*
The party was busy for the next hour as night settled over the city. They closed up the broken doors to the street and nailed them shut with tent spikes, then used a bunkroom’s worth of old bed frames with the ropes long since worn away to seal off one long gallery upstairs, along with the corner room that overlooked the adjoining streets through arrow slits. They set aside some boards to brace shut the door that gave access to the stairs connecting to the central courtyard and the flat roof, but left it unsealed for the time being.
The supplies the Shugak had provided included some iron cookware, and Nesha-tari managed to start a small fire in the courtyard from old wood. Tilda did not see her do it but thought the woman may have had to use magic to fire some ancient boards as kindling sticks. With the dark misty dome blocking out the stars to make the sky wholly black, there was little chance of the smoke being spotted. When Amatesu began to heat the salted meat and dried vegetables provided by the hobs and wugs, there was some concern the good smell might attract attention. Everyone was hungry enough to forgo that concern, except it seemed for Nesha-tari who ate very little.
The group spoke as they ate in the gallery upstairs, tentatively at first but a bit more openly as the warm food settled in their bellies. The subjects remained Vod’Adia itself, and specifically just what sort of monsters were actually supposed to occupy the city. Zebulon knew tavern tales, and Heggenauer said the Jobians believed the creatures to be other-worldly demons who came into Vod’Adia when it was “Open” to other realities. No one knew any real specifics.
The party arranged a rotating shift of two guards to keep watch on the roof above, staggered so that the pair would not both be waking up or growing exhausted at the same time. Only six of them participated, as Nesha-tari had already curled up and fallen asleep atop her bedroll at a far wall. Tilda managed to get a middle shift and Uriako Shikashe awoke her after midnight with a toe on her shoulder. Tilda got back into her leather vest and sleeves, draped her Guild cloak over them and slung her bow. She tottered yawning up to the roof to join Zebulon for the rest of his time.
They did not say much for awhile but only listened and stared out into the darkness, for the Vod’Adia night was more profoundly dark than any Tilda had ever seen. A faint silvery smudge in the blackness was as much of the moon as could be perceived through the mist, and the streets all around were only occasionally illuminated by orange flashes from what may have been lanterns or torches, always far away. The lights never stayed lit long enough for Tilda to be sure.
There were more sounds. The distant crack of a gun, and maybe a shout or scream. Once it sounded as though someone ran by on the street below, but the heavy footfalls faded. Tilda and Zebulon had moved to that corner of the roof and both peered over the battlements in the direction the sound had receded.
“I can’t see a damn thing out there,” Zeb muttered. “Might as well stand this shift blindfolded.”
“If that is what you're into,” Tilda said, suddenly glad Zeb could not see her face as she rolled her eyes at herself.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
After a moment of silence, Zeb sighed. Tilda heard jingling and some scuffs as he turned, put his back to the battlements, and slid down to a seat on the gravel-covered roof. After another pointless look out into the pitch black night, Tilda sat down cross-legged against the right angle of the corner.
Zeb yawned faintly in the dark.
“So how much did she pay you?” Tilda asked quietly.
“Sorry?”
“Nesha-tari. At the Shugak palisade. The four of you went aside into that separate area.”
“And?” Zeb asked.
“I may have peeked around the corner,” Tilda admitted. “Thought I saw a couple big hobgoblins lug out a chest, and open it up. Then it looked like Nesha-tari and the Westerners were running some negotiations, through you.”
Zeb was quiet for several seconds, and when he spoke his voice was thoughtful.
“You know, I don’t think Shikashe and Amatesu even cared about the money. They came to a price to continue on with Nesha-tari, but it was all a formality. The Shugak scratched them out a receipt but Amatesu just stuffed it in a pocket. I think the two of them wanted to come in here, it is the kind of thing they do. Battling monsters and demons and Fire Priests and what-all.”
“And you?” Tilda asked. Zeb sighed.
“I am purely parrot on this gig. If Nesha-tari could speak to Amatesu or Shikashe without a translator they would have forgotten me somewhere along the way weeks ago.”
“But you were paid as well, right?”
Zeb patted something that made his ring mail jingle.
“Got the receipt right here, close to my heart. I would have been a wealthy young man.”
“Would have been?”
“Well, obviously I am going to get killed in here.”
Zeb’s tone was light, bantering, but it had a bit of an edge. Tilda would have liked to have been able to see his face just then.
“You think?” she asked.
“Oh, I always think I’m about to get killed,” Zeb said. “That way at the end of a day, no matter how bad it was, I am never disappointed. Just pleasantly surprised.”
Tilda smiled in the dark, though she knew Zeb couldn’t see it.
“I hope you are wrong,” she said. “But if you’re not…and you want someone to hold your receipt, know that I am here for you.”
Zeb was quiet, and probably staring for a moment, then he threw back his head and laughed. It was too loud a sound to make for a man ostensibly standing guard duty, but Tilda found that she liked the sound of it.
Zeb returned to his bedroll shortly thereafter, and Amatesu announced her arrival in the dark by speaking Tilda’s name at her shoulder, giving the Miilarkian a start for which the shukenja apologized. Tilda spent the next half hour or so wondering if she knew half as much about Far Western priests as she thought she did, for while she was aware of Amatesu moving about on the roof the woman hardly made a solitary sound on the loose gravel. Tilda crept about a bit herself, but her own steps sounded loud in her ears.
She was considering asking Amatesu a question, when a tremendous roar split the night sky. Every living thing in Vod’Adia shuddered to its core.
Chapter Thirty