An Army of Heroes

by Scott J Robinson

  “What for?” Grint asked. “It’s horrible.”

  “It is interesting,” Celeste agreed, blinking her large brown eyes as if she was attempting to make a hat manifest from the motley bundle of rags.

  Rawk shrugged and cleared his throat. Even if Celeste wanted to hear the story about the rest of the reward he was given for saving the princess’s life, he didn’t want to tell it. “I can’t remember now.” He changed the subject. “Why are you two here anyway?”

  “We came to listen to your new fiddler.”

  “Ferran? He’s pretty good. Might do you two out of a job.”

  Grint shrugged. “We’ve got a contract. We can stay at home all week if you want, as long as you keep paying us.”

  Rawk grunted. “Let’s go and get something to eat then, so we don’t miss the start of the show.”

  “Who says you’re invited?” Grint replied with a smile.

  Rawk glanced at Celeste but she had gone to examine the books for a moment. “You’ll be lucky to get in to see Ferran, the way you’re going.”

  In The Vault, people were ordering drinks and making themselves comfortable before the rush came. There was always a rush these days, with a lot of people forced to stand down the back, which pleased Rawk no end. The Hero’s Rest was becoming known as a place that offered great entertainment every night of the week. The Vault had only been open a few weeks and it already rivaled Harker’s Hall over the south of the river, and the Veteran’s Club. He decided if he could just work out a sensible way to get meals down the stairs then he would soon be able to gild his gold before he rolled in it.

  But, as it was, even famous Heroes still had to go up to the common room to have a meal. With a sigh, Rawk turned away from his reserved table and wound his way across the room, stopping at the base of the stairs up to the common room to let a worker pass.

  Celeste spoke into the pause. “Let’s not go to the common room,” she said. “Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Rawk looked at his companions. A dwarf, and a fermi. And Sylvia didn’t have her scarf wrapped around her face yet but, even if she did, she would still be recognizable as an elf. What would all the people out on the street say about that? “Do we have time?”

  “We have plenty of time,” Celeste said. “I know somewhere that isn’t far.”

  The door opened at the top of the stairs again and a wave of noise tumbled down along with a drunken man who shouldn’t have been using those stairs at all.

  “Rawk!” the stranger shouted. He stumbled all the way to the bottom and leaned against Rawk as if he was a lamppost. “Tell me a story, Rawk. The one about when you killed that elf witch.”

  Rawk glanced at Sylvia. The other man didn’t seem to notice her.

  He waved away Rawk’s unvoiced protests. “Or something else. It doesn’t matter.”

  Rawk wondered if this man was one of the people he had been trying to impress all his life. “This place isn’t far?” he asked Celeste. “All right then. Let’s go.” He pushed the man away, leaning him against the wall and standing ready for a moment, in case he didn’t quite have the angle right.

  As they headed for the main stairs up to the street, Sylvia started wrapping her scarf around her face. Rawk had seen the intricate process so many times he was sure he’d be able to do it himself.

  “Will you be able to eat with that on?”

  “Of course not. I will simply transfer the food to my stomach via magic.”

  Rawk knew she wasn’t serious, but looked at her suspiciously anyway. “You aren’t willing to do magic to save me but you’ll do it to avoid removing your scarf?”

  “It is handy if you don’t like what your host has supplied for dinner; you don’t have to taste it.”

  The place Celeste led them to was just a couple of blocks down the hill towards the Old Forest. A dwarf on stilts was working his way down the dead end street, lighting the lamps as he went, bringing a slow wave of light towards the tavern. The front porch had been removed and replaced with a garden that crept up the wall and onto the low, sloping roof. Rawk had visited the place five years ago and it hadn’t looked anything like this.

  “When did all this happen? This used to be a dingy little tavern with flat ale and overcooked roast.” Though that described most taverns in Katamood. Especially the ones that Weaver seemed to like.

  Celeste looked the building up and down. She shrugged, a slight lifting of the shoulders of her dusky rose shirt. “I don’t know.”

  Grint did. “Azure Sky bought the building about three years ago. She closed it down for a month to have the remodeling done and opened it up again as The Sky Tree.” He pulled on his beard. “Gunter and Gan did most of the carpentry, I think. Hadner did the tree.”

  “The tree?” Rawk looked at the plants but couldn’t work out which one was the tree.

  Celeste went inside, brushing leaves away from her face. Sylvia followed and Grint did as well. Rawk grunted. He didn’t have any choice. Inside, he realized that the front wall was made up of huge, folding doors that could be pushed aside to bring the plants into the room. There was also a huge skylight overhead letting the starlight in to add to the soft glow of the lanterns. And in the back corner stood a huge metal tree. Branches reached out into the room and hundreds of colored-glass leaves, like butterflies, filtered the light. Rawk stared. It was like he’d entered a magical glade somewhere deep in the Old Forest, a special place where fairies gathered to gossip and play. Celeste was waiting just inside, her face painted green and red and yellow.

  “Do you like it?” she asked. The colors played across her face.

