A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Eight
Chapter Eight
Nemo and Vispa galloped hard towards the town irreverent of the potential suspicion which arose from any onlookers near or far. The road lay ahead. Empty. The horses eager to travel on flat, steady, ground. The paved road showed civilisation was close at hand.
A good town, Nemo thought as Atars’ hooves clacked on the paving stones.
The silhouette of roofs and chimneys broke into view. One side beamed with the morning sun, the other in the darkest shade. Smoke billowed from conical roofs. A blacksmith? Nemo wondered. It was not a town he recognised. Still days away, weeks maybe, from home. From Beargarth.
‘We aren’t stopping. No need too,’ Nemo said between breaths.
‘Why not? I need to rest. And eat,’ Vispa said with a pained expression.
‘A whole day of travel and you want to stop.’
‘Well you have to eat eventually too,’ she pleaded to his stomach.
His stomach rumbled on cue. ‘Fine. I hope you have some coin.’
‘Of course. I pickpocketed a rather lavishly dressed man before leaving Ramascus,’ she winked.
‘Of course you did,’ Nemo shook his head. ‘Did your parents not teach you manners?’ He quipped.
‘Hard to do when they’re dead.’
Of course. Nemo kept forgetting. He heaved as he rode and pulled Atars to a fast canter.
The town loomed close. Smoke rose from smithies but curtains remained shut. Streets empty.
Vispa pulled Simbar to a stop ahead, ‘Why’d you slow down?’
‘It’s rude to gallop into a town,’ Nemo said. ‘And dangerous,’ he added.
‘But there’s no one out yet.’
‘Just…,’ Nemo felt himself rising to annoyance, ‘You don’t know that. You have a lot to learn.’
Vispa grumbled, ‘I’m not a child. I’ve killed a man,’ she prodded her own chest.
‘That’s nothing to be proud of. Killing is a necessary evil not an accomplishment. And you have much of the world to learn and so you remain child-like,’ Nemo spoke with indifference.
‘Strange words for a bounty hunter,’ Vispa said under her breath.
‘A thankless job requires a thankless task,’ Nemo said. He rode passed Vispa who sat with a frown atop Simbar. The horse shook its mane as he passed.
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Vispa spat digging her heel into Simbar’s flank. The horse jumped to Atars’ side.
Nemo sighed and thought of home. His face scrunched and unwilling to relax. He ground his teeth and bit his tongue. ‘Let’s go and eat,’ he said.
‘Err,’ Vispa tapped his arm and pointed to her face.
‘What?’ His skin felt tight as he squinted, ‘oh,’ blood stains, he reached for his water skin and splashed some on his face. With the sleeve of his shirt he rubbed his face as best he could and hid the sleeve inside his jacket.
‘Maybe we should wash first,’ Vispa suggested.
‘Good idea.’
The town began like any other. The backs of buildings faced out to the road. The dusty brown walls and occasional grey stone. The road between cities went from one side to the other. Narrow passages swirled off down the backs and fronts of buildings built seemingly at odds with one another. The road widened into a square, or circle, with a well or statue in the middle and a street cut across it.
This particular town had neither well or statue just a wide open space, and, on the right a two storey building. The only one in the town. Single storey hovels raced in all directions interspersed with conical chimneys the width of the building. Nemo counted six in total. Six smithies, must be the place for swords. Only one billowed smoke. The rest lay dormant and a certain air, heavy and grey, filled the streets and passages.
Nemo approached the empty town square and heard shouting. He felt the need to leave. To be on the road. Just eat on the way, he thought. The shouting continued. Louder. A man’s voice, a woman’s responded. Another man, younger, jumped in. Then silence. Nemo listened against his will and caught the flash of a curtain moving in a window of the two storey building.
A door flung open, ‘Good morning. You’re early travellers aren’t you? Ride through the night?’ A rotund man bellowed. A smile across his face and an apron around his bulging stomach. He faltered, ‘I don’t have anything to give you. You already collected,’ the man backed off.
The scraping of chairs and tables rumbled behind him as the door swung closed.
‘Water to wash and food to eat, like he said,’ Vispa answered.
Oh damn it, Nemo thought looking to the sky. Nemo followed, ‘don’t worry we aren’t here to rob you. We were attacked in the night we need food and baths and a place to lay. We have coin to pay for it,’ he held his hands out peacefully.
‘Great. Great. Come on in when you’re ready. I will have breakfast prepared while you wash. Coin first,’ the large man shouted. He turned and barged into his establishment. It was not a question. ‘Hitch the horses out back,’ he shouted through the swinging door.
Nemo fiddled with his coin purse and tossed a few silver dirham to the barkeep.
‘Why did you do that?’ Nemo asked Vispa.
‘I’m hungry and need to sit down on something with feathers in,’ she dropped from her saddle and led Simbar to the rear of the building, disappearing down an alley.
Nemo held the pommel of his saddle in both hands and sucked air. ‘Fine,’ he said to no one and dismounted. He followed Vispa down the alley. ‘You’ll be lucky if this place has feather anything,’ he chided. The barkeep at allowed them to stay at least, Nemo was thankful for that.
