Chapter 8

As his fist connected with my face, I felt my nose crunch audibly as my head snapped back. “Gah!” I sprayed blood in front of me as I yelled, but I didn’t stop moving. I immediately drove forward, though I could barely see through the tears, and swiped my knife at Knick’s chest.

We were nine years old. I’d recently found out from Hammer that we were all three of us the exact same age. We’d be ten in a few days’ time on the day of Harvestfest. It was always nice to have a holiday on my birthday since they apparently don’t do birthday parties in this world, not that anyone would celebrate my birth anyway.

Knick leaned back casually and let my blade pass inches in front of him before darting forward and putting his knife to my neck as I overextended. My shoulders slumped, and I dropped my knife, defeated. I spent an hour practicing with my little knife in the brothel yard every morning, but it didn’t seem to help much.

Knick stepped back smoothly with a proud smile as he sheathed his blade up his sleeve. I stooped over and picked mine up off the ground. I roughly sheathed it in the shabby rawhide excuse for a sheath that rode on the left side of my belt.

“Ow.” I said calmly as I reached up with both hands and crunched my nose back into place. Knick winced as I did so but didn’t apologize. It wasn’t the first time he’d broken it, this may be the sixth or seventh actually. Knick disinterestedly examined a shallow cut near his knuckles across the back of the fingers on his right hand.

“I think that’s enough for today. Looks like you earned your extra copper,” he smiled at me. I smiled back through the blood and snot on my face, that’s food for another day.

“Cool, let's head back to town then,” I said as I picked up the little bird I’d killed on the way out to this meadow next to the road that we’d been using to spar in, and we headed on our way back. I started plucking feathers as we went, leaving a trail behind us. We’d decided to go for a bit of a walk just north of town, and I’d managed to hit the plump sparrow-like bird with a stone as we walked. I’d never gotten very good at throwing, but when I’d decided to make myself a crude sling to get some more power on my throws I’d quickly become quite the little hunter. I never went far from town so there was rarely anything other than rabbits and small birds, but at this point I was pretty much living on them and apples purchased in town with the coppers I’d get from fighting with Knick. I occasionally bought some vegetables too, but the ones for sale were usually small and expensive so they weren't really worth it.

Having a little money went a long way, and, by saving some for the long winter months when Knick couldn’t make it into town, I wasn’t starving to death these days. I was starting to put on some flesh, and tromping through the woods everyday hunting meant I was putting on muscle, there wasn’t a scrap of fat on me.

As I’d grown out of my old tunic, Jeck had given me an equally old holey shirt and a pair of pants that hung off me ridiculously even rolled way up. Still, it beats going around naked. Guess he knew I wouldn't waste my coin on clothes.

Knick and I strolled along in companionable silence. Knick didn’t talk much. I’d tried for years to chat with him or tell stories like I did with Hammer, but the only thing he seemed interested in was fighting. So on the occasions where I’d draw him into a conversation it was mostly to correct something I was doing wrong while fighting. He could wax poetic for the better part of an hour concerning how my stance could be improved, and, when I followed his advice, it worked. I had found myself slowly getting better and better. That said, Knick was steadily improving as well, and it got harder to land a hit on him every time we fought. I only scored my extra copper one fight in three these days.

It was all about fighting with Knick, always. The guy was straight up obsessed with murdering his grandfather and taking his knife. Cutter DID have a very nice knife with rubies in a double wave pattern across the handle, but it always seemed weird to me that Knick would want to kill the man who raised him. Knick said that was just the way of the blademaster. The student gets to keep the knife of his master if he kills him, and he really wanted the family blade. Only the head of the family gets to wear a blade with the family crest. According to Knick, Cutter had killed his own grandfather to get it and fully expected Knick to kill him and take it for his own. Fucking weird tradition if you asked me, but everybody in town says they’re dangerous and weird, so there you go.

I finished plucking the bird and hung it from a string threaded through my rope belt just as we got into town. We stopped at the inn, and Knick headed inside. I hesitated a moment and then followed him in. “Get the fuck out, gutter trash!” yelled the mayor immediately from behind the bar. Knick paused and glanced back at me, then turned and continued forward to the table where Cutter and his daughter Eve were just finishing their lunch. He sat down and promptly stole a piece of potato off his grandfather’s plate with his knife. “You know you’re not allowed in here, ya little guttershite!” the mayor said, stomping towards me with a promise of pain in his eyes.

“Let it go, Cal, he’s just stopping by to get paid. He’s not staying,” drolled Cutter as he nonchalantly took another bite. The mayor froze and glanced over at Cutter.

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“Fine, but make it quick if you please, Mister Redwater. He smells up the place,” the mayor quickly changed his tune and, with a final glare in my direction, made his way back behind the pristinely shining bar which he began polishing with a clean rag.

I walked over to Cutter and ducked my head courteously. His daughter wrinkled her nose in distaste. I still had yet to take a bath this lifetime. Cutter looked over my obviously broken nose and my bloody face. “Looks like a two copper day for ya, huh Nameless?” he chuckled.

I looked over at Knick and thrust my chin out at him. Cutter glanced at him as Knick raised his right hand, showing him the cut across the backs of his fingers. “Ah, my mistake, three it is!” He dug three coins out of the pouch on the table and dropped them into my outstretched hand. “Until next time then,” he pointed a thumb at the door. I nodded and made my way out without a word.