  After a moment, Rawk turned away from her to look at the tree again. “Hadner was a genius,” he said eventually. When he looked back, Celeste was still looking at him. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Where are we going to sit?” Grint asked.

  Celeste blinked and looked around. “Anywhere.”

  The chairs and tables were rough looking things, made from crooked branches and roughly cut wood. They suited the surrounds but looked like they’d fall apart at the slightest touch. “So Gunter and Gan made the furniture?”

  Grint nodded. “Went out and cut each piece themselves.”

  Rawk nodded too. If dwarves made it, he’d trust that it wouldn’t fall apart.

  There were a dozen other people in the place, none of them human. A party of elves laughed a babbling brook in the corner. Another elf brooded alone. And three tables of dwarves argued good-naturedly amongst themselves.

  Rawk picked a small, almost-round table in a corner; there was still rough, dark bark running around the edge. “So, I take it Azure Sky is an elf? I’m surprised Weaver let her buy the place.”

  Sylvia unwrapped the scarf from her face. “Perhaps Azure did not buy it; I believe her husband is human.”

  “So what sort of food do they have?” Rawk remembered something Grint had told him a while ago. “And do they pay human prices for their ale or dwarf prices?”

  “They don’t sell ale,” Celeste said. She picked up a small book from the table and handed it to him.

  Rawk’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of tavern is this?”

  “Who said it was a tavern?”

  “Well...”

  “They call themselves a bistro.”

  “What in Path’s name does that mean?”

  “I don’t know. But they sell food and wine and cider and you don’t have to put up with all the drunks.”

  Rawk didn’t know why he was complaining; it also meant he wouldn’t actually have to drink any ale. He looked at the book Celeste had given him. “And what’s this?”

  “A menu.” Celeste informed him.

  “Why don’t they just have a board on the wall?” But when he opened the book he knew why. There were about twenty different meals listed, though it took a few seconds of blinking before he could actually make out the words. “They’ve got all these things waiting out the back there?” Customers at the Hero’s Rest had t
wo or three choices at most.

  Celeste smiled. “They cook it fresh once you’ve told them what you want. It takes a bit longer but...”

  “You don’t like the meals at the Rest?”

  Celeste pursed her lips. “Meals at the Rest cost five ithel and that is how much they are worth.”

  Rawk looked back at the menu and saw prices listed as well. Most of the things were between fifteen and twenty ithel by the looks of it. “Twenty ithel? That’s ridiculous.” But he read the description of the first dish and it sounded delicious. “I’ll have one of these,” he said. “The Kepler Venagoon, whatever in Path’s name that means.”

  Celeste smiled. “All the names of the dishes come from poetry.”

  “Really? How... interesting.” Rawk got a cider as well and it was worth the extra money to not have to force his way through a mug of ale. He pulled his cutlery from the pouch on his belt and tested the edge of the knife.

  “Kepler Venagoon is one of my favorite poems. It is only short, but there is so much emotion in it.”

  “I’ve never really read poetry. Thok did loan me a book though; I should get around to reading it some time.”

  “Our mother used to read to us all the time. I guess it stopped us from running around the streets and getting into trouble.”

  Rawk grunted. “My father never read me poetry and look where I am now.”

  “Yes, you’re sitting in a tavern with an elf, a dwarf and a fermi. I’m guessing your father would be very disappointed.”

  Rawk laughed. “Yes, he would.”

  A few minutes later, Celeste was smiling as she told a story about Grint trying to build their mother a rocking chair when he was just ten years old. She had obviously told the tale before, and it almost came out as a song. The words danced and flowed like the notes from her mandolin and her eyes shone in the colored light filtering through the leaves of the tree. Grint kept trying to say that she’d been involved in the chair’s construction as well while Celeste protested her innocence. Rawk wasn’t sure he believed her. Sylvia was soon laughing, tears streaming down her face, in a very un-elfish manner.

  When the meals came it did not signal an end to the conversation. Talk moved from rocking chairs to canals to music. “I wish I could play something,” Rawk said. “It’s as if my mind understands music but just can’t manage to translate it for my fingers.”

  “Have you really tried to play?” Grint asked.

  “Of course. I’ve tried just about every instrument there is over the years.”

  Celeste smiled. “But for how long? Did you play it five times and then give up? Or did you play it every day for a year, even though you were terrible?”

  Rawk cleared his throat and examined the bone handle of his knife. “More than five times.”

  Grint laughed. “Six doesn’t count. Did you pick up a sword for the first time and expect to win a fight? Of course not.”

  “Well, actually...”

  Grint’s eyes narrowed. “You expected to win or you did win?”

  “I did win.”

  “Or course you did.”

  Rawk looked around at the others. “It was only against Yardi though. We were about ten years old.”

  Grint laughed. Celeste threw a heal of bread at him.

  Above the sound of laughter Rawk could hear music. No, not music because he couldn’t actually hear it at all. He dismissed the feeling, but Sylvia was looking around too.

  “I think all those years have given you a feel for magic, Rawk,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  The elf rose to her feet. “A portal has opened close by.”