The alley was narrow for a cat let alone a horse. Sand coloured walls rose on both sides offering shade. The path covered in gravel and cleared of refuse. Cleaner than the city at least, Nemo thought.
‘Woah,’ Vispa said as she turned through an opening on the left hand side.
‘What is it?’ Nemo asked to no avail. He followed the wall to the opening and a flicker of green burst from the opened gate.
He turned into the rear of the inn and saw a myriad of colours. The first since the farmlands outside the wall of Ramascus. Here, however, was not just shades of green and yellow. Instead small, delicate, flowers of red and orange popped from dense crops of tall green fluttering grass.
The garden was as wide as the building and same again in length. Enough for a short olive tree in the centre of the land and a number of other trees against the walls. Nemo hitched Atars near to the building, away from the flowering plants, where hitching posts had been dug into the ground.
Vispa held a red flower between her middle and index finger. ‘I’ve never seen a flower like this. Not one in the ground anyway. Clients used to…’ she cut herself off. ‘Have a look,’ she said instead.
Nemo stepped beside her and crouched. The petals were soft and waxy to the touch. The five long red petals surrounded a cluster of pollen heads that tangled in the air. He was reminded of the flowers that grew in Beargarth around the well that provided for the town. The same waxiness to the petals.
‘Doors locked,’ a voice said.
Nemo looked up from the flower, the well of Beargarth melting away, and saw Vispa standing at the rear of the inn. He couched and stood up. The flower bounced in the air, pollen falling from the stems. ‘We’ll go around the front,’ he said retrieving what he needed from Atars’ saddlebags. His bedroll lay across his back, the dark blood stain less noticeable than he feared.
Him and Vispa pulled the gate closed and headed back down the shaded alley. The heat of the sun met them on the road. Nemo squinted against the glistening walls opposite and the glare of the almost white sand on the road. Vispa strode ahead.
As he turned to enter the inn, his back to the sun, he caught a glimpse of two men in black clothing. Furs around their torsos and swords at their waists. Hair tied up on their heads and black narrow eyes that followed him as he entered the inn.
The door swung closed as Vispa entered and Nemo caught it half way. The floor was tiled in a spiral of colour. In the centre a round black stone ringed by small square black stones which spiralled out in a slow change of colour from black to blue to green to yellow to orange to red and finally to white slabs which ringed the walls of the room.
To one side where six chairs huddled close together. One had fallen over and another pushed aside to be facing out of the group. A meeting abandoned.
Opposite the door, stretching the width of the building, was a bar. To one end a set of stairs behind a wooden gate and a door to the rear of the building on the other. Petals and leaves reached upwards from the bar twirling around one another then twisting sideways, running parallel to the bar. Every few steps a bloom of carved flowers rose from the bar and met with the trellis of flowers running overhead. In the centre of the bar, overhead, was a crest surrounded by carved leaves, flowers, and stems. Specked with burn marks and dented from vandalism.
Nemo ignored the rest of the room and headed for the crest. It was no larger than the palm of his hand. Lost in the ornate bar a crown and eagle raised from the rust and burn damage. He ran a finger over the hammered metal and felt the points of the crown and the talons of the eagle. Unusual… he thought. A symbol of an old alliance between Lapulia, ruled by brother Kings, and Vun, the sister of Twun with an elected Grand Captain. Together, Lapulia and Vun, defeated Twun over a century ago when the founding sisters of Twun argued and split leading to the formation of Vun. Vun and Lapulia resisted the Republic of Thesus, retaining Free City status.
Just maybe… Nemo thought, his shoulders lowering prematurely. He rubbed his forefinger and thumb together and flecks of rust floated to the mosaic floor.
‘Ahh you will be wanting your baths,’ the rotund man said as he rounded the bottom of the stairs. ‘Pisi, get in here and show these two upstairs,’ he shouted towards the door behind the bar.
Pisi barged through the door, a boy younger than Vispa, he said something in a different language. Too quick for Nemo to catch. The rotund man shouted and pointed to the chairs scattering the room. The boy rushed under a section of the bar that had a missing panel and began to rearrange the inn.
‘I never caught your name?’ Nemo asked.
‘My name is Tura,’ he offered his hand.
‘Nemo, this is Vispa,’ he pointed behind him with one hand and grasped Tura’s with the other. The man’s hand was doughy but firm in grip.
‘Oh is she…’ Tura didn’t finish his sentence, ‘Pisi,’ he turned to the boy tidying the place up and gestured up stairs.
The boy clicked his fingers and tapped Nemo and Vispa on the arm as he raced past and said, ‘follow,’ in a thick accent.
Pisi raced along a corridor and up another set of stairs on the other side of the inn. The boy showed Vispa to a room billowing steam and Nemo to another next to it. The boy nodded to each and held his hand outstretched.
Nemo dove into his coin purse again and found two fals to give the boy. The boy nodded, said something in his own language, and darted off down the stairs.
Washed and starving Nemo descended the stairs to the main hall. Fastening his sword belt as he went.
‘Would you like something to drink? Food will be out shortly,’ Tura said cleaning a stone cup.
‘Definitely,’ Vispa piped already lounging on a stretch of cushions against the front facing wall.
Tura gave a curt smile to Nemo and raised his eyebrows.
