I didn’t mean it! My Gainer was sick, couldn’t talk, tell us why. So I did what came natural. I entered his mind and learned he’d been bit by a huge spider. Big as your hand, it was. I have heard of bigger, but this wasn’t one of them.
Well, I told the caleach and her eyes flew wide. Before the sun sat I was called ‘shim-sharia’ and thrown out of town. Really, the shêk’mar picked me up, carried me to the river and heaved. That wasn’t the worst of it. The water was shallow that mid-autumn afternoon but deep enough to cushion my landing. It was the fear behind the yelling, the way the marnamicel just watched. She didn’t even hear my side. Just watched while the qintari whose job was to enforce the law broke just about every one of them. I couldn’t even get my school books.
My brothers didn’t even speak for me. They just laughed. They wouldn’t even tell me if my grainer would live.
So, now what do I do? I’ve never been out of the township, and now I’m looking at a town filled with strange people walking on two feet. How do they keep their balance? How do I ask? Do any of them speak my language?
No, don’t cry. Can’t be a marisa, not here, not today. I’ll work this out. Just have to try something. Sure, I’m a cetling, just eleven, just starting on my higher studies at school. I just can’t afford to be like that, crying like a marisa. I have fair sized shêk, could have been shêk’rn. Just hadn’t decided yet. Is that why I was cast out?
Oh, wait, what did I hear at the last Draconel? Two shêk’rn discussing a psynum that learned a language? Creb, why can they do that and…? Not fair.
Shagra tried not to be confused. The job was okay, muck stalls, feed and water horses and cattle, anything boarded at Ms Kreten’s Livery Stable and get food, water, and a clean place to sleep. He found he understood these animals better than he thought. Well, the ones boarded at the stable, not the ones running it.
The stable master, himself, seemed confused, though. He kept saying the youth looked like a horse. What? Four feet on the floor, a tail and mane. These horses had a larger belly where his was lean, more like a dog, really. Each of their feet had only one toe where his had three. Now, show him a horse who could file them down on their own, just try. Was that saddle supposed to be a joke? Slapping him there sure wasn’t, not at all. Walk up behind anyone, anyone, and slap them there, who wouldn’t kick?
“Honest Marnomical, I mean Magistrate, it was just that personal? He smacked me in the orcheds and I reacted in reflex. Wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not on trial, here, Boy. You nearly killed him with that kick.”
“Reflex, Marn…Magistrate. Back home he’d be on charges for unwelcomed sexual advances on a child. If he’d kept his hands to…or warned me. Regamel, what’s the point. Ain’t no justice in the world no how.”
“Enough of that. One question, what is an ‘orched’?”
Shagra suddenly felt embarrassed, shrugged, and said, “Those things hanging between my thighs.”
The magistrate took in a slow, deep breath, scratching his burnsides, studying the youth. When he finished he turned to the plaintiff, “Well, did you?”
Without hesitation the man just said, “Aye Sir, do that with every colt. Let them know who’s boss.”
Shagra rocked his head, “Not a horse, Marel.”
“Name’s Khane, not….”
“Means ‘Mister’ back home.”
“Look like a horse to me.”
“Need new eyes, if you ask….”
“Enough,” the magistrate barked. He returned his attentions to Khane, “‘Tis clear enough you’d never be accused of being rhosswine. Have none of the horses you’ve popped like that kicked you?”
Khane looked stumped, his remaining eye darting around at nothing in particular. He ended by holding his right knee, “A couple.”
“Now, if this youth were a horse he’d be too young for a rider, and you’d be too large for anything smaller than a grown charger. It is clear to all but stupidity that this is no horse. What were you thinking?”
The man began slowly, deliberately, “Your honor….”
And was abruptly interrupted, “In two sentences, please.”
It seemed Khane’s words pilled up in his throat for a moment. “I needed a horse, I was told he’s the one. I didn’t want no fuss from him.”
It seemed to the youth the magistrate tried to restrain his smile, “How’d that work out for you? Never mind. We deny your suit.”
“What of my wounds?” Khane dropped his tunic to his waist, revealing a sizable cut to his left chest and a big bruise over his right belly. The man’s gesture directed their gaze to the cut.
The magistrate leaned over to get a better look. “Mr. Posté, take a look at this wound, will you? Tell me what you think.”
The bailiff glanced at it and without pause simply said, “Two, maybe three years old….”
“…Days!” Khane barked.
“Idiot,” the magistrate said. “Or do you think we are?”
Mr. Posté didn’t stay quiet, either. “All my years warring against men and orcs I’d know a knife wound and its age with little thought. I swear upon the Spear this wound is no fresher than two years or older than three. And from the bruise that is fresh as yesterday I’d say he held back, or the leaches would have your liver by now.”
