.
In a landing roughly six hundred paces below the surface, I halted and turned to Brigitte. We had been walking for many hours at this point, but we were a long way from the end. The nearest beings should have been another hundred paces below us and far to our east, but I expanded my vampire sense anyhow, just to be certain.
“What is it?” Brigitte whispered, probably thinking I had heard something. I held up my hand until my awareness had expanded the full hundred, then let it go.
“I was checking to make sure we’re alone,” I explained. “We need to discuss tactics before we get any closer to the enemy.”
Brigitte took a seat on the floor and got out her water while saying, “The tactics are, you’re going to do your stealth and we’re going to sneak around or through that base, right? We can’t exactly be more specific than that until we see it.”
I sat as well, unbuckling my pack so I could get at my supplies. “No, you need to know more about my stealth first. There are some really important limits.”
“Alright.”
“Number one, and absolutely the most important is, I can’t stealth anything I’m not holding.”
Her eyes immediately bugged. “Are you kidding me? We have to hold hands or something, the entire way?”
I took a swig from my waterskin. Yes, I can create water, but it’s a pain to do it every time I want to drink, because my minimum quantities are in gallons.
“Actually, I’m not sure that would work. If I’m not holding you tightly enough to carry you, it may not work. The skill is for cloaking the items I’m carrying, you see.”
Brigitte hung her head, with her forehead in her hand. Her ears were down. “So exactly how are we supposed to move?”
I held my arms out, miming a princess carry. Her ears flattened right out as her eyes grew wide.
“What.”
Ironically, she had the look of a Tibetan Fox as she said that. If you don’t know what a Tibetan Fox is, google it.
I gave an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. I really don’t feel like anything less will be safe. Too much opportunity for us to get separated, leaving you exposed, and I’m not certain exactly how close a contact is required before you’re hidden.”
“So, any time we have to be in stealth, you’re gonna be carrying me?”
“Right. And if we do somehow get detached, you need to immediately use one of your own techniques, if it’s available.”
“You said my techniques wouldn’t work.”
“They wouldn’t work well enough for you to get by on your own. They are definitely still superior to doing nothing in an emergency.”
After reflecting a moment, she nodded. “Okay.”
“Second…”
“That was all one thing?”
“Well, if you think about it, yes it was. So, second, if at all possible, if it comes to a fight, you don’t do it.”
“What?” She retorted. “Don’t fight?”
“Run like hell. I will catch up to you.”
Her mouth flattened out and she stared at me sullenly. “I kinda feel like this is the second time you’ve talked like I’m no good in a fight.”
I sighed and twisted my mouth, as I realized how hard it is to tell someone what they don’t want to hear.
Melione is by far the weakest member of the Hero’s Party, but her childhood friend Brigitte really isn’t a lot stronger. But, bless their hearts, they’re probably as brave as anyone in the party and that is the problem with them. They both put themselves in harm’s way for other people almost without a thought. It made for trouble a few times while we were together, although they also saved the day several times because of it.
As I told Dilorè, Brigitte is not a liability. What I meant was, not a net liability. It was still very important to handle her correctly, to keep her from harming herself.
“Look, you’re really good in a fight when you have Graham for a tank and Melione healing you. She spent most of her energy on you whenever we were in a scrap together, you know.”
Brigitte frowned, but she’d been cut and stabbed enough times to be unable to deny it.
I continued, “If you look around, you may notice neither Graham nor Melione are here with us.”
She tipped her head and smirked. “You hid it from us back then, but you can heal, and you’re actually stronger than Graham, aren’t you?”
With a shake of my head, I answered, “I can also fly, but if I’m tanking for you, I’m stuck on the ground. You take away most of my best tactics.”
Her frown deepened, but I had to forge ahead. “You are really good at two things which I suspect we are going to need a lot of, so I want you to stick to those and otherwise just take care of yourself. If I say run, please run.”
“What two things?”
“Hunting and stealing. If you want to count dealing with traps as a separate item, then it’s three things.”
“Who says I steal?”
“When you ducked into that alcove up above, you came out with something, right?”
She blinked. “You could see me in there? It was pitch black?”
Really, I could only barely make her out, but I was basing my belief on the smug look she had as she came out. I just folded my arms and tipped my head.
She rolled her eyes, then began digging into the messenger bag she carries. “Fine. I didn’t actually get to check it yet. It felt like quarter crowns.”
Her hand came out holding a bunch of coins. As she predicted, they were Orestanian quarter crowns. “Six, seven, eight, nine. One crown and twelve sovereigns.”
There was also some paper in her hand, which she had apparently wrapped the coins in, but it didn’t look like bank notes.
“Let me see that.”
She handed the sheets to me. I smoothed them and looked them over. “Huh. Just a pay record. Looks like somebody keeping track of pay for… mmm… twelve soldiers.”
