Arc 1: Sparrow Eyes
Chapter 1: Inexplicable Murmurs
“PLEASE take the job!” Unen pleaded in the loudest voice she could muster so as not to lose out to the noisy chatter of the cheap saloon. She anchored her gaze on a man in his prime who was throwing back his ale alone at a table beside the bar counter.
He looked up at her with irritation. “Look here, Short Stuff, can’t ya ask somebody else to do the job? Why does it hafta be me?”
Unen unconsciously bit the inside of her cheek at being called “Short Stuff”. She was about to argue her name wasn’t “Short Stuff” or “Shorty” or “Tiny”, but she swallowed back her complaints right as she was about to lash out at him. With her matchstick legs, not growing any taller in over three years, and her unruly short hair, Unen certainly didn’t look anywhere close to fifteen years of age. She couldn’t fault him for her looks.
“She’s asking you because she needs to, otherwise she would ask someone else.” Standing beside Unen with her hands at her hips and a frown on her lips was Irena, a friend who was two years older. Her glamorous auburn hair flicked quickly from side to side as if animating her annoyance with him.
They were inside the Scarecrow Nose, the biggest saloon in the region renowned for travelers congregating within its walls the instant they entered the town of Yezero due to its convenient location. As evening drew near, townspeople who had finished their work in the fields for the day flocked through the door one after another to let loose for the night. Though it was only the first week of June, the overcrowded saloon felt like a boiling hot attic on a midsummer day.
“And I’m supposed to care…? Why not just suck it up and ask the captain to—”
“Ask my dad? Are you seriously suggesting that?”
“Just kidding.” The man heartily laughed at the enraged Irena, whose eyes sharply narrowed on him. “Cap’ is strongly opposed to his little girl entering the Vigilante Corps after all.”
“That’s why we’re stuck asking you for help. Getting a request from his lordship to survey his land is an incredibly important job. How could we ask anyone other than Yezero’s best swordsman to be our guard?”
Last week, the town mayor had received a single letter from the lord of the Baborak territory, which Yezero belonged to. According to the mayor, the letter had read, “I’ve heard your town is in possession of a skilled mapmaker. Would it be possible to have them fashion a map of my territory?”
There was no one who fell under or went by the trade of mapmaker. But there was an apprentice transcriber who accepted requests to draw up maps of towns and fields. Thus, the mayor had given the lord’s letter to Unen, and with the help of her reliable friend, she was presently attempting to hire a guard to protect her while she took measurements and surveyed the lord’s land.
“You’re just going to survey the plains to the west, right? Then the young lady right here should be more than enough protection.”
“How could you be so optimistic? Baborak and the neighboring Chelveny have never been on good terms. It’s even more of an issue because this time she’s going to survey the border between the two territories. I can’t protect Unen alone if trouble finds us.”
“But you said it’s for three days, yeah? Like I said before, the pay’s a bit too cheap, don’t’cha think?”
Having the harsh reality thrust in her face once more, Unen chewed her lower lip in irritation.
They had been paid a very modest sum for the job upfront, which wouldn’t be enough to hire two guards. Lord Baborak’s excuse had been his choice to assign the job in parts. “Use this money to make a map of the grasslands at the western edge of my territory. We can decide where to go from there,” he had said.
Desperately reminding herself to hold her head high and her eyes off the ground, Unen continued trying to convince the man. “The job this time is a trial run. His lordship said that if this map fits what he wants, he’ll hire me to make a map of his entire territory afterwards. I’m pretty sure I can pay you more once that happens…”
“Ah, sorry, it’s not like I’m trying to squeeze more money outta ya, Short Stuff.” The man’s expression suddenly soured as he scratched his head. “You see, word is that a duo of extraordinarily skilled mercenaries known as the Two-headed Griffin has been stayin’ in the town two towns over since last month. They’ve been snatching up every single beast extermination and guard job in the area, putting my pitiful coin pouch in a sorry state…”
“The Two-headed…Griffin?” Unen and Irena’s voices perfectly synchronized.
“Rumors say one half of the duo is a frightening man of colossal size who has easily lopped off a brown bear’s head with a swing of his sword. The other half is a mage born from darkness or somethin’ like that. He’s said to have erased a gang of burglars from the face of the planet when they attacked a wagon train.”
Unen narrowly stopped herself from snorting. “The rumors are…fitting of a legendary monster,” she replied, trying to be as inoffensive as possible in case the man by chance actually believed the made-up stories.
Like Unen, Irena clearly thought the rumors sounded fishy. Right after flashing a devilish grin, she taunted him with a straight face. “In that case, I guess we’ll go hire that extraordinarily skilled Griffin duo.”
“Word is that they won’t accept jobs for a pittance.” Lightly shrugging, the man brought his cup of malt liquor to his lips. He must have wanted to end the conversation, because he casually turned away from the girls.
Regardless, Irena hadn’t given up hope yet. She circled around to lean in toward his face. “Why not take our job, since you’re so troubled with the lack of work?”
“How can I make a living if I occupy my time with crummy jobs and lose out when a good one comes in?”
From all appearances, Unen and Irena would be better off giving up on hiring him. Unen dropped her gaze to her feet with a sigh. Her depression was short-lived when she began to notice the smell, or rather the lack of smells. The heavy stench of sweaty bodies mixed with the heady smells of cooked food and liquor permeating the space around her had all but vanished.
In their place, an onslaught of dense and chokingly thick forest smells slammed against her body like raging billows.