‘Arzak…’ Corminar said hesitantly as we entered the bedroom.

  The orc rested in bed, while Zoi sat in an armchair at the other side of the room, focusing on reading a book. Or pretending to. For the sake of Arzak’s weakened state, we opted not to make jokes about what Val had walked in to. At least, we opted not to make jokes right now; there was time yet.

  ‘Yes. Arm hurt,’ Arzak replied.

  Corminar nodded. ‘I am sorry to hear that, but it was not the subject of my question.’

  The orc nodded approvingly. Only she could be frustrated by people fussing over her. Only she could think Corminar’s apparent apathy about her injury was something to be lauded. ‘Good. What, then?’

  ‘I have had an idea. One that may help us deal with our Arit problem.’ Corminar glanced at me. ‘And perhaps our Cleo problem, as well.’

  This was the first I’d heard about that part, but I made an effort not to react.

  ‘I require your network of informants. I require them to send a message, if that is not too much to ask?’

  Arzak pulled herself up to a seated position and grabbed for the quill and paper on her bedside table. She winced as she put pressure on her injured right arm, and my heart dropped. If the orc could not so much as support her weight on this arm, how could she hope to fight in her typical two-handed manner? How could she hope to be a part of the battles we would need to fight in the coming days? I was happy that she had survived—ecstatic, even—but were we not essentially down a soldier nonetheless? Again, I made an effort not to react.

  At the sight of the orc hurting herself, Zoi tossed the book aside and rose to help her. I didn’t quite know when these two had become so close, but I suppose I’d been focusing on other matters. Trying to stop the world ending and having to deal with a mother who was one bad day away from murdering you were both stressors that had to be the priority over my friend’s love life.

  The tiefling took the paper and quill from Arzak’s trembling hands, then looked to Corminar.

  ‘Tell your network,’ the elf said, ‘that Corminar Cladenor seeks Ted the enchanter. He is calling in his blood debt.’

  ‘Oh, he won’t like this,’ Val said, a smile on her face that matched my own.

  Zoi raised an eyebrow, but asked nothing of our apparent past with this enchanter.

  ‘Inform him of our location,’ Corminar continued, ‘and that we will be travelling north. I expect to meet him on the road.’

  Arzak swallowed. ‘What if informant captured? What if Council intercept?’

  ‘The scout that…’ Corminar trailed off, but gestured to Arzak’s injured arm. ‘The scout was able to retreat. Arit will be informed that we are pursuing him, if he was not already aware.’

  ‘I’m guessing Cleo told him,’ Val added. ‘He won’t learn anything that he didn’t know already.’

  I nodded my agreement. ‘Speaking of, we should set off, when we can. Coming back here and Arzak recovering has given Arit a couple of days’ head start. We have some ground to cover, and we’ll need to find new—’

  ‘I sorry if injury slow us down,’ the orc said, having so recently mastered the art of sarcasm.

  Holding up my hand to beg her forgiveness, I replied, ‘I didn’t mean it like that. You getting better is important. But so too is stopping Arit and the malae. We’ve got to get moving.’

  Arzak raised her injured arm for all to see. ‘And I fight like this?’

  To this, I had no response. Nobody did. The room went silent. Val moved almost imperceptibly towards me. It was up to me, then, to be the villain. To be the one to say it.

  ‘You don’t have to fight. You’ve given enough. We can… go on without you.’

  If the silence of moments earlier was chilling, I don’t know how to describe the one that followed. Arzak held my gaze with eyes so intense, yet so unreadable.

  ‘You retire me?’ she asked.

  ‘If it’s what you want.’

  ‘And if not what I want?’

  ‘Then you’ll come with us,’ I answered. ‘We’d want you there, and you’ll still be valuable to us. But… it’ll be dangerous.’

  ‘I know it dangerous,’ the orc replied. ‘I…’ She shook her head. Just what had I seen in her eyes? I’d thought at first it was anger, directed at me. But now I wasn’t so sure.

  ‘There is another option,’ Zoi piped up. ‘If we can spare a day.’

