Long Night At The Bullrush Inn

Long Night At The Bullrush Inn.

Part One of Two


         “It says, ‘do not enter’.” Cheyne Dorin had to clamber from her horse to read the old dark sign by the side of the road in the fading light of dusk. “Well, actually it says, ‘donutt enta’, but I get the idea.”

         Kranig Aldershan climbed off his horse and rubbed at the grime on the weathered boards which pointed down a side trail from the road they had been plodding on for days. The Eye of the Night silver moon glinted as it lifted over the horizon, shining on the sign and illuminating the letters – letters which seemed to change and gleam in its mystical light. “No it doesn’t, Cheyne. It says, ‘Welcome to Yate.’”

         She was certain he was joking. Cheyne could read and write, much better than the author of the sign in question, and she figured Kranig knew better than to doubt her ability. As she blinked and looked again, however, she was astonished to find he was right. “Well, beat me with a spoon. I could have sworn it said... I could have been wrong, I guess. Unlikely as that is.”

         He tut-tutted. “We’ve been travelling together too long - now you've inherited my arrogance. So, what first? Hot food, hot bath or hot fire?”

         “Is there such a thing as a cold fire?”

         Kranig climbed back on his horse. “You need ale. You’re getting cranky.”

         Cheyne heaved herself back aboard Patch with her usual awkwardness. “I get cranky when I’m hungry. But I need to find the smithy first. My mail is de-linking on my gauntlets. I need some pliers.”

         “Spoken like a true fighter - putting armour before your stomach.”

         She laughed. Kranig slapped her horse to start it moving and they continued along the narrow side trail through the murgar forest as it curved and angled steeply down into a valley. Eventually the dim lights of a town gleamed through the branches. Mist was gathering and the air bit with cold, the stars and moons emerging to glint like bright jewels in the clear sky. A chorus of frogs could be heard even from a distance, indicating a large amount of water. The sound of cows lowing could also be heard, but Kranig thought it could just be a different frog species.

         “All right then, Cheyne, here’s the plan. You get equipment repairs done if the smithy is still about, I’ll find the food and lodgings. We’ll meet in the first, and probably only, inn in Yate.”

         “Agreed. Just don’t stir up trouble. I’d like to sleep safely for a change.”

         Kranig grinned. “On my word of honour.”

         "I hate it when you bring up things that don't exist."



         The town was a collection of squat weathered wooden buildings and thatched roofs huddled along one long twisting street, the only raised area out of the low-lying swamp land. Some buildings were on short stilts, bowing slightly from age, built where the solid ground ran out. Judging by the smell near some of these buildings Kranig figured the swamp made an easy access privy, and reminded himself not to drink much of the local water. The source of the distant sound of mooing was hidden by the houses and the drifting mist.

         The crowded buildings looked like they had been constructed from whatever could be scrounged with no particular design, unless a house of cards could be used as an example. Shaky walls were propped by each other, tree limbs and stacks of crumbling stones. It gave the town a temporary appearance though even the most recent structure looked old and worn. A small grain silo, normally a solid construction, seemed to be built from the combined remnants from a cooper’s shop and a wagon bound by wire, wax and nails.

         The town was ingeniously built and functional, but ugly none-the-less. Lamps and candles burned in cracked windows of glass, larded fabric or waxed paper and smoke rose from rickety chimneys. No people were about in the chill evening, however. Yate did not look like a place that enjoyed many visitors. Or a coat of paint. Kranig noticed a worn broom leaning beside the wall of a closed shop and wondered if he kicked it away would the whole town come crashing down? The mischievous thought made him smirk.

         The lifelessness and dinginess brought back memories to both Cheyne and Kranig of Headless Chicken town, where they had met an abusive innkeeper and his downtrodden daughter. Then there was the Mug and Mist inn, an equally bad village. Prettier than Yate, certainly, but a place high on Kranig’s ‘don’t revisit’ list as it was the home of slave traders who furnished the notorious local brothels. And then there was the seaport of Myn, rules with a nasty fist and a big stick by Lord Gathos. Sometimes Kranig wondered why he bothered to travel when so much of it was awful to visit.

         Cheyne glanced at her companion, feeling anxious. “Why do so many of these little towns seem so uninviting?”

