The boys all but sprinted from the stable, and the captain turned to face O’den. Were Odo Overhill his father in that moment, and not the captain, he would have anticipated a lecture about not losing his temper, about personal honour over social standing. He had heard the lecture more than once back at home. In that moment, however, Odo Overhill was not O’den’s father, but his captain. “How long ago had you finished cleaning this stable, Junior Guard Overhill?”
O’den swallowed hard. “Um, about an hour ago, sir.” His voice cracked mid-sentence, and he cursed himself inwardly.
“And have you yet taken your midday meal?”
“No, sir.”
Odo nodded. “Very well. Either consider this your meal taken, or dock one hour’s pay in the ledger when you are finished your shift. If you are bereft of work here, you are to relieve Guardsman Schellek from his duties at headquarters. Am I understood?”
O’den bit back every thought running through his mind then. He had performed his assigned duties quickly and efficiently, was practicing the martial techniques his father had taught him, and his reward was a fine, an empty belly, and the remainder of his day spent washing dishes. Defeated, he nodded, belatedly adding, “Yes, sir.”
“Very well.” Odo nodded and turned on his heel. “put away those buckets, and then you are dismissed.” With that, the captain left, and O’den did as he was bade, allowing only a few frustrated tears to roll down his cheeks now that he was alone.
O’den’s hands had long since wrinkled as he finally placed the last of the cups to dry on the rack beside the basin where he had stood for hours. His feet were sore, and the wash pit behind the city guard headquarters’ personal bar smelled of stale beer and sweat. Had the dishes not been so constant in coming to him, he would have been happier scrubbing every inch of the small room just to be rid of the odour. He reached for a nearby rag, trying futilely to dry his hands with the already soaked piece of cloth. Too tired to even bemoan the fact, O’den simply resigned himself to hanging the rag on the side of the basin, climbing down from the step stool that he had been standing on, and shuffling out to the small taproom in front.
All but the candles at the front entrance and the bar had been extinguished. Balfram, the old, willowy barkeep sat on the patron’s side of the vacant bar, quietly sipping from a tankard. “Oi, Overhill!” he called over to O’den and motioned to the casks opposite him. “Pour yourself one, won’t you? I’m near sauced, and I’ll neither be a lone drunk nor will I waste a perfectly good ale!”
O’den smiled at Balfram. Surely one drink wouldn’t dull his senses. He grabbed a copper half-pint mug and filled it at the nearest tap. He sat behind the bar, opposite Balfram, and the two clinked drinks. The ale had a roasted malt taste, better than the table beer Father kept back home.
“Y’know, I want to thank you for taking Schelleck’s place tonight.” Balfram took another sip. “I know this is a pretty shit job, but I swear you’re the only one of the juniors who gives a damn when you do it.”
O’den sighed. “I just wish I could do more, you know?”
“And wind up dead before twenty in the process? Ain’t worth it.” He took another drink and leaned in. “Y’know what I heard? That ship captain who’s docked here? The king’s top one, or whatever.”
“You mean Admiral Deuen?” O’den corrected.
Balfram nodded. “Her, yeah. The elf. Well, Orram was in here earlier, after doing his rounds out at the docks. He was talking some nonsense about one of her crew looking shady, caught him speaking Majad to people.”
Any inkling of an effect the beer was having on O’den dissipated at that. “What?”
“Right?” Balfram shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be within a mile of whatever nonsense is going on there.”
“Well, did Orram tell anyone anything?” O’den stared in disbelief. “That crewman could be a spy. Deuen could be in danger. Hells, Deuen could be in on it!”
“Calm down.” Balfram lowered his hands soothingly. “No sense jumping to conclusions. Speaking Majad ain’t a crime, and do you really think any soldiers’d go snooping about King Meklan’s top ship captain’s—”
“Admiral’s.” O’den reminded Balfram a second time. “Anyway, isn’t it at least worth investigating? Can’t we round up some other guards to head down to the docks?”
