Skandra Tyullis (roll_the_bones) wrote in adusta, @ 2010-05-21 23:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | skandra tyullis, water |
'round here (narrative)
Every tavern was exactly the same. Sure, some of the torches were fixed to the wall with brass instead of iron. Some of then were hanging from the ceiling by rusted chains, swaying every time the door opened. Every time someone had a good roll and pounded his fist on the wall in celebration. Every time a fight broke out. Skandra wasn't alarmed by any of these things, but tonight burning liquor passed his lips with a quick flick of his wrist. The pleasure of the moment wore an ugly face tonight. It was not whispering in his ear but glaring in his direction. Angry at him for what he'd done perhaps, or what he meant to do.
Impossible to tell.
Ordinarily he'd be cracking laquer and ruining plans, throwing coins like knives and loving every minute of it. Grinning killer of souls. A disgusted sound rose in his throat at the taste of his whisky, but he swallowed it anyway. They were serving swill in this place. Then again, this close to the middle of nothing, where even the Free Cities could piss on hospitality if it wasn't careful, they didn't get anything worth buying. The bastards at every table were dicing - on tables - for coppers. One man actually grinned two rows of black gaps and yellow teeth at him when he asked if somebody wanted to try a game of cards. We's farmers the man said. We's farmers.
All this time he'd spent in these boondocks and not one fucking word about the shipments. If Gershul had someone listening for him out here there was nothing to drop eave on. The farmers only knew about a few things, and all of them involved planting things in the ground. Their dice games were all two dice or less, and their coppers looked like they'd been buried with the grandfathers who clutched them greedily in fists of bone and spite. Pulling his hat down lower didn't drown out the stench of men who raised pigs. That sort of earthen wrong smell, feces mixed with dirt, sweat and blood. Or maybe the sickness that jumped from pigs to men easily enough. Probably one of them had some sort of sexual congress with his hamhock, and that was how this whole miserable town got started in the first place.
"Gimme 'nother one," somebody coughed. "So what's I sayin' Boll? A'yeah, Janna came by, had one'a'em purdy dresses ah like s'much-"
"She sat on yer lap'n, didn't she?" second one asked.
"Never knew a weaver's daughter's capable'a moanin' like a whore," and they both laughed.
So that was the sort of class-laden, wonderful conversation they had. Skandra thought his standards for treating women properly probably lagged behind most of the cityfolk he routinely cheated out of money, but even this was going too far. Another whiskey pounded its way past his tongue despite the taste, all bullnecked muscle. His chest was starting to ache. His head was starting to swim. And hammering one of them in the jaw with a set of folded knuckles was starting to sound like a good idea. If they had to talk about this sort of trash, couldn't they at least do it where Skandra Tyullis could not fucking hear them? It seemed wrong somehow to think they ought to go when they were here first.
No, fuck 'em.
"I'm trying to have a drink here," Skandra said politely, over his shoulder. "Nice, quiet drink."
"Well you ain't talked much s'far," second one sneered. "Guess that's missun accompalished."
"Nobody wants to hear about some farmgirl you cleaned your dick for," Skandra snapped back. "And I doubt she'd want the whole farm knowing what she did, on account of the shame of the thing. So maybe you shut up and I just go back to being quiet."
They were still talking, but in smaller voices, smaller voices that allowed him to savor the disgusting dregs he was paying outrageous sums for in peace. Shantar's journal said there was some soldier or another in the next town over, closer to Trone, who might have some kind of past connection with the Immortal. He suggested not too politely that Skandra gain an audience with this man and try to find out if he'd noticed any unusual patterns. You need information, the old man said, and the only way to be sure you've got the right kind is to visit a soldier who isn't bent. They know everything about the places they go and the people who go there with them. Skandra didn't like the idea of baring his sins to somebody in a uniform, but if push came to shove he could knife the fellow and climb out a window.
So, the meeting was going to be in a public place.
"-like he's from the city," first one said.
"I am from the city," Skandra sneered over his shoulder. "And where I come from we don't pork our bacon."
"The hell you on about?" second one spat.
"I called your friend a pigfucker. You just hold 'em down I expect."
Stools scraped on jagged loose floorboards. Unsteady legs slapped wood with unforgiving boots. Skandra didn't reach for a blade, but only because they hadn't. No use picking a fight with two fellas only to cheat the rules. If it was fists, then it was fists. He sneered beneath the brim of that hat despite his swimming eyes and his unsteady stomach. Couple of farmers looking for a good time were about to learn why you didn't treat a man with such disrespect when he asked you so nicely. Then again, maybe he could have been nicer. No. Not the time for second-guessing. If they weren't pigfuckers, they'd become a pair of them when Skandra was done. No decent woman wanted to bed a man with uneven eyes and a hook-nose.
