Chapter 17: A hectic day

“Shit,” I announced my sudden realization to the world around me once I concluded my business behind a tree. What? It’s only natural!

“What?” Paul asked once I returned to his side.

“I just realized my backpack’s gone.” Sure enough, reaching behind myself yielded no results whatsoever. In all the chaos of the previous half an hour, the thought of my stuff never crossed my mind.

My gryphon friend just smiled at me awkwardly. “Your backpack kind of got torn apart down there once… uuh... Dufus got into a fight with some rats. I took as much of your things as I could into mine, but there wasn’t much to salvage.”

Great, not only did I lose the crystal lantern and my axe, I lost my supplies too.

“What did you salvage?” I asked immediately, hoping he’d saved the most important thing in that backpack.

“Dad’s skinning knife, of course, the map and a blanket. Everything else was torn apart. Including the picture of your brother—torn to shreds, sorry.”

My shoulders sagged a little at the newfound lack of connection to my brother. For the entire journey, I hadn’t even dared to pull it out of the backpack in fear of damaging it. I wanted to use it once we reached the city to search for whomever had drawn it. But I guess that plan was gone now.

At least we still knew where to go.

Then there was Jack’s knife, a parting gift from my saviour and, for the time I’d known him, a dear friend. This at least made me smile. With a sigh, we embarked on our journey back to the city again. A thought kept nagging at my mind, though, so I voiced it out.

“Paul, now that we can finally speak like civilized people, I’d really love to talk about us. Get to know each other better.” Paul nodded with a smile, and pointed ahead of us where the city came to full view as we left the small forest and its animal-beaten path at the mountain’s foot.

“There’ll be time for that later, we should collect our reward first.” He seemed almost giddy about the whole thing. If I wasn’t hurt and disheartened by the whole ordeal, I would probably be too. I mean, we were in a fantasy land on a real adventure, doing real quests!

There was one thing, however. I didn’t want to be the bringer of bad news, but someone had to say it. “Paul, we didn’t exactly fulfill the task.”

The gryphon laughed stiffly, avoiding any contact with me whatsoever. A suspicion of bad things suddenly befell me. “Paul,” I called out his name a little menacingly, making him wince a little, “what did you do?”

“I… didn’t do anything, it was Dufus.”

Hey! Don’t blame me! He wanted to have some evidence of our struggle.

He can’t hear you, you know that.

Yes, but you can relay what I said.

“It’s ok Paul, I won’t be mad or anything. Just tell me what you did.”

Paul, after three deep breaths, set his bulging backpack down, undid the straps holding the thing at the brink of explosion, and pulled out… about a dozen rat tails. I stared at them for a small while, just looking as they dangled from Paul’s talon like a glockenspiel, slowly moving in the breeze. The tails were nicely severed at the base, which preserved their full length and thus the gross estimation one could make about the rats’ sizes.

I didn’t understand what he was getting so worked up about, though. This seemed like a logical solution to our problem. A nice forethought on his part.

It was actually my idea. See? I am already irreplaceable!

Of course you are...

“And?” I just shrugged as Paul kept looking at me through the pendulous tails.

“And? This is okay with you?” He sounded so surprised for some reason.

“Yes, why shouldn’t it?”

“I just assumed… I’ve never really seen you kill anything, much less hurt anything. And you always declined to go hunting with me.” He lowered the talon still holding the tails, shifting a little in place as he explained himself.

Oh Paul, you don’t even know.

Know what?

Later.

Instead of reminiscing about the past, I decided to shift the conversation in a different direction. “What do you mean I declined hunting with you? You never asked!”

As I’d dissipated the dense atmosphere with my question, the gryphon seemed to have reverted back to his cheery self as he stashed the rat tails back into his backpack. “Well, duh! I couldn’t exactly ask you in a normal way, could I?”

“Then how did you ask?”

“Well, I tried gesturing. A lot…”

Suddenly, memories of him doing a weird rendition of belly dancing came to my mind.

