"Roderick, couldn't we just rest for a few minutes?" Barbara asked plaintively. "I know it's getting dark, but -- well, look, I'm a bard, I'm used to spending most of my time travelling. And I'm tired."
"Listen... to the lady," Stan gasped, stumbling over a fallen tree branch. "We've been up... since before dawn. And we've... been walking for... hours."
"Uh-huh," grunted Johnson. "And just who was it who forgot to tie up the horses when we stopped for lunch?"
Stan didn't answer.
"But we can't stop," said Roderick. "You guys know that. We're out in the forest, and everybody knows that forests mean faeries! If we stop, they might catch up to us, and we don't have anything to offer to them."
Barbara rolled her eyes. "Roderick, don't you think you're being just a little --"
"Look!" Roderick pointed through the trees. "Up ahead about a quarter of a mile! Doesn't that look like a road?"
With suddenly renewed energy, the four of them trotted forward and, sure enough, found a road -- a fairly major, well-maintained, road, at that. Not only that, but there was a small castle right across the road from them, with a sign out front saying "Cindy's Wayside Inn". A smaller sign below said "VACANCY".
Roderick sighed with relief. Stan cheered and headed over to the sign for a closer look. Barbara paused alongside the road and looked in both directions, a puzzled look on her face.
"What's wrong?" Roderick asked Barbara.
"I don't know. This area just looks oddly familiar," she said with a frown. She started walking slowly toward the front gates, pausing every now and then to look around again.
"Hey, guys!" Johnson called from the stables, off to the side of the castle. "They've got our horses!"
The others stared over at him. "What?" Barbara asked incredulously. "Are you sure they're our horses?" She strode toward the stables, Roderick and Stan close behind.
"What were you looking at on that sign?" Roderick asked Stan.
"Oh, I was just noticing that there's a section of the sign that's covered over," Stan said. "I took a peek. It says 'And Gentleman's Club'."
"Ah," said Roderick. "Well, I guess that's just as well. I don't suppose Barbara would have wanted to spend the night in a brothel."
"Yeah, well, she can speak for herself," said Stan absently. "What's weird, though, is what was printed below even that. In really small print."
"Oh? What was that?"
"It said 'Property of the Purchasing Department'." Stan shook his head and shrugged.
By then they had reached the stables. Roderick blinked. Sure enough, that was the horse he had bought just the previous afternoon. He looked around, and soon spotted the tackroom. Their saddlebags, saddles, and supplies were all stacked neatly inside.
Barbara was shaking her head. "Well, I can't complain," she said. "We can stay here the night, and have horses again tomorrow. Let's go see the innkeeper."
When they got inside the castle, they found the front desk unoccupied, but a cheerful fire was blazing in the hearth, and the overstuffed chairs and sofa looked terribly inviting.
"I wonder if we've gotten far enough," Roderick said to Johnson after a few relaxing moments of watching the fire. "The Overlords are sure to try and stop us."
"What makes you think they even know about us?" Johnson asked. "You said Darwin gave it to you, and he wouldn't have bothered to give it to you and then just try and stop you. Who else even knows who we are, or where we are, or that anyone is going to Mount Paladin at all?"
Roderick frowned. "Well, yeah, I guess that's true. But it says right in the brochure that all the Evil Overlords will be trying to stop us."
Johnson yawned. "Well, I'm sure they would if they knew about us. But we can worry about that in the morning."
Johnson turned back toward the fire and closed his eyes. Stan was already snoring gently in his chair. Roderick closed his eyes for a moment, and then felt something touch his shoulder. He looked, and saw that Barbara had fallen asleep on the couch next to him, and had slid over so that her head was resting on his shoulder.
He took a long, shaky breath, suppressed a warm shiver, and tried not to let himself look down the front of her tunic. He made it almost half a minute. Then he swallowed hard and eased gently up off the couch, being as careful as he could not to wake her. She slid gently until she was lying comfortably on the couch.
He stood there for a long moment, his heart still pounding in his ears, and finally decided he couldn't stand still any longer. He crossed the entryway to the main stairway.
