A Veteran Returns Home: Chapter Eleven
Chapter Eleven
Morning arrived too soon. As it often did. Ripples of red flashed over his eyes and the warm breeze of day cleared the room of its musk. He could still feel the heat from the fire on his face, the blood of almost a dozen bodies soaking into the ground, the little boy who ran. Did he make it home? Nemo wondered.
‘Get up.’
Who is that? Why is someone in my room? Nemo thought. Unable to open his eyes and a crown of pain around his head.
‘Hey. Get up,’ the voice kicked his leg.
He winced and pulled his leg away. He opened one eye to see a woman standing at the edge of his bed. Wearing a shirt and trousers with her hair tied back. Her face overly young.
‘They want to know your “great idea”,’ she pulled a face. ‘You look like you don’t know who I am.’
That’s right. Wait. Where am I? He sat up on his elbows. Head slow to respond the room rocked as he gazed around. Damn it, he landed hard on his pillow.
‘Oh come on. Bandits to kill apparently. So much for going home,’ Vispa said.
‘You wanted to stop the bandits at first and now you don’t?’ Nemo croaked.
‘You can talk? Get up,’ Vispa kicked the mattress.
He pinched the bridge of his nose. Groaned. Swung his legs out from under the covers and pushed himself to his feet. The room span and rocked. Bubbles rose in his stomach and his eyes were being stabbed from behind.
‘Alright. What time is it?’
‘Almost midday,’ Vispa leaned towards the window, hands on her hips.
‘And people are down stairs expecting me?’
‘Yup.’
‘I need a bath,’ Nemo said pushing his hands against his eyes.
‘They have been here for hours already,’ Vispa said.
‘Then they can wait half an hour more,’ Nemo said wide eyed and blinking away the light.
Vispa scowled.
He was right they could, and would, wait longer. Now to come up with a plan. He pushed past Vispa and retrieved his shirt from the floor. Leaving the room he shouted, ‘Pisi!’ down the corridor to the bar and went up the stairs to the right. To the bath chamber.
Half an hour later he arrived down stairs. Tura, Pasinah, Isvat, and Vispa lounged at a table in silence. Pisi sat on the bar, his legs crossed.
‘Ahh, the hero arrives,’ Vispa said sprawled over two cushions and without glancing away from her spiced tea.
‘You have spiced tea here?’ Nemo asked smelling the cinnamon and cardamon tea.
‘I do,’ Tura answered.
‘That and some breakfast,’ Nemo said tapping Vispa on the shoulder.
Tura stood up and wandered behind the bar. Vispa sat up on one cushion. Nemo sat down next to her his stomach grumbling with every movement. He leaned over and whispered, ‘Where is everyone else?’
‘There wasn’t anyone else,’ she stared into his eyes and smiled.
Nemo lacked the energy to even feel annoyed. The energy or the want. His head was caught in a vice that only a strong spiced tea would fix. Until then, nothing.
Isvat coughed, ‘Ideas?’
Nemo stopped him with a hand, ‘Not yet,’ he watched Tura return with a bowl of something steaming and a spouted pot. ‘I hope you have honey,’ he asked Tura as he placed the pot on the table.
‘Already added. Better to have it mix with the spices before adding water,’ the mayor said.
Nemo nodded along.
‘And this is a lamb stew with chickpeas, beans, simmered for days till thick and served with couscous. After this you’ll be feeling fighting fit in no time,’ Tura patted his shoulder and laughed.
Nemo sniffed the steam rising from the stew. Filled with mint, chilli, and pepper. He poured a cup of spiced tea from the pot. He sipped the tea and tasted the honey behind the cardamon and cinnamon. He sighed in relief.
The others helped themselves to the pot of spiced tea as he started on the lamb. The meat fell apart in his mouth. The heat of the chilli waking him up.
‘Barriers. Fences. Blockades,’ he said between mouthfuls of stew and tea.
‘Pardon?’ Isvat said.