‘What she said. Thank you,’ Nemo said as Pisi dashed behind him with a wicker chair.
Tura reached up and pulled a second stone cup down from the shelf behind the carved flowers. He turned to the array of barrels behind up and crouched. Not without some effort, he made a show of holding his breath as he bent down to turn the tap on the barrel.
Why have it so low? Nemo thought as Pisi ran behind him again. Oh, it was the boy who usually served.
Tura stretched towards the bar with the first cup and began to fill the second. Once full he huffed and pushed himself up on to one knee. Nemo watched as he stood, his knee bending slow enough to click under the pressure. Face flushed he set the second cup on the bar and took a long wet breath.
‘Right, food,’ he said a sheen gathering across his cheeks.
Nemo smiled and brought the drinks to Vispa. She propped herself up on one elbow and leaned for her cup. Vispa snatched the cup from him before he had even sat down and swallowed two mouthfuls.
‘Is that advisable right now?’ Nemo raised an eyebrow tasting the beer.
Vispa managed to wrestle the cup away from her lips, dried her mouth on her sleeve, and said, ‘Yes,’ before taking another gulp.
The boy, Pisi, threw cushions back against the wall and the remnants of the meeting were scattered. He muttered something to himself in a language Nemo could catch only the odd word. Strange dialect, the words and grammar seemed similar but none of it matched context or made sense with each other.
‘The sword people live on stars and goats,’ Nemo heard Pisi speak. Or was it,“A sword would sail on stars and oxen.” Nemo stopped listening to the boy as he disappeared underneath the bar into the rear of the building, still muttering to himself.
‘What was the boy saying?’ Vispa asked setting down her empty cup.
‘No idea. Sounded like nonsense,’ Nemo sipped from his cup. The beer was thin and watery with a hint of citrus and smoke. He drank it anyway.
‘But you understood the words?’
‘Yeah but they didn’t mean what I know them to mean. It doesn’t matter. We stay here, catch some sleep during the midday heat and set off again.’
‘Fine by me,’ Vispa said staring longingly into her empty stone cup.
Nemo watched her face scrunch, her shoulders held high, and her jaw grinding side to side. He flicked a look behind him feeling his empty stomach. The door did not open. He returned to Vispa, and his beer, she was frowning at him and staring at him. Or through him. He drank.
Setting the cup on the table, he shifted on his cushion, ‘You alright?’ He asked the need outweighing the potential outpouring.
Her eyes focussed, ‘Mmm?’
‘Are you alright?’ Nemo repeated after another sip.
‘Sure,’ she shrugged.
Nemo ran his tongue along the back of his teeth not wanting to ask, ‘Why are you here?’
‘For food and a rest,’ she remarked.
‘No. Why are you here? Why are you travelling with me?’
Vispa scowled and her eyes burned, ‘Because… I am. Okay. It’s normal for people to travel together.’
Nemo sighed. I shouldn’t have asked. ‘True. But you’re a child and I didn’t know you before you robbed me. That isn’t normal.’
‘If you want me to leave just say so,’ she shouted, the empty cup in her hand.
‘I never said that,’ Nemo said with a heavy breath.
‘Then leave it,’ Vispa commanded.
The door behind the bar burst open with a thud. Nemo turned, his hand moving to his sword, only to see Tura struggling with two platters of bread, olives, grapes, meat, and cheese.
He leant down to place the two plates on the table, ‘Here you are,’ he smiled.
Nemo smiled back and eyed the dishes in the centre of the platter. Jam, honey, butter, and oil. A thin wisp of steam came from cuts of flat bread.
Vispa’s stomach growled her thanks and dove into the jam with a section of bread.
‘Well. Enjoy,’ Tura said.
‘Another beer please,’ Vispa managed through a mouthful of bread and grapes. A drop of jam on her chin.
‘Right away,’ he retrieved her cup.
Nemo thought he looked disquieted but was not in the mood for conversation. His eyes dropped to his food and passed by something stuffed into a belt. A symbol. A patch. ‘What’s that?’ He reached for it.
Tura stepped back quicker than a man his size should. The cup fell to the floor and shattered.
‘Nothing,’ he stammered fumbling at his waist. He pulled the patch out and went to his pocket he missed and the patch fell to the floor. The man dropped with it.
Nemo saw the three part shield design. The crown, eagle, and lion, and the sword and spear behind. ‘I know that shield,’ he sounded menacing.
‘No you don’t. Old family heirloom,’ Tura grabbed the patch and backed away with his eyes locked onto Nemo’s scimitar.
‘What? I’m not going to do anything,’ Nemo offered. Revealing his own would only complicate things.
‘How would I know that?’ Tura spluttered.
‘Trust between honest men.’
‘I meet far more untrusting men these days…’ he stepped back again.
Nemo shot a glance at Vispa who flicked her eyes to his belt. He drooped his eyes, of course, he thought knowing what he had to do and not wanting to.
He turned back to Tura. Pisi had appeared behind him. Watching, mouth open. Nemo began to reach towards a pouch on his belt. Near his weapon. One of them at least.
Tura cried out, ‘No. No. Not yet.’ He turned away and closed his eyes.
