Young Writers Society

A/N: Last chapter, an actress Miriam asked Golzar for help with the raids carried out by the Lions on her village. They were then briefly interrupted by Gerhard and Bryn. In this chapter, Golzar finishes that conversation with Miriam and the Miscreants move on, finally reaching their destination: the Heroes' Guild Hall. Also included: a brief interlude with Tanya.

When they were a safe enough distance away from Gerhard and Bryn, she sat back down next to Miriam. The play was raging on, one battle scene after the next. Wooden training swords clacked incessantly, but Golzar found the rhythm almost calming. After all, it wasn’t steel, and no one was getting hurt.

Golzar gave Miriam’s hand a gentle, but firm pat. “You didn’t hear it from me, but . . .” she said, averting eye contact. “. . . us Miscreants aren’t the sort to side with other heroes in everything.”

Miriam’s posture seemed to straighten at that. “T-Thank you, Dame Golzar.” She bowed her head with unnecessary reverence, and then backed away. “I must take my leave.”

As she gathered her skirts and rose, Golzar cast her a wave of the hand.

The two fools stood like awkward props on the path that cut between seats. Golzar smirked at them as she approached.

“Come on,” she put an arm around each of their shoulders. It was awkward, and strained her shoulders slightly, but Golzar would rather die than acknowledge the height difference was the cause of that. “You’re the ones rushing to go.”

Together, they walked out of the cluster of performance artists, weaving between two wagons and going onto the narrow footpath that would lead them back to the rest of the company and their horses.

Gerhard spoke in a low tone, shooting Golzar a look she knew he meant to be meaningful. “You know why we asked you to leave?”

“Why – Gerhard – asked you to leave, you mean.” Bryn yawned.

Golzar suppressed a groan. Instead she scowled, casting Gerhard a sharp sideways look. “You’re doing it again. The Father-voice.”

Ignoring her, he continued. “There’s been sightings of rebels here recently.”

“Rebels, huh?”

He nodded. “Against the royals. Some of them noble, some of them freepersons, or serfs.”

Gerhard’s lips were parted as though he was about to continue, but suddenly he seemed to think better of it and clamped them shut. He grimaced.

It was a smart move to leave, she thought, grudgingly. Golzar gritted her teeth. Lucretia’s court would come down swiftly on anyone associated with people trying to overthrow the queen, especially so early in her reign. Still, she couldn’t leave the problem of the raids behind.

They approached the village gate from where they had entered before. A young child was trying to creep away along the broken fences, clutching something suspiciously in the front of their dress. Just behind the gate, a couple of the men were playing dice. Golzar didn’t have to look for long to know what it was. She pushed past Gerhard and Bryn, walking towards the child.

“Keep it, okay?” she said, and pressed a few copper coins from her money pouch into the child’s hand.

The ‘thief’ paled at first at being caught - especially since the little pouch in their hand still had the Grey Hound sigil on it – but they didn’t think twice. They accepted the money and ran off.

Gerhard was watching with a frown. “Poor thing. Must be starving.”

Bryn crossed their arms. “It’s a good thing we get paid outta the Guild’s pockets proper now,” they muttered. Golzar saw their eyes drift towards the group merrily gambling with dice in the shade. “Thomas, Harold and ugh, Richard . . . you’d think he’d know better . . . “

Before Bryn could go on, Golzar coughed lightly, making their presence known to the company. People fell into position. She saw Tanya scramble to where the horses were tied. It was time to carry on.

~

A dandelion tuft drifted across the path as Gerhard took the side of the line of Miscreants carrying on their way to the Hall. He watched it tumble, buffeted by the wind. In front of him, always in front of him, these days, Golzar rode on in silence.

The rest of them knew not to bother her when she was brooding like this. Gerhard sighed. She behaved like the lone kings in the old legends, the sort wielding large swords and small, ferociously loyal war bands, under threat from some larger invader.

Thing was, Golzar wasn’t alone now, was she?

He could see the collapsed buildings on either side as well as she could. The frightened, grey looks of the village folk as they scurried past the black-and-grey standards. As they moved past, a pair of crows fluttered, black flags in the breeze, and soared overhead. The reverberating caws followed them long after they left the village gate.

They arrived at the Guild’s stables in that same dreary mood. The surrounding trees had branches which drooped, almost like a veil, shielding the building from view. They brought their horses through carefully. Gerhard winced, feeling a thorn prick his finger as he lifted a branch high above his head. It was a hardly-used entrance, and the heroes guarding the Hall had yet to maintain it in years, likely.

He saw Robert pass the reins of his horse over to Richard, who began leading both his and his brother’s steeds towards the small, inconspicuous stables. Gerhard remembered – it was only the Miscreants who were scheduled to leave their horses here. The others were spread out among three other similarly inconspicuous stables.

Then Robert was approaching him, bulky, muscular arms swinging as he moved into a light jog. Gerhard paused for a moment, before taking the proferred shoulder to balance himself on as he dismounted.

“Have you seen Tanya?” The furrow in Robert’s brow was deep, as it always was, and his light brown eyes shimmering with anxiety. Gerhard removed his hand from the boy’s shoulder, as he reached for his walking stick.

“She’s probably inside already,” Gerhard said. “She likes to be with the horses at all times, remember?”

The two of them walked in a companionable silence, heading towards the stables. They walked between stalls, and in his head Gerhard started taking stock of the people they saw along the way.

