by Eric Ugland
The shopkeeper pointed to a scale. “Quicker to weigh ‘em.”
I shook my head. “Brilliant.”
While the dude slipped between his shelves and grabbed the potions, I started weighing out gold in sets of five hundred. The man set down five healing potions and four cure disease. Very viscous liquid in glass vials with wooden outer cases.
“With this,” the man said, “I will be happy to throw in a potion holder for a mere ten gold.”
I sighed, but agreed, adding a quick ten coins to the rather large pile.
“Any thing else?”
“You have food?”
“Some. Are you looking for trail rations? Cooking supplies?”
“Both.”
We haggled back and forth, but by the time I left, I had plenty of fresh fruit, a thirty day-ish supply of trail rations, a new shirt for Nolan, a small doll for his sister, and a knapsack to hold whatever Nolan wanted.
The way back was quicker, and I swear Nolan had some pep in his step, almost skipping along.
Naturally, that meant we had to return to an unpleasant situation.
In this case, Nathalie standing in front of the door with her shield out and sword drawn standing between the hovel and a few surly looking types who might possibly have been guards.
“A good day to you all,” I said, affable as could be.
Six assholes turned to face me. The leader type had black teeth, which made it really hard to keep my smile on when he smiled at me. As I got closer, I could see that these men weren’t actually city guards — they were fakes. Could be private security, I supposed, but it seemed more likely that they just used the fear the downtrodden had of the city’s soldiers to inflict a little extra pain.
“Now what is this?” BlackTeeth said. “A clown?”
I looked down at my patchwork armor.
“I do look a bit of a mess, don’t I?”
“Too right you do. Right fool.”
“Is there something going on here?”
“None of your business, Fool.”
“Maybe I’d like to make it my business. Seems like a suitably foolish thing to do.”
“Happy to put you down in the pursuit of my official duty,” the man said, sneering as he pulled out a brutal looking sword from his belt.
“Is violence really the answer here?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied. Then he swung an overhand chop, perhaps thinking he’d take advantage of me not having a weapon on my person.
Without really thinking, I shot my hand up and grabbed the blade on the downswing, gripping it hard.
The steel sword scraped up my armored gauntlet, but otherwise did nothing to me.
I twisted the blade and wrenched it free of his grasp.
He seemed a bit shocked, but that was when the rest of the men he was with pulled their blades.
I looked at the sword with disdain. It was a piece of shit.
“I’m really not looking for another fight today, gents,” I said.
They didn’t seem to be picking up what I was putting down, so I snapped the shitty sword over my knee and tossed the busted blade over my shoulder.
“Fuck off, assholes,” I said, stepping forward. “Or I’ll actually get angry.”
I reached out and grabbed another sword, ripped it free from the faux-guard, and threw it over my shoulder. A moment later, there was the sound of glass breaking, and someone shouting out.
The fake guards looked at each other.
I snapped my fist out and punched BlackTeeth in his face, sending plenty of his namesakes clattering across the cobblestones. His eyes rolled back in his head, his knees went weak, and he dropped to the ground, unmoving.
That seemed to be the breaking point, as the rest of the assholes took off running.
Nathalie slid her weapon back into its sheath, and stood at attention once more.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
“They claimed this structure was illegal,” she said, “and that Zoey needed to pay taxation. In gold or flesh.”
“That’s gross.”
I ducked into the hovel, and saw the woman leaning up against the back wall. She seemed terrified until she realized it was just me. Then she settled down a little.
I passed her a cure disease potion first, and she took it warily. She uncorked the vial, then looked at the potion.
“How do I know this is not poison?”
“You could trust me. Or you could ask Mouse what the dude at the store told me. Or you could think about why I would have taken the time to defend you from those assholes outside just to poison you in here.”
She seemed to consider that, then drank the vial in one gulp, wincing as it went down.
Runic letters seemed to sprout from her body. They whirled around for a moment before settling on her skin, and she seemed to glow for a second. As the glow left, some of her color returned.
I passed a healing potion over.
This time, she just drank it.
She shuddered. The glowing letters thing happened again, and she exhaled a breath she’d been holding. Her whole form seemed to relax as the pain subsided. She leaned her head back against the wall, closed her eyes, and she smiled. A genuine smile.
“Thank you,” she said, keeping her eyes shut. “Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“Just, I feel it is all in vain.”
“Nah—”
“They will return. They will wait until you are not here, and they will return and I will suffer more. My children—”
“Do you actually want to live here?”
“In this hovel? No, but would you have me freeze to death on the streets instead?”
Nolan sat down on the cot and held out the doll for his sister. She reached out her tiny arm, grabbed it and snuggled against it, wide eyes remaining trained on me.
“I have a place you can come to, if you want.”
“Where I can be your debt slave? No thank you.”
“No. Frankly, I don’t exactly understand the whole debt slave thing, and mostly because I think it’s a pretty heinous thing, and partly because I don’t want to try and figure out something so vile, I won’t abide by it nor allow it to happen in my lands. Is that what happened to you?”
