Arral didn’t want to leave the bed. There was something weird about it. He was too used to hay, maybe a bit of string. But the fabric seemed to have just sucked him in. When his head was on the pillow, everything felt… somewhere else, somewhere where he didn’t have to worry.

  “Jiden, open the door!” Someone shouted outside.

  Now he remembered he was still in Sidord.

  “Jiden! I know you’re lurking around in there!”

  A window opened. “Can you shut the hell up, you crazy woman?!” A man shouted.

  “My daughter is in there!”

  “Okay?! Did I ask for your life story?!”

  “Well, you can mind your own business, you living scrotum!”

  Arral groaned silently, smothering his ear with the pillow.

  “You’re one to talk, lady!” The man cried. “Sure you’re not rotting from leprosy?!”

  “Oh, I’m more than you’ll ever bloody get in your lifetime!”

  Another door opened. “Mum, can you stop bothering the neighbours?”

  “Come on,” the woman said. There was a sound of a struggle below.

  “M-mum, no! Get off my arm!”

  “You’re coming home, young lady!”

  “This is my house! Where’s Dad?! Why isn’t he looking after you?!”

  Arral grabbed his pillow, barging out of the room. He shut the door behind before sliding down to the floor, his legs tucked to his chest. Only the sounds of music and banter downstairs remained to bother.

  He squeezed the pillow behind his head. It wasn’t the nicest place, but he had worse. The shouts of the other rooms may as well have been squealing pigs.

  “Having a nice lie there?” A familiar voice suddenly spoke.

  His gaze went upwards. Those wide, wrinkled eyes raised the hairs on his skin and the thump of his heart.

  Arral’s hand darted back to the door handle, his wrist was snatched by something much larger.

  “There isn’t a point for this, Jokan,” the large one, Shemek, told the bandit.

  “Yeah, well, I can’t exactly sleep until I figure out where I’ve seen him. It’s like one of those… I don’t know, it’s like an itch, I guess.”

  The large thing groaned. “I need to sleep, you are better off to abandon this endeavour.”

  “Then go to chuffing sleep, you sodding Orc! The boy’s - what - six?!”

  “Sometimes, I wonder if a worm has gone into your brain.”

  “Stop wondering, then.”

  Shemek let go of Arral, immediately deciding to leave. Jokam, meanwhile, took the opportunity to pin Arral to the wall.

  He was sweating, his head desperately looking for any means of escape. He whimpered like a child in the middle of a busy road.

  “I know we’ve met before,” Jokan muttered. “Everyone calls what I’ve got an illness. It’s not an illness - it isn’t - it never was. I said earlier, it’s an itch. Everyone’s got an itch they need scratching. Mine just happens to be faces, don’t it? Usually, I try to forget, but there’s just…” He sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t—”

  There was a whack from behind. Daifan didn’t feel anything restraining him. Slowly, he turned around. The bandit was on the floor.

  There was a woman, she looked like one of the staff, holding a dented candlestick in hand. “He didn’t hurt you did he?”

  Arral felt his strained wrists. ‘No, no… he… thank you.”

  The door at the end of the corridor opened. Shemek’s head peeked out. “Has he passed?”

  “Erm…” The woman lowered herself, her fingers pressing on the bandit’s neck. “He’s still alive, mate.”

  Shemek marched out, Arral briefly considered running back into his room and shutting the door. But, there was no threat.

  The big thing grabbed his comrade by the leg, the former guard winced seeing his grip.

  “Apologies for all the bother, boy,” he told him. “Good evening, Tymedul,” he then told the woman.

  They were both back in their room not long after. The woman, Tymedul, glared to Arral. “Sorry about them.”

  “You don’t— why are you apologising?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Jokan’s a thug we keep around, we don’t know why, not even Tilsirr knows.”

  “What about the big one?”

  “Shemek? Oh, he’s fine. For an Orc, at least.” She folded her arms, leaning on the wall. “Are you sure you’re okay after that?”

  Arral just wanted to go back in. “Yeah, yeah, I’m okay. You don’t have to… well, yeah.”

  “I’ll tell Tilsirr about this, if it helps. It will help, I mean.”

  Arral nodded, he noticed he was shaking as he grabbed his pillow back up. “Thanks.”

  “You’re southern, aren't you?” She asked.

  Some bit of irritation bounced out Arral’s slopping eyes. People were just too obsessed with accents here. He said to her, “Yeah, why?”

  Again, she shrugged. “Not really heard one round here. Hear we’ve got plenty what with all the refugees now, though.”