Nemo spoke as he chewed, hiding his mouth with his hand, ‘We need to build fences throughout the town so the bandits have a limited area to roam.’
‘How are we going to do that in less than a week?’ Tura asked.
‘There are people in the town. They can help us build it. We will need to map the town and choose where to barricade,’ Nemo said spooning up couscous and chickpeas.
‘Done,’ Vispa declared.
Nemo paused, bowl and spoon in hand, and turned to Vispa like the others.
‘I did that. Yesterday,’ she shrugged.
‘I was thinking a drawing of it would help,’ Nemo said.
‘Got it,’ she pulled a folded up cloth out of her pocket. Vispa unfolded the cloth, covered in charcoal lines, and lay it out on the table. ‘We are here,’ she pointed to a rectangle on the map.
‘Okay. Why did you do this?’ Nemo said, bemused.
‘Well I wanted to know the town. Alleys to watch. Buildings to scan. Figure out… things,’ Vispa answered.
‘What things?’ Tura said.
Nemo cut him off, ‘Well it’s certainly useful. Thanks,’ he fished out the last chickpea and strip of lamb from the bowl of stew.
Vispa smiled ear to ear.
‘So this is the main road into Forgiskill?’ Nemo tapped the cloth map. The road he pointed out led to a square and the building they were in. The town stretched outward from there. The rectangles getting smaller the further away from the inn and the roads turning into alleyways.
‘Yup, not much comes off it either. Most of the streets attach to this road,’ Vispa indicated the road with the inn. ‘And most of those are narrow lanes or alleys. The town is small and shouldn’t take much to fence off. The only problem will be the two main roads.’
Nemo nodded in agreement. ‘Where do the bandits usually enter?’ He turned to Tura.
Tura hummed, ‘I don’t know.’
‘Main road,’ Isvat answered, ‘From the way you left the other day. Then they pass the inn go through the alleyways and come back to ransack this place.’
‘Right. So we need them to come in here first and blocking everything off will do that.’
‘I’m not staying in here unarmed,’ Tura waved his hands about. ‘One of you will have to stay in here.’
‘The three of us will be in here. Do you know anyone who can use a bow?’ Nemo said.
‘I have a crossbow.’
‘Great, you can pick off the bandits that will be outside while we deal with those inside,’ Nemo said to Tura. He turned to Isvat and Pasinah.
‘Hold on,’ Tura interrupted, ‘I thought you three were doing this and we were paying you.’
‘We need all the help we can get and you having a crossbow is a great deal of help. I thought you would be excited to help, Mayor,’ Nemo gave him a curt smile.
‘I just want to make food and help people have a good time. I never asked for Mayor,’ Tura murmured.
Nemo turned to Isvat and Pasinah. Unsure whether to pity or despise Tura. A role thrust upon him that he should live up to but in a situation far beyond the pale of village life.
‘The plan is simple,’ he began, ‘we finish off the few that come in here. Tura takes out their bowmen outside first then the others.’ Nemo turned back to Tura, ‘That’s important fire at the bow users first. They are the main threat.’ He turned back to Isvat and Pasinah, ‘After we finish the ones in here we can attack those outside.’
‘Sounds too easy,’ Pasinah said, a cooling cup of spiced tea in his hand.
Nemo remembered his dream memorial, I know. ‘Well we have to start somewhere. Assume something will go wrong and be prepared to chase down those that run or defend against a new contingent we don’t know about, or whatever worst scenario you can picture.’
Vispa cleared her throat, ’What about me?’ she said, quiet and unassuming.
Nemo erred.
‘You can help me reloading the crossbows,’ Tura said.
‘Crossbows?’ Vispa said.
‘I have two, I will loose one while you reload the other. It’s easy, you pull the string back behind the hook and place the bolt in the slot. I’ll show you later,’ Tura said.
‘Okay. Thanks,’ Vispa straightened up.
Good, Nemo thought, better she is involved but out of danger. ‘Tura, gather everyone. We need to start constructing these blockades.’