"Roderick?" came Barbara's sleepy voice from across the room. "Where are you going?"
"Oh, I just thought I'd see if I could find the innkeeper," he called back quietly, not wanting to wake the others. "And I'll see if I can take a look at the guest rooms."
"Hold on," she called back, getting up off the couch and brushing off her clothes. "I'll tag along."
"Sorry," he said as she crossed the entryway after him. "I didn't mean to wake you up."
She gave him a puzzled look. "Huh? I don't think you did. You were already over here when I woke up."
His face flushed slightly, but he didn't say anything as they started up the stairs.
The stairway was too far from the fire to get any decent illumination, but there were lit lanterns along the hallway at the top of the stairs. Roderick headed up confidently, but Barbara stumbled halfway up. He turned to help her back to her feet.
"Thanks," she said. A few steps further, she commented, "So you have pretty good eyesight, don't you? You were the first one to spot the road, and now you don't seem to be having any trouble seeing your way up these stairs."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I've always been able to see pretty well." He shrugged. "Why, are you planning to mention that when you write your song about me?" he kidded.
She smiled and shrugged. "I don't know. I might."
They had reached the top of the stairs, and saw a fire burning in a room just down the hall. They started toward it. As they got closer, they could hear voices coming from the room, mostly unintelligible, until a snatch of phrase, spoken slightly more loudly, drifted out to them: "...Paladin on the loose."
Roderick and Barbara both stopped in their tracks. They glanced at each other. Then Roderick crept quietly closer to the doorway, and Barbara followed.
"...yeah, it'd be bad for business," came a nasal, slightly whiny female voice. "I wouldn't figure on getting many Heroes through here once I get the club going, and I'd hate to lose the Overlord business just 'cause of some Paladin."
"And don't forget the business you were expecting from Henchmen, especially the guards," said a resonant male voice. "You were expecting them to be the biggest share of your clientele, were you not? And heroes wouldn't need guards if there were no Overlords."
The woman sighed. "You're right. So okay, you've gotta guard the bridges so they don't get through. But I don't get it. The union assigned you to do this, yeah? So why don't they cover the costs?"
"They already are," said the man. "But that's just the standard union wage. And I've found that guards aren't terribly effective when they're only working for the standard wage."
Barbara gave Roderick a sidelong glance, but he was busy listening and didn't notice.
"So I need your help," the man went on, "to cover the tips and bonuses. You have ready cash on hand, I know."
"Hey, I've got a mortgage payment to make on this place, you know." Barbara noticed a little extra whine in the woman's voice.
"Uh-huh," the man said noncommittally. "And would you prefer if I told the union about all those color documents you've been printing over the last few months? Your glossy brochures, your tourism maps, your business plan, even that sign out front."
"Hey," the woman shrilled, "you told me that was okay."
"I did you a favor," the man said. "Now I need you to do one for me."
"Hmph," the woman grumped. "Don't I do you enough favors whenever you come over here?"
"Cindy," the main said firmly. "The money."
"Oh, all right already. The bank opens tomorrow at ten, I'll go get your money then."
"Thank you, my dear. I'll see you tomorrow, then?"
Roderick and Barbara exchanged a worried look: that sounded like he was about to leave. They turned and hurried back down the hallway, and made it around the corner and onto the stairway before they heard the man's heavy tread enter the hall. They ran down the stairs as quickly as they could.
Roderick heard steps behind him, and saw that they wouldn't have time to get back across to the fire before their hosts rounded the corner. He pointed to the tourism display directly at the bottom of the stairs. Barbara nodded, and they stopped in front of the rack of brochures, pretending to be intently interested in them.
The man's tread stopped at the top of the stairs. "Well, Cindy," he said, "it looks like you have guests."
Roderick and Barbara turned to see a tall, well-built man standing next to a short, buxom, attractive blonde woman. "Oh, hello," Barbara said casually. "We were just enjoying your fireplace and looking at your information on area attractions." Roderick smiled self-consciously and held up a tourism map he had pulled from the rack.
