Page 30 of When the Merchant Met the Orc

“All right.”

When we get to the inn, a cacophony of yelling and cursing pours from the windows.

Then I notice the smoke.

Black clouds plume from the back of the building. Halvard grabs my hand, and we rush around back. The kitchen’s outer wall is consumed in flame, and the innkeeper is shouting orders.

“Alert the fire brigade! Tell them to sound the alarm!”

But everyone runs this way and that. They don’t even seem to hear the panicked innkeeper as they try to put the fire out with damp linen towels and small buckets of water.

Halvard releases me and puts his fingers to his lips. A whistle breaks from his lips, and every head turns toward him.

“You there,” he says in a very commanding orc voice that no one would dare ignore, “you in the red tunic, you go to the fire brigade. You,” he says, pointing to a pixie in brown trousers, “head to the tower and get them to sound the bell. Everyone else, find a bucket and line up here.”

I grab a large soup pot and line up beside a few serving lads. Soon, we have a line going from a well behind the building into the half-destroyed kitchen. The person nearest the well fills a bucket and passes it along until it’s dumped onto the fire by the last person. Halvard and the innkeeper are draping water-doused bathing sheets onto the areas where the flames are out but still smoking.

After an hour of fighting the fire, my lungs burn, and I cough. Halvard turns from his work, face streaked with soot.

“Get out of here,” he calls out to me.

“Not until it’s under control.”

“Human lungs are weak. We monsters can handle this.”

I ignore him, take the next container of water handed to me, and give it to the goblin beside me. Smoke blocks my view of Halvard.

My eyes blur with tears, and my hands are shaking.

The next thing I know, I’m falling into big, warm arms, and the world is going dark.

Chapter 16

Halvard

Ihold Rychell tightly and hurry away from the smoke and into the center of town. People are everywhere, all of them aiding the innkeeper in some way or another.

“Breathe, love,” I whisper to Rychell. “Breathe the clean air in.”

I find a cluster of trees near the marketplace and sit on the tree’s roots with Rychell in my arms. Smoothing her hair away from her damp face, I repeat the order.

Her chest moves. She jolts upward, coughing. My pulse at top speed, I keep her steady with a hand, and when the fit stops, she collapses against me.

“Thank you, Halvard.”

I exhale in relief. “You’re tough and brave, but I didn’t mention humans and monsters in some foolish effort to be overprotective. It’s a fact.”

She nods and coughs again. The color returns to her cheeks, and she wipes her eyes with her sleeve.

“Noted,” she says, letting out an unfunny laugh. “I was being an idiot. Is the fire out?”

We both stand and look toward the inn. Only a light stream of weak smoke rises from the back.

“Looks like it,” I say. “But we won’t be able to stay there. Why don’t you rest here a little longer, and I’ll go help them secure the place? I bet they lost a ceiling beam or two. If not, they might soon enough.”

“I think I’m okay. I can help.”

“You sure?”