Nemo said nothing and untied the pouch. Reaching inside he pushed past coins and lifted his own Free Cities patch out. ‘Look familiar?’ He asked.
Tura opened his eyes and sighed sharply, ‘How do I know that you didn’t kill someone for it?’
Nemo dropped his arm, ‘Really? How many people do you come across with a plot to trick the innkeeper of a no name town?’
‘Mayor actually and the town is called Forgiskill,’ he puffed out his chest as he spoke. The button between his chest screaming as it held his shirt together.
‘Mayor? Really?’ Nemo muttered out loud. ‘Still. I fought out by Ramascus. Where we lost. Doesn’t mean I am going to suddenly sell you out,’ he pocketed the pouch growing nervous just having it in the daylight.
Tura dropped his arms turned to Pisi and said, in that odd dialect, something about beer.
At least that word is the same, Nemo smiled inwardly.
The boy ran behind the counter. He could only see the boys hair bobbing above the wooden bar. Nemo heard the knocking of cups and the pouring of beer.
He turned back to see Tura sitting on a cushion. Leaning towards Nemo the pores on his nose became clear. The little specks of black, dirt and grime, plain to see. The bead of sweat between a fold of skin under his eyelid. Nemo prevented himself recoiling.
‘Maybe, maybe you can help then. You see we have this problem,’ Tura began his mouth racing ahead, ‘There are a group of bandits that come every week for money, food, clothing, anything they can sell or use. You will have seen the chimneys of the town and none of them producing smoke.’
‘One actually,’ Nemo interjected.
Tura didn’t notice, ‘Well this town is known for its smithing. But the blacksmiths, armoursmiths, the cobblers, and the rest have all hung up their hammers to avoid the bandits. So now they are getting violent and attacking people in the street. Once a week. A quick punch up and the bandits get what they want. The Republic won’t help, obviously, and there are no Free Cities fighters left, and no young men to raise a rabble just old blacksmiths, women, and children. So I have been—‘ the mayor continued.
Nemo reached for an olive. The oil glistened against his fingers. He preferred dried and salted olives but oiled was good too. He watched a lick of oil run down his thumb and gather at the knuckle. Don’t drop, he willed the oil and caught the drop with his tongue before letting the olive fall into his mouth.
He pierced the skin with his teeth and felt the rippled stone beneath. Parting the flesh from the stone he savoured the olive between gum and teeth and pushed the stone between his front teeth. Pulling it out with an oily thumb and forefinger he began to chew the olive proper. Delicious.
‘So, what do you say? Will you help us?’ Tura said.
Nemo swallowed and licked his thumb of oil, ‘I really don’t have time. My family are waiting further north, he said.
Tura lost his colour and sagged into the cushion, ‘Oh. But we might all be killed or worse, enslaved when we run out of stuff to give the bandits.’
Nemo sighed wanting only to eat. Vispa was right a rest was good. She had been wrong about the place however, ‘Thank you for the food. I will sure be to pay well. But I must be off later today,’ he said. He forced the politeness.
Tura struggled to his feet, ‘Don’t bother,’ he said with a toss of his hand, ‘the bandits will just take your money anyway.’ He walked off sullen.
Nemo broke off a chunk of cheese and folded a tear of bread around it. Vispa held Nemo with a cold stare, her dark eyebrows meeting at a fold of skin above her nose.
‘What?’
‘Why aren’t you helping when you obviously can?’ She whispered.
‘It isn’t my concern and I would rather be on the road than caught up in the problems of some village far from my own,’ Nemo said.
‘Then why did you join the Free Cities Army?’
‘It isn’t the same. The Republic were marching towards my village, my family. These bandits are far away from there. They should defend themselves,’ Nemo spoke with a mouthful of food. The salt of the cheese and sugar of the jam mixed well.
‘You heard him. The only ones left are old or unable, the rest dead, taken, or worse—’
Nemo interrupted her, ‘Then why don’t you help?’
Vispa lost a breath, snarled, and spat, ‘Maybe I will then.’
Nemo tensed and let the matter drop. She wasn’t his responsibility and she had been looking after herself long enough. Him stopping her would only push her to do it anyway.
The pair continued eating in silence. Pisi brought beers over and left without uttering any word of his bizarre dialect.
Nemo scraped the dish of jam with his last chunk of bread. A tiredness overcame him. Too much food, too little sleep, and hours of riding.
‘Seeing as we are here I am going to ask about the room,’ Nemo said.
Vispa grunted. She lay on her side facing away from him. Her plate of food balanced precariously on a ledge above her.
‘Right then,’ Nemo sighed as he pushed himself up from the cushion.
The Mayor, though he appeared as anything but, stood behind the bar in silence.
‘Do you have a room?’
‘Sure. Pisi,’ he called holding Nemo’s gaze.
The boy came running and said something in the bizarre dialect before leading Nemo towards the stairs on the other side of the building.
‘Thanks,’ Nemo said with a nodding smile. He tossed a few silver dirham onto the bar. Guessing the amount he had spent as Tura refused to share.
Nemo lifted the section of folding bar and followed Pisi up the stairs. Darkness shrouded the narrow stairwell. The steps groaned under his steps. The saddlebag over his shoulder bounced against the wall.