“Pfft.” Balfram waved away the idea. “No way anyone’d be willing to go snoopin’ round the docks in the dead of night looking for trouble. Not for what we’re paid.”
O’den deflated some, knowing the barkeep spoke the truth. His stomach knotted, a thousand thoughts racing in his mind. Through the din, however, his father’s words from his training broke through.
“You represent this city, her guard, and this whole kingdom at all times.”
“I’ve got to go.” O’den looked up at Balfran, putting on the best smile he could at that moment. “Try to catch a coach back home before it get’s too dark.” He drained the last third of his beer in a single swallow and slammed the mug on the bar, hopping off his stool and running for the door, calling back belatedly, “Thanks for the drink!”
O’den looked ruefully at the motley assortment of weapons and armor in the City Guard’s armory. If he survived tonight, he had every intention of petitioning to upgrade the collection to more than just army hand-me-downs.
“Don’t bother.” Odo’s voice behind him made his blood run cold, startling him enough to cause him to jump. He turned slowly to see his father standing not six feet away, his face betraying nothing.
“Fath…er…Captain!” He fumbled a salute, fighting to not let the nervous quaking in his feet give way to the rest of his body.
“At ease.” Odo said calmly, although dropping the salute was the only thing about O’den at ease in that moment. “I caught Balfran as he was stumbling out of the tavern. He mentioned that some rumour had you spooked.”
O’den swallowed hard. Of course, he’d been caught. He told the captain, his father, everything he’d been told by Balfran, and his plan to do something about it.
Odo nodded as O’den spoke, the words pouring out as though his mouth was an upturned bottle that had just been uncorked. When he had finished his mumbled explanation, Odo was silent a moment longer, looking to the ceiling of the armory when he finally did speak.
“So, you thought to infiltrate a royally-commissioned vessel with little grounds to do so, with nothing more than speculative hearsay to go on, telling no one, not even considering that backup might have been a wise consideration?”
O’den didn’t answer initially, worried that the question might be rhetorical.
“I asked you a question, O’den.”
“I…” O’den tried desperately to formulate a cohesive response. “Sir, all due respect, who would I have recruited for backup?” His mind told him to just shut up, but his mouth ignored the warning. “This job is just an easy pile of coin every week to nearly everyone. I know full well that doing this could either get me thrown out of the watch or thrown into a cell, and who else is going to take that risk? Captain, our kingdom, my kingdom, is in the middle of a war right now, and if there’s a chance I can do anything to help my kingdom I’m going to do it, consequences be damned!”
There was a painful stretch of silence between the two. O’den kept his eyes locked on his father, who after too long, started to walk toward him. O’den braced himself for the inevitable, for Odo grabbing him by his shirt, chastising him for being so reckless, and all but dragging him home. It was much to O’den’s surprise, then, when his father walked right past him, to the back wall of the small armory. O’den turned to look as Odo pulled two leather jerkins down from a rack, took a small pocket knife from a sheath at his waist, and began to cut away at them.
“Mail and plate wouldn’t do us any good.” he said as he worked. “They’re too damned noisy and cumbersome.” He tossed one jerkin to O’den, having carved about four or five inches off the bottom of it. “Put it on.” he
said, starting on altering the second. “It’s meant for elven women, so it’ll fit better than anything else here, but don’t bank on it stopping anything more than a glancing blade.”
O’den, stunned, did as he was bade. He looked over to see that Odo had done the same and was in the process of cutting the excess pieces of leather into four long strips. Odo beckoned O’den over when he had finished, and proceeded to wrap the strips around their forearms and palms. “Not as good as proper bracers, but they’ll be better than bare flesh.” he explained. Once finished, he motioned to the wall of weapons nearby. “Choose what feels best.” he said.
O’den walked over to the wall and picked a modest-looking short sword, barely longer than a dirk, but as long as the hand-and-a-half swords Odo had commissioned for them to train with at home. He felt it in his hands, noting the obvious difference in balance between this and what he was used to. All the shields, he knew, would be too unwieldy for him.
