From: reaux@csgrad.cs.vt.edu (Ray A Reaux) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [FACELESS MAN] Giggling Medusa 2 Date: 19 Nov 1993 05:53:20 GMT Message-ID: <2chn0g$c5v@server.cs.vt.edu> [Section 2 of the posting, although this disrupts the flow somewhat, ] [but hey, you gotta work with what you got. ] [Copywrited by me, Ray A. Reaux, just in case. ] The room suddenly became very quiet, and I looked up to see four men who had just entered the room walking toward the bar. I recognized their kind. They were street toughs, bullies who ex- torted shopkeepers in their small world of twisted streets. The leader was a burly, unkempt man who swaggered with an irritating arrogance. Although he wore no armor, he had a short sword strapped to his side, while two of his companions, as unkempt and ill dressed as he, carried cudgels half hidden under loose fitting garments. The last man also wore a short sword, and from his stance, I knew that he was the most dangerous of the group. Three of the men went up to the bar, while the fourth man stayed near the doorway, his eyes scanning the room, pausing on the swordsman near the fire pit before sweeping on to stop on me. His eyes were wary, and I knew he had appraised me as I had ap- praised him. "Karrel!" the leader bellowed, "you've got customers." A man came out of the kitchen and went behind the bar. "What do you want, Stren?" he asked, his voice cracking like a jostled egg. He scrubbed nervously at a stain on the bar. At first I thought it was Hearn, but though the resemblance was there, I knew it could not be him for Karrel was afraid. He had Hearn's girth, and he looked the same as the first day I had met his father, a brash unschooled third son of a minor noble who had used his meager inheritance to buy a commission in the Border Legion. Hearn and I had met during the siege of Halssen, during which I had attached myself to the Legion as a scout. While on a sally from the besieged city, I had found myself unhorsed in the middle of the busiest part of the battlefield and surrounded by Kazecal warriors. Seeing my predicament and not understanding that according to Legion doctrine, an officer, even a junior officer, was more valued than a scout, he had ridden back to save me from a Kazecal war axe, and in turn was unhorsed. Together, we had fought our way back to the Legion Eagle. "Ale for me and my friends here." Stren said as he casually leaned against the bar. Just as casually, but with all the threat of a coiled viper, he drew his sword and placed it on the bar in front of him. The rasp of the blade clearing its sheath hung suspended in the threat-filled air. Karrel clumsily filled a bucket of ale from the casks behind the bar, spilling almost as much as he poured into the bucket. With shaking hands, he pushed four mugs onto the counter. Stren dipped a mug into the bucket and took a long draft. "Get one for yourself too," he said, practicing his good-natured, friendly voice, "after all, you're paying for them. Ain't that right boys." He was rewarded with some mirthless laughs from the two other ruffians who waited like vultures. "You owe us," Stren said, now practicing his tough-man voice. "You're behind on your payments, and you know Spider doesn't like his payments to be late. Now I told you what would hap- pen if you didn't pay your dues." His hand shot out, grabbed Karrel's hair, and forced the stunned man's face into the bucket. "I said drink!" The tavern was silent except for Karrel's thrashing. Then suddenly, a wooden tankard crashed into Stren's face and a scream- ing woman ran from the kitchen and jumped on him, her clawed hands gouging a line across his face and making him bellow with pain. Karrel, suddenly free, fell back gasping for breath. Stren's two men grabbed Karrel's sister, pulling her off of Stren and ripping her clothes as she struggled to get free. Stren climbed to his feet with blood dripping from the long lines where she had gouged him. "You stupid bitch," he snarled as he backhanded her across the face. This had gone on long enough. "Let her go," I said to Stren. The scraping of my stool against the floor drew their attention. Although I was reluctant to intrude into the violence, I got up and walked towards them. My eyes were on Stren and his two men, but my other senses were on the man at the door and the Anamorian. The man at the door waited, letting Stren lead the situation. The Anamorian had moved his sword closer to him when the four toughs had entered, but I still did not know on which side he would fall, if any. The other tavern patrons I dismissed from my calcula- tions. Most had left the tavern as soon as the toughs had walked in, and the few who had remained to feed their curiosity were no threat. "Well what have we here? Is the slut your whore?" Stren asked me with a leer. He cupped a bare breast that heaved with the girl's exertion. "If she is, she's mine now. Why don't you go to the whorehouses down the street. You won't get anything as pretty as this, but you'll live longer." I dropped one of the men with a wheel kick and the other with a blow to the