The Axe Falls 2 -ch 19-

The guild had no news.

No one in the markets had any news.

Even the embassy, had no news.

As far as anyone knew, the Dungeon was closed, and would remain so.

Letting out a soft sigh, Nick leaned up against the windowsill.

His room was on the second floor at the back of the home. Jessie was fast asleep in the bed and wasn’t going to be waking up any time soon.

Their love making had been a bit “desperate” on her end. Being scolded as she had been had left her craving physical reaffirmation.

Which really just came down to having sex a few times until she passed out.

The city was normally quiet at this hour. With only a few people out on the streets, often returning from the Dungeon itself.

Now, however, there was no-one at all.

Not a single torch moved across the streets that Nick could see and all was silent.

As undisturbed as a long forgotten tomb.

Nothing was happening and what few people that’d been around to venture in the Dungeon had already started leaving. When they’d visited the guild it was easily half the population that’d been there originally.

Even if they get the Dungeon back open, there isn’t anyone here to do anything.

Do we pack it in as well?

Go elsewhere and see if we can’t find another Dungeon for us to set up camp in?

“At some point, it’d be the wise choice,” agreed Lucian. “Though, it isn’t as if we’re in a rush. Your leveling speed will always remain quite slow, Sire.

“It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get all the experience for the entirety of the camp, but we did collect a significant amount from the single Gryphon and the patrol.”

Yes.

The coin wasn’t bad either for all those bounties.

Still though, if anything I feel more pressured because I level so slow.

A loss of a day might as well be a loss of four days.

“That’s… well, I can’t really argue that view point. It isn’t exactly wrong from a certain perspective,” confessed Lucian. He followed it up with a sigh. “I suppose we should look into where best to go next.”

I’m sure Rahak already has an idea of where to go, how to get there, what it’ll cost.

“Most likely,” Lucian agreed. “Rahak is a highly intelligent individual with a good sense of paranoia and apprehension.”

Nick nodded his head at that.

So far, he had been quite fortunate with those he had been able to recruit.

High level individuals, a deep talent, and a willingness to throw in with him.

“Do you think the land itself is sending me these people?” mused Nick aloud as he leaned further out the window. The shutters were pulled out quite far and gave him a nice breath of air with it. “It feels like I keep bumping into people that really should be much harder to find. I’m starting to suspect that every person I run into on “accident” is just another person that I should be recruiting.”

“It’s certainly fortuitous, Sire,” Lucian murmured. “I can’t help but think the land itself could be helping, but there’s no way to truly prove that. That and… it really isn’t alive.

“While it responded to the ladies, it equally responded to Jessie. Jessie was vulgar, crass, and honestly… well… I don’t think she should be describing how she gives oral pleasure in such a situation.

“Yet the land rewarded her.

“It didn’t understand the words, just the intent or meaning behind it. Which was care and admiration for you. It is most certainly not something we should ever tempt.”

Nick huffed and then went silent, watching the street.

He was honestly still getting used to being in such a place like this.

There was a part of him that craved going back to a village and settling into farming. Letting the world roll by him without a care in the world.

Village life agreed with him to a degree.

Hell, if I went to a village now, I’d be able to settle in quite nicely.

Couldn’t I?

I wouldn’t even be the child of an executioner.

“That’s a viable option, Sire,” Lucian said without any negativity to his words. Nick had half expected him to fight him. “Truth be told, it would be easier to build the family up now that we’re no longer beholden to the covenant.

“Returning to a farming community and building up the family tree would be just as relevant a strategy as what we’re doing.

“Though… I don’t think you’d be satisfied with that life. We both know you were already seeking more to life. Even if the village had approved of you and your family, you would have gone seeking more.”

“Then… what to do I wonder,” Nick murmured, sticking his elbow down on the windowsill, sticking his chin in his palm, and watching out across the night-scape.

Slowly, he had an awareness of something. Something was on the grounds that didn’t belong.

Ker was almost always wide awake all night long. Often patrolling and watching over where-ever Nick was sleeping. A night sentry that often couldn’t be seen and had the ability to take on quite a few enemies.

It was one of the reasons why Nick only teased him a bit about sleeping and dozing during the day.

An intruder?

The house itself was modest in comparison to many of the houses in the city.

Or at least when compared with what groups traditionally purchased as home for a party.

It was a large home with a high fence, a decent back yard, and even a small plot of land. The front of it also had a gate on it.

Right now, Ker was telling him that someone had hopped a side-wall and was slowly moving over to where Nick was. Below him in the darkness.

Ker wasn’t sure of who or what it was, because he had the distinct feeling that if he got any closer, or moved at all, he’d be spotted. Right now he was only unnoticed because he had been unmoving when the intruder arrived.

Turning his head, Nick looked down to the spot that Ker was telling him the intruder was at. At the same time, he’d started to wonder if he needed to sound an alarm for everyone else.

Only for him to realize it didn’t matter.

He knew who it was down there on the side of the house.

There was only one answer, in fact, and one person who would seek him out directly like this. No one else would know he was in the window, nor that it was him.

The breeze was actually quite soft but just enough to have carried his scent out.

