Foolish Fools

he Silver Stag settled slowly back into itself.

For several minutes after the five of them entered, the common room had seemed to forget the ordinary purposes of an inn. Conversations thinned whenever one of the newcomers shifted in a chair. Tankards were lowered with unusual care, as if the sound of wood against wood might draw attention no one wished to attract. Even the innkeeper had polished the same cup long enough for the glass to squeak beneath his cloth, the motion more habit than necessity.

Then, little by little, the old sounds returned—not all at once, but in cautious fragments. A spoon scraped the bottom of a bowl. Someone near the hearth risked a short laugh that did not quite reach the edges of the room. The lute player tried three uncertain chords, thought better of them, and reached for his drink instead, leaving the unfinished phrase hanging in the smoke.

Warm air carried the smell of woodsmoke and the last of the evening's spiced meat. Kenneth and Joshua had taken a table in the corner, far enough from the fire to be left alone and near enough to the wall that Joshua could watch most of the room without appearing to. His pipe rested between three fingers while his eyes made the same patient circuit again and again: door, windows, stairs, patrons, hearth, then back to the door.

Kenneth watched him complete it twice before taking another drink, the ale tasting slightly of the rain that still darkened the boards between their table and the entrance.

“So,” the dwarf said at last, his voice low enough that it nearly belonged to the smoke. “This nasty Orath business. You’ve got that look like you already know what was chasing us, ranger.”

Joshua’s eyes remained on the fire a moment longer before shifting to him. “Not know,” he said. “Merely... considerations.”

Kenneth snorted softly. “That’s a long word for the same grave.”

The dwarf was broad even by dwarven measure, built thick through the shoulders and chest with the kind of strength that came from labor as much as war. His beard had been trimmed once and then mostly forgotten, while the two axes beside his chair had plainly received more consistent care. Their handles were worn smooth where his hands knew them.

Joshua let smoke leave his mouth in a thin stream. “You’ve seen the signs, dwarf,” he said. “The forest black and starving. Shadows themselves moving with will. That isn’t a single man’s doing. Not even a powerful one.”

“Ah, everything’s one man’s doing if you go far enough back,” the dwarf grunted. “Some power-hungry fool starts somethin', and the rest of us pay for it.”

Joshua held steady. “Until something even older corrects the balance.”

The fire shifted in the hearth. A blackened log split with a soft crack. The ranger looked toward it. “Men have taken what they need from these lands for centuries, and then more. Forests for towns. Rivers for kingdoms. Beasts vanish. We call it progress because the word sounds better than hunger.”

His eyes returned to Kenneth. “If there were a correction... Orath would be it.”

Kenneth let that sit for a moment, then gave a short shake of his head. “A century of demons is a damned long answer.”

“Call it what you like. Balance. Judgment. God.” Joshua shrugged faintly. “The name matters less than the result.”

There was a quiet precision to Joshua even at rest. He sat with his weight centered, never quite relaxed, as though some part of him remained prepared for the room to change without warning. Dark hair fell beneath his hood and across one side of his face, leaving little expression for anyone to read. A short bow rested across his back, a blade at his hip—both worn, both carefully kept, and neither carried in a way that asked to be noticed. They did not need to be.
Kenneth picked up his mug again but didn’t drink.

“Bah. I’ve heard this sort of talk before, when the mountains first stirred. We dwarves were there before any of you.” He rapped his chest once, the sound dull against damp wool. “My anvil folded the irons of soldiers who never came back.”

“You were a blacksmith.”

“Aye.”

“Then why didn’t you march?”

Kenneth’s thumb stopped against the side of his mug. For a moment the only sound was the low murmur of the room reclaiming itself. “Had a family.”

Joshua waited, the patience of a man who had learned that silence often finished what questions could not.

“Armies had plenty of soldiers. My family only had one of me.” The dwarf took a drink that did not seem to taste of much. “So I stayed an' made the swords of my friends.”

“And they never came back.”

Kenneth looked into the ale as if the answer might still be floating there. “No.”

Joshua's gaze lowered to the table.

Kenneth noticed. “You remember.”

“I was a child during the last march.”

“Ah,” the dwarf breathed. “Your father, then.”

Joshua's eyes had stopped moving around the room. “There were so many soldiers I thought there couldn't possibly be any left anywhere else. Horses. Wagons. Men marching past from morning until dark.” He paused. “We were told they'd be home before winter.”