neck.. As they fell, they dragged the girl down with them. Behind me, I heard the sudden clang of swords, but I ignored it because I sensed no footfall behind me. Instead, I grabbed Stren's sword arm and twisted. His face contorted in pain as his bone snapped, and I twisted into him slamming my elbow into his face. His cry of pain became a gurgle as he slumped unconscious. Only then did I turn around. The lean warrior had the last thug hopelessly outmatched. The Anamorian had the longer reach and the superior skill, and al- though the thug was good with his sword, he already had several cuts on his arm and face. Stren's man tried a feint, but the Anamo- rian read past it, met his real threat and riposted with a slice that cut another red line across the thug's forehead. Step by step, he drove the thug back, until finally, the thug grabbed an abandoned tankard from a table, hurled it at the Anamorian, and as the swordsman ducked, fled the tavern. "Thanks for the help," I said to the cursing warrior who was trying to wipe the ale from his face. "Brac's the name," he introduced himself with a laugh, a deep bow, and a flourish of his sword. "I didn't think you really needed my help, but I wanted some of the fun." "Why did you have to butt in?" Karrel asked me in a shrill voice. "Now you've really gotten us into trouble." His face was white with fear and anger. Disgusted, I did not answer him but helped the girl to her feet. Karrel was his father's son only in name. Only the daughter had inherited Hearn's fighting spirit. "Thank you," said Hearn's daughter, "We are indebted to you." Looking at her, I was reminded that it had been a long time since I had seen a pretty woman. "Alwen," Karrel snapped, "remember your modesty." Al- wen looked down at her tattered dress. She pulled her torn bodice up to try to cover her ample breasts. Though she was blushing, she said a hasty goodbye and walked into the kitchen with dignity. "Now what am I going to do?" asked Karrel to no one in particular. Brac picked up the bucket still on the counter, and with a sly grin, doused the unconscious ruffians with its content. They woke, sputtering and cursing, and glowered sullenly at us as they got to their feet. "You're dead meat," Stren blustered, cradling his broken arm. "Spider will cut you up into bite-size chunks for the rats." Brac took a step towards them, and they broke towards the door with Brac's laughter chasing them out of the tavern. Brac joined me at my table. He had a smile on his face that chased the grimness of a warrior away. "I didn't catch your name?" he said as he shoved a callused hand at me. "It's Modrake," I answered. Once, long ago, when I had looked at the world through young eyes, I had worn that name proudly. But now, it sounded hollow and clung to me like a blood soaked cloak. I had not spoken it in 25 years, and even among the mountain villagers I had lived near, I had simply been known as the hermit. "As in the chronicles?" Brac asked cheerfully. He lifted up his mug. "Here's to your namesake," he said before he guzzled the ale. He smacked his lips together as he put down the empty mug. "Now that is the way a warrior's life should be. A good mug of ale to follow a good fight. All we need now are comely wenches to warm the night, and that Alwen is as pretty as they come." I agreed with a smile. Brac had an infectious spirit, and I liked the warrior. In many ways, he was like Hearn when I had first met him. "What are you doing in Cordero?" he asked me. "The way you fight, you should be down south in a monastery in the Haruchai nations. Or are you a Arkharei assassin." His last words were said in jest, but his eyes were wary. The Arkharei assassins were dreaded throughout the human kingdoms, for they were the masters of shadow, illusion and silent death. "No, just a wanderer," I answered, "For a time, I lived with Haruchai monks." Easily, I turned the conversation away from me. Brac like most young mercenaries was full of bravado with plenty of war stories. From him I gleaned much needed information about the current state of affairs in the Haruchai Empire. I learned that the Inner Kingdoms, a seething cauldron of political unrest during the most peaceful of times was in a state of total disarray, and near civil war. The harvests in the southern states of Carbennen and Orkrist had been unusually bad due to a severe drought, and famine had made the two states desperate. Unfortunately, the kingdoms of Helsen and Svangal were using food as a political and economic weapon. Normally, the Haruchai Emperor would handle these dis- putes, but apparently, the current Emperor was ineffectual, and ru- mored to be somewhat simple-minded, especially after a nasty riding accident. What made matters even worse was that the Fenrian warriors to the south of the Empire were on the move, driven from their normal grazing range by the drought and brushfires. They had already started raiding the edges of the Empire, and what the Fenrians lacked in discipline, they made up for in numbers. War stalked the kingdoms. ********************************************************