  Arral gazed away briefly. “Err… yeah. Sure.” He didn’t know what else to say. He said thank you already, was he supposed to have a conversation here? Arral stopped thinking for a moment, just said, “Night.”

  He shut the door. He threw the pillow back on the bed. He sat down on the floor.

  He was still shaking.

  “He has to go!” Tymedul shouted at the Dwarf.

  Tilsirr looked up. “I understand your concern with Jokan, however—”

  “Don’t you ‘however’ this! The prick assaulted a boy upstairs! The poor thing is probably scared to come back out the room!”

  Arral had already been on the stairs adjacent to the bar the two stayed by. His steps were slow, like one odd creak could get his neck set on a chopping block.

  Tilsirr frowned. “Was he the one that got attacked?”

  Tymedul nodded. She shouted to Arral, “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”

  Arral nearly fell off the last couple steps hearing her voice, only being saved by the grace of the bannister.

  “Are you okay, lad?” Tilsirr said.

  Arral stabled himself on the floor, before moving over to the bar. “Morning,” he said.

  There was nobody else in other than a couple workers. That didn’t stop him looking over his back every now and then.

  “Now, lad, tell me, were you attacked upstairs?” Tilsirr asked.

  Arral glanced at the woman for a moment, before nodding.

  The bartender groaned. “I’m terribly sorry you had to go through that. He didn’t hurt you bad, did he?”

  Arral shook his head muttering, “No.”

  “Tymedul, go upstairs, tell the two they’re not getting paid and that if they assault another customer again, it’s the gallows for them.”

  “Even Shemek?” Tymedul questioned.

  “He’s a good soul, but too tolerant of his partner.”

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  “No, I mean how would the gallows work for him? He’s massive, wouldn’t the rope just snap?”

  “I’ll shoot them or something, I don’t know. Just go up and tell them.”

  “Right, of course.” Tymedul left, making her way up the stairs.

  Arral leaned on the table. There was only quiet between him and the bartender. Until finally, Tilsirr broke it. “Sleep well?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Planning on looking for your friend today, then?”

  Right, Daifan, he almost forgot about him. “I still don’t know where to start.”

  “Do you remember what he looks like now?”

  Arral looked to the oak counter, sort of trying to see him through the markings. “He’s just a boy. Brown hair, brown eyes…”

  “That doesn’t narrow it down. Has he got any markings? Scars?”

  Arral lightly shook his head.

  Tilsirr sighed. “I’m assuming he sounds a bit like you?”

  “Kind of. He isn’t from Penalm, I don’t know where he’s from.”

  “I’ll ask around, if it helps. Can’t say when you’ll get a return from me, though.”

  Arral briefly looked up. “Thanks.”

  “You’re still planning on selling that knife, aren’t you? I know someone who’d pay plenty for something like that. You could keep yourself fed and housed for probably three, four days. Could extend it if you ended up rationing.”

  “You get twenty,” the man in the tent told Arral.

  “Twenty? Th— that’s nothing!”

  “My apologies. Fifteen.”

  “This blade is proper Elven… craft? Come on, it must be worth something more.”

  “This—” The man held up the weapon. “—is blunt. There are scratches everywhere. Oh, I forgot to say, it’s a fancy kitchen knife!” He pointed to some of the other merchants. “Those lot are selling the same things, probably better quality ones. So, you can either take the cash, or you can stop wasting my time.”

  Arral thought for a few moments, half his head had been filled with curse words. He decided to go elsewhere. Everyone had the same offers.

  “Five.”

  “Seven.”

  “Twelve.”

  “I thought you were robbing me for a moment. Let me think… three.”

  Arral went back to the first man. He got fifteen. Could’ve bought a few bread rolls with that.

  He sat down on the ground somewhere in the market. This was it, he was done. Tilsirr might give him another night at the tavern, but after that, there was nothing. Just sitting with a bowl out begging for coins.

  There was the option of looking for a job, but… well, Arral never saw himself good at anything. He could make a fire, he couldn’t file taxes, he couldn’t build a house, the most he would end up doing is probably get forced into whatever army they had here so the Elves didn’t scorch the whole place down.

  The poorly-minted coins were warm in his hands. He held them tight, debating whether to buy something now or starve until tomorrow, or the next day. Or maybe he would get robbed beforehand.

  “Excuse me?” A voice popped in from above. Arral heart thudded, he slowly freed his gaze from his thighs, hoping to the gods it wasn’t that bloody bandit again.

  To his luck, it wasn’t. It was a boy, rather a man, only a few years older than him. Hair slicked back, clothes stitched from every corner of the world.

  “Sorry, am I in your way?” Arral asked, planning to shuffle.

