Chapter 6: Confronted

“Where’s my share?” Odvar said. He flicked his wrist, allowing the blade to cut through a beam of sunlight.

“Njall ate it,” Erik said laughing.

The large man shrugged in a mocking gesture. He continued to chew the meat in his mouth.

“It was rightfully mine!” Odvar shouted.

“Your right to meat and drink was forfeit. I invited you to join and you declined,” Erik said.

“As is my right.”

“So you say.”

“I do,” Odvar said. He cleared his throat of phlegm and spat toward the leader of their group.

“Then, acknowledge my right as konungur,” Erik said, rising from his place on the rugs.

“You do not deserve the title of konungur,” Odvar snapped.

Erik stepped within knife-length of Odvar. While the leader of their motorcycle gang lacked the height and mass of the challenger, there lingered around him an aura of danger that none of the others possessed.

“You speak freely for a man who still has a tongue in his mouth.”

Odvar dismissed the veiled threat with a sniff.

“Have you now words now?” Erik asked, waiting for an excuse for violence.

Odvar staggered a single foot backward. He touched the sides of his hairy face and stroked the length of his beard. Under his beard, Tybalt saw his lips curl into a crude snarl.

“Speak, churl,” Erik commanded.

Odvar grunted. “I have nothing to say.” He took a few more steps away from his confrontation. With a parting glance, he walked out of the camp and began to move among the other encampments.

“I apologize for that display,” Erik said, taking back his spot around the fire. “You must understand, there is a code of honour among us.”

“As it right,” Tybalt said. “It was not too different with mine own.”

“Tell us about your experience,” Erik said. He snapped his fingers and Arne left the circle only to reappear with a glass bottle of liquor. The youngest member poured for the man on his right, and so went the bottle around the circle.

Tybalt spoke, receiving his pour from Njall, who poured enough for two men, which is to say enough for the giant himself.

“Within my circle, like yourself, I had five among us, at least, by the end. My brother and I established a mercenary group with a few of the other men of our past. Grapnel Company. Thirteen of us for our first mission, eleven by the end of it. Then, our numbers increased and decreased. New blood often motivated only by coin, which I cannot blame them. I am motivated by much the same. By last week, we were five. Today, I am alone.”

Njall put his mammothine hands upon Tybalt’s shoulder.

“You are not alone.”

Tybalt nodded slightly. He struggled with his emotions. He did not want the sympathy of this giant nor those of his tribe, but, at the same time, the sympathy struck him as something genuine, something that made him glow a little.

“Thank you,” Tybalt said.

Erik took a fireplace poker and nudged a few logs on the fire. One of the well-burnt pieces of wood stumbled away from the flame. He took a new chunk of firewood and placed into the mix.

“Tybalt, Son of None,” Erik said. “You are welcome to stay with us as long as we are outside of these walls.”

“You cannot enter?”

“Not at the moment,” Erik responded, “We reached a moment of great inconvenience and great opportunity. The Reeve of Carrion Hill has died.”

“The Reeve?”

“Yes, their mayor, although the position works much different than perhaps you have seen elsewhere in the Wasteland. The inner council elects someone from their own lot into the position, for life.”

“And, now, there is a new election?”

“For the inner circle.”

“How does that concern you?” Tybalt asked.

“Do you think I would speak such things to a newcomer?”

“Am I simply a newcomer?”

Erik laughed to the others. “This man offers a dram and a half-meal and he thinks he is privy to our doings.”

The other men laughed, warmed by the liquor in their mostly empty stomachs.

“You are neither cast from the hearth nor dead. This counts for more than you know,” Erik said with new seriousness.

Sten, the cook, looked into the sky. “Erik, I think the hour is upon us.”

Their leader slicked back his dirty blonde hair and looked at the position of the sun.

“So it seems,” he said. “Tybalt, you are welcome to join us later this evening, but, for now, you must respect our doings. Take leave for a few hours.”

Tybalt, wishing to remain on their good side, nodded obsequiously. He struggled to his feet using his cane. Njall helped him stand.