As he rounded the top of the stairs he was blinded. The sun sat in the sky opposite and bleached the window white. He squinted and followed Pisi to the corridor that ran along the front of the building. The boy said something and pointed to the ceiling. Nemo thought one of the words was water but it could have been milk. Neither seemed right.
Pisi stood in front of a door at the far end of the hallway. Behind him a man came around the corner, he was topless, his hair stringed with damp. Scars laced across his chest and ribs. His chin was clean shaven. The man passed Nemo with a nod.
So there are other guests then, he thought. Look to be fighting age too. Nemo watched the topless man disappear into a room at the start of the corridor.
‘Hey!’ Pisi shouted.
‘Alright,’ Nemo said catching up to the boy.
Pisi opened the door and pointed inside to a large bed with fresh linens. The sheets were thin and the bed low. A window above the head board. A light breeze chilled the room.
‘Thanks,’ Nemo said tossing the boy a copper fals.
Pisi caught it and said, ‘Next time,’ as he ran the length of the corridor again.
Nemo presumed what he meant was “Thanks” but he wasn’t sure.
The door clicked shut and he smiled. The peace of morning remained unbroken and nothing would intrude. A gloom came over him and a rigidness to his thought that he hobbled to the bedside. He wished to be on the road but he could not.
He wondered how much sleep Vispa and he had in the steppe turning to desert. Maybe two hours, three at most, he guessed. Not enough either way. He slumped down to the bed. His boots were off before he noticed his hands untying the knots around on his jacket and shirt. The scimitar crashed to the floor and the bed rushed up to meet him. The fine light sheets swaddled him and the world breathed cool air across him.
The door creaked open. A boy said something. A girl entered soft footed and erring.
Nemo lay on his side listening to the two.
‘There’s been a mistake,’ Vispa ventured.
Pisi responded, ‘No,’ firm and even.
Nemo pulled the sheet over his bare shoulder, he coughed, ‘There probably aren’t any other rooms,’ his eyes still closed he willed himself to slumber.
‘Busy for a town with bandits,’ she said stepping into the room. The door clicked closed behind her. ‘Am I on the floor then?’ Her voice creeping nearer.
He sighed, ‘Guess so,’ he said slurring. He wondered if he had been dreaming. He guessed not on how deep he felt his sleep had been.
‘Alright,’ she said. Her voice came from behind him. He lay on his side facing the edge of the bed.
Pillows slid over one another with faint scratches. The bed rippled as Vispa leant over to continue her rummage for cushions.
The thin sheet covering Nemo began to disappear. He clenched a fist over the fabric, ‘Not that one,’ he breathed. ‘It would be easier if we shared the bed.’
‘Err…’ Vispa said, startled to pause.
He felt her weight on the bed as she sat down. Her boots hit the floor with a thud. A scattering of stones were freed from their nests and skittered over wood floor boards. The sheet was pulled and then rumpled by him. Another was pulled. He lifted his feet and felt the fabric rush past.
A cold toe brushed his calf.
‘Stay on your side,’ he snapped, pulling his pillow further down the bed. He nestled his head into the pillow and cleared his mind.
Nemo was awoken by a savage kick. He pushed back only to hear snoring in his ear. This was not the first time that morning he had been awoken by a bull in the bed.
He threw the covers off himself feeling the stale warmth of the midday air on his skin. He dressed in haste and gripped his sword, and belt, in one hand. He left Vispa to her prize whether she knew it or not.
Fumbling with the string ties on his shirt he descended the stairs in darkness. Not even a candle? He thought. Maybe all the candles have been stolen. He laughed inside. Cutting himself short for laughing at misery. Though what else was there to do in a time of strife?
The place was in silence when he appeared in the main room of the inn. Pisi was behind the bar cleaning stone cups with a cloth after dipping them in a bowl of water once. Better than some places, he thought as he scanned the room. He dropped his shirt ties and ran a hand through his hair as his eyes settled on two men at the other side of the bar. Sitting where he had sat. Had planned to sit.
One he recognised as the topless man from before. Now dressed and dry he sat huddled close to the other man. An older man with a plethora of grey in his hair and a yellow to his eyes. Both watched him in silence but remained huddled close enough to whisper.
‘Hello,’ he offered with a smile and nod.
The two returned the nod but continued to stare.
Nemo turned to Pisi, ‘Beer, please,’ he said.
The boy cocked his head and made a confused sound.
Nemo pointed to the cask he had watched Tura pour from.
‘Ahh,’ Pisi exclaimed and reached for clean, dry, cup from the shelves beneath the bar.
Nemo watched the boy crouch, resting his chin on his knees, as he poured the beer. The loop of leather of his belt was wrapped around his hand and pressed to the bar, his scimitar held at an angle ready to draw. Not that he expected a fight but habit was habit.
‘Not a fan of the straight blade?’ A man asked.
Nemo turned to the two sitting where he had sat.
The older man pointed to his sword with a finger thick and bulbous with age.
‘This?’ He pushed away from the bar and held his scimitar away from him. It’s slight curve clear to see, the blade narrow as it curved. ‘Oh no, never liked the feel of a straight blade, too heavy, too cumbersome, too focused on jabbing for me,’ Nemo saw no reason to lie.