“Wait, you mean those... dances?”

“Dances?”

“Yeah, the ones with the belly.”

Paul just stood there, his beak shaped into a silent “o.” He stood frozen like that for about a second, before he realized something. “I guess there was a lot of belly involved.”

“Looked like belly dancing to me.”

“Belly dancing?”

“Well, you know,” I started wriggling my belly around, putting my arms above my head, “belly dancing?”

“Uhhh,” was the confused gryphon’s only response before making some gesture toward my awesome dancing skills. “Is that a… uh, your species’ thing?”

I stopped dancing. “In some parts of the world, I guess.”

“Oh, that’s… interesting.”

“Yeah.”

An awkward silence ensued, filling the air with its rancid stench of nothingness. We slowly started looking around at all the interesting things, like the rocks, and the trees. The sun was pretty nice, too, though it was hard to look at.

“Maybe we should go,” Paul said slowly, taking me out of my reverie. He pointed behind himself toward the town.

“Great idea,” I answered and so we stepped through the imaginary border dividing it from the wild. Soon enough, the master ninjas came to greet us once again, most likely waiting the entire time for us to return. I wonder what would’ve happened if we never returned?

Without a word, they landed between us and the town, daring us to move one more step in its direction. “Coming back so soon?” one of them sneered.

A resolute “yes” was Paul’s only answer.

The other guard, instead of focusing at Paul, had decided to stare at me, the dried gore on me, and my wounded arm. “What were you doing, exactly?” he asked once he finished assessing me. Heh, can’t spell assessing without “ass.”

“That’s right. What were you doing?” the other one inquired with a small cackle. “You look like you’re up to no good. We don’t want criminals in here, doing criminal things.”

The only criminal thing in here is your attempts at stealth, jerk, I thought, but didn’t dare to voice my opinion out loud. Gryphons had amazing sight, but not at the expense of their hearing.

“I already said we were on a quest to kill some rats,” Paul practically growled.

“Oh? Well, aren’t you a warrior. Do you have any way to prove your mighty claims?”

My friend slammed his backpack to the ground, opened it up with fury unheld, and essentially shoved the rat tails into their faces. “Happy now?” He glowered at them. The guards in question studied the tails with fake expressions of cleverness, one of them even going so far as to prod one of the tails and nod thoughtfully.

“Alright. But what about your friend there?” As soon as he mentioned me his voice dropped.

“One of the rats annoyed him, so he proceeded to kill them all.” Paul said that in a monotonous tone, as if stating an obvious fact. His voice fluctuated a little, showing perhaps more emotion than he wanted, but the guards luckily didn’t seem to catch that and took the lie  like a child devouring a spoon of sugar.

“Okay, okay,” one of them said and proceeded to make placating gestures toward me. They were so horrible, though, that some would perhaps mistake them for things more lewd. “Just hand us your weapons and don’t cause any trouble.”

Paul very reluctantly gave them his axe, and when they looked at me, I just shrugged. I didn’t exactly have a weapon now except for the skinning knife. But I wasn’t about to show it to them, was I?

Again, they didn’t even check Paul’s backpack before flying away in a hurry. Paul stormed off into the town, whilst I trailed behind him like a smoke.

You should cash in on your reward as soon as possible, then hurry to a hospital. I can feel the disease flowing through your veins.

Thank you, captain obvious.

I dashed to Paul’s side. “Where can we find the gryphon who sent us into that shithole?”

Instead of answering straight, he looked at me oblongly, before saying, “Do you always cuss so much?”

“Sometimes. But, you know, when it’s appropriate.”

“Dad always said it’s never appropriate,” he replied firmly.

I sighed. Wish my father shared that opinion. “Jack raised you well.”

I realized Paul had been leading us back to the tavern, into which he basically barged without heed or care, me following closely behind. We just wanted our money for that arduous ordeal.

But you got me, wasn’t that worth it?

