In all the world, Holsley had only three things to his name; a worn-out lute, an empty tankard, and a naueseating sense of dread.

His stomach lurched, and he quelled down all thoughts of retreating to the nearest and darkest alley. If he went through with this, he reminded himself, then he would have enough coin to buy a meal, perhaps even a warm bed for the night, or, if luck favoured him, enough to live comfortably for a week in the town’s least snobbish tavern.

When he had first arrived in Petty’s Nest, Holsley had been intent on playing the strings for whatever was left in people’s pockets — that had gone poorly to say the least. Thrown bottles, disgruntled boos, and even riots inevitably followed any performance he made. Instead, he had turned to odd jobs in order to survive. Unfortunately, the young bard had been cursed at birth with an affliction that made him rather clumsy and easily bored.

As an apprentice woodcutter, his first pitiful swing almost felled his instructor. As a server for the local pub, his unsteady hands delivered more drinks to the floor than the regulars’ tables. Even a more straightforward job, like a grocer, had culminated in an exhilarating cart chase across the town that had ended with a week’s worth of hard-grown vegetables in the river.

The lute was all he had left.

Holsley winced as he climbed to the top of the bandstand steps. The keen light of the overhead lantern blinding him a little as he took centre stage. It wasn’t too late to run, he thought. No one had yet seen him, and none were likely to care. Then what would he do for dinner? That thought alone kept him going. A person could only swallow hard tack and nuts for so long before all hope was driven out of them.

No, he knew he’d have to play today.

To comfort himself, he gently caressed the wood of his lute. It had been his for as long as he cared to remember and, in truth, wasn’t much to look at now — mainly thanks to the many years of accidentally bashing, dropping, and landing on top of the innocent instrument. These days, it was more bandage than lute. Still, it was a sturdy tool, and could be played beautifully in the hands of a minstrel that practiced every now and again.

The young bard pretended not to notice the indifferent faces of the hurried townsfolk as he worked up the courage to get started. Most wouldn’t notice him, even if he did get started. They were only here to peruse the open shops in the adorable, albeit cramped townhouses that were boxed in all around the square.

Holsley set down the empty tankard on the other side of the railing. That was the most crucial part. Then, he went through the steps of warming up his instrument. The teenage bard playfully plucked each string in sequence to ensure they were in tune. None were. So, he spent the next few minutes fiddling with them.

A few strangers stopped at his jarring twangs, undoubtedly wondering what this young scruffy lad with curly auburn locks and a distinctive gap in his front teeth was about to perform. Petty’s Nest was in the middle of nowhere. It was one of those places that didn’t get much in the way of entertainment because entertainment never visited. Most times, they would take what they could get unless it were particularly bad. They just wanted something to break up the monotony of daily strife every now and then.

Holsley swallowed some vomit. Even more came to a standstill, struck stone-like with wicker baskets under their arms. A tentative hand strummed awkwardly along the strings. He didn’t look up as he started. He never looked up. That was a sure way to turn him into one of the town’s permanent fixtures.

‘P-present day…present day is…’

Was he naked? Holsley sure felt naked. He was suddenly self-conscious about the two circles, not unlike tattoos, drawn on his little finger. Could the town see them? What did they think? Probably nothing. The young bard mumbled through the words as he desperately tried to calm his nerves.

‘Present day is, uh, gonna beest the day yond, yond those gents’re gonna throweth t backeth thee.’

More strangers. Awesome. Not that Holsley noticed anything beyond their tattered boots or, in some cases, bare feet. His eyes were firmly on the lute. They watched his fumbling fingers as they awkwardly plucked and teased something vaguely resembling music from the strings.

‘A-and by anon, thee shoudst’ve, shouldst’ve somehow realis’d what thee gotta doth.

I, I believeth not yond anybody, uh, doth feel the way I doth about thee anon.’

‘Speak up!’ The man was two pies short of overweight and wore an apron caked in dried blood. The young bard could have shot several insults back at him. Comments about his weight, painfully yellow teeth, and thinning hair came to mind. Instead, his frantic heart went into overdrive as he looked out at the unsightly crowd before him.

Uninterested faces stared back. Some had moved onto thoughts concerning the rest of their day. Others looked annoyed, teetering towards anger. A rare few were snickering with drunken swaggers. From experience, Holsley knew those were the ones to watch out for. The kind of people who were drunk moments after midday were always looking for a more violent type of entertainment.

Holsley’s breath caught in his throat. It was suddenly too dry to swallow.

‘I’m s-sure thee’ve hath heard t all b-bef’re, but thee nev’r very much, uh—’

‘That’s not even the next bloody verse!’ You could have made a fashionable leather bag out of the next heckler’s gangly arm skin. An older woman, pushing ancient, who had probably risen from the grave just to throw insults at him. Her outburst spurred on more jeers. Boos were thrown up, and thumbs were pointed down as the crowd grew restless and snide.

