The thieves’ station rested securely within the border of yet another, tamer wood, screened from open view and shrouded in perpetual darkness. Several roads and trails crisscrossed the area and traffic was moderately heavy.
“This is a thieves’ station?” Storm sounded doubtful.
“Aye,” Corporal Luka affirmed from a safe distance behind, still attempting recovery from the last but two great shocks to his equilibrium. “Pelgen’s Cut, they call her. She were more hidden once, but soon’s they learned that we was busy an’ wouldn’t come in an clean ‘em out so long as they stayed clear of the highway, they became bolder. Might’s well be a regular town now, sor. But old habits die hard, they do, and we still will call ‘er a station.” He ignored the white wolf trying to get his attention from behind. She was the last but one shock, and his mind hadn’t gotten to her yet.
Storm clucked the dead merc’s horse forward, irritated to have to be shouting to his own people. Tonight, behind walls, he’d find out what the hell was going on that nobody but the little birds would come anywhere near him these last two days.
The streets were shaded, busy, and running with filth, both stagnant and ambulatory. Swirls and eddies of unsavory characters of all the known species of the world traversed the station’s ways in their separate knots and clusters. Dall, dwarves, humans, and eight or ten Storm hadn’t seen before. Only sylvans and weres were conspicuous by their absence.
A coughing bark sounded with his horse’s first step within the station proper, and the raucous background hum of commerce vanished with a near-audible pop. Storm brought the horse up, the little birds bringing Sandahl to close beside him, the others a little way behind. Looking around, he became aware that, even here where all of the different races interacted, his party had become the single focus of all eyes. He hesitated long enough to give everyone a good look before clucking the horse into the station confines.
Traveling within a wide globe of silence and empty space, his nervous followers rode with shoulders hunched, flinching each time the crowd parted before them.
Halfway through the open square centering the station, a commotion brought all heads around to focus upon a huge mottled green figure shambling toward the rear of the party. The wolves had gone still, hackles raised, teeth bared.
“What—?” Storm began.
Ogre, Thrush Dancing sent to him. Were. It is after the wolves.
The ogre was screeching something inarticulate, his pace increasing. Nobody and nothing else in the station moved.
The old grey growled low in his throat, edging away from his daughter, trying to draw the enemy away from her. One or two to one against an ogre was no contest, and he hoped he’d be dead before the monster turned to her. It seemed to work at first. The ogre veered away from its direct path and oriented on the older wolf. Then, only a few feet from contact, the ogre shifted and leapt straight for the smaller white.
A howl of fear went up from the old grey, too far away to intercede before the monster broke Keeli in half.
The Tairn was in motion, lance up and ready, but he was too far away. Then a different scream shattered the clearing and the ogre slammed into the shoulder of a horse that had materialized out of nowhere. Horse and rider were bowled over, but not before the charging ogre had taken a lance thrust in its gaping mouth. The corporal grunted with the effort as he rode his animal to the ground, fighting not to retain his balance, but to force his lance out the back of the ogre’s skull.
The struggling mass of hair and meat hit the ground hard, the lance head exploding out the back of the ogre’s neck. Ignoring it, the monster swung an oak tree arm in a disemboweling stroke. The corporal twisted and managed to partially block the swing as he fought to draw his sword with his other hand, screaming again as his left arm snapped above the elbow. But even as he screamed, his right was moving, burying his sword into his attacker’s belly again and again
The Tairn arrived, his lance taking the monster in the guts. The remaining troopers finally came unstuck. Surging forward, war cries upon their lips, they swarmed the monster. The ogre sprouted lances from back and sides, the sheer mass of these new attackers propelling it well clear of the writhing corporal. Ten more seconds, and the dying horror was pinned to the dirt and bleeding out, the ichorous green fluid corroding the steel of the lance heads before the eyes of the onlookers.
The sylvans hadn’t moved but to dismount, facing out, bows drawn lest the crowd decide to involve themselves. They needn’t have bothered. Curiosity piqued but the fight over, the onlookers began to disburse.
The instant the crowd broke, the sylvans were racing back toward the wounded man child.