Not even replying to that, we quickly scanned the room of gryphons and the one shady minotaur who sat in the same spot as before. Our gracious task-giver, though, was nowhere to be found, thus leaving us in a weird situation.

“Hey,” a deep voice cut through the subsequent silence and stares of the tavern’s patrons. Paul and I turned slowly to the minotaur’s table, a liter tankard resting comfortably near a familiar looking pouch. “Your friend left this here,” he continued before picking his massive mug and drinking deeply of it.

I looked at Paul uncertainly, myself being quite uncomfortable, which I noted he was too. We carefully approached the table, across which the minotaur slid our disbursement.

“What happened to the gryphon?” I asked, almost whispering as the rest of the tavern went back to its, mostly silent, business.

“He left.”

“Okay.” Both Paul and I didn’t really ask any questions after that, instead we were very glad for our payment. After a quick glance inside, it looked like we came out of this calamity a little loaded. Or it could be a pretty pisspoor reward, I couldn’t really tell thanks to my lack of knowledge of the local currency. Paul was always the one to do the shopping.

It’s enough to get you into the hospital and pay the bills.

Not being one to insult what looked like half a ton of muscles, I bowed a little in a thank you before quickly hurrying after the already leaving Paul.

“What was that about?” Paul asked silently, pacing in place a little.

“Beats me,” I said, looking into the pouch before handing it to Paul. “How much is that?”

He ruffled through the coins and hefted the whole pouch in his claws. “Enough to let us treat that arm and get us some nice dinner.”

I looked up at the sky. It was getting kinda harder to see. Just how much time did we spend down in the rathole?

“Let’s find a doctor before it gets too dark then,” I said still looking at the sun dipping ever so slowly behind the forest to the west.

With a few requests for directions, we were soon sitting in the local doctor’s office. It was a pretty big step back from the modern hospital I had visited previously. However, to the doctor’s credit, he didn’t even blink when he saw who his next patient was. Soon the doctor was torturing me with alcohol, cleaning my wound thoroughly.

“Well, the good news is the wound isn’t deep, so no stitches needed. But by what you’ve told me, there’s a slight chance you contracted something. Just to be sure, I’ll give you some herbs to at least slow down the process of infection and strengthen your immunity. Since from your teeth I judge you’re an omnivore, the herbs shouldn’t cause you any trouble with your digestive tract, no matter the species. Unless you aren’t an omnivore or herbivore, then your body might be inclined to get rid of this remedy faster than usual.”

“No, you’re absolutely right, sir doctor. I am an omnivore,” I replied before he could get into more graphic details.

“Good. I recommend you stay somewhere warm tonight. Preferably wash yourself to see if you have any other wounds that might need treatment.”

“Alright.”

He nodded to himself as he wrote something on a piece of paper on his desk, then he stormed off to return a moment later with a bag filled with multitude of different types of dried leaves, and a roll of gauze.

“Crush one handful of these in your palm, then let it sit for about fifteen to twenty minutes in hot water. Drink while still warm. Do it three times a day, and no problems should occur.”

While explaining, he got to securing my wound with the gauze, tightening it painfully around the whole injury.

“You’re set now, just take it easy for the rest of the day, and you should be fine.” The doctor stepped over to his desk, writing down more things.

“That’s twenty talons,” he announced after contemplating what appeared to be some calculations. I could tell by how he used his claws’ digits now and then.

Paul’s face went stone cold, making it quite clear to anyone watching what he thought of the price. I guess it was pretty horrible to cause such a reaction in the otherwise jolly gryphon. Passing the money silently, he tugged at my trousers before making his way out, not even looking at me.

“Take care,” the gryphon doctor said, in return to Paul’s coldness not looking away from the money he was counting.

“You too.” With that, I was out the door where Paul was fuming.

“That stuck up crackbeak of a featherless keythong!” he raged. What was supposed to be quite scary, though, looked just cute with Paul. He was still smaller and younger than most other gryphons, lacking their natural ferocious visage. So, when his face turned red, he just became more hug-worthy.

