Swamped Chapter 223 Page 12

“Reth isn’t going to be very happy with you for recklessly endangering living beings, both birds and people,” you note. You even pull out your symbol for good measure. “But she might forgive you if you share the real story behind this group of yours.”

He doesn’t respond. He probably doesn’t think you’ll hurt him. And it’s true that your options are a bit limited by your oaths. But that’s not strictly a problem here.

“Ballow,” you say calmly. “I believe you haven’t taken your oath renouncing weapons yet, have you?”

“No, I haven’t,” he says just as calmly. “So I could, if I were so inclined, fire one of these crossbows at someone. I’d feel bad about it, of course, but I wouldn’t be violating any oaths.”

The hunter is definitely looking more worried now.

“I imagine you know just how good those crossbow bolts are at piercing armor, too,” Uncle Darret adds. “Probably got a lecture about being careful when pointing them at your allies, if your training was worth anything. And there are much worse places to get hit than the face. I still feel the wound where I was struck some thirty years ago.”

It always makes you a bit nervous when Uncle Darret seems to be on your side. But he seems to be unsettling the hunter even more.

“That one’s the leader,” he says, pointing to a rather short unconscious hunter. “All I know is, we were being paid to shoot crows if we saw any near here. They never told us why, and the pay was enough that I saw no need to ask questions.”

“That rules out the Church as suspects,” Uncle Darret mutters. “Never met a priest who’d be willing to pay a human for anything. And I met some pretty corrupt ones in my day.”

“Um, I guess I know a little bit about who’s paying us,” the hunter quickly adds. He seems even more thrown off by Uncle Darret than you are. “I mean, I never met whoever was handing over the money, but I did overhear the leader talking to them once. And one thing they said stood out to me.”