‘S-sorry,’ Holsley squeaked, but it hardly mattered now. ‘Just let me—’

The hanging lantern was white hot on his neck. Sweat prickled his forehead, matting his hair, and his clammy hands suddenly failed to gain any traction on the sharp strings of the lute. In short, he probably wasn’t going to get enough coin for stale leftovers, let alone a meal, a bed, or a week in a tavern.

‘Hadst…oh, darn it. Hadst…’

It was over. The next part of the song wouldn’t come. Holsley knew that he knew it, or at least he had known it that last time he played it — over a year ago. Perhaps he should have practised. The thought was rather intrusive and generally unhelpful. His hands hovered over the instrument as his brain tried to reason through his following actions.

He couldn’t think with all these eyes on him.

Some people shouted the next lyrics, which then led to squabbles over what the correct words actually were. Small brawls shortly followed. This was Petty’s Nest, after all. The townsfolk didn’t throw rotten vegetables here, which, admittedly, would’ve actually been a godsend to Holsley’s hunger pains. No, they threw punches instead.

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Holsley watched an oversized fist barrel into the stomach of a man near the middle of it all. This one act of violence, like a stack of carefully placed dominoes, led to another act of violence. Soon, the crowd was a frenzy of fists, insults, and kicked-up dust. You couldn’t have made things more chaotic if you added two leopards and a giraffe to the mix.

All Holsley knew was he needed to get out of there. Now. Pretty soon, the crowd’s anger would focus in on the one who caused all this. It was either that or the violence would come to an end and no one in Petty’s Nest wanted a riot to end — it was bad for their infamous reputation.

With the bandaged lute in hand, he turned to fly down the steps and seek out safety. As it turned out, today had different plans. Once swivelled, he found himself staring down, or up to, a rather bulky half-orc with a serious muscle problem. Serious because he seemed to have too much of it. Garrok smiled at him through lips that curled around the two tusks jutting out of his lower jaw.

Garrok had a reputation in the town as someone who liked to pick fights. More than that, he liked to pick fights for no reason other than to hit something. Holsley had a suspicion that the something this green-skinned hulk wanted to hit now was probably him.

He brought up his lute as if the flimsy bit of wood could do anything to protect him. Garrok took a step forward, and Holsley took a considered one back. The brute had to duck beneath the lantern overhead before he towered over the bard. ‘Where’d you think you’re going?’

‘Uh,’ Holsley muttered. The riot was in full force around the bandstand, but the sounds of it were nothing more than background music now. Holsley could think of a hundred things to say, but none were particularly useful. Most were outright insulting. Instead, he went for reason. ‘Y-you surely aren’t going to hit me over a song, right?’

‘You ruined one of my favourite songs.’ The half-orc spoke it with the dull cadence of a man reciting a fact not subject to opinion. ‘Now I get to punch yer face through to the other side of yer head.’

‘Ponderblock is one of your favourite songs?’ Holsley asked, genuinely confused.

The brute didn’t waste any more time. Garrok threw a punch Holsley’s way that would surely have killed him if it struck true. Quick and agile, though, the bard dodged the blow by throwing his head back, arching his back, and allowing his feet to catch up to the rest of his body.

‘Wait!’ he said frantically as he danced around. ‘I…I have another song I know you’ll love!’

Without dawdling for permission, Holsley plucked the strings of his lute carefully, making sure to keep out of the orc’s reach as he did so. The first two strums did nothing, but the third made things interesting. The undersized troll stopped suddenly and put on his best impression of a dullard attempting to entertain complex mental arithmetic.

Most didn’t know, and even fewer could guess that Holsley had a secret. Unlike other northern bards, Holsley could play something a little more than music. He could play spells. That is, magic woven from songs. Of course, Holsley had kept it very hush hush. People distrusted magic this far north, and he saw no need to make himself any more of a pariah.

A few genteel plucks were pulled. The melody was clunky and off in some places, occasionally hitting the ear a little wrong or a little too sharp, but it was working. The thug before him was falling under his charming spell — a bewitchment that, he hoped, would make them the best of friends for the next hour.

Naturally, magic was a little hard to master, and Holsley was nowhere near able to claim mastery over it. The more practised the spellcaster, he had been told, the more powerful the spell would become. It was a wonder he could even cast the spell at all then. The young bard was so out of practice it was a miracle he could even remember owning a lute.

