Bargains and Bowstrings
Twentieth Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC
The red-robed man, who was in truth no man, waited still as stone as the young sea mage cast the finely-polished stones into the pot filled with seawater. He might have preferred more potent divinations before the meeting, but such was what he had at hand, and he would have to get used to working within those constraints. It would do Vaela good to know they were all depending on her, too, strange as the concept of having too little faith in one's self was to him.
"Deal," she said at last, a relieved smile on her lips. "They will make the deal."
"And they aren't getting ready to fill us with arrows either," the brash northern warrior said as he took his eyes from the treeline almost disappointingly. "Looks like I won't be able to use my axe on anything better than piss-poor bandits."
"Yes, I suppose it is a pity they were not rich bandits, that would have been so much more lucrative," Amrelath interjected, heralding the expected laugh not only from Mors Umber but also the other mortals about. The odd jest seemed to go a long way to keeping them from growing nervous in his company, and fortunately they were quite easily entertained.
"Wait," their 'guest' spoke up unexpectedly just as the small company was about to set out for the meeting spot.
"You will be released unharmed soon enough in exchange for the three-thousand... 'dragons' your brother agreed to pay," Amrelath sighed, hesitating a moment in calling the coin of this mortal realm a dragon. It was one thing for a true wyrm to use that affection, but in a realm that was not even ruled by a dragon-blood the name of the coin rankled.
They would be conquered soon enough, he supposed...
"What was that thing? Where did it come from? Are there more like it around?" the girl asked, not even pausing for breath between questions.
Almost a full day to work up the courage to speak and she had to do it in the last few minutes when they had already performed the divination. Amrelath did not deign to answer, but neither did he keep the others from doing so.
"It was a wight, an old one from the Long Night. Their sort's waking around again and someone needs to put the damn things down," Mors said, in such a tone as to make it clear what he thought of southern lords who could not handle it themselves. A diplomat the man would never be named, not that he had been hired for his silver tongue.
"But that's just a story," came the hesitant reply, broken off at a giggle from Mordys.
"Child's tale, child's tale, truer than any scribe ever wrote, children don't flatter, children don't lie, they are scared of monsters, not mockery's sting."
That actually made sense, the dragon noted, maybe he was becoming
more lucid over time from all the healing spells worked on him in the Deep.
"Are there more like it in the hills?" the girl pressed.
"We hope not, but can't be sure. Even sorcerers don't see everything," Vaela said in the tongue of the western lands with nary a trace of an accent thanks to a bit of dragon-magic, after she had complained about being 'silent as a rock' to the locals. "If your brother's guards spot anymore of that sort of thing, dead men walking, cold things on the prowl, they should make sure to get the word out before challenging them," she continued, seeming to find particular pleasure in her newly articulated speech.
Personally Amrelath could not see the harm in having a good reason to eschew constant chatter. Perhaps it was some other aspect of human nature he had not yet fully grasped, or something about the priestess herself. It did bear remembering that mortals could be remarkably distinct for beings that only had a handful of decades to grow into their character.
"Who are we supposed to get help
from?" she asked bitterly. "Riverrun or Casterly Rock? Or maybe we should just wait for the raven to get shot out of the sky by this fine band of Dragonmen and for them to carry the news out east."
"Come on now, lass, didn't we treat you proper?" The bearded tracker who had been assigned to lead them to the meeting spot grinned in what he must have fondly thought was a charming smile. What the point of trying to court the woman was now when she had not only shown no inclination to reciprocate but would not even have the time to do anything about it even if she did have a sudden change to heart the dragon could not say, and that was one oddity he could probably do without understanding.
***
The clearing was a uneven tear in the heart of the forest, the mark of some long ago fire that had not yet healed, old lichen-covered stumps still showing patches of charred black here and there, though the birds that sang in the evening breeze and the small burrowing beasts that scuttled away at the sound of human feet had long since forgotten that fact.
At the other end of it were eight Mallister men dressed in the same greens and browns as their own local allies, and even Amrelath for the sake of not making himself blindingly obvious. The girl would talk about a man turning into a dragon of course, but that could not be helped unless one would be willing to kill her, and that would cost three-thousand gold coins which Amrelath was not willing to pay.
"Are you whole and hale, my lady?" the elder of the Mallister armsmen called.
"Rob? Yes, I am... as well as could be hoped under the circumstances..." The twang of a bowstring somewhere in the forest almost give lie to those words forever, but she managed to throw herself to the ground in time.
"Treachery! I will show you how..." the lead man-at-arms began.
"Do you imagine we were about to kill our own hostage for no discernible reason before getting paid for her?" Even making use of a feeble human voice Amrelath's words cut through the air like a knife even as he moved closer to the Mallister girl, ready to shield her with magic.
When the second arrow arched out of the trees on a much truer path it shattered against vast ethereal wings. Thankfully it was also enough to send both sides scrambling into the woods, where after a brief scuffle they emerged with a bleeding dark-haired man whose filthy tunic contrasted tellingly with his finely-crafted bow.
"It seems we share at least one foe," Amrelath noted as he walked beside the girl. "Sadly we cannot wait to see who it might be, but should you wish to explore the matter further you know where to send word I imagine."
With these words Amrelath took his coin, content for a job well done thrice over.
OOC: The dice were very much in your favor here.