Chapter 5

I’m five years old. Finally old enough that I can wander the village more or less safely. I'd tried going outside back when I was three, but I was almost snatched up by some sort of large predatory bird, much to the amusement of Jeck and the whores. Personally, I don't find the scars the giant owl-like creature left on my right shoulder amusing.

Getting out into the village was going to be a total game changer. With my freedom from the brothel I could prey upon the charity of good people that feel bad for me. Or so I’d hoped. Unfortunately, nobody seems to give two shits about me.

The town of Tiga sits at the crossroads of the east to west Forest Road and the southern terminus of The Mountain Road that heads all the way north to the capital. The Mountain Road does keep going south a bit farther, but from the point where it hits the forest road it's no longer stone, it turns into a dirt road that gradually peters off into a trail that eventually disappears entirely into the thick forest to the south. The simple wooden houses in the village all line these two roads. The closer you get to the crossroad the more two story buildings you see, most have a shop on the main level and living quarters upstairs. The village is constructed almost entirely of wood, only the inn has stone construction, and every roof is topped with wooden shingles.

I help out as many people as I can, as often as I can, with whatever chores they’ll allow me. Mostly I help haul water from the water gathers’ homes out on the east side of town, closest to the river, to various homes. I’ll do it for a single bite of food, usually a slice of apple. That’s cheaper than the water haulers will do it for, so I can sometimes find a few older folks looking to save some money that’ll give me the job. The majority of the townsfolk though don’t want my help and will haul it themselves or pay the water gatherers an extra two coppers a week to haul it for them.

The primary reason behind people disliking me and not wanting me near their food and/or water is pretty simple though. Unfortunately, I smell quite terrible. Or so I’m regularly told with a sneer and a smack to the head. Hazard of not having had a bath in my entire short life I suppose. Not to mention a single, never washed, tunic-like long shirt that is the only clothing I own. I’m pretty nose-blind to the odor myself, as my sense of smell actually seems a bit blunted by constant exposure to it. Not that I’m complaining, since I spend a good amount of my time digging through garbage. I can smell good garbage from the bad, and that’s all I need.

Though I’ve never seen it, there apparently IS a river quite nearby, about a half hour’s walk east of the water gatherers’ huts, but it houses monsters that sound like crocodiles that will eat anyone that comes too close, which makes entering their territorial waters for a dip unthinkable. So no baths for me. The water gatherers haul water into town in big closed cylinders made from hollowed out tree trunks that they sell daily and make a killing on. They keep a large number of these stacked outside their huts and spend their days walking back and forth to the river to fill them. There is also a well behind the large inn across the street from the brothel, but that is for inn use only and is jealously guarded by a large stone wall. Others have tried to dig their own wells over the years, but there’s something odd with the earth around here, and it always causes cave-ins that kill the diggers. I hear you can even pay for a hot bath at the inn if you have the coin to waste. The owner of the inn is also the town’s mayor, and he’s the cleanest asshole in town. Having never had so much as a copper to my name in my entire five years of life, a bath remains a thing of dreams. Every year at least one or two of the gatherers get eaten. It's pretty dangerous work that people don’t do unless they have nothing else, even IF the pay is good. I’m not willing to risk it…yet.

There are two places that I find give me the best chance at a meal. The apple vendor that works for the owner of the orchard just to the west of town, and the smith’s son.

Most of the few roadside vendors in the village sell vegetables, from small farms outside of town, out of small carts they pull into town themselves. These folks, almost without exception, will take a swing at me if I come within arm’s reach of their carts. I mean, yes, I would totally have stolen something if I could’ve done so without being noticed, but it still hurt to have them take a swing before I could even try. Besides, I wouldn't do it while people were around, can't risk losing a hand. Folks are so distrusting.

The apple vendor, on the other hand, occasionally has the odd wormy or badly bruised apple that he can’t sell, and, as the orchard owner is apparently too stupid or lazy to count and won’t miss a few, they make their way to me. Rather than go to the effort of taking them back to the orchard and throwing them to the pigs, he just gives them to me, and then he laughs as I scarf them down as fast as I can, worms and all. He calls me garbage pail. I don’t care. Food is food, and I'll do whatever it takes to keep from starving to death.

But the best food, and my best chance for food, always comes from the smith’s son, Hammer. Hammer is the exact same age I am. He was the child my mother wet nursed after I was born. He spends all day every day helping his father out by carrying tools and learning the smith trade. Hammer is a huge brown haired boy easily thrice my size, which isn’t overly surprising considering his father is far and away the largest man in the village. At five years old, Hammer is already taller than kids in the village twice his age.