“Hey, who’s the one cussing now?” I chuckled.

Paul stopped at my remark, took a deep breath and then, while gesturing accordingly with his right arm (because screw saying front legs all the time), let it all out.

“Back home it wouldn’t cost half that.”

“Well,” I squeezed his shoulder, “guess we’re not back home, hmm?” Patting him gently, he seemed to relax even more, almost leaning into my hand.

“I guess we’re not.” He said sadly, hanging his head low. “I miss mom and dad, and my little brother.”

“Aww,” I couldn’t help myself but to hug him right then and there. Passersby stared at us, however they didn’t bother us otherwise.

“I know that feel,” I cooed while burying my face into the unearthly softness of his feathers.

He suddenly perked up, as if hit by a lightning. “Sorry, that was rude of me.”

“Not at all. Everyone misses their home and family from time to time, nothing wrong about that.”

“Yeah,” he sighed heavily again, but otherwise didn’t move. We just sat there on the stairs leading up to the slightly elevated clinic.

I was sitting in our rented room in the local hostel after getting some dinner from a small restaurant still open into the late night. It was warm enough inside that I could sit there with nothing on me except a towel around my waist.

The room wasn’t much to look at, but it had warm water running probably thanks to the magic of the unicorn running the business.

The doctor might’ve been a niggard, but he was still a doctor. It was already getting heavily dark outside, so there was nothing more but to roam around the hostel and our room, perhaps getting a drink or something small to eat in the bar downstairs.

That’s where Paul was right now, anyway. He said he would get me some water for the leaves, and maybe something stronger too. The silent room left me to contemplate what to do next. It wasn’t like there was much to ponder, though. We could only go north-northwest along the mountains, which would get us to what looked to be a coastal city which lay in the gap between the sea and the mountains. We would go a bit north of the city, and then just straight east, crossing the great valley. There, somewhat north-east of the valley’s center, lay our destination.

Vanground. The capital of the gryphon kingdom, if times hadn’t changed much. Our destination, I presume?

Yes, you should know why with those freaky privacy-defiling mind reading powers.

Indeed I do.

I put the map down, folding it neatly on the table that stood beside my bed. There was a second bed right across the room, with a similar table. At each table was a low, broad chair. That was about it for the furniture in the room. Then there was a single window in the middle of the wall to my right, and directly opposite was the door leading into the hall. Attached to the ceiling was a small crystal lamp, secured with iron frame hammered into the ceiling with heavy bolts, and light spilling into the room through thick glass. The last thing was a door to the right of Paul’s bed, leading to a somewhat big bathroom with a big shower (which I appreciated greatly) with a few hostel-given towels. But, most importantly, there was an honest-to-god toilet in there.

The door leading out creaked open as a familiar gryphon entered, holding two tankards in one talon and a small steaming pot in his beak. He wobbled forward, using his hind leg to close the door.

He put one mug and the pot on my table, before moving to sit at his own bed. I looked at the strange beverage. There was some corn floating at the surface of this dark-yellow tinted liquor.

At seeing my incredulous look, he just winced and said, “Corn ale. The bartender wouldn’t sell me anything better.”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t sell you anything better, either. You still look like a child,” I remarked with a smirk, before gracing my parched throat with the beverage, using my teeth to filter the corn out.

It was strange. You know the juice in the cans with salt corn? Take some of the saltiness away, add a tinge of alcohol and some bitterness to it, and you got yourself corn ale.

“Ugh,” I said put the thing away, not quite acquiring the taste for it. “Should’ve just brought some more water. No way am I getting hammered on that.” With that, I ground some leaves given to me by the doctor into the steaming pot.

We settled into a comfortable silence, not really enjoying our drinks but drinking nonetheless. The day came to an end, the window turning into a mirror through the laws of physics.

Overall, I think, it was a very productive, although painful, day.