The Sleepy Inn lives up to its name. Its interior is warm and smells of bread and booze. There are only a couple of patrons milling about, drinking and listening to the minstrel crooning a tale of romance. The innkeeper leans on a counter near the door, watching the bard with his chin in his hand. He looks up as the two enter, but doesn’t move.

Achillea steps up to the counter, reaching for a coin purse at her belt. “Got a double?”

The innkeeper nods. “Second floor, down the hall. Long ’s you don’t make trouble, your money’s good here.”

She hands him the gold and Mordecai suddenly feels very selfish.

The two of them head over to a table and sit down. Mordecai leans over to Achillea and murmurs, “I don’t have any gold on me, sorry. I’ll pay you back.”

Achillea raises an amused eyebrow at him. “How do you plan to do that?”

“I don’t have a plan,” he admits. “But I will, one way or another.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she mutters back as a young woman steps up to their table and asks if she can get them anything.

Achillea orders enough food for four people. The woman takes it in stride, looking curiously between the two of them. Mordecai lowers his head, letting the shadow of his cowl conceal his lack of features. He doesn’t like the curious gleam in her eyes.

Finally the woman leaves. Achillea turns to look him in the eye sockets. “I don’t need you to pay for me. I’m the only one benefitting from this anyway.”

Mordecai can sense an impending argument, so he just agrees, silently planning to pay back the money anyway. It was his idea, it’s only fair.

They fall silent, listening to the bard’s song and the crackle of fire in the hearth. Achillea lays her head on her arms, not sleeping but allowing herself to relax for the first time in over a week. Mordecai, on the other hand, is uncomfortably aware of how many humans are in the room and the fact that he is undead. One glimpse under his cowl and they’ll all know.

Maybe this wasn’t as great an idea as he thought.

The woman returns laden with plates that she sets down on their table. Achillea digs in eagerly. Mordecai settles in next to her, head low.

“So what are an orc and an elf doing traveling together?” Belatedly Mordecai realizes that the woman is still stood beside their table.

It takes him a second to remember that he’s wearing elven armor. That would explain why she thinks he’s an elf, though he’s not especially happy that she made that assumption. Correcting her would lead to more questions, however, so he coolly replies, “That’s not any of your business.”

She looks slightly put out by his response, but that look quickly shifts into curiosity. Mordecai doesn’t like where this is going. Now he knows how Achillea feels when his questions get too invasive. “What’s wrong with your voice?”

Mordecai doesn’t have an answer for that. Shit, this was a terrible idea.

“You mind?” Achillea interjects. She glowers at the woman, a wooden bowl halfway to her lips, spoon lying untouched on the table.

“Nadia, quit bothering people,” the innkeeper calls. Nadia looks like she wants to protest, but one of the other patrons calls out to her with a raised mug and she heads over to refill it. None of the patrons look up at the scene; they must be regulars, Mordecai thinks.

The bard finishes his tale as the man receives his mug. He takes a swig and drunkenly leans over to get the bard’s attention. “Hey, tell the one about the king of Redburn.”

“You always want to hear that one,” the minstrel says even as he strums the opening chords.

“It’s a good’un.”

Mordecai perks up at the mention of Redburn. That’s where they’re going isn’t it?

The minstrel begins a woeful tale of a young prince, the only survivor of a regicidal assassin. The prince’s uncle was the one who ordered the assassination in an attempt to claim the throne for himself. The song goes on to detail the prince’s duel with his uncle, triumphantly slaying the man in revenge for his fallen family, and the curse the man put on the land with his dying breath.

“When was this?” he asks Achillea.

She glances over to the bard, listening for a moment. “The assassination of the former king and crown prince was about 50 years ago. The undead started to raise en masse in Redburn around five years later. They say the surviving prince—the current king’s—uncle cast a spell on the kingdom with dark magic, and that’s what caused it.”

Mordecai listens to the bard quietly. The tale has segued into the founding of the Sunblades. He recognizes the name, vaguely. An organization of hunters and exorcists, tied to the church and financially backed by royalty from several different kingdoms. Their headquarters is…was it in Redburn? He can’t recall, but that seems to be what the minstrel’s song is saying.

“Do you think that’s really why it happened? The mass raising?”

Achillea raises an eyebrow at him. “Hard to say. Undead raise when dark magic infects a corpse, but cursed land doesn’t always need a wizard or spellcaster to appear. Sometimes, it’s just the work of Radur, the God of Death.” She sets the last plate aside. “It’s possible, but royals always have something to hide. The king of Redburn is no different.”

Mordecai is about to ask further when the door is violently thrust open and a hulking figure stomps through. The bard hits a sour note and stops playing. All conversations cease as the room’s occupants turn to the door. Even the innkeeper, who’d been lazily lounging at the counter all evening, straightens up with a nervous expression.

The intruder is huge, at least seven feet tall with a broad, muscular frame. His skin is the color of olives, crisscrossed by pale scars that run up and down his arms. Hide armor strains over his round gut and firm chest, giving an intimidating display of muscle. His hair naturally forms a long, tangled mohawk tied back in a topknot. His face has a heavy brow, eyes dark and piggish, with a powerful jaw supporting two long, thick tusks.

A male orc. Mordecai can feel Achillea tense beside him.

The orc gracelessly drops a sack of gold on the counter. “All the food you got,” he grunts to the innkeeper.

The innkeeper nods stiffly, turning to face the room. “Nadia,” he calls out. The woman jumps as if startled and hurries to the kitchen. The innkeeper turns his attention back to the orc. “Ah, you won’t be reserving a room tonight either…?”

The orc replies with a wordless grunt.

Slowly, the inn returns to its previous activity, though not with its previous vigor. The bard nervously strums a simple tune on his lute, and the patrons seem to have sobered up. The orc’s eyes roam the room before landing on Mordecai and Achillea. Something shifts in his expression and Mordecai doesn’t like it.

That feeling turns to dread as the orc approaches their table.