Page 63 of Inferno
“Well, that’s where I have an advantage over you,” Yorin snapped, as his previous thoughts crystallised into something useable. “Because I don’t know a damn thing about any of you lot, which means first of all that I’m going to be asking a lot of stupid questions, so you’d better get used to it, but secondly, it means I’m not going to be making any stupid assumptions about what is or isn’t possible. And that’s why I need to talk to Nerik. Because I don’t know whether or not he can burn hot enough to melt iron. And I don’t know whether he could perhaps squeeze through the bars in his infernal form, given the right opportunity, since he’s actually just made of smoke and ash. And until I have exhausted every last possibility that I can think of, and run what time we have down to the last second, then I willkeepasking stupid questions, and keep pushing the limits of what I believe to be possible, and now that I’ve got that out of the way, could you please tell me why we need a damn unicorn?”
Kit answered the question, calmly and quietly, while Gosta stared at Yorin with her mouth hanging open. “Unicorns can speak telepathically to multiple people at once. If a unicorn links us together, we’ll be able to hear each other’s thoughts, not just the unicorn’s.”
Yorin spared a couple of seconds to be absolutely flabbergasted by the news, then he swiftly shelved his surprise and moved on. “Excellent. Well, we know there’s a unicorn in the stables-”
“Go and get Stanley,” Gosta interrupted, her voice a little gentler now. “Ask him to bring Rimdolen into town. We’re going to need Stanley anyway, to convince the army that he’s the best choice of someone to train the new unicorn, but that’s going to take time that we don’t have right now.”
“Is Stanley a Chalandrian?” Yorin asked. Nerik hadn’t said anything to that effect, and so far, neither had Kit.
“No,” Gosta replied. “He’s human.”
Yorin waited for her to go on, and when she didn’t, he asked, “So how exactly does having Stanley here help us?”
“Because he’s going to be bringing Rimdolen,” Kit said. “And Rimdolen’s a unicorn.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Yorin trotted through the forest for the second time that day, keeping a brisk pace, but not the punishing rush he’d done before. He gave the gate a wide berth, keeping to the smaller paths in the hope that he wouldn’t run into anyone on the way to Stanley’s place – largely because he had so far completely failed to come up with an excuse for being out this way. None of his customers lived in this part of the forest, and he couldn’t think of any valid reason for him to be visiting Stanley that didn’t sound either highly suspicious or blatantly false.
Then again, his brain wasn’t functioning particularly well at the moment, since the only thing he could think about was his impending conversation with Stanley. He was supposed to convince the man to come and help them save Nerik, and to bring his favourite horse – who happened to actually be a unicorn – to assist in the effort. But Yorin hadn’t seen Stanley since the last time he’d brought a unicorn to Nerik’s house – when he’d so rudely dropped the bombshell about Nerik’s responsibilities with the female infernals, and then been promptly told to get off Nerik’s property. He’d seemed none too happy about Yorin knowing about the Chalandrians, and as far as Yorin was aware, nothing had happened in the last couple of days that might have changed his mind. Would he even care that Nerik was being held captive, given the way they’d parted company last time around?
While Yorin was out here trying to drag Stanley back into town, and the rest of their motley crew were rounding up more helpers, Gosta and Kit had gone back to the town square, intending to try and get a better look at the cage and any possible way it might be broken into, and also to assess the guards. The men Captain Renfold had put on the cage were new recruits, not yet far enough through their training to be allowed to serve at the gate itself, but still capable swordsmen, and far stronger than anything Yorin would want to be fighting.
He would, though, if it came to that. There wasn’t much he wouldn’t do for Nerik, at this point.
But killing the guards would likely be a last resort – too noisy and drawing far too much attention. Yorin prayed they’d come up with an alternative in the next couple of hours, though he had so far failed to think of anything.
He was just coming up to the last turning before Stanley’s farm when he rounded a corner and spotted a small huddle of warriors standing at the side of the road. They were clustered around something, but Yorin couldn’t see what it was from here, other than a quick flash of crimson peeking between the warrior’s brown clothing. His first impulse was to turn around and take a different path… but they’d probably already seen him by now, and suddenly changing direction would only draw attention to himself. Instead, he slowed, moving at a fast walk, instead of a jog. Hopefully they would just let him pass by, without paying him any mind.
