Dark Frontiers
an excerpt

Cameron wandered back downstairs after the depressing scene with Tira and Coppen.

“Serves you right for getting your feelings involved,” Cameron thought as she pulled the bar stool up to the bar.

“What’ll be?” the barkeep asked.

“The lady will have dwarven rum,” a familiar voice said from behind her. Cameron turned around.

“Captain Mallory, it’s so nice to come across a familiar face in the dead of night,” Cameron said with sarcasm lacing her voice.

“Where’s your druid friend?”

“Chloe died in the ambush,” Cameron said and gulped her shot.

“The same one that took the city?”

“Yes.”

“I lost my family in that. Parents, brothers…What a bloody mess. Enough!” Gareth Mallory said and raised his shot glass high. “A toast…to the brave men and women who died saving a lost city and for those of us who lost our souls that day.”

“Here, here,” Cameron said and they clinked glasses. They both gulped down the rum and did the same with the next three shots.

“Play us a happy song,” Gareth said as he spied her flute.

“Even better,” Cameron said as she pulled out her mandolin from its protective case. “What shall I play?”

“Something for Chloe and my family, may they rest in peace,” Gareth said.

Cameron struck the first chord and lost herself in a ballad of fallen warriors. She went straight into an upbeat melody. Soon another bard joined in and before long the whole bar was singing and dancing. Cameron was pulling every drinking song she knew out of her memory. The mood lightened as the night went on.

A few hours before dawn, Gareth and Cameron stumbled up the stairs together. “Want to come in Mistress?”

“Captain Mallory, there isn’t any way you’ll get me in there sober or not. You’ll find a way to use it,” Cameron said with a smile. “Nice to see you again Gareth.”

“Likewise Cameron,” Gareth said and entered his room.

Cameron stumbled down the hall and into her room.