Tor slightly leans forward. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Khloe.”
Khloe beams, and she taps her notepad twice. “Nice to meet you too. I’ll be right out with those steaks.” And she spins away and waddles toward the kitchen.
Miles flicks his head at Tor. “I see you’re a ladies man there, Tor. Me and Pard are too.”
Pard smiles for a second but it quickly fades as he is reminded of Selby.
Miles can see Pard stewing and attempts to brighten him up. “Hey, sorry, she’ll be all right, don’t think about it.”
Deet doesn’t look at any of them and keeps his eyes fixed on the door, ready to react if anyone unexpected barges in. “Lord Marlow’s right, best not dwell on it, kid. Only pain lies there.”
Pard looks at Deet. “The same way you dwell on it?”
Taken aback, Deet glances away from the door for a split second but doesn’t say a word.
“I see how you’re always looking at that broken watch of yours. Staring at it for minutes at a time. Sometimes I even see you smile as if you’re with someone who gives you joy.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, kid.”
Pard leans toward Deet and his eyes open wider. “Don’t I?”
“Leave it lie.”
“But yet you feel you can dispense your advice on my matters of the heart.”
Deet scrunches his lips. “Yeah, you’re right, she’s dead, get used to it.”
Pard sits back in his chair but doesn’t give up. “Who was she?”
Deet continues to stare at the door with a blank expression on his face. “She was my life, and she was taken from me on my wedding day by the same types that are now hunting you. They showed her no mercy, heartless and pure evil, and she was the kindest and most beautiful creature in all of Vetlinue, and I couldn’t do anything to save her.”
“I’m sorry,” Pard says.
Miles puckers his lips and nods. “Yeah, me too, tough that is.”
“Death comes to us all,” Tor says with his dry philosophy, “even to the kindest and the most beautiful.”
Deet slightly rolls his eyes and glances at Tor. “Yes, thanks, I understand that, big guy.”
“So tell me about your sister,” Pard says.
“She’s a pain in the ass who asks way too many questions and gets into way too much trouble, just like you.”
Miles laughs.
Tor scowls, not taking Deet’s meaning of his esen’er.
“Is it bad I ask too many questions?” Pard says.
“No, kid, but sometimes it’s best to leave things lie until they’re ready to come out.”
“But what if they’re never ready to come out?”
Deet doesn’t respond, so Pard moves away from the pocket watch and on to Preta, wanting to hear more about his seeros sister. “So she’s a pain in the ass, what else can you tell me about her?”
Deet rocks his head as he thinks on it. “She’s smart, a brilliant artist, tempered but kind, in some ways she’s beyond her years, and others, well, definitely not beyond her years, sis I’d say, she’s most definitely a pain in the ass, and I miss her and that pain everyday.”
Pard giggles. “Yeah, you already said that she was a pain.”
Deet smiles. “She’s a good girl, and she didn’t deserve to be ripped from her home and family and cast into the world alone and afraid.”
Tor interjects, “Often it is the trial that forms the deserving and a pure spirit.”
Deet rolls his eyes again. “Thanks, Tor.”
“Had to be said, so the boys understand, they must learn.”
Khloe sets a plate with a large juicy steak surrounded by potatoes on it in front of Miles. “And here’s what you’ve been waiting for, dear.”
Miles, licking his lips, already holds his knife in one hand and fork in the other, ready to attack once Khloe retracts her arm.
Next, Khloe sets a plate in front of Pard and then Deet and then Tor last.
Tor lifts his napkin and opens it with the grace of a gentleman and gently grazes Khloe’s forearm with the back of his hand.
Khloe shivers and blushes, and she gives Tor a pleasing eye for a second longer than normal.
“Looks delicious,” Tor says, looking at Khloe and not the steak.
Miles chops and slices his steak with emphatic cuts and piles the meat into his mouth until his cheeks bulge. He mumbles in slurs, “It is delicious.”
“I hope you all enjoy your meal,” Khloe says, “and because you’re special guests of the inn,” and she glances at Tor, “and such wonderful men, I’ll stay open as long as you need to finish and enjoy your steaks, so take your time.”