         He laughed, hiding his own uneasiness. “Many of the ones we stay in are quite nice. You just forget because they are sleepy and uneventful. And I’m sure this one is, too. Remember the Three Bears Inn?”

         She grunted in reply. “Of course. Hard beds but good porridge."

         "And the Plainsman's Pouch?"

         "That was so uneventful I thought I had dreamt the whole experience."

         "And the Gutted Goat?"

         Cheyne frowned. "So unmemorable I don't even remember it. Oh, I know you're right…"

         "Now that I want you to remember. You said you know I'm right. It's something I'll certainly keep in mind."

         "I just bet you will. Well, this seems to be the inn. I’ll meet you when I’m done at the smithy. Take care.”

         Her horse continued on its way while Kranig drew his to a halt and tied it with the others on the hitching rail. The crude picture sign showed a bull jumping through tall swamp grasses. Kranig understood and strode into the Bullrush Inn eager to eat, drink and be merry after roughing it for so long. His horse was as soft as any, he supposed, but after several weeks it was like riding on a sack full of chisels.

         Normally he liked to complain about such discomfort but he was still happy to be long-gone from Montane and the Thieves’ Guild he had been part of since childhood. Now that he was away from the murderous, back-stabbing toad-biters that had been his work colleagues, a feeling of optimism had settled in his bones and a weight lifted from his shoulders. He found himself smiling more and relaxing, sometimes even sleeping on top of beds instead of underneath them. It was almost scary to contemplate some of the changes he noticed in himself. He attributed a lot of it to his choice of travelling companion; the sometimes moody Cheyne Dorin.

         He figured it would only take Cheyne a half hour to find the blacksmith and convince him to work so late in the day, if indeed he would. Re-linking only required a pair of pliers and muscles, as far as he knew, but she was pedantic about her weapons and armour and chose armourers who were able. Kranig appreciated her attention to detail.

         She was a strong woman, though not more than a man and not overly tall, but her dedication to learning the art of fighting and her fine quality sword made her a surprising opponent for any man - not that they would expect a woman to know how to fight. There was part of Kranig that smiled at the thought of her being his unofficial bodyguard. He felt strangely safe with her from those who had been after him, namely his old thieving gang. He should have known better than to double cross them but he simply couldn't help himself. Who would have thought they would take it so hard and want to kill him? Some thieves had no sense of humour.

         They were just a bad memory now and, as he had seen none of them in the weeks of wandering since leaving Montane, Kranig was confident they had given up. That he was free. Now he could turn over a new leaf and become an honest, law-abiding citizen - if he could just to learn to resist temptation.

         Kranig decided to determine the quality of the food and drink until Cheyne arrived. A tough job but someone had to do it. A large slab of rare roast beef with a fresh loaf and a steaming hot mug of tea would be ideal, but he would make do with cheese and ale.

         He swung open the door of the inn and blinked in the sudden warmth, smokiness and light. The central common room fire burned bright and lamps hung from the ceiling over the tables and bar where at least sixty customers mingled and caroused. Aromas of cooking meats and breads and mead combined with the stench of old beer, sweat and urine. He closed the door behind him and walked towards the bar, his usual smile freezing on his face. The common room, which had been full of good cheer and chatter as he entered, turned as silent as a cemetery.

         Kranig looked about with curiosity but saw nothing out of the ordinary from any other inn. It had the same set up of tables, roasting fires, benches, bar and games tables as in most establishments of the same size. It even had the same sort of clientele - rowdies, thugs, drunks, farmers, cutpurses and floozies.

         For some reason, though, Kranig’s arrival stopped everybody where they stood. All talk ceased, all games paused, all fondles halted and all eyes turned to the Montane thief and stared at him with the same sort of beady stare he had seen on grass snakes hunting cicadas. He glanced back to make sure it was not someone behind him they were glaring at and then slunk forward to the bar as unobtrusively as possible under the circumstances. He beckoned the innkeeper closer and the burly bald man leaned towards him with eyebrows raised.

         “Have I interrupted something?” the thief whispered, aware of the eyes boring into his spine.

         “We don’t take kindly to strangers in the Bullrush Inn here,” the innkeeper grumbled, spitting on to the bar before Kranig and polishing it into the surface with a green and greasy cloth.