Would have been nice if she swiped something useful. Although it did tell me how many soldiers were upstairs. I handed it back.
“So, don’t fight, just run and hide?”
“Unless it’s impossible. Miss Brigitte, I’m not telling you this to insult you. You are remarkably good at the things you’re good at doing. But we’re up against some seriously tough demons here, and you are not good at fighting them. Do you have any of Arken’s enchanted arrows?”
“Just a few. I can’t use them while hunting.”
“Okay. Absolute worse case, if you do think you need to help me, get to cover, and use those arrows to snipe.”
Her lips pressed together, and her ears were still down, but she nodded. “Fine.”
“Third…”
“There’s a third?”
“A big one, yes. After what happened with Melione, I learned a technique from my grandmother, so I shouldn’t have a problem, but if I do, and I need blood…”
“You keep your fangs the hell away from me,” was her immediate, flat reply.
“Alright,” I nodded.
After several seconds of silence, she asked, “That’s it?”
“The rest of my sentence was, ‘what do you prefer that I do?’ Rather clearly, you’ve already answered the question.”
“Then what will you do instead?”
“Hm.” I pondered it. “According to my aunt, it’s possible to survive by draining monsters, although I have to kill them to get enough out of them. Also, if it isn’t the high-intelligence ones, creatures on Bruna’s level, then I would need a lot more than one. Say, if I tried to prey on goblins, I would need a couple dozen to replace feeding on a mortal normally, or to replace murdering one high-intelligence monster. And high-intelligence monsters are not a solution, since I’m not going to start murdering people to get my blood in the first place.”
I tipped my head. “So, my only actual choice, as long as your answer is no, is to abandon the mission, grab you and fly both of us out here, so that I can get back to Ceria and Melione.”
“Can’t you feed on demons?”
I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know. My aunt only told me not to try it. I suspect I could protect myself while feeding, using [Purification], but I don’t want to take the risk that it doesn’t work, and I’m not sure what the consequences are, when it doesn’t work.”
I took another swig of water, then corked the waterskin and put it back in my pack. Standing up was all the signal Brigitte needed. She just followed suit when I did it and we both got our gear back in place.
As we descended a long ramp section, typical of the final approaches to the great caverns, we spoke in low voices about the final details.
“Look, My Lady or Your Highness, or whatever you prefer…”
“Here in the Tabad, I’m going by just ‘Lady Tia’. And don’t call me ‘Your Highness’ in any case. Please.”
“So it feels a little weird to you, too?”
“Definitely. Until less than a month ago, nobody bothered to tell me that I was a princess. I was just the daughter of Duke Egon and Deharè of the High Forest.”
“They didn’t tell you?” Brigitte asked, perplexed.
I sighed. “It’s a long story. Don’t worry about it.”
After a bit, she restarted, “So, Your Ladyship, you were gesturing like you were gonna carry me in your arms.”
“I thought this was settled?”
“Can you please carry me piggyback?” she pleaded. “I’m gonna feel stupid, getting carried like a princess. It doesn’t suit a girl like me!”
I turned a teasing smile to her, then stroked her cheek with my knuckle. “My dear, every young girl is suited to the princess-carry.”
She brushed off my hand. “Yikes! Don’t do that!”
I suppressed a laugh. We were still too far above, and too many turns away, to be heard at our destination, but I suppressed it anyway.
Glaring at me, she said, “Every young girl? You’re younger than me! How would you feel…”
She cut off and then covered her eyes. “Wait. I forgot. You actually are a princess.”
I winced. Ruefully, I admitted, “I would probably feel ridiculous. Look, I totally sympathize, but I can’t carry you piggyback.”
“Why not? The way that pack hangs on you, it oughta work. Or I could carry it for you…”
The pack I was using, designed for birdkin and succubi, is made to hang low in order to leave clearance for my wings, but if the straps were done like an ordinary backpack and I tried to wear it that low, they would pull my shoulders backward to an intolerable degree.
Instead, they are designed like a T-back bra. Just imagine such a bra without the bra cups, just the straps coming up the front outside my bosom, going over my shoulders to join with a single strap in the back, going down the center. A band going around me underneath my chest, and the pack hangs from that. One more strap goes around my waist, to keep the pack secure when I fly.
Maybe she was right and I could carry her piggyback above where the pack rides. I suspect she would end up with her butt riding on the pack instead, and I don’t know whether the straps could carry her weight. But that wasn’t the problem.
“If I carry you that way, I can’t fly in an emergency.”
She thought. “Can you fly that far with me anyway? I know you carried me that one time in Carael, but…”
“I could carry you all the way home to Atius, Miss Brigitte,” I told her firmly. “It wouldn’t be a problem.”
