Pursuit and Reassurance

Gerred must have been more scared than Ash had expected, because he left the tavern almost immediately. He wasn’t even subtle about it; he just hurried out the door, snapping his head around so obviously that all he was really doing was drawing attention to himself. He then darted into a nearby alley.

“So much for your ‘honest businessman,’” Tienne grumbled. “But who could know a thief would try to keep something that is not his.”

Ash and the Valkyries had retreated to an abandoned building halfway down the street from the tavern to wait. Ash barely had the time to settle in and start brooding before Gerred emerged.

“This isn’t like him. Gerred doesn’t give away anything for cheap, but he also wouldn’t keep anything he couldn’t make more money from by selling. I’m betting he could have gotten a lot of money out of you two from that stone.”

“Which means he already has a better offer,” Tienne said, after a moment’s thought. Solenia nodded.

“Almost certainly, and the fact that he’s panicking means…”

“That he has not sold the stone yet and is afraid that the buyers will react poorly to another offer.”

Solenia smiled approvingly, and Ash got the sense that she had already reached this conclusion some time ago.

Even so, something still felt wrong. When Gerred made deals, he got things done and over with. He didn’t draw things out, nor waste anyone’s time. It was part of why he was so successful. But Ash had to shake that thought away, because Tienne and Solenia were already moving. Ash ran forward to cut in front of them.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing? You can’t just follow him. You saw how jumpy he was, he’ll spot you two immediately.”

“I take it you have a better idea?” Solenia asked.

“Well, yeah. We don’t follow him at all. He has to be headed for his house, it’s where he keeps all his most valuable stuff. I can get us there before him.”

“Sensible. Lead the way, then.”

Tienne had been glaring daggers at Ash from the moment she had stopped the Valkyries, but did not object to her teacher’s decision. Not verbally, at least. Her opinions on following Ash’s instructions were made quite clear by her deep grimace and rolled eyes. Ash ignored her all the same.

The path Ash took them on was not a straightforward one, to the extent that an outside observer could not possibly have known that the group was headed towards anywhere near Gerred’s house. The misdirection itself was certainly useful, but the route was also necessary. After all, Gerred knew the city just as well as Ash, if not better. No traditional shortcut could possibly be quicker than however he was getting there. So, creativity was required.

Mearn was, among many other things, a vertical city. As it was an amalgamation of so many different cultures, times, and interests, expanding the city had always been a contentious proposition. No group was willing to take the risk of being the outermost one, and there were always accusations that someone or another wanted to use that group as a shield from any potential invaders. But, the city still had to grow, and inevitably a solution was found: simply build up. And so, hundreds of years after this supposedly-temporary compromise was established, Mearn had become an artificial hill made up of the mismatched clusters of buildings, placed wherever the original owners had found enough space and support. Consequently, Mearn was also an uneven city. The utter lack of coordination in the development meant that the “hill” was really a series of cliffs and valleys, rising and falling without rhythm. Mostly, it was hugely inconvenient. But, if one knew how to exploit it, this mad structure also provided opportunity.

Gerred’s home sat in one of the many, heavily shaded pits nestled between larger constructions. As the pit was surrounded on three sides, approaching it from the front without being seen would have been almost impossible. That did not mean that ‘the front’ was the only way in, however. The layered nature of Mearn’s older constructions meant that the foundations for many building had themselves once been someone’s home or business, and the old was rarely built to accommodate the new. For the daring, climbing the countless resulting protrusions and holes was a valid mode of travel.

Ash liked to think of herself as daring.

“This cannot possibly be a good idea,” Tienne said, staring over a balcony that overlooked Gerred’s pit.

“It’s only a bad idea if you fall,” Ash replied. There were greater drops in Mearn than the one from the shopping block where the group was to the neighborhood below, but that was little comfort in the face of actually experiencing that distance.

It was known to be one of the easier climbs in Mearn, though, and Ash had no doubt she could handle it. She assumed such physical feats were nothing for Valkyries. She started clambering over the railing, already eyeing an outcropping of cracked rock below.

“Surely there is a way to get to this man’s apartment by foot.”

“Of course there is,” Ash said. She made sure Tienne saw her roll her eyes. “But my understanding was that you needed to find this keystone, and letting Gerred hide it away or give it to someone else won’t exactly help. Going another way takes time, and we don’t have that. But hey, if you want to take things slow, fine by me.”

“That’s not an option,” Tienne said immediately.

The moment she did, however, she slammed her mouth closed and looked away. Solenia sighed in annoyance. Evidently, Tienne should not have said that.

“What my student meant to say was, we would prefer if we retrieved the keystone as quickly as possible.”

Ash examined the two Valkyries. Tienne was doing nothing to conceal the concern plastered across her features, and even Solenia had lost her baseline amusement. All of a sudden, Ash realized she probably should have been more concerned about the situation she was in all along.

“Is there something I should know?” she asked.

Solenia walked up to her, and placed a hand on her shoulder. For the first time, the elf had a straightforward, genuinely kind smile on her face. Even so, Ash was immediately sure that this was what the woman looked like when she was serious.

“That’s not for you to worry about,” Solenia said. “The job of a Valkyrie is to make you don’t have to. All you have to do is get us to Gerred. That’s it. The best outcome here is that you never have to think about it again.”

Absurdly, it was only at that moment that Ash realized just how serious the situation was. There were no stories where Valkyries carried out only safe, mundane tasks. The whole point was that they were braver and more capable that the common person. If Valkyries were here in Mearn, looking for something, then whatever they were doing was, by definition, worthy of a Valkyrie’s attention. In the face of that, what was Ash? No more than a petty thief who had wound up in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was utterly beyond her. Tienne and Solenia may not have belonged in Mearn, but Ash did not belong with them.

And yet, at no point did Ash even consider running away.

“Just tell me, is the city in danger?”

“From the keystone? No. But suffice to say there are certain other matters that depend on us having the keystone in the near future.”

Ash took a long moment to process that. Solenia had just all but stated that the safety of Mearn depended on Ash getting her to Gerred and the keystone in time. Ash was, in general, confident in her abilities, but that was in the context of looking after other, slightly pettier thieves and keeping competing egos from running too hot. This, though, she could not honestly say she was up to. The pit that was rapidly forming in her stomach had nothing to do with the upcoming climb.

That was no reason to back out, though.

“Fine. Let’s get to it, then.”