Their speed had transformed from moderately slow to hobbling stallion. Laural tried urging him on but could get nothing from him. The pace made her feel unsafe, but what have they. Laural felt jumpy knowing she’d be forced to leave her own horse behind and could do nothing about it. Not that she had any open outlaw contacts outside Adville, but she knew this direction might be where those few friends she knew could be found.

  Yet Nettel on the advice of Day had agreed completely, readily to go there. She didn’t want to come face to face with anyone she owned a horse debt to especially not when all the horses around her might be used to pay that debt. Maybe strangle the whole party as well as murder all her poor herd.

  Additionally, killing the horse she’d ridden kept replaying in her head. She could tell that they’d been running by a few markers on the trail. It had not been the best terrain, which made the high running speed all that much worse. If she’d been riding on a different road, she might have known. But she’d gotten there off instructions and then there were road cutoffs by guards. The new man had been there looking awful suspicious doing nothing but seeming alert and worried and red faced. Racing by, she’d been too irate and hunted to stop for information.

  What did she really have to work with? A hole in the ground. A horse running too fast. This new situation mimicked her error.

  What had happened to Nettle’s horse? The poor lame animal they were now leaving behind due to its lack of injury. A horse going at speed hitting a rock like that could do a lot more than injure the hoof. It could have killed the rider and the horse in a tumble like that. But she’d seen no indications of the horse hitting the ground.

  Nettle had dirt on himself. Clearly, they’d fallen together. No question about that. She grunted to herself trying to figure out what she must be missing and be reasonable at the same time. Strange stuff did happen all the time. Who knew what weird theatre of the mind off-worlder might be nearby?

  She’d asked the horse, but he didn’t’ want to talk about it and had always been a tad dim. She went again to carefully inspect the stallion’s body and found some strange bruising along the horse’s sides and knees that hadn’t been there recently. These marks weren’t aligning with the marks she’d seen on the ground. Frustrated about the whole matter, she decided to think about it later and focus instead on keeping her wits about her.

  Focus on what to do in the new smaller town. The least worry some person in the group was Nettle. He knew of her history. Further, he didn’t appear to consider the bad association to make her reputation worse or better. The other lot though, not very trustworthy, especially that new vampire guy. He always seemed to watching, even if she did like his big bay gelding, Arkle.

  Spoon kept his head on the swivel and around the carts. Spoon traveled with a careful lookout. His figurative antenna up and testing the teasing winds every few seconds. Where he meant to or not his general uncomfortable nature started to rub off on everyone else. His attention sliding through the group like a knife and seeing everyone’s face tense and worried. Not that it mattered all that much, because nothing other than twisted stomachs, and a future ulcer, became of this watchfulness. Still, he kept it up so much that Laural ended up giving him an entirely new mount since he’d worn out his horse Arkle more to than anyone else.

  She did not tell him to ride more artfully, carefully, beautifully, but she’d scowled at him enough that he would know if he’d bothered to pay attention to her feelings on the matter. It wasn’t that she disliked him just that their overall profile had risen and without much of a correlation to staying safe. Not that she had seen anyway. An extra horse for a lost one, plus an extra rider.

  Nineteen horses when they dropped her injured stallion, two carts, one pulled by two horses and the other pulled by four, and six people, four riding. A minimum of ten horses just for regular walking. The additional mouth and little to go with it. Or maybe his late add to the party just didn’t seem to fit in quite as seamlessly as Kriti did.

  One part of this issue seemed from his general lack of speaking. Only Day carried conversation with him as they rode. When speaking with her, it feel into intense questioning like one might when talking to an official. It could always be his manner, but she didn’t like the idea of him finding out about her mistakes. It seemed a bit too much like exposing a weakness to a stranger.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Bodi, she reflected, also might not be a bad person, but that wasn’t the only issue. As security, she seriously questioned if he could do the job he’d been assigned. It wasn’t that he couldn’t look scary and appear big, but that he probably didn’t know how to handle himself. A carnivorous kangaroo that was a tourist trap had killed a horse and he’d done nothing! Lots of security personnel had the look, but few of them had the extra strength needed for true combat. She’d dealt with a few types like that in her time and it made her more than a little nervous to consider him a major factor in horse protection. Still, he wasn’t someone to worry about blabbing, only about him potentially getting himself impales on a spear. Naturally, Bodi would need a spear to do that. She, at least, had the whip.

  They reached “Bandit’s Den” and quickly saw the painted cutouts of bandits waving at them. Along with a few extra flashy sighs. “See Bandit’s Hideout next left.”

