Seeking the Veil, Part 2

Names

"How can you not know what happened right before your eyes."

"I..."

Rufus leaned in and Smallhands watched Hestea intently. "Yes?"

"I saw them kill Amott," Hestea heard himself say, a catch in his throat as the three climbed a low hill near the ruined keep in the dark of night. It was Smallhand's idea, and he figured there would not be time on the morrow. Hestea wasn't so sure it mattered. With the sun hidden, the temperature had dropped, and even bundled as he was, he couldn't keep himself from shivering.

"Amott threw something at them, never hesitating," Hestea finally said. "Covered one in boiling grease and they killed him without a blink. Without a weapon in his hand. I was at the door when they burst in. I was right there. If Amott hadn't acted, I might be dead. He might still draw breath." Hestea rubbed an eye, suddenly sore. "After that, I don't know. Everything went blurry and white, like a fog."

"A fog?" asked Rufus as Smallhands looked to the sky, muttering something that ended with 'Amott'.

"Yeah."

"Maybe smoke?"

"No, there was—"

"Maybe a flap of canvas? Cut from the tent and fell on your head?"

Hestea shook his head. "No." But Rufus kept going, entertained by his own increasing cleverness, and Smallhands looked back down and added his own.

"Perhaps tears."

"Flour from the cook's table?"

"Mayhap a few slivers of wet potato—"

"No. It was not smoke, it was not potatoes, and I did not hang a pair of breeches over my head!" He said the last sharper than he intended, but the thought of Amott dropping to the ground, his blood seeping across the floor of the mess tent was too much. He shrugged his shoulders and squeezed his eyes shut as he breathed in deeply, wishing yet again that he could have stopped the Saeordin, that he could have saved the friendly cook. He wished that he could still see Amott's fool, gap-toothed grin and hear his gentle voice. Hestea sighed.

Smallhands patted Hestea on the shoulder with one of his huge mitts. "I am sorry, we tease, we do. It can not have been easy."

Hestea smiled quietly at Smallhands, then as he took a slow steadying breath, one foot slid with a suddenness that made him shout, the other skidded on a patch of packed snow and both feet left the ground. Flailing his arms, Hestea hit the dirt with a thump.

Rufus snorted and Smallhands laughed. Hestea gathered his breath as the mercenaries helped him up. "Perhaps you was bathed in a little blizzard, swirling all around you." Rufus winked. "It does seem that snow has a personal vendetta for you."

Hestea brushed off the snow from his trousers as he rose, his long war hammer shifting on his back. He pushed it back into place in its thong and strode forward with purpose. Two moons filtered through a thin patch of cloud and the way was all silver and bronze. Smallhands and Rufus sauntered after, then Rufus asked, "What's her name?"

Hestea raised his brow, looking behind him. "Who?"

"Your hammer, what do you call her?" Rufus asked as he stroked his mace.

"'She', is a hammer."

"Aye. And she needs a name. Fine weapon like that. What kind of metal is that, anyway? Shimmers like silver, but pounds like cold steel."

Hestea's lips were firm, he was in no mood, but Rufus stared intently at Hestea, then at the hammer riding on his back as they trudged through a deeper drift of snow.

"Name my weapon? This is no storybook adventure with swords that glow and axes that fly."

Rufus did not smile as he rubbed a thumb along the smooth flange of his mace. "What's wrong with a name? Every good weapon has a name." He playfully swung the mace before him. "How can she move, if there is nothing to call her. A name can be power."

"So, what do you call yours?"

"Brunhilda."

"Brunhilda?"

"That's right." Rufus looked up from beneath hooded eyes. "What of it?"

"It's a..."

"A damn beautiful name, it is."

"... Exactly." Hestea shook his head. "What about you, Smallhands? What are your swords called?"

"Ah, don't ask him," Rufus moaned, running a hand over his face.

Smallhands smiled proudly, pulling first one sword that gleamed silver in the moonlight, and then another with a flourish, twisting his hands so the light shimmered down the length of the longsword. Each was identical, a matched pair of fine steel. Hestea knew little of weaponcraft, but he could tell those blades had been fashioned by a master. "Pip and Trip."

Rufus frowned.

"Pip and..."

"Trip."

"Right." Hestea bobbed his head.

"Told you not to ask."

"What be wrong with me names?" asked Smallhands with a glower.

Rufus held up a hand. "There is nothing wrong—"

"You are mocking my names."

"Never."

"You lie," said the giant, pulling his blades close to himself.

Hestea slid on another patch of ice. "Don't we have some sort of snow shoes to wear?" Hestea fashioned his hands in a round oval, looking to the two mercenaries.

"In this?" Rufus shook his head, refusing to answer. "Tell us of the attack in the mess. You must remember something. You was there. Maybe the Saeordin knocked you on the head, maybe you went blank, but then saw something? Someone?"

"Radish and Tot were there," Hestea said as he frowned, stepping over another slippery patch with care.

"Aye, seems they were, but they were too busy cowering in a crate of onions."

"Didn't know you could fit Radish in a crate of onions," Hestea said with a smile.

"Wasn't Radish, it was Tot. Radish hid in a crate of potatoes."

"Sure they weren't radishes?" asked Smallhands.

"Sure."

"Woulda made a better story if it were."

"Well, if'n it were a story, I would of said so," grumbled Rufus. "You making me want to shove a crate of radish over your head."

Hestea laughed, feeling the smile spread across his lips and a weight left his shoulders. But then he stubbed his boot on a hidden rock, misstepped with the other and skidded across a frozen patch, catching himself as he fell, to land sitting on the cold snow with a thump.

Rufus shook his head and slapped Hestea on the head. "Boy, you can't even walk. Don't know how you could kill ten Saeordin. Maybe Roht himself came down from the clouds, slew them buggers, painted you with some of their blood and called it a day."