“Reflex,” Shagra quietly said. Then with greater volume he added, “And my shêk would not cut so clean on bare skin.”
Posté studied that claw with interest, adding “And Khane had a tunic, coat, and cloak in place. Only the king’s sword would cut through that, and yet ne’re be that clean, or old.”
Khane swallowed hard. He’d just lost his suit, his chance to escape her father’s wrath, and it looked like the fryer would be next.
The magistrate slowly nodded, taking his eyes off the youth’s feet. “Agreed. Your lie will cost you a kip, your loss, here, another eleven.”
“Eleven!?”
“Twelve, now, for thirteen in total. Your injuries pay for your stupidity. Though, I doubt it a good investment. Mr Posté, ensure payment before taking him to Madam Le Quara for her complaint.”
“Le Quara?”
“Do you think you can steal her majesty’s services?”
“Majesty?”
“The queen you slept with the night before seeking a horse ….”
“Queen?”
The magistrate looked like he would explode while his face fought between wrath and mirth. Posté, get it done, please.”
Mr Posté acknowledged the order and gestured for Khane to dress.
While the bailiff counted out the kips from the man’s purse, Shagra just rocked his head. “I don’t understand.”
The magistrate studied the young qintari, “We have rejected his suit, hence no charge or charges on you. Does that help?”
“Suppose.”
“You’re free to go.”
“Go?”
“Aye.”
“My staff, knife, belt, purse?”
“The jailer will return all of it.”
“Hope so. My grandparents gave me all but that knife to me.”
“Why do you doubt us? Do you think our justice substandard compared to your people’s?”
The boy studied the man. He liked short sentences, answers, not histories worthy of a class. He’d spent a year in this town learning the mixed bag of morals one could choose from here. He’d even found himself compromising on little things he’d be called on back home. He was here, not there, and that because they broke their own government on his back tossing him out of town—really, picked him up and threw him in the river without warning—just because he could hear his grandparents’ words without using his ears. Not that he was unusual in that respect. In the end it all seemed to balance out, here. So, he smiled and said, “Better, actually. It…it’s all just that new to me, that’s all.”
Shagra went up to the jailer. He got his sling, staff, belt and purse back. He had to argue to get his knife back, but to no avail. As for the seventeen kips, each worth a day’s labor, well, he had to pull a mind trick to get that back. On returning to the livery stable he’d learn they’d fired him for assault on a paying customer. That Khane was in the habit of forgoing payment for services and goods didn’t mean anything. They would hear no sass, and would pay nothing owed.
Creb, crooks and cheats everywhere. Justice back home was looking just a little better than here. A year in his town and he had one friend, a dwarf named Cravhamr, who he figured wasn’t much older than he.
Crav’s story wasn’t much different from his except in small details. Circumstances had orphaned Crav young where Shagra’s folks still lived. Their laws had exiled both without trial or the proper rites for clumsiness. Shagra’s was that he could tell you what they said without hearing your voice. His grandpa was too sick to talk. The youth told them a snake bit him. Could he have done that better?
Crav? Too clumsy to be trusted with fire. To prove it he forged a knife that could be fixed to the foot of Shagra’s staff. The forge didn’t burn down and the dwarf gained employment. Sometimes Shagra helped with that. How did that work? Crav would get a chore to fix a door, wall, fence or gate. The qintari would hold this or support that while keeping unwanted eyes from getting too close for the dwarf’s comfort. That is how the youth had seventeen kips to pay for lunch, this week and beyond.
That’s how they happened to find themselves at the Hunter’s Gate today. The thing had fallen off, and they hired the youths to put it together again. The afternoon cooled, the mortar for the hinge was setting just fine when the evening guard reported for duty, already smelling ripe. Shagra glanced at him and ground his frustrations between his teeth. It was the jailer, and he still had his knife hanging where everyone could see.
The jailer mounted the watch post, gazed at the horizon, at the city, looked at the two working on the gate, whipped out a skin and drizzled what smelled like strong wine into his mouth. After rubbing his one remaining tooth with his finger he let out a long melodious belch, accompanied by off tone farts.
Shagra and Crav just studied each other. Crav said it first, “Dain.”
“Name’s Jazz,” the man said.
Quietly Shagra grumbled, “Neqron, actually.”
“What that mean, Farchi?”
“Something like that.”
“Something like what?”
The qintari looked up at him, “If you’re going to talk to some what why not pay attention. Then, we won’t have to repeat or explain every crebin’ detail.”