“Not one,” Kenneth said.

His voice had gone quieter.

“Nothin' to bury. Not even stories.”

Joshua drew slowly on his pipe. “Whatever Orath is, it isn't something men can march against and defeat simply because enough of them have gathered beneath the same banner.”

“Aye.”

“If kingdoms failed, I fail to believe the six of us will do better.”

“Five.”

Joshua stopped.

Kenneth did not look up. “Antonio's dead.”

For a moment the noise of the inn seemed to move farther away, as though the room itself had taken a step back. Joshua tapped ash from his pipe with careful precision. “Yes.”

The ranger watched the smoke curl above the table. “Antonio was doomed long before tonight. He believed everything could be solved by being clever enough. If a machine failed, he built a more complicated one. If that failed, he blamed the machine.”

Joshua's expression remained flat, though something in his voice had changed. “Tonight he met something that didn't care how clever he was.”

Kenneth considered him for a few seconds.

“Damn cold way to say a man's dead.”

“Does not make it any less true.”

“No.” The dwarf looked back into his ale. “S'pose not.”

A serving girl passed their table carrying bowls against one hip, steam rising and vanishing almost at once. Near the hearth, a man in a patched traveling coat was wrapping two pieces of bread in cloth while a boy slept against his side, mouth slightly open, one small hand still curled as if it had been holding something that was no longer there. Their packs sat unopened beside their boots. The ranger watched them longer than required. Kenneth noticed that too.

“I’m not here to lift spirits,” Joshua continued, leaning forward just enough that the hood shadowed his eyes more deeply. “I’m here to see what this Orath is. To observe. How far it goes. Hell, whether there’s anything to be done at all.”

He paused, then added, quieter, “And I’ve yet to see anything that suggests there is.”

Joshua let the smoke escape gradually.

Kenneth leaned forward slightly, forearms on the table. “So that’s it, then?” he said. “You’re just along for the walk? Watch the world fall apart nice and close so you’ve got a good view of it?”

“If a storm is coming that cannot be stopped, standing in its path doesn’t make you brave. It makes you dead.” Joshua met his look without flinching. “Just ask what's left of our dear departed artificer.” He gave a small, cloaked nod toward the door. “If you can find enough pieces to put him back together again.”

“Or...” The dwarf's mouth curled faintly. “Ya get a song written about being the first one to punch a storm square in the mouth.”

Joshua shook his head once. “You’re a damn fool.”

Kenneth didn’t argue. He just sat there a moment, then gave a small, satisfied nod. “Aye,” he said. “That I am.”

Joshua’s brow furrowed slightly.

Kenneth gestured lazily around the table with one thick finger. “Look at us, ranger, sitting here, drinking foam and yapping about the end of the world like we’ve got any say in it. But then we get up tomorrow and ride straight toward it anyway.”

His grin returned, rough and unbothered. “If that’s not foolish, I don’t know what is.”

The ranger stared at him for a long moment, unable to muster a worthwhile response. He was not a fan of going in circles. He had sweet-leaf left to finish in his pipe, and the night was already longer than it had any right to be.

Across the room Neil sat alone at another table, his bowl of stew cooling untouched before him. The white shield rested against his chair beneath a fold of cloak that failed completely to conceal it. Every few moments he looked toward the entrance or one of the rain-dark windows, as if the forest might still decide to follow them inside. When laughter broke suddenly near the bar, his hand moved toward his sword before he caught himself and forced it back to the table.

Outside, beyond the streaked glass, Lindsey and Gregory walked the edge of the inn’s lanternlight, one shape passing briefly beneath the glow of a window before vanishing again into the dark, the violet crystal of the staff appearing and disappearing like a held breath.

The dwarf scratched at his beard. “So. Ya believe in those three kids?”

The ranger did not answer immediately, but followed his glance toward the far side of the inn. He did not look away from Neil. “In what sense?”

“In what they’re doin'. In what they think they can do.”

“They are... capable,” Joshua said. “And a paladin is a rare enough thing these days.”

“Wasn’t my question.”

Joshua leaned forward slightly. “Look, dwarf. As you've pointed out, after Antonio's demise tonight, there are only five of us now.”

“Aye.” The dwarf nodded, stroking his beard.

