25. Next ye see him

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Glen

Next ye see him.

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There was a bearded dwarf hiding inside a hauler laden with straw, a well-rested Glen noticed. He popped his ugly rotund head out, large eyes ogling an Issir woman carrying a bucket, oblong loaf of bread half-sticking out, crossing the busy market. Before the young man had the chance to figure out, whether it was food, or the woman that had the creature interested, the head disappeared again.

“Hey…” He started, but Emerson didn’t give him a chance to finish.

“Are ye sleep-walkin’ again lad? Told ye to stay near,” The knight admonished him. “You’d think sleepin’ in the mid of a conversation, wit the king’s man no less—”

“That was no fault of mine!” Glen retorted.

“No? Whose fault was it?”

“Well... the wine made me sleepy, for starters.”

“Ye talkin’ about the cup ye gulped down as if it was water? Did someone put ye up to it?”

Glen exhaled frustrated. “Fine. I will be more careful next time.”

Emerson eyed him for a moment. They had cut behind the tower guarding East port, straight through the market, to reach their inn faster. The Vice Admiralty court buildings were still visible next to the port tower, but quite a distance away now.

“What?” He snapped, not liking how the Knight seemed not swayed. “Everything went great.”

“How would you know?” Emerson asked, hint of a smile on his rugged face. “Ye slept through most of it.”

“Haha,” Glen retorted, trying to locate the dwarf again, but failing.

“Sir Knight,” A voice said on his back. Emerson put on hold answering him and turned to stare at a man wearing a green tunic and same color hemp pants, a yellow sash on his waist. A much tanned Lorian. Narrow forehead, a mess of black hair and eyes, mouth sporting a couple of gaps amidst teeth the color of his sash. He’d a wicked-looking blade, more a chopper, strapped on the latter. “Might I both’r the young lad, wit a query?”

“Not without givin’ me a name.”

“Tis Wayland Dawson,” The stranger said, accent reminding Glen of some unsavory sailors he’d encountered back home. Mostly Crafton’s friends. Whatever that meant. “Most fellows call me ‘Yellow’.”

I give it even odds between that sash and the teeth, thought Glen, brows upturned amused, while pondering at the reason.

“Not any fellows of mine,” Emerson grunted, always diplomatic.

“Tis but a simple query. Think I know the lad.”

Glen narrowed his eyes, not liking where this was going.

Had I met him afore and not remember?

Perhaps being diplomatic, isn’t the right approach and the Knight has it right?

“I’m all ears,” The knight said, never steering the right way, more than once in a blue moon.

“Now, now… no need be for alarm,” Wayland started seeing they both were on their toes. “Did some work wit Reeves ye see, nothin’ untoward and tis some years back; the lad reminds me of him, same eyes only younger. Tis all.”

“You’ve done business wit Reeves. Lord Reeves, is your meaning?” Emerson asked frowning, while Glen let a breath he held out.

“Aye. Good man. His son too.”

Emerson grimaced at the mention of his father.

“You’ve a keen eye, Mister Dawson. This is his grandson.”

Wayland offered them another view of his teeth.

“Nice to meet ye, young lord.”

“Thanks,” Glen replied unsure.

Wayland gave them a small courtesy. “Yer welcome lad. Give me best, to you ‘n yours. Next ye see him.”

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“Huh,” Emerson shook his head, after the man walked away. “Might not be easy for Lord Reeves to pretend ye don’t exist.”

Glen nodded, his mind working overtime. He didn’t look like the dead man. Granted the corpse had little flesh left on, to tell with any certainty, but he would’ve known… suddenly he wasn’t as sure.

“Keep up lad,” Emerson urged him looking over his shoulder. The knight was already heading towards their inn. “We might arrive just in time for lunch.”

“Wait,” Glen called, running after him. The prospect of a nice meal especially alluring. That wine had made a number on his stomach. Something with potatoes in it, he thought. Pieces of yellow cheese melting on top and a couple of slices of fat pork mixed in. They cut through a side alley to avoid the crowd at the edge of the market; using the space between two large stands selling fabrics and pottery. Glen had his mind on various groupings of meat and vegetables, mostly a great idea of putting the slices of pork, potatoes, beans, tomatoes and cheese inside a cut flatbread—

Emerson put a rough hand on his chest and stopped him dead.

He’d a reason for it.