The next few days were spent blocking streets off with shoddy fences. Left over planks of wood, beams with signs of rot, old chairs, and tables from empty houses. All nailed together and jammed into place and made twice the height of a person.
Nemo feared a lack of materials. There was no need. Many houses stood empty of people and crammed with furniture. Homes empty for months. Their occupants dead or dying or worse. Nemo saw a sense of purpose for them now in defending their old home. Maybe.
The main road linking Ramascus to Tanussi posed a problem. Wide enough for two carriages or carts and a dozen or more buildings offering cover. It would be where the bandits would flee as soon as they heard the twang of the crossbow or the clash of steel. They needed a way of trapping the bandits in front of the inn unable to retreat with no building to hide in or flee through.
Nemo, Tura, and Vispa were outside the inn on the wooden surround a few steps above the road. To their left stood a wall of tables, chairs, broken beams, and an enormous sea trawling fishers net found in an old abandoned house. The sea was over a hundred miles away but someone had thought inland was better than the coast at some point. Travelling with the net. Nemo didn’t understand it and simply smiled at good fortune.
The alley opposite and down the side of the inn was blocked off with piles of refuse. The road to Tanussi, the road Nemo should have been on days ago, also severed. All that remained open was the road into town from the south. The road that could not be blockaded before the bandits arrived but had to be afterwards.
‘They’ll be here in a day or two,’ Tura said squinting against the afternoon sun.
Nemo remained thoughtful. Sipping from a cup of spiced tea, far better than the beer on offer, and appreciating the barricade the villagers had erected across the street.
‘Are you sure this will work?’ Tura said.
‘I was sure I would be home in Beargarth by now,’ Nemo quipped.
Tura appeared quizzical.
‘No. I am not sure. We can only try,’ he had no reassurance to offer. The strain of helping strangers in a somewhat strange land pulled at his being.
‘We are risking our lives on this and that’s all you can offer?’
‘Either way the bandits would have killed off the town either by kidnapping everyone or outright killing you. What does it matter how quickly you head into the end? This way you have a chance of survival. Or prosperity, again,’ Nemo said. Where did that come from? He wondered.
‘Sounds optimistic for you,’ Vispa said. She stood away from the two men, leaning against the handrail. She was gazing down the road to Ramascus, eyes focussed on the past.
Nemo suppressed a laugh. Vispa had read him well in the week since leaving Ramascus. It wasn’t a long time, not really, but it was a long time when sharing almost every space and conversation.
‘What choice do you have?’ Nemo said.
‘What?’ Tura rebounded.
‘What choice do you have? Resist or fold. Any others?’
‘Well… I…,’ he sighed, ‘I guess not. I just want them gone.’
‘That requires resistance which is a risk. So is folding. You risk everything either way,’ Nemo said. Some people need to be pushed into action, he thought watching Tura chew over what he had said.
He rubbed his hands, his eyes darted around never settling on Nemo or Vispa, as he digested what Nemo had said. Nemo sipped his tea and leaned over the handrail. He felt the heat of the sun on his forehead and cheeks right away.
‘Okay, fine. We need to fight them. But…’ Tura leaned over the railing to catch Nemo’s eye.
Oh here we go.
‘What about this bit of road? We can’t block it off. The bandits can just flee and come back better prepared later,’ Tura pointed to the main road through the village.
It had to be severed to prevent the bandits fleeing.
‘We could leave an opening in the barricade. Slow their retreat. If they retreat,’ Nemo suggested.
‘Won’t that scare them off?’
‘Maybe but then any and all of these barricades risk doing that. We are hoping they will be overconfident and enter anyway,’ Nemo said.
‘What if I invited them all in for food and someone barred the door from the outside?’ Tura suggested.
‘Not enough space and anyway that makes it a messy three on ten fight,’ Nemo refrained from saying that we would lose.
The two stood on the veranda with eyes trained on the width of the street. Impossible to barricade but necessary to do so.
