Ray hit a ledge of sun-baked rock with both knees bent, thirty feet above a narrow gorge choked with dust. The air smelled like hot rock and goat droppings, which was a steep drop from the flowers upstairs in heaven.
"Stuck the landing like a pro," he said, brushing grit off his new coat, "though the smell down here is a hard zero out of ten."
’Nomi promised me a caravan making a poor decision, so where the hell did she park it?’
He rolled one shoulder, then the other, testing a body that no longer clicked or ached anywhere.
"Whoever built these knees deserves a raise... considering my old ones popped like a cheap revolver every time I stood up."
The answer came around the bend below in a creak of wheels and a jingle of harness.
One mule cart rolled into the gorge, flanked by four armed men in mismatched leather and a slim young woman. She walked beside the mule with a crystal rapier at her hip, her lilac hair pinned up in twin twists.
[ AREA SCAN ]
[Armed Men: 4]
[Civilian: 1]
[Threat: Low]
Ray flattened himself on the warm rock, chin on his forearms, reading the escort like a target file.
A bearded leader with a scar splitting his chin walked point, a big axeman trailing at the woman’s shoulder. Behind them came an archer with an unstrung bow over his back and a lanky man spinning a knife.
"An archer who leaves his bow unstrung on a gorge road is either the laziest man alive or a man who already knows how this walk ends," Ray murmured into his sleeve.
’Four hired swords are walking one girl through a perfect kill box, yet not a single one of them is watching the ridge.’
"How much farther to the Kelford road?" the woman called up the line, her voice crisp enough to carry off the rock.
"Another mile once we clear the narrows, miss," the leader answered, scratching at his beard.
"Then we stop for water at the narrows, since the mule is limping."
"Water at the narrows it is, whatever the pretty little healer wants," he drawled, drawing a snicker from two of his men.
Ray caught the snicker, along with the way the leader kept glancing at the far slope instead of the trail.
’That man isn’t scouting for goblins, he’s checking whether his other guests are running on time.’
He slid a hand under his coat, the pistol grip settling into his palm like an old friend.
"Sixty-four rounds with no shop until somebody pays me means every trigger pull comes straight out of my own pocket, so you two stay quiet until somebody down there earns a song," he whispered, patting the holsters.
The narrows pinched the gorge into a throat barely wide enough for the cart, crumbling slopes rising on both sides. The leader halted the mule beside a dead spring, unhooking her satchel from the cart before anyone could ask why.
She planted her feet in the dust, "That satchel is fever medicine for Kelford, Rogan, which means it goes back on the cart right now."
"Funny thing about that, sweetheart," Rogan sneered, tossing it to the lanky man, "it’s ours now, along with that fat purse on your belt."
"You signed a guild escort contract with my name on the bottom line!"
"A contract is only ink on paper, girly, which tears a lot easier than you’d think."
She reached for her rapier, but the axeman caught her elbow from behind, twisting until her fingers sprang wide open. Rogan cut the purse strings with one flick of his knife, weighing the bag in his palm like a plum.
"Aghhh, that purse is my rent and three weeks of sunleaf, you thieving oaf!"
Rogan tucked the purse into his shirt, patting it like a pet, "Then your landlord can take it up with the goblins, healer."
The axeman only squeezed harder, grinning down at her, "Should I cut her throat first, boss, just to be kind about it?"
"Blood on our blades means questions at the guild, so let the goblins be kind instead."
Up on the ledge, Ray’s fingers drummed once on the holster before going perfectly still.
’Stepping in now means a free job against three blades and a bow, while waiting means the job comes to me with a client attached.’
Rogan pulled a sealed jar from his pack, smashing it across her skirt until dark oil soaked her knees.
The stink reached the ledge a second later, rotten fish and old blood, strong enough to make Ray’s eyes water.
"Gah, what is that, a dead fish wearing another dead fish as a coat?" he wheezed, pinching his nose shut.
"Goblin bait, the good stuff from the swamp markets," the lanky man cackled, already backing toward the trail.
The archer strung his bow at last, though he only used it to give her a lazy wave goodbye.
"Textbook disposal, where the wildlife does the killing without leaving a single knife wound for the guild to find," Ray breathed, almost impressed, "though the execution is damn sloppy, given that nobody bothered to check the high ground."