“That’s far enough Sir Knight,” The obese man blocking the alley said. As tall as Emerson, but twice as heavy, fat neck spilling out a dirty well-worn leather vest, hands the size of trunks, grasping what looked like a crude wooden club with an iron finish. Small beady eyes watching them as they paused and checked behind them, the other end of the alley.

Oh, fuck it.

Sure enough three figures had appeared there; without a doubt they’d followed them, when they made their turn. Lead by a tall lanky man, with long thinning blond hair, face full of brown spots, wearing a chainmail under a light overcoat, a longsword in hand. Behind him stood a one-eyed woman, black patch where her eye was missing, long blade in hand, clad in leather armor that had seen better days in the distant past. The third man was shorter than the other two, well built and wore a piece of plate on his chest, over a brownish old gambeson. Long beard that covered his neck and carried a long shafted axe.

“Mind your sword,” Emerson rumbled, as the huge man cracked his neck left and right, before he started slowly closing the distance between them.

“Why?” Glen asked stalling, but the Knight put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him towards the giant, over his protests.

“I’ll take the others.”

“Wait…” I can’t fight this thing, Glen thought, when his legs came to a stop, before the human mountain. He attempted to talk it out. “Listen… friend. How about we—”

“Got me sister in prison,” The man explained apologetically, not letting him finish. Adding a little embarrassed. “She goes free, if I bring ‘em yer head.”

Luthos, you son of a whorin’ bitch!

Duck.

The man swung his club, it had iron finish -with rusted nails protruding from it- a gawking Glen noticed. He was slow, enough for the young man to duck under the blow. It struck the wall on his left side, the dark alley narrow enough. As a matter of fact, he could touch both walls, if he extended his hands.

Debris rained on him, pieces of brick and mortar. The man bellowed, a long drawn out affair, interrupted by a woman’s scream cut short. Glen sidestepped to get distance between him and the obese ruffian, hand on the handle of his father’s… Nah, he corrected himself, the corpse’s longsword. The giant turned slow as a pregnant whale, and Glen decided to unsheathe his blade, a surge of confidence running through him.

It came out halfway before the pommel struck the wall, the alley too narrow to maneuver. Mind your sword, came the knight’s warning again, now its meaning bloody clear, as the cursing young man got backhanded hard enough, to lose the ground under his feet.

His flight ended soon as it started, back smacking the wall and shaking it, before landing on jelly legs. Glen blinked, vision blurry and breath stuck in his throat, as if his chest had caved in. The orc raised that wicked club of his and then downed it, with a force of a tree falling. The young man barely moved out of the way, the club ruining a second wall in as many hits. He stumbled, dropped on a smarting knee and then crawled away on all fours, like a cockroach escaping a heavy boot.

The knight, left hand using the hapless woman as a shield to avoid the bearded man’s axe, parried the lanky ruffian’s blade to the wall with his right, kneed him between the legs to get some breathing room and caught sight of Glen rolling on the ground, now more a cat, than an insect.

“USE YER BLOODY SWORD!”

Emerson thundered and Glen, by now in full panic, avoided a dirty boot to the face, banged his head on slated ground, before rolling away again, the ancient dagger now firmly in hand. The orc paused to stare at his weapon for a moment, but then seeing nothing to worry him, moved forward again. The club came at Glen much as before, with no skill just power. He dodged it, a quick step to the side, then a lunge aiming at the obese man’s midriff. The blade went in cutting the leather vest, but not as much as the young man expected to.

The orc frowned, feeling the stab with a spade sized hand. Found his dagger still stuck in and pulled it out. A look of marvel on his face.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

“Nice blade,” He said, as if perusing silverware.

Oh, for slovenly fuck’s sake.

Glen unsheathed his longsword, taking a step back to take a breather. Tasting iron in his mouth and what felt like gravel on his tongue, he spat a bloody splotch between his legs; piece of a tooth right in the middle of it.

The orc sheathed Glen’s dagger in his belt and came at him in his slow deliberate manner once more. Pulled his arm back to gather momentum and then downed it, putting enough force behind the club to tear down a building. Glen breathing heavy, adrenaline oozing out the pores of his skin, moved away again. Having taken the brute’s measure, he avoided the next attack, opening a deep gush on the orc’s forearm with his longsword. It bled freely and made his obese opponent’s handle on the club slippery.

Not that it deterred the huge man. Letting a long drawn out growl, he changed strategy and rushed Glen with surprising agility, intending to ram him alike a bull. Glen saw him charging head on, the alley too narrow to get out of his way and completely out of options swung wildly with the longsword. The tip of the blade caught the orc below his Adam’s apple, going left to right, grotesque wound a handbreadth wide; afore exiting and striking the brick wall, with a sharp clang that made the young man’s ears ring.

