Page 12 of Inferno

Even so, one small village of a hundred people was hardly going to make an impact if they went up against a city of tens of thousands, but it was a step in the right direction.

“The fire-dogs are a bit more of a problem,” he went on. “The notes for them repeat previous instructions to keep running long past the time they think they’ve got away from the warriors. Gosta reiterated the fact that the army will keep hunting the dogs forhours. The trouble is knowing what they’re supposed to do after they escape. We’ve told them to disguise themselves as logs or rocks if they hear any humans coming near them, but we don’t have a refuge where they can go, so then it’s really a case of trying to rehome each one individually with another Chalandrian. We’ve tried sending more of them to Greenvale, but even then, they have limited capacity.” Greenvale was a small town far to the east, and thanks to a witch who owned the pub there, it had become something of a safe haven for wayward Chalandrians.

“So finding a strategy for the fire-dogs should be a priority before the next cycle,” Kit said, staring out the window as she pondered the idea. “And we still don’t have any really good options for the hadathmet, or the fenrigs, or the deelees.”

“Or the witches,” Nerik added, though there was a growing consensus that the witches, with their magic, should be able to sort something out for themselves. Nerik had never found that idea to be particularly fair, nor did he like the fact that there were a handful of other species receiving little to no help – the ragions, for example, or the mages. Or the infernals.

The kettle was boiling by now, so Kit poured the water into a teapot and added a few spoons of a couple of different herbs. “Let’s focus on what we can do, rather than what we can’t,” she said, sounding weary. “One step at a time.”

“Yeah,” Nerik said, knowing that idle platitudes were never going to save the thousands of people who desperately needed help. “Well, that’s the last of my news. I’d better get to work, if I want to earn a living today.” He was suddenly sorely sick of this conversation, and more than happy to make his excuses to leave.

“Are you going to see Yorin today?” Kit asked, a knowing smirk on her face.

For the first time in years, the question rankled. “Yeah,” Nerik said, trying to sound casual about it. “He said he might have a couple of deliveries for me to do, so I’ll swing by sometime on my morning route.”

“Good luck,” she said with a raised eyebrow and a grin. “You still have the option of actually asking him out sometime.”

Nerik forced a smile. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll get onto that today.” He turned and headed out of the kitchen, gave Maky a cursory pat on the head as he crossed the shop, and then let himself outside. Gods, some days he hated his life.

◊ ◊ ◊

Yorin stood at the back of the crowd as the parade of warriors marched off down the street, relieved that he’d done his civic duty of showing a token amount of support for the army and could now get back to work. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate the job the warriors did. Without them, the demons would come pouring through the gate unchecked, and then the gods only knew what would happen to the city. Everyone in Minia was aware of how much they needed the warriors to protect them.

But somewhere along the way, honour and chivalry had become eroded, giving way to arrogance and entitlement. Every shopkeeper or business in Minia was expected to make regular donations to the warriors’ cause – in addition to the taxes that were used to pay the army’s salaries – and while that might have been reasonable enough, the warriors then went out of their way to extort even more ‘gifts’ from the local businesses. At the end of each cycle, Yorin made sure to have two or three tunics or coats that he donated to the festival that was celebrated when the gate closed; handsome and well made pieces that the warriors could divvy up amongst themselves, along with the offerings of trousers, shirts, undergarments and socks donated by the other tailors and seamstresses in Minia. Between the lot of them, there should have been enough to clothe the entire army once a year.

But somehow, that wasn’t enough. Every time a warrior or a warrior’s wife entered his shop, they were pressuring him to lower his prices, to give them a discount, to throw in ‘a little something extra’ for no extra cost. In his younger years, Yorin had obliged, anxious to meet his social obligations and nervous about getting on the wrong side of the powerful men.

Over the years, though, and with a lot of practice and self-encouragement, he had managed to learn to say no more often than not. Even now, he wasn’t entirely at ease with refusing their requests, but nine times out of ten, he managed to stand his ground.

That wasn’t to say he wasn’t willing to go above and beyond the call of duty. For a paying customer, he might stay up late at night to finish an urgent order, or take a trip into the forest to deliver a package, but he saw no justice in the way the army assumed they could march into his shop and take what they wanted, with no regard for how much time or money it had cost to make it. After all, regardless of the drama at the gate, he still had to feed himself, and pay for his firewood, and buy the fabric and thread and needles to make the clothes. And if he couldn’t pay the weaver or the baker in ‘gratitude’, then why should the warriors think they could pay him in such an absurd currency?

As the lines of warriors moved off up the street, Yorin headed back to his shop. It would be a slow day in all likelihood, with too many people having had their mornings disrupted by the parade. Determined to make good use of the time anyway, Yorin got to work on completing the last of last week’s orders, hoping to make a start on yesterday’s influx by the end of the day.

It was about half an hour later when the door opened, and Yorin looked up from his stitching, a smile on his face to greet his customer… until he got a look at the young woman’s face, and all thoughts of a cheerful ‘Good morning’ fled.

“Helen? Good gracious, are you all right?” Helen was one of the serving women who pampered the warriors while the gate was closed. She was one of the more reserved and sensible ones, based on the few brief interactions Yorin had had with her, and today, she looked like she’d been bawling her eyes out for most of the morning. Her eyes were puffy and her face red, and her mouth had a distinct downward turn at the edges.

“No,” Helen whimpered. “I’m terrible. Utterly terrible.”

“Oh gods, what’s wrong?” Yorin asked, genuinely sympathetic, though he really didn’t know Helen all that well. “What’s happened?” He frantically searched for a handkerchief and handed it to her once he found one in his back pocket.

Helen sobbed a couple of times, then made a visible effort to pull herself together. She took a deep breath, then another. “I came to cancel the dress Calium ordered for me. I’m breaking off my engagement to him.”

Yorin’s jaw dropped. “Oh, good heavens,” he said, shocked into speechlessness. A serving woman was turning down a marriage proposal from a warrior? He’d never heard of such a thing happening in all his life.

He grabbed a stool and gently guided her to sit down, both out of compassion for her distressed state, and out of concern that she might faint right there on his shop floor. It wasn’t the most comfortable of seats, but Helen settled herself onto it with a watery nod of thanks, then fluffed out her skirts around her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. This is nothing like the way I expected it would go.”

Helen could only have been a year or two younger than himself, but suddenly Yorin felt like he was supposed to be in the role of worldly older brother, listening to her woes and offering sagely advice. Which, given how much he knew about relationships, was sadly ironic. “How about you start at the beginning and tell me what happened?” he suggested.

But before Helen could begin explaining her story, the door opened and Yorin looked up to see Nerik stepping into the shop.

Seeing Helen in tears, Nerik stopped in his tracks. “Oh, sorry,” he apologised immediately. “I can come back later…” He made a vague gesture towards the door, but Yorin quickly waved him forward.

“No, please, come in. It’s okay.” After his epiphany last night, Yorin desperately wanted to talk to Nerik, so he had no intention of sending him away and missing the opportunity. But at the same time, it was likely that Nerik knew far more about relationships and dating than Yorin did. Perhaps he would have some useful advice to offer to Helen?

“Helen was just telling me that she’s breaking off her engagement with Calium,” Yorin explained quickly. “Please, tell us what happened.”

Nerik dutifully came and stood beside Yorin, plastering a look of concern onto his face. In truth, Yorin suspected that he cared about the dramas of Helen’s life even less than Yorin did; Nerik had never had much patience for the serving women. But nonetheless, he seemed willing to play the role of concerned bystander, much to Yorin’s relief.