“So what did we learn today, Knick?” I heard him ask as the door closed behind me.

I made my way across the street to Smudge’s bar and walked in. A truly fat man, that I could only assume was a noble based on his finely embroidered clothing that easily outstripped that of the average merchant, was drinking at one of the tables with horseface Ann on his lap as she tried to seduce him. Mother was drinking at another table with the old whore Bertie and a couple of guards. The nobleman gave me a greasy look that lingered longer than I’d like as I made my way to the bar and sat down. I slapped a copper on the unvarnished wood and said simply, “Food.”

Jeck nodded, put down his rag, and disappeared into the kitchen. He returned shortly with a bowl of stew and an apple, my usual. With a sigh at the less than delectable odor emanating from the stew, I started mechanically spooning the foul sludge into my aching face. Normally I’d just go start a small fire out back and cook up my bird, but my face hurt, and I didn’t feel like going to the trouble, that’d be my dinner later tonight.

I’d taken to sharing scraps with Dog next door and he’d quickly decided he liked me after all, no longer barking and trying to tear me to pieces. I could even pet him these days. Maybe he was calming with age.

The noble suddenly stumbled up and sat down beside me. He slapped a couple of silver pieces on the bar. “A drink fer me and mah young friend here!” he slurred drunkenly. Jeck shrugged and poured the drinks. I downed mine immediately. It was the good stuff and burned going down.

“I’m not your friend, sir.” I went back to ignoring him and returned to shoveling stew into my mouth.

“How much fer a night with the boy?” the noble asked Jeck. I froze, spoon midway to my mouth.

“Nameless doesn’t whore. He’s just the son of one,” stated Jeck matter of factly without pausing his habitual cleaning of a dirty glass with a dirty rag. I nodded like, ‘that’s damn right,’ and went back to eating.

“Oh come now, good sir, everything has its price!” the noble slapped a heavy handful of coins on the table. When he removed his hand they gleamed gold.

“What part of ‘not for sale’ did you not understand?” I asked coldly, glaring up at his porcine face. Jeck was just staring open mouthed at the gold on the bar, he seemed to be trying to clean his glass but had dropped the rag without noticing it. The noble just stared drunkenly down at me, licking his lips lasciviously.

Danger! I grabbed my apple, vacated my barstool, and scurried up the stairs as fast as I could go. I locked myself in Mother’s room and sat on the floor to eat my apple. That was the first meal I ever walked away from, and it almost physically hurt to leave that stew without finishing it. I munched on my apple, at least I’d gotten a little stew in me before I’d had to run. I ate the apple, core and all, crunching up the seeds. I leaned back in the corner. The booze was sinking in, I didn’t have much body weight, and I was feeling it. I let it drag me to sleep, my stomach at least partially full.

I woke to banging on the door. I got up and unlocked it. Mother pushed her way in with a man in tow. Looked to be one of the guards for the noble judging by his fine chainmail and the sword and bolo hanging from his belt. “Get out of here boy!” the guard casually smacked me in the face with the back of his hand as he passed. The pain from my broken nose awoke with a vengeance, and my eyes watered as I left, closing the door behind me. I held my hand to my face for a minute in the hall, taking deep breaths. I think that actually hurt more than when Knick broke it earlier.

I heard the sounds of fucking and coughing coming from old Bertie’s room at the end of the hall and started walking towards the stairs. Might as well cook up my sparrow, I thought to myself, making my way down the short hallway.

As I passed horseface Ann’s room I heard the smack of a fist hitting flesh, a sound I was intimately familiar with from my training with Knick, accompanied by a pained cry from Ann. “It’s your fault, you stupid whore! If you can’t get me hard, what am I paying you for!” yelled the fat noble from earlier.

Sounds like he isn’t having a good night. I smiled to myself at his misfortune and quickly made my way downstairs, through the kitchen, and out the bar's back door. I had built a small circle of stones a while back and regularly cooked out here. I grabbed some smaller sticks from the kindling next to the wood pile and started a fire with my knife and the flint in my pouch. My flint was one of my first purchases after I started training with Knick and it had paid for itself many times over by now.

I gutted my sparrow and slid a sharpened stick through it. I stuck the stick in the ground so the sparrow leaned over the fire to cook, then I took the entrails over to Dog where he was sitting and watching me intently from the next yard over. “Here ya go, boy. Who’s a good dog?” Dog took the bloody flesh gently off my palm, wolfed it down, and licked my hand clean. I wiped my hand off on the grass while scratching behind his ears with the other. “That’s right! You’re a good dog! Yes you are.” Dog rolled on his back and I gave his belly a rub. These days Dog liked me even better than his owner. I’d worried he’d hate me due to the pink scar across his nose that I’d left him with the day I stole my knife, but he seemed to be pragmatic enough to get over it if food is involved, a dog after my own heart.

I made my way back to my sparrow and watched it cook, turning it occasionally to cook it evenly. Even with the loss of half a bowl of stew I’d be eating pretty well today. I smiled. Dog started barking. “You can have the bones when I’m done. Quiet up now, boy. You’ll wake the woodworker.” I cheerfully told Dog.

The sudden blow rocked me off my ass where I sat cross legged by the fire and laid me out on the grass. My left ear felt like it was on fire and my vision went black.