My travels with the Grynkori were not as fast or pleasant as those with Morlo and Vara, and, slow learner that I was, it took me until several weeks into them before I finally realised that I’d lived the early years of my life experiencing about the greatest luxury that Anglyn’s roads had to offer. However bad my new companion was at a sprint, and he really was awful thanks to the sheer shortness of his legs even proportionally to the rest of him, he soon proved better by far when it came to travelling over a distance. By contrast, my sprinting and fencing build was ill-suited to such things.

  It was cold, and getting colder. This was a mixed blessing. During travel, it helped to regulate my body’s heat as long strides left muscles worked to burning and threatened to cook me from within my own sweaty hide. At rest, though, all that sweat left the air even chillier.

  Complaining, I soon learned, earned me no sympathy from the Grynkori, who did not seem to feel temperature extremes or understand why anybody else should either. Even shivering within his line of sight would do nothing but earn another round of mockery, and I disliked giving him that satisfaction. So I learned to suffer in silence.

  In later years, once I’d become an actual man, I would look back on this period as one of the more pathetic eras of my life. There I was in-between life-or-death struggles, complaining about cold weather and walking. I wasn’t starving or anything, either, the Grynkori was a skilled enough trapper that we woke up to a new snared rabbit every other day, and had packs filled with jerkied meat specifically for the long journey.

  Our first destination was quite a while away, too, so it was a damned good thing. The city of Rogrid. Not a nice place, going by what I’d heard at least. It was fairly backwards as far as cities went, having begun as a mining town centuries prior and then done approximately zero advancement over the following generations. It was the sort of place a merchant could expect no kind of warm welcome from, thick air and thick people and thick as fuck shit covering every road.

  But then, I wasn’t travelling as a merchant, nor a merchant’s son. For all the discredit that had done my experience so far, it did mean I’d get the occasionally nice surprise of not carrying that reputational baggage too.

  The Grynkori grunted and spat, the morning we came to within sight of the city. Rogrid was not a pretty place to gaze upon by any standards, and I felt somehow, stupidly self-conscious of the fact as I saw it beheld by a man from a species not my own. How did it compare to the works of oreling, I wondered?

  Looking at the smoking chimneys and cramped construction, it was hard to picture a favourable result.

  “Where’s the mines?” the Grynkori frowned as we approached. I took a look myself, suddenly eager to make a show of explaining human culture. That I did not actually know anything about this part of it hindered things somewhat, but no real man ever let a little thing like his own total ignorance stop him from speaking before.

  “Around those hills, I imagine,” I waved aimlessly, indicating the entire structure at once and watching his confusion deepen. It was not, apparently, because of my own shitty direction however.

  “I can’t even see them from here!” he growled, “what sort of mines does your lot even make anyway?”

  That was an odd sort of question, because as far as I knew we made the only mines. The default mines, the mines that came to mind when one thought of the very word. You must understand, back then conversations with people from disparate cultures weren’t something I’d ever bothered to practice for, weren’t something I really had the mental equipment to engage in. It took me a fair amount of stumbling over my own tongue to string an even coherent sentence together, and even then it was far from a good one.

  “You know…Underground ones.”

  The Grynkori looked at me for a long second, then burst out laughing. He didn’t stop laughing even for a moment all the way to the city, which, I had to admit even then, was somewhat deserved. Of course now I have a finer, more nuanced opinion of the whole interaction thanks to my years of aged wisdom and long hindsight. It was entirely deserved.

  At the gate, we found quite a bit more resistance than I’d grown used to from the towns. See, while I had been to cities over the years, it was never me who had to get our way past their walls. Always a servant or, occasionally when the guards were proving arsey, my father. Talking to other people who did not already have an ingrained desire to do as I said was something I had little familiarity in, and my lack of expertise were keenly felt as I fumbled through that conversation.

  “Name and business,” one of the several guards demanded. These were city watchmen, of a more official kind than you would find in a small town of mere thousands. Uniformed and actually armoured to boot, though not exceedingly well. They carried thick wooden clubs that looked more than sufficient to further inebriate the most violent of drunkards, and their bodies were protected by thick wool padding that I imagined was made with short knives and broken glass in mind.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  I found my eyes moving to their arms and armour between every word, while their eyes reciprocated by jaggedly staring at both my sword and the Grynkori’s hammer. Being young as I was, I didn’t quite get that. It hadn’t yet occurred to me that I looked very much like a rough, armed man off a hard road who knew how to use his weapon.

  “Kyvaine and…”I glanced at the Grynkori, who, far more reluctantly than I thought was wise or sane, finally gave a name.