‘Me neither. The straight blade is a horrid weapon,’ the old man sneered and turned back to his companion. His face twisted as he spoke, his nose pocked and scarred.
Pisi tapped the bar and held his palm out. He bent his fingers towards him. The cup of beer sat on the bar.
Nemo unravelled his belt and fastened it round his waist. He found a few copper fals in his coin purse and dropped them into Pisi’s hand, ‘Thanks.’
He picked up the pale sand coloured cup filled with misty beer and ferreted to the opposite side of the inn to the two strangers. He sat against the wall, the window above his head, and watched the door behind the bar that led into the rear of the building.
He sat for a few minutes. The beer was warm and made his stomach feel more hollow than it already was. A good meal was needed, maybe more than one, before he continued his journey home.
‘Have either you seen Tura, the mayor,’ he added in case the two strangers didn’t know, ‘or can you ask Pisi?’
‘Not today,’ the older man said and mumbled a question in a peculiar dialect.
Pisi shook his head at Nemo.
‘Thanks,’ he said sipping from his beer.
He slouched against the wall with a lone cushion under him. He listened to the strangers mumble to each other. He strained to hear outside. Nothing.
Pisi sat on a stool at the bar kicking his legs back and forth and picking at a chip in the wood. Chin resting in his left hand, his right working away at pulling splinters out of the bar.
Nemo waited. He was good at waiting. Whether for a target or for a contact or for payment. The simplest part of his work had been waiting. So many other bounty hunters struggled wanting to “get going” or worrying about retribution from unsavoury acquaintances of the hunted, or family who claimed the man or woman with a bounty was in fact innocent. Innocence was not the purview of the bounty hunter but in extreme circumstances certain factors could lead to the bounty being void.
One such case was that of a man who was said to have killed and mutilated multiple people in The Wastes, a stretch of land covering the eastern side of every map Nemo had laid eyes upon. A long black snake of ink trudged across it; The Black Wall of Dohanlu.
He had found said man in the village of Low Plain a days travel eastward from his own of Beargarth. The man had high cheekbones, a shaven head, and wore a scarf said to hide the scar of a hangman’s noose that failed its job.
It was rare to find targets lounging in villages or towns. The populations small, often only a few families large, meant that everyone knew everything about one another. That was Nemo’s first concern, maybe the town was conspiring together not the man alone. The other issue Nemo saw when he rode into the village and saw his bounty was that the man was being pushed around in a cart of odd design. Less a cart and more an upright chair with cart wheels. An upright chair was a rarity that far east, so far from the trade routes of the northern Republic, but one with wheels was unique.
Nemo approached the man, seeing an easy claim, and asked him to stand. The man said he could not and that he could not feel his legs at all. Nemo prodded him with a knife. Blood welled but the man remained seated and calm. A woman came running and shouting at Nemo. Nemo held the bounty plain to see. The man laughed, calmed his wife down, and told a preposterous tale of a twin brother.
With no name to go on, only a portrait and description, Nemo asked the man to show his neck. He did and there was no scar. Nemo was without a trail and asked the ‘no longer hunted’ where his brother could be found. Expecting brotherly honour Nemo received a hint instead. The man claimed his brother had been living in a grove to the north, close to the border of the Republic of Thesus, having fled from Low Plain a decade before.
Living in the vast steppes for ten years seemed implausible to Nemo but with nothing to do but return or chase he chose chase. Apologised to the brother of the hunted and his wife and left for the wild steppe.
Two days later after more than one occasion of wanting to go back and pin the crime on the man incapable of walking he found the grove. Between their branches there stretched a sheet of thick canvas. Underneath was a chest, a bedroll, and an assortment of weapons and odd tools.
The stones of a fire pit lay a short distance from the trees. The ashes of the last nights fire still present, an ember glow hiding deep within. Nemo scanned the horizon. Either he had been spotted approaching and the bounty ran, or not.
Nemo waited. He tethered his horse to a tree and sat under the shade. He watched the sun slink across the sky and listened to the sound of nothing. An odd sound of wind and actual nothing.
He waited till the sun burned umber and hid beneath the earth and the moon rose white in triumph. Resisting the cold he refrained from lighting the murderer’s fire.
Hours passed and the sound of footsteps sent tiredness fleeing from Nemo. He waited some more as the steps neared. He heard a sigh and a dropping of something heavy.
‘How long have you been here?’ The voice asked.
Nemo stood and turned to face the direction of the voice. A body at his feet and a scar around his neck Nemo saw the chair bound man standing. His face more drawn, his hair a swords thickness longer, and sun browned skin.
‘You are wanted for murder and worse. You’re lucky your brother can’t walk otherwise it would be him in chains now,’ Nemo moved towards the target.
‘My brother lost his legs?’ The man said his voice strained.
‘He has them but can’t feel or use them,’ Nemo added knife in hand and waiting for resistance.
‘Then… how does he work the land or protect Low Plain? What does he spend his days doing?’ The man said.
Nemo loosened the rope around his belt and held it in two hands. This bounty was wanted alive. An unusual request for a city often burdened by crime enough inside to bother with justice for those outside.