The old owner of the stables was standing there, scratching head, puzzling over some ridiculous story Richard was telling him. The two horses had yet to be led to a stall. Gerhard shot Richard a look, and the boy soon made his excuses and started to get to work. Further along the way, there were a couple of Bryn’s former scouting unit tending their own horses.

Gerhard stretched a little to the side to see the person they’d been looking for at the far-most stall.

Tanya was slipping her horse a sugar cube. Gerhard could see her lips moving, as though she was mumbling to the stallion. Every so often, she would flick one of her loose braids of hair over her shoulder absently. Her helmet, including the black ribbon she used to keep her hair tucked neatly under it, was lying on a stack of hay to the side. When he made his way to that row of stables, Tanya turned her head.

"Hey, what's with Golzar and Bryn?" She pouted,

Gerhard patted her head. "Nothing you need ta' worry 'bout."

"Well then." She reached into her cloak and pulled out a scroll. Gerhard tilted his head to the side. Since when did Tanya carry around things like this? It wasn't the expensive sort of paper - in fact, even looking at it, he could it tell it was likely some kind of parchment - but the red seal said otherwise.

"Dame Ariga, right, Dame Ariga the Crab said to show this to you. Don't know why, since it has - my - name on it, but whatever, right?"

Gerhard had to take a moment to register who this ‘Dame’ Ariga was. The only Ariga he knew was Councillor Ariga, and even then people mostly avoided the title.

The scroll unfurled in his hands. He’d gripped it loosely at first, still leaning on the fence for support, but then his grip tightened when he read the contents. A tournament? And Ariga had asked for Tanya?

A smile teased at his lip. “Ah, I guess the rest of the heroes were too lazy, they just had to get a pipsqueak like you to do their job, huh?”

“A tournament is for knights and – real – chevaliers, Gerry! And – I – have no idea how to fight in one!” Tanya puffed her chest with pride. “Yet.”

She gave her best puppy-eyed look. “You’ll show me how to write the acceptance letter, right? And teach me the moves?”

Gerhard squinted. “This isn’t a jousting tournament. It’s close combat.”

“With wooden swords! It’ll be perfectly safe!” Tanya ran up to him from behind the stall, leaving behind the little bowl of sugar cubes, which her horse immediately began nosing.

“Please?”

Gerhard thought about it. The noise of the stables blurred around him. They had never, never allowed her near active combat during the war, but she had served as a messenger and had good stamina. So she had managed to pick up sword fighting, even if from teachers who were often too busy running around preparing for battle to give her proper lessons. Tanya would need to keep her skills sharp, of course, even in this era of peace. There were still quests, still missions to go on that could bring great danger. Bandits, maybe even remnants of the former king’s army.

“Alright,” he said. “But you’ll have to train hard.”

Tanya’s loud cheer at that brought a smile to Gerhard’s eyes.

~

Hulking grey beasts of mountains sloped to the heavens before them. The surrounding mist thickened into a silver fog. He could just barely see Golzar’s silhouette now, and he heard the sound of footsteps slowing as the others tried their best not to bump into each other behind him.

This was where the Guild Hall stood, and would stand, hopefully, for many more years to come. Gerhard inhaled the cool, crisp familiar air – and exhaled with a sigh.

They walked along the side of the mountain for a while, following the trail of white granite as it curved in and out. Where the colours of the trees darkened to a coal-like shade was the place they stopped.

Gerhard’s gaze was drawn towards a place between two bushes, where he knew Bryn’s sapling was. Golzar’s was somewhere further along, further away from the Hall entrance, a door set deep in a cave, marked for the expected travellers that day only by the flicker of a single candle. He would have to show them how to carve their quests and battles into the bark, someday.

Some heroes, being senior enough, would plant a sapling even without officer status. But there was no one like that among the bunch that tied their horses in the stables that night.

Gerhard watched the sun disappear over the silhouette of mountains and sighed.

~

The Hall looked different to her. Crowded. There were footprints, parts of the earth one could count as bald patches. Any wandering guard could tell the place was occupied by unruly gangs of swords, people with their own leadership – only that it no longer mattered if people saw them and knew they were there.

Golzar huffed. It was funny how much people let loose once they knew danger had passed.

She pushed the door open with a creak. There was an emptiness next to her; Gerhard had lingered a few paces behind, probably to stare the at the memory trees as he always did – the sentimental fool.

Golzar only smiled diplomatically when the first two faces she saw were that of William and Ariga. The Guild Chief had his usual drooping frown on, while Ariga stood beside him. There was a bit of distance between them that evening. Interesting.

“Did you lose your way in the woods?” William clasped his hands behind his back, looking down his nose at her. “What took you so long?”

“More likely you got into another fight, Vanguard Racer!” Ariga cackled. She was wearing an eye patch, instead of that glass eye she usually kept in her right eye socket. Her remaining eye glanced behind Golzar at her troops. “All of you look like you’ve seen ghosts.”

Golzar was about to snap back – with all due respect – when Gerhard manifested out of thin air beside her. He was using his commander-voice, all gravelly and low. “Leave us be, Ariga,” he said. Directing that to William would be sacrilege. Maybe. If she were honest with herself, Golzar wasn’t quite sure where Gerhard stood with respect to the Guild’s Old Guard.

Something in Ariga’s expression changed. “Sure.” She pivoted on one foot and began to stroll away.

When they were walking down the corridors to their lodgings, Golzar looked pointedly up at Gerhard. “I could have handled that,” she said.

Gerhard did not reply.