As it happened, Gruin was not the sneakiest person I had ever met. It just goes to show that sometimes people really are exactly as they appear, because to look at him was to think of the word ‘subtle’ only after cycling through several million other descriptors first.

  I was a little better, at least. Granted I still had the innate disadvantages that make any kind of subterfuge difficult—I stood out. Being a head taller than most men is all well and good when one of them is trying to kill you, but it also makes you easy to spot in a crowd. I was also an outsider here, and if the place was anything like Sheppleberry all the villagers would already know one another by face and name. No matter how I went about this, I’d be standing out. That meant that speed and daring would be the best way to see it done with any measure of success.

  On the other hand, did I want to enjoy a success here?

  Success when you were investigating some ominous conspiracy would, I was fairly sure, involve uncovering that conspiracy. And conspiracies tended to be in place for a reason. Not in the way of being a generally good thing, I imagined, people who wanted generally good things didn’t go around hiding it, no. Conspiracies were in place because people had something to hide, people with the power to create a conspiracy.

  And those people tended not to stop at just laying out that conspiracy and then hoping it would go undisturbed. Things could get very dangerous very fast if this town’s oil was part of something more nefarious.

  Telling Gruin outright that I was worried about fully investigating for fear of getting myself killed would not stop him from doing so, nor would it keep me from being associated with him if he got caught. Honesty, clearly, would not do me many favours here. No, better to play along with the Grynkori. For now at least.

  “It sounds to me like that elder has something to hide, right? It was his thugs who came over intimidating and lying in my face the moment I started probing.” An obvious thing to point out, but being the one to bring it up and suggest a course of action would make me seem more involved than just nodding and agreeing with whatever Gruin said.

  “That’s the obvious pick, but if you’ve tipped them off about your suspicions they might expect that.”

  “Right,” I feigned irritation at hearing such a brilliant excuse not to endanger myself, “so what would you suggest then?” I needed to assess exactly how Gruin planned on going about this before I could figure out how best to twist things into the least-threatening form I could.

  “We could just kill him and then go through his pockets for evidence,” Gruin suggested.

  I genuinely spent a few seconds just staring at him after that, trying and failing to wrap my head around the sheer, suicidal insanity of the Grynkori. Waited for him to reveal he was joking, and then, at last, was forced to respond to him seriously.

  “I think it is somewhat improbable that we would be allowed to get away with that by the rest of the villagers,” I informed him. More to test the waters than anything, to estimate what exactly the Grynkori’s cognitive limit was in terms of foreseeing imminent danger.

  As it happened, not very big.

  “Bah, stupid fucks. If they want to be complicit in whatever this is then they can go ahead and be so. I’ll kill them too.”

  “There are, you are aware, literally hundreds of them, yes? More than one hundred of which only counting grown men. That would be…quite the ask for just two of us.”

  Gruin grumbled something I couldn’t hear after that, but did, at least, seem to calm down. Slightly. I resolved myself to keep a perpetual eye on him nonetheless, not wanting to enter an involuntary two-on-one-hundred while my back was turned. This was going to be more dangerous than I’d thought.

  We started our investigation by sneakily heading through the village and looking around, scoping the place out to see what we could learn of its layout and structure. Ostensibly, this was to let us better aim any investigative efforts we dedicated more intensely to our ends. Actually, it was to kill time that otherwise might be spent actually antagonising these dangerous conspirators.

  Unfortunately, we made excellent progress in figuring out exactly what was the elder’s residence when we found the man heading promptly into it. For the time being his presence inside meant that breaking in ourselves was untenable, and I prayed my luck would hold there. But it didn’t of course, you don’t get to be the most famous Hero in history by having your luck keep you out of danger.

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  Arlig the elder took his leave soon, bringing Gruin and I a good opportunity to go poking around inside. Gruin was the one to start forwards first. I, rather urgently, stopped him.

  “Let me go in,” I suggested, “you can keep watch outside. Your legs are shorter and you’re slower in a run, best to have you out here since we need a lookout anyway.” It was a pure lie of course, I just wanted to be able to guarantee we ‘wouldn’t find anything conclusive’ and drag this already dangerous affair out even more.

  But Gruin lapped it up instantly, looking more than a little impressed.

  “That’s…” He was annoyed, despite clearly approving. I supposed he liked the idea of actually getting stuck into the danger. Well that was fine for him, and for me as a matter of fact. If he felt annoyed at missing out now it would just make him all the more willing to tag in if we were faced with an actually dangerous situation later.

