Chapter 3 – Part 6

Bresbin tried to keep his dumb face on at the same time as he strained to listen to the conversation. The druids considered their language secret, but the Dark Lanterns had long been slowly compiling lists of words.

Two years ago that list had grown considerably. Coincidentally at or around that time the Dark Lanterns had captured one of the Children of Winter druids who had been attempting to infect a Brelish peace delegation sent to Oalian with some truly disgusting disease. The official report said that the druid in question had been dispatched quickly. Unofficially, over drinks, a senior agent had told Bresbin that he’d heard through someone who had heard through someone that they’d tortured the Child of Winter for days, getting him to give up a nice chunk of Druidic before he’d finally died.

Bresbin wasn’t sure if he believed the story. The higher-ups in the Dark Lanterns liked to let their agents believe such things in order to keep everyone in line and focused. However a half-elf named Parnain d’Medani had been involved in preventing the attack on the Brelish delegation, and if there ever was anyone stone cold enough to torture a man for vocabulary’s sake, it was Parnain.

And the Child of Winter in question had been a changeling, a race that Parnain was known to be obsessed with hunting.

Whatever the source, the amount of Druidic that Bresbin had been able to absorb was letting him know that Pienna was getting heat for fighting in the war, and that some elf named Aruunis was pretty ticked off about it.

Bresbin knew the name Aruunis, but he couldn’t remember how he knew. He’d read so many files before going deep-cover that he hadn’t hoped to retain even half of it. But if Aruunis’ name had been in a file it must have been important.

So he followed, trying to listen to the raspy-voiced orc discuss how many dolgrims he’d seen, trying to figure out the words he didn’t know from the context of their use.

And trying to figure out if it would be worth it to put an arrow through the withered old tusk-face’s kneecaps if the druid kept calling him a sneak.