  ‘We can’t,’ I said.

  ‘Styk!’ Val cried out, and when I looked into her eyes, I was sure I saw anger.

  I held her glare. ‘I’m sorry to have to be the one to say this, I really am, but we’ve got to strike Arit now. We’ve got to strike him before the malae get to Auricia. Once those creatures are behind Amira’s walls, we’ll have no hope of getting to them. The Council’s plan will be as good as complete.’

  ‘We don’t know that, Styk,’ Lore said, adding to the choir of voices rising against me. ‘We might find another way. We usually do! And if we can help Arzak in the meantime…’

  The elf stood tall. ‘Styk is right,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘We must bring the battle to Arit as soon as possible.’

  I nodded.

  Corminar licked his lips. ‘...However.’

  Ah.

  ‘Our latest and best plan—’

  ‘“Best” is a stretch,’ I cut in.

  The elf drew a long sigh, but nodded his agreement. ‘Our latest and least terrible plan relies upon the presence of Ted, the enchanter. As we do not know where in the world that dreadful yet admittedly slightly handsome man is, we may have to wait. If, in the meantime, we can aid our friend, then I think we must.’

  ‘And give up valuable reconnaissance time while we do that?’ I asked. ‘What if future scouting trips show a weakness we didn’t spot before. What if—’

  ‘You want go back into that?’ Arzak asked. ‘You want face corruption again? Who lose strength next? Corminar? Lore? Pregnant wife? Or maybe they not just lose strength. Maybe they lose life.’

  I struggled to meet the orc’s gaze. ‘We’ll have to face them eventually.’

  ‘Then we face them after this handsome enchanter arrives,’ Zoi said.

  It was a clean sweep; everyone in this room, even the temporary member of the team, had spoken against me. I drew in a long, deep breath, then finally raised my hands in the air to admit defeat. ‘Fine. Tell me, Zoi. How do we help Arzak?’

  * * *

  Lore tried to make me feel better about the situation as we travelled northwest, following Zoi’s lead. He was right, of course, that looking after our friends was important, but he didn’t need to use the phrase “the power of friendship” quite so much. I let him think he’d won me around by making the case that if we didn’t look after each other, then we were no better than the Players, but I didn’t really believe that. Not at times like these.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  No, the only thing that made me feel better about the situation was our direction of travel. Though we weren’t directly following Arit’s army, we were still riding in roughly the right direction, if a bit inefficiently. Val had started teaching me the basics of riding over the past day or so, and I have to admit that it wasn’t something that came naturally to me. Nobody could be amazing at everything. So I let her keep the reins, and in the meantime, I focused my mind on plotting.

  I wish I could say I came up with something new and revolutionary as we travelled, but honestly I thought of nothing better than we already had. The worst thing possible had happened: we were relying on that annoying Ted guy to stop the world from ending. I could think of nobody worse suited to the task. But when he came—as Corminar was sure he would—and we could get old familiar enchantments from him… then maybe we stood a chance at taking out Arit. Everything else would follow.

  When we arrived at Zoi’s intended destination, I was surprised to find that it wasn’t the house of a great healer, or some academy of magicks. No, instead, we stood before a humble blacksmith’s hut.

  Even Arzak was unsure. ‘This right place?’

  Zoi squeezed the orc on her good arm. ‘It’s the right place. Trust me.’ The tiefling said, before glancing over the burning forge then pushing open the flimsy wooden door of the blacksmith’s hut.

  ‘Kudd?’ the tiefling called out. ‘Are you there?’

  A filthy head poked out from around the corner of the dusty interior, and the man’s eyes lit up. ‘Zoi, darling! It’s been too long!’ The man hurried to hug the tiefling, an apron with soot stains disguising its floral print draping across the floor. Surprisingly, Zoi didn’t seem worried about the dirt—I would have thought she was the type to appreciate cleanliness—or at least hugging an old friend was enough to put such concerns aside. To make matters worse, the blacksmith gripped Zoi by the shoulders and placed a kiss on each cheek, leaving black marks on either side. Only then did Kudd notice the rest of us. ‘And you brought friends!’

