Eudora

Silver Night mine sat buried in the side of an enormously steep incline of earth leading into the mountain often nicknamed ‘Baby Sylvester.’ It was the smallest of The Sylvester Family: a mountain range that began on the border of Celandine’s forest shield: a thirty-acre deep overgrown mass of trees that were a trial even to walk through, let alone ride. Ideally, Eudora and her girls would not need to cross the ankle-breaking land to complete their contract, but if upon scouting the mine they found a full-size pack of adult trolls to be residing in the dark tunnels then they would need fresh supplies.

A warning sign had been hammered into the soft earth outside the mine entrance stating ‘Do not enter. Trolls inside.’

“Very inviting,” Magali mused from astride her pure white mare. It glowed pearlescent with the wet haze that coated them all.

Eudora smiled grimly and pulled on her reins, halting her horse a yard from the entrance and dismounting. Her girls followed suit.

It was early in the morning, the sun having barely crested into sight. They had camped not far from the mine to allow them ample rest, but only Lowri appeared bright and eager to face the beasts on the other side of the wooden door. It showed her farming roots that she was always first to bed and first to rise, having spent her eighteen years dressing herself in the dark and cold of the pre-dawn morning to be starting her work in the fields as the first rays touched the soil.

The feather-light rain had continued through the night, leaving the ground and every plant growing from it sodden. The wet mud clung to their boots, layering over yesterday’s dry and flaking dirt that the girls had not deigned worthy of cleaning given they would be tracking through the same slop the following day.

“Time to find out how bad this infestation is,” Eudora sighed.

They tethered their horses to a pair of nearby trees with plenty of rope to allow them to graze and wander as they pleased.

“Magali and I will scout ahead,” Eudora announced to the group. Magali nodded and pulled her dark plum cloak tighter around her body. “Blaire, you have a sense for trouble, follow us if we are gone too long.”

Blaire smiled knowingly, her light green eyes shining. Lowri bounced on her heels beside her.

Eudora nodded to the pair, turned, and approached the battered wooden door, locked with a heavy metal bolt. “Magali, an invisibility spell, please?”

Magali appeared at her side. “Alteration is not my strongest division but I will hold it as long as I can,” she replied honestly. It wasn’t a necessary comment, Eudora knew perfectly well that their magic-wielding friend had three division specialisms: Illusion, Enchanting and Protection. But being the bright young woman Magali knew she was, she could handle a few other odd spells when necessary.

“That’s all I ask,” Eudora replied with a smile.

The bolt scraped out when pulled with considerable force and Eudora slipped through, keeping the opening as small as possible in order to not allow noticeable light into the dark tunnels. Magali followed, pressed against her back silently, her hands already glowing dimly as she crafted her spell.

The crackling tingle of magic prickled along Eudora's skin and she knew she was safe to journey into the mine. Magali pulled the stiff door closed behind them with great care, only a whisper of a creak reaching Eudora's ears.

A sloping tunnel led them deeper inside without any turnings to choose from. They shuffled down the damp, muddy shaft, listening out for the distinctive growls of trolls. Instead they heard only their own shallow breaths, and drips of water landing on rocks and into puddles, until they had crept for many minutes and at least a hundred yards down into the depths of the mine. Then the first grunts reached Eudora’s ears.

The tunnel opened up into its first chamber, lit by old, stuttering torches left behind by the miners, and filled with trolls.

A full-size pack were settled in the large cavern, three males and two females snuffling and grunting to themselves but seemingly nonaggressive. It was the growling and roaring sounds rattling through the tunnels that led from the circular section that shook Eudora. They were told they were dealing with a single pack. There had to be at least three that they could hear from their vantage point alone. She knew this mine, it got far deeper than this.

“Mercy,” Eudora whispered. She had been prepared for three trolls, maybe four, had planned to trek into Celandine if it was a complete five-member matured-adult pack, but this was unheard of. Trolls didn’t gather in such large groups and were highly territorial, she doubted they were living within the mine peacefully. If she and her girls weren’t being paid rather well to clear it, she would advise the owner to leave them be - let them duke it out amongst themselves first until only one pack remained and then send in sell-swords to pick them off.

But they were being paid well, and so they needed to devise a plan.

The pair shared a look of raised brows, gritted teeth and creased foreheads. In perfect synchronisation they retreated backwards, slowly but surely, to the wooden door and out into the fresh moist air.

Lowri and Blaire had barely moved a inch in their absence, awaiting their return dutifully.

“You… don’t look well, my friend,” Blaire commented carefully.

“I don’t feel well,” Eudora admitted.

“A full pack?”

“At least three.”

Lowri snorted confidently. “Three trolls? We can handle-”

“Three packs, Lowri.”

Blaire’s eyes widened and she glanced back and forth between Magali and Eudora, searching for a hint of deceit. “I don’t… that’s not…”

“I know,” Eudora sighed.

“This doesn’t feel right,” Magali grumbled, tucking her chin into the bunched material of her cloak where it was held with a large silver brooch.

“Regardless of how it feels, we have a contract to uphold.”

“We can’t fight three packs of trolls, Eudora, you know that,” Magali reminded her, her words slightly muffled.

The others gave silent agreement by way of grim expressions. Eudora agreed, too, but they still needed to find a way to fulfil their contract, it wouldn’t do to gain a reputation as time-wasters taking jobs and not completing them.