Odo came up beside him, taking a spear from the wall and snapping its haft so that it was better suited to his stature. “Consider it yours.” he told O’den, nodding to the sword. “You’d best name it.”
“Halfblade.” O’den said without a moment’s hesitation. His father looked at him speculatively, and he smirked. “’Weakness is but a construct, a spy supplanted by the enemy to cast doubt on the battlefield. The cunning soldier will root out this enemy spy, finding strength within it, turning it back on his unsuspecting foe with thrice the efficacy.’”
Odo nodded, clearly impressed. “Darro’s On Warfare.”
“A classic,” O’den remarked.
“It is.” Odo motioned toward the exit. “Now let’s see you put those words into action.”
O’den was never much of a fan of East Fellowdale’s docks, especially at night. They smelled of fish, musk, and salt water more often than not, and the lack of lamplight threw strange shadows, making the whole area feel ominous. It didn’t help that, in this instance, there was the silhouette of the HMS Seahulk taking up what felt like half a block of the southern end of the docks. The ship was touted as King Meklan’s great naval achievement, the ship that would carry all the arcane and military power Ghest could muster overseas, striking Majad and ending the now three-year-long war between the two. It was the closest O’den had been to the vessel since it docked over a month ago, and seeing it now, he regretted not having done so under more favorable circumstances.
“Keep your eyes on the street.” Odo’s voice snapped him out of his bout of reverence. “We see a half-orc linger more than three breaths in front of that ship and we move.”
O’den nodded and refocused, scanning the area as the pair of them crouched in the nearby alleyway. After little time, a slight, silhouetted figure made his way down the gangplank of the Seahulk, pulling up the hood of his cloak just late enough for O’den to notice his greyish-brown skin and pronounced, underbitten teeth.
O’den made to move, but Odo raised his arm to stop him. “Not yet.” he whispered.
They waited until the half-orc had made his way nearly a block northward before pursuing, quickening their pace as he turned down another of the district’s ill-lit side streets. Using their relatively small size and quiet footfalls to their advantage, O’den and his father beset their quarry quickly. O’den charged the half-orc in the backs of his knees, sending him face-first to the ground. He made an effort to draw something from his hip, but Odo’s reflexes were quicker. The elder halfling leaped forward, landing on the hand reaching for the weapon, planting his knee into the small of the half-orc’s back and grabbing for his off-hand, clasping the wrist and twisting it around his back.
To his credit, the half-orc didn’t cry out. O’den focused on binding his legs, hearing him mumble something in Majad at them.
“You’re in a very precarious position right now.” Odo spoke through clenched teeth as he fought to keep their captor pinned. “You’re one wrong word from the pair of us turning you over to the militia, so if you’ve got anything to say that you think might be of value, I suggest you say it in a language I understand.”
The half-orc muttered low once more, and O’den saw his father twist just enough on his restrained wrist to get a reaction.
“The satchel!” the haf-orc gasped between shallow breaths, his voice thick with his Majad accent. “The letter inside!”
Odo looked to O’den, then to the bag slung around their captor’s shoulder, and nodded. O’den opened the bag, rummaging through until he felt a rolled-up parchment. He pulled it out and unfurled it. The writing was in the careful, trained hand of someone with a good education, but was all in Majad.
“What does it say?” O’den asked as he tried to parse the foreign script.
“I do not know.” the half-orc replied. “I have no letters. I believe it is for Warlord Ankhul. She means to betray—” the sentence was clipped short with a sharp intake of breath, and O’den looked up from the page to see Odo putting pressure on the half-orc’s wrist once more.
“Treason?” His father’s voice was calm, which O’den knew too well to be a bad sign. “What reason do I have to believe such allegations coming from a Majadi we caught skulking around in the night?” When an answer was not immediately given, O’den heard the half-orc cry out in pain. “Four seconds or you never use this arm again,” his father warned coldly.
“I am a fisher!” The half-orc growled, struggling. “I do not care for soldiers and their wars, Majadi or Ghestal!”