‘What about a wall? Like the rest we have,’ Vispa started.
‘Then they can’t get in and it will obviously be a trap,’ Nemo said.
‘I hadn’t finished,’ Vispa frowned, ‘Do you have any spare wheels?’
‘Me?’ Tura tapped his chest.
Vispa nodded.
‘Maybe. There is bound to be a few around town at any rate. But why do you need wheels?’ Tura said.
‘I’ll show you,’ she winked. She pushed off from the handrail and said, ‘Tura, those wheels.’
‘Out back,’ he said.
‘Show me,’ Vispa called from inside the inn.
Nemo scratched his forehead with his thumbnail, ‘Alright, may as well see what this is about,’ he said following her through the building.
Passing through the main room into the kitchens Nemo pondered what Vispa was planning. You couldn’t attach wheels to what we have built so far, not enough structure to it.
The trio left the kitchen through the rear door and came out in the garden. Simbar and Atars padded the thin growth of grass which covered the earth. Both nibbling at the ground every few steps. Vispa patted Simbar as she passed. The horse whinnied.
‘In there,’ Tura pointed to the back wall.
A storehouse stood attached to the far wall of the garden. Vispa pulled at the door. It refused to budge. She tried again and something creaked.
‘Here,’ Tura said.
‘No, I’ve got it,’ Vispa said placing her foot against the wall of the storehouse. She pulled at the door. Once. Twice. Sand and dust skittered over the door. A third time. The door burst open towards her. Vispa fell backwards and landed with a thud on the grass. ‘See,’ she coughed.
Dust danced in the sunlight of the day escaping the darkness within the storehouse. In the column of the doorway Nemo could see shovels, planks of wood, shelves stuffed with an assortment of nails, tools, and old kitchen knives. Tura delved inside, the velvet blackness swallowing him whole.
Vispa brushed herself off and entered the storehouse, ‘You coming?’
‘I doubt there is space,’ Nemo said.
Tura muttered to himself as he moved objects around. Clattering and banging he called out.
Vispa appeared from the storehouse first. Smiling ear to ear in triumph.
Tura followed, pushing a wheelbarrow stacked with wheels.
‘Why do you have so many wheels?’ Nemo asked.
‘You think this grass always grew here? These trees and flowering plants,’ he waved his hand over the garden. ‘Took a lot of work to bring all this here. These wheels are from carts, ‘barrows, and whatever else fell apart as I went,’ Tura explained turning over some of the odd sized wheels in the wheelbarrow.
‘Right. What next?’ Tura asked, turning to Vispa.
Vispa rummaged through the wheels. Sorting through the pile into sizes. ‘Well,’ she started comparing a solid disc and a spindle wheel, ‘now we need rods to join the wheels and a platform to attach them too,’ she placed the two wheels into a pile on the ground.
‘Axles you mean? I don’t have many. Others probably have a few. How many would you need?’ Tura asked.
‘Enough to move a platform the width of the road,’ Vispa said counting a pile of wheels.
‘Excuse me? What?’
‘I think I know what she plans,’ Nemo said. He imagined one of the barricades they had made attached to a platform with wheels. Crude, but he had an idea.
‘What?’ Tura pleaded.
‘You’ll see,’ he said.
‘Yes, you will. Now let’s get those planks out here,’ Vispa delved into the storehouse once more with the wheelbarrow. She piled it high with dusty planks.
The inn cast a long shadow over the garden. The horses nestled in the farthest corner catching the last rays of day. Both content to stand and watch the trio at work. Atars pulled at the leaves of a stubborn plant. Leaves refusing to tear. Horse refusing to give up. The plant rattled as the leaf slipped out of Atars’ bite.
‘Your horse needs to stop eating my plants,’ Tura demanded.
‘He isn’t getting very far anyway,’ Nemo leaned around Tura to catch a glimpse of Atars pulling at an indestructible leaf once more. ‘What is that plant anyway?’