Both muscle-wise and height-wise his father is a veritable giant almost eight feet tall. The man regularly chases me off when I’m hanging around hoping to see Hammer to get some scraps, and that man scares the shit out of me. He’s big, he’s got the deepest voice I've ever heard, and he could very clearly kill me by accident with a stray backhand, more than a few of which I’ve dodged. He’s managed to catch me a couple of times though with a casual smack. Both times I lost consciousness and woke up in the gutter, but it’s worth the risk. Sometimes Hammer will give me a crust of bread, the finest meal I’ve had since being born into this shit world, and the best I’ve come to hope for. I’m starting to forget donuts, and now I dream of bread crusts.

Hammer considers me his best friend. The kid is full of questions about the world, and, having a full lifetime spent in the United States of America during the information age, I know a lot of shit he doesn’t. I’m more than happy to tell him what I know about random bullshit in exchange for a mouthful of grub. Although we occasionally trade information straight up. For example, I taught him basic math in exchange for showing me the local writing system. I seemed to pick up the letters almost immediately, it felt similar to the way I could understand the local language without ever having learned it, and now I can read the signs hanging outside businesses through town.

Most times though I just tell him stories, bastardized versions of tales I cobble together on the spot. I’ve lost track of how many Disney movies I’ve ripped off to feed myself. He loves stories about war and warriors, so I told him grandiose tales of Conan the barbarian, King Leonidas of Sparta and his three hundred, and King Arthur of Camelot and the knights of the round table. Whatever I can think of off the cuff usually, but sometimes I’ll take the effort to come up with something good ahead of time. When I'm laying in bed hungry I often find myself actively trying to think of a new story before going to sleep back home at the brothel each night, but I’m rapidly running out of things to tell him.

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I’m not sure if he actually believes the stories or not, but he seems to thoroughly enjoy them and stares rapt, hanging on my every word as we sit on the porch behind the smithy most evenings. As annoying as his obvious physical superiority is, I fear he may also actually be a genius to top it off. From what I can tell, the kid has an eidetic memory and can repeat back anything I’ve ever told him word for word. He also seems to have taught himself to read, as his father has the largest collection of books in town. I asked to see them once and was firmly turned down. He said his father loves those books and would beat him harshly if he did. He’s always happy to brag about them though and regularly quotes entire passages. At five years of age. I’d probably hate him if he didn’t feed me, but he’s my best friend too. My only friend really.

On one particular occasion, I was hanging around out back of the smithy waiting to see if I could beg some food off him. I’d set a thin stick of firewood standing upon its thin end on the old stump that was used for chopping firewood. I was throwing stones at it in the hopes of increasing my accuracy. It seemed like a somewhat useful skill that might come in handy once I was able to leave town without getting eaten by the local wildlife. Figured maybe I’d try my hand at killing one of the long eared rodents that passes for a rabbit in this world, they look more like oversized kangaroo rats to me. My mouth watered at the mere thought of meat that was all mine.

My stones clicked off the stump, the stack of firewood behind it, the ground, pretty much everything but the stick I was aiming at. I was getting better but I was still very weak and there wasn’t much force behind my throws. I foresaw no rabbit killing in my immediate future. I sighed, but I kept throwing.

All of a sudden a small knife cracked into the side of the stick and sent it spinning to the ground. I glanced quickly toward the smithy and saw a child I’d never seen before walking confidently out into the yard. He’d obviously thrown the knife, judging by the position of his arm just now returning to his side as he walked forward smoothly with a proud look on his face. He was about my age, but taller and considerably better dressed with pure white hair falling to his shoulders. He glanced at me out of the side of his eyes, obviously suspicious. He strolled smoothly over to the stick, put his boot on it, and wrenched the blade out. Fucker did everything smoothly, like every movement was practiced. The kid used some sleight of hand to surreptitiously slide the little knife up the outside of his left sleeve and turned to face me with a look that said I should be impressed.

If he thinks I’m going to be impressed by a stupid little magic trick like that, he’s obviously never heard of Penn and Teller. He crossed his arms over his chest, and with a wide stance confidently stated, “You look like a thief. I should kill you, I suppose.”