“Yeah, maybe I arrest you for that.”
Shagra’s nerves armed a bit. Crav turned a bolt, asking, “What charge, Dain?”
“Jazz, it’s Jazz. Charge for what?”
The qintari’s heart swelled with frustration, asking in his mother’s tongue, “Neqrons in power spoil the gold.”
“What that mean?”
“Don’t worry, yourself, Dain,” the dwarf said. “You’ve work to do, have ye?”
“Mind your own business, Heiss.”
Crav jumped up and pointed at the man, “Now see here, Dain ….”
“… Jazz.”
“… Mean’s ‘man’, boy. Ye’r insults will cost you, cost you ….”
“… Awk!” Shagra barked. “Don’t waist a good lesson, here.”
The dwarf studied his friend for a moment, parting his burgeoning beard with a smile. A quick nod of acknowledgment and he asked for the next nut and bolt.
Jazz studied the two for a moment, swallowed a bit more wine, and walked off to the marching beat of wet farts.
•º•
An hour later the two looked up at the darkening skies and stretched. Shagra pulled his hands over his head, his tail over his hips and his quarters to the ground. Though he’d had no real reason for it he kept up his rehearsals from school. Crav’s engineering savvy enhanced some of those lessons, adding to the youth’s dedication. He leaned over so he could drop his haunches and reach forward when he heard a shout.
Heard? Not really with his ears, heard. That’s why it took a moment to figure where it came from. Once done, and he could not tell you why, he leaped into a gallop, grabbing his staff on the run. Up a rocky mount he’d been told was a giant–the one the Hunter’s Gate was named for–down a ravine with a poorly drained pond, over the creek, leap onto the wall 20 cubs high, and onto the rescue. Well, maybe not so much of that, really. What he saw was four men with pikes, standing over Jazz with a fifth relieving him of his possessions.
Shagra took in a breath, drawing the thieves’ attention. After apologizing for the intrusion he eyed the jailer hard. Their eyes met, Jazz’s were pleading for help.
“No, you are a bigger thief than they are.”
The assailants relaxed a little. The leader, a fuzzy gentleman with only one of everything left–no, his britches got in the way of that kind of inspection, but you’d get the idea soon enough–approached the youth, asking, “You not part of the guard, are you? What you do here?”
Shagra took in a breath and a thought, shrugged, and offered, “Keeping fit, Boss. Saw a something, got curious. That knife is mine, by the way.”
“Mine!” a lowering pike cut Jazz’s bark, and a burnside, short.
“Mine, a friend made it for me. You stole it while I was in your custody.”
“Bastard!”
“But like they say, one turn’s as good as another, even in the Shadow’s mountain.” He shrugged, started twirling his staff around a hand, and added, “Wherever that is.”
“Mountains of Fire and Ice, lad,” the leader said while creeping a little closer. “Sometimes called the Mountains of Pain and Suffering. Ye must be new around here.”
“Something like that.” That’s when the qintari felt out of nerve. And it was coming from the bandits. What would they want from him? He didn’t have anything of value. Only … oh, right. Seventeen kips and a nice rod.
Meanwhile, the leader approached carefully, offering light chatter, a spooky tale of how he’d escaped the Mountains of Shadow. Shagra didn’t need his shimmer focused to know he was inventing the story at the moment. The sour tones, the gestures, he’d lived in Driegskald long enough to learn that meant a trap was being set.
The young warrior spun his staff behind his whithers, smiled, using the act to shift his weight back. Jazz seemed to miss the change, who was pleading for his life, promising to return the knife for some help.
The youth just huffed, cussed, and made an obligatory plea, “Not tonight, neqron.”
One thief flung his pike at the youth. Shagra easily knocked it to the side with an arm.
The leader, thinking the pike would hit home, lunged for the boy. It soon became clear these people had never been in a fight with a qintari of any age before.
The man launched himself at the youth’s forelegs, who, after swatting the pike aside, lifted his quarters up, kicked the man in the ear, then swiped at his butt with his quarterstaff. Oops, the man barely kept himself from falling off the wall.
Shagra didn’t wait. He took a couple of steps forward, then launched into a full gallop. A skip and a swipe with the staff dispatched thief number two to the ground bellow. He followed through, spinning on his right fore, mule-kicking the third in the chest sending him flying into the stagnant pool bellow. He swung his staff at the fourth, liberating his knife, Jazz’s purse, and the man’s breath.
When he landed he noticed the last, a hairless giant in a tunic and kilt, swirling his pike, smiling at the coming challenge.
Shagra leaned back with his staff resting against his flank, the other hand inviting the attack. For some reason that seemed to unnerve the man, more than watching his mates tossed around.
