“You are correct, young fellow,” Tork said. “It is in the keeping of another. Matlin’s his name. Likes to be alone; never was one for the company of others. Think he took to living by himself; but haven’t heard from him for many a year.”
“Old Jim said he lived just up the mountain from a town called Cara?”
The old man shrugged. “Possibly. Last I heard he was somewhere near there. But like I said, he isn’t one that enjoys being disturbed.”
He shuffled along at an agonizingly slow pace. From a side alley ahead, a man emerged and turned toward them. It was clear they were his destination.
Tork spied him, came to a stop and glanced over his shoulder. “You boys in trouble?”
Scar shook his head. “Not that we know of.”
“Never been here before,” Potbelly added. “Only been in town less than a day.”
Scar eyed the old man. “Why?”
The question had barely left his lips before he noticed the man coming their way. The set of his jaw, the steel of his gaze and the fact that his left hand clutched a dagger said this was the trouble to which the old man referred.
“Let me deal with him,” Tork said.
“Gladly,” Potbelly replied.
“Who is he?”
Scar’s question remained unanswered as the man drew near.
“Out of the way, Tork,” the man demanded.
Raising his cane, Tork placed the end against the man’s chest. “What business do you have here, Verin?”
Verin pointed to Potbelly. “This man sullied my Adele.” Grabbing the cane, he made to thrust it aside but the length of wood flashed brightly and knocked his hand away. A second flash forced him back a step.
“Lay not your hands upon me or mine!”
“Beware, Old Man.”
“No, you beware. Your quarrel is with him, not me. Keep that in mind lest you rue this night.”
Verin looked on the point of splitting the old man with his knife right then and there. But something in Tork’s gaze made him take a step back and to the side.
Tork turned back to Scar and Potbelly. “If you survive, come to my hut.”
“Where can we find it?” Scar asked, never once taking his eyes off Verin.
Pointing along the street ahead of them, he said, “Out past the edge of town.”
He turned back to Verin, grunted and muttered under his breath about the dregs of society, the old man then continued up the street.
Scar and Potbelly made to follow but Verin barred their way. His knife blade was pointed at Potbelly.
“You have an accounting, dog.”
“I’m sure I have no idea about what it is you seem dead set to get killed over,” Potbelly said. “I don’t know any Adele.”
Verin’s face turned red. “This afternoon, at the Keg and Bottle….”
“Oh.”
Scar turned to his friend. “Oh?”
Potbelly glanced to Verin. “The barmaid?”
“My Betrothed!”
“Took her for a tumble did you?” asked Scar.
“I did not know she was your betrothed,” argued Potbelly. “She definitely never mentioned you, only the coin she required.”
“You lie!” spat Verin. “Adele is as pure as the falling snow.”
“Man, you don’t know her very well if you think that,” Potbelly countered. “She did things that would make…”
Verin screeched an inarticulate sound and shot forward, knife thrusting for Potbelly’s midsection.
Scar danced out of the way while Potbelly stepped to the side, narrowly avoiding the blade. When the man slashed sideways, Potbelly blocked the attack with his forearm then knocked him backward with a kick in the stomach.
Verin stumbled, nearly hit the ground but recovered quickly. Upon righting himself, he found Potbelly with sword and dagger in hand.
“Need any help?” offered Scar.
“Hardly think so,” Potbelly replied. Then to Verin, “Sir, I apologize to you and your betrothed. I truly did not know she belonged to you.”
Verin ignored his attempt at reconciliation. He stepped forward with an overhand hack.
Potbelly easily deflected the downward thrust with his sword. Managed to turn Verin nearly ninety degrees and for an added insult, kicked him in the seat of his pants causing him to lose his balance and sprawl face first into the dirt.
“Now,” he began, “I do not wish to kill you. You can’t win; why don’t you just accept my apology and live another day?”
“Yes,” agreed Scar. “I’m sure your Adele would much prefer you alive.” He glanced to Potbelly then noticed the altercation had drawn the attention of some of the townsfolk. One ran off toward The Gnashing Teeth.
Verin got back to his feet.
“You cannot defile my betrothed and live,” he cried. Rushing forward, he again tried to stab Potbelly. This time, Potbelly met the attack with his dagger; caught Verin’s blade between his blade and the crossguard, and twisted. Verin’s knife fell to the ground.
The man stepped back with Potbelly’s sword pressing into his abdomen. “I’ve had enough of this. Either accept my apology…or die.”
“Watch out!” came Scar’s warning, but too late.
A man ran from the crowd, dove, and crashed into Potbelly. Both men tumbled to the ground.
The sound of Scar’s twin swords leaving their scabbards came a split-second before the crash of metal on metal. Another from the crowd had rushed Scar with a short sword.
Scar knocked it aside once, twice and then on the man’s third lightning quick attack, followed with a thrust of his second sword taking him in the right shoulder. Not a killing blow but one that left his sword arm useless and the man’s short sword in the dirt.
Potbelly had regained his feet and the two friends stood back to back in an ever growing ring of opponents. Sword, maces, knives, more than a dozen men encircled them.
“Killers!”
“Murderers!”
“Thieves!”