“My refusal to participate is what happened to me. I had a trade once, and I earned out my contract. They hate when you do that. But they want what I can do, so they cannot kill me. They just start to take from me. They take my home and they take my health.”
“Not to, you know, denigrate the story at all, but, um, what is your trade?”
“I am a smith.”
“A good one?”
She smiled. “At one time.”
“How about I hire you?”
“You?”
“You’d need to move. Leave Osterstadt.”
“On a contract?”
“Just a pledge of loyalty. And that you give me at least a year. But I’ll pay you. And feed and house you. No charge for that.”
“And my children?”
“Come with us. Just, you know, Mouse can’t steal from me. Ideally, he’d stop the stealing altogether.”
She looked at her hovel, then at her children. She scooped her daughter in her arms.
“Is there, uh, I mean, I don’t want to sound indelicate,” I said, totally sounding indelicate, “but is there a husband? A father to the—”
“He has died.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
She gave a slight nod.
“It was for the best.”
“Do you have any things you need to gather?” I asked.
She waved her hand about the hovel. “Do you think there is a single thing I would like to keep from this hole?”
The little girl held out her new doll.
“There we go,” I said, pointing. “We’re keeping the doll.”
Chapter Fifteen
We made an odd procession, me in my harlequin armor, Mouse walking n
ext to me, Zoey and her daughter, with Nathalie bringing up the rear, still looking resplendent in her shiny armor. I carried a sack of their belongings. We didn’t exactly talk a whole hell of a lot while we walked. The kids were scared, and the mother looked wary. Like someone was going to come for her.
I had a feeling about it. Something bad was going to happen. Notably, unlike damn Nikolai, I didn’t start spouting off about the bad feelings I was having, inviting the fates to intervene and fuck everything up. I kept it to myself and just focused on scanning the environment for any problems.
The city was bustling — it was basically the middle of the day at that point. Having not spent much time in the urban world of Vuldranni, it was really interesting to see how the city worked. How people lived in a city. People walked across the whole road, and, occasionally, there’d be a horse or carriage that would send everyone scurrying to the sides. The perimeters of the street were covered with stalls and wagons selling an insane variety of things — hot food, cold beverages, fruits, trinkets, it ran the gamut. I bought the kids some chilled fruits, and their faces lit up. And that pretty much made my day. I was turning into a big softie. But it felt good. It felt right.
As we got close to the gate, passing by an apothecary’s shop, seven men and ten women came out of an alley in a big line, blocking us from moving forward.
The rest of the people in the road gave us some space, and then went about their day.
In the center of the group was a woman with a hard and cruel face. She wore a dress that was most definitely cut for hard work, and not for anything froufrou like looking good.
“Where is it you are headed, Zoey?” the woman said.
I waited for Zoey to answer. Unfortunately, she seemed cowed by this group, and just stood there, eyes wide, ready for me to turn her over.
“Do you mind if I answer?” I asked Zoey.
She shook her head, but looked to the ground, ashamed, I think.
I nodded, then shook out my body and cracked my neck, stepping in front of my little group. It wasn’t hard, Zoey and her kids were rather small as humans go.
“Hello,” I said, trying my very best to be polite, “who are you?”
“Who am I? Who are you?” the woman snapped back through a foul sneer.
“Let’s not play the who the fuck am I game,” I said, “because I’m pretty sure I’m going to win.”
“I can tell by your appearance that you are not from Osterstadt. So I would kindly ask you to leave because this is not your business.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong. It is my business, and I’m not having the best of days so if you want to fuck off, that’d be swell. ‘Kay?”
Her eyes shot open wide, like she wasn’t used to being spoken to in such a manner. She looked down the line at the rest of her people. No one seemed to believe I’d done what I’d done.
“This is my last warning to you, outsider—”
“Well, fuck you, it’s my last warning to you,” I retorted, then quickly added, “insider.”
“Kill him,” she said.
I looked around, noticing that there were several guards who really didn’t seem to have the slightest of cares with what was happening in their street.
Naturally, because I’d taken my eyes away from my attackers, they’d taken advantage. By the time I turned my attention back to them, a sword was angling up towards my throat. A young woman with raven-black hair having pulled it from her scabbard with some straight up samurai style.
I leaned back, got some bangs, and shot my fist out.
The girl had been pretty, but a steel gauntlet and a metric fuck ton of strength is not really the best means for a makeover. There was a rather sick crunch, and the woman dropped. She was still alive — you could tell because bubbles formed as the blood came out of the remains of her nose.
“Guards!” the woman screamed, shrill. “This man has—”
“Guards!” I shouted, louder, “I have been attacked!”
The woman was shocked.
A single guard walked over to our group, moving slow like he’d rather be rousting drunks out of a park.
“What seems to be going on here?” he asked.