The troopers were on their feet surrounding their wounded leader, one or two kneeling to see about setting the broken arm and cover the great rents in his hide while the white wolf pressed herself to his good side, licking his face and wriggling like a puppy. For his part, the corporal had all he could do to remain conscious, good arm wrapped tightly around her neck, eyes closed with reaction.
The old grey was still standing over the dying ogre, half irritated at having missed out on the kill, half stunned that the boy had charged single-handed into certain death and saved Keeli. The old wolf moved slowly, contemptuously, level with the dying eyes and lifted his leg.
“One less pig to be visiting the home wood uninvited,” he informed The Tairn as that one approached afoot to get a closer look.
The sylvans were kneeling beside the corporal when the old grey moved to check on daughter and... lover. Lover. Ugh. The sound of the word was sour upon his tongue even unspoken. The packs would hound him forever once they found out he had a round-ear in the family. And he would have one if the way the two were clinging together was any indication. Damn! Of all the things to be famous for....
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Belius!” Thrush Dancing called.
“Aye, girl?” the old wizard moved carefully to the knot surrounding the wounded soldier.
“The ogre has killed him, I think,” Thrush’s voice broke. “His arm is too damaged to knit properly even do we set it back, and he is opened up to the bone where it tore through the breastplate. Is there anything you can do?”
“Let me see,” he crouched beside the increasingly delirious boy.
The arm was badly mangled alright, the claws having done almost more damage than the blow itself. The ogre had smashed part of the arm bone to dust, embedding mail rings into the horrific wound. Besides the arm, the boy was leaking badly from the midriff where ogre claws had opened his plate like a child’s fingers tearing through cobweb. Fortunate indeed that the boy’s first blow had taken the monster’s teeth out of the fight, or he’d be dead already. As it was, he’d be gone in half a span from blood loss and shock alone.
On the other hand, this wasn’t turning six or seven tohn of living material to stone. This the old mage could fix.
“You there,” he addressed one of the worried troopers. “Is that thing dead yet?”
A glance at the still figure bristling with lances. “Aye, mage, dead enough.”
“Good. Bring me the arm that struck the blow. You,” he addressed another. I’ll need some fire oil and a bit of yeast —farmer’s not brewer’s mind— and the bag hanging from my saddle. Be quick, man! Oh, and a lizard’s foot, if you can find one! A chicken’s foot else.” Turning back to the sylvans and the very worried wolf, he nodded reassuringly. “He’ll be fine, lass. Just don’t ask him to pick his nose with that arm for a turn or so.”
To the soldiers again, “lets go me lads, let’s get the boy up out of the mud now, shall we?”
The troopers set about removing their wounded officer from beneath the dead horse without breaking him further, while the white fidgeted and whined and the old grey grumbled.
Storm remained beside the dead ogre, eyes scanning. This place looked damned familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place. But then he had it. Of course, why shouldn’t it? He’d been in a hundred ports and forward area shanty towns before this. All of them shared the feel, if not the aesthetics. He kept a hand near the pistol at his belt. He wouldn’t use it if trouble came, but he’d already learned that these people respected it more than a smallish, single-edged knife.
Thrush Dancing moved close, touching his back as she came near. It felt good. The mage is seeing to the corporal, she sent. But says that we must get him somewhere out of the dirt.
“Right,” he acknowledged. “Koli!”
The wolf looked up from his horrid fascination at the newest member of his family.
“I’m going to find us some rooms. I could use some help.”
With a last, forlorn look at his daughter and her... man, the wolf trotted off in The Tairn’s wake, calling out in aggrieved tones.
“Really?” Storm halted. “Troopers!’
Two or three heads turned.
“I’m informed that we won’t be transacting any business within the station until we’ve cleaned up our mess. Drag the monster off to wherever such things are disposed of and see to the horse.” Turning back to the wolf, he quirked an eyebrow. “Satisfied?”
The signs meant nothing to the man, but the wolf knew them well enough. It led the way into the fourth doorway on the south side of the street, beneath a sign bearing the image of a dead dragon and a humanoid moving away from it with something long draped over one shoulder.