  “No, no, not in the slightest.” His voice was smooth, like his throat had been cleaned out by a hundred angels each night. “I have been eyeing you in the market, it seems you are not in the best situation right now, are you?”

  Arral groaned. “Everything’s just been… it’s been dragging for me. Can you just say what you want to say?”

  The young man laughed. “Of course, of course. My name is Pensec, how about I offer you some lunch?”

  “So, I can pick from all of this?” Arral said, staring at the paper.

  “For my sake, just pick one?” Pensec said.

  Arral squinted. He eyed something near the bottom. “Lob— lobster? Is that how you say it?”

  The young man frowned slightly. “Something I can afford. The price should be on the far right.”

  “Sorry, thanks.” There was quiet for a short while. Arral continued to stare at all the words, but his head was too strained to understand any of it. “Can you pick for me?”

  “Too many options, I assume?”

  “No, I just can’t read.”

  Pensec raised an eyebrow. “You can’t read?”

  “I can do signs. Nothing big, though.”

  “Erm… okay? I can work with that… probably.” He signalled one of the restaurant’s waiters, they shortly came over. “Get him chicken, and for me, the fish. I want lots of vinegar on mine. Oh, a bowl of chips too if that’s okay?”

  “We’re out of vinegar, I’m afraid,” the waiter said.

  “How can you be out of vinegar? That’s like… that’s like we’ve run out of air. Gods.”

  “Do you still want the fish?”

  “Of course I still want the fish!”

  The waiter nodded, nearly scowling at his tone, before leaving.

  Pensec set his elbows on the table, clasping his hands together. “So, Arral, tell me, whereabouts are you from? That isn’t a Sidordian accent I’m hearing.”

  “I’m from Penalm.”

  “Can’t say I’m familiar with the place.”

  “No, I don’t blame you. It’s just a small village. Near Denaralm, I don’t know if you—”

  “Oh, Denaralm, right, I got you. I got you. Very stuck-up down there, isn’t it?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve only been there a couple times, never really… you know. I never left my village, used to be a guard there.”

  “Used to be? What changed?”

  Arral looked down, fibbing with his thumbs.

  “Ah, right. Elves.” Pensec leaned in. “What was it then? Too scared to fight them?”

  Arral wanted to tell him to shut up. But, he was hungry, and he was probably the only opportunity he would have gotten in a while.

  “Sure,” he said bluntly.

  “I can’t blame you. If things keep going the way they are, the same thing will happen here soon.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Oh, stories. The guards and army here are about as useful as a snapped washing line. They’ll be flattened the second they come across a dragon, or a mage, or whatever big thing pulled out of a stupid storybook they somehow have in their ranks. I mean, you think we’ve got any of that here? Maybe one or two, but against the imperial army, we’re done for.”

  “Mhm,” Arral said.

  The food arrived, oddly quickly.

  “Roast pork and chips?” The server said, placing the large tray on a vacant table.

  “I thing you have the wrong table, lass,” Pensec told her.

  Someone waved a few paces over. The server apologised, she made her way off.

  “They really need to get more staff around here. It’s just the two of them you know, in a place with forty odd tables.”

  “Right.”

  “Okay, might as well start now.” Pensec took a breath. “I want to offer you a job.”

  Arral glared at him up and down. “Why?”

  “Well, I need something done and you need cash.”

  “You— I don’t really think… you don’t even know who I am.”

  The young man leaned back on his chair. “That’s usually how these things go, I find it’s better that I don’t know everything.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if I knew everything?”

  “Ideally not. Besides, the task is simple enough.”

  “Then get to it!”

  “All right, all right, I can see you’re more direct than I thought.”

  “I told you to get to the point back in the market!”

  “You don’t have to get so aggressive, Arral.”

  “You don’t have to act so bloody vague!”

  Pensec put his hands up. “Fair enough. Fair enough. You calm now?”

  Arral took a breath, his voice lowered. “Sure.”

  “I have a certain… package that I need delivering. Just a box.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “That I would much rather keep to myself. You deliver it, five-hundred coins.”

  Arral squinted. Five-hundred, that could have kept him fed for a few months if he was smart on it. All for the small job of being a messenger. Well, courier. No different from home, he was always the one giving out messages to people. He could pay for a roof over his head, probably hide from people like Jokan, probably worse than him.

  Nobody would pay anyone five-hundred for a one-off, though. Pensec was hiding something, that was as clear as daylight. But, there was one factor that anchored him on board.

  Pensec was paying for the food.

  “Remember, don’t—”

  “Don’t open it, I know,” Arral told Pensec.