         Oh, how I love country hospitality, Kranig swallowed hard. I just bet the innkeeper wipes out his cups with that bit of cloth. “Well, my name is Kranig Aldershan. Now that you know my name, I’m not really a stranger any more am I? And my money’s just as good as anyone else’s, isn’t it? I’m only passing through, and you seem to be the only inn. I just want some food and drink... maybe a room.”

         The innkeeper stared out from beneath thick eyebrows with very little expression on his bearded face and no sound from his lips.

         “We don’t like your sort around here,” a deep voice said at Kranig’s back.

         He turned to see it came from a broad young man, lank hair in a long ponytail, dressed in brown tunic, breeches and tall boots that may have once been clean. He had risen from a table where five other grimy men sat with playing cards dealt before them.

         Kranig hid his dislike behind politeness. “What sort is that, sir, may I ask?”

         The man stalked closer, grinning through uneven teeth, with the swagger and courage of a young man backed up by sixty friends. “Your sort!” The room abruptly filled with echoing laughter, which died with equal abruptness.
Aware he was outnumbered, Kranig sized up his chances of making a run back to the door past several busy tables and escaping unscathed. The chances did not strike him as being very good. There may still be a way to talk myself out of this, he thought. If I only knew exactly what this was.

         “We don’t like... nice!” the swaggering one hissed.

         Hisses echoed from around the room, the clientele reminding Kranig more of snakes every minute. He studied the hostile crowd for a moment, taken aback, and saw they seemed to be in agreement. There was only one option, he decided, and that was bluff. He stood as tall and imperious as he could, with a sneer on his lips. “It is just as well then that I’m not nice.”

         “Yer look nice to me.”

         Normally Kranig approved of being complimented, especially from women, but this seemed far from complimentary. Coming from the unpleasant man before him, it was disturbing in many ways. “Well, I’m not nice. It’s a disguise. I am a thief.”

         Another man at the back of the common room rose to his feet. He was amongst a group dressed in matching grey sitting in the shadows thrown at the rear of the fireplace by the spit supports.

         “I, for one, find that hard to believe,” this mousey man said. “You don’t act like a thief. You don’t carry yourself like a thief. You don’t speak like a thief. Ha! You don’t even dress like a thief. You wear armour.”

         “I had no idea that there was a uniform requirement for the profession. Despite what you say, I am a thief and this,” Kranig gestured up and down his body, “is what thieves are like where I come from.”

         “Prove it!” A large female screeched and smashed her mug of cider down onto the table for added effect. She squirmed on the lap of a small drunken farmer. Her wide buttocks, barely ensnared in a patched brocade dress, squashed him into his chair. Low muttering filled the room then died again but the innkeeper knew a unanimous decision had been reached. It was not the first time this had happened.

         “If you are a thief like you say you are then you must prove it to all of us here.” The bald innkeeper dabbled at some spittle in his beard with the edge of his cloth as he spoke.

         “How exactly should I do that, innkeeper?”

         “Steal from someone, I should think.”

         Kranig cast his eyes about the room at the sea of faces - faces that he had not noticed before in detail. There was a twist of cruelty here, a gleam of spite there and a whole lot of petty evil in between. He felt sure they could all claim common ancestry with each other.

         “This is hardly fair,” Kranig gave a haughty sniff. “You’re all on your guard, now. If you lot back there are thieves then you know that the secret of theft is catching a person unawares.”

         “None the less, you must steal from someone,” the innkeeper leaned forward and added, “or else.”

         The thief frowned and glanced towards his only escape route, wondering if there was an unwritten code of inn behaviour that said an escape route must have the biggest, meanest and toughest males sitting along its length. As Kranig mused, the heavy wooden door swung open and a small flurry of leaves swirled in, followed by Cheyne in her cloak and repaired mail gauntlets. She felt the tension in the air immediately as she stepped towards the bar but she ignored it, certain it was directed at someone else. She had not done anything wrong – she had only just arrived.

         Kranig beamed as jovially as he could and strode over to her, but before she could do or say anything he held out his hand to her in greeting. Oh gods, he whispered to himself, let her be willing to follow my lead for a change without question.

         He gave a nod. “Good evening to you, my lady. Welcome to the Bullrush Inn, a noble building indeed and most likely your usual drinking place. May I ask your name, my lady?” He shook her right gloved hand energetically with both hands as he spoke.

