Part Forty-Nine — First Contract

　The merchant we were escorting turned out to be a nervous, portly man named Tobias, who introduced himself three separate times in the first hour, as though repetition might make us more reliable.

「Just the three of you?」 he asked, eyeing our small group with obvious concern as his cart creaked out through Roshan's gates. 「I was told escorts usually travel in groups of four or five, for a job this size.」

「We'll manage,」 I said, keeping my tone easy, unremarkable――Roge's voice, not quite my own. 「Trust me, we're better equipped than we look.」

Which is, admittedly, doing a lot of work in that sentence, given how little we actually look like anything worth trusting.

　Tobias didn't seem entirely convinced, but the guild's seal on our contract carried enough weight that he swallowed his doubts and settled into the driver's seat without further argument.

　The first day passed uneventfully――good roads, mild weather, Tobias's nervous chatter filling most of the silence with updates about grain prices and a rival merchant house he clearly held a personal grudge against.

　Eris walked alongside the cart, alert but relaxed, occasionally asking Tobias questions that revealed she was quietly mapping out the route and its dangers in her head, the same careful instinct that had picked this job out in the first place.

　Ace ranged ahead in his small, unassuming form, scouting without drawing attention, occasionally reporting back through the link.

Nothing so far, he said sometime in the early afternoon. Though I have found this road disappointingly uneventful. I was told adventuring involved more excitement.

Give it time. Most of this job is going to be exactly this boring. That's kind of the point――boring jobs are the ones that don't get anyone killed.

I suppose that is a reasonable trade.

　It was on the second day, deep into a stretch of forest the road cut directly through, that Ace's tone changed.

Movement. Ahead, off the road. Six, maybe seven. Not wildlife.

Bandits?

Likely. Positioned poorly if they mean to ambush a cart this size――too spread out, too visible from where I'm standing. Amateurs, possibly.

Good to know. Thanks, Ace.

　I signaled to Eris with a small gesture we'd worked out over the past week――a private code, quiet enough that Tobias wouldn't notice anything was wrong before it mattered.

「Trouble ahead,」 I murmured to her. 「Ace has eyes on six, maybe seven, off to the left. Could be more we haven't spotted.」

　Her expression sharpened, the wary competence I'd come to associate with her settling fully into place.

「Tobias's cargo. Is it worth killing for?」

「Depends what's actually in it,」 I said. 「Depends what kind of bandits these are, too. Some just want coin. Some want blood on principle.」

「I've met both kinds,」 she said, flat. 「Neither's pleasant.」

No.

I imagine they wouldn't be, from where you've had to stand.

　The ambush, when it came, was about as clumsy as Ace had predicted――six men stepping out onto the road ahead of us, blocking the path with crude weapons and the kind of overconfidence that came from having successfully robbed easier targets before us.

「Toll,」 the lead bandit said, grinning through several missing teeth. 「Cart, cargo, coin. Give it over nice and easy, and maybe we let you keep walking after.」

　Tobias made a small, terrified sound behind me.

「Stay in the cart,」 I told him, quiet but firm. 「This won't take long.」

Let's see how Eris and Ace handle this one.

I'll hold back unless it actually calls for more than they've got.

　The bandit's grin widened as I stepped forward alone, clearly reading my unassuming appearance as an easy target rather than a warning.

「Cute,」 he said. 「Sending the scrawny one out first.」

「Actually,」 I said, 「I'm just here to watch. My friends have this handled.」

　Eris moved before he'd finished processing that sentence――faster than I'd seen her move before, aura flaring faint at the edges despite her careful suppression training, a testament to just how much raw power was still sitting underneath her controlled exterior.

She's gotten good.

Really good, actually. Faster than I expected given how recently all of this started for her.

　She closed the distance to the nearest bandit and disarmed him with a clean, efficient strike that sent his crude blade spinning into the underbrush before he'd even registered she'd moved.

　Ace, meanwhile, had abandoned his small disguised form entirely.

　In a single fluid motion, he expanded back to his full Aetherfang size, sending two of the remaining bandits stumbling backward in pure animal terror――the kind of instinctive fear that didn't require any explanation of what, exactly, they were suddenly facing.

「That's not a dog,」 one of them said, voice cracking.

「No,」 Ace agreed, through a mouth clearly not built for human speech, the sound coming out as something between a growl and genuine amusement. 「It is not.」

　The remaining bandits didn't need much more convincing after that.

　Three fled outright.

　The last two, cornered, dropped their weapons and put their hands up with the particular speed of men who'd very quickly recalculated the odds.

「We yield,」 the lead bandit said, all his earlier confidence gone. 「We yield, please, just――call off the wolf.」

「He's not mine to call off,」 I said, stepping forward at last, letting a thread of my own suppressed aura leak through just enough to make my point. 「But I'd imagine he's willing to be reasonable, if you are.」

Ace, they're done. No need to actually hurt them further.

Understood. Though I confess, the fear response was satisfying to witness.

Don't let it go to your head.

No promises.

　We left the bandits tied to a tree well off the road, disarmed and thoroughly humbled, with instructions to a nearby town guard post relayed through Tobias once we reached the next settlement.

　Nobody died.

　Nobody, beyond a few bruised egos, was even seriously hurt.

Clean job.

Exactly the kind I was hoping for, honestly.

　Tobias, once his hands stopped shaking, couldn't stop praising us the rest of the day.

「I didn't――I didn't expect that. Any of that. You three are far more capable than your rank suggested.」

「We like staying modest,」 I said. 「Keeps expectations manageable.」

「Modest,」 he repeated, faintly disbelieving, glancing back at Ace's now-shrunken form trotting along beside the cart as if he hadn't just terrified five grown men into surrender single-handedly.

「Right. Modest.」

　That evening, camped a safe distance from the road, Eris sat cleaning a blade that hadn't actually needed to draw blood, expression thoughtful in the firelight.

「That felt good,」 she said, quiet, almost surprised at herself for saying it. 「Not the fighting, exactly. The――being useful. Actually protecting someone, instead of being the one who needed protecting.」

I understand that feeling more than I probably let on.

Being useless, back on that mountain as a kid, waiting for my mother to protect me from everything――I remember exactly what it felt like to finally stop being only that.

「You were never just someone who needed protecting,」 I told her. 「Not even when I found you. You'd survived things that would've broken most people entirely. That's its own kind of strength, even before any of this.」

　She looked at me for a long moment, something warm and slightly overwhelmed crossing her face before she looked back down at her blade.

「Thank you,」 she said, quiet. 「For finding me. For all of this.」

Ace? I asked privately, watching him curled by the fire, already half-asleep in his smaller form. You have anything to add, or are you just going to steal my lines again?

I am saving my energy, Ace replied, drowsy even through the link. Tomorrow, I intend to steal several more.

Figured as much.

　I looked between the two of them――a girl who'd survived slavery and abandonment, a wolf who'd survived a hunting party and somehow developed a sense of humor sharper than most people I'd met in either of my lives――and felt something settle in my chest that I hadn't let myself feel in a long while.

Whatever the Church wants with anomalies like me, like maybe Eris now too――whatever's still coming, down the road, in some shape I haven't seen yet.

Tonight, at least, we're safe.

We're together.

We did something good, and nobody got hurt doing it.

I'll take tonight.

Tomorrow can handle itself when it actually arrives.

　We finished the escort without further incident, delivered Tobias and his cargo safely to their destination two days later, and returned to Roshan with our first completed contract, a little more coin in our pockets, and――more importantly, as far as I was concerned――a little more proof that whatever shape this new family was taking, it was one worth actually building.