The tavern owner emerged from the back of the room. “Emrys, for fuck’s sake, give us a jig!”
Lilac did a double-take.Emrys?This man looked a far cry from the warlock she remembered leaving The Fenfoss Inn the first night she had visited. That man had been mysterious, regal—emanating power, even after an evening of imbibing. This man…was a drunken fool.
She glanced at Garin, who had frozen at the mention of Emrys. His eyes darted between the bard-warlock and the booth of men, many of whom seemed particularly entertained by the music.
Emrys, who had apparently not heard Bog as his dour tune continued, was just passing the corner booth when one of the older men shouted. A drink flew through the air, and the tankard cracked against Emrys’s skull. Lilac winced sympathetically, but the warlock only rubbed his head and stopped singing, blinking in the direction of the thrower.
Garin cleared his throat, and only she was close enough to hear it was a low growl. “I know we were just arguing, and there is no one on earth I would rather continue that with but you, but I would consider it a great favor if you would distract that booth for a few minutes.”
“Bog said to liven it up,” the man who’d thrown the tankard roared, and the entire group and some around them toasted and laughed. Emrys swayed and glanced in Bog’s direction, his eyes much too glassy and bloodshot. He gave a feeble smile and thumbs up, then began strumming a merrier jig, the first few notes so off-key that Bog winced in disgust.
“He’s getting no supper tonight,” Bog laughed, walking to the corner table with more drinks.
By the time Lilac looked back to Garin with her dubious reply, he was gone. Emrys had continued his stroll around the bar, and she spotted the top of Garin’s head, several inches taller than everyone else, slowly making his way to the warlock like a shark.
Some of the men from the booth were watching as Garin met Emrys at the corner of the bar, and some booed as he handed the drunken man some bread. Emrys blinked up at Garin, and as his eyes widened and they began to speak, the men in the booth whispered to each other.
Time to move.
Lilac slinked off her stool, her almost empty drink in hand, and made her way straight for their booth. The huge illustration covering their tables was in fact a hand-drawn map, ink blotches, spills, and wrinkles marring its surface. Yet, its purpose remained clear.
It was a hunting map. There was the unmistakable curve of the Argent and her castle in the southwesternmost corner, and the rest was Brocéliande. The High Forest to the west, Low Forest to the east, and in the middle, sandwiched in between, were the farmlands, Paimpont, and Adelaide’s marsh. Her eyes traced where she’d approximately found the ogre nest and then ran across The Fenfoss Inn, thankful there was nothing there to mark its existence. Nor was there any mark for the Sanguine Mine in the northeast of the Low Forest. There were several marks indicating a shifter or vampire sighting, but it wasn’t clear how old these were or what the men’s tracking methods were. Were they as inept as they looked, or a real threat? Were these the men Armand and Sinclair hunted with?
The hair on her neck rose as she surveyed the map, tiny wooden figurines, journals, and quills alongside it.
“What are you looking at?” one of the men seated across from her snapped. Most of the men at the booth hadn’t noticed her yet; they were still watching Garin feed Emrys.
“Now, now,” said Bog out of the corner of his mouth, setting down fresh tankards atop the map. “She’s our guest. Our lovely, esteemed, probably wealthy guest.”
The man who’d spoken earlier used his forearm to block off some of the map, but before anyone could do or say anything, she tucked her drink into the crook of her arm and plucked the nearest quill from its inkpot.
“Here,” she said, pressing the nib to the parchment. She circled a general area well to the west of The Fenfoss Inn, unsure of how they calculated coordinates on a hand drawn map. The perfectionist cartographer Riou, who often assisted her father and Armand, would have pulled his hair out in patches.
Another, this man burly and shorter, peered around Bog. “What ishere?”
“The largest camp of korrigans you have ever seen.” She slurred purposefully, knowing all too well the way her words melted together when she’d had one too many ales. She winked at them when their eyes widened. “My father is a renowned cartographer. It seems like you could use one of those. Anyway, they are much safer to hunt than vampires or shifters, and easier to tie up, I’d imagine. They’re smaller, so you’ll catch more in one trip. Ten to twenty korrigans sounds like a more secure capture, doesn’t it? Versus, say, all your men against one vampire.”
The first speaker and Bog exchanged glances, while a couple of the men turned their attention to her. Bog chewed on his chapped lips. “It wouldn’t takeallour men to take down a vampire.”
“Well.” Lilac looked up at him through her lashes and ran a finger along his bicep. “How many of you are there?”
From the corner of her eye, she noted Garin slowly but surely making his way toward the front of the tavern, supporting the very inebriated Emrys. The other men whispering made her nervous, but not so much as Garin, who turned his head casually to see Lilac with her hand on Bog’s arm.
His eyes flashed, brows slightly furrowed. Was that amusement? Confusion?Disapproval?She couldn’t tell. And, she reminded herself, she didn’t care.
When Bog seemed reluctant to answer, Lilac scoffed loudly enough for surrounding tables to hear while staying close to him. “It doesn’t look like you have that many.”
“We have a small militia,” another of them with a bowl of black hair growled. “Led by?—”
“We have enough.” Bog glared at his counterpart.
“It would take at leasttenmen to restrain a vampire.” Garin’s head snapped to Emrys, who put his hand to his mouth and started to retch. “And Ibarelysee ten here,” she said loudly, causing all of those sitting around the tables to turn their attention to her.
Garin scooped Emrys into his arms when the old man stumbled.
“We have seventeen,” the burly one said. “Eighteen sometimes, but?—”
Lilac, who’d been leaning against Bog, slipped forward as Bog suddenlymoved toward the door. The drink tucked in her arm spilled all over the map and off the edges of the table, causing the men at the table to yell and scuttle out of the booth.
