But he was already walking through the door.
He was right, though. Even rubbing a little dirt on his face couldn’t hide his true nature. Giles would stick out like a sore thumb no matter what they did. Shaking her head with resignation, Lilith followed him inside the rounded, wooden entrance to Kingdom’s most notorious and infamous pub, the Skull and Crossbones brewery and eatery.
A mouse dashed across her sandaled foot. Frowning, she watched the white-haired animal scamper off. A nagging brew of something being not quite right chewed at her gut as she tentatively pushed the door open.
Lively music blasted her ears the moment she stepped through. Panpipes and flutes and a bodhran all mixed to make a melodious and cacophonous wash of sound.
Serving wenches giggled, ale flowed, and revelers sang an off-key melody.
But the moment the eyes spotted Giles, all the noise stopped. Just…ended. And every set of eyes turned in their direction.
Nibbling on a corner of her lip, realizing it would be up to her to put the inhabitants at ease, she tiptoed to Giles’s side and rubbed her arm up and down his sleeve. “This man belongs to me,” she muttered in a voice that sounded as weary and scratchy as the body she now appeared to have.
It helped that she’d chosen a crone as her guise; it would be nothing for those inside to assume she was a witch who’d called the demon to her side.
Maybe it was her imagination, but it did seem as though a few of the eyes seemed less hostile after she’d said it. The best she could hope for would be that they would assume she was in control of the monster and they’d be left in peace.
A couple of the eyes began to slowly turn aside, but a few of the more cutthroat-looking patrons didn’t seem to care that she’d just claimed a demon as her own.
Seated toward the back of the pub were two large, bald-headed, green-skinned orcs. Their golden teeth flashed as they whispered a heated exchange back and forth.
orcs could spell trouble. They were notorious bandits, looters interested only in gold or other precious metals. But she’d taken care to not wear anything that could attract their ilk, and Giles himself wore only the clothes on his back. The orcs shouldn’t be a problem for them.
Seated beside the orcs were a gaggle of thick-chested dwarves with long, bushy beards and leathers of soft umber and forest-green tones. The gaggle of thirteen men was devouring a whole roasted pig, laughing and drinking, very few of them paying any attention to Giles or Lilith.
Stone dwarves were notorious in Kingdom as being cannibals, but these appeared to be their slightly less hostile cousins, the earth dwarves. So long as they had food and drink before them, they would be content.
At the table over were sprites. Water sprites were known to be tricksters more than truly dangerous. Their skin and hair was the pale blue of their lagoons. They were shapely, buxom maidens with voices that beguiled the unsuspecting and thirsty traveler.
So long as one didn’t make eye contact with them, one would survive their charms. Mingled around the obvious creatures were humans. Mostly hunters, dressed in garbs of green and brown. They had grizzled appearances, as though they’d been camping in the forest for weeks, if not months, and each of them carried some form of weaponry strapped to their backs.
And at the very center of the pub sat a man dressed entirely in green, with bushy blond hair and piercing blue eyes and a jaunty green cap perched on the top of his head. Poking over his shoulder was the tip of a broad bow. He studied Lilith so hard that she wondered whether he were capable of seeing beneath her disguise.
She knew exactly who he was—around these parts the man was legend for his ferocity and willingness to exact justice even against those who’d make a lesser man tremble to think it.
But finally he slammed his tankard of brew onto the chipped table and cried out, “Huzzah! To a job well done, men!”
And like he’d cast a spell, instantly the crowd resumed what they’d been doing. The music began, the dwarves continued their wild chomping on the last vittles of the pig, and the orcs turned their backs to them.
Releasing the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, she clutched Giles’s shirt far longer than normal. Even a wolf was no match for an army such as this.
“We should go find us a table.” Giles whispered into her ear while leaning into her side, making her shiver from the contact. “Hidden in the back corner somewhere. I do not trust these men.”