Split the Party by Drew Hayes

Author:Drew Hayes [Hayes, Drew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Thunder Pear Publishing
Published: 2015-09-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Gabrielle was grappling with something she hadn’t had to face for a very long time. Not since Maplebark had she faced this adversary, before the adventurers died in Grumph’s tavern and thrust her into a perilous new world. This was not an enemy she could easily battle; it would not be merely beaten into submission, not even if she still had her axe.

For the first time in months, Gabrielle was fighting boredom. With Grumph in training, Fritz handling business, and her status as a non-mage confining her to Fritz’s quarters, there was little for her to do. Worse, there was almost nothing for her to be afraid of. Fear and caution had defined her life since they left Maplebark: watching the roads for signs of monsters, sleeping uneasily lest they be ambushed before they could wake, living in constant readiness for action. It all took a toll on her, consuming a vast amount of mental energy. Now that she was safe, that energy came bounding back, and the only place she had to direct it toward was, unfortunately, aimless worry.

She worried about Grumph passing his trials. She worried about Thistle, Eric, and Timuscor stuck in the strange, cursed town of Briarwillow. She worried about her family, her mother and father in Maplebark as much as her tribe in the forest. They’d worked so hard to be sure the king of Solium had no reason to raze their precious town, but with no way to check in, her imagination filled Gabrielle’s mind with images of slaughter. Yet, it wasn’t even for the family she couldn’t see that Gabrielle worried the most. That honor was reserved for herself.

Gabrielle worried—feared really—that she was nearing the edge of how well she could continue to fulfill her role. The others were getting stronger: Eric more confident in his stealth, Thistle gaining new paladin powers, Grumph getting an education under proper mages, and Timuscor was already a handy fighter. All it felt like she had were anger issues and a broken axe. She hadn’t even been able to best a lowly bandit in matched battle. Since the day Grumph took the spell book and she the axe, Gabrielle had feared that she wasn’t strong enough to fill the role of barbarian. At the rate her party was growing, it seemed that fear would be realized sooner rather than later.

These were the sorts of thoughts muddling around in her head when the door opened and Fritz came bustling through, arms piled high with scrolls and parchment.

“Afternoon!” Fritz said, dumping the lot of her load unceremoniously on the floor.

“Afternoon,” Gabrielle replied, staring uncertainly at the clutter of paper now littering the floor. “Do you need a hand with that?”

“This? Gods no; if I never see another order slip or receipt it will be too soon. There are a lot of things I love about being a kingdom-trotting trader, but the paperwork is far from one of them. I pay a few of the lower-ranked mages to swing through here and keep things organized.

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