Calliope let out a deep breath as Neil lowered her onto a lumpy goose down mattress. The room wasn’t palatial but it was large and relatively clean, with walls of handsomely grained dark wood and windows of thick lead paned glace. Neil let out a similar sigh though his was one of relief, he was a strong man, but even a strong man would be aching after carrying another person for several miles. The woman to whom Calliope had given the coins, Yiga, appeared at the door, her face professionally pleasant though probably masking some amount of avarice and concern.

“Az dar anything ee can get you?” she asked in halting common. Neil turned to Calliope and arched any eyebrow.

“Soup if you have it,” she responded, then repeated the words in the woman’s own language.

 

“And beer!” she shouted at her back, or tried to shout, it came out as more of a croak. There was a scuffled outside and three bearded men pushed past Yiga and into the door. All were muscular and none smelled too clean. One of them shouted in his own language and pointed at Calliope, veins bulging in his neck.

“I don’t understand,” Calliope lied, touching the back of Neil’s wrist to forestall him from drawing the knife he was easing out of his belt behind his back.

 

“He says you are Necromancer, with the Black Horde,” the leader of the group growled. “This means death!”

“Necromancer?” Calliope asked in feigned shock. “I can assure you I am no necromancer.”

“She must be tested, and burned before she can bewitch us,” the so far silent man snarled.