“Good,” he says. Then to Reilin, “Now go down and have meals sent up for James and the others. Then we’ll leave.”
“Alright!” exclaims Shorty jubilantly.
Once Reilin has left Jiron turns to the rest of them. “This is not some pleasure excursion with drinking and debauchery,” he insists. “We are after information and that is all!”
“Hey, calm down,” Scar says.
“Yeah,” adds Potbelly, “we understand.”
He gives them another stern gaze then has them go to his and James’ room to wait for Reilin’s return. Once he’s returned and says the food will be up shortly, Jiron indicates the pit fighters and says to James, “They want to come too.” When he receives James’ nod that he’s okay with it, he adds, “Be back as soon as possible.”
As he is about to leave, James says, “Don’t make me come and save your butt this time.” Jiron pauses and glances back with a grin, “You won’t.” He remembers the ill-fated trip he and the others took where a tavern wench had tricked them and wound up hog-tied in her basement. If it wasn’t for James and Roland rescuing them, they would have been sold off to slavers.
Turning back to the door, he leads the others out into the hallway and downstairs to the common room. There he makes a beeline for the exit and they soon find themselves out on the partially crowded streets. He makes a quick scan to see which way is the quickest to the river. When he catches a glimpse of moonlight reflected off water from down the street he immediately heads in that direction.
Jiron keeps a brisk pace as they make their way down the street to the river. According to the child abductor they question about the necklace, they will find The Split Navel down by the river. As they draw closer to the river, the density of people on the street thins and the buildings begin to show more signs of wear, tear, and lack of upkeep that those more toward the center of town hadn’t. Definitely moving into the poorer quarter of the city.
The street they’re on finally comes to an end at a cross street running alongside the river. On the far side of the street are shanties built almost all the way to the water’s edge. “They don’t leave themselves much leeway for floods,” states Scar. One of the buildings looks to actually overhang the flow of the river.
“Not very smart that’s for sure,” offers Stig.
Jiron brings them to a halt at the intersection and looks up this new street first in one direction then in another. Neither direction reveals anything that would indicate a brothel or something similar.
“Do you think that guy lied to us?” asks Shorty.
“Brother Willim seemed pretty confident that he hadn’t,” Jiron says. Then to Reilin he nods over to several young men hanging out on the corner. “Go over there and see if they can tell us where it is.”
Reilin nods then moves over and begins talking with the men. At one point Reilin reaches into his pocket and pulls out a couple coins and hands them over. After that the men are much more talkative and helpful.
The others wait and soon see him turn around and make his way back to join them. “It’s down this way,” he says as he points to the section of the street heading off to their left.
“Is it a brothel then?” asks Jiron. Moving out, the others follow right behind him.
“Not exactly,” explains Reilin. “It’s more a tavern than a brothel. When I asked them about it, they said there are a few girls that work there, but mostly it’s a tavern.”
“Great!” exclaims Potbelly.
“Don’t be getting any ideas,” Jiron says with a quick glance back. “We are not getting drunk tonight.”
“Aw, come on,” Scar says. “A couple ales won’t hurt anything.”
“I’ll skin any one of you who gets drunk,” he says. Then he comes to a stop and turns back toward them. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Absolutely,” affirms Shorty.
Turning back to continue down the street, he glances at the buildings lining the sides and asks Reilin, “Which one is it?”
“They said to look for a doorway with two dark lanterns hanging next to it,” he replies.
Moving down the darkened street, they leave the light coming from the hanging lantern on the street corner behind. Jiron searches the fronts of the buildings he passes for any sign of two lanterns, dark or otherwise.
“Be a good place for a murder,” comments Scar. They are beginning to feel on edge.
Then, “There it is,” Jiron announces. A rather dilapidated looking, double story structure standing on their right has a doorway flanked by two unlit lanterns. No light can be seen coming from any of the building’s windows and the area is quiet as a tomb.
“That can’t be the place,” Stig says. “It looks deserted.”
“Could be intentional,” Shorty suggests.
“We’ll find out,” Jiron says as he moves toward the door. Pausing at the foot of the three steps leading up to the door, he glances back and says, “Stay alert.” Indicating for Reilin to accompany him, he turns back and takes the steps up to the door where he knocks three times. When nothing happens he knocks again, this time louder.
The sound of a floorboard creaking comes through the door. “Someone’s in there,” whispers Reilin.
Jiron nods. He places his ear against the door just as the sound of the deadbolt being pulled back comes through to them. Then, the door opens a crack and a voice from the dark within asks, “Yes?”
Reilin looks at Jiron who nods toward the crack and mouths ‘Go ahead’. “We were told this is The Split Navel,” he says.
The voice from within the darkness remains silent for a moment then says, “I think you have the wrong place.”
As the door begins to shut, Reilin exclaims, “Gryll sent us!”
The door pauses and the darkness remains quiet. “Gryll you say?” the voice asks after a moment.
“That’s right,” affirms Reilin. “He said this was a good place to go for women.”
“How do you know Gryll?” the voice asks.
