The brothers looked between them as though the man had just spoken in Paraian. The one with the black hair fumed. His right eye twitched. ‘You sound Krauslung but you don’t look it. Don’t act it. You act all foreign.’
Irritable growls of agreement sounded. More tankards clanked. The whole tavern watched on. All of them wore the same indignant yet leering scowl. The morning had cheated the townspeople of blood. They could taste it now in the tavern air.
The man swirled his hands. ‘And therefore I am your enemy without question. I see.’ He paused to drain his tankard, knowing it might be a while until his next. ‘If I could offer one small piece of advice. One day, sometime soon, you should try thinking for yourselves instead of regurgitating the same old shit your beloved empire feeds you.’
The disloyalty was so barefaced it took a moment for it to make sense in the patrons’ addled minds. The tavern erupted, incensed. Wild-eyed, the wiry thug let out an almost gleeful cry as he seized the man by his cloak’s collar. His stupidity sealed his fate.
The stranger drove the empty pewter tankard into the thug’s cheek. The weak metal crumpled under the force of the blow, driving sharp edges into vital places. Blood spurted. The fool howled but, to his credit, he did not let up his grip. A brisk kick to the groin from an armoured shin dislodged him for good and he fell writhing.
The brothers tried their best, throwing a few haymaking punches that were all too easy to avoid. As they tottered with momentum, the man broke a stool against the scrawnier brother’s back. He was barged into the fireplace, striking his skull on the lintel with a fateful crunch before collapsing onto the flaming logs. He moved not a muscle.
In the panic, the larger brother managed to land a meaty blow to the man’s stomach, but all that could be heard was wrist and knuckle bones snapping against steel. His roar of pain was strangled short as the man seized him by the throat and pinned him to a tabletop. To the horror of everybody present, blue lightning erupted from the stranger’s armoured hand. The brute quivered like a pennant in a gale while smoke and sparks fired from his gawping mouth. The foul smell of pork seeped.
In the stunned silence that followed, as the stranger adjusted his collar and hood he wondered if the townsfolk had the smarts to stay put, or if they were the truly brainless kind and would challenge him further. His work was done, no more bloodshed was required. Judging by the fearful looks of the remainder of the tavern, they were in utter agreement.
Flashing the polish of red-gold armour, he pulled his cloak around him. Before departing, he slid another coin across the marble bar. The screech was protracted and piercing, but Leerol made no move except for wincing.
‘For the damage those fools caused. The man drew the sword from between his shoulders and placed the blade gently on the veined stone. ‘And this? This doesn’t belong to the emperor, and it does not belong to you, let alone in some filthy tavern.’
Without moving, a violent crack of thunder split the uneasy air of the tavern. Bodies hit the stained floorboards like late apples, quivering to the ring of a sword blade.
When they finally peeled themselves from the floor, the stranger was striding out into the cold evening, cloak billowing in the wind. Patting themselves, everybody was proven whole and uninjured, if not a fraction deafer. Nothing was broken. That was until the door slammed.
Accompanied by a cloud of dust and a shrill scream from Leerol, the marble bar split in two directly down its centre and collapsed.
The barkeep blushed a shade of furious beetroot while he sucked in enough breath to bellow. ‘F—fuckin’ fetch the reever! And get that drunken twat out of the fireplace!’
By the time the outraged patrons of the Patchwork Cat had gathered at the reever’s thatched cottage, they had roused the entire town to their cause. Keen for bloodshed and the sweet snap of neck bones, the crowd now stood in its scores and verged on a riot.
Guards stood awkwardly at the reever’s door, trying to decide between their salary of pennies or a rock to the face. A handful promptly gave up their spears and iron helms and joined the gang of yelling townsfolk.
The commotion was impossible to ignore. The reever soon appeared in a high window, bleary-eyed and a mail shirt thrown awkwardly over his nightgown. ‘What? What can be so bloody important at this hour! What is it? Another loose goat? A pickpocket? What?’
‘More foul magick, yer honour!’ yelled barkeep Leerol.
‘Magick? Again? We already hanged—’
‘It was a mage this time, yer ’onour! He killed Parsoks right in the middle of my tavern. Burned ’is brother up, too!’
A man with severe burns across his face was shepherded in front of the reever as proof. He attempted to speak through melted lips, but the pain seemed too great.
‘Outlaw King’s kind, no doubt!’ yelled barkeep Leerol. ‘Not just some travellin’ crone.’
‘He scarpered as soon as we challenged him,’ bayed a man with a bloody face. Many amongst the mob knew fine well that wasn’t the case, but eagerly adopted the more attractive lie with cheers and yells.
‘Yeah, ran away! A pale man in a hood. Had red and gold armour on!’ he cried louder, emboldened.
While the reever kneaded his tired eyes, the door to the reever’s cottage burst open with a thud of oak meeting stone. Another sweating, shirtless man clad in moss-green and gold armour from the waist down emerged into the crowd’s torchlight. They knew him as the emperor’s man: the Krauslung mage fond of getting answers with the edges of his knives, and of tying nooses and pulling trapdoors. His face was expressionless, but the shine in his eyes brought the mob to a hush.
‘Red and gold armour, you said?’ he demanded, pointing at the speaker with a knife point.
‘Aye! Finest scale plate I ever seen!’ yelled the town’s blacksmith.
‘Which way did he go?’
A few dolts began to point in different directions, and the mage took matters into his own hands, seizing Leerol the barkeep by the fat of his throat and pulling him close. ‘Which fucking way?’
‘West from the Cat’s door. Barely half an hour ago!’ he squeaked, before he was shoved unceremoniously into a half-frozen puddle.
‘We’ll handle this! You may go back to your feather bed,’ the mage shouted up to the reever, as a dozen more soldiers in matching armour poured from the cottage. The emperor’s mark of a white hammer adorned their breastplates.
Mobs were fickle beasts. All it took was a one loud-enough idiot to sway its mood. This mob had plenty of them, and they were soon drunkenly whooping as the emperor’s soldiers went racing to serve the emperor’s justice.
‘Now clear off, or I’ll have the lot of you in the stocks!’ barked the reever.
The mob dispersed with grins and congratulatory pats on backs and took their cheering to the streets.
‘This miserable fucking town,’ the reever muttered while he latched his window. At least there would be another hanging on the morrow. A dead rebel mage should keep the townsfolk happy for a while. Long enough for the reever to get some godsdamned sleep.
Snowflakes traversed the broken shafts of moonlight, fat and lazy, unhurried to join their brethren on the forest floor. The air moved not a breath that night. The pine trees uttered no whispers.