‘Oh I don’t know. I bought it off a Dohanlu trader. Back when they still came through the Wall. He said it would “persevere through any and all hardship”. He wouldn’t answer how or why and kept repeating that it would. So far he is right,’ Tura said kneeling down and fitting a wheel onto an axle.
‘He certainly wasn’t lying,’ Nemo laughed holding the axle steady for Tura. The axle sat in its hold attached to two foot wide planks over an arms length long.
Scattered near them where multiple others of the same design. Low tables on wheels Tura had called them at first. Not entirely an inaccurate assessment.
Nemo spun the wheel on his side and the one Tura had fitted on the other side responded in kind. ‘Great,’ he said standing up.
‘Now what?’ Tura asked.
Vispa rolled two of the wheeled tables together along the ground. ‘Now we need to see how many more we need to stretch the width of the road. So far it all works.’
‘I should hope so. I’ve wasted a day and a lot of good wood on this,’ Tura said.
‘Well if the Republic expands the trade routes into its new territory I imagine this stuff,’ he tapped a plank of wood, ‘is going to become far cheaper,’ Nemo said. ‘And you can use all this after we have dealt with the bandits as you see fit and replace the rest cheaply.’
‘I guess,’ Tura said picking up one of the constructs, ‘You want us to line these up across the street then?’
‘Yup,’ Vispa said pushing three at once towards the back door of the inn. As the alley was already sealed off towards the street in question.
The three of them carried the “tables on wheels” through the inn and out onto the road. Vispa began to wheel them into place. Knocking against the wall of the opposite building and towards the slim gap between the main city-to-city road and the inn.
‘What are you doing?’ Asked a man’s voice.
‘Huh?’ Vispa said.
‘What are these for?’ He asked.
Nemo pushed two along, the wheels covering the distance in a short while. Tura not far behind.
‘You’ll see,’ Vispa used her usual answer as she caught one of the wheeled supports from Nemo.
‘Well that isn’t very helpful. Who even are you, anyhow?’ The man said.
‘Vish,’ Tura began, ‘That’s Vispa, and this is Nemo, and they are helping us with the “Problem”.’
‘Oh, I remember your face from the other night. Still here. And all you’ve done is build walls and barricades around town making it impossible to get anywhere.’
‘At least they work then,’ Nemo said lining up another platform along the street.
‘At making our lives harder, yes,’ Vish spat.
Nemo ignored him and counted how many platforms they had. Seven. The seven stretched almost the width of the road. Two more should do it, three or four to be safe and not leave any gap for the bandits to clamber through.
‘Vispa,’ he called, ‘We need three more I think.’
‘Okay, I will get to making them now,’ she ran back to the inn and leapt the steps up to the door.
‘Why are you listening to these people, Tura?’ Vish asked. ‘We can deal with the “Problem” fine on our own.’
‘We obviously can’t,’ Tura admitted. He looked stunned he had said it. Fast and immediate without thought, yet true. ‘Thanks to Nemo,’ he continued, ‘We know their numbers, where the bandits camp,’ Vish balked at the word as if saying it would summon them. ‘That they have prisoners still, and they are receiving funds from the Thesusians. That’s far more than we ever did,’ Tura stamped his foot.
Vish remained on the spot. He began to speak a few times but the words never formed instead he looked like a gasping fish. Finally, he shook his head and turned to leave. Kicking one of Vispa’s platforms he tripped and fell face first into the dust and sand. Tura rushed to help him up. Vish cursed as he pushed himself up.
‘I’m fine. I’m fine,’ he said batting Tura’s arm away. Vish patted himself free of sand and wiped his face on his sleeve. Staring direct at Nemo he cursed and stormed down the street.
Tura sighed as he watched him leave. He turned to Nemo and said, ‘Don’t mind him. He lost his family to the war and the bandits. He just wants the past back… and who can blame him.’
Nemo nodded and remembered Beargarth. A hub of activity for traders and travellers balanced all on the well in the town centre. How would the town fair without that? How this town fairs without its forges? A hive of bitterness and nothing?