A red mist sprayed Glen in the face next, blinding him completely, a second before the obese man crashed on him, taking them both down.

Someone pulled him up a moment later, grabbing him with a rough hand by the collar. The world had turned into a red hell, his chest hurting and Glen had twisted his knee again, where he’d hurt it before.

“Please, I yield!” Glen cried having had enough and then howled something fierce, as he got a familiar cuff on the side of his head that almost send him back to the ground.

“Curse my luck!” Glen protested at the mistreatment. “It’s you?”

“Wipe yer face,” Emerson told him gruffly, sounding doubly mad. “I don’t wanna hear none o’ that.”

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The lanky man, ruined mail splattered with blood and spilt entrails, where the sword had cut through it, cursed the knight’s mother, before Emerson gave him a boot to the face and shut him up for good.

“Wow,” Glen exclaimed, vomit in his throat and shocked at the brutality. He found a wall to stand on, green and red in the face. “Is he… dead?”

“The others ran,” Emerson grunted, not bothering to answer. “Woman’s hurt bad, but not bad enough.”

“Damn. Why did they attack us?” Glen asked wiping his face. Feeling weak in the knees, the young man slowly slid down on his arse. What had that stranger said? He wanted his head. Luthos shriveled balls.

“I told you to use the sword,” The knight rustled, for some reason still mad. “Not the bloody dagger!”

“You’re mad for that? Well, didn’t have time to think about it!”

“You were twice as fast.”

“He was twice as big!”

“So ye used a dagger on him? What were you thinking?”

Uh.

It’s a magic dagger?

“It helped me before,” Glen replied, trying to stand up again.

“When?”

He sighed, not really in the mood to talk about it.

“With the Cofol.”

“The…” The knight lowered his voice, looking around them. But the alley was empty now. “The Zilan won that fight lad.”

“You don’t get it,” Glen insisted.

“Don’t get what?” Emerson stooped over the bleeding orc and retrieved the dagger from his belt. Flipped it once in his hand, then tossed it to Glen’s legs. “Pick it up.”

“What? Why?”

“Ye think the dagger has magic. Did she tell you that?”

Yes.

“No.”

“Pick up the dagger lad,” Emerson ordered him, all business.

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The knight’s longsword caught his blade near the handle and send it crashing hard on the wall. Glen’s right hand felt numb from the wrist down. A good thing, since it smarted badly from the wrist up.

“Again!” Emerson growled, ever the gentlest of teachers.

“Oh, fuck you!” Glen spat angry in response.

“Told ye, to mind yer bloody language.”

“I ain’t doing it.”

“Why? It has magic,” The knight mocked him, “It can help you again.”

“Argh. Fine,” Glen replied picking the dagger up and putting it in his belt. “You made your darn point.”

“What was it?” Emerson asked still serious, but at least he’d sheathed his longsword, Glen noticed. He’d also a cut near his right shoulder that was bleeding. The rings broken there. “Focus lad. What was my point?” The knight insisted.

“The dagger is iffy on the magic,” Glen droned.

“Nay, ye missed my meanin’ again. Dagger is a cutthroat’s weapon,” He explained. “Good for stabbing someone in the back, or if he’s distracted. Never use it to fight against a longer weapon, or taller opponent. Why?”

“It has no reach?”

“Use the sword. You’re fast, agile and have a knack for dodging out of trouble. Keep your opponents honest with the long blade. Leave the dagger and magic, out o’ your mind.”

Glen scrunched his nose, tongue feeling where his tooth had broken.

“I mean it lad,” Emerson insisted, more worried now, than angry. “Ye almost died right there.”

“Fine… more sword, less dagger,” Glen replied and hearing heavy footsteps coming from the market’s side, turned his head to see who it was.

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Nard, brow furrowed, watched as his men carried the two men away. All four were needed to drag the badly injured but still alive heavyset giant. A Dottore had arrived at the scene, now blocked for the bystanders that had gathered, and went immediately to work on both of them. Apparently and much to Glen’s surprise, both ruffians still breathed.

“Well, I don’t see them up and about anytime soon, if ever,” Primus Molders commented. “Just a wild guess, but you wouldn’t happen to know, the reason for this assault?”

“They were after the boy.”

“Any idea why?”

Emerson snorted. “How about telling me, who they are?”

