the border? In a castle that’ll crumble after three spells at most? It’s not worth talking about.’
‘Even if that’s the case, I still think they’re a bit odd.’ Rex stuck to his guns. ‘At the portal, I assumed they were afraid of inspections and some shady dealings coming to light.’ He glanced at the alleyways they were passing. ‘But here? I expected something different. Curiosity? Yes. Anxiety? Maybe a bit. Distrust? Oh, absolutely.’ He looked around again. ‘Yet everyone’s terrified. They’re looking at us as if we’re about to burn this backwater to the ground.’
‘It might be difficult, because everything here is made of clay,’ Darius joked grimly.
‘The Colonel knows what I mean.’
‘In the provinces, legends and blood-curdling tales told on long evenings by the fire are very much alive. You know full well what stories are told about the Guard.’ Bleist shrugged. ‘It doesn’t take much for someone to twist a few words and make us out to be harbingers of doom.’
‘To that extent?’ The corporal looked around the deserted road sceptically. ‘I think there’s something else going on here.’
Before Rex could share his thoughts, however, they drove out onto a larger square flanked by somewhat more imposing buildings. To their right stood a small temple; on the other side, a building looked fairly new, or at least recently renovated. Darius concluded that it must be some kind of local seat of authority – the village elder, a judge or an administrator.
However, it was the three-storey building opposite them that caught their attention. The inn seemed completely out of place amongst the rest of the village. It was the only building constructed of stone, and its façade was painted white. Curtains fluttered in the tall windows, the thick doors and shutters were reinforced with metal, and pots of heat-loving plants stood by the entrance. The building looked as though it had been plucked from a completely different fairy tale.
Surprisingly, a small crowd had gathered in front of the inn’s entrance, consisting of locals and travellers, most likely merchants heading for Bushtabhar.