It all reminded him of the wolves he had partially acclimated to his presence in the past.

“Hello Harlowe. Are you being a good girl, or a bad girl right now. Because it feels like you might be attempting to stalk me,” Nick said with the same warm and soothing tone he had used for her previously. Given Ker’s senses, he felt like he was looking right at her. “Or I can just assume you smelt me on the wind and came over this way.

“So… do you want to come in? If you want to come in, I’ll go open the back door. Also, are you hungry again?”

“Yes,” came the response from the darkness. There was just a hint of surprise in her words. “I’m very hungry.”

It was indeed Harlowe, it seemed, and he was right.

Wonder if she ran into trouble.

Kinda thought she might given her employer and what happened.

“Yes, but it wouldn’t have done anything to warn her of it. She would’ve taken it as a threat,” Lucian stated. “You’ve been avoiding that deliberately, right?”

Right.

We’re just two predators warily inhabiting an area together.

Nick closed the shutters to the window, checked on Jessie who was still fast asleep, and then when to his pack. Fetching out a slab of raw meat he had packed into it for Ker, he then exited his room.

Going down the stairs after passing by the doors for everyone else he quietly made his way down to the ground floor. He touched a magical lamp on the way which cast a faint light across the entry and hallway that led to the back.

Nick then went straight to the back door. Pulling the lock and then opening it without a word he stood there, staring out at the dark.

There was a flash of reflective eyes, just as a wolves would, as Harlowe moved out of the darkness and into the faint light of the interior. She was dressed in her armor, her sword was belted at her a quiver of arrows on the other, and her bow slung across her back in some sort of attachment point.

Nick met her eyes, and her her gaze. He wanted it to be long enough to make sure she knew he saw her, recognized her, and was unbothered by her.

Only to then step to the side, holding the door open and gesturing inside.

“Come on in Harlowe,” Nick said, making sure to remain in his “Harlowe voice” as he was beginning to think of it.

She walked by him, her nose twitching lightly as she did so. He did notice her eyes had flicked down to the raw meat held in his other hand.

Nick closed the door carefully, he didn’t want to wake up the Elves in his home. They had sensitive hearing and could hear a great deal more than they would ever likely admit.

Harlowe had gone straight through the hallway and entered the main entry area and was now standing there. The dull light lit her up and gave him a better view of her.

She seemed well-enough though he did note she was clean. Her hair had been untangled, brushed out, and pulled back in a ponytail behind her head.

“Did you want to speak here in the entry, or the study?” Nick said and pointed to the room the study was in. It wouldn’t be too bad to speak with her here in the entry, but he’d prefer the study.

However he didn’t want to force anything on her.

He still had the feeling that she was a very skittish wolf at the moment and could break off at any moment at all. There was every possibility that he was overthinking it, but he didn’t see a reason to risk the possibility of recruiting her.

Nick was already convinced that she was likely a high level talent. That she would be someone in the nineties, easily.

“Study,” she stated and then began moving again.

Nick noted as she moved that she had a casual grace and fluidity to her movements that did indeed remind him of wolves. It was something that Jessie could do on occasion, but not as if it were just part of who and what she was.

Once again, Nick followed her.

Rather than wait for her to take a seat, he plopped himself down in one-half of the love seat and then held the steak out toward her.

“Here,” he said. “Eat and talk at the same time. I promise I don’t really have manners and I won’t be bothered. Is there anything else you need?”

“ Fresh bandages if you have them. Otherwise, no,” Harlow rumbled as she moved past him. She slowed only to take the meat from him.

She hesitated once she had made it to the sofa directly across from him.

Only to flip the meat around, bite it, then begin to unbelt her sword. Then her quiver as well as her bow.

All the while she stared at the ground, either lost in thought or not thinking at all.

“I’ll be right back then,” Nick offered and stood back up.

He padded back up the stairs, got back into his room, and went to his pack. He pulled out a roll of gauze and went back down to the study.

By the time he arrived, he found Harlowe in naught but her underwear, sat down on the love-seat, and gnawing at the meat held in one hand. There were several splotches of bandages across her body and each had a splotch of blood on it.

Two looked to be in a line and the third as a circle.

Her bust had perhaps just a bit more in the chest and a touch less in the hips. Given her somewhat odd features, Nick wondered if Werewolves weren’t quite Human in their sizes and shapes over all.

“You get attacked?” Nick asked and sat back down where he had been on the love-seat. He wasn’t sure why Harlowe had decided to just about sit next to him, but he wasn’t going to let her cow him.

While he wasn’t going to be aggressive with her, he also wasn’t going to back down.

“Yes. After I reported in to my guild,” Harlowe answered with a small nod of her head as she nipped off another hunk of the meat. “It was someone who smelled odd. Off. My guild said that they planned to look into the situation.

“After that, I’ve been hiding. After night-fall I’ve been moving quietly.

“My room had people watching it. Stunk of other magic. I wasn’t going to stay there to find out what was going on.”

Nick raised his eyebrows out that and held out the roll of gauze to Harlowe. He couldn’t imagine that she would want him to dress her wounds and he wasn’t going to offer either.