Nemo lunged for the man and fought him to the ground. He kneeled on the man’s back and tied his wrists together.
The man struggled and yelled, ‘No. I must help my brother. He needs me.’
‘And the families of those you killed need you too,’ Nemo spat.
Nemo drained his cup and Pisi leapt from his chair to take it. Nemo gave the boy some coins and he had a refill within a moment. At the same time the innkeeper, mayor, and cook, Tura barged through the door from the rear of the building.
He pushed through the door in the bar without care for Pisi coming the other way. Pressing himself against the glass in the door he watched unblinking. Tura steamed up the pane of glass with his breath and shifted to the next one along.
‘What is it?’ The younger of the two strangers asked.
‘They’re here,’ Tura whispered.
‘Who is here?’ Nemo asked.
‘The bandits,’ Tura turned to Nemo his irises lost in blood shot white. He turned back to the glass.
‘Are they out there now?’ The younger stranger stood up.
‘No, they were coming in from the north. I saw two of them,’ Tura spoke into the glass.
‘Only two?’ The older stranger said.
‘The others will be here as well. But where?’ Tura asked himself.
Nemo cleared his throat, ‘If they aren’t here. May I get some food?’
Tura shot him a glance. Turned back to the window in the door, fogged it up with a expulsion of breath and said, ‘Sure. Won’t take me long,’ and darted to the rear of the building. Barging through the door, ‘Pisi, jam the bar door open,’ he yelled after himself.
‘So, are you two local?’ Nemo asked the strangers.
‘No we were passing through but the mayor offered us room and food if we stayed and helped with this bandit problem. Only been here a few days,’ the younger one spoke.
‘Have you seen them?’
‘Not yet. Today will be the first time if they turn up. I’m Pasinah, this is Isvat.’
The older, Isvat, grunted as he lifted his cup to his lips.
‘Nemo,’ he raised his cup to them.
The three sat in awkward silence. Nemo’s cup moved from table to mouth, mouth to table, without ever leaving his hand. The two strangers, Pasinah and Isvat, sat brooding in silence. Isvat frowned his skin folding over itself in a permanent scrunch of flesh. Pasinah stared off through the window to the silk blue sky above. Neither seemed eager to fight some roaming bandits.
Nemo finished his cup and placed it on the table. It rang clear. Pisi appeared from behind the bar and fetched the cup and in an instant had returned with it full.
‘Ahh, now this boy gets me,’ he tossed three fals to the young Pisi who pocketed them.
Isvat whistled a single note and held his cup out. Pisi ran. Always running, Nemo thought. He took the cups of Pasinah and Isvat and refilled them too.
‘Did you fight?’ Isvat asked taking his cup from Pisi. Bubbles on the beer floated to the edge, threatening to spill over the edge. His muscled and calloused hand dwarfed Pisi’s hand and the cup.
Nemo sipped his beer, more gulped now he had no food and a taste of the ale. He didn’t glance to Isvat and instead gazed forward unflinching from the bar and wall ahead. He exhaled loudly through his nostrils. He glanced to the ancient, rusted, symbol above the bar. A crest of old. Nemo thought of the mayor and his patch.
‘Yes. I did,’ Nemo answered after an eternity.
‘Where? Which side?’ The words erupted out of Pasinah without pause. A single phrase. He picked at the side of his cup.
‘Near Ramascus, on the Plains of St Iseltor the Stained,’ he waited. Thought. Nothing passed through his mind except panic. Maybe that was thought. ‘Where we lost,’ he added after mere seconds that stretched into minutes.
‘Huh. Lost… lost,’ Isvat muttered the words. Repeated them. Chewed them like a bad slice of meat. Unable to get rid of the taste. He twisted his face looking older by the moment. ‘It never made sense to engage there. Never made sense to engage at all in a large battle.’
Nemo murmured agreement. He didn’t know battle strategy or tactics. He knew how to fight one versus five and track a hunt over a hundred miles. Officers never seemed interested to fight like a hunter, silent and in the shadows.
Tura returned with a platter of food. Flatbread and dips aplenty, joined by salted goat’s leg and a crumbling cheese.
Nemo thanked him.
Tura dove back to the door either ignoring him or failing to hear.
‘Anything?’ Isvat growled.
Nemo teared into his bread and dipped it into oil.
Tura stepped away from the door, mouth slack jawed.
The door burst open with a deafening thud. A woman dressed in black, a scowl on her face, black hair flowing over the black boar skin across her shoulders. The wide collar of her coat, which hung below her knees, peeked out at the front in two harsh points. In her hand she held a bow.
Her eyes chartered the room as she strode in with an air of more than ownership, of wanting to destroy. Nemo chewed his bread she held his eyes. Nemo tracked the ink on her face, a tail curled around her chin, a claw stretched across her cheek, and a roaring snout sat above her eyebrow.
Two men followed her in imitating her scowl with an added ferocity. Both wore straight swords buckled low on their hips. Layers of black skins and fabrics flowed from them as they walked, looking more suited to the night than the day.
Did they travel through the night? Where they the ones behind us? With the lantern? Surely not travelling by road. Nemo thought as he ate and watched the woman drop back to the door and lean back on it to hold it open.
