The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 11.1

Not much later, it started to rain. The calming sound of the raindrops falling onto the snail shell made Nume yawn loudly in the middle of a heated discussion. Toma looked at her and saw the dark circles around her eyes.

'Alright, off we go. Nume, stay here, will you? Get some sleep, you look exhausted. We can continue this conversation at our place, can't we Profaen?' Toma spoke. Nume was immensely grateful yet she couldn't resist turning the offer down at first. But Toma wouldn't listen so she made everybody else leave the big snail shell.

A few hours later, Kran returned to get Nume. Now he looked tired, too, but not as exhausted as Nume still felt.

'Come on, we have to go.' He said gently.

'Go? Go where?' Nume said, rubbing her eyes.

'To a tavern. Don't ask. Raf convinced them to take us there. He said something about guilt whereupon they suddenly gave up all resistance...' her friend explained.

'A tavern?' She suddenly felt wide awake. 'You mean in a phraio tribe?'

'No. He won't tell me though... He just said that we'll most likely get in trouble for being phraio... He himself has only been there once. As far as I know, he knows Profaen and Toma because he sometimes brings them phraio things in return for news from that tavern and the rest of the world.' Kran hesitated, then he said with pity in his voice: 'I really doubt there's anywhere he could call home. Nobody seems to accept him, really. For phraio, he's a dretho, for others, he's a phraio... which seems to be a bad thing...'

'How come we've never heard about dwarves, sirens and snails in the first place? We travel the world all the time, we should have met some at one point or another...' Nume said more to herself.

'Well...'

'What?'

'I kind of have heard about them. It was part of my schooling...' he said, blushing.

'But why have you never told me?'

'I wasn't allowed to! Grandfather said it was important for all phraio to believe these were just myths and legends... Nothing to be worried about...' Kran explained hurriedly. He felt Nume's anger, ready to be unleashed.

'Idiots!' Raf'ney-krush's voice called from outside. 'Come on, no time to lose.'

Kran swallowed, smiled innocently at Nume and quickly went back outside. She sighed and followed him. There was still plenty of time to get that information out of him.

It was already darkening so Raf'ney-krush had decided to leave Luthi with the dwarves for the night. He'd already fetched him and was now waiting for Kran and Nume on Bay's back. Since he didn't have fear for them to try anything like he had feared when he'd first taken Nume on the baymout, he now made the sit behind him while he placed Profaen in front of him. Toma stayed behind. Bay didn't exactly like the additional weight resulting from four riders and Kran didn't like being one of them. He was secretly terrified to fall to his death so he hugged Nume, who was sitting in front of him, tightly.

By the time they arrived at the tavern, the sky had turned a dark red. High above them, the red moon shone to the fullest whereas the blue moon was nowhere to be seen. From inside the taverns, many voices could be heard and somebody was playing the flute. But when Profaen opened the tavern door so the light from inside touched Raf'ney-krush's face, everything quickly went silent. Then the murmuring started.

Upon entering, Nume could see many creatures. All of them somehow resembled a phraio but they all had something special about them. The barmaid was tall and her skin was covered in scales like Raf'ney-krush's but smaller and of a light yellow. Nume recognized two centaurs and a troll sitting on a couch in a corner. She could also see a winged woman covered in feathers and a tiny man with butterfly-like wings, swinging from the chandelier.

By the fireplace sat a man with long, curly hair and the legs of a goat. He held a flute in his hand and stared back at Nume equally curiously. Three young men with short black fur all over their arms and faces were standing around him and an orc woman hardly clad in anything at all was still trying to catch their attention.

'No phraio allowed.' The barmaid spoke. Her voice was thin yet sharp.

'I'm sure you'll allow paying customers, won't you?' Raf'ney-krush replied, holding up a shining coin. Another murmur went through the crowd. Then the feathered woman approached him.

'What a lovely piece you have there.' She said. Raf'ney-krush tossed it over to the barmaid and ordered some strong drink Nume had never heard of before.

'Now,' he said. 'Where is the wizard?'

Silence.

'Anybody?' Raf'ney-krush insisted.

More silence.

He was just about to say something again when the goat-man spoke: 'Not here.'

'Where exactly would that be?' Raf'ney-krush replied angrily.

'In hell.' The voice was soothing and calm but there was a hint of joy in it.

'Well then...' Raf'ney-krush said. 'At least he will have better conversations there than in here...'

The tiny winged man flew around his head speaking angrily, insulting Raf'ney-krush, Kran and Nume with words unknown to the phraio. With a quick movement of his head, Raf'ney-krush hit him with his left horn and the man angrily flew back up onto the chandelier where he stayed, still swearing.

'Well then, I guess you got your favour, if you don't mind, I have a wife waiting for me...' Profaen said in an attempt to escape the situation. 'I'll just walk back then, don't worry about me, I know the path even when I'm blind drunk...'

Raf'ney-krush's hand grabbed his collar.

'You are staying. And so are we. So if you don't mind,' he turned to the crowd. 'Continue your funny little chatter, don't worry about us.'

Nobody moved or said anything. But then, the goat-man started playing the flute again and the dancing notes resolved the situation quickly. Nume could still feel the occasional angry glances on her skin but Raf'ney-krush made his way to the bar, dragging Profaen with him, where he talked to the barmaid, so Kran and Nume followed him.

The barmaid told them that the wizard was indeed dead. He'd died of a fever only a few weeks ago. Nume was trying to listen but the room was now filled with many voices and the barmaid and Raf'ney-krush talked in mere whispers. It didn't take very long for Nume to lose interest and start looking around the place. She tried not to stare at anybody for too long but it wasn't that easy.

At some point, she turned to Kran and said: 'I wonder where Sethara is now. She's not been around for days...'

Within an instant, the goat-man was standing next to her.

'Did you just say Sethara?' he asked in a low voice.

Nume nodded and looked at him curiously. Only now she noticed the two twisted horns oh his head. She had previously mistaken them for hair because they were of the same colour.

'Do you know her?' she asked.

'Know her? Well, she's an old... friend... of mine.' The way he pronounced friend was rather peculiar but Nume didn't want to ask about it. 'You must be in some kind of trouble if you've met her...' the man concluded.

'They are.' Raf'ney-krush interrupted him. 'All of us are.'

He raised his voice and made sure everybody in the tavern was once more paying attention to him.

// How might they react to the prophecy? Is it even safe to mention it in such a place?