But Yorin’s luck seemed to have deserted him today. One of the warriors looked up, moving to intercept him. Yorin couldn’t think of this man’s name – though to be fair, he only knew a handful of the warriors individually, mostly those who frequented his shop. “Where are you off to?” the man asked, curt and to the point.
“I’ve been sent to fetch Stanley. To see about the unicorn that was taken to the barracks.” Yorin’s mouth blurted out the excuse with little-to-no input from his brain… and perhaps that was actually a good thing. It was, after all, a perfectly plausible reason for him to be going to Stanley’s house. And there weren’t any other houses in the immediate vicinity, so if he started trying to make up stories about where he was going, he was just going to get himself in trouble.
But the warrior frowned. “Yeah, but why wouldyoube doing that? Wouldn’t they just send a messenger?”
What answer was he going to come up with to explain that bit?Come on, brain, he thought desperately.Do something useful. “I volunteered,” he said, after only a slight pause. “I mean, it’s aunicorn. I just thought that was fascinating.” He added a touch more enthusiasm to the statement than was strictly necessary, in an attempt to compensate for his actuallackof enthusiasm for this errand.
The warrior snorted. “Kent’s going to bust an artery when he hears about this,” he said to his comrades. “The kid’s been rabbiting on about that blasted unicorn for hours. Nice to know he’s right, though. People will be curious, and that’ll lift public sentiment about the army. They’re going to get Stanley to train it, are they?” he asked Yorin.
“That’s the intention. I have to speak to Stanley about it first, but it would make sense. He’s an excellent horseman.” His reputation said he was, at least. Personally, Yorin had never seen him do much more with a horse than get it to pull a cart.
“All right, be on your way then,” the man said, and Yorin went on quickly, making an effort not to look at whatever it was the warriors were huddled around. If they didn’t want him to know what it was, then he didn’t want to know either.
A few minutes later, he was arriving at Stanley’s yard. A long stable stood to one side, the farmhouse behind it, and a couple of sheds stood off to the right. Stanley himself was in a round yard beyond the stables, lunging a horse. He spotted Yorin, and Yorin imagined he could see the man rolling his eyes from all the way over here.
Stanley slowed the horse, then slipped through the bars on the yard’s fence with surprising ease for a man of his age. He strolled over, looking Yorin up and down with a scowl. “Mind telling me what the hell you’re doing here?”
“Nerik’s been captured,” Yorin said, wasting no time and not wanting to try Stanley’s patience with the slightest hint of small talk. “He’s being held in a cage in the town square and he’s to be executed tomorrow morning. We’re putting a group together to try and come up with a plan to save him, but we need to talk to Nerik directly, and I’ve been told the only way we can do that is via a unicorn. So Kit and Gosta were hoping you could bring Rimdolen to town to give us a hand. Assuming Rimdolen agrees to that, of course.” He made a point of mentioning the need to ask Rimdolen for his opinion separately. And he hoped that saying that it was Kit and Gosta making the request would make Stanley more inclined to help. Assuming he didn’t just tell Yorin that Nerik could go fuck himself.
“Hmph,” Stanley grunted. “Wait here.” He wandered off into the stable without another word, leaving Yorin to wonder what he intended to do next. He didn’t dare follow Stanley inside, knowing he’d likely be kicked straight back out again and get his ear chewed off at the same time. The minutes dragged on, and Yorin hoped that Stanley wasn’t cruel enough to just leave him hanging without an answer.
Finally, though, Yorin heard a rattling sound inside the stable, and then the wide front doors swung open. Stanley led a white horse through, pulling a cart. Was this Rimdolen? He looked just like an ordinary horse… but then again, so had the unicorn that Stanley had brought to Nerik’s house.
Stanley closed the barn doors, then led the horse forward, stopping in front of Yorin. “This here’s Rimdolen,” he said, sounding thoroughly fed up about the whole thing. “You may as well hop up in the cart and we’ll get started for town.”
“Thank you for your help, Rimdolen,” Yorin said to the unicorn, not knowing what the etiquette was with regards to telepathic conversations with these creatures. He climbed up into the cart quickly, shifting over to the side to give Stanley plenty of room.
Yes, well, Nerik has been an enormous help to the unicorns, Rimdolen said, straight into Yorin’s brain, and he was immediately grateful that he’d already gotten the hang of this via Zandro. Otherwise he would have found the sudden connection entirely jarring.I wouldn’t think of abandoning him when he needs help in return.