‘We should help Vispa with the last few platforms,’ Nemo said. He didn’t like the subject of the town’s prosperity. It was not his town and he had no idea how to work a forge or what to do with one. He did know Forgiskill suffered from bandits, a common bounty anywhere. And he knew how to hunt bounties.
Vispa had finished one already when Nemo and Tura reached the garden. Four wheels, two axles, two joining blocks, and two planks of wood were not hard to assemble. ‘Tura,’ she began as soon as he exited the kitchen, ‘we need to ask people for more stuff to build a barricade.’
Tura huffed, ‘You’re right but there are a few empty homes of old friends over the way that we could use first,’ his eyes teary.
‘See it as their way of helping the town out in this time,’ Nemo offered as consolation to ransacking the homes of his friends.
‘Sure, secure the platforms together, if you want, and build the barricade on top of them. With anything you can find,’ Vispa flashed him a smile as she flipped over another platform and rolled it back and forth.
Nemo remained in the garden. Dusk had all but devoured the land. The purple and orange haze offered little opportunity for sight and the torches lit around the garden saved it disappearing into gloom.
Atars and Simbar wandered having given up trying to eat the indestructible plant. The Dohanlu merchant had told the truth. Nemo had never met anyone from beyond the Black Wall of Dohanlu and knew even less about them but he knew merchants were not often known for truth with such exceptional claims.
He gathered the horses and led them to the hitching posts near to the building. Bundles of hay had been parted and placed into the troughs attached to the rear veranda. The garden was flourishing but the two horses were a threat to it if left alone. He placed a loose rope around each of their necks and tied it off to the hitching posts.
‘Do you need any help?’ Nemo asked finishing off a knot.
‘No it’s alright. You can take this one out though and start constructing the wall,’ Vispa said. Crouched, chin on her knees, she nailed a length of wood to a plank, already building the next platform.
Nemo hoisted the wheeled platform on to his shoulder and made his way to the front of the inn. The last wisps of daylight beamed off roof tiles and around the conical chimney roofs adorning forges throughout the town. Nemo planted the platform inline with the rest. Tura was no where to be seen. Wonder where our Mayor has found himself? Nemo thought.
He heard voices from an alleyway. Grunting and sighing. The scrape of wood on stone and plaster. Nemo went to investigate, hand on sword.
‘Ahhh,’ one person said as Tura burst out of the alleyway.
‘Oh it’s you,’ Nemo said, his hand firm around his scimitar.
‘Just getting some help with building. We’ve certainly made it difficult to get round the town.’
‘That was the point,’ Nemo reminded him.
‘I know, I know,’ Tura waved the remark away with both hands as two people squeezed their way out of the alley behind the Mayor. ‘They’re here to help us finish this moving wall.’
Inwardly thankful, outwardly unsure, Nemo greeted the two strangers. Both thanked Nemo for his help in their “little” problem. Nemo smiled his courtesies and forgot the two names as quick as he was told them. The day was nearing its end and the next was a week since the last bandit visit. Nervousness did not describe the sensation he felt. His stomach warbled and his hands shook, not in total fear, that was a long shunted feeling, but a little excitement too.
‘Tura,’ he began to distract himself, ‘shall we get started then. Those houses over there?’ Nemo pointed across the main city to city road.
‘Yes, should be some furniture and such in those,’ Tura said leading the way. He pointed to the house next along, ‘You two go in there and pull out anything that could be used as a barricade.’
Tura turned the handle of the door. The hinges creaked and bent, opening the door for them. The stench of stale air wafted over them both. Flits of dust spun in the air. A smog clouded Nemo’s vision, so thick was the dust and sand, as he entered the building. Little light penetrated the open whole in the roof or the window. The pull over cover of the chimney hole long gone.
‘Right get the end of this,’ Tura tapped on a table. He lifted his end up and a desert of sand and dust poured on to the floor.