Two women had come to the man’s aid and were even now tearing his shirt and seeing to the wound.
Verin had by this time reclaimed his knife and was whipping the others up into a killing frenzy.
“They soiled my Adele!” he shouted. Cries of outrage followed.
“Her honor must be avenged!”
“Kill them both!” a man shouted.
Scar faced a man towering over a foot taller than himself. The giant of a man bore a mace as long as his long swords and having a head the size of a pumpkin dotted with three inch spikes. He swung it with an ease belying its obvious weight.
“Come on,” Scar said, beckoning with a sword taunting him. “You wish to be the first to die this night?”
With a cry, the giant of a man leapt forward. Using both hands, he swung a powerful strike at Scar’s midsection.
Stepping back and to the side he waited for the massive weapon to pass through where he had just stood, then shot forward. One sword took the man’s arm just below the wrist, severing flesh and nerves. Fingers grew slack and the mace fell. As the man cried out, Scar’s second sword came in from the side to rake across his chest; opening up shirt and flesh. The tip scrapped across ribs and blood flowed free.
The crowd stood stunned as Scar twisted and knocked the giant back on his butt with a roundhouse kick to the chest. For a moment, silence reigned supreme. Then with a roar, the armed men rushed forward en masse.
Verin was the first to reach Potbelly. His attack lacked any finesse as had his previous ones. This time, Potbelly didn’t pull any punches. He twisted, allowed Verin to close and sunk his knife into the man’s chest. As he pulled the knife free, Potbelly struck him in the side of the head with the pommel of his sword. Even as another man wielding a sword closed with the pit fighter, Verin’s soon to be lifeless body fell to the ground.
Blades danced as Potbelly with sword and dagger stood back to back with Scar and his twin long swords. Their dance of death claimed man
after man and still they kept coming. Then as Scar faced off against two men with swords, he caught sight of movement atop a nearby building.
“We got archers,” he announced.
Potbelly felled a knifer with a slit across the throat then ran a macer through with his sword. “Time to go.”
“Break left…” Scar said. Swords flashed and a mace was blocked on his right, a sword was deflected on his left then a quick follow up thrust dropped the macer. “Now!”
Both swords thrust at the swordsman causing him to stumble backward to avoid being run through. His withdrawal created an opening and the pit fighters raced off.
An arrow struck the ground where Potbelly had stood just a moment ago and another whizzed by his ear as he and Scar raced down an alley.
-2-
The unmistakable smell of a tannery filled the alleyway as they raced for their lives. The clatter of booted feet behind them said they were being pursued.
“We’re going to have the Watch after us sure as anything,” Scar said.
At the far end of the alley, they turned right. He paused a moment to glance back and saw the dozen or so men coming after.
“Will you move!” Potbelly said. Taking his friend by the arm, he pulled him onto one of the main thoroughfares of Castin.
This late at night, there were few out and about. Of those that were, even fewer were going about honest labor.
Oil lamps atop poles lit the street at twenty feet intervals. Beneath several, groups of men with the occasional woman stood in tight, huddled groups. A few raised their head as the duo passed though most ignored them, or at the very least feigned indifference so as not to be bothered.
Their pursuers boiled out into the street after them.
“Stop them!” they shouted.
“Murderers!” another cried.
Scar darted into another alley two blocks up. Potbelly followed close on his heels.
“We have to get off the streets,” Potbelly said.
Pausing only a moment, Scar scanned the alley; seeing a door slightly ajar a little ways down, he raced for it. “In here,” he said and shot inside.
Potbelly shut the door quickly and quietly just as their pursuers rounded the corner and entered the alley. They held their breaths as the stamping of feet quickly passed by.
“Maybe we should lay low until just before our ship sails,” Potbelly suggested. “Then make it there just before it leaves.”
Scar shook his head. “We are getting that map.”
“Are you addled? Tork said his hut was outside of town. There is still a lot of town to go before we leave it behind.”
“I don’t care,” Scar argued. “We aren’t leaving until we get that map. We’ve come too far to give up now.”
Potbelly had heard that tone in Scar’s voice and knew reason would have no sway over him. “How do you plan to make it to Tork’s place and get back to our ship by the time it sails in the morning?”
“One thing at a time. We get the map first then worry about the ship.” He glanced out a small window overlooking the alley, then turned to Potbelly. “If you wouldn’t dally with barmaids in every city we come to, things wouldn’t now be out of hand.”
Potbelly spat on the floor. “I did not know she was betrothed. Besides, seems to me I remember someone nearly getting spitted with sleeping with another man’s wife? Does Yearniga ring a bell?”
Scar chuckled. “She told me her husband was dead.”
“And yet we were in nearly the same predicament as we find ourselves now.”
“True enough,” Scar said and slapped Potbelly on the shoulder. “Now, let’s see where we are.”
The building proved to be occupied. Beggars, the destitute, and a plethora of ne’er-do-wells filled its various rooms. As they made their way through them, those they encountered looked up from their various forms of misery and watched them pass.
One old beggar held out a hand and Potbelly nearly gave him a coin but was stopped by Scar.
“Not here,” Scar warned in a quiet whisper. “If they know we have coins we’ll not get out alive.”
