Beleg didn’t provide any information about their destination when he caught up to Kre. Instead, he simply introduced Kre to the horse he was borrowing.
“That chestnut roan mare there is named Maple, like the syrup. Also, like the syrup, she’s sweet but slow going. Still, she’ll get you where you need to go eventually, and what’s more, she won’t bolt at the first sign of trouble.
“Yup,” he continued without much of a pause, “that there is one of the most dependable mounts we’ve had in our company. One of the first too. Got her back when it was just the handful of us starting out. Maple and Peanut. Peanut’s no longer with us, unfortunately. Lost him to some wolves not long after the Jarvis job.”
Kre finally found an opportunity to interject while Beleg paused for a moment, likely reflecting on the past job he had mentioned. “How did you come to work alongside Ylveryans?”
“Oh, hmm?” Beleg raised an eyebrow and then chuckled, “I suppose that’s a fair question. I find that I’m so used to it these days that I don’t give it a second thought.” He rubbed at his chin, “It was just the handful of us at the beginning. Dain and I had known each other for a while, having met doing some odd jobs here and there for an eccentric patron we both knew. On one of our excursions, we ended up a bit lost and without enough supplies to see us through. Luckily, we ran into Talimar and Kersath and they were courteous enough to share their campfire and their food with us. Turned out that we were headed in the same direction, so we joined up and never really parted ways.”
He glanced over at Kre, and a mask of seriousness fell across his face, “You know, the Ylveryans aren’t what they tell us they are. They’re a good people.”
Kre nodded, “I know.” He wasn’t sure how much more he should say on the topic, still keeping up his emotional walls just in case this group turned out to be other than what they seemed.
Beleg regarded the boy with scrutinizing eyes, as if he could tell that there was more to the story than Kre was letting on. “Good,” he said finally. “Good of you to be open-minded.”
They rode in silence for a bit, the clip-clopping of the hooves on the hard packed earth mixing with the jingling of the harnesses.
“Kre, right?” The small voice piped up from just behind him and off to one side. Kre turned quickly in the saddle to spot the young child, Rasmussen.
Kre nodded, keeping quiet to as not to belay the fact that he was quite a bit startled at the young boy’s sudden appearance.
“What brings you out this way?” Ras asked. “It’s not like this is really much of a vacation area.”
“I was with a couple of friends,” Kre replied, “and I guess I got a bit turned around and lost my way. It was a good thing I ran into you guys. What about you guys? What brings the Red Feather Adventuring Company out this way?”
Ras shrugged, “Not sure yet. We’re actually meeting up with the rest of our party to find out what the next job is. We were stocking up on some supplies in town when we got the message that we needed to rendezvous for some big job. Something to do with a dragon sighting.”