“Guess we’re not going back in that way,” Mordecai remarks as he watches Rhoth close the window. He and Achillea are perched on one of the lower branches of the tree, a good thirty feet off the ground. Achillea had gotten them both up there with a vertical leap which would have impressed the skeleton had he not been slung under her arm, fearing for his unlife.

Achillea’s eyes narrow. “I can’t hear what they’re saying from here.”

The skeleton gives her an odd look. “I’ve been wondering…you seem to have much better hearing than I do, and I don’t think it’s because I’m dead. What gives?”

Unsurprisingly, Achillea ignores him. The fact that Mordecai expected it doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

“Is there a reason to need to know what they’re saying?”

Achillea sighs and repositions herself on the branch, making herself comfortable now that there’s no eavesdropping to be done. “Back in the day, Rhoth was known as Rhoth the Rat. He’s not smart, but if he finds a way to manipulate a situation to his advantage, he will.”

Mordecai makes a low whistling noise. “You’ve got interesting taste in friends.”

“We’re not friends. He just owes me.”

The two fall silent. A breeze rustles the leaves around them. The tree’s canopy is thick enough that no direct sunlight touches them, but Mordecai has his new hood up just in case.

“Do you think Rhoth will tell them we’re here?” he asks after a while of nothing happening.

Achillea’s eyes narrow. “He wouldn’t dare. I’ve made sure he knows what’ll happen if he ever double-crosses me.”

Mordecai’s imagination supplies a gory scene, and a shiver runs up his spine. He makes a mental note to avoid getting on Achillea’s bad side. Maybe stop asking so many questions.

After a while the men finally leave. Achillea leaps down from the tree, landing on her feet with a solid thud. Mordecai hesitates, but at the orc’s prompting he manages to dangle off the branch before dropping down. His landing isn’t graceful or impressive and the impact rattles his joints something fierce, but nothing breaks. He stands and dusts himself off, following after Achillea who is already headed into the cottage.

“You’re still in one piece, I see,” she comments before Mordecai even steps through the door.

Rhoth looks up from the countertop, where he’d been hunched over muttering to himself. “Oh, you’re still here?” he asks snidely. “What else do you want?”

“I was gonna ask if you’ve got anything to heal him,” she responds gruffly, jerking a thumb at Mordecai.

The elf gives her a bewildered look. “Why would I have anything like that? My main clientele are humans.” He spits the word ‘humans’ as if it were an insult. “Living ones, not dead. I don’t serve monsters.”

Achillea leans over the counter and growls. The sound is loud, threatening, and much more animalistic than anything a human could produce. Rhoth’s eyes widen in terror and he cowers away from her. As the elf stammers an apology that sounds surprisingly sincere, Mordecai wonders where on Earth that came from.

“I-I really don’t have anything. To heal an undead you would need something infused with dark magic, like a cursed weapon.”

“Healing with a weapon?” Achillea raises a skeptical eyebrow. Mordecai has to agree, it sounds incredibly impractical.

Rhoth nods. “I’ve heard stories from passers-through of adventurers who tried to use cursed weapons against the undead only to find that the dark magic made them stronger.”

Mordecai and Achillea share a look. “I don’t suppose you have any cursed weapons?” Achillea asks.

His legs are still shaking, but Rhoth seems to have recovered somewhat from his fear. He manages to look annoyed. “I’m an apothecary, not an enchanter.”

“Lot of help you are.” Achillea and Rhoth glare at each other. A tense moment passes before Rhoth, still shaken from earlier, breaks eye contact. Achillea humphs and turns to leave, but pauses. She turns back to the elf and grabs his collar, forcing him to look at her once more. Her voice lowers dangerously.

“If I find out you diluted my potions again, I’m going to break both your legs. Understood?”

Rhoth whimpers and nods.

Satisfied, Achillea drops him. He slumps to the ground, legs unable to support his weight any longer. The orc turns and stomps out the door; the only word she speaks is a “C’mon,” to Mordecai. He follows, but before he closes the door behind him he glances at Rhoth. The elf sits slumped bonelessly against the wall, all the energy gone from him. Or so Mordecai thinks, until he lifts his head, glaring murder at the two retreating forms.

‘If looks could kill…’ Mordecai thinks. But then, he’s already dead anyway. Might as well poke the bear. “You can keep my old armor. It might even be wearable after a good cleaning.” He lets the door swing shut, carelessly waving a farewell over his shoulder.

He tugs his cowl down to shield himself as he steps out of the shade of the tree, rushing to catch up to Achillea. “So where to next?”

“North,” she replies gruffly. “We’ve only got a couple weeks to make it to the border.”

Mordecai nods, deciding to forgo questioning in light of recent events.

--

They’re about an hour away from the apothecary when suddenly something whizzes past their heads and into a bush. Mordecai only has enough time to realize that that was an arrow before he’s being yanked into cover. Achillea holds a finger to her lips.

In the hush that falls over the area, Mordecai can faintly hear whispering. Achillea leans in and murmurs, “The men from earlier.”

Mordecai wishes, not for the first time, that his face wasn’t just an expressionless skull. He’d like to be able to express whatever emotion this is, but screaming wouldn’t be wise at the moment. Instead he hisses, “So the elf did rat us out.”

Achillea glowers. “Apparently so.” She turns and plucks the arrow from where it’s sticking out of the ground a few feet away. Inspecting it, she turns to show him the tip. “On the bright side, not silver.”

That is a good thing, he supposes, but… “On the other hand, still pointy.”

The orc nods. “That’s fair.” Even if it doesn’t burn with holy magic, it’s still not a good idea to get stuck with one. She tosses it aside. “But that means they don’t know what they’re dealing with.”

Mordecai considers the situation. Rhothomir has a grudge against Achillea, sure, but he clearly has some animus toward him as well. Or maybe just the undead in general. Regardless, he can’t imagine the elf sending people to kill them without telling them to bring something to fight the supernatural. Unless…

“Hey,” he mutters, getting Achillea’s attention. “You don’t suppose Rhoth sent them after us hoping we’d kill them, do you?”

Achillea pauses before snarling. “That rat would. He’s probably hoping we’ll kill each other.”

“So…do we fight?” He doesn’t really feel up to it, after last time. Visions of the woman hunched over, bleeding to death, still haunt him in those quiet moments when Achillea has nothing to say and Mordecai has given up trying to get her to talk.

When the only answer he gets is silence, he glances over at the orc. That didn’t seem like the sort of question that Achillea normally avoids. To his surprise, though, she isn’t ignoring him; she’s thinking.

“We can’t just run,” she states with a scowl. “They’ll only chase us and slow us down. But we can’t afford a drawn-out fight right now.”

“What do we do, then?”

Achillea remains quiet for a moment, then turns to him with a grin.