She propped both elbows on the wooden table and knuckled the dust out of her eyes.
Footsteps approaching. Then, "What'll it be, miladies?"
The deep voice to her right sounded just a shade apprehensive. Tarma blinked up at the burly innkeeper standing a respectful distance away.
Apron's clean-hands're clean. Table's clean. Good enough. We can at least have a meal before we hie out.
"No ladies here, Keeper," she replied, her hoarse voice even more grating than usual because of all the dust she'd eaten today. "Just a couple of tired mercs wanting a meal and a quiet drink."
The slightly worried look did not leave the innkeeper's shiny, round face. "And that?" he asked, nodding at Warrl, sprawled beside her on the stone floor, panting.
"All he wants is about two tradeweight of meat scraps and bones -- more meat than bone, please, and no bird bones. A big bowl of cool water. And half a loaf of barley bread."
:With honey,: prompted the voice in her head.
:You want honey in this heat?:
:Yes,: Warrl said with finality.
"With honey," she amended. "Split the loaf and pour it down the middle."
:You're going to get it in your fur, and who's going to have to help you get it out?:
:I will not!: Warrl gave her an offended glance from the floor.
The innkeeper smiled a little. Tarma grinned back. "Damn beast's got a sweet tooth. What's on the board tonight?"
"Mutton stew, chicken fried or stewed, egg'n'onion pie. Cheese bread or barley bread. Ale or wine."
"Which's cooler?"
The innkeeper smiled a little more. "Wine. More expensive and goes bad quicker, so we keep it deeper in cellar."
"Egg pie, cheese bread, and wine." Tarma looked across the tiny table at Kethry, who was trying to knot her amber hair up off her neck and having no great success. Kethry nodded shortly. "White wine, if you've got it. For two."
"You be staying?" The apprehensive look was back.
"No," Tarma raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't like to slander a man's homeplace, but your town's got a bad name for travelers, Keeper. I don't doubt we could take care of anyone thinking to shake us down, but it would make an almighty mess in your clean inn."
The innkeeper heaved a visible sigh of relief. "My mind exactly, swordlady. I seen a few mercs in my time -- and you two look handier than most. But you dealin' with Gorley's bullyboys would leave me out of pocket for things broke -- more than losin' your night's lodging is gonna cost me."
Tarma looked around the common room, and was mildly surprised to see that they were the only occupants other than a scruffy, curly-pated minstrel-type tucked up in one corner. She dismissed that one without a second thought. Too skinny to be any kind of fighter, so he wasn't one of Gorley's enforcers; dark of hair and dusky of skin, so he wasn't local. And he blinked in a way that told her he was just a tad shortsighted. No threat.
"That why you're a bit short on custom?" she asked. "Not having travelers?"
"Nah -- it ain't market-day, that's all. We never was much on overnighters anyway, only got three rooms upstairs. Most folk stop at Lyavor or Grant's Hold. Always made our way on local custom. I bring you your wine, eh? You want that pie cold or het up?"
Tarma shuddered. "Cold, cold -- I've had enough heat and dust today."
"Then it won't be but a blink-"
The innkeeper hurried through the open door in the far wall that presumably led to the kitchen. Tarma sagged her head back down to her hands and closed her eyes.
Leslac frowned. This was not going as he'd expected.
The women -- he'd expected them to be taller, somehow, especially the swordswoman. Cleaner, not so -- shabby. Aristocratic. Silk for the sorceress, and shining steel armor for the swordswoman, not a dull buff homespun robe and a plain leather gambeson. And in his mental image they had always held themselves proudly, challengingly -- shining Warriors of the Light--
Not two tired, dusty, slouching, ordinary women; not women who rubbed their red-rimmed eyes or fought with their hair.
Not women who avoided a confrontation.
He studied them despite his disappointment -- surely, surely there was some sign of the legend they were becoming -- the innkeeper had seen it. He'd been concerned that they could take on Lord Gorley's men and win -- and wreck the inn in the process.
After long moments of study, as the innkeeper came and went with food and drink, Leslac began to smile again. No, these weren't Shining Warriors of the Light -- these women were something even better.
Like angels who could put on human guise, Tarma and Kethry hid their strengths -- obviously to put their targets off-guard. But the signs were there, and the innkeeper had read them before Leslac had even guessed at them. But -- it showed; in the easy way they moved, in the hands that never strayed too far from a hilt, in the fact that they had not put off their weapons. In the way that one of them was always on guard, eyes warily surveying the room between bites. In the signs of wear that only hard usage could put on a weapon.
Undoubtedly they were intending to remain here -- but they didn't want Lord Gorley alerted by staying in the inn.
Leslac mentally congratulated them on their subtlety.
Even as he did so, however, there was a commotion at the inn door -- and red-faced and besotted with drink, Lord Gorley himself staggered through it after colliding with both of the doorposts.
Leslac nearly crowed with glee and pressed himself back into the rough stone of the corner wall. Now he'd have what he'd come so far to witness! There would be no way now for the women to avoid a confrontation!
Tarma was sipping the last of her wine when the drunk stumbled in through the door and tripped over Warrl's tail.
Warrl yelped and sent out a Mindshriek that was comprised of more startlement than pain. But it left Tarma stunned and deafened for a moment -- and when her eyes cleared, the sot was looming over her, enveloping her in a cloud of stale wine fumes.
Oh, Lady of the Sunrise, I do not need this-
"Ish zhish yer dog?" The man was beefy, muscle running to fat, nose a red lacework of broken veins that told a tale of far too many nights like this one -- nights spent drunk on his butt before the sun was scarcely below the horizon. His wattled face was flushed with wine and anger, his curly brown hair greasy with sweat.
Tarma sighed. "Insofar as anyone can claim him, yes, he's mine," she said placatingly. "I'm sorry he was in your way. Now why don't you let me buy you a drink by way of apology?"
The innkeeper had inexplicably vanished, but there was a mug or three left in their bottle--
The man would not be placated. "I don' like yer dog," he growled, "an' I don' like yer ugly face!"
He stumbled back a pace or two -- then, before Tarma had a chance to blink, he'd drawn his sword and was swinging at her.