The qintari felt a tug at his staff, looked back to see Crav fixing the knife to it. Sad to say when Shagra returned to the man he’d tossed his staff and ran, yelling “Heiss, Heiss!”
“That’s disappointing.”
“Aye, from a point of view.”
They heard a moan and turned their attention to Jazz. Who was reaching for his wine skin.
Crav snatched it up, grabbed Shagra’s hand, and two things happened. In one world the dwarf drizzled strong wine on the qintari’s arm, causing the new cut to sting. Was that from the spear? Hadn’t even noticed, yet. Second, he and the dwarf shared, um, an experience. They watched each other grow, toddle around, learn their mother’s tongue. They also watched as they were found guilty without trial and tossed out of town. Well, they tossed Shagra into a river. They just showed Crav to the door.
When it was over Crav asked, in qintari, “What in the Crown’s name just happened?”
To which he received in answer in his own, Minsk, the secret language of his dwarfish clan, “The reason I ask you not to grab me without warning, friend.”
“Oh creb, that won’t do. Now I have to kill you or adopt you.”
The youth started to giggle, then moan at the sting, then laugh. “So, do I call you ma, or pa?”
The dwarf just rocked his head, “Dain.”
Shagra really felt adopted now. He stood there, sipping his wine punch, nibbling his buns, thanking Tamarind for delivering their meals, and accepted Crav’s ministrations. The dwarf had mixed some herbs with clean mud and some more wine, and covered that cut. Now, he wrapped it together under a fairly clean cloth. The petty chatter they shared–in Minsk–told of first-aid being the first thing a young dwarf must master before entering an apprenticeship, especially at the forge.
Shagra just wanted to know how to make metal into sand, like that.
“Fire and stone, Lad.”
“I didn’t even know metal could burn.”
“The right conditions even stone will burn.”
“So, pulling the sand into the smelting pot, past all that flame, isn’t that dangerous?”
Crav thought that through. He found his booster, sat, and tore his bread apart. Just when Shagra would start a new subject the dwarf nodded, “Aye, that’s what happened. Why she tell me to do it like that for?”
“Tired?”
“Expect you are. Stay at my flat, you may.”
“Thanks. I meant maybe she was tired, and that confused her.”
“S’pose.” He took a leaf of lettuce and spooned some soup into his mouth. After pushing it in with some bread he asked, “That trick of yours, that how you be free-law?”
Shagra shrugged, “S’pose. My grandpa was too sick to tell us why. He sort of told me….”
“…Sort of?”
“Shimmer to shimmer.”
“So, he’s like you?”
“Except I guess I’m a bit young for that.”
“Oh, I see. They don’t like that, do they? Did ye have a choice, lad?”
The youth thought about that for a moment. “Speak or let him die?”
“Or use what you learn to find another explanation?”
The qintari shrugged, sucked on a cube of salt. “Can’t change what happened.”
“No, nay, nary, only what ye learn from it.”
“Like caution around strangers? Except the master warrior was my teacher.”
Crav spent a moment swirling his ale around. They said it was orc ale. Ha? Or they watered it so far you couldn’t taste the recipe. It dawned on him like the sun peaking through a stormy morning when you’re so busy you can’t see that moment. “We bear the same burden, de und mich. Too young to worry about this month.”
“Stay home, we’d not worry about it. Leave it to our grandpas, we would.”
Three women walked into the tavern to ply their wares. They chatted happily enough. Yet, the spirit under the words felt like they already wrote the night off as a loss. That meant two things. Shagra would feel for them, until they turned to bug him for a trick. They were pretty enough, he supposed. They were just not qintari enough, and him still too young for that sort of thing. His fuzzies were just long enough to keep him covered down there. Dancing in the bushes? Not going to happen, especially with them. After it’s all said there’s only so many ways to say politely, ‘no’ before breaking something.
The red head–wasn’t she blond just that morning?–noticed the two enjoying their meals and began to sachet in his direction.
Shagra nearly excused himself when the town’s reeve, the magistrate, and Jazz saved him. From the nerves shouting at him ‘saved’ might not be the right word for it.
Jazz started the proceedings, “That is he, and that is my knife.”
“What knife would that be, Boy?” Crav asked.
“The one on his belt, that one.”
“How that come to be owned by ye, pray tell?”
Jazz froze, stammered, and chocked a couple times. By the time he got, “Game of chance, that’s how,” the nerve from the reeve and magistrate shifted.
Crav, who wasn’t as sensitive to such things, didn’t stop. “Please, when was this game of chance?”