Tor gives Khloe a kind smile, and Khloe sighs and turns around and waddles away.
Miles points his fork at Tor with a piece of potato perched on the end. “Skills. You have skills, Uncle Tor. I have the eye, and I like your style, aggressive, but in a smooth and subtle way, effective.”
“It is all in the spirit, Lord Marlow. Follow it and be true to it and it shall never lead you astray, even if you think it is.”
Pard giggles and places a piece of steak in his mouth.
An hour passes and they all lean back in their chairs, bellies full and sated.
Deet stands. “We best be off and back to the room. We have a long day tomorrow and need to be on the move before dawn.”
Tor gently dabs the corners of his mouth with the napkin, much like an over conscious aristocrat finishing a five star meal and the whole room is watching his every move. He looks at Deet. “I’ll take care of the tab. You take the boys back to the inn and I’ll be right behind you.”
“Sounds good.” Deet eyes Pard and Miles. “Ready to go?”
Pard scoots out of his chair.
Miles slumps in his chair and rubs his bloated stomach. “I think I ate too much.” He hiccups and burps, sending fumes in Tor’s direction.
Pard giggles and twists his face as he waves his hand in front of his nose. “Dang, Miles.”
Tor doesn’t flinch or say a word.
Miles burps again and makes a sickly face. “I think I may barf.”
Deet shakes his head. “Just like someone else I know who can’t control his actions or tongue. Why does it seem like I’m always having déjà vu with the both of you?” He kicks Miles’s chair. “Come on, get up, we’re leaving.”
Miles coughs and swallows funny as he slides out of his chair and gets to his feet.
Pard turns back to Khloe, and he waves goodbye. “Thanks for the meal, Ms. Khloe, it was wonderful.”
Khloe waves back. “You bet, you have a good night now, and stay warm out there, it’s a chilly one tonight.” She beams as Tor strolls toward her with a strong casual gate.
Pard slips outside and a cold burst of wind hits him and his body shrinks.
Deet slides past him and flips his black hood over his head.
Miles moves forward but his feet drag, and he’s still hiccuping.
Outside the restaurant, the streets dark and quiet, most of the light and folk on the opposite side of town at the festival near the park and pond and stage in the square.
Deet hurries past an alley on the right with Pard right on his heels.
“Please, help me, help me,” a distressed woman says in a hushed voice.
Pard squints, leaning forward and peering into the dark alley, a faint glow from a few flickering candles perched in the windowsills of rooms on the second and third floor apartments shed a dabble of muted light into the upper half of the passageway.
“Keep moving,” Deet says, barely turning around or stopping.
“But it sounds like someone needs help.”
Miles stops next to Pard, hiccups, and peers into the alley.
“Please, help me,” the woman says again.
Miles steps into the muted void.
“What are you doing?”
“You heard her, she needs help. Hiccup. But I may be too full to help, come on.”
Pard, embolden by the last two days of Cray and Hawke and Tor and his ‘spirit,’ he passes Miles and enters deeper into the dark passage.
Deet peeks behind him and doesn’t see Pard or Miles. “Shit. Why me?” He spins around and jogs back toward the alley.
Pard continues to creep forward with Miles right on his hip.
“I need help, please, it’s so cold, I have a baby.”
“Wa—wa—” a baby cries in deep scratchy bursts which sound totally unlike a baby, but Pard and Miles, unfamiliar with the proper sound, continue forward.
Pard glances at Miles, asking him with his eyes if this is such and good idea.
Miles shrugs and hiccups.
“Marlow—kid!” Deet says, slipping and sliding on the snow and icy cobblestones while trying to run.
Pard peeks back for a second but ignores Deet. He moves forward faster toward the dim glow of the windows ahead. He gets to a lit section of the alley and stops. “Where are you? We can help you.”
