Reunion Tour
Twenty years after their famous victory, a company of retired heroes faces a dragon with a different account of the past.
22 chapters · Original English prose · Illustrated
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The story
Twenty years after their famous victory, the Five of the Fable reunite for one glorious afternoon. Quentin Hushford has already spent the fee.
His inn needs guests. His friends need apologies, proper billing and a great deal less publicity. Still, everyone has agreed to stand on the stage. For a few hours, Quentin thinks, that should be enough.
Then the dragon they supposedly killed lands in the square.
Veyr remembers an old promise. The mountain is being opened, the spring is in danger, and all five heroes are required. Saving the day will mean getting the company back on the road—if their knees, their grudges and Quentin’s gift for reassurance do not finish it first.
A Reunion Already Spent
By nine in the morning, Quentin Hushford had moved the same vase of flowers six times and spent the reunion fee twice.
The first spending had been actual: wages, roof tiles, the kitchen chimney, and a new bearing for the yard pump. The second was taking place in his imagination, where eighty crowns remained available to return to the festival committee if any of his oldest friends failed to arrive.
In that account, the money was doing splendidly.
In the real one, Mara had bought boots.
“Leave the flowers,” she said.
“They obstruct the view of the hearth.”
“They obstruct the crack beside the hearth. That’s their employment.”
Quentin withdrew his hands.
Mara crossed the public room with a stack of clean breakfast plates balanced against her apron. She had worked at The Slayer’s Rest for eleven years, which was long enough to distinguish a useful instruction from a proprietor having feelings at the furniture.
“You’re wearing the sword, then?”
“For the ceremony.”
“Mind it on the chairs. We’ve only just paid for those.”
“They’re not new chairs.”
“They’ve got all their legs. That’s new for us.”
He looked after her as she pushed through to the kitchen. Her boots made a firm, unfamiliar sound on the boards. For three months he had watched her avoid the puddle by the scullery door because the left sole of her old pair admitted water. She had never mentioned it. He had never found a dignified way to mention it either.
Now the roof did not leak, the pump turned without screaming, and Mara had boots. Whatever else happened today, those things had been worth doing.
Another book to settle into
The Dragon’s Treasure
A false crown. A beautiful dragon lord. An appraiser who knows when something does not fit.
22 chapters · English prose · Free to readReunion Tour
Twenty years after their famous victory, a company of retired heroes faces a dragon with a different account of the past.
22 chapters · English prose · Free to read