Kell took a long swig, and merely wiped his mouth afterwards without any indication whether he liked the taste or not. “My lesson was not to do everything your comrades tell you to simply because they find it amusing. A lesson I obviously did not learn very well.” He winked at Utha and passed the flask to her.
The copper-haired dwarf examined the rune on the flask carefully. She made several hand gestures toward Maric.
“She says the rune is … I can’t decipher that, sorry,” Nicolas said, confused.
“It’s the mark of House Aeducan,” Maric stated. “King Endrin gave it to me.”
Utha appeared impressed. She took a long drink, gulping several times, and when she finished she lowered the flask and paused before letting out a long and completely unladylike belch that reverberated around the cavern.
Smiling proudly, she made gestures that Nicolas again translated. “I cannot taste it, of course, but I remember this foul brew well enough. My father loved it, and belched after every drink because he knew it annoyed my mother. He had to hide the bottles from her, and she would always send me to find them for her. I always did. He used to call me Little Spoilsport.”
Kell gave her a serious look. “You’ve never spoken of your parents.”
She nodded sadly. “They died. Darkspawn.”
With that, she passed the flask to Nicolas, who eyed it warily. “My parents threw me out of their home when I was barely a man. I lied to the seneschal at Fortalan to get him to accept me into one of the outlier units. The first time we headed into battle, I was so frightened I wet my tunic.”
Julien’s eyes went wide with delighted shock. “You didn’t!”
“I did. After the battle, I was called Puddle. The name stuck.” He took a swig and his face twisted with pure disgust. “That’s awful! Why would anyone drink that?” He quickly handed it to Julien.
The dark-eyed warrior frowned. “I have no amusing tale,” he said in his quiet voice. The man’s Orlesian accent was pronounced. Not for the first time, Duncan wondered if Julien was originally part of the Empire’s aristocracy. If so, he had to wonder just what had brought the man into the Grey Wardens. Duncan’s experience with Orlesian nobility told him that they rarely paid heed to such quaint notions as duty, but perhaps he shouldn’t paint them all with the same brush?
“Sure you do,” Nicolas teased him.
“No, I don’t.”
“What about that night in Val Mort? Before the darkspawn raid?”
Julien blushed, glancing at the others as if he wished he could crawl away somewhere. “That’s not an appropriate tale, Nicolas. And it wasn’t my doing.”
Nicolas roared with amused laughter. “The others bought him an elven whore!” He paused, looking at the mage across the fire. “Apologies, Fiona.”
She snorted. “What ever. Your mother was a whore.”
“So she was!” He looked back at Julien, taking great plea sure in his friend’s discomfort. “He’d made the mistake of telling us he’d never been with a woman, see. So we made sure to fix that before he faced darkspawn for the first time.”
Julien’s face was crimson. “She was a sweet girl.”
“She robbed him blind! Took all his coin and ran out the window.”
The quiet warrior grinned then, nodding even through his embarrassment. “She was still a sweet girl.” He took a long swig, shuddered at the evil taste, and then attempted to pass it to Fiona.
The mage declined. “I’m not drinking that.”
“Oh, come on,” Duncan urged her.
She grudgingly relented. Taking the flask, she held her nose and took the slightest sip. Immediately she gasped and began convulsing and making retching noises. Flailing with the flask, she tried to pawn it off on Duncan, and he took it from her while laughing. The elf fought hard not to vomit, and the others joined in the merriment.
“Oh, very kind,” she finally gasped, her voice raspy. “Thank you for finding it so bloody funny that I’ve been poisoned!”
“Poor Fiona,” Nicolas chided her. “Such a delicate flower.”
“Go hump your horse.” She giggled and wiped her mouth several times, as if that could remove the memory of the taste. “Ach! It’s like liquid death.”
Duncan smirked at her. “That was quite the show you put on there.”
“No show required. Taste it yourself and you’ll find out.”
“Uh-huh,” he said disbelievingly. He let the subject drop and turned his attention to the flask, giving it a prudent sniff. That was a bad idea. He flinched, his nose twitching like it had been set on fire. “I’m not sure I want to, now.”
“You have to,” Maric chuckled. “We all did.”
Not everyone. Duncan glanced over at Genevieve, who stood off at the edge of the ruined outpost. She leaned against one of the walls, her back toward them. She had to hear them laughing and carry ing on. Part of him wanted to call her over, invite her to join them. But she would refuse, naturally.
“I’ve never been in any big battle,” he said, “but there was this one night where we were preparing to rob the Marquis … oh, I forget his name now. Wealthy bastard, though. Lots of guards, too, which made robbing his manse very risky.”
Utha made a disapproving face.
“What?” he protested. “We were poor! He was rich! It was only fair.”
“Sounds fair to me,” Fiona laughed.
“So we were going to head out, all of us nervous and sweating like a bunch of elven whores in a chantry—”
“What is with all the elven whores?” Fiona complained.
“—and I remembered that I forgot my rope. So I ran down the steps to get it and I slipped. Fell down an entire flight of stairs and landed on a cat.”
“You landed on a cat.” Maric stared at him incredulously.
“A big cat. He was a local one, lived on the streets and chased dogs. We used to call him Rabbit.”
Kell cocked an eyebrow. “Why Rabbit?”
“It had big ears; I don’t know. Anyway, it scratched me so badly I was furious. I chased that thing down four city blocks, throwing stones at it. Little bastard was fast. Then I fell into a well.”
“A well,” Nicolas repeated.
Duncan shrugged. “I was a lot less graceful back then.” He smiled ruefully at the memory. “The others didn’t know where I’d gone, and I sat in that well for three days until a guardsman heard me yelling and pulled me up. Threw me in the gaol for the night, but at least I got a meal out of it.” He chuckled, and it trailed off into a sigh. “Stupid cat.”
“Didn’t the others come looking for you?” Fiona asked.
He shook his head. “They died. Somebody tipped the Marquis off and all his guards were waiting for them. I was lucky I wasn’t there, or at least I thought I was. Because only I survived, all the other guilders thought I was the one who’d tipped him off.” There was a subdued silence at that, but Duncan merely grinned and raised the flask to the others. “To lost friends.”
“To lost friends,” they chimed in. He braced himself and took a swallow of the dwarven ale. It was like choking back the leather sole of an old and sweaty shoe that had been pounded into paste until it was slightly watery and grey. The others stared as he tilted the flask back, and after a series of audible glugs he finished it off.
The others clapped, impressed. Duncan handed the King back his flask, suddenly feeling very ill and shaky.
“Brave lad,” Maric said.
“Thanks,” Duncan grunted. After a moment he lurched to his feet and ran off to the corner of the ruin to vomit everything in his stomach onto the stones. Then he heaved a bit more, as the others grinned with amusement.