“Welcome to the Dragon’s Pizzle— ” the... thing behind the bar started in heavily accented Turaleean before catching the details of Storm’s face and jerking back in alarm. Then it caught sight of the wolf and its eye went hard. “Say now, none o’ them in here!” it spat, apparently more concerned about the wolf than the man child with the steel face and demon eye. “This yere’s a respectable inn and me guests don’t abide the pets in the rooms.”
Storm looked the thing over and growled softly to the wolf, who flicked his ears and responded that he couldn’t wrap his lips around the word for the creature in this form, but that it would deal if they didn’t show it too much respect, nor frighten it too greatly.
“Say,” the thing narrowed it’s one good eye, shelving eyebrows wrinkling the patch where the other had been. “Who’m I dealing with, you ‘r th’ dog?”
Koli’s hackles raised at the slur, and he hissed out an insult that was apparently universal enough.
The thing squared its lumpy shoulders and its eye flared. “You lookin’ t’get thrown out, poochie?” it demanded, puffing out its chest.
“He’s a little grumpy just now,” Storm explained none too gently. “We had to kill an ogre out in the street and he didn’t get a chance to land a blow before it went down. He’s feeling cheated.”
Koli punctuated the explanation with a smile, baring eight centimeter canines.
“Er... ah... right,” the thing temporized. “Ogre. Big gent with orange pants?”
“That’s him... or was.”
“Right. Ah... ye’ll be... ah... wantin’ a room then?” it kept its gaze on the wolf as it said it, not liking the hungry look that had come to its eyes, but nor forgetting the man child wasn’t nothing it wanted to test overmuch..
Four, and hearth room for twenty-seven on the floor down here.”
“Four?” the creature spluttered, fear vanished beneath the outrage. “Twenty-seven? By the gods, what would ye be wantin’ so much space for? I’ve only the five rooms all told! What if me regulars were wantin’ a couple of them? Why, they’d flay me, they would. I couldn’t possibly let you have four rooms!” It crossed its arms and shook its head. “Not fer less than five silver imperials in any case.”
The wolf snorted and licked its lips.
“We’ll give you a half silver and five coppers,”Storm countered, “and we get dinner for thirty-three in the bargain. May as well throw in breakfast in the morning while we’re at it.”
“Thirty-three?” The creature mimicked a heart attack. “Who’re you, the king’s army? I’d have to lay on extra supplies, and this late in th’ day, the grocer’d bum-poke me hollow over ‘em.” Another shake of the misshapen head. “Me own mother would strike me dead did I let you in for less than four.”
The wolf mimicked sniffing the air, going into a mock sneezing fit. Then it growled again, yipping twice.
“He says you didn’t have a mother,” Storm stated firmly, not bothering to stifle his grin. “Half a silver and five... bits?” this last directed at the wolf, who nodded. Then back to the innkeeper. “Half a silver and five bits, and we won’t tell your other clients how long you’ve had that meat hanging in your larder.”
“Hah! And what would he know about mothers? And as fer th’ meat, well, some o’ me guests likes their meat ter ripen a bit afore it be served.” Its teeth, yellowed and broken, shone in a self-satisfied smile.
In the end, Storm handed over one silver imperial, two silver half rounds, and four copper pennies for four rooms upstairs and room for the troopers before the hearth for the night, as well as supper and breakfast for the lot of them. Koli insisted the price was outrageous, but Storm was more concerned with haste than wringing the last half penny from the deal. He didn’t want his people out in the streets attracting attention for any longer than was absolutely necessary.
Surprisingly, the meals had proven a somewhat greater sticking point than the rooms, and he hoped they wouldn’t find themselves dining on the corporal’s late mount when the table was laid.
He moved to the stairs while the wolf sauntered outside to fetch the rest of the party.
The innkeeper goggled as the troopers hustled in carrying the corporal, the white wolf trailing close and whining. They were the bloody king’s bloody army! It threw its hands up when the mage followed, clutching paraphernalia and the dripping arm of the dead ogre. It took two giant paces backward when the sylvans swept through the doorway.
Sylvans! Two days journey from their wood! And how many enemies had the forest folk within the station? Who could count that high? By morning, it realized, the Dragon’s Pizzle would either be famous or burnt to the ground. Nor was it sure which would be preferable.