Potbelly nodded and they left the old beggar behind.
Five women dressed quite scantily were in various stages of repose in the main hall off the entrance. Two lay on old, stuffing-oozing couches, two sat on boxes, and the last leaned on the door jamb. They were in a state of boredom until Scar and Potbelly emerged from the inner corridor.
“Hey, boys,” one on a couch said. A busty brunette with an ample bosom patted the cushion she rested upon, “Could you use a tumble?”
A redhead on a box stood and strode forward very seductively. “I’ve been so lonely,” she said. Her hips swayed most suggestively. “Would love some company.”
“Sorry, ladies,” Scar said without even slowing down. “No time for a dalliance.”
As Scar made to pass by the lady leaning against the door jamb, she said, “Only two coppers.” She reached out and put her arms around Scar’s neck and made to kiss him.
Scar pushed her away. “Not tonight. We’re on business.”
She pouted. “Maybe when you’re done?”
Potbelly caught the woman running her hand down Scar’s side as Scar brushed past; saw her lift his coin purse. His left hand punched her in the stomach. As she doubled over, he relieved her of Scar’s coin purse. “Try this again and I’ll not be so gentle.” He tossed it to Scar.
Gasping and crying, she crumbled to the floor.
“You need to be more careful,” he advised his friend.
“Well, thanks,” Scar replied.
The other girls hollered at them, told them to get out of there and to stop beating up on poor, weak and defenseless women.
“I doubt if there is anything weak and defenseless about any of them,” Scar said. “Like as not they are each carrying and would have slit our throats when we were at our most vulnerable.”
“You got that right.”
Out on the street they moved quickly, but not so quickly as to draw attention, in the general direction where they believed Tork lived. Once the hollering women had fallen behind and their cacophony had diminished in the distance, they strained to hear anything to indicate their pursuers were nearby. Not hearing anything, they kept to the main street.
Every few blocks, they would duck into an alleyway or pause in some building’s dark threshold to see if they were being pursued. When no one seemed unduly interested in them, they would continue. They had gone seven blocks and had just passed through an intersection having a statue of a swordsman standing proudly upon a pedestal when motion up ahead caused them to dart up three steps and shelter within a darkened doorway.
“Think it’s them?” Potbelly asked.
Scar looked around the doorway’s edge to the street ahead. Three forms strode purposely their way. Heads turned to and fro and at each alleyway entrance, they would pause to look down it.
“Must be,” Scar replied.
Potbelly checked the door and found it locked. He pulled his knife.
“How long?” he asked as he knelt before the lock and inserted his blade’s tip.
“Not very,” Scar replied. “Best make it fast.”
Moving the blade about the inner workings of the lock, he discovered the locking mechanism’s release.
“Two seconds,” he said.
“Make it one,” Scar replied, “they are almost upon us.”
Carefully, he pressed the knife’s tip against the release and ever so slowly, pressed it inward.
“Now, if you would,” Scar urged.
Potbelly felt the lock click and sink into the open position.
“Got it!” Turning the handle, he pushed open the door and hurried inside.
Scar followed and passed within just as the three men came abreast of their position. He shut the door in a normal, relaxed manner though his instincts said to slam closed as fast as possible.
They waited half a minute expecting someone to break in the door
or at the very least, knock. When neither transpired, they breathed a sigh of relief.
“We’ll wait a few minutes and let them get further down the street,” Scar suggested.
Potbelly nodded and then looked around the foyer they found themselves in.
Though cloaked in shadows, they could tell the owner of this place had money. Two pieces of artwork hung on the wall and on a pedestal not far from the door sat the bust of a man’s head and upper torso. A rug ran the length of the foyer and continued into the room beyond.
“I’ve been thinking,” Potbelly began.
“What about?” Scar said as he moved to look out a small window to the right of the door.
“It may be possible that they will know we mean to visit Tork.”
“Hardly,” Scar replied. “Only one that could have known that was Verin and he’s dead.”
“Not necessarily,” argued Potbelly. “There was already a crowd gathering when Tork and Verin were speaking. Any one of them could have put it together that we were accompanying Tork; especially since he said to meet him at his hut if we survived.”
Scar turned from the window. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”
Potbelly joined him at the window. “Clear?”
“I think so.”
Opening the door slowly, they stepped out on the front stoop. There they scanned the street in both directions; the three men were nowhere to be found.
Scar started down the steps. “Come on.”
Once on the street, they hadn’t gone ten feet before a very aged and ragged looking beggar stepped out of the shadows with hand held out. “A coin, good master?”
Potbelly flipped him a copper. “Here you go, old man.”
As they moved to leave him behind, the old beggar said, “Avoiding Garrock’s men?”
They stopped in their tracks and spun about. Scar’s hand gripped one of his swords. “What are you talking about?”
“I couldn’t help but notice that you ducked into that house awfully fast when his men approached.”
“This is none of your business, old man,” Scar warned.
Grinning a gap-toothed grin, the old beggar said, “I have no love for Garrock. Mean and nasty he is. Truly a blight upon this city.”
The Improbable Adventures of Scar and Potbelly: Ice Terraces of Crystal Crag Page 2