouble seeing it. It was a lot dimmer than a normal lantern light, of course, but nothing about this was supposed to be easy. Bel didn’t want to know how much the red glass had cost. That was probably Sergiu’s doing. When he and Alina weren’t too busy arguing, they made a formidable team.

Bel had to admit that Sergiu was actually pretty cool for a boy, despite whatever issue he had with her, personally. He was the son of a mine owner, which meant his parents were ridiculously rich and in a position of influence that the others could barely imagine, and he certainly had no business hanging out with a bunch of teenagers whose families had to scrape to get by. Some of their parents probably worked in his dad’s mine, but he didn’t hold his family’s status over anyone, or flaunt his money, or even put on airs. He just wanted to hang with others his age that were like-minded, maybe interested in a challenge, open to some fun with a twist of danger and the unknown. He was just another teenager to them, and a pretty decent one at that. Sure, he could be irritating and obnoxious, but that was true of a lot of people.

Bel crept into the cairn slowly at first, picking her way carefully across the rocks and boulders. Once properly inside, the walls and the floor smoothed out, revealing the long hall of worked stone. She could see initials–some carved, some done in ink–just inside the entrance. These didn’t belong to Night Walkers, of course; theirs would be much farther in. Any idiot could make it this far, and they would still be in the light.

As she moved, Bel pictured the stone’s flight in her mind, imagining its arc as it fell. She saw the junction at the edge of the lamplight, bathed in red. The stone, she figured, struck the ground just this side of it, and its momentum carried it down the hall beyond. She closed the shutter as a test, and let the darkness close in around her as she turned her head from side to side. Nothing. Onward.

She re-opened the shutter about half way and pressed on. She stopped at the junction, closed the light again, saw nothing (as expected), then re-opened the shutter. The names carved here–if you made it this far, you made sure your record was permanent–were mostly ones she recognized. Shahab. Rita. Sveigh. Petre. Neena. And of course Alina and Sergiu. Those brave few who spent the night in the cairn also did so here (Bel hoped to join that exclusive club some day, too).

A breeze kicked up, and sent more of the atonal music echoing through the hall. The echoes were louder in here, and some sounded faintly like voices. Bel ignored them. Most other kids thought the cairn was haunted, but real hauntings were rare. Those rumors were probably started, and encouraged, by the Night Walkers, themselves.

Most kids in Diamond Lake ran with a group of some sort because there just wasn’t that much to do unless you were an adult who drank and gambled. Most were just social circles, but gossiping children wasn’t Bel’s idea of fun. A few were little more than gangs of petty thugs, which was absolutely not her thing. But the Night Walkers? They were something different. They did stuff. Stuff that mattered. And best of all, they did most of it at night. A lot of kids were afraid to go out in the dark. The Walkers didn’t merely embrace the night: they lived it. Scavenger hunts, capture the flag, exploration, hunting, all done by moonlight. Sergiu and Alina taught them real skills that few people had, much less kids, and did it in a way that was exhilarating. But doing that stuff in the dark took nerve, and that’s what the Rite was all about. If you couldn’t make it through this, you’d never make it through the rest.

The junction was behind her now, and instinct told her it was time to check again. She closed the light, and turned her head slowly from left to right, scanning the darkness. Just as she was ready to move on, she saw it: a faint glow on the ground straight ahead, maybe another 10 or 20 feet away.

She cracked the light open just enough to see the floor in front of her, but not so much that she would lose the stone. She had maybe two minutes left to get this done, so there was no time to waste. She crept forward until the glowing stone vanished at the edge of the light, closed the shutter, and inched along the final few feet in the darkness, feeling her way ahead. The glowing stone had returned and served as her guide. She stumbled on her last step, but managed to catch herself using the wall on her right. And then she was right on top of it. She bent over carefully–it was easy to lose your balance with no reference point, as she had just recently learned–and her hand closed around the stone.

From up ahead, she heard a low, canine growl. Alina’s voice echoed in her head: Sometimes there are animals living there. They think it’s a cave. Bel froze. Then the growl came again. A wolf? A coyote? A wild dog?

She forced down her panic. It was pitch black: she couldn’t see it, and it couldn’t see her. It probably caught your scent when you stepped inside. And then you startled it when you almost fell. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reached into her pocket, dropped the stone into it, and pulled out a glass vial filled with cayenne, capsaicin powder and black pepper. It had cost her every copper she had, but it was her only contingency plan. She hoped she wouldn’t need it.

With the vial clutched in her right hand, she used the tips of her fingers to crack open the lamp’s shutter as she turned it around in her left. Dim, crimson light spilled out behind her, giving her the barest outline of the passage that would be her retreat. It was just enough to keep her footing as she slowly stepped backwards.

The growl came again, but softer this time. Less angry. It just wants you to leave. Keep backing away. Don’t. Run. Except she didn’t have time for this; she didn’t want to give Sergiu the satisfaction of seeing her fail (a part of her brain suggested that, perhaps, she didn’t have her priorities straight, but the rest of it was running on adrenaline and wasn’t listening).

The next growl was shorter, softer, less threatening, and with time running out she risked a faster step. This time there was no response.

Confident she was in the clear, she turned around and walked at a brisk pace, resisting the urge to break into a run. She slipped her hand back into her pocket, replacing the vial before she accidentally peppered herself, and pulled out the stone. You did it! You actually did it!

Bel exited the cairn with half a minute to spare. The group whooped and hollered as she casually walked up to a sullen Sergiu and dropped the glowing stone at his feet.

Alina was absolutely beaming, and laughed as she closed an arm around Bel and pulled her into a hug. “Welcome to the Night Walkers!”