Inch by Inch

A fresh breeze carried tasty smells and hushed conversation across the city. Rays of gold warmed the stone and eased tensions between the towering walls. With the boost, the locals rallied, returning to the streets. They blustered forth, recovering ground lost during the poor weather from the new adventurers. The dog track did not look as it had a week prior, but it wasn’t quite so shiny now either.

The change should have brought comfort to Jay, dismayed as he had been two days prior. Yet it did not. He felt eyes pricking at his back, and a lingering focus burning his cheek. Every eye seemed to turn to him at least once, and with so many in the crowd, he could not tell why.

Ana beside him was unconcerned, and Kane had faded off into his own world under pressure from the numbers.

Jay alone was feeling watched.

A humid bead of sweat dripped down his back, and it was not caused by what he wore. The leather armor was heavy, but Jay had not felt overly warm on the walk from the dorms to the bureau. Ana and Kane were similarly dressed, and they weren’t sweating.

All three of them wore their body armor today. It didn’t even need to be discussed that morning. They all knew the necessity now. Running without it felt... foolish. None of them were here to have fun. They didn’t wear their awkward looking helmets though. It was a step too far given how public this was, they’d all agreed on that.

Still, Jay was sweating, and he thought he knew why, even if he was powerless to change anything. He still felt light pain from the right side of his face, and the itchiness increased with the heat. The wound from his tree collision yesterday was in plain view of everyone. There was no hiding or avoiding the curiosity. He couldn’t avoid feeling uncomfortable about that.

Overnight the scrape had settled into a dark scab. He was no longer so hesitant to touch the area, but avoided doing so as much as possible. Touching the scab would make him want to itch, which would make him want to prod and pick. That was something he could not do. Jay wanted to avoid a scar as much as possible.

“Hello the trio!”

Peter weaved his way through the crowd with comfortable ease.

Jay smiled at his arrival. A distraction was exactly what he needed.

The morning check-in from the Bedrock guild recruit was always welcome. As was Peter’s teasing attitude and friendly face. He never seemed to be able to tame his mess of sand hair or the big ears poking out of it. When Peter got closer, his nose twitched, and he focused on Jay. His cheerful smile shifted to a searching look, and he raised one eyebrow. “Lots of chatter going around today. Talk of a big event yesterday.”

“Oh?” Jay said, raising a questioning eyebrow of his own. What kind of joke was Peter going to make this time?

“What happened?” Ana asked, leaning in a little, curiosity captured.

“Oh,” Peter began, feigning indifference but not losing that glint in his eye. “They say three leather tags killed a monster of an oddity, not five meters away from the wall. Something unknown. Something dangerous.”

Jay saw Ana twitch in reaction and knew he had done the same.

Peter pounced. “I knew it! Mark’s father didn’t have any names, but his description was so close. Then I saw the cuts on Jay’s face, and it might have been from training, but c’mon, the chances of it being a coincidence... Of course there was also the-” He waved a hand in front of his mouth and nose. ”-but that could have been anything.”

“You... you heard about our patrol?” Jay asked faintly. Mark’s father was... some nugget of information hid just past his reach.

Mark, a bulky recruit also with Bedrock, had made the wrong sort of first impression in Peak tavern. He’d been suffering from Word blowback at the time, so Taylor had explained that... Mark’s mother worked with Peter’s and his father was on the extreme threat team!

“An extreme threat team was talking about us?” he asked in horror.

Peter waved his hand languidly, his expression regal, but his cheeks were twitching and Jay could tell that he was enjoying this. “It might have been mentioned.”

“Why!” Ana hissed at him before turning her next question to Jay. “What kind of team is that?”

Jay grimaced, then fought a wince as it tweaked his scab. “They’re the teams that handle the bad oddities, the really bad ones that are a threat to the city or have caused another team to go missing.”

Ana blanched. “Was... yesterday, the thing... it was like that?”