“Five,” Joshua repeated, his knuckles rapping the table.

“I can goddamn count, ranger,” the dwarf growled.

“I wasn't certain.”

Kenneth looked down at the mug in his hand. “I’ve had five beers tonight,” he said, then loosed a loud belch. Half a dozen patrons nearby laughed and raised their cups.

Kenneth raised his own in return, then looked back at the ranger as though nothing had happened.

Joshua remained.

“My point,” he said, “is that five isn't enough. We are sitting in a tavern pretending we might accomplish what kingdoms could not. Meanwhile, we run from dogs. We are utterly out of our league.”

“Aye.”

“Doesn’t seem like enough.”

Kenneth glanced toward the window as Gregory's figure passed momentarily beyond it, his staff silhouetted against the lanternlight. “No, it doesn’t.”

The ranger leaned back and kindled his pipe, and for a fleeting moment the flame cast a warm, orange light beneath his hood, revealing the stern lines of his face. “Good,” he hummed. “Then we are of one mind.”

The ember faded as swiftly as it had arisen, and Joshua’s features once more surrendered to the dim.

“But,” Kenneth went on, finger in the air, “it is more than most are doing.”

Joshua flicked his eyes toward him and let out a single, thoughtful puff. The man beside the hearth had finished wrapping the bread. He was tightening the straps on his pack now, slowly so as not to wake the boy. A fae near the stairs had a map spread across her knees. Her finger followed a road west, stopped, then followed another farther south. She noticed Kenneth watching, and slowly folded the map.

The dwarf's voice remained quiet, but there was a firmness in it now that had not been there before. “Most of these folk are runnin',” he said. “Every day. Some hidin' like damn cowards. Just waitin' for it to pass.”

He shook his head faintly. “This Orath business ain't somethin' that will just pass. No prayers or animal sacrifices for a god's mercy. We cannot outrun this.”

“Not with those legs,” said a dwarven barmaid, setting another ale before Kenneth. She pushed a loose strand of hair beneath the blue bandana tied around her head, the motion quick and practiced.

Kenneth slowly accepted the mug. She winked and walked away.

He watched her go, the ale still suspended halfway between the table and his mouth.

Joshua took a satisfied puff from his pipe.

“And she’s a dwarf.”

Kenneth turned his head very slowly toward him.

“Anyway.” He took a breath and sat back. “Doin' nothin' is just doin' nothin'. And that is how I see it.”

Joshua considered arguing for a moment, then realized he had likely reached the depths of dwarven logic. He drew slowly on his pipe, the ember briefly lighting his eyes, and instead shifted his attention toward Neil again. The paladin had finally begun eating, slowly, as though only just remembering the bowl was there. Beyond him, Lindsey’s shape crossed one of the windows and vanished once more into the rain, her longbow a dark line against the glass for an instant before it too was gone.

“And so...” His face fell back into shadow. “Those three choose to go toward it.”

Kenneth’s grip tightened slightly on the cup. “Aye.”

The ranger was quiet. Another draft passed through the room. This time, Kenneth felt it clearly against the side of his face. The candles nearest the windows leaned toward the glass. Joshua noticed them too. His eyes lingered there for a moment before returning to Kenneth.

“Foolish.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied the dwarf with a proud nod.

Joshua looked across the room again.

Neil had finally begun eating. Slowly, as though only just remembering the bowl was there. Beyond him, Lindsey's shape crossed one of the windows and vanished once more into the rain.

Five people. No army, no plan, and no reason to believe they would fare any better than the thousands who had marched east before them.

Kenneth watched the ranger watching them. “That enough for you?”

Joshua did not answer at once. The smoke from his pipe rose and thinned and disappeared into the darker air near the beams.

“No,” he said at last. “But it is enough to begin.”

The dwarven warrior let out a slow breath, then lifted his mug once more. “To a beginning, then,” he said.

Joshua did not raise his mug, but he did not turn away. “To the five fools remaining,” he warned again.

Kenneth rested his arm across the haft of his axe and grunted. “Keep that up and it'll be four.”

The ranger hesitated only a heartbeat before finally chuckling—a short, reluctant sound—and reached for his mug. “I’d be a fool to let you send me back to Antonio just as the fates have spared me from the fat bastard.”

They met with a dull, quiet knock, swallowed almost at once by the noise of the tavern around them.

“To foolish fools.”