“In other words, you brought your troubles to my home?” Nick asked as lightly as he could manage. He wasn’t exactly happy with the situation.

“No. The people who were following me are dead. I killed them,” Harlowe said and gestured to her upper thigh which was the circular wound. She then took the gauze from Nick and began pulling away the bandage. “I was stabbed in that fight. It was after I reported the first fight.”

Harlowe pulled away the bandage and Nick saw it was indeed a rather deep stab.

“No potions?” Nick asked.

“No. I used them all in the camp. No potions left,” Harlowe answered and peered down at the sutured up wound. It looked rather good to Nick. He’d practiced suturing on corpses. “The medical offices were all closed. No potions are available.

“This city is dying due to the Dungeon being closed. They need to open the Dungeon soon.”

“Hm. It’s a pity you didn’t accept my offer,” Nick murmured, watching as Harlowe pressed a fingertip to the wound and seemed pleased with her own work.

“Yes. It is. I don’t think you’ll hire me on for the previous amount now that it’s been confirmed I’m a target,” Harlowe confirmed with a small nod of her head. “This was my own choice and the result is my own.

“I’m already thankful you opened your door to me. Not many would welcome a Werewolf into their home at night. The moon is at half, my strength and endurance is considerable.”

“I’m not concerned,” replied Nick, giving Harlowe a smile when she looked up and met his eyes.

She held his gaze for more than a few seconds.

He felt the challenge in her then.

Nick’s smile only grew wider and he tilted his head to the side.

He might be under-leveled, but he could probably kill Harlowe if he needed to with his Hitpoint pool tanking up the damage she might unleash. He could handle her, though it wouldn’t be pleasant.

Even if it came down to beating her to death with his bare hands.

Harlowe’s brow twitched, her eyes narrowed, and she suddenly dropped her gaze down. She began to dress the wound on her leg, winding the gauze around it.

“You don’t smell like a human,” she said finally. “I could smell you easily through the city. The wind carried your scent.”

“Mm. An interesting and possibly dangerous statement. What’s your intent?” Nick asked.

“Get hired on by you. Through whatever means possible,” Harlowe stated as she lifted her leg up. She stuck her bare foot down next to Nick’s hip and began tying the bandage into itself under her thigh. “I’ll take whatever price you deem fit for me. As long as you take care of me as a pack member and keep me alive.

“My guild isn’t large and we don’t have a large amount of strength. They would fight for me. Fight for me and die. You have more strength than you show.

“You were going to attack the camp before the Gryphon’s showed up. You’re the reason the patrol never came back.”

“Harlowe, there’s no reason to hire you. I’ll provide you lodging for the night, but I think that’s where it should end,” argued Nick. He needed to make sure she understood it wasn’t personal, but if he hired her, it’d be deeply on his terms. “I clearly underestimated how much they’d want to silence you if they’re attacking you in the middle of the street.

“That’s not just taking on ‘risk’, it’s taking on a guarantee.”

“I’m aware,” Harlowe said, then nodded her head and put her foot down. Then she scooted closer to Nick and held up her left arm. One of the cuts that had formed a bloody line was on her upper arm. “Dress my wound?

“As to hiring me, I did say to get hired by any means possible. I’m already aware my value is very low.

“I don’t think I can leave the city. They would be waiting for me and likely would make their move in the lands between. Nor can I make money in the Dungeon as it’s closed and I have no way of knowing when it’ll open.

“There are no jobs hiring at the moment given how unsecure the entirety of the economy is. My options are few.

“Prostitution, which is not something I would ever do. I would rather die. Even then, the brothel’s are letting girls go. If there isn’t anyone to buy services, than there isn’t a reason to have prostitutes.

“Soldiery is out, as I’m a citizen by right of my adventurers card and my guild membership.

“I could talk my way into being hired by the Dukes, but then I would be revealed as a Werewolf and that would be just as bad as anything else. I’m sure someone would put a knife in me for no reason other than I exist.

“Being a town guard is out for the same reasons.

“That leaves the large predator who seems to enjoy feeding me and offered me a job previously.”

Nick couldn’t deny any of her words and he would’ve said them if she hadn’t.

Taking up the roll of gauze he set it in his lap and began to uwind the used bandage.

It came off neatly and showed him another wound that’d been closed up with needle and thread, though it was much sloppier. Clearly done with one hand only.

There was no need to redo the work given that he figured he’d be hiring her and then asking Claudia to fix her again.

“Large predator, hm?” Nick asked and then started to roll the gauze around the wound.

“Yes. You’re very large. A predator. You think like a predator. Acted like a wary wolf,” Harlowe said, watching as he bound up the rather nasty looking cut.

“Well, let’s talk price then,” Nick murmured. “As well as about your guild. I’d love to learn more about them after we settle our business.”

“Yes, price,” Harlowe agreed, watching him intently. “I will accept whatever price you deem fit. Though I insist you include meals and care for me. As well as sleeping arrangements and new gear if my current gear fails.”

Not terrible.

Thoughts, gramps?

“Hire her, my boy. If she works out, we can hire her on for a royal appointment,” advised Lucian.

“Alright… well… price then,” began Nick as he started to tie the bandage into place.