The Bygone Dagger by Joseph Lallo

Author:Joseph Lallo [Lallo, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-08-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

A few days had passed. Their travel schedule had been grueling by any standard. The sun was only just rising, and they had already been on the road for an hour. The unicorn seemed quite happy to tow them along, so long as its needs were met. The creature, true to the goat that it most closely resembled, was content while grazing on anything that grew by the roadside. Grass, thistles, flowers, it couldn’t care less. However, whenever it had a meal, it would stay put, refusing to obey even mystically enforced spoken commands, until it had been given a drink of water.

“This little guy is always parched,” Fel said, emptying his canteen into a dome-shaped spare part they’d brought from the vault.

“He’s probably diseased,” Tome said offhandedly. “My father always said a wild animal that would approach humans is diseased. Hopefully he’ll get us where we’re going before he expires.”

“He’s not diseased,” Fel said, patting the unicorn on his back and sending a plume of road dust into the air. “He just works hard. A solid day of work makes a man thirsty.” He raised his head and scanned the road in the slowly brightening sunlight. “We haven’t even reached the halfway point,” he said. “It is going to take close to ten days to get home at this rate.”

“What’s the hurry?”

“The hurry is, we have a buyer lined up who will be in Beffshire in less than a week, and he won’t be staying for long.”

“Oh, I see… Well, we’re on a decent road now. We could stop at the next city and see if there’s a horse for sale. Something with a bit more athletic a stride.”

“Do you have money for a horse?”

“I should say not. That little mishap at the grum table cost me the bulk of my nest egg. You?”

“I’ve burned through what little money I had paying for two people instead of one. This last night we spent at the inn represents the last of my money. Which is a problem, because we’re short of food, and soon we’ll be on roads without enough plants alongside to feed Parch here.”

“Parch? You’ve named it now?”

“The point is, we need money, because we’re close enough to the cities that hunting will be difficult, and we’ll probably get nabbed for poaching besides. And I’m not sharing my tent with you after that first night.”

“I’m not the only one who snores, you know.”

“You’ve clearly spent more time than I have mooching off people and bilking them. What’s your solution?”

“We have no money at all?”

“Not enough for a night for two at an inn.”

“Then we have a few duots. That’s enough to gamble our way up to a tidy sum of you’re comfortable tipping the odds.”

“So long as it’s your neck getting risked instead of mine, and I’m not the one you’re cheating, I don’t care what you do.”

“Good, good. We may need to get creative, though. I’m running low on paper, and the spells I used when we first made each other’s acquaintance required the more potent ink regardless.

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