  So I peeled off and hurried to the building, pausing only to realise I wasn’t entirely sure how I’d get inside. I tried the door, locked of course, and looked around for some other way in. Breaking my way through was always an option of course, but then that would advertise to Arlig that someone had been snooping around. He’d know who instantly.

  Windows were my next prospect, and I was actually surprised to find one of them was accessible. There was wood here rather than glass, so maybe the elder wasn’t as indulgent in his own home as he was with his lighting fuel, but that didn’t make it any easier for me to get through. Harder really, the wood flexed and creaked as I climbed.

  Being tall and broad helps a lot in a fight, and it’s great for impressing girls, but it seemed to me that my size was being nothing but an impediment these days. I struggled fitting all of my long limbs in through the small hole, grunting and swearing under my breath before finally falling through to land hard on my face.

  I didn’t quite hear Gruin laughing, but I knew he was. No time to be bothered by that though, I hurried to my feet and started slithering around inside to find something interesting or useful. I needed to tell Gruin something at least, if I was to persuade him to abandon this madness, and if it was something I knew for a fact could be corroborated elsewhere then so much the better.

  So I started nosing about. The inside of the building was almost odd, finer than most of the places I’d…What, gotten used to seeing?

  Gotten used to being in, I realised with horror. By God, I was becoming common. Or acclimating to being among them at least. Was a few months really enough to do that?

  Evidently yes, it had done it. So I soaked in the sight of high ceilings and wide halls, of thick carpets, sculptures and other decor. The deeper into the building I got, the fancier everything became. And the more expensive.

  Too expensive, too expensive by far. This was very, very bad. There’d be no feigning ignorance about this. Forget avoiding any evidence of wrong-doings and claiming to not have seen it, I was beholding something suspicious every way I turned whether I wanted to or not!

  I continued walking around, making sure Gruin wouldn’t see me from outside and figure out that I was just lurking within to kill time, and every step I took showed a new incrimination and sealed my fate that little bit more. At the very least, though, there was nothing obviously illegal, dangerous or dark about the place. So far. I kept my eyes carefully averted and affixed to the ceiling to ensure that didn’t change.

  Such was the innate brilliance of my plan, that it worked very well. Right up until it didn’t. My effort was foiled when I heard something thud against one of the wooden shutters, turned, and saw a second rock hit it from the outside. A signal from Gruin.

  A signal that someone was entering the house.

  I didn’t have long, seconds maybe, to hide. I frantically looked around, even as I heard a key scraping within the front door’s lock. I bolted across the room for a large wardrobe and pried it open, stuffing myself inside and shutting the doors after me. A single instant later, the house was occupied by another.

  Whoever it was, I didn’t have very long to worry about it, because the wardrobe was not a normal wardrobe at all. I cunningly discovered a false back to the whole thing when I tripped, fell back and smashed my entire body right through the fucking thing and fell down about a million stairs while screaming and swearing.

  Obviously, that got quick attention from whoever’d entered the house right after me. I scrambled up and hurried deeper into the new chamber I’d fallen down even as I heard the sounds of alarm and pursuit behind me.

  That barely registered though, because up ahead was a sight I’d not have anticipated with a hundred years to guess. Stone walls, stone floors, stone ceilings. It looked almost like the blackmist shelter all over again, though it was about as dark as that had been bright. I hurried forth, forced to make my way quickly along its interior by the pursuit behind me, and found more as I went.

  It was cold down there, at first, but got warmer as I went, and I went deeper by the moment. Looking desperately for somewhere new to hide, though I knew by now there was no hope left. Chances were I’d run into a dead end down here, then it would just be a matter of time before I was caught.

  Of course, my expectations, however grim, were not met. No. Things were much worse than that, because rather than running into something as mundane and safe as a wall, I found myself running into another fucking man. This one was tall too, and in his hand was a great big meat cleaver. He grinned when he saw me.

  “Looks like I found a ra—FUCK!” he barely got his weapon up in time to parry a swing from my sword, and I stepped back after the strike, cursing. I was disadvantaged, fighting here. Long arms and a sword in tight stone corridors was hardly the best choice, while his cleaver was just perfect for hacking around.

  On the other hand, sheer weapon length let me jab from well beyond his reach. I took the offensive quickly, finding that though this man was surprisingly skilled, I still held the advantage in technique. It didn’t take long before one, then two cuts appeared along his chest and arms where my steel gave them little nips, driving him away and injecting fear to fill his eyes.

  That was when the other one came up to turn it into a two-on-one.

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