         Cheyne paused, baffled by her companion’s behaviour, but decided to play along. She knew by now that she should act first and think later when it came to Kranig and his schemes, but she would be asking questions later.

         “Why, my name is… Deshanna, my lord, and I am a traveller and new to these parts. Is this the way all newcomers are treated?”

         Kranig laughed, mostly at her choice of alias but also at her softly spoken wide-eyed manner, so unlike the usual Cheyne. “Certainly not, but you are different.” He let go of her hand then took a pace back, drawing his own hands and arms back beneath his cloak. He turned in triumph to his audience and nodded his head at them before glinking slyly at Cheyne.

         “My lady Deshanna, I am Kranig. Tell me, do you own... a gold ring?”

         She frowned, noticing the crowd’s intense scrutiny. She felt like she was in some perverse improvised pantomime but she had no idea what part she was playing. “Yes, my lord, I do own a gold ring.”

         “Can you describe it and the stone set in it to the people in this room, please?”

         “Very well. My gold ring has a blue sapphire set into its centre and little clear ones around it so that it looks rather like an eye.”

         “And which finger do you wear this ring on?”

         Slowly she held up her left hand and pointed to the ring finger beneath the thick elbow-length mail and leather gauntlet. Was this what Kranig wanted?

         “Now, my lady, would you be so kind as to remove your gauntlet and show us this ring?”

         Cheyne studied her friend’s face for some sort of signal but he kept his eyes on her hands, as eager as the rest of the room for her glove to be removed. Unlike them, Kranig knew what was beneath the mailed leather, or at least Cheyne hoped he had not forgotten...

         She reached up with her right hand and pulled off her left glove with a flourish, revealing fingers as bare as they were when she was born. A murmur went through the people in the room, which rose to a roar of approval as Kranig held aloft a gold and sapphire ring. He stepped forward to show its detail to several prominent persons including the swaggering young man with the pony tail and the innkeeper. The innkeeper nodded, his eyebrows high on his forehead in astonishment.

         “It’s the ring as the lady described, all right. He is a good thief.”

         Cheyne picked up on her cue, looking suitably dumbfounded. “Where has my ring...? Hey! That’s my ring! My goodness, how did you get that? I was wearing gauntlets and you only shook my right hand.”

         The thieves in the far corner whistled and knocked their mugs against the table. “Sit with us, brother thief. Come.”

         Kranig nodded to his companion. “First I shall give the lady back her ring - it was only an exercise, after all. May I buy you a drink, Deshanna?”

         Before she could answer or even accept her ring, the young pony-tailed man in brown swaggered forward and grabbed her arm. “Kranig here may drink with us. He has proven himself, but she hasn’t. We don’t like your sort around here.” His stumpy fingers gripped her tightly and pulled her close to face him.

         “What sort is that?” she whispered, trying to control her rising anger. She did not like people touching her, especially strangers and bullies – and he seemed to be both.

         “Your sort! We don’t like... nice!” He began to laugh but Cheyne brought her forehead down on the bridge of his nose with a bone-splintering crack and smacked him hard in the chest with the heel of her palm. He fell to the floor with a shriek of pain, blood streaming from his nose and tears from his eyes. He managed to scramble to his feet and blunder away out the door, little crimson drops leaving a trail behind him. Cheyne wiped her forehead and turned to the bar.

         The innkeeper was already pushing a mug of warmed cider across to her. Kranig had one is his hand as he reached over and dropped her ring into her open palm - the ring he looked after for her so it was not damaged in fights. He mouthed the word, ‘thanks’ and smiled. In return she frowned and shook her head reprovingly. Although he usually did not cause trouble quite so quickly it had not been totally unexpected. 

         The Bullrush Inn was once more a bustle of talk and activity, the two strangers now an accepted part of the scenery. The innkeeper placed a plate of salted wheaten biscuits on the bar for them. “Greetings, I’m Martan Firkin, owner of the Bullrush Inn and Lord Mayor of our town, Yate. You’re welcome here if you’re evil. This is a place for the nasty, mean, evil people to come when they can’t go elsewhere. A place where we can be what we are without the king’s law coming down on us. You’re safe here if you’re one of us. Well, as safe as you can be amongst murderers, thieves, assassins and robbers.”

