"Welcome gathering is this evening. Assemble at the Foundation's second hall until then. Dismissed."
The recruits hesitated briefly. When Aldric simply stood without moving, they exchanged short nods and dispersed. Only then did Aldric turn and walk out of the building toward the downtown district. Elder Ged followed, asking,
"Are you going to get lost again?"
Aldric nodded. The elder sighed.
"Even the Northern Foundation can't track you when you do this."
Aldric kept walking. Ged tried once more.
"Why not rest?"
"Can't. It's been over twenty years. We have to end this now."
"That's true, but you're not young anymore. If you push it, you'll break something that doesn't heal."
"Yes. Unless you're an elder, you should be handing your rank to a successor and stepping back at this age."
Elder Ged scratched his thinning scalp with the expression of a man who had lost this argument many times and had simply run out of new ways to lose it. He had known Aldric since they were from the same town. He understood his character better than most. Military life had never truly fit Aldric. He had wanted an early retirement longer than anyone else. But he couldn't stop. Not yet. There was still something he hadn't found.
"So where are you going this time? The gambling houses? The market? Somewhere worse?"
"As always, whatever comes up."
It was his typical answer. If he needed to find something in the southern deserts, he would cross them. If the trail led to a forest kingdom he had only heard rumors of, he would go there too. He would ask cooperation from whoever held the land and defeat anyone who refused. The elder stopped trying to follow the logic of it.
"Just keep it moderate. No fights, and no elixirs."
"Do I use them because I want to?"
"Damn it. I started wrong. This."
The reality of being the only person available to play the nagging voice in Aldric's life was not a comfortable one.
"Please. Let's just go home."
"That's right."
"You always say that."
Ged grumbled a few more words at Aldric's back and turned away. Aldric smiled at the space his friend had just occupied. Then he tilted his face up.
Bright sunlight fell across his features, his heavy helmet pressing down on him. He squinted into it, breathing in the noise of the city. Crowded places had a completely different quality from forest air or open countryside. He hadn't looked for it, but it was good to be back in it after so long. Walking in it, hoping for something in it, was a reasonable thing to do for one's state of mind.
If only the curse on his voice would lift, he would feel considerably better.
"Your esteemed warrior."
The voice came from behind him, light and unhurried. Aldric turned his head slowly. A woman leaning against the wall of the branch building had her eyes on him. Fair skin, black hair, a black dress that clung to her and left her upper chest uncovered by anything as useful as a necklace. She was smiling. She giggled when she caught his eye. It was the kind of sight that was designed to stop young men mid-step.
Aldric was not a young man.
"Isn't your treatment of women a bit harsh?"
She asked it in fluent Northern dialect. He understood she meant the slave in the warehouse. Her identity was harder to read. Not wealthy, her clothes were simple and her ornaments minimal. Speaking Northern to a northern traveler, in this district, she was most likely a prostitute. Aldric tried to remember the dress code regulations for prostitutes in Velrun, gave up after a moment, and recalled that those regulations had collapsed into a running joke years ago.
"What do you want?"
"A poor girl is talking to you, and that's all you can say?"
"Northerners' areas are off-limits to prostitutes."
The girl shrugged.
"I heard they stopped enforcing that a long time ago."
Aldric assessed her. Broke, out of town, working the surrounding area. He dismissed her with a word.
"I'm busy."
"Then I'll help you."
He gave her a different word.
"Not interested."
"Don't you need someone to talk to?"
He was genuinely surprised by her persistence. Two warnings had been enough for anyone else. He moved to the only tool left.
"I've never seen a prostitute try to claim Mad Aldric as a conversation partner. Are you serious?"
Among Northerners, his reputation carried a specific kind of weight. Among everyone else, Mad Aldric was simply a synonym for things you avoided. His subordinates sometimes said, half joking and half not, that women ran from him. The ones who approached out of curiosity found bluntness, occasionally fists, and on memorable occasions, an axe handle.
"I've heard you're quite the slacker."
She did not step back. She stepped forward.
In that moment something rang in Aldric's head. Not a thought. An instinct. The specific instinct that belongs not to the hunter but to the prey, when it realizes too late that what it was watching was watching it back, and is considerably better at it.
He had forgotten the weight of his helmet. He felt sweat moving down his back, soaked up by the wool pressed against his chainmail.
It was already too late to go for the axe or the sword. By the time she was standing beside him,
"You..."
Aldric took one step back. His subordinates, the ones who had been watching from a distance out of quiet concern for the woman's safety, stood with their mouths open. Before anyone could speak, she had already matched his pace and moved past it.
"Let's go somewhere we can talk more comfortably."
She took his left arm and linked hers through it, smiling with her mouth. Her eyes did not smile at all.
Aldric's jaw closed. He was shocked. He did not expect this at all but he definitely couldn't say 'no' to it. Somewhere inside his back teeth, a quiet grinding sound escaped.