‘How long have these been empty?’ Nemo said grabbing the other end.
‘Oh maybe a year,’ Tura answered. ‘How much stuff do you reckon we will need?’
Changing the subject, Nemo noted. Not that it was his business. ‘Depends how well we secure it to the platforms,’ he said turning the table on its side as he walked backwards out of the building.
Tura and Nemo set the table down near to the line of platforms. The two villagers followed with a cupboard. The four of them continued past dusk and into the night. Lighting torches outside and candles inside the abandoned homes for the first time in almost a year.
After a few hours the four men had emptied a string of five houses of any and all objects that could obstruct, from tables to chopping boards, candelabras to rugs. Vispa appeared not long after they had started with the final wheeled platform and began to secure the line together. Nailing the door of a cabinet, the handle of an old hammer, or the side of a bed, across the platforms. She tested the, now long, platform with her foot. It rolled over the ground with ease.
The five began constructing the barricade on top of the platform. Using rope to secure parts together before Vispa or Nemo came along and hammered a few nails through the new addition to something else.
The moon was high in the sky by the time they finished. Pure white and surrounded by flecks of silver all over. The barricade stood taller than Nemo and required all five of them to push it down the side of the inn and main road.
Tura thanked the two from the village and returned to the inn along with Nemo and Vispa. Pisi sat on the end of the bar holding a long, thin, knife in one hand, the scabbard in the other.
‘Like it?’ Isvat said to the boy.
The boy nodded.
‘Well, after this it can be your souvenir of the Saving of Forgiskill,’ the man laughed.
The boy’s eyes lit up and a stream of words Nemo could not place followed.
Along the bar sat swords, knives, two crossbows, a bag of bolts, and two chainmail shirts.
‘What’s all this?’ Nemo asked.
‘Ahh welcome back. We saw you outside readying that last barricade, impressive stuff by the way, thought about helping but decided an ale was better,’ Pasinah lifted his cup to the trio. He held an oil stained cloth the other hand. He finished his gulp and continued, ‘This, to answer you, is what we need. All cleaned, oiled, and ready for use,’ he turned to Tura, ‘I must say those crossbows were not in, errr, usable condition this morning. Tut tut.’
‘Sorry,’ Tura said coy as he went over to his two weapons.
Pasinah grumbled, set down his cup, and continued oiling a short knife with the cloth.
‘All sharpened, oiled, and ready to go then?’ Nemo wanted to confirm.
‘Yup,’ Isvat answered sheathing the knife Pisi had chosen as the boy filled a jug with beer. Isvat gestured to a clean cup with his busy hands.
‘Not tonight,’ Nemo said, ‘I’m going to bed. It’s well past the third bell… not that you have bells here.’
‘Suit yourself,’ Isvat said.
‘I will thought,’ Vispa said choosing a cup and holding it out for Pisi to fill from the jug.
The boy looked to Nemo and Tura. Nemo nodded unsure why he was being asked. Tura was busy loading a crossbow and ignored Pisi altogether. Pisi poured her a cup of ale.
‘Thanks,’ she managed to say before drinking the ale noisily and keenly poured herself a second.
‘Well you all enjoy yourselves,’ Nemo said as he ventured up the shadowed staircase behind the bar.
‘Will do,’ Isvat answered.
Nemo pushed the door open to his and Vispa’s room. A chill breathed on him as he entered the room. The bed unmade and the window open. He shivered. He set his sword down on the edge of the bed while he searched through his saddle bag for a cloth and the small vial of oil he carried. He unstoppered the oil, held the cloth over the end, and turned the bottle upside down for a second. Feeling the oil soak into the cloth on his fingers he set the vial down, unsheathed his scimitar, and rubbed the cloth with oil into the steel.
Tiredness swept over him by the time he had finished one side and turned the sword over. He hurried through the next few strokes of the blade, keen to be asleep and up by dawn.
If you enjoyed this chapter don’t forget to subscribe to receive the next entry direct to your inbox!