         Kranig did not feel safe at all. “I suppose this place is called the Bullrush Inn because it is in a swamp.”

         Martan picked up a mug like the one the thief was drinking from and began to wipe it inside with his green cloth. “Nope. We had a cattle stampede through here once. Most excitement we’ve had in one night, ‘The Bloodbath Cattle Stampede of Autumn’. After the ‘Long Night of Fear and Turtles’, of course.”

         “I’ve only just arrived, give me time.” Kranig smiled, Cheyne just sighed.

         “If you’re a trade thief, you may want to consider our town games.”

         “Games?” Kranig did not appear very interested. “Cards? Storm? Dice? Jumps? Chess?”

         “No, sir.” The innkeeper pointed up above his head. On the wall was a plaque with a large ornate golden key the size of a ladle. “We have evil games here. Next week we’re having the Thieving Games. All those with a liking for theft go around stealing from each other. The one with the biggest booty or who does the best theft and has lost the least is the winner. They get the gold key trophy.”

         “A competition for thieves.” Kranig smiled at Cheyne. “Tough luck for you, Deshanna Warrior Woman.”

         She grinned at his use of the name she was given as a slave some time back. It was such a ridiculous title that it still amused her, despite the connotations.

         The innkeeper shook his head. “Oh, no. We also have a fighter's games, but that’s months away. We hold that one in Spring, when contestants tend to heal better. Everyone fights, no rules – last one able to stand, wins.”

         Cheyne nodded, almost interested. “Maybe I’ll come back for that.” She glanced at the clientele and noticed for the first time the repellently nasty group. “Or maybe not.”

         “We get a gold sword for that trophy. When we have Assassins’ Week the trophy is a gold dagger.”

         Kranig chuckled. “I bet that one thins out the town’s population.”

         Martan sighed. “It’s not a good one for business. Except for that one year. The Assassin and The Laughing Moth, was that one. Who would have thought you could assassinate yourself? And with a moth?”

         Cheyne and Kranig exchanged glances and downed their drinks, trying to ignore the growing feeling that things were not quite right in the town of Yate.



         Despite the superficial rough friendliness of the crowd it was soon very clear that they were certainly not ‘nice’. Their happy drinking stories all revolved around one misdemeanour or another, increasing in severity from running over cats with wagons, to mass murders, rapes and pillages. Kranig had been asked to join the grey-suited thieves at the rear and soon knew all of them by their assumed names - Rat, Silver, Lace, Numbat, Blade, Blacky, Earwig... He couldn’t wait to tell Cheyne later to prove his point about pretentious nicknames for thieves. He made up one for himself on the spur of the moment, fuelled by the strong alcohol he was drinking. The most ridiculous name he could think of - The Parrot. Would they realise he was making fun of them? He thought not. They were far too earnest and full of self-importance to notice. And drunk.

         “Why do you call yourself The Parrot?” Silver wondered.

         “Why do I call myself The Parrot?” Kranig repeated.

         “Yes. Is there a reason?”

         “A reason?” he replied.

         “Do you dress in the bright colours of a parrot, or something like that?”

         “Something like that.”

         “Like what?”

         “Like what?”

         “Why have that nickname?”

         “That nickname?”

         He kept the conversation going for a very long time, managing to keep his amusement carefully hidden, until the leader of the thieves arrived and introduced himself.

         He was a small, round man with small eyes, thick red hair in a ponytail and no eyebrows.

         “I am the Owl,” the leader said, nodding.

         Kranig barely kept his glee in check. “Who?”

         “The Owl.”

         “Who?”

         “The Owl.”

         After several minutes Kranig had to escape and buy a drink before he burst out laughing. Perhaps the Bullrush Inn was not so bad after all.

         Cheyne had been given the dubious honour of sitting with a group of hideously scarred thugs and morons - many missing fingers, teeth and eyes - who impressed each other by trying to spit into a cup on the centre of the table, the loser being knocked unconscious by the winner. The loser also had to drink the cup’s contents upon recovery. It scared her that some of those playing seemed to be playing to lose on purpose because it was somehow deemed tough to be knocked out and forced to drink a cup of mixed saliva. The man next to her with no teeth, Drabas, assured her that once you started drinking it all went down in one lump anyway. She shuddered to think this was the impression many people had of professional fighters and chalons - students of fighting. No wonder they looked at her with disbelief when she said she was one of them.