“What’s going on?” Kane asked, blinking as his focus returned and he caught sight of their faces.

Jay didn’t have an answer for Ana. A weight had settled at the back of his throat. Just how close had they been to-

“Okay, okay, don’t worry, it’s not like that.” Peter interjected, noticing his fun had gone awry. “His team gets brief on all new oddities discovered around the city. It’s a thing. Yours was only notable because of how close it was, your rank, and the political mess.”

“Political mess?” Jay found himself asking.

Kane’s brows were thoroughly crossed now, and he seemed torn between annoyance, confusion and curiosity. Ana had regained some of her color, but her left hand was wrapped in a death grip around the hem of her blouse.

Peter’s face had settled on embarrassment and contrition. “It’s nothing you need to think about. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Peter, you can’t just say that and pretend you didn’t. What kind of political mess?” Jay insisted, the words spilling out of his mouth. Had they caused some kind of issue between Lauchia and Kavakar? They hadn’t done anything wrong, but several cattle had been killed... And if his mother had found out he’d been injured, he wouldn’t put it past her to do something. Not that whatever it was would have an effect on a city state.

“It’s between the guards and the bureau. An oddity never should have made it that close, or needed to have been dealt with by leather tags. We’re all too new for that. It was-” Peter paused to choose his words carefully. He avoided looking at Jay. “-fortunate that no one was badly hurt. If the oddity went after a farmstead instead of cattle, or even Slow Keeping...”

“Bad. It would have been bad,” Ana finished without prompting. She clenched both hands and released them.

Something wasn’t adding up for Jay. “But that’s the point of our patrol. To keep the area safe.”

“Well,” Peter stretched out, tilting his head side to side.

“It was big, Jay,” Kane said softly. “And neither quiet nor careful. Its tracks were clear.”

Peter hesitated before adding to the explanation. “I heard the outermost patrol was delayed. They had a backlog after that huge cloud three days ago. The next closer set of patrols... When the guards went out — it’s a big deal that they did that — they found more dead animals further out. It should have been noticed.”

Jay shook his head. “The guards at home have to go out all the time. If the hunters spot something, or all the adventurers are away, they send a big group to sortie.”

“Yeah,” Peter looked pained. “That’s kind of the point. They don’t do that here. It’s all a big mess and nothing to do with you, but...”

“Peter!” someone roared.

Across the crowd, Jay could see a man in the long Bedrock tunic, beckoning angrily. His face was furrowed in anger.

Peter saw the man at the same time, and he tilted his head, perplexed. “Odd,” he whispered. “What’s snuck up his tunic?” before turning back to the group. “I’ve got to go, talk later at Peak?”

Then he disappeared into the crowd.

The bead of sweat working its way down Jay’s back was cold. He could feel the eyes again, and this time he wasn’t so sure that it was all in his head.

A few minutes passed like this until Maya and Jason led the Bedrock and Marching Orders groups through the crowd and gave the call for the run to start. The run was a relief from the heat.

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

Their usual training grounds were busier than usual and far from peaceful. Grunts, laughter and shouts of encouragement masked any other noise from the city, narrowing down the world to the yard and the packed dirt. A darkening sky created a dome above their heads, strengthening the illusion.

Ana, Jay and Kane stood at one end of the yard, a stain of calm on the lively area. This too, they were approaching with more focus than before.

“I was thinking we’d work on something else today,” Jay said, grinding the butt of his spear into the sandy dirt. “I had a few thoughts after the tailmouth and-” he hesitated. “-not that I think we’ll run into one again, but so we can be ready in case we do. Again, not that I think we will, it’s just-”

He scanned his team, searching for cracks. They’d talked a little in the aftermath, but hadn’t really gone into detail about the fight, what had happened, how they’d acted. How they’d done. He didn’t want to make it sound like he was blaming or criticizing anyone for how everything had gone.

Ana was smirking. “Tailmouth. That’s what you were shouting at it during the fight yesterday. Are we going to practice that? Coming up with mean names?”

