“Mind if I join you?” she asked.
He shrugged, though the movement cost him some effort. He’d lost track of how much he’d had to drink tonight. “It’s your country,” he replied. Something about his reply must have struck him as funny, because he found himself laughing right after he had spoken.
He caught the quick frown on Majandra’s face, but the bard did not reply. Instead, she sat down next to him and ordered ale from the barkeep.
“What are you having?” she asked in a neutral tone.
“A really bad day,” Kaerion found himself replying. When the bard said nothing, he pursed his lips and then decided to be polite. “I’ll take an ale.”
She relayed his order and then turned back to face him. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed her eyes before. Wide and slightly slanted, they reflected the dim light of the tavern like twin pools of gold.
“You think us foolish, don’t you?” the bard’s voice cut through his ale-induced wanderings. He blinked and turned as much of his full attention as he was able back to her.
He found himself shaking his head. “Don’t think yer foolish,” he said, forcing his now-sluggish tongue to function. But truly, he didn’t know what he really thought—about Majandra and the mission she and her friends wanted to undertake, or about Gerwyth.
“Then why do you carry around such anger?” she asked in a casual tone, but Kaerion could feel a quiet intensity from her.
All at once, he felt tired. Tired of carrying around anger and pain. Just once, it would be nice to share his burden with someone else. To tell someone else the things that he hadn’t even told Gerwyth.
She stared at him, eyes alight with intelligence, red hair flaming around her softly angled face. She was beautiful. Beautiful and interested. Kaerion felt his own heart soften beneath the soulful glance she was giving him.
He started to talk, to unburden himself when Majandra pitched forward for a moment.
“Hey!” she shouted at the lout who had tried to stagger past her, but obviously misjudged his way. “Watch where you’re going.”
The drunk muttered something incomprehensible under his breath and started to weave his way past the bard. Instinct, not quite dulled by the wash of alcohol in Kaerion’s system, sent an alarm ringing through the haze that had enveloped his mind. His hand shot out and caught the offending drunk by his stained shirt.
“Hey,” the man complained in a loud voice, “let go of me you crazy bastard!”
Several of the taverns patrons turned their attention to the happenings, and Kaerion could hear the mumbled stirrings of the crowd.
“Kaerion,” the bard exclaimed, “what are you doing?”
The fighter kept his grip on the drunk’s shirt. “Yer gold pouch,” he managed to say without too much slurring.
Majandra stared for a moment without comprehending, but checked her belt when she realized his meaning. Her eyes flew wide when she discovered that the drunk had stolen her coin pouch.
“You little—” she started to shout, but the thief grabbed a half-empty mug of beer and threw it at Kaerion.
Caught off guard, Kaerion let go of his prisoner as the thick liquid stung his eyes. Blinded by ale and not a fair bit of rage, he threw a wild punch, hoping to stun the sneaky bastard before he had a chance to run away. His fist connected solidly and he heard a heavy thud along with the shattering of crockery.
It wasn’t until he had cleared away the last vestiges of ale from his eyes that Kaerion realized what had happened. Three angry men stood around the remains of a wooden table. A fourth man, clearly not the cutpurse he was after, lay dazed atop the splintered wood.
There was a moment of silence before all hell broke loose. Someone threw a bottle that shattered against the wooden bar, and the tavern erupted into violence. The three men advanced on Kaerion, brows furrowed in anger. All around him he could hear the telltale shouts and thuds of brawling fighters.
Kaerion tried to sidestep the first man, who threw a punch at his midsection, but ale-dulled reflexes would not respond. Breath whuffed out of him as the man’s blow struck him solidly. It wasn’t until the third kick to his head that Kaerion realized he’d been knocked down. Dimly, he heard Majandra’s voice protesting and then a bright flash of light. The repeated blows to his head stopped for a moment, and Kaerion struggled to his feet.
All around him, tight circles of men and women fought with each other. In the wild chaos, he could make out his three assailants, each crumpled to the floor clutching their eyes. He searched for Majandra and was relieved to find her calmly sitting on the bar and watching the exchange.
He was about to speak with her when a thick-nosed man with a large circle of metal pushed through his left ear grabbed him by the shoulder. Kaerion spun around and blocked an incoming punch with a muscular forearm. He ducked another wild swing, but felt the floor spin beneath him. Overbalanced, Kaerion hit the ground. Desperately, he kicked out at his attacker, struck solid bone, and raised himself, once again, to his feet. No attack came.
When he looked around, he saw his opponent curled up on the ground, holding the jagged edge of his shattered bone as it protruded brutally from his leg.
“Kaerion, look out!” Majandra shouted from her vantage point by the bar.
Warned of an impending attack, Kaerion brought up both arms. The movement saved him from the full crushing force of the chair, which broke as it struck him from the side. Dazed, Kaerion could do nothing as two men leapt upon him and brought him crashing to the ground. Instinctively, he curled into a ball, warding off as many blows as possible, but even he could not delay the inevitable. He caught sight of the bottle descending upon his head before darkness claimed him.
Terys Van stood with arms folded, surveying the damage in the tavern’s common room. Wooden tables and chairs lay overturned or smashed Splinters of wood and broken shards of glass and crockery crunched under the booted tread of his guardsmen. Here and there, he spotted small clumps of bloodied rushes, and the occasional tooth. The stench of stale beer and cheap smoke mingled with the sour musk of sweat, producing the familiar smell of desperation.
Fourteen years as a sentinel in the city watch, however, had pretty much inured him to the darker and more violent aspects of life in Rel Mord. So it was with a somewhat bored nod of his head that Terys acknowledged the young guardswoman who stood at attention to his left, waiting to offer her report.
“Typical bar fight, sir,” the smartly uniformed guard spoke at his signal. “No deaths. Three wounded seriously. The clerics are seeing to those. They’ll be ready to meet the king’s judgment. The rest are being escorted to the prison now.”
“Good work,” he responded. The entire investigation had been quick and efficient. The sentinel was calculating the time it would take him to stamp the paperwork through and head home for the night when he noticed the guardswoman still standing stiffly to his side.
“What is it, Kendra?” he snapped. He was in no mood for complications.
“Sir,” the young guard straightened at her commander’s tone, “several witnesses identified the one who started the fight.”
She pointed to a spot near the bar, where a bear of a man leaned heavily against the wall, arms bound behind his back. Blood covered his tunic, and even from his position, Terys could make out an angry bruise beginning to blossom on one side of his face.
“I see,” he said, dismissing the guardswoman with a sharp wave of his hand. “I’ll handle it from here.”
“But, sir,” Kendra called out, “I think—”
Another wave of his hand silenced the protesting guard. “I said that I would take it from here, Corporal.” He sent her to deal with the proprietor of the tavern, who was complaining loudly about the loss to his business.