         They had no bard in the tavern. Instead, each of them related stories in turn for the others, all of which seemed well told and known. Each tale bore a convoluted title that promised a glimpse of the story to come. The story of The Fat Lord With the Slippery Wet Cat made Cheyne’s stomach turn and put Kranig off his stew. The townsfolk boasted of robberies and looting and murdering; the more people killed for their treasures the better. Kranig wondered: if these people are really so successful then what are they doing hiding out in such a backwater town?

         They eventually looked to the newcomers for tales but Cheyne could think of nothing exciting or appropriately vile so she fobbed the attention on to Kranig, offering him for the next story.  She knew he would come up with something and he certainly did. He told of the robbery of a lady in Montane by a master thief called ‘Krayne’, and Cheyne sat and listened as attentively as the rest. Although she could tell he obviously tarted parts of it up for the audience’s tastes, his outline of the basic story intrigued her. She had been present when he had robbed the lady - it was how Cheyne and Kranig had first met, fleeing the lady's quarters and her soldiers. He even made mention of a mysterious woman that helped the thief, a female called 'Shanig'.

         At the end of Kranig's story the thieves slapped him on the shoulders and bought him another drink, while the rest of the inn commented favourably on the Fat Lady Seduction in Montane. Cheyne was amused when she heard one of the men near her talking about Shanig and Krayne, wondering who they were robbing now, as if they were real people and not just amalgamated characters Kranig had made up about the two of them. Some people believe anything, she thought.

         Looking for an excuse to leave the thugs without appearing rude, she decided to go get more of the strong spirit everyone seemed to be drinking. She was only buying it because she assumed that no horrible disease could be living in a cup that contained such liquid and, after seeing the way the landlord cleaned his cups, it suited her just fine. It also made the night go by in a happier haze than it would have otherwise.

         In staggering to the bar she tripped over someone’s foot. Cheyne drew her sword in the same movement. She had seen enough of the near brawls during the night to know that this was a good idea – prepare to fight first, apologise later. To her surprise, the small one-eyed man who snarled and began to draw his short sword suddenly froze in fear.

         “The sword,” he whispered. “It’s the sword.”

         The common room fell into a hush. Cheyne sheathed her sword and held it behind her back. “What sword?”

         The bartender, Martan, came up from behind. “Is that... The August?”

         “Could be.” She gave Kranig a look - that look of ‘come here and help.’

         Kranig saw her look at him and wondered what she wanted.

         The bartender grabbed one end of The August’s scabbard and tried to hold it up to see. Worried he would take it or attack her, Cheyne drew her sword and held the blue-black blade to the barman’s throat. She would use him as a hostage to escape if she had to. Instead of being fearful or angered, he seemed grateful that she was showing the weapon to him.

         “Ah, the engraving, the dragonfly wings - it is the one. Well, how about that. Where did you get it, lady?”

         “I... ah...stole it?”

         The common room crowd nodded and grunted their appreciation.

         “The sword you have, lady. We’ve heard of it. The dragonfly magic sword. The August.”

         “It is? I mean, sure it is.” She had been trying to build her bastard a reputation but she had no idea the rumours had travelled so far.

         “Created by a wizard of untold power.”

         “Really?” Cheyne laughed, thinking of her brother the blacksmith making The August and trying to imagine him in wizard’s robes. She swayed from the alcohol and her sword inadvertently nicked the barman’s neck. “Sorry. Where did you hear that?”

         The one-eyed man near her tapped the side of his nose. “We hear. Bards and guards. Tales get passed round, you know. It were used in the Great Lord Stiever Robbery In The Little Store House Of Myn.”

         She snorted. “It wasn’t that great a robbery, but I guess you had to be there.” Cheyne slid The August away. She had helped Kranig with what he described as, ‘a little revenge piece’, and these thugs were calling it great. At the time it had been a frightening and exciting thing for her to do after a life of obeying the law, but looking back now it seemed quite mundane. She wondered if these people did anything in this town or did they just brag and tell stories?