A gangly young woman, pale with scraggly reddish frizzy hair tucked under a tattered brown knit cap and is bundled up in three or four sweaters full of holes, steps out from a shadowed corner. She stares at Pard and tilts her head to the side. She frowns and there is a gleam in her eye. “Help me, help me, I have a baby.” Then she laughs.
Suddenly, Pard’s eyes shift to the other side of the alley to a lanky man with yellow skin and slits for eyes who slides out from the shadows.
The man frowns and cries like a baby. He grins, exposing the numerous gaps in his brown and chipped teeth. He raises a long hooked blade to chest level and taps his sternum.
Deet slides into the lit area and bumps into the back of Miles.
Miles loses his footing and tumbles forward, landing at the feet of the lanky man.
Deet reaches for his pistol, and the lanky man snatches Miles’s sweater and yanks him to his feet, then slides a knife to Miles’s throat. “All your valuables and your shooter, put them on the ground in front of you and take five steps back or the boy dies.”
More feet shuffling announce their presence along the wall behind Pard from the direction he just came from, and two more men, larger, shrouded in black tattered clothes, step out of the shadows and close in on them.
“Great,” Deet says. He scowls at Pard. “What part of listen, don’t say a word, and don’t wander off did you not understand?”
“Must have been all of it,” the lanky man says.
The woman raises a dagger and talks in a seductive manner though her revulsive demeanor and face make Pard angry. “I can be very convincing to men.”
“Vomit,” Miles says with a slight lurch.
The lanky man shakes Miles. “Shut it.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Pard says.
The woman snorts. “Ashamed? Ashamed, the boy says.” The woman giggles in annoying high-pitched spurts which makes Pard want to punch her in her pimple-covered face. He raises his fists.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the lanky man says, tapping the flat of the rusty metal blade on Miles’s exposed skin.
Pard clinches his teeth and his blood pumps harder as his temper rises. How can I be so stupid?
“Valuables and shooter—on the ground, beard man.”
“Do we have a problem here?” Tor’s deep calm voice says in the dark of the alley.
The two men behind Pard whirl around and face Tor almost entirely obscured in shadow except for a faint outline of his giant body.
The lanky man waves his blade in the air. “No problem, now be off with you and mind your own business.”
“But I am minding my business,” Tor says. “So I say again, do we have a problem here?”
Pard glances back and forth between Tor and the lanky man. He eyes Miles, and Miles grins back at him and hiccups.
“Can you believe this guy?” the lanky man says. He points his knife down the dark alley and rolls his neck and head as if he has a nervous twitch. “Go get him.”
The two men slide long clubs out from underneath their long tattered coats and move toward the dark.
Pard squints and focuses on Tor’s outline as it grows larger.
Pffff—
Pffff—
Steam and snot shoot out of Tor’s nose and enters the light.
The lanky man leans forward to get a better view. “What the hell?”
“You are so screwed, buddy,” Miles says, and then he hiccups again. “I’d run now if I were you.”
The men swing their clubs wildly in the dark.
Tor leaps twenty feet in the air and a glimmer of his face brightens near the top of the roofs as it pierces the moonlight.
The lanky man’s eyes track Tor’s body and catch a faint glimpse, but he doesn’t believe what he just saw. He shakes his head and blinks excessively.
“Screwed, buddy,” Miles says.
Tor lands with a thud which shakes the alley cobblestones. Icicles break away from their gutter eaves high above and rain down and shatter all around the scraggly woman. Tor snatches a man and throws him toward Pard and the lanky man. The man’s body launches in the air.
Pard smirks as he tracks the man flying past a third story window, over his head, and landing right behind the lanky man.
The lanky man fidgets and whirls around with Miles still in tow and stares at his twisted comrade not moving on the ground.
“Uncle Rot knows all kinds of cool tricks,” Miles says.
“Uncle Rot?” the lanky man says with a high-pitched quiver.
“You are so screwed, buddy.”
The woman’s mouth drops as she glances from the shattered ice to the twisted man lying motionless.
“Ah!” the other man in shadow yells as he flies and comes crashing down with a whoosh and a thud and a bounce and a slide right in front of the lanky man and woman.