The sole of her boot on the door, the other on the floor, she stared at Nemo. The dark of her eyes peered down at him surrounded with three whites. He smiled as he bit into the salted goat meat. She didn’t flinch. The feathers on the ends of her arrows fluttered in the breeze. She remained still.
‘Looks like you have some guests. For once,’ one of them said. His hair peppered. He laughed, revealing stained teeth, the others laughed too.
The woman didn’t crack her lips but one side curled upwards like a sickle.
His brow was well lined. His hair peppered with greying strands tied into a mess at the nape of his neck. His left hand stroked the pommel of his sword. His tucked the thumb of his right into the slackened sword belt around his waist. A gnarled scar instead of half his middle finger.
The other man snarled and scowled at the room. But he didn’t speak. His face too young to be threatening.
He continued, ‘So, that means more money in your pockets, for us. But a little less food in your pantry, for you, but not us. You know what we want just go and fetch it,’ he pushed Tura.
A woman screamed.
‘Oh, shut up,’ someone outside shouted.
Nemo looked over his shoulder and stretched to see out of the window. Two men and a second woman waited outside in similar black garb. One of the men held a woman, girl, no older than fifteen. Her hands tied behind her, a cloth jammed between her teeth and tied around her head. The woman held a boy with an iron grip. He stared at the ground, tears brightening the dirt on his face. A cloth around his mouth, his hands tied behind his back. Nemo thought he was thirteen at most.
‘It seems you are taking far more… wealth,’ Nemo swallowed, ‘than he can offer you.’
‘They won’t be worth as much when we are finished with them,’ the inked woman said, lowering her chin as she smiled to Nemo.
Nemo frowned and tore another flatbread in half. Seemed forced, he thought.
Tura waddled back from behind the bar, his eyes facing downward. He held a coin purse in one hand and a heavy sack in the other. Food, he dropped the sack, money, he handed over the purse. Unable to meet the bandits eyes he stepped back as if repulsed.
‘Ahh you are my favourite visit. So easy. You know what’s good for you. Even with three rough looking men armed and ready,’ he gestured to Isvat and Pasinah and glanced to Nemo. He laughed, a course gravelled thing, and headed for the door.
As he turned Nemo caught sight of the bandits sword. A straight sword, the pommel polished, the handle wrapped in soft looking leather. A relief carving of flowers spun around the cross guard.
‘Where’d you get the sword?’ Nemo asked wiping his hands free of crumbs.
‘Hmm, the man stopped and gazed down at Nemo. The bandits back was straight, his lips drawn, ‘From a soldier,’ he offered leaving before Nemo could ask another question.
Nemo doubted his answer. He had seen that sword, or ones like it, elsewhere. On the belts of Thesusian officers with a hundred men under their command. Too fine a sword to find laying about save for, maybe, the Plains. But these bandits hadn’t came from the Plains and no bandit groups numbered enough to take on a Thesusian century.
Nemo folded a length of bread around a chunk of cheese. He balanced a snap of salted goat on the cheese and ate. For an inn in the middle of nowhere, nowhere to Nemo, it had decent food. Well fed goats and matured cheese.
‘There were five. We can take five,’ Pasinah said to Isvat.
‘Six,’ Nemo interrupted.
‘Pardon?’
‘There were six. Three in here, three outside. I doubt that was all of them,’ Nemo looked ahead as he ate and drank. He shifted on the cushion, and pulled one from next to him and lent it behind him against the wall. He fell back. ‘Pisi,’ he called and raised his cup.
The boy hopped off his perch to fetch the cup.
‘We can take six,’ Pasinah corrected.
‘But not the ones back at camp that will come looking for us,’ Isvat said.
Pasinah sat tapping his chin with his fist. He groaned and huffed without saying anything.
Nemo stood up from his cushion and moved towards the doorway. He pushed the door open and glanced up and down the street. No one was about. The ground was scuffed with boot marks and signs of struggle. That boy and girl? Who where they? Is there no one fighting for them? No one searching or following? Parents, family? No one? Nemo squinted against the brightness and inspected the buildings opposite. From the doorway of the inn all he could see where closed doors and shadowed windows. Maybe it was just them left in there home, parents already gone…
He let the door close, ‘Do you know where their camp is?’ He asked.
‘No,’ Tura said.
‘So you haven’t sent anyone to track them anywhere?’
Tura shook his head looking puzzled.
He turned back to the door watching his own reflection in the glass. So no one can track them. No hunters, animal or human, in this village of smiths… He remembered the girl held against her will, her face morphed into Delara’s. The boy to Avaya’s. He gritted his teeth.
‘Okay. I will track them. In a few hours, nearer to dusk. If we know where they are we can have an idea of numbers and go from there,’ Nemo said.
‘You will help us?’ Isvat said.
‘Yes,’ Nemo turned to the old solider.
Isvat hissed through his teeth and rummaged in a pouch at his belt pulling out a silver coin.
Pasinah’s hand was outstretched and waiting, ‘thank you,’ he said clutching the coin in a tightened fist.
‘Don’t take it personally,’ Isvat said to Nemo, looking disappointed he lost the bet.
‘It’s best never to take bets personally,’ Nemo said.
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