They left the inn with nothing in their pockets.
The city was already going. Carts, voices, the smell of bread from somewhere close. Zein stepped out and Hinro came beside him and they stood there for a moment just taking it in before they started walking.
The market was louder than yesterday. More people, more noise, everything happening at once. Zein moved through it without knowing where he was going, just looking. He'd never been in a city like this before — not a mortal one, not one where everything cost something and nobody knew him and the language in his ears was mostly shapes without meaning yet.
Someone's eyes dropped to his tunic. He looked down. Dried blood at the hem, a tear along the side he'd forgotten about since the road. He looked at Hinro. Hinro's cloak was the same, worse maybe.
He stopped at a small shop off the side of the market. Clothes in the doorway, nothing fancy.
One Drel.
He went in.
---
The woman inside didn't say anything. Zein went through what was there and found a cloak near the back — heavy, deep hood, worn but whole — and held it out behind him. Hinro took it. Tunic and trousers for himself. He put it all on the counter.
She named a price. More than one Drel.
He put the Drel down and looked at her.
She looked at him. Then at Hinro. Then pushed the pile across.
They left.
---
Back at the inn they changed. Zein dropped the old clothes on the floor. Hinro pulled the new cloak on and settled the hood forward and stood there a moment rolling his shoulders. The hood was deeper. It would do.
Zein sat on the edge of the bed. Hinro sat on the other one and put his elbows on his knees and looked at the floor.
Neither of them said anything for a moment.
"We need coin," Hinro said. He was looking at the floor. "Not just for tonight. If we want to go anywhere, do anything — it costs money. Food costs money. Getting between cities costs money. We can't just walk everywhere."
Zein didn't say anything. Hinro was right and there wasn't much to add to it.
"So we find work," Hinro said.
"Yeah," Zein said.
He sat there another moment. Then he got up.
---
Clean clothes made a difference. Nobody looked at them twice now. Small thing but Zein felt it.
They went back through the market, slower. Zein watched how people moved, how they talked to the vendors, what made someone stop and what made them keep going. He was picking up Aldric slower than he'd like — a word here and there, rhythm more than meaning. Hinro seemed to follow more of it. His head would shift slightly at something said nearby, nothing obvious, just enough.
They came out the other side of the market onto a wider street and Hinro slowed.
A building further along. Wider than the ones around it, a board outside with papers on it. Two men coming out with weapons on their hips, talking about something, neither of them in a hurry.
"Söldnerhaus," Hinro said.
Zein looked at him.
"Mercenary hall. They match work to people." He paused. "Might work."
"Might," Zein said.
Hinro shrugged. "Only thing I've got."
They went.
---
Inside was dim and smelled like old wood and something that had been cooking since morning. Low ceiling, long counter at the back, tables around the room with people at most of them. Everyone had something on their belt or back. Nobody looked up when they walked in.
Zein went to the counter. Hinro came beside him. The man behind it finished what he was reading before he looked up. His eyes went to the hood, sat there a moment, moved to Zein.
Zein looked at Hinro.
Hinro stepped forward.
"Arbeit," he said. "Wir suchen Arbeit."
Work. We're looking for work.
The man looked them both over slowly.
"Zwei Veth," he said. "Registrierung. Dann Arbeit."
Two Veth. Registration. Then work.
Hinro didn't pause. "Kein Veth. Arbeit erst, dann Lohn."
No Veth. Work first, then pay.
The man's expression didn't move. He opened his mouth —
"Lass sie."
Let them.
From one of the tables. A woman, not looking up from her bowl.
The man looked at her. Something passed between them that Zein couldn't read and then the man pulled out a ledger and put it on the counter without another word.
"Namen," he said flatly.
Names.
Hinro gave their names. The man wrote them down and nodded at the board on the wall behind him — papers pinned to it, smaller version of the one outside. Said something in Aldric that Hinro listened to carefully.
"Pay comes after the job," Hinro said quietly to Zein.
"Versteh," he said to the man.
Understood.
---
They went to the board. Zein couldn't read any of it. He stood there while Hinro worked through the papers slowly, lips moving slightly on the harder words. Most he passed over quickly. One near the middle he stopped on.
Before he could say anything the woman from the table came and stood beside them. She looked at the same paper and tapped it once.
"Dort. Zwei Wochen. Kein Söldner nimmt es."
There. Two weeks. No mercenary takes it.
Hinro looked at her. Then at Zein. "Something left in the Wald. Far end, half a day out. Needs bringing back. Doesn't say what."
"Why hasn't anyone taken it," Zein said.
Hinro asked her in Aldric. She answered, short.
"Last group that went didn't come back," Hinro said.
Silence.
Zein looked at the paper. Then at her. She was already looking at him, something in her expression that wasn't quite amusement.
"So why are you showing us this," Zein said.
"Because you don't have better options," she said in Althari. Then — "Ja?" Tacked on at the end, easy, like it was just how she finished a sentence.
Hinro went still. Zein looked at her.
She pulled her coat off the back of a nearby chair. "Neither do I. Job needs three. Last group had two." She glanced between them. "I'm not two."
"We don't know you," Zein said.
"Ruth," she said.
Just that.
Zein looked at Hinro. Hinro looked back at him and gave him nothing.
"Zein," he said.
She looked at Hinro.
"Hinro."
Ruth nodded once and went to settle with the man at the counter. Zein watched her go.
Hinro said nothing for a moment.
"Well," Zein said.
"Yeah," Hinro said.