Chapter 52: New employers

The following morning, Frost met his new employers near the road leading out of the slums.

Krazz had recommended his services to them a few days earlier, and although Frost had been grateful for another opportunity to earn some tabs, he hadn’t expected the entire group to look as though they were barely older than him.

There were six of them, two women and four men, standing around a pile of supplies while they discussed what to take.

Most were human, but one of the men had the lower body of a snake, his long, dark-scaled tail coiled beneath a fairly ordinary-looking torso.

Frost’s gaze lingered for a moment before he looked away, hoping he hadn’t been too obvious about it.

"You’re Frost?" one of the human men asked, approaching him with a friendly smile. He had short brown hair, a sword at his side, and a waterskin hanging from his belt. "I’m Owen. Krazz said you’d be coming."

"That’s me," Frost replied, returning the smile. "Frost Carter. Nice to meet you."

"I’m Lena," one of the women said, raising a hand from beside the supplies.

She had a bow resting against her shoulder and seemed considerably more cheerful than anyone Frost normally met this early in the morning. "And that’s Mara. She’s been checking our supplies for the past ten minutes."

"Because someone forgot the bandages last time," Mara replied without looking up. She had dark hair tied behind her head and a short staff lying beside her, and when she finally glanced towards Frost, she gave him a small nod. "Nice to meet you."

The broader of the remaining human men introduced himself as Bren, lifting the shield he had been leaning on so that Mara could reach the bundle beneath it. The lamia followed with a quiet, "Veyr," before shifting his coils out of the way.

The last man looked Frost over, his gaze moving from his plain clothes to the pack on the ground. "Daren," he said, resting a hand on the hilt of his sword. "You can carry all that, right?"

Frost glanced towards the supplies before looking back at him. "That depends. Are you planning to put one of yourselves inside as well?"

Lena laughed, and Owen grinned while Bren looked down at the pack as though briefly considering whether it was possible.

Daren didn’t seem particularly amused, but Frost supposed not everyone appreciated a joke early in the morning.

"Krazz said you were reliable," Daren replied. "We don’t want to keep stopping because you’re tired; I hate when porters do that." He emphasized.

"I’ve been doing this for a while now," Frost said, keeping his tone pleasant. "I’ll manage."

Once the supplies had been packed, Bren helped him lift the load onto his back. It was heavy, of course, but not quite as bad as some of the packs he had been carrying recently, which was a rather encouraging start to the day.

Frost adjusted the straps while the others gathered their weapons, then followed them towards the road.

They turned out to be fairly easy to talk to. Owen asked him about Earth, while Lena wanted to know whether the stories about buildings tall enough to disappear into the clouds were true.

Frost answered as best he could, occasionally struggling to explain things that had seemed perfectly ordinary before he came here.

"So, most people didn’t use runes at all?" Bren asked, looking back at him. "How did you get anything done?"

"With a great deal of complaining," Frost replied, earning another laugh from Lena. "And machines. Mostly machines."

Veyr seemed particularly interested in the vehicles Frost described, though the explanation became a little awkward when he asked how someone with his body would fit inside one.

Frost considered that for a moment before admitting that Earth’s designers probably hadn’t taken lamias into account.

"How inconsiderate," Veyr said dryly, and Frost found himself chuckling.

It was a pleasant change from walking behind people who spent half their time arguing about whether they should have hired him.

Even Mara joined the conversation after a while, asking a few questions about his work with other parties. Daren spoke whenever he had something to add, though most of his contributions seemed to involve explaining how something here was better.

By the time they reached the hunting grounds, Frost had learned that they had only recently started taking regular hunting jobs.

They had trained before coming here, of course, but training and earning a living by fighting actual beasts were two different things, and they were still finding their footing.

That became clear during their first encounter.

They found a pair of heavy-bodied, horned creatures grazing between the trees, and Daren immediately moved forward while the others were still discussing how to approach them.

A triagram flashed above his body, followed by another over his sword as flames spread along the blade, and he rushed towards the nearer beast.

The creature turned faster than he expected, forcing him to leap aside as its horns swept towards his stomach.

Bren hurried to intercept it, two triagrams shimmering above him as his strength and endurance increased, but he arrived at an awkward angle and had to brace his shield with both hands.

Mara raised her staff, a triagram appearing before it as the ground rose beneath the creature’s forelegs.

It stumbled, giving Veyr an opening to strike, a pale triagram flashing over his spear as frost gathered along its point.

Lena followed with a wind-assisted arrow, its triagram shimmering before her bow, while Owen caught the second creature’s legs with a stream of water produced through a triagram before his palm.

They killed both beasts, but the fight took longer than Frost had expected. Several attacks missed; Owen had to release his water to keep from pulling against Veyr’s movement, and Bren spent a good part of the encounter turning his shield towards whichever creature was closest.

Compared to Nick’s party, they were noticeably less skilled.

They knew what each person was supposed to do, but knowing and actually doing it together were clearly not the same thing.

Daren, however, seemed to think everything had gone wonderfully.

"Easy," he said, shaking the blood from his sword. "We should move farther in. There’s no point spending all day on things like these."

"We only just got here," Mara replied, lowering her staff. "Let’s get a few more first."

"Sure," Daren said, though the way he glanced towards the women made Frost suspect the suggestion had less to do with earning money and more to do with showing what he could do.

Frost kept that thought to himself and got to work on the carcasses.

He chatted with Owen while they cut away the useful materials, and by the time everything had been packed, the group had relaxed enough to begin joking again.

The next few encounters followed much the same pattern.

They won, but someone always seemed to hesitate at the wrong moment, step into another person’s path, or use more power than the situation required.

Daren was the exception when it came to hesitation, though Frost wasn’t certain that charging in before anyone was ready counted as confidence worth admiring.

Still, the hunts gave him plenty to study.