Reilin glances over to Jiron who’s beginning to look impatient. Returning his attention back to the voice he says, “We helped him with a job up north.”
“Indeed,” the voice says. “One minute.” Then the door closes.
“What did he say?” Jiron asks.
Reilin relates in a quiet whisper what they said to one another. By the time he’s done, steps can be heard coming from within moving toward the door. This time when the door opens, a small amount of light escapes.
“Welcome gentlemen,” a man no more than three feet tall says as the door opens all the way. A hallway leads twenty feet into the building where it ends at another door that’s closed. The light is coming from a candle sitting in a wall recess midway down on the left. There are no doors other than the ones at either end of the hallway.
“So this is The Split Navel?” asks Reilin.
“Yes,” replies the short man. Once all the others have entered, the short man again closes the door and throws the bolt. Turning, the man begins walking toward the other door.
“Creepy,” whispers Shorty.
Scar gives him a nod in reply.
As they move down the hallway, they begin to hear the sound of voices coming from behind the other door. A bark of laughter followed by several curses being shouted in anger does nothing to put them at ease. Just before they reach the door a man cries out in pain.
Smoke billows out from beyond the door as the short man opens it, acrid smoke that smells quite foul. As the door opens completely, they see a fair sized room with many tables spaced about the room. Two men are dragging the body of a man from the table closest to the door toward a door on the far side of the room. A telltale red streak left by the man being dragged reveals that he must have been the one who cried out.
Jiron follows the short man into the room and is led over to a table near the middle. The eyes of many of the other patrons follow them as they cross over to it and take their seats. Without a word, the short man t
urns and moves toward the door through which they entered.
A lone serving woman makes her way through the tables, and places two tankards of ale before two men at a table against the wall. Easily in her forties or above, she has the look of one whose life has been anything but easy. A massive woman, her unkempt brown hair streaked with gray is tied back in a ponytail. Her face may have been comely at one time, but now it shows rigid lines and seems to be set in a permanent grimace.
She casts her eyes toward Jiron and the others, takes notice that they are there, then without a hint of acknowledgment, returns to the bar. Four more tankards are waiting for her. Picking them up, she makes her way through the middle of the room, past their table without a word and sets them before a small group of men two tables away.
“Lousy service,” comments Stig.
On her way back to the bar, Scar waves her down and with a smile asks, “How about some ale?”
She stops in her tracks and locks eyes with him. After a moment of meeting her steely gaze, his smile gradually disappears. “You all want ale?” she asks in a voice more a man’s than a woman’s.
“Uh…” he says, “yeah, that would be great.” With a barely perceptible nod, she returns to the bar.
“I’ve been in some dives before, but this place has to rank among the worst,” comments Potbelly quietly.
“This place is a Den of Hollow Eyes,” remarks Jiron. “Did you smell the smoke when we entered?” When the others nod he adds, “They’re doing biloci.” Biloci is a weed and a highly addictive narcotic. The user smokes it and is visited by hallucinations while they’re under the direct influence of the drug. Once the drug begins to wear off, it leaves them with a feeling of euphoria which can last for hours. The downside is that when the euphoria wears off, the user tends to spiral into deep depression lasting days.
Dens of Hollow Eyes are illegal in most places and the Empire being no exception. Some places tend to go lenient on those caught within one, but the Empire has a more stringent approach. Death.
Glancing around, they can see many of the men sitting at the tables are not entirely there. Their vacant eyes stare at imagined visions the drug induces. Every once in awhile, one would grunt, burst out with noise, or exhibit some other indication of the drug’s influence.
At the bar, the woman is loading a tray with six mugs. Picking it up, she sloshes some of their contents onto the tray as she turns and heads toward Jiron and the others. As she makes her way through the tables, one man in the throes of biloci touches her posterior as she passes. Without hesitation, she takes her left hand and strikes him across the face with a blow hard enough to send him to the floor. Men at other tables pause in their conversations and glance at the man on the floor for a second, then the talking resumes when nothing further looks to be happening.
“It’ll be two silvers,” she says as she sets the tray down. When it doesn’t look as if she’s going to remove the mugs, they quickly snatch them off. Jiron hands her the silvers and before she can depart, nods to Reilin.
“Uh, we were wondering…” he begins and then trails off as she turns her face toward him.
“What?” she asks.
Clearing his throat, he begins again. “We were wondering if there was a chance to have some female company?”
She eyes him a moment and says, “I don’t get off for a couple hours. But if you hang around I’ll be available then.”
Reilin’s eyes widen at the misunderstanding and he stammers, “Uh we don’t have that much time. Gryll said there was a certain girl that works here that always took care of him.”
“He did, did he?” she asks.
“Yes, he did,” he replies. “I don’t suppose she would be available.”
“Hmmm,” she says as she mulls it over, “the only one I can think of who he might mean is my sister.” Then her face creases into a frown and a moment later anger begins to work its way across her face. “So, he dallied with my sister did he?”
Reilin is astounded by what she said. He can’t for the life of him imagine anyone would wish to spend time with this woman’s sister. The others glance at him, wondering what he might have said to elicit such a response.