  “Gruin.” He made a statement of it, staring right at the guards as if he were waiting for some provocation at having identified himself which might serve to justify killing them for knowing.

  Perhaps expectedly, none of the guards present chose to further antagonise the Grynkori. They turned their focus back to me, speaking again.

  “And your business in Rogrid?”

  Right, I’d forgotten to mention. Hopefully they didn’t suspect that to be a deliberate attempt at evasion.

  “Just passing through,” I replied quickly.

  “Lots of people are just passing through,” one of the other guards growled back, “criminals mostly. Road-robbers, and such. What has you in such a hurry to leave Rogrid so soon after arriving in it boy? Why so eager to pass through it, before you’ve even set foot inside?”

  I froze, mouth working silently and to no avail as I fumbled for a response.

  “Don’t be a prick, Rodney,” another of the guards said to the most recent speaker, eying him with the look of a man who wasn’t feeling very friendly but knew glibness and good nature would serve to wrap up what he was really saying and make it more palatable. Before the accusatory guard could reply, their leader was speaking again.

  “I’ll note that down, then, sir, enjoy your stay in Rogrid…And not for too long, eh?” His meaning was clear enough, apparently newcomers weren’t much liked in this city anymore than they were in…Well, any other place I’d been to in Anglyn. It just felt a bit different to be on the receiving end rather than watching that from outside.

  “Thank you—” I began, but he was already turning and gesturing for us to be allowed past. The Grynkori, apparently named Gruin, grabbed my arm and dragged me as he marched ahead fast enough that I actually feared the limb might be torn fully out of its socket by his idiotic strength.

  “Get off me!” I hissed, the moment we were out of earshot from the guards. Around us Rogrid was spanning out in all its shit-covered glory, the streets narrowing to a claustrophobic compression almost as soon as we were past its great gate. Everything reeked worse than any scent I’d ever taken in across my whole life. The Grynkori, though, did not heed my complaints.

  “You were dawdling.”

  I gave my own arm a tug, twisting and growling as a sudden animal rage took me at being handled so. Like I was a boy, like I was an idiot. A particularly far twist of my arm forced the Grynkori’s fingers apart and finally let me snatch my own limb back, I went stumbling, almost fell into the filth underfoot as I did. Glared at him.

  “Don’t do that again,” I told him testily.

  “Or what?” He grinned, then took a startled step back as I punched him right in the bridge of his nose. For a second he just stood there, blinking and staring as if even he couldn’t believe I’d just done it.

  Truth be told, neither could I.

  “I’ve been putting up with your shit for days,” I snarled, “and I’m not tolerating it anymore, got that? This is where the line is. Stop fucking with me or I’ll start biting back, and maybe you’ll learn a thing or two about how soft humans are instead of just imagining it all in your head and getting smug when nobody can be—”

  I was actually making quite a good point, but in one of fate’s countless ironies it was this time, not any of the countless horseshit sessions, that I was finally cut off in. The Grynkori lunged for me faster than I’d expected, and his fist came up to thump hard into my chest. It felt like being hit by a fucking anvil, and I went stumbling instantly.

  But he didn’t leave it at that.

  With a roar that made last week’s bear sound like a wounded kitten, he charged at me. Not overly fast, it had to be said, but the sheer weight of him, paired with the expression of rage on his face, left me to freeze up right until collision.

  I went down, obviously. If you learn any one lesson from these accounts let it be this one: do not try to fucking wrestle a Grynkori. It’s not just that they’re stronger than us, but their limbs are near-impossible to work against. Short, squat, you can’t pry them off or lever them into any sort of hold, while they’re free to throw near-fully-extended blows into you even from practically hugging range.

  Given what I now know about their natural environments, and long history of combat in tight caves and tunnels, it makes sense. As is so often the case, I suffered in youth for my lack of knowledge and willingness to act without it.

  We landed hard in the mud and, probably, shit. I was too angry to think straight, just snarled and started wrestling, losing badly as we rolled around right up until we hit a wall and practically fell apart by accident. I was up first, and by the time the oreling was on his feet I’d already lashed out another punch. This one was a lot harder, thrown to win rather than to vent rage, and it landed straight on the jaw.

  It would’ve dropped a human, but of course this was a Grynkori. I might have hurt my own hand more than his face. I stumbled back as he lunged forwards again and quickly started darting around, throwing more punches. This was where I found the advantage of my species, because I was able to decide exactly how far apart we would be through sheer length of pace, even as I struck him from beyond the span of his own limbs.

  Clearly, he knew it too. His frustration was mounting,

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