“I know. We’re going to need to hire on some additional help,” she decided.

“And how much is that going to cost?” Magali asked sceptically.

Blaire was first to answer. “They can take what they want from the troll corpses: their skin, their meat, their tusks. Plus maybe a silver or two each,” she offered.

Eudora nodded in agreement and Lowri nodded because Eudora nodded. In a few years she would reason her own decisions but for now Eudora didn’t mind the youngling agreeing with her for the sake of agreement.

She did ask an important question though. “How many people will we need?”

“I haven’t decided yet,” Eudora answered, although she had a minimum bar of two experienced sell-swords set in her mind. Three or four would be ideal but it wouldn’t be wise to hire on so many that their own group became outnumbered. Not that Celandine was likely to have an abundance of mercenaries, but you could never be too careful.

Lowri’s black eyes twinkled with excitement. “But this means we can go to Celandine?”

“We have no choice.”

They mounted their steeds, one member of their team far more enthusiastic than the others, and approached the first line of dripping and drooping trees that signalled the beginning of Celandine’s forest shield. Gnarled roots could already be seen writhing over the forest floor amongst the ground elder growing unusually high, dotting the ground with explosions of tiny white flowers.

They rode into the forest single-file in order of superiority: Eudora, Blaire, Magali, and then Lowri bringing up the rear.

“Is it true the trees in the forest shield grab at you as you walk through?” she called forward.

“Oh yes,” Magali scoffed. “And they are especially well-known for aiming for the poor fool at the back of the pack.”

“Magali, play nice,” Blaire warned softly.

“I’m a scholar, not an actor, I don’t know how to play at things I’m not.”

“You are nice,” Blaire insisted, a tad too quickly.

Silence fell over the women.

Eudora blinked away the awkward feeling that fell on the back of her neck and found herself struggling to physically restrain her head from snapping back to lock eyes with Blaire. She did not believe her friend had intended to speak that compliment aloud, but there was little she could do to save her dignity from her place at the head of the pack. Magali did not respond.

The birds, breeze and raindrops took over the responsibility of creating noise for them and they rode on listening to nature.

It was tricky to tell the exact time of day with the thick layers upon layers of branches blocking out the majority of the sun’s light but Eudora could tell a good few hours had passed when her lower back began to ache softly.

Their youngest member called forward yet again, breaking the silence between them and scaring away a pair of birds from a tree above them, “Are we near the town yet?”

Magali answered her question with a fellow question, “Lowri, are you trying to be humorous?”

“Yes?” The young woman answered uncertainly.

“Good, I’d hate to think I was travelling with a moron.”

“We won’t arrive in town until nightfall, Lowri,” Blaire explained gently. Eudora glanced back to catch Magali cut her a look of disdain which she ignored.

It was not for lack of trying that Magali had yet to come to terms with the fact that very few commoners had the luxury of childhood education as she did, both Eudora and Blaire had spoken to her privately about her lack of empathy for those less intelligent than she, but for such a bright young woman this was one theory she could not comprehend. Her reasoning was that she had taught herself many things without the aid of her tutors and her magic-wielding mother, she sought knowledge out of her own volition and she felt others should do the same. It had not been accepted by Magali that in order to develop the very specific type of intelligence she valued, one first needed the ability to read, and this was not something that the common people had the time or resources to teach themselves.

“Oh,” Lowri mumbled from the back of their line.

They continued, largely in silence yet again but for the occasional curse muttered in response to a stumble or the sharp pain of a wild branch catching them across the arm, leg, back or in Lowri’s case, the face.

The journey was tiresome and Eudora, despite her best efforts, found herself becoming more and more irate as their steeds picked their way carefully through the undergrowth. Having a calm disposition, and in turn a steady aim, was the quality she prided herself most on, but on this day she was being truly tested.

It only became more difficult to traverse the uneven ground when the sun began to set, slowly and steadily until Eudora started to fear they may resort to camping mere yards from the town for the sake of keeping their horses’ legs unbroken.  

When a pair of pin pricks of light appeared through the low-hanging branches, Eudora blew a deep breath out from between tight lips.

“I can see lights!” Lowri called out, her voice full of relief.

“Thank the gods,” Blaire breathed, “we’d have no chance against this death-trap of a forest floor in the dark.”

“You don’t believe in the star gods,” Magali reminded her.

“No, but I am grateful for any hand they had in our safe arrival.”

“Balls of fire don’t have hands.”

“You won’t have hands soon if you continue to be so pedantic.”

“Enough bickering,” Eudora ordered wearily, although she truly wished to say ‘enough flirting.’ The pair of them had been irritating her lately with their sexually-charged sniping. She wished for everyone’s sakes they would just take a night together and be done with it. “I see a signpost for an inn, let’s get dry… and a few drinks perhaps.”

“A fine plan,” Blaire agreed.

Magali ‘Mmm’d.

It did not take them long to locate the town’s inn, a large but weather-beaten wooden structure with a stable jutting out of the side. Inside there were already a fair few steeds but with plenty of room for their own. They left their horses with a scrawny boy bearing flaky scabs over his arms, tipping him a few coppers for the trouble, and entered the inn, the swinging sign by the door declared it ‘The Silver Hammer.’