by Russ Primo
I frowned at her, not only to see her so put-out, but also because I realized that I'd been wrong about the nature of the Debt that the Free Men owed to The Mother.
"I thought," I began, lowering the branch down and feeling the potion's confidence leave my face, “That everyone on the Free Isles was okay with that?”
Kacie shook her head, her wheat hair flinging around her angelically, before glancing down at her flat stomach.
Shit. Just my luck that it would make Kacie feel put off.
Well now, this changed the planning a bit. It's one thing to woo women, especially in such a place as the Free Isles, where sex seemed to be no taboo, once one had acquired a Debt, or dispersed it.
But, it was quite another to impregnate the same number of them.
Every woman likes to think that she’s the sole one, for her man, I suppose.
On the other side of the counter, Wex was busily counting each little Debt, putting up another finger for each twig on my Debt that would need to be satisfied, and frowning all the while.
"Well," he grumbled, pushing himself up from the bar. "I lost track at twenty. The Mother either loves you, or hates you, Pryvet. I thought I had to get busy, and my Tall Stick only required three children for Her! Hell, lad, you should get started immediately! Rather than waiting around in here with me!"
I smiled at his frantic expression, feeling the confidence potion settle onto me more deeply, now that the shock of my realization had slackened.
Just calm down, Pryvet. Everything will be fine.
Of course it would. And, what man could get angry at receiving magical powers in exchange for filling up all the girls he could lay his hands on?
Certainly, not me.
I turned to Kacie, about to ask if she wanted to get out of the dim bar and go somewhere sunny, get to know me a little before I claimed her body, when I saw the gorgeous elf stand up sharply from her spot at the table.
All her comrades grew immediately silent, and though I had no idea what presaged this change in affect, I felt a rumble brewing on the breeze over there.
Immediately, my mind turned to how I might be able to stop it.
Maybe it’ll be a brawl, after all.
The seated elves eyed the doorway, where their bows and swords lay propped against the wall, easily only thirty or so feet from where they sat.
I had at least a little idea of elves’ speed (faster than mine), and I knew that the blonde elf would be able to get an arrow through anyone she wanted faster than I could even take out two of them. Wex was a huge man, but not quick at the best of times.
And, he was stuck behind the bar, which would make it near-impossible for him to get to any of them before the gorgeous blonde elf could hit him with an arrow.
Glancing over to the table of Kacie's old women, I gave secret thanks that at least the wizened mage among them had taken notice, perhaps had not stopped taking-notice all along.
The old mage’s staff’s tall, knobby head glowed the dull copper of a fireball waiting to be cast.
Her eyes were like razors beneath her long gray hair, staring so intently at the elves I thought part of her magic might be slicing them with a look.
The Mother is known to get creative with the magic she dispenses, I suppose.
After all, Wex is a brewery mage, of a sort.
"Wex," I whispered out of the corner of my mouth, "Are you ready for this? It looks to get ugly."
The shadowed figure of Wex, which I saw at the edge of my vision, for I refused to take my eyes off the blue armored elf with the wonderful cleavage, inclined its head.
"I don't think I can get to any fast enough, Pryv," Wex murmured. "It's going to be on you, more than I'd like. The bar's opening's all the way on the other side of them, and I'm too big to move fast. But, I did serve them as high-proof a grog as I’ve got.
“That should slow them down, some. At least, if elves react to liquor like humans do…”
I nodded slightly, hoping to not startle the blonde elf into starting the action before me.
You're always going to get into some scraps, as a traveller.
It rarely matters whether the lands you travel are the Free Isles, or the Barren Wastes. Someone's always going to be after you, because you have no one.
Still, the confidence potion made me feel good about our odds. It made me feel so good, in fact, that I barely noticed the dim inn grow dimmer still, as a press of dark clouds covered the sun.
It's good to fight newcomers in a place you know well. All sorts of guerrilla fighters can attest to this.
But, it's better still to fight newcomers in a familiar setting, when it's dark and hard to see.
The flagstones in the bar were well-laid, but not perfect. And, shadowed as they were by the cloud-darkened sky, I felt confident that at least some of the elves would trip in running for their weapons.
Maybe, I could kick them while they were down. I was not so proud as to be against it.
Maybe, the risk of the same wouldn’t be worth it to my enemies, and they'd settle for fighting hand-to-hand. I could almost-certainly take them.
Yes.
Hand-to-hand would be best, as I would still be wielding my huge Debt, the unbreakable Tally Branch, giving me the advantage.
But, there was no telling how long this sun would stay hidden for, and I needed to press my advantage while I still had it, or else risk losing the upper-hand…
"Go!" I yelled, pushing off of the bar and propelling myself the twenty or so feet to the elves' table, holding my Tally Branch in both hands behind my head like a club.
Behind me, I heard the loud, shuffling sounds of Wex running over to the bar-end, so that he could come around to help me. He was accompanied by tinkling bottles and a few breaking glasses as his massive feet shook the whole bar while he ran.
To my left, out of the corner of my eye, I noted the wizened old mage's staff head glowing hotter and hotter as the old crone readied her fireball.