“Farewell,” Tybalt said with a semi-humorous bow. Leaving them, he waddled back to the main road. The drink had dulled the pain in his legs, but he was still far from healthy. Unless he found a nociceptive cast or a healing gel, he would need weeks to return to his real self. He would settle for a good pain-killer somewhere in these parts. Yet, after sharing the little he had with the Corvus Motorcycle Gang, he had little to trade or sell. He had only a bottle of water, a bottle of wheat whiskey, and a knife.

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As he moved a little closer to the city walls, he took a moment to take in the vastness of his surroundings.

Carrion Hill, true to its name, rose above the landscape. While the hill was not particularly high or magnificent, it rolled from its apex onto the surrounding environs with an elegant curve into the surrounding plains. Two sections of wall could be seen from his vantage. The first ring of protection encircled the whole swept of the hill, while, further up, the second ring protected the summit. Between the two walls, a planned city of merchants and craftsmen buffered the innermost circle of political and military class and the outermost circle of farmers and physical labourers.

Tybalt lost himself in the structures that flourished around the main walls of Carrion Hill. He found himself encountering a number of different faces, the faces of hopeful youth, of worn adults, and of despairing elders. Children ran between the crudely constructed buildings, laughing and giggling at their own games. At the same time, beggars and criminals mulled about the darker patches of the network, waiting for an unsuspecting target. Doubtless, when night fell, this outer ring became more vicious, more dangerous to travel.

He remembered the little girl and her brother who had greeted him when he first entered into the sprawling outskirts. She had mentioned that her father was a neighbourhood councilman. He wondered whether or not such a man had sway in the election of the next reeve of Carrion Hill.

Tybalt pondered these things in silence when he saw a line of people standing around a long rectangular building. He approached a heavily wrinkled woman near the end of the line. Her skin had been worn by the long exposure to the sun.

“Why are you lining up?”

“For food,” she answered. Her words lacked gentleness.

“From whom?”

“Why do you bother me so!” she called into the sky.

A younger woman, standing two places behind the wrinkle woman, answered Tybalt.

“The Clasped Hands offers meals for those in need,” she said.

Tybalt looked down the line and saw the vast number of vagrants in front of him. His stomach longed for greater sustenance. He felt the inadequacy of the single sausage he ate only an hour or so earlier. Humbling himself, he stood behind the woman who responded to his question.

When he joined the line, the woman smiled to him politely. Tybalt felt his heart flutter. Her long brunette hair had been tucked beneath a simple grey headscarf, which wrapped snuggly around her neck. Although she lacked any particular mark of beauty, the simpleness of her proportions radiated something beyond the snares of physical beauty.

“Why would they do that?” Tybalt said, feeling the need to speak to this woman

“Do what?” the woman responded.

“Give food for free. What’s in it for them?”

“I think it makes them feel good,” she said uncomfortably. She clearly did not like dwelling upon the fact that she was someone else’s charity work.

“Hmm,” Tybalt sounded to himself. “Do you think people can act like that out of sheer goodness?”

The head-scarfed woman thought to herself quietly. “I think they can.” Her lips curved into a tender grin. “I think they can,” she said with greater warmth. Tybalt witnessed the very thought filling her countenance with a spark of hope.

“A family brought me into their house when I was at my lowest,” Tybalt confided to her. He felt the needed to confess his story to someone, to a stranger. This woman and the innocence of her demeanour made him feel as though he should share his story with her. “And I betrayed them.”

The woman blinked at him. Although she said nothing, her hazel eyes scanned his face.

“I betrayed them,” Tybalt repeated in a lower voice. “I didn’t believe that people could sacrifice their own wealth, their own bounty, for a stranger. Why would they?”

The woman remained mute.

“I wouldn’t.” Tybalt looked to the ground. He saw how dust clung to the buckskin boots he had stolen. The blood from his shin and calves had stained the legs of his coarse linen trousers. His right arm panged as though it were a minor remorseful retribution for his wrongs. The bandages still held tightly, although they had loosened by use and gained a slightly pinkness due to dribbles of blood.

The woman stared at him affectionately.

“We are all fighting a hard battle.”