  Zoi nodded, stepping aside, and gestured to us. ‘Kudd, meet Arzak, Val, Corminar, Styk and Lore.’

  The blacksmith nodded, then pointed to Corminar. ‘I am going to guess you’re Lore.’ He pointed to Val. ‘You’re Arzak.’ To me and Arzak. ‘You’re Corminar and Val.’ Finally, he gestured to Lore. ‘And you’re Styk.’

  ‘Not even close,’ Val said. ‘Arzak is an orcish name.’

  Kudd stepped forward, taking Arzak’s left hand for a shake, having apparently noticed the injury to her right arm without us realising. ‘A beautiful name for a beautiful woman,’ he said, kissing the orc’s hand. ‘I should’ve known.’

  ‘Is it only Arzak who shall be receiving a kiss in the near future?’ Corminar asked, immediately jealous—as always—of someone else getting attention.

  Kudd’s eyes lit up. ‘Of course not. Where’d you want it?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘We’re actually here for a favour,’ Zoi interrupted Corminar before he could give the inevitable answer. A wise decision, because it seemed that even my elven friend had met his match in the blacksmith with the flowery apron.

  Kudd feigned offence, placing a hand on his chest. ‘This isn’t a social call, my love?’

  Zoi drifted to Arzak’s side, putting a hand tight on the orc’s good arm. I watched Kudd’s eyes drift from the hand, to Zoi, and then to Arzak. A small smile crossed his face. I could see that he knew of Arzak and Zoi’s blossoming relationship immediately; nothing got past this man.

  ‘Arzak here,’ Zoi said, ‘she recently suffered an injury to her arm. It was an injury of a sort that no healer could ever truly mend, and as she specialises in Two-Handed…’

  Kudd nodded. ‘She will need strength in both arms. I understand, my dear. Perhaps there is something we can do about it, but I will need to consider it, and it will come at a price.’

  ‘A price?’ Val asked. ‘We have coin, we can—’

  But the blacksmith shook his head. ‘No, no, nothing like that. My price is simple. In the kitchen, you will find ingredients for a carrot and parsnip soup.’ He turned to Corminar, Lore and me. ‘Perhaps these strapping young gentlemen could prepare us dinner?’

  * * *

  I was on cutting duty. I suppose that made sense; of the three of us, I was definitely the one most adept with a knife. Corminar stood over a giant metal pot, stoking the flames beneath with drops of fire potions, while Lore, of course, was in charge of flavour.

  As we worked in the kitchen, we heard all kinds of noises coming from the other room. At first there was the fast, scratchy sound of frantic charcoal sketching. Then we heard thuds and wallops as the blacksmith looked for the required materials. And finally, we heard “oohs” and “aahs” as Kudd revealed his intention. Corminar, Lore and I looked up from our work at these noises, frowns on our face, but nobody with any extra information that we could provide. Only when all the ingredients were chopped—a job fairly quickly achieved due to my high Knifework ability—was I able to leave the other two guys in the kitchen and take a look for myself.

  What I found was the four of them standing over a large desk, staring down at a sketch of the blacksmith’s creation. I arrive at their side, tried to peer over Arzak’s shoulder, failed, and then peered over Zoi’s instead. What I saw was a beautiful sketch of Arzak’s frail, injured arm, but that wasn’t what the rest of the team had gasped at. What they’d be in awe of was the intricate mechanical contraption that Kudd had sketched around the drawing of Arzak’s arm. It was an elaborate frame structure that encompassed the arm, complete with springs and lines of what I could only assume were a form of mana running down it.

  ‘Huh,’ I said.

  ‘Huh?’ Kudd repeated. ‘Is that all you have to say, my dear?’

  ‘I mean—’

  ‘This will fix arm? Make strong again?’ Arzak asked, saving me from having to defend myself.

  Kudd took the orc by the shoulders, and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘It won’t just make your arm strong. It will make it an arm fit for the queen that you are.’

  Zoi smiled. ‘What do you need us to do?’