NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 4: The Hunt)

CHAPTER FOUR: KESLA

Darwyn's small enough Shay can carry her in cradled in the crook of one arm while she's holding Ashsong's sword low and wary in her other hand, not convinced we're safe even though the young guard clearly looked human. The halfling's in a hell of a lot o' pain, wincing with every jog even though the half-orc's definitely moving careful to make the ride smooth as possible for her, but 'least she ain't passing out instead. It's a better sign, at least. But that wound ... I seen ones like it before, and she's in a bad way.

I lead the way through the doorway, crouching low with my own sword gripped tight in both hands, cuz I ain't taking any more chances than my friend, even if I did recognise the girl. I just saw those nightmares ooze outta a near dead kid just outside this room, and it was only Krakka's quick thinking made sure we didn't all suffer the same fate as every other poor bastard we found so far in this place. Suddenly meeting a healthy live one in here don't put me much at ease. I'm paranoid as hell right now, but that don't mean I don't have cause.

Leaning my shoulder to the door, I give it a gentle push to open it out the rest o' the way, then step into the room beyond. It's darker in here than it was outside, but I realise now that having Lady Naru's fancy lights right now might actually have made us walk right on by without noticing candles burning under the door as we passed. Yes might've picked up on the new scents in time, but given the pervading stink of death in here that even I can't miss I wouldn't wanna place money on the outcome o' that bet.

There's a few individual candles burning round the room, but by and large it's barely enough to pick much of anything out right now. Most of the illumination now we're bringing in with us, my own sword in particular lighting things up a whole lot more, so as I step inside I just start to pick up on exactly what's going on here. And where I actually am.

When I was a kid, growing up in our apartments over the training barracks in Tabaphic, I had my own room, and it was nice enough, I guess, but I was never really the homiest person if I'm honest. I spent so much o' my time out in the world or training under da an' the other sergeants, my room was really little more'n just the place my bed was. Even in my adolescence, when the moodiness started to kick in and I found it harder to get up in the morning, I still mostly thought of it more as a room than mine. Truth be told, don't reckon I really got the whole idea of girls actually having their own personal bedroom as a haven, their safe little space apart from the rest of the world, until I became more'n just friends with Janna. First time she took me into her room it was genuinely like stepping into another world.

I catch something o' that here but it's a hell of a lot more extravagant. Then again, we're dealing with rich girls here, never mind they're the Hellcat's daughters. It's very ... rich, and a whole bunch o' fancy too, a good deal more o' the kinda overblown foofaraw as da would've called it, the kind I try not to roll my eyes at when I do deal with rich folks, particularly the women. The bed alone ... fucking hell, that thing is huge, it's big as whole bedrooms I seen other people inhabit before, actually, and there's just so much space. There's bloody big posts supporting a canopy over the top of it, with big, thick velvet curtains hanging round it, while the mattress is almost alarmingly high off the floor, not enough to cause a nosebleed but enough to hurt if you fell out at night. And the bedclothes ... it's all satin, I swear, smooth and soft and ... bloody hell, there's fucking lace too. And it's just some of the lace I see decorating this place, actually.

That being said, there are enough touches scattered about to tell me this girl ain't entirely devoid of her mother's martial character, even if I hadn't already gotten a suggestion last time I met her. Instead o' toys or whatever else I might expect a small child like Mara to prize, I see weapons hanging on racks or set on the vanity table in the back of the room alongside much more feminine accoutrements, which instantly mark this as Pela's room. Certainly there's no way I'd ever expect to find Thura standing a room like this for herself.