"Oh, yes," the woman said excitedly. "By all means, look all you want. You're my first guests!"
The man smiled warmly at her. "Looks like you may get your business off the ground yet," he said. He bent to give her a kiss, then swept down the stairs and out the front door.
"So can I get you dinner, and a room for the night?" the woman asked, with a bright, hopeful smile.
"Yes!" came two voices from the direction of the fireplace.
Roderick and Barbara both looked uneasily in the direction the man had gone, but the innkeeper, Cindy, clapped her hands excitedly. "Oh, that's wonderful! Come on in to the kitchen, I'll make you all some lamb stew." She swept off through a side doorway. Stan and Johnson were quick to follow.
Barbara shrugged uncomfortably. "Well, if we get a good start in the morning, we can probably get across the river before he gets his guards hired."
"And a good meal does sound awfully good," Roderick said, thinking back to the travel rations they'd had for lunch. He thought about what it would be like to eat those for days on end while they were travelling, and shuddered.
Johnson was the last to finish eating, though not by much. He leaned back and patted his stomach. "That, ma'am, was mighty good cooking," he said with a sigh.
Cindy beamed, then clapped her hands. "Well now, are you all about ready to turn in for the night, or will you want to spend a bit more time out by the fire first?"
"It's almost midnight now," Stan said. "I figure sleep would be good about now." The others nodded in agreement.
Cindy's eyes lingered on Stan, as they had been all through the meal. "Very well then!" She looked over at Roderick and Barbara. "Let's see, so it'll be one room for the gentleman and the lady, and --"
"What? Oh, we're not a couple!" Barbara exclaimed.
Roderick had opened his mouth to say something, but he closed it and quietly let out his breath.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" Cindy wrung her hands. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to presume, really I didn't. I'm still getting used to this 'innkeeper' job, and I'm afraid I'm not very good at it."
"Uh, that's all right," said Barbara. "How much will it be per night?"
"It'll be two silvers per room," Cindy said, looking at Stan again. "Unless you need any other services..."
"Oh, about that," Johnson said. "On our way in, we noticed that you had our horses in your stable. They had wandered away from us earlier today, and evidently they made their way here."
Cindy blinked. "Oh, are those your horses?" She shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another. "Oh. Well... you see, the thing about that is, I can't really let you just take them away right now. I mean, not an hour before you got here, I had some brochures printed that talk about the lovely stables I have here, and the riding opportunities available for guests, you see."
"What?" Stan frowned at her, and she ducked her head. "Just because they wandered in here, you immediately decided they were your property?"
"Well," she said, obviously embarrassed, "I'm in a bit of a pinch financially, trying to start a new business here, you understand. And I did invest the time and effort and all that, to get them rubbed down and fed and stabled." She batted her eyelashes at Stan.
Stan frowned uncertainly. "Well, we've got a long way to go. And I'm so stiff and sore from walking all afternoon..."
Cindy brightened. "Oh, I can help with that!" She came around the table, and with a practiced flick of her fingers, surreptitiously undid the top button of her blouse. She slid into the seat next to Stan and looked at him as she spoke. "I can offer you all hot baths, to soothe your muscles. And if any of you have need of it," she said, staring into Stan's eyes, "I can offer a nice, long massage..."
Stan's eyebrows rose slightly, while his eyes lowered slightly.
Roderick cleared his throat loudly, and Cindy jumped. "A hot bath sounds quite nice," he said, "but... well, I'm not quite sure the trip fund can cover it. We've got a long ways to go." He glanced around at the others, who all looked disappointed. "But you all brought your own spending money, so --"
"Oh, not at all!" Cindy said quickly. She looked back at Stan. "If you want to get that massage, then I'll throw in a hot bath for all of you."
Stan's eyes strayed again. "And, uh, about the horses tomorrow?"
She leaned forward a little more. "Oh, we can discuss that later."
Stan looked up at the other three. Roderick was looking away embarrassed; Barbara was looking disgusted; Johnson was amused. "Well," he said with a half-grin, "I think I can take a stab at negotiating it from here. Anyone up for a nice hot bath?"
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