“We’re all tired of war.” Odo replied.
“Not Deuen,” the half-orc retorted. “She thinks talks of a treaty are weak, calls your king Meklan weak. She sets a trap.”
O’den continued to look at the parchment, trying desperately to make out any of it. Something about all of this felt off. “Where were you taking this?” he asked.
“A merchant, Broschk.” The half-orc panted. “Is Majad-born, but Ghest is her home. Can read and write both.”
“O’den looked at his father. “Captain, what if he’s telling the truth?”
Odo made no move to relent.
“Father…” O’den tried not to sound as though he were pleading.
With that, Odo looked sidelong at O’den for a breath, then released the half-orc, rolling off his back. “Fine.” he said simply. “You’ll escort us to this Broschk. You try anything, I’ll climb up that skinny little frame and slit your throat.”
The pair of halflings quickly bound the half-orc’s hands and unbound his feet. “What is your name?” O’den asked.
“Thakrach,” he answered as he shakily got to his feet. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” O’den raised an eyebrow. “You’re still well in the woods as far as I’m concerned.”
The clicking of hard-soled boots on cobblestones stopped the trio in their tracks.
“In the name of the Ghestal Royal Navy, I order you to halt.” O’den turned to see a short, slight woman standing at the entrance to the alley. In addition to the hard-soled boots that were the source of the steps, she wore a long cutlass on her hip, her dark hair pulled into a tail that sat atop her head, flanked on either side by the tips of her pointed elven ears.
“Admiral!” Odo calmly snapped a salute, and O’den followed suit. “I am Captain Odo Overhill of the East Fellowdale City Guard. My junior guard here was alerted to some potential suspicious activity in the vicinity, and I was accompanying him here to investigate.”
The admiral stepped further into the alley, the light from the main street keeping her face shrouded in shadow. “In that case, you have my thanks, Captain. This man in your custody is in my crew, and I suspect he has been involved in a plot to sabotage the Seahulk’s upcoming mission.” She stretched her arm out toward them. “Kindly turn him over to me.”
O’den looked at his father, who looked at Thakrach, and then back to him. “Admiral, with all due respect, we were in the midst of our own investigation into the matter. If you would like to accompany us in—”
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“Your diligence is noted,” Deuen cut Odo off, her annoyance just clear enough that O’den could tell that she was trying, poorly, to hide it. “However, this is a matter for the Royal Navy, not a pair of city guards. You are relieved.”
O’den looked to Odo, whose eyes had narrowed. “Admiral,” he began with the sort of calm that gave O’den the chills “I have made my career keeping the streets of East Fellowdale safe. If there is a plot afoot in my city, then it is my matter, regardless of who might be masterminding it.”
Deuen put a hand on the hilt of her cutlass. “I’m afraid I take umbrage with your tone, Captain.”
“And I with your pensiveness, Admiral.” Odo retorted, the grip on his spear tightening. “Perhaps there’s something to that letter your crewman gave me after all.”
Despite the darkness, O’den saw the admiral’s eyes widen in a flash of anger. She unsheathed her cutlass and darted forward. O’den watched, forgetting to breathe as time seemed to slow down. There was something off in Deuen’s stance as she charged toward Odo. Her left shoulder was too far to one side, her centre of gravity was off. It was almost as if…
O’den drew Shortblade just in time as Deuen feinted and changed direction, swinging her cutlass sidelong to clang against the short sword’s flat. O’den parried and ducked, gripping the blade with both hands to deflect another attack, and another. For as certain as he now was that the admiral was guilty, he didn’t dare press an attack on someone who so greatly outranked him.
Remaining on the defensive was tiring O’den out quickly, the admiral’s greater size allowing her to put more power into her blows. She raised her blade up and prepared to swing, and though O’den raised his own blade in a cross defense, he knew he lacked the strength to hold her back. Before she struck, however, O’den heard a loud thunk, saw Deuen’s eyes glaze over, then watched as she collapsed at his feet, unconscious.
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