The lanky man gulps. “How is this possible?”
Miles chuckles and then hiccups. “I told you, that’s my Uncle Rot, you’re screwed, buddy, better run now or you go fly-fly bye-bye like a bird and squish against the stone.”
The lanky man turns back toward Pard and Deet. His blade shakes in his hand.
“If you run now and you’re lucky—hiccup—you may even get away. But not if you kill me. If my Uncle Rot catches you—hiccup—and he will, he will break you in two and gnaw on your bones while you’re still alive. Hiccup.”
The lanky man leans forward as the outline of Tor’s body grows larger the closer he gets and the nearer he is to the light.
Tor strolls forward, in no hurry to present himself. “I said, do we have a problem?”
The lanky man removes the shaky hooked blade from Miles’s neck and takes a stutter step back. He glances at the woman already slowly backing away toward the other end of the alley, putting distance between herself, the lanky man, and Uncle Rot.
The woman gives a quick glance at the two twisted men lying on the ground, one moaning, broken and mangled, the other a lump of flesh, dead. “No problem. Just going for a walk on my way to the festival and these men attacked me. Thank you so much for helping me. I’ll be on my way now.” And the woman takes off in a run and disappears in the dark.
Tor emerges into the light, tikba in full view, no clothes on his upper half, but a thick leather strap crisscrosses over his chest and back.
The lanky man’s eyes widen with shock. The man drops his knife.
Miles hiccups. “Better run.”
Tor bends slightly over, his gigantic muscular body pulsates like a bull, and more steam and snot shoot out of his nose.
Pffff—
Pffff—
Tor stands tall and removes a massive double-bladed battle-axe tethered to his back which Pard and Miles and Deet didn’t realize he had.
Miles’s lips curl into a sly grin. “Look at that—hiccup—Uncle Rot brought a new toy to your party—hiccup—wonder what he’s gonna do with that.”
Pard stares in awe. That’s my friend. He smiles and can ma
ke out a faint human grin piercing through Tor’s menacing tikba mask. Maybe I am lucky.
Tor twirls the battle-axe in front of his body with precision and grace as he strolls forward, the proud and noble creature shining through with every stride.
“Oh-oh, shit!” the lanky man says, and he stumbles backward and slips and slides on the ice and falls onto his butt. He pops back up to his feet and skips until his feet grip a cobblestone. He runs away down the dark alley, screaming and arms flailing.
Pffff—
Pffff—
Tor’s body vibrates and wiggles and transforms back into his human form.
“Dang, Uncle Rot,” Miles says, “you’re one nasty badass—hiccup.”
OLD FRIENDS
After a quiet remainder of their evening followed by a peaceful night of sleep, Pard and the others leave the inn the next morning and head to Khloe’s restaurant for breakfast before another day of trekking to Ravin.
“So how long before we make it to Ravin and the train station?” Pard says to Deet as he strolls along the sidewalk.
“By my calculation we should be there in two days. Then all we need to do is catch a train and we’ll really put some distance between us and Alexa.”
Pard and Miles bump shoulders into each other and joke as Deet and Tor walk behind them. Deet eyes his map rechecking his calculations, and Tor scans every person, old or young that pass by, which they all quickly avert their gaze and curiosity and mind their own business.
Miles pats the iron bumper of a motor carriage sitting in front of the town’s bank. “This is what we need, if we take one of these mechanical buggies we’ll be in Ravin within an hour and be done with the walking and cold and Alexa.”
“No stealing unless we don’t have a choice,” Deet says.
“So high and mighty you are, I was just saying. Besides, if you already forgot, it’s freezing out here, and it kind of warrants a need, I think. It wouldn’t be like we’re taking the buggy forever, just to the next town over, and then the owner can have it back.”
“No stealing!”
Miles rolls his eyes. “Fine.”
A rumble and engines sputtering catches their attention.
Pard and the others turn, and a line of three motor buggies bounce on the road moving toward them.
The Ruens of Fairstone (Aeon of Light Book 2) Page 30