  The young man smiled. Arral eventually held the box in his hand. It felt… off. It seemed like wood, but at the same time, it wasn’t. It was too rough, yet too… smooth?

  “The building is just down there. Now, you’ve been a guard, so I don’t expect you to be all clumsy about it, now.”

  “I won’t.”

  “That’s a good lad.”

  “Who should I be expecting?”

  “Nobody important. You don’t have to keep worrying.”

  Arral didn’t say anything. Pensec made a face, taking it as his cue to quickly leave. “Good luck!”

  Now, Arral really wanted to open the box. So many ideas swirled in his mind, maybe it was a rare animal, maybe it was an old artefact that could burn down the city in an instant - that would have been an improvement.

  The building was just there. There was nothing special about it, it seemed like an abandoned townhouse, Arral remembered staying in one back down in Denaralm. To put it nicely, the place stank. He expected this to be no different.

  He was eventually at the tall, faceless door. The smart thing to do was knock on the door, make sure someone was home, and leg it. Whatever he was bringing, he concluded, was not his problem, it was not worth his time.

  The box was nestled under his armpit. He reached out, but before he could knock, the door creaked inwards.

  Arral held back a scream the second he saw a pair of green eyes hovering in the dark. He straightened himself, counting his breaths.

  “What do you want?” Their accented voice asked him.

  “Erm… package from Pensec?” He said, like he was asking if it was the correct thing to say.

  The eyes narrowed to the box, before averting back to him. “Come on in.”

  Arral placed the box on the ground, slowly pushing it close to the door. “I’d rather not.”

  The green eyes shifted back behind the door, the package was dragged inside. Arral turned to go, suddenly realising Pensec did not tell him where he’d be.

  Before he had even had a short stroll, two pairs of hands snatched him from behind, hauling him through those tall doors. His eyes darted around, searching for anyone to scream to, but a gloved hand muffled it all.

  The doors shut and locked, the daylight was no longer in his reach. The only thing above him now were about five or six different blades hanging over him, accompanied by a group of shining green, red and blue eyes. His skin sweltered, his heart throbbed in his neck and ears.

  Elves.

  “What’s in the box?” One asked.

  “I— I don’t know,” Arral said, trembling.

  “You delivered it!”

  “I’m just the mess— I was paid to deliver it. I don’t know anything else.”

  “Pull him up.”

  Two others did so, holding him by the arms. The box was placed on a table in front of him.

  “Open it,” the Elf ordered.

  “What?”

  Something sharp etched against the side of his neck. “Open. The. Box. You. Utter. Northern. Prick.”

  He couldn't escape any of it could he? He couldn't escape the Elves, he couldn't escape the threats. He might as well be dead right now. Whether it be from the box or from the Elves.

  Arral’s hands slowly reached out, tracing the material for any sort of opening. It wasn’t anything he was familiar with, but the thing seemed straightforward enough. Closed by the carvings of its own make. He undid any of the weird wood hanging off, and slowly, it opened.

  It wasn't an artefact, it wasn't an animal. It was… something. Something grey, something with little colourful worms nestled inside it. In the middle were some dark-green glass. There was a number, lowering as time went on, followed by a brief, pitched whistle each time.

  It was down to thirteen now.

  Twelve.

  Eleven.

  Ten.

  “What is it?” The Elf asked him.

  “I have no idea.”

  Six.

  Five.

  The Elf shoved him out of the way, he was brought back near the doors.

  “Fonsain, help me figure this thing out.”

  “I’m as lost as you are, I’m af—”

  There was a flash. Then ringing. Then grey. Lots of grey.

  Arral was walking. He didn’t remember going on a stroll, but that was what he was doing. He didn’t know where he was going, nothing of note particularly lingered in his head. There was a bit of white here and there, but they faded off.

  He wanted to sit down. Just sit and have a rest, rest his legs. Maybe have a little lie down. That sounded nice. A warm bed.

  At some point, some woman’s face was in front of him. She was mouthing something, or maybe he ran into a painted statue. It was all a blur, and he laughed. He thought he was laughing, anyway. Her brown eyes squinted. She looked down, her eyelids stretched, she looked back up at him.

  He was focussing a lot on eyes today, wasn’t he?

  Something was said. Again, he didn’t know what.

  Then he looked down. He was holding something. Did he have that many hands on one arm? Probably. Maybe it was one of those open things people just don’t notice.

  He tilted his gaze to the left. He couldn’t see his left arm. He could feel it, but he couldn't see it. Maybe he was dreaming. That was it. He was dreaming.

  He was also tired. Very tired.