Garrok’s fists uncurled as he relaxed at the dulcet tones of Holsley’s playing. Then, the inevitable mistake. The pressure to get it right, as always, was too much. The melody became too clunky, too unbearable, and even discordant as Holsley forgot the next few steps and ambled his way through.

‘Damn it!’ Holsley dug into his worn leather satchel and fished out a few bits of torn yellowed parchment. Each contained an instruction for one of the spells the elves had struggled to teach him. The muscled stranger was brought back to reality as he frantically sorted through them, searching for the charming spell.

It was too late. One of the two circles on his fingers turned red. The spell had taken its toll on Holsley, even if it hadn’t been cast right.

‘Is this a joke?’ Garrok shook his head, bringing himself entirely out of the stupor. ‘What are you trying to pull here, bard?’

‘Just strings!’ Holsley insisted, backing right up to one of the bandstand’s pillars. ‘Nothing else!’

A swift fist, propelled by anger and confusion, broke through Holsley’s defences. It went straight towards his chest, landing a heavy blow on the lute and caving in the drum. The instrument remained in one piece, but Holsley felt as if he had been split in two.

He gasped, coughed, choked, and spluttered. Words wouldn’t come. He couldn’t breathe. His lungs felt squashed, and saliva dripped lazily from the corner of his mouth. The situation suddenly became very real. Doubled over but still on his feet, Holsley held up a hand, begging not to be struck again.

‘Y-you got me,’ he wheezed, dropping the lute with a melancholy TWANG. ‘C-can we call it, uh, even?’

The furious stranger pulled back his fist for another bout. Holsley watched him, half-bent over, with little to no idea of how to defend himself. The bard wasn’t a fighter. In truth, he had never even thrown a punch. Not one in his entire life. This next fist would connect with his head and drive the consciousness out of him. Perhaps he’d even die. The young bard had heard that could happen with a miscalculated blow.

Holsley didn’t have much, but he had always been gifted with two things — quick reflexes and bloody good luck in bad moments.

Holsley ducked the next attack at the last possible second by dropping dead to the ground. Instead of connecting with his head, Garrok’s fist connected with the bandstand. The structure shuddered as his fist collided with it, cracking and breaking, literally breaking, one of the supporting pillars that held the thing upright.

‘ARGH!’ Garrok screamed, shrieking in pain as he pulled back his hand. Holsley cringed. The hand was limp and twisted at an awkward angle at the wrist. Holsley was no cleric, but any idiot could tell it was broken. He could muster very little sympathy, however, as he was only grateful that it had been the bandstand and not his face that had been struck.

It wasn’t over, though. Not by a long shot. The impact on the bandstand had consequences of its own. With the sway of the structure, the lantern, which had been precariously hanging above them, swung off its hook and smashed onto the lacquered floor. The entire thing erupted up in flames in a moment, maybe even less.

‘Not fire,’ Holsley breathed.

The oversized brute disappeared, hopping over the side and screaming obscenities as he bounded away. Holsley had a different problem, however.

Fear. Pure, uncompromising fear clutched hold at his heart, and strangled it like it was trying to squeeze juice from the organ. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think. Performing in front of a crowd was scary, but this was pure terror. The fire danced around him almost mockingly, rising up the pillars and spreading across the ceiling. Anyone with a smidgen of sense would have been up and over the railing by now.

Holsley didn’t have sense, however — not when faced with fire. He knew he should move, but his feet simply ignored the request and proposed he ask again later — possibly when not faced with the mesmerising nightmares in the crackle of the flames. He was incapable of doing anything, even twitching, and his body and mind were content to simply let him burn to death.

‘What in the name of good are you doing, boy!?’

A burly hand took hold of Holsley at the shoulder. With an impressive amount of strength, a quick pull was all it took to bring him up and over to safety. Like a child’s ragdoll, the young bard was thrown effortlessly onto the cobblestones of the town’s square.

Coughing, Holsley struggled to right himself. The young bard stole a minute. The tiled pavement was cool beneath him, and he turned back over only when he was proper and ready. That is, when his breathing returned back to its rightful cadence.

The man who looked down on him, his saviour, was no stranger. Even with the sun in his eyes, Holsley could recognise the battered armour and well-worn face that was as cracked as unloved leather.

With a deep breath, Holsley stood up, and Darynell — as that was his name — offered a hand to guide him. He wore a badge of office on his dulled breastplate, marking him as both a defender of the peace and the Captain of the Guard for Petty’s Nest. Just about the highest authority you could get in a donnybrook-loving town like this.

‘What have you done this time, Holsley?’ Darynell sighed the question. Holsley looked around and grimaced. The crowd had long since scattered, no doubt scared off by the sudden presence of the guards, which left only the young bard to face the consequences.

‘Uh, I think that depends on how much you heard,’ he replied.