  Rawk stood up. “Has it?” He looked around as if the exot might emerge from beneath a table in the bistro. “Where?” But he stalked quickly out through the greenery, brushing it out of his face, and onto the street. He drew his sword as he went.

  There were four creatures standing in the yellow light of the lamps. One was shorter even then Grint, seemingly as solid as a tree stump and just as weathered. It had only one arm and used it to hold a shield that was taller than it was. The second was tall and slim and had one arm as well. The opposite arm. Instead of a shield it held a sword. Neither of them had any eyes that Rawk could see, or even a place where eyes might once have been. Their wide, toothy mouths were grinning stupidly. The last two creatures were like rotund, long nosed pigs, though they stood on two legs. They had no arms at all but each had a single, large, green eye.

  Both of Rawk’s eyes narrowed. “What in Path’s name?”

  The two sightless creatures came forward as one, taking tiny steps on the rough cobbles. They crowded together, their own defensive line. At the same time the pigs spread out, as if trying to get a better view.

  Rawk almost forgot to raise his sword. He did at the last moment as both the armed creatures rushed forward. He blocked a swing form the sword, like blocking a falling tree, and was shoved back by the shield. He stumbled, righted himself, and got himself some breathing space.

  As long as it was a shallow breath. The two creatures attacked again, seemingly moving with more confidence than they had last time. Trying to be nice to his arm, Rawk deflected the blow instead of blocking it. Then he spun around behind the sword wielder, swinging powerfully at its unprotected back. Except it blocked without turning, displaying strange joints that meant back and front might well have been the same. And Rawk was pushed away by the shield once more.

  “How can they even see me?” Rawk said, breathing deep.

  “Rawk, I think...”

  Rawk shifted his grip on Kaj, waiting. “That’s very enlightening,” he said eventually.

  “I think there is only one creature.”

  “So we’re all hallucinating the others?”

  “No, I mean, they are all the one creature. The two with the eyes are seeing for the others. They have spread out so their depth perception is improved and their sight is not blocked by the others.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “You think I am joking.”

  “Well...” It probably wasn’t the time the elf would take up comedy. “So, I have to attack the ones with the eyes so these other ones can’t see me?”

  “Yes.” She nodded but seemed unsure.

  But that wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Not because they fought back, but because they could apparently work in perfect unison with their comrades to make sure they never got anywhere near the fight. After another unsuccessful flanking maneuver, Rawk stopped to look around for inspiration. Not having any luck, he was about to ask for suggestions when Grint charged out of the bistro with a couple of dwarves and an elf on his heels. They had armed themselves with chairs and shouted as they split up and headed for the two exots with the eyes.

  Rawk was distracted almost as much as the enemy but, before the eyes had even been engaged, he scuttled forward and dispatched the sword creature with a thrust between its shoulders. He spun, shouldered the shield aside, and killed its owner as well. The two eye-men were brought down by the dwarves, dying silently.

  Rawk leaned on his sword, looking from one creature to the next. “Well, that was weird.”

  But Celeste was crying.

  “What’s the matter?” Grint asked her. “Nobody even got hurt.”

  “They were a family. They were...” She turned and walked away from the bistro, towards the main street.

  Rawk took a step to follow, but he didn’t know what to say. So he stood silently with Grint, watching her, while Sylvia rushed to follow. There were three crows watching from up under the eaves across the street. The complained loudly about the noise, ruffled their feathers, and settled back down.

  Munday

  Rawk woke early and wished he hadn’t. He then spent an hour exercising in the gymna and that wasn’t a good idea either. By the time he was done his arms and legs ached and he didn’t know if he’d be able to make it down the stairs for breakfast. He decided to have a shower before he even bothered making the
effort. He stood under the spray for a long time, letting the hot water wash away the sweat and sooth his muscles.

  “I’m getting old,” he said.

  “You were old a long time ago.”

  Rawk jumped, heart hammering.

  “Sorry, did I frighten the great Hero?”

  “Travis, I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to walk all the way up those stairs just to tell you Weaver’s here; I have to get some type of reward.”

  “You do; the highest pay of any tavern manager in the world.”

  “I think you’re making that up.”

  “You aren’t paid enough to think.”

  “I’m not paid enough to deal with Weaver either. He’s down there disturbing your customers.”

  “As long as he still doesn’t know they’re my customers.” Rawk sighed. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

  But he waited where he was, under the hot water, for at least another five minutes, trying to find some calm for the start of his day that was not starting out well.

  When he decided he really couldn’t delay any longer, he dressed in clean clothes and headed for the taproom. But he didn’t make it that far. Weaver was standing at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the wall, without a fake beard or bad hat in sight.

  “Good morning, Rawk.”

  “I suppose.”

  He was looking very serious. “About yesterday.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Our friendship means too much to me to—”

  Rawk waved away whatever Weaver was going to say. It would probably be a lie anyway. “Let’s just forget it.”

  Weaver nodded, but Rawk knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. For Weaver, it wouldn’t be over until he got what he wanted.

  “You didn’t just come here for that. What else do you want? It’s still a bit early for me to do a lot of thinking.”