         “That was another robbery by Krayne and Shanig, so I heard,” a scrawny woman in a worn lace gown and a gaunt face whispered to a hairy man at her side. “I knows of that one.”

         Cheyne glanced at her, not sure if she had heard correctly or the drink was making her hear things.

         One of the thieves at the rear piped up. “I hope you’re staying for the Thieving Games.”

         Other thieves murmured assent, and she knew her sword would be the first thing they would steal. Cheyne promised herself she would be gone tomorrow. Early.

         "I won't miss it." She shifted The August onto her hip. “What else do you know of the sword?”

         “It can cause fires, knock people out...”

         “Yes, I know that. What else?”

         The small man winked his one eye, or perhaps he blinked, as he said with reverence: “It was blessed by the God of War, Leit.”

         Cheyne burst into laughter.



         Kranig was nearly asleep under his bed in the Bullrush Inn when he heard a stealthy creep outside his bedroom door. Not stealthy enough. He drew two knives then tiptoed over. When the door unlocked and creaked open, he was ready with a knife to the young man’s throat. He recognised the person as one of the thieves, a chap called Ferret.

         Ferret grinned through his remaining teeth, eyes twinkling in the light of the candle he carried. “Ah, brother. We wondered if you would like to join us on a little quest.”

         “Quest? At this time of night? That sounds rather noble and nice.”

         Ferret spat on the floor, leaving a greenish glob near Kranig’s bare foot. “We don’t like...nice. No, we are goin’ off to raid the nearest farmhouses. We gots hidden trails through the swamp to get us there. We do it every now and then to stock up before competitions so we’ve gots enough to celebrate with. It’s our quest to keep us supplied with grain and cows and stuff. I think we’re goin’ after cheeses this time. Want to come along? It’s a lot of fun. We might even kill all the goats this time.” He seemed pleased most by this thought.

         Kranig rubbed his eyes and yawned. “As much as I am in the mood for some light frivolity, I have to decline. I’m a little tired, you know, after the long ride to get here.”

         Ferret gave him a wary glance. “You afraid?”

         “Not that I’m aware of. Just weary.”

         “You’re not...nice?”

         Kranig gave scornful laugh. “Nice? Pah!” He spat on the floor beside his foot, mentally telling himself not to step sideways.

         Ferret turned and left the room but his eyes were dark with disappointment and, Kranig thought, suspicion. It reminded him of his years in the Thieves’ Guild of Montane and the reasons why he left - too much suspicion. He closed and locked his door, listening as someone went to Cheyne’s door and spoke with her. Kranig sidled to the wall between them, stepping in something wet and cursing, and tried to listen through the timbers.

         After a great deal of noise downstairs and the slamming of doors, followed by many galloping horses, Kranig felt it was safe to emerge from his room. As a precaution, he dressed and donned his armour. He had a terrible feeling about The Bullrush Inn and Yate, and he wanted to get out.

         Kranig unlocked Cheyne’s door and stepped in. He waited there, his intuition nudging him. I just bet you’re lurking behind the door ready to pounce on me.

         Cheyne stepped forward, dressed in her armour and with her mace at the ready. When she saw who it was she let out her breath.

         “What were you doing there, Cheyne?”

         “Hiding.”

         “Not very successfully.”

         “Obviously not successfully enough. So you didn’t go with the rest of the thieves and morons to murder some pigs? Where’s your sense of camaraderie?”

         “I heard it was goats. You want to stay?”

         “Do I look stupid? These people aren’t just evil, there is something wrong with them... in the head.” She did a reasonable impression of a Yate local accent. “We don’t like yer sort. We don’t like... sane.”

         “Oh, yes. I think it would be a very good idea to leave while they’re gone.”

         “Let’s pack our things and go.”

         “You pack our things, Cheyne, I’ll pack their things.”

         She looked shocked. “What? No! We can’t steal from these people! They’re crazed enough that they’d follow us to the ends of Traedis for a soup ladle, then they’d immortalise it in some crap story like: ‘The Garrotting Of The Spoon Thieves’.”

         Kranig gave a nod. “Yes, you’re right. You pack our things then and I’ll just have a look around to make sure we’re alone.”

         Cheyne clapped her palms over her ears. “I don’t want to know! Kranig? Have you got some deep-seated desire to be hunted?”

         He was already gone.







habis