“A mighty tactic,” Kane said, so straight-faced it was twisted.

Jay stuck his tongue out, and that cracked Kane’s stoic shield. His teammate’s lips eased apart to reveal bright teeth.

“I don’t think Ana needs any practice at that-”

“Hey!”

“-but I’m sure she can give you some tips if you ask nicely Kane.”

Ana stuck her tongue out at him. “Tailmouth. You should be the one asking for tips.”

He couldn’t help the laughter that spilled out from his gut. The gravity they’d held themselves with was gone, but he didn’t miss it. “Alright, alright, but I do have some ideas.”

Kane raised an eyebrow and gestured with an open arm.

“I want to do two things today. One, working with each other’s weapons. That means some time with the bow for you, Kane, and-” He eyed Ana carefully and hoped he wouldn’t regret this. “-sword AND spear for you Ana.”

Her grin still grew far too wide for Jay’s liking.

“During the fight, I dropped my spear. It has the furthest range of anything we have.” Technically, Ana’s spear was designed to be thrown further, but that was a single throw, and not something that could be relied upon. “I was able to pick it up again, but in the meantime we were stuck for fending the oddity off.”

Kane nodded, slow to fast. “We could search for a teammate like Mark. Someone worded to attract and hold an oddity’s attention.”

Jay blinked. He hadn’t considered that. None of them were really setup to take hits. Especially given that Kane wanted to step away from the fighting. Could they... Mark was unlikely to leave his father and friend’s guild. That left no one else they knew. “Do either of you know anyone else like that?”

They both shook their heads.

“Let’s keep our ears open then, but try this in the meantime. The second thing is about how the oddity detected us.” He took a breath. “Kane, could you teach Ana and I to move more quietly? No more branch accidents would be great.”

“Mm,” Kane agreed. He quirked his head. “It wasn’t a branch.”

“I heard a crack,” Ana said doubtfully.

Kane shook his head. “I figured it out when I ran to Slow Keeping. The pasture had shit in it. New shit, but the old dried stuff too.”

Ana and Jay slowly looked down at their feet. He was definitely wearing the same shoes, even if she wasn’t. Jay resisted the urge to lift the sole up to check. There was no smell. Had there been at one point?

It took him a moment to regain his thoughts.

“Maybe it wouldn’t have helped yesterday, but it would have helped with the knobs and it might help again.”

Kane shrugged. His gaze lingered on Jay’s bow, unstrung and resting to the side.

“We should start with the movement-” Jay began.

A chorus of wordless protests interrupted him.

Jay groaned. This was going to be stressful. “Fine. Weapons then.”

| i i i ¦ i i i | i i i ¦ i i i |

They were halfway to Peak tavern when they ran into Peter. His hair was damp and his steps were hurried enough that he didn’t notice them until they nearly collided.

It appeared that Peter was still regretting his poking from earlier. He sent nervous glances Jay’s way every now and again, seemingly on the verge of saying something every minute or so, only to grind to a stop at the last minute.

A tankard of beer would fix that quickly enough.

The mountain top loomed over the street ahead and they were almost there. Jay was looking forward to sitting down, and oddly enough, talking about yesterday. There would no doubt be questions he wished to avoid, but also laughter and likely good advice from his fellow adventurers.

And beer, of course. Had he mentioned that before?

The usual door guard stood at the entrance, his metal armor reflecting the light of the moon. He straightened as they approached, though he seemed reluctant. His voice was as gruff as ever.

“Tag?”

Jay reached into his pocket and retrieved it in an easy motion. Peter did not, fidgeting with his pockets.

The door guard stared at the leather for a long moment. It was strange behavior. He never took this long usually.

Finally, the man handed the tag back, face glum. ”You three can go in.”

Jay opened his mouth to vouch for Peter, but the door guard continued before he could.

The door guard pointed at Jay, movements stilted. “Not you.”