With a roar she yells, “I’ll kill him!” Picking up the tray she flings it across the room with such force as to embed it in the wall. Smashing her right fist onto their table in anger, Reilin’s amazed to hear the wood crack beneath her blow. When she raises her fist, the edge of the table is drooping slightly.
Then she turns her attention back to Reilin. “So you would think to dally with my sister too?” she asks. The eyes of the entire room are now directed at their table.
“What’s going on?” asks Jiron.
Reilin turns to him and says, “It’s all a misunderstanding. She thinks…” He’s forced to leave his sentence unfinished when she grabs him by the front of his tunic and yanks him to his feet by her left hand. Cocking back her right to strike him, she’s knocked to the floor as Scar leaps from his seat and tackles her before she can complete the blow.
Twisting as she falls, she takes him by the shoulders and once her back slams into the floor, knees him between the legs. With an ‘oof’ he rolls off her. Then she grabs Reilin’s leg and trips him to the floor. Getting up on one knee, she strikes out at Reilin and hits him in the side.
“Reilin, what did you say to her?” yells Jiron as he comes to his feet. Just then, a hand grabs him by the shoulder and spins him around where he’s struck on the chin. Knocked off his feet, his back slams into the table and smashes it on his way to the floor.
Stig jumps up and connects with the jaw of the man who struck Jiron, sending him stumbling backward into another table. Reaching down a hand to help Jiron up, he gets jumped by yet another man who kidney punches him hard. Striking out behind him with his elbow, he has the satisfaction of feeling it connect solidly with the man’s midriff. “Come on man,” he says to Jiron with a grin. “Don’t just lie there!” Turning, he lashes out at the man as he comes back for another attack.
The place erupts into a full scale brawl. Chairs fly, mugs and tankards are used as projectiles. Jiron and the others hold the center of the tavern and the perimeter surrounding them is strewn with broken chairs, tables and unconscious bodies.
Reilin is still engaged with the woman and looks to be getting the worse of it. Blood drips from his nose and a goose egg sized lump is forming on the side of his head where one of the flying mugs connected with him when he tried to stand and get away from the woman.
The pit fighters are in their element. None are able to close with them without being pummeled hard. All the frustration Jiron has kept bottled up during the search for Tinok has been released and he feels better than he has in a long time.
Suddenly from the right, Shorty jumps back and cries out as a knife leaves a three inch long shallow cut across his forearm. A lull develops in the brawl as both sides size the other up. What once was a friendly fight has evolved into something more.
Weapons are now held in the hands of many of those who stand against them. One, the man who had been behind the bar, holds a crossbow leveled directly at them. He shouts something at the woman who now has Reilin in a strangle hold. When she doesn’t respond, he nods for two of the men to come and drag her out of there.
When they get her off of Reilin, Jiron asks him, “You okay?”
“I’ll live,” he says then takes in the situation. “If we get out of here that is.”
The barman with the crossbow begins talking to them and Reilin translates. “You picked the wrong place to mess around in,” he says. “We don’t take kindly to troublemakers.”
“We’ll pay for the damages and just go,” Jiron says. Any chance of learning more about the necklace here is gone.
“No, I don’t think so,” he replies.
Jiron sees Shorty standing next to him and nods to the innkeeper. “You got him?” he asks.
“No problem,” he replies in a barely heard whisper.
“Kill them!” screams the woman who’s being restrained from attacking them by two men.
“Now,” Jiron says.
Before the barman has a chance to release the crossbow bolt, one of Shorty’s throwing knives embeds itself in his chest. Looking down at the handle sticking out of his chest as if wondering how it got there, he staggers and then topples over.
Without hesitating, Jiron draws both knives and leaps at the man across from him. Even though the man’s sword is out of its scabbard and in his hand, the unexpected move by Jiron catches him totally off guard. Bringing his sword up too late, he fails to block the thrust that takes him through the throat. Kicking out, Jiron knocks the man off his knife as he moves to the next. With a cry, the other pit fighters draw their weapons and the battle is joined.
Leaping up atop a table, Shorty pulls forth a throwing knife, takes aim and releases. The knife sails through the air and penetrates a man’s chest to the hilt. By the time the man begins to fall, another knife has already left Shorty’s hand with deadly results.
Two men with swords and another with a knife rush Scar and Potbelly. The first one falls to Scar’s swords before he even realizes what he’s facing. Potbelly then takes the one on the right and Scar the one on the left. With his knife, Potbelly deflects aside his opponent’s thrust while striking out with a slash of his own. He feels his blade connect with the man’s thigh. As the man’s leg gives way due to the severed muscles, Potbelly kicks out with his foot and connects with his face, sending him stumbling backward.
Reilin blocks a downward thrust and sees the sword of another man coming at him when Stig’s mace strikes the blade, breaking it in half. “Thanks,” Reilin says as he blocks another strike by his opponent. Stig nods his head and engages another.
Faced with the deadly skill of the pit fighters, not to mention the fact that they have already mowed down half the people there, the rest of the patrons of the tavern begin to flee. Once the first person breaks off and races for the door, the rest of them quickly follow.
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