Her words pierced his heart. Had not the totality of his life been one long hard battle? Had it not been a giant war for survival? He survived his father. He survived his hunger. Her survived his poverty. Now, he must survive his brother. The lost had been the greatest he had ever experienced, but he had not given himself the moment to mourn. Instead, the wounds of his heart trained itself upon revenge. He felt a flood of sadness fill his throat, struggling to erupt. The only people who welcomed him with total acceptance where the same people he betrayed. He could not keep his emotions intact. His tears began to flow with choked sobs.

“There, there,” the woman said. She wrapped her arms around Tybalt, which only made him weep harder. He had grown without the love of a mother, without the love of a woman. He only had the passing acquaintanceships loose women and short-term girlfriends. Now, here, in a food line for beggars, he found a sliver of feminine comfort.

Tybalt wrapped his arms tightly around this unknown woman and squeezed her with two decades of interred sorrows. Soon, however, he caught himself. He sniffled aggressively and wiped away his tears. He lifted his head into the sky, as though the descending sun held the balm for his sorrow. He told himself that he would no longer weep for his brother. He had already wept once. He remembered the shame of crying over the dead body of his brother. Now, he betrayed himself, weeping a second time in the company of strangers. Twice was twice to many.

“I’m sorry,” Tybalt said with renewed bravado. He wiped his face with the back of his hand “That was uncalled for.”

“It’s okay,” the woman said. Her face held a trace of genuine kindness that threatened to break him.

Tybalt forced himself to smile to this strange woman. Thankfully, the line began to move. Without intending, the two of them lined side-by-side as though they were a couple. They advanced forward as a single unit. Person after person entered the charity kitchen. At the threshold of the building, Tybalt allowed the woman to step before him. His own act of kindness.

Inside, he saw the naturally lit structure in the totality of its rudiments. The walls had been fashioned out of wattle and daub, alongside an assortment of scavenged materials. Most of the tables within the main area were collapsable tables made of metal or plastic. The chairs which flanked them, however, had no consistency in material or style. Tybalt saw park benches, metal folding chairs, canvas lawn chairs, and salvaged bar stools. The people who stood in front of him received a ladle full of hot soup and a hunk of brown bread.

As his turn approached, Tybalt allowed the woman to step in front of him and receive her share first. These minor good deeds filled him with happiness. There exists a certain satisfaction when a man is allowed to sacrifice a little bit of himself for a woman. The size of the gesture did not matter. Each held its own satisfaction. Tybalt allowed himself to feel this altruistic buzz. He leaned on his wooden cane, watching the woman receive her portion of charitable food.

“There is no more soup!” One of the kitchen workers exclaimed. She had scrapped the bottom of the large pot of soup with her ladle, dumping its contents on the woman’s tray. Tybalt felt disheartened that his sacrifice had real consequences. Still, better that he go hungry than this kind woman.

Suddenly, a man behind him pushed forward. He snatched the metal tray from the woman

“This is mine!” He said with unrelenting firmness. “I deserve it. I haven’t eaten in three days.”

Tybalt saw the woman before him wilt like a dying flower. He could not bear this act of injustice.

“That’s hers!” Tybalt shouted. He pushed himself from his cane, ready to use it as a weapon.

“No,” the man said with scorn. “If you listened carefully, little man, I said ‘This is mine’.”

Tybalt’s rage flourished. His anger never hid too far from the surface, ready to emerge at the shortest instance.

“Give the tray back to the woman and you won’t get hurt.”

The larger man snarled with laughter.

“No,” he said, turning his back on Tybalt and the woman. He lumbered over a table.

Tybalt followed the man, barely using his cane. He felt propelled by anger. He had no issues ignoring his pain when this injustice continued to exist in the world.

“I will only say it once more,” Tybalt threated, “give the tray back to her.”

The man twisted in his seat. He glared at Tybalt. His eyes, a deep black, declaimed violence as essential to his nature.

Tybalt felt something gingerly touch his good arm. He saw that the tender face of the woman pleading him to abandon his cause.

“It is okay,” she said. She spoke with resigned demure.

Tybalt shrugged himself from her grip. He returned his gaze to the large man sitting at the table. The man dipped his spoon into the last portion of soup available for the day and take a smug bit of it.

Tybalt vowed violence. He would beat this man into a lifeless pulp.