I froze, this kid was dangerous. I’d seen plenty of merchants’ guards in town when their merchants were here buying lumber and wood work to take back north. Those guards practically radiated violence and a promise to kill or maim anyone stupid enough to try stealing from their employers. This kid was worse. He didn’t need a reason, he was perfectly capable of coming up with his own justification. And, having seen him put that knife into that stick of firewood from easily twice the distance at which I was missing it, he could kill me from where he stood.

Fuck. I hate confrontation. Always have. In my last life, and especially in this one. I’m too little to have a chance against anyone in town, and I knew it. I’m just not strong enough, but I am pretty quick. A result of dodging blows on a daily basis was that it had given me reflexes that seemed to occasionally surprise people. I could run pretty fast for much the same reason. People just don’t seem to like me, but this is the first time someone has actively threatened my life.

Fine. Fuck you, kid. I’m not going down easy.

I crouched down and made a show of looking over the rocks at hand. I selected a rock about the size of my fist and picked it up, while also using my off hand and surreptitiously picking up a handful of ash from the smith’s garbage pile behind my foot where I didn’t think he’d see it. You want to play magician, kid? Fine, let’s play. I stood up, and keeping my eyes on him, I began walking around him in a wide parabola as I made my way closer and closer. He turned to follow me and tensed, putting his back to the smithy’s rear exit. I nonchalantly tossed the stone up and down in my hand a few times while I walked, as though testing the weight. I stopped a few arms lengths from him as he appeared ready to attack.

I took a martial pose, one foot in front of the other with my legs slightly bent and raised my fists, my newfound rock cocked back by my head ready to throw. “You look like an idiot. I suppose I should make you feel like one,” I casually stated back. His eyes narrowed and his teeth showed in a rictus grin as he crouched, reaching for his left sleeve. I glanced behind him at the empty doorway at the rear of the smithy and suddenly dropped my rock as I lowered my hands. I stood up straight, my eyes wide as I stared fearfully past him. His eyes took on a note of confusion. I quickly stammered, “S-sorry master Smith I didn’t mean anything by it. I’ll go now.” The boy quickly turned his head to glance over his shoulder at the smithy. I smiled. It’s the oldest trick in the book for a reason after all. It fucking works. The moment he realized my deception he whipped his head back at me with a furious expression. Just in time to take a thrown fistfull of ashes straight to the eyes. As his hands instinctively went to his face, I stepped forward quickly, and neatly plucked the knife from his left sleeve, right where I’d figured he’d made it “disappear” to. I followed this up by kicking him square in the balls as hard as I could. Then I turned and ran as he fell to his knees with a groan.

I was gone before he could clear his eyes well enough to see where I was going. Then I was running as fast as I could. Running through people’s backyards was dangerous. Some folks had dogs, dogs that were considerably bigger than I was. Angry dogs. Big, barking, angry dogs that would love nothing more than to eat a smelly little bastard like me. Hell, their owners would probably reward them. I ran through the backyards anyway. It was the fastest way back to the brothel, and speed matters when you’re trying not to die.

I managed to make it through most of the yards just fine without incident, until getting to the last one before the brothel. There lived the biggest, meanest dog in town. His name was Dog. Dog’s owner, a woodworker named Dav, was not a particularly clever man as Dog’s name would suggest, but the man took great pride in always winning at the dog fights. Dog was pure black with piercing light blue eyes. He was also COVERED in scars. I never had any spare food to try to befriend him with, and getting close to the radius of his leash inevitably ended up with that dog slobbering and barking in an attempt to kill and eat me while straining against the thick rope that leashed him. I generally kept my distance to the fullest extent possible.

I wasn’t thinking about Dog though, I was thinking about what that kid would do if he caught up to me. I needed to get to the brothel. Good chance he wouldn’t be allowed in, and Jeck had a strict policy of not allowing any fights inside.

I misjudged the radius of Dog’s leash. Dog was suddenly coming at me fast, a black streak heading at me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t think, I just swiped my new knife at the streak. I heard a sharp yelp, and then I was past him and into the brothel’s yard. Without a second thought I thrust the knife into the garbage pile under the most rotten trash. I quickly wiped my hand off in the grass and sauntered in the back door of the kitchen as casually as possible while trying to calm my breathing. Jeck didn’t even look up from stirring the evil smelling stew he was working on. I made my way up to Mother’s room to my corner and lay down on the torn scraps of stinking old sheets on the floor that comprised my excuse for a bed. I curled up and feigned sleep as my heart hammered in my chest.

What the fuck was I thinking?! I hate confrontation.