He was going to give them both.
"Didn't hear you," first one said.
"Apologies," Skandra laughed. "What's your name, friend?"
"Poll. He's Boll."
"I owe you fine gentlemen an apology," Skandra slapped a pair of coppers down, and his reward was a silver-rimmed tin cup filled to the brim with whisky. "I called you pigfuckers a moment ago, and that was totally inaccurate."
"Inawhat?"
"I's wrong," and he mockingly copied the drawl. "Poll n' Boll don't fuck pigs. All right. Listen up!"
There were a few patrons who had turned to see what all this fuss was about, a few who thought maybe there was something interesting about to happen in their very presence. It wasn't too often a city-slicker came in and told them what-for. Skandra doubted any of them had ever even heard of Trone, let alone cast their filthy country eyes upon it. Now he had their attention. Leather was creaking as men checked their knives and machetes, ready to follow blood to battle. Just like knights, except there was no code of honor among a den full of fellows made their living raising animals just to be killed. Sort of thing that could make a fellow laugh if he thought about it. Lords didn't love their soldiers as much as farmers loved every idiot inbred horse they managed to spawn.
"Just a minute ago I called Poll n' Boll pigfuckers," Skandra announced loudly, raising his cup. "But I realized something from my impolite statement. They don't fuck pigs. Just each other!"
The first fist that collided with his jaw was a faceful of that same earthen filth he'd decried a moment gone, infused with some sort of wrath. Skandra's head twisted involuntarily. The second punch he caught on his elbow, then carried his position into a counterattack. Poll reeled backward with a mouthful of his own rotten teeth. Boll shuffled forward in time to take a kick to his ribs - but Poll returned with a stool, which he swung over his friend's ducked head and into Skandra's chest. The Immortal felt wood shatter on his proud coat as he staggered backward. Someone caught him under the arms, but he shoved off easily enough. They weren't trying to hold him, just trying to keep him on his feet. This was probably about as entertaining as a fight could get for these bumpkins.
Skandra's foot hooked around a barstool's leg, dragged it in front of Poll as he advanced with one of those legs in his fist. Like a bludgeon. Boll slipped around the obstruction and dragged his own closed fist across Skandra's face. It was a short trip from upright to a collision with the short counter. His head bounced into the path of another righteous fist. The slap echoed across the room as Skandra fell backward. This time there was no one to catch him - patrons were evacuating the vicinity with all possible speed. Not that he blamed them. Poll's foot split the side of his face open with a hiss of leather against skin, and a spat curse from the man himself.
A pair of stomps. No, more than that. Skandra was wheezing into the floor as he twisted around, tried to cover his torso as best he could. Just that quickly a loud pop echoed in the room - and one swollen eye opened to reveal the barkeep hunched over a crossbow.
"He's wrong to say them things," said the barkeep. "But y'know I can't let you beat'im to death in my place."
"We wasn't gonna kill 'im," Poll's rasp was hard to hear. "Just show'im why he ain't right."
"I'd say he done got yer message," the barkeep retorted. "G'on now, get on home! Both'a ya! 'Fore I hafta empty this here thing!"
"You ain't gonna shoot us," Boll laughed.
"Maybe y'got a message'a yer own waitin' on the end'a this here arrow," the barkeep shouted, his agitation clearly advancing in its growth. "Now shut the hellup and get outta m'place!"
Through his swollen eye Skandra could see those filthy earthen fingers reaching down, closing on the brim of his hat. And they were lifting it up, and away. Poll's face was quite possibly the ugliest thing he'd ever seen. And nestled below his hat, which Poll had just placed firmly on his head, the face seemed even uglier. One last sneer from the victorious farmers before they hustled themselves through the crowd of onlookers, filthy farmer's coats waving behind them in the wind. Skandra groaned as he swung himself into a seated position, leaning back on one of the barrels which formed the basis for this counter. The barkeep had not put away his crossbow.
"You, too," he was being more polite at least.
"They hit me first," Skandra protested. "Stole my hat!"
"White Riders see a man bleedin', like as not they ask why," and his sympathy was rapidly vanishing. "Don't want that stranger. Y'might notta deserved the beatin' ya got, but I ain't beholden to 'ya. They ask you on the street'n you bring'im here, I already forgot yer face. So'd they. Now get."
The street was not a street at all. It was smooth dirt where the rest contained rocks. Probably out of concern for the health of wagon wheels and axles. Skandra hated those as much as he hated anything. Walking was an exercise in pain. At least five cuts on his gods-damned face. Hat missing, blood running down his cheeks, Skandra began the short stagger down the road to his room at the inn. Leaving in the morning was going to be a sore affair.
Maybe he'd rent the coach after all.
And as he lurched, the Immortal began to whistle.