Nard grimaced, then stilled his eyes on a young lieutenant. The one that had gone to fetch him back at the Admiralty. “Lieutenant Bock. Any pointers?”

Bock cleared his throat. He’d a thin mustache, Glen noticed and he wasn’t more than two years older than him. Three at the most. Well that, or he’d one of those young looking faces. “Primus Molders, ah… I’d like a little more time—”

“Take a guess,” Nard urged him with a smirk. “I did. Lost a good amount of coin back there.”

“I believe the… large man is Honest Jeb. Now the tall one, it really looks…ahm, and I could be wrong here, but it looks like a sketch of Handsome Tom.”

Whoever gave him the moniker, Glen thought, has a great sense of humor.

Or he’s blind.

“Are they known ruffians?” Emerson asked Bock.

“Not exactly.”

“My good man. Out with it, for Ora’s sake!” Primus Molders snapped, keeping that uncanny smirk on.

“They… mostly operate in the sea, Sir.”

“Pretty sure, this here alley don’t qualify as water, Lieutenant,” Emerson said gruffly.

“Sometimes, when not with a crew, they will engage… ehem, in various criminal activities,” Bock managed to say, after a couple of anxious pauses.

“Criminal as in… say knifing citizens in the mid of a market?” Nard asked to clarify the finer points.

“Couple of murders on them at the very least. Jeb’s sister, I believe she’s in the city’s dungeon, Primus Molders. Pending execution for… ah, I think murder as well. Garroted a whore.”

“He don’t happen to have another sibling on the loose?” Nard asked, somehow finding this whole incident hilarious. “Wouldn’t want to get shanked, or worse; on my way to the races, or the local brothel.”

“Not that I’m aware,” A chastised lieutenant replied.

“Why would a couple of port crooks attack us?” Emerson wondered, probably thinking out loud.

“Honest Jeb said it was for his sister,” Glen offered in an attempt to help, remembering the orc’s words. “My head, for her life.”

Emerson snorted, not believing a word. “The man didn’t know you lad. Ye misheard him.”

Primus Molders, the smirk gone from his lips, apparently didn’t think so. “Did they follow you? From the courts is my meaning. Do you think they followed you here? Did anything else happened worth of note?”

The young man, still dazed and hurt from the scuffle, opened his mouth to answer, chipped tooth clearly visible, then closed it back up again.

Give me best, to you ‘n yours, next ye see him.

“What is it lad?” Emerson asked him, this time worried.

“He remembered something,” Nard noted, the smirk back on his mouth.

“Man who knew my father from earlier…” Glen started and the Knight’s eyes narrowed. “…name’s Dawson, I think. What he said.”

“Aye. Happened upon him, before they fell on us,” Emerson backed up his words, this time believing him.

Glen expected the deep in thought Primus Molders to speak, but it was Lieutenant Bock that intervened, interest clear in his voice.

“Yellow Dawson. The bloody pirate. It makes sense; they were on his crew,” Then, as if not believing his own words, he added. “But… he was here?”

“Aye. Seems so,” Grunted Emerson, mood taking a dip, or it was all the blood loss, Glen thought. “Makes this doubly worrying.”

“I put coin on that as well,” Deadpanned Nard Molders.

“Hey,” Glen asked, not wanting to be left on the outs. “Did he get the moniker on account of the sash?”

Earning the surprised stares of both the knight and the Priest of Ora.

“The what?” Nard asked greatly amused.

Emerson simply exhaled deep, a disappointed look on his face.

Lieutenant Bock run a hand through his thick white hair. “Know nothing, about no sash. His ship’s painted a putrid yellow. The name stuck from there,” He explained earning a brow raise, followed by a nod from the Primus.

Glen thought it more reasonable and shrugged his shoulders, resting his case.

He’d no more questions.

“Right. With that out of the way,” Nard said, after a moment of awkward silence, “We better return to the Admiralty, Sir Lennox.”

Emerson glanced at the sun over their heads with a grimace.

“It’ll be sunset in an hour. We were fixin’ to had lunch, afore all this,” He argued.

“A meal will be provided,” Molders replied. “But I must speak to you. Is why I rushed here; not that you guys needed assistance.”

“What about?”

“Lord Bach requested, the young gentleman be kept there.”

His words not siting well, neither with the alarmed Glen, nor the scowling Emerson. The Primus sighed that small smirk back on his lips. “He wants him kept from harm,” He explained, adding with a glance towards the alley. “It appears, his instincts were right.”

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