In no time at all, I was upon the first elf.
He was a short, wispy-faced fellow who looked into my eyes with a combination of distaste and complete shock at being the one attacked, rather than the one doing the attacking.
Clearly, these elves hadn't anticipated a fight at all.
They expected us to roll over.
I gave secret thanks to Wex's ingenuity, for giving them a preposterously high-proof liquor, instead of some fizzy nothing.
Following through, and using my forward momentum to my advantage, I swung my arms forward with all my might, whipping my iron-hard Debt through the air like a morning-star and connecting with the elf's jaw in a cacophony of crunches, strangled cries, and a splattering of bloody teeth that sailed through the air and landed on his table-mate, as my strike flung his body forward, sprawling him out on top of the table.
To my left, the wizened old mage's fireball came sailing in like a vengeful hornet, hissing hot fire across the back of the now blood-soaked elf's head and illuminating his own shocked face for the briefest of moments as it wrapped around his skull, like a spray of particularly hot water thrown by a child far away on the shore.
Immediately, the elf’s skin turned a brilliant, searing red as the fireball consumed his once-attractive visage, and left him charred and smoking by the time it passed beyond him, curving towards its next target.
I would have appreciated the shot much more, if the fireball hadn't apparently chosen me for that target.
There were a lot of things that I generally don't want to happen to me, during a fight.
Mucking up my face is one of those, as a general rule, simply for vain reasons.
But, now that I knew I'd have to impregnate countless women, or else risk The Mother's wrath (which is, I'm told, a horror so great that grown men will wake weeping in the night, afraid that they've missed a payment), my face held a particularly important place in my life plan.
If I let myself get beat up, bruised, or burned, it would be much harder for
me to woo a woman into my bed, and so impregnate her.
Now, I don't know what gave me the idea that I had next, but I was pretty impressed with myself after it worked.
The way I saw it, I had two options, for escaping my assured disfigurement by fireball.
My first option was, I could duck below the flaming orb and try to tackle the next elf in the line, hoping that I still had enough momentum after performing sudden dentistry on his table-mate that I could knock him and his chair over, instead of bouncing off.
But, in that scenario, the best outcome was that, while he'd be down on the floor, making him an easy target, so would I.
And, one of the things I did not want, while brawling with ten elves, was to be on the floor, below them.
So, not a good option.
But, the second option seemed even crazier, in part because I was pretty sure it wouldn't work.
Still, crazy-and-minutely-possible still beat sane-and-assuredly-bad in my book.
So, I took it.
Turning my Debt in my hands, I let my front foot slide forward a bit more than usual, arresting my momentum and putting me in excellent striking form as the roaring fireball spun towards me, spitting and hissing licking flames like hot iron as it came at me.
When it was just within striking distance, I swung the branch forward with all my might, connecting the broad side of my impromptu-mace with the fireball's searing core, and sending the spiteful bastard spinning back down the table hard, and (more importantly) away from me.
At first, I gave myself the hope that it would have gone straight for the blonde elf, who'd turned and was starting off towards the weapons at the door.
But, I'd have to settle for the elf seated next to her as the fireball spun in the air, vaporizing the thin humidity in puffs of searing steam behind it as its spin arced it around and struck this unfortunate bastard right square in the chest, imparting all of its flame and all of its heat and turning his metal armor a dull searing copper as it blasted apart upon him, making him scream and cry out, clawing at the chest-piece ineffectively in his molten pain, and his immediate, animal need to remove the hot metal from his burning skin.
The elf seated now before me snarled, and made to push himself off of his chair and send me to the ground, his face alight with malice and retribution.
But, in a moment, he was given a firm and devastating right hook from Wex, who'd made excellent time getting here, and whose punch left the stunned elf looking even worse than the first one I'd clubbed.
For the briefest of moments, I felt like we could win this outright, without any of us taking a hit at all. After all, we'd just taken out four of them in the space of a few seconds at most, and the others were mostly only now leaving their chairs on to their feet.
But, I didn't bargain on the blonde elf, who let out a strangled scream from the doorway, drawing all eyes to her as she leveled a golden arrow directly at the wizened mage standing so close to her.
There was hate in the elf’s eyes, which I understood, but which would spell disaster for the old woman who'd come to our aid, as she loosed the golden bolt and sent it hissing across the hot, still, groan-strangled air towards her enemy.
"ENOUGH!"
The cry came loud and booming from the cloud-darkened doorway beside the blonde elf, as commanding and forceful a voice as ever I'd heard, in all my travels.
I felt my eyes jerk in the speaker's direction, tearing away from the in-flight, and certainly deadly arrow, as the darkened figure slammed a heavy staff into the flagstone floor, its echo reverberating around the inn's hall, and sending a deep, quaking chill down my spine.
At once, it was like a blast of icy air swept into the inn and froze us all in place, clamping our muscles taught and keeping us completely immobile.
Try though I might, I couldn't make my head turn to look more closely at the figure. Nor could I open my mouth to tell them to drop whatever curse they'd ushered in.