  Clearly this tiny town was desperately trying to sell them on a Bandit’s Den attraction in the area. Judging by the lack of traffic it wasn’t the smartest naming choice. One could only assume that both bandits and those preyed on by bandits would avoid such a place. Then again, when you had a MC on a gaming quest it helped to clearly label your bad guy zones. Kept everyone safer. Maybe they were looking for low level gamers to visit?

  The one open stand in the area sat in the middle of the main line and had a very much alive NPC sitting under a large tarpeled white and red awning the jutted out from a building beyond. It quite literally cut into the road, but then maybe this was a wandering trader or they just really wanted the foot traffic to come into the wooden building behind them. A flat wooden sigh on the front of the awning read “wwWEARS”. The well known chain.

  Inside the awning, the man stood up. Both his ears pointed up, and he had tiger stripes to go with his whiskers and white splashed face. He wore a simple blue tunic and his striped tail flickered about as if noodling catfish all on its own.

  “Khut has wears.” The creature gave a wave to the open door of the building behind him dramatically.

  “Knut? Knot? Kay -newt? Nut? Not? Cnut?” Bodi tested the names.

  Kriti didn’t get off the cart. “Let’s not rearrange the letters in that last one. Unless you’re an Australian.”

  “It’s Kay-hut. Khut has wears.”

  “Homophones! Shouldn’t that sign read,” Nettle squinted at it. “Wares? If you need-“

  “No, it’s wears. Like wearables. But we also have wares, where’s, were-s, like werewolves, along with our wears. See?” The man leaned forward and pointed to a tiny spot on the sign barely legible.

  “It say www, not wwww.” Her eyes more in line with the sign, Kriti arched her left brow.

  He shrugged. “We couldn’t fit four on the sign. It’s www.”

  Nettle would not miss his chance to be pedantic.

  “You have where’s, but not weres or whirrs?”

  Knut glowered. “You’re just saying the same thing? “

  Nettle frowned and then squinted. “But then how did I? Nevermind. Let me spell it for you.”

  “No!” The man’s fur fluffed straight out. He visibly recovered his calm face, putting his back down. “Thanks.”

  “Fine.” Nettle crossed his arms. “Were’s somehow means werewolf stuff? Just what does where’s and wares have in them?”

  “I’m already looking at the wears,” pointed out Day, who was inspecting shirts and dresses hung up along the side of the interior shop. Laural had joined her.

  Khut returned to his spiel. “The “Where is” section has maps and compasses, locations and secrets from the past. There you can find where is yourself and where is others as well. The wares section is mostly travel supplies, nothing too exciting, but all very useful.”

  “Any weapons?” asked Bodi.

  Khut gave a slight frown. “No. The werewolf section contains were-lights, werewolves for actors for hire, and anything you’d expect to find from a werewolf merchant.”

  “Is that what you are?” Nettle asked and received a glare from everyone in the vicinity.

  The man looked offended. “Werewolves are extinct due to vampirism and the plague it spreads across this land. I’m a werecat, like everyone who works at WWW.”

  “Right, sorry, my bad.” Nettle shuffled his feet awkwardly. “You know Fea don’t get out much.”

  His whiskers twitched. “I can tell. What can I interest you in buying, sir?”

  “Candied nuts?” Nettle suggested.

  “Nunchucks?” Bodi brightened at the word.

  Laural knew what she wanted. “Sugar cubes?”

  “Disarticulated shin bones of cows? A gift for my father’s dog,” Day suggested.

  Kriti didn’t ask for anything.

  Khut maintained his customer service smile. “Nope.”

  “Which one?” They asked in unison.

  “None of them. Perhaps you might like Wares, though?”

  Even though they couldn’t get their first wants, on Nettle’s tab, they all got a few things. Kriti a random assortment of household goods and additional food supplies. Laural anything canned and vegetarian. Bodi and Day both shook their heads after searching top to bottom for their items. Spoon got a single souvenir spoon. Everyone bought better travel clothes. Nettle bought four cookies then seeing his party, bought two more so they all could have one. He paid in bitcoin.

  Khut waved as they left. His posture relaxed the further away they got. Day dropped off the stallion at the nearest stable with only a short conversation with a few stablehands outside. Nettle paid another few bitcoins from his pocket with considerably less excitement and they were again on their way. Having not met a single Bandit at the Bandit’s Den. But maybe the Here There be Dragons section of the map would be more accurate.