Rogan gave her a mocking salute as his men jogged north up the trail with her purse and satchel.
"Rogan, you rotten coward, I will watch the guild hang you from the Kelford gate for—" she shouted after them, her voice cracking with fury.
"Only if somebody tells them, healer," he called back over her without turning, "though goblins ain’t much for talking."
She swiped at her face with an oily sleeve, only smearing the stink across her cheek.
"This is going to take a week of lye soap to scrub off... maybe two."
"Four men, one purse and one fever satchel heading north, which at least tells me where to send the invoice," he noted, tapping the rock twice like a man filing a receipt.
Something moved on the far slope, then four somethings, sliding down the scree on all fours toward the stink.
They were goblins the way a rabid dog was still a dog, violet crystal knobs pushing through their mottled hides. The biggest wore a crust across its skull like a crown, dragging a cleaver almost as long as its arm.
[ HOSTILES ]
[Type: Goblin (Mutated)]
[Count: 4]
[Threat Grade: F]
[Crystal Growth: Unknown]
He squinted up at the sky, "Oh, come on, Nomi, you mentioned a poor decision, but you never said one word about the gross ones, you gorgeous... lying goddess!"
Down in the narrows the woman snatched her rapier from the dust, snapping her free hand outward.
A dome of light bloomed around her, humming like a struck wine glass just as the first goblin charged. It hit the ward face-first, bouncing off with a shriek as she stabbed through the light into its shoulder.
"Hold together, Veil, for I can’t afford to rebuild you today," she hissed through her teeth.
’She has a sword made of glass and a magic bubble, which buys her maybe two minutes before those things chew through.’
The goblins circled the dome, slamming their cleavers into it while she lunged at every gap with a fencer’s footwork. The crowned one held back, crystals twitching along its skull as it studied her like a butcher eyeing fat cattle.
"Meat hide inside light, smash light, eat meat," the crowned goblin rasped in broken trade-tongue.
"The ugly bastards can talk, though somehow that’s worse than the crystals, the smell and the cleavers put together," Ray muttered.
"Come closer and say that to my face, you ugly lump!"
Her point found a goblin’s wrist through a gap, sending its cleaver spinning end over end into the dust.
"Gyaaah, meat bites back!"
"Nice lunge, a solid seven, though she drops her back heel on the recovery," he added, rating her like a judge at a dance contest.
Every blow sent new cracks crawling through the dome, the glow flickering like a candle in a drafty window. She kept fencing anyway with her jaw clenched, thrusting through each gap without wasting a single step on panic.
’She’s better than most pros I’ve worked with, but skill runs dry fast when it’s four of them against one of her.’
"A single dagger, a thirty-foot drop and zero rounds spent would make this the cheapest rescue in history," he said, cracking his neck as he sized up the edge.
"Free work is bad business," he muttered, drawing the breaker dagger anyway, "but a client who owes me her whole life is excellent business."
The Veil cracked with a sound like river ice, its glow dimming as the crowned goblin finally lifted its cleaver.
"Shit, there goes my future client," he hissed, already rising into a crouch.
Then the grin left Ray’s face completely, as if somebody reached over to switch it off at the wall.
He judged the drop at thirty feet, the wind at nothing, the crowned goblin’s back to the cliff.
He stepped off the ledge like a man stepping off a curb, his coat snapping wide as he fell.
He caught the goblin’s neck between his thighs on the way down, twisting hard into a flying scissor.
The whole fall ended in one sharp, wet crack as the goblin’s skull met the ground at the wrong angle. Ray rolled clear of the twitching body, coming up on one knee with the breaker dagger reversed along his forearm.
He said nothing, his eyes moving across the remaining three in the order he meant to take them.
The goblins froze, the crystal knobs along their spines flattening like the hackles of a beaten dog.
"Chief is... chief is broken?" one of them croaked, its cleaver drooping toward the dust as it backed away a step.
Inside the cracked Veil the woman stared too, holding her breath without knowing why she did it.
"Where in the world did you just fall from, the sky?" she demanded, breathing hard, her blade never leaving the goblins.
Ray rose, flicking goblin blood off the dagger as the easy bartender grin came back, wide and crooked.
"Need some help?"