“She attacked me,” I said, pointing to the woman on the ground groaning.
“A-yup,” he said. “Saw that.”
“That is not what happened,” the woman snapped. “And I have witnesses.”
The woman looked to her group, and all the heads nodded, almost in unison.
“I am a witness,” Nathalie said, stepping out and pulling her helm off. She shook out her blonde hair and stood tall. “As cousin to the late Emperor, I declare that this man was attacked, and defended himself.”
“And I,” I said, also doing my best to stand tall and look noble, “Lord Montana Coggeshall, Duke of Coggeshall, Count of Duhamel, Count of Helgand, and Count of Dunnismeer, declare that I was attacked by the woman on the ground after the crazy one ordered her people to kill me.”
“I said I saw what happened,” the guard said. “Seems like she has been punished enough.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Just take your fancy titles and get on your way,” the guard said, “Lord Longhair.”
And so we did. The crazy lady glared at me, and I could tell she was running through all sorts of scenarios in her head where I was being killed in the worst ways possible. I just flashed her my winning smile, and pushed her out of the way so we could walk on by.
At the front gate, I could see we were still being followed by a few of the crazy lady’s people, but the actual crazy lady had gone off on her own somewhere.
“You need to get them to the tree,” I told Nathalie. “I’m not exactly sure of the time, but I have a feeling I need to meet Skeld and crew soon, and I still have to get back to Nutresh.”
“It is eleven o’clock,” Nathalie said.
“How can you tell? The sun?” I looked, but the sun just looked like it was, you know, in the sky.
“Slightly the sun, more the clock.”
She pointed to a clock mounted above a tavern across the way. Sure enough, 11.
“Okay,” I said, “there are clocks around here. Good to know.”
Nathalie gave me a smile, a genuine one.
“You can trust her,” I told Zoey. “And I will meet you later tonight. Nathalie is going to take you somewhere safe. And tomorrow, we’re going to head to a new home. Okay?”
Zoey nodded. “I am sorry about that woman. She is, she represents…” she stammered out and trailed off, seemingly at a loss for words.
“We have a bit of a hike in front of us, so you can tell me the story later. For now, go have a hot meal, meet some of the people going with us, and don’t worry. You’re safe.”
Zoey gave a wan smile, like she wasn’t quite ready to believe me, but nodded, and started walking towards the gate, holding both of her kids’ hands.
“Beware the promises you make, Lordling,” Nathalie said, looking a bit grim. “Safety is not a sure thing in this land, especially outside these walls.”
“It will be for them,” I said, firm, promising myself I’d make sure I died before those three. “Just keep them safe for tonight, okay? I’ll take over after I get this city behind me.”
Nathalie sighed at me, then turned and followed her new charges.
Chapter Sixteen
Nutresh was not particularly happy to see me back. Having caught a whiff of myself, I think it’s fair to say he wasn’t exactly keen on smelling me either.
I plopped down in the chair, my armor creaking ever so much as I did, and made sure I had a big smile plastered over my face.
“You missed quite the good time,” I said.
“I am sure,” he replied, droll as ever.
“Have you ever seen the monsters that—“
“No. And I have no interest in it either.”
“Fair enough. Now, where were we?”
“I believe I was in the midst of presenting
rather disappointing news.”
“Ah, right. Mister Bottes’s sudden success in ridding himself of his chattel.”
“Now, lord Coggeshall, is that really a term we feel should be used in this situation?”
I ignored his statement, and continued into the other thing that bothered me. “What I’m trying to sort through, rather, is the simple question of why your boss has seen fit to try this method of getting out of the favor he agreed to.”
“I assure you, he has done nothing of the sort. This is simply an unfortunate coincidence for you and a smart business play for him. Something he has had planned for some time, and it just so happened to conclude on this morning. And lest you forget, I have been authorized to enter into negotiations with you until you are satisfied.”
“How many workers can Mister Bottes offer me?”
“Five. Seven if you are willing to accept dwarves.”
“I have no qualms over any races.”
“One of those, are you?” a sneer appearing on his thin lips.
“I suppose I am, yes.”
“Then I can push it up to,” he flipped through his ledger, “ten.”
“Thirty to ten? And how many of these are tier one?”
“One.”
“Tier two?”
“None.”
“The rest?”
“Four are unranked, five are bottom tier.”
“This does not inspire overwhelming confidence from me.”
“Ah, but I have yet to tell you the good news.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Being that you are a man of the world, I assume you have no qualms with the use of magic.”
“None.”
“Then I have been authorized to offer you the employment of more wizards from the Magic Circle.”
“Wizards.”
“Yes. A geomancer might be the most useful thing for a man building a city. Or an enchanter. There are plenty of uses for magic.”
“You don’t mind magic?”
“Oh, I think it is a way to open yourself up to possession by Outsiders and how you will face the most vile of outcomes. Any use of magic is beyond evil, and those who practice it are an abomination.”