Shagra began to think this dwarf would make a good barrister.
Jazz, however, only took half a moment to say, “Two months ago, that’s when.”
“Na,” the reeve barked. “That be his when I ‘rested him two nights past.”
Jazz swallowed, “Not that knife.”
“‘Tis his knife,” Crav said.
Before Jazz could retort, the magistrate asked, “How would you know this?”
“I made it for him, hRath. Has me mark on it and me ken within. I forged it right here in this town. How I got me job as town repairman, er, dwarf.”
The reeve nodded, “‘Tis true, ‘tis true. Watched it hatched meself.”
“Nearly,” Shagra said.
“Did you just call me a …?”
“… He would not let you see the recipe, so nearly.”
The reeve took in a breath, a couple of sniffs, rolled his eyes around and studied, with growing interest, the red head. “Aye,” he said, “So, show us the mark, will you?”
Shagra presented the knife to the magistrate. Crav offered his stamp, “She be me mothers’ mark. Two feet crossed, no heel, an eye over a staff.”
“An eye?” Jazz said. “Thought that was just a circle. What that all mean, anyway?”
“None of your business, thief.” Shagra said. “It’s his mother’s, his clan’s, and what meaning is found is theirs alone to know. Had I not showed up when I did you’d have been robbed, queened, and murdered.”
“Queened?”
“So, you were sober enough to remember that, were you? The one without an eye, ear, arm, or leg had his fly parted and your britches in his hands.”
“Shut up!”
“Now, here you are stealing a knife I made for a friend, again,” the dwarf added.
Shagra felt a little greedy at that point, “And my kippers?”
“I gave those back!” Before the man could finish calling the youth a liar he realized what he’d just said, and who heard.
Quietly, the reeve took his eye off the flirting Red to say, “Jazz, don’t report to work, ever again.”
“And who watches the gates for you? The jails? Can’t fire me! What about my kid?”
“You have children?”
“In Themsdaljer.”
“They might enjoy your brand of honesty there. Not here.”
Jazz’ nerve seemed to shift three ways. Shagra wasn’t sure what to make of it. Okay, shoulders and chin dropped, explores the feelings of loss, then. The shifting eyes? He’s not trapped. They’re letting him go. The building tension in the man’s jaw, though, encouraged the youth to reach for a stone in his sling pouch.
The warrior softened his eyes for the coming battle. Only one enemy, here. Who knows what could change. Apparently the queens caught that shift, as did Anna, the wench, who took a moment to tighten the lids on the bar, cover the breads, biscuits, and lettuce.
Jazz fumbled in his belt for something under his wine skin. No, not his, that belonged to the spear chucker who’d cut the youth’s arm.
“Knife,” he barked.
“Aye,” he said. He reached out with that knife, grabbing the magistrate by the shoulders wrapping the knife at his throat.
Shagra felt lost. He sort of liked this man. Every scenario included bloodshed by at least one person he liked. Does he spin and kick? Who, Jazz? And the knife slips, throat cut, hope lost. The magistrate? Would it work? Would he understand? And the chance of tragedy remained too high for comfort. Shagra shook with anger and fear.
Wait, why wasn’t the reeve doing anything? He could snatch that hand and knife easily enough. Low risk, no sweat. Instead the man inched away from the two. Fear did not dance on the man’s nerve. That raised the youth’s blood pressure.
Perceptibly the magistrate quietly counted from five. That while his face and nerve sharpened. Four and his weight shifted to the other foot. Three came out with a growl the youth knew was directed at the reeve. “You’re fired,” replaced two, and one never came. Instead the magistrate’s hand shot between his throat and the knife snapping it free of its owner’s hand. He quickly spun that knife around taking control of the hilt while he dove low on his left foot, driving the knife into his assailant’s liver.
Loud were Jazz’ moans. The reeve took a ginger seat at the counter. A new smell rose from the red head and Anna. Shagra? He took a moment to thank Khoperian for three mercies: that a solution presented itself, that a good man remained unharmed, and none would suffer Jazz’s malarkey ever again. At least, not in that town.
When he replaced that breath with a new one he just added, “Thank you, master warrior, for this lesson. Though, they’d never believe it back home.”
“What’s not to believe? You’re good in a fight. What, too old?”
“We keep some jobs separate. Master warrior can never be Marnomical, and neither can be councilors.”
The man grunted, “Hear that, Mike?”
“Sound’s limiting to me. Town council will never approve.”
The magistrate stood up. The youth just asked, “Where did you learn that, if I might ask?”
“The Vail of Arianrhoth, under the tutelage of the Blue Rangers. Well, time to clean up.”