Chapter One

Balda Nobindigo was not a brave man. He did not have the simple courage it took to stand up to his own wife, and now it was going to get him killed. Why was he such a coward? Why hadn't he simply told Parlindi to go to hell, and walked out? 'Well, scuttled out, ducking plates and knives and whatever else lay close to hand,' he thought to himself. 'What a fucking bitch!'

Not a brave man at all. And yet, here he was girding up to bother Kenly Bent over a couple of stupid goats.

Balda inhaled deeply, trying to dispel the images of swords and knives that plagued him. He was so scared that he wanted to puke, but he was already approaching the tavern. He was sure that he was visible from every window in the building, and that every eye inside was upon him. His bearing proclaimed his destination loudly to anyone who was paying attention.

He pushed his quivering paunch through the tavern's front door and paused, his eyes bulging as they strained in the sudden gloom.

Pure relief, like ice cold water from a mountain stream, washed through his brain and down his spine. It felt so good that when it reached his balls he almost pissed his pants. The utter contempt with which the patrons had dismissed him cloaked him in a comforting sense of invisibility.

He skirted the large common area with its half-filled tables and took a seat at an unoccupied stretch of the bar. To his dismay, the bartender scurried right over, grubbing for the measly coppers in Balda's pockets.

"Um, hi. How are you?" Balda tried to give the man a friendly smile, but his eyes were tearing up as they slowly adjusted to the dimness. He could see how the man was. Unwashed, unshaven and generally disgusting. When his gaze wandered back up to the old man's red rimmed eyes he found the man watching him take his stock. Before Balda could apologize, the old man leaned over and spat onto the bar inches from where Balda was leaning. Without breaking eye contact, he began working it into the unoffending wood with the world's dirtiest rag.

Balda clamped his teeth shut, but his mouth was flooding with saliva. His gorge rose like a geyser but he refused to let it enter his mouth. Instead it filled his nose and burned like fire. The old man watched with brutal indifference.

Balda could not be the first to break eye contact. He would not.

But his body rebelled. A racking spasm overtook him, and Balda coughed all over the bar. With every wracking heave, more and more tears and snot emerged, until Balda began to wonder if he was going to suffocate. The small, clinical voice in his head noticed, in a detached sort of way, that he now had the attention of every single person in the tavern. It also noticed that the barman continued to wipe, oblivious to the droplets of vileness raining down on his hand and the counter top, which he was supposedly cleaning.

When Balda was finally able to once again sip air through his mouth, he wiped at the tears in his vision and blew his nose onto his sleeve.

He turned to the crowd at large and said brightly, "He's a disgusting one, isn't he?"

Nobody replied. But they did slowly start turning back to their own business. When Balda spotted Kenly Bent he forced a smile onto his face, though he suspected that it was wan and sickly. He waved as cheerfully as he could manage and called much too loudly, "Aha, Kenly. There you are." Instantly the entire room was listening hard. Shit.

Kenly was not the largest man in the room, but he towered over Balda. His leather tunic creaked as he turned about, looking for another soul named Kenly. Finding none, he turned back in surprised chagrin, not pleased to be sharing the attention of the entire room with the likes of him. Balda supposed that Kenly feared that he would be labeled a dink by association.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

He purchased two glasses of Donkey Piss from the decrepit old man and made his way over to the table that Kenly was currently sharing with a pair of his more disreputable cronies.

"Here you are, Kenly. Good man, good man." Balda busied himself with situating his rotund body at the table, placing the small pewter cups down on the table and fussing over them briefly before sliding one towards Kenly.

Kenly's eyes barely twitched towards the rancid smelling concoction before they were once again tunnelling straight through his face to regard the craven soul cowering behind his eyes. Balda felt his nerve slipping.

"Yes, well I suppose I had better tell you why I came looking for you, hadn't I? I wouldn't want you to think that you were somehow in trouble." Nope, not a hint of a reaction. Kenly may as well have been the world's angriest statue.

"It's my wife. She sent me down here, bless her heart. She seems to believe that you may have accidentally cooked and eaten a pair of our goats. Her goats, I mean. They've always been a bit of a bane towards me."

Kenly just continued to stare, so Balda looked around the table. Lazarus Guller and Beigh Shabley were no help at all. If anything, they were even more hostile than Kenly.

"I bet those stupid goats just jumped out of the pen. Yes, that's surely it. Well, I'm glad that's settled. Now I can tell the old girl that she's full of shit. Those goats are probably half way to the capital by now." He really wasn't paying attention to what he was saying, it was just blather while he rose to his feet and smoothed out his coat.

"Sit down," Kenly barked. Balda's knees folded as though they were under Kenly's direct control. "Drink your piss."

When he had bought them, Baldal had had no intention of drinking the swill. He had bought them because they were the cheapest drinks possible. He didn't allow himself to dwell on what might be in the cup. With a quick prayer to The Shepherd, he took a deep breath and poured the entire contents of the pewter cup as far down the back of his throat as he could. And swallowed.

Instantly, a warmth settled into his belly and gently began to spread through his whole body. "Disgusting," he said mildly. He felt a blush enter his cheeks.

"When did you lose these goats of yours?" Kenly's gaze was more blearey-eyed than he'd realized, and he chewed his words like old leather. He was wasted. "I think we did have some goat. A couple of days ago."

"Coincidence." Balda waved the idea away.

"No, I think she might be right. I think maybe we did eat them." He smiled at Balda, and his cronies chuckled dutifully. "I'll tell you what, though. If she's really that pissed off about it, us three will ride out to your farm with you and see if we can't fuck her as good as those goats used to."

Balda laughed as loudly as anybody else. He was surprised to feel himself start to relax. "You obviously have never met my wife. Goats have higher standards than that. A swamp troll has more self respect." He was startled when a couple people nearby laughed.

"What does that say about you?" Shabley asked. Balda laughed again. This was fun.

"The same thing you don't want being said about you, believe me. Besides, if anything we should all march over to Guller's house and have a go at his wife. Now there's a saucy wench. She looks like she could fuck a warhorse to death."

Nothing. Dead silence. Not so much as a chair creaked, and a cat who had been cleaning himself on a table in the corner suddenly stopped, and bolted out the door. Silently.

"What the hell is your problem? That's the man's wife you're talking about." Kenly looked shocked, the cronies stunned.

"It was just a joke. Like yours. All in good fun, right?" Balda could see the knives, sliding into his guts, chopping at his limbs. Guller was glaring at him, tears standing in his eyes and his face as red as a potato. "Guller? I'm sorry, man. It was damned insensitive of me."

This was going poorly again. Shabley had his arm across Guller's shoulders, trying to console his friend. Kenly said softly, "You should get the fuck out of here. He gets weepy when he drinks, but in another hour he's going to murder you."

Balda sprang up, his chair flying backward as he started away. Most people avoided looking at him as he made his way out, but a few people stared openly.

He didn't care. He just ran.