Only my eyes spun in their sockets, and these were not enough to make out any more features of this new entrant, so cloaked were they, and so shadowed by the cloudy world outside the dark bar.
The figure cackled a high, cold cackle, like one an old hag might use in a fairytale meant to startle children.
Never, in all my travels, had I heard something so sinister, nor so malicious.
My blood froze in my veins.
With a start, I recalled the arrow that the blonde had just loosed, and noted that there'd been no sound of piercing, nor a cry of being struck.
Swiveling my eyes around as far as I could, I glimpsed the arrow’s edge hanging, completely still, in midair.
Halfway between the blonde elf, and the wizened mage, its gold tone shimmered and sparkled, the sole bright thing in the whole of the dark inn, so bright that, had I not known better, I would have guessed it was magic, itself.
I had travelled far and wide, and it was well known that that only the people of the Free Isles wielded any sort of magic.
The elves were just as mundane as I was, perhaps less.
They had no Debt that, in its satisfaction, could yield them the secrets of magic.
They had no ability to help repay that Debt, which would unlock their power for them.
Recalling this made me smile. Even trapped as I was by some unknown entity's powerful spell, I knew that I held the key to magic of my own, clasped tight in my hand.
"There is among you," the shadowy figure wheezed, in a voice that sounded like dust and bad omens, a witch's voice, if ever I'd heard one, "A boy who has become a man! Let him announce himself, for I have business with him!"
Much though I would have spoken up, for I feared no one at this point, so wholly had the confidence potion taken hold of me, I couldn't move my lips to speak.
"Oh, come now!" the old, witch-like figure in the doorway croaked. "Come on now, I'll loose your tongues, so I may know who it is!"
The figure tapped her staff twice, quickly, on the flagstones, and I felt as though a great fist unwrapped itself suddenly from my throat. Smacking my lips, I satisfied myself that I could speak again.
"I'm the one, lady witch!" I called out, assuredness bubbling over inside me like water from a spring. "What variety of sorceress are you, that, you would interrupt a good brawl such as this?”
The figure bent over, as though I'd struck her. At first, I was confused by this.
Then I saw her aged, bony shoulders shaking beneath her cloak. Straining my ear, I managed to make out a soft, harsh laugh, like a metal plough being dragged across rocky pastures, issuing forth from her.
"That woman, would not, I think," the figure laughed, gesturing to the midair arrow, gleaming and sparkling in a light that I could see, "Speak so harshly to me! And she seems your compatriot, too! Perhaps you should be better to her!"
The elder mage looked at me, clearly as confused as I was about this new development, the start of a glowing blue shield stuck in time, rising up from the grooves between the flagstones to shield her from her incoming death.
"I am, anyway," the figure cackled, turning her body to me and raising a dark hood, beyond which I could make out only the coldest of green, wicked eyes, "the worst kind of sorceress! I am a Debt collector, boy! And, your Debt is something truly terrible to behold! It should make your boots quake, not speak to me so cheekily!"
"His Debt isn't due yet, hag!" Wex's voice boomed, his fist trapped in midair after connecting with the elf's face, viscera, blood, and two teeth frozen likewise inches beyond it as it was arrested. "The Mother gives us four years to satisfy the Debt, and it's not been even a week yet for Pryvet!"
I felt all eyes in the bar turn from the hooded witch to myself, to the great, twining Debt that I held in my fists like a mace. There must be something foolish about me, in all this, but I was too apart from them to see what it was. I'd even been wrong about the nature of the Divine Debt that the Free Men owed to The Mother.
"He does, at that!" the hag cackled, lifting her staff up
and using it to haul her aged, frail body across the dark floor to where I stood, frozen. "But, there has not been a Debt such as his in a good many generations. The Mother wants to ensure that he is good for it!
“But, she is not unjust! The Mother also wants to ensure that this lad is fairly compensated for his effort! He will be the greatest mage in all these Isles, should he satisfy it!"
Well now, this was a development that I could get behind.
The hag tapped her way slowly across the floor, her staff scraping sharply with each step, until she stood just before me.
"You must come to The Mother's Temple, young man!" the hag creaked, her voice as high-pitched as the scrape of her staff against the stones. “For we need to ensure that you are, in fact, good for it!"
I swallowed hard.
On the one hand, going with her, I might be able to negotiate the type of magic that I'd be rewarded with, for impregnating so many women.
It seemed like I could bargain for a lot.
On the other hand, I had no idea whether this witch was really in league with Her. My time in the Free Isles was not long enough to grasp their religion, and I feared that getting it wrong would be the death of me.
The hag stood before me, and said, "Will you come willingly, boy? Or will I have to use force?"
Well, I suppose there goes my options.
I growled my assent.
"Excellent," she cackled turning her face up to mine. "We should hurry, though. It's a darkening day, and I'd rather arrive before nightfall. One never knows who one will encounter on the road at night!"
The shadowy figure turned her face up to mine, slowly.
I nearly gasped to see that, beneath the thick hood she wore, was a gorgeous young woman's face, with red hair the color of strawberries framing her blush prettily, and her emerald green eyes sparkling in the dimly lit inn.
