Shadows over Nothross | Page 4

some rules; city full of people with sharp swords and
skills to use them needed some regulation.
The friends, as a whole, found the incorporation a Necessary Evil.
Incorporation was mostly just a formality; the town was full of groups
of mercenaries of varying levels of association anyway. The
incorporation felt unnatural to them, they were, above all, friends and
brothers in arms, not really mere business partners - there were plenty
of groups in the city, after all, that did this sort of jobs just for money.
But they didn't let the arrival of formality and finances to hamper their
friendship, and that was all that mattered.

They were already bound in the way they did things; now they just had
a legal name to their operation. Or, as it happened, lack of name, which
clearly annoyed the filing clerk who rather hoped all mercenary bands
had invented some business name for themselves, which made the life
of filing clerks much easier in general. Jenyr never really came up with
a name for the company, and the others weren't really good sources of
suggestions, and preferred not to pick a name in any case. Everyone
else called it "Jenyr's Company", which Jenyr himself resented - after
all, he never participated in anything that happened outside of the city -
that was most of the cases - and secondly, and most importantly, he
already had a pay job at the City Guard.
At least incorporation allowed them to advertise their services as "a
crown-sanctioned swords-for-hire enterprise", which was better than
the services who advertised themselves as "a bunch of ruffians who do
anything messy for a few ducats". They never needed to really
advertise their services or anything - Faira was certain that every time
she poked her nose outside of the house, someone would be offering
them a job. She even had, when going to the Laughing Fox to have
lunch, the habit of saying "I'm sorry, people, our books are full for the
next four months" before she slumped on her usual chair. That
comment either made a number of people walk back to their seats
disappointedly, or, very rarely made the other patrons to look around
and wonder whom she was addressing.
At Wilhelmsroad 20, a nice house with a nonchalant plaque at the door
reading "Adventurers for hire", a conversation was taking place. Even
when they were busy with a lot of projects, Faira was happy that Facyr
brought the job right in the house, and introduced the two gentle elves
to his two friends. They were discussing around the fireplace, with
morning rain slapping the windows. Facyr was happy to have gotten
home just in time; undoubtedly, Jenyr was now either getting wet or
cursing under some eaves somewhere, trying futilely to get his pipe lit.
Facyr listened to the Valntathalen family's tale. He came to the
conclusion that Valntathalens weren't particularly fond of all of the
formality; the little bits he knew of elves seemed to say the fairer folk

didn't care much of formalities, anyway, at least not the kind of
formalities humans seemed to love. To them, it seemed, style and royal
grace were in their natures, while the pomp around human royalty
always seemed somehow constructed and artificial under the surface.
Even when Aleln Valntathalen was a distant relative to the reigning
King of Furinel and was responsible for running things in one quarter
of the kingdom, it was difficult to tell what made him so royal in first
place. Aleln Valntathalen was more of an explorer. He was a lord of
frontier lands. In the middle of the mountain woods with lots of
monsters everywhere, practicalities went ahead of formalities. Facyr
had seen the same thing in humans before, when dealing with frontier
lords of his land of birth, Grycia. Facyr found Aleln to be a quite
relaxed person, yet he showed tact, sensibility, manners and quite a bit
of refinement. Aleln came across as a friendly, sensible fellow who
could lead people if the occasion needed - somewhat unlike of his
colourful, sometimes brash and vulgar human counterparts of office,
who merely could lead the people because everyone saw they had been
handed the biggest axes.
"I thought the northern frontier had no duke any more", Gnedrnygr
Adithebadoggr said. He was an old man, but like most magicians of
Colemian descent, his body was magically preserved and he looked not
much different from middle-aged people of Varmhjelm, apart of being
slightly smaller stature and of more stockier build. His mind was still
youthfully energetic and brilliant as ever. He sat by a window and
listened to the discussion, putting half of his attention to that and the
other half to reading a tome describing the history of the Duchy of
Nothross.