Sliding the tankard to the edge of the table, I carefully drank some of the dark liquid inside. It was a full bodied stout, with heavy notes of toasted spices and barley, and a faint aftertaste of coffee. Judging by the burn in my throat, the beer was of a much higher proof than anything I had consumed since arriving in Kaldan. “Oh, that’s the good stuff,” I said with a satisfied sigh.
Lia eyed her drink suspiciously before taking a timid sip. Her face immediately scrunched up in response to the flavor, and I laughed as she stifled a cough into her elbow. “Stop it!” she managed to say between coughs.
“You don’t have to drink it if you don’t like it,” I said with a chuckle. “He’ll get you whatever you want, I’m sure.”
“No!” she replied defiantly. “It’s just not what I’m used to, is all. I’ll drink it!” She took a more daring gulp of the brew as if to prove her point, and only gave a slight shudder in response.
Val took a sip from her tankard, then gave a small nod, her face as stoic as ever. I shook my head and grinned. “Alright then!” I said as I tipped back in my chair and took another swig. For a brief moment, I forgot about the impending danger before us. As we enjoyed the soft singing from the stage, Lia continued to nurse her drink with exaggerated enjoyment while Val slowly relaxed into her seat. We weren’t adventurers travelling under the King’s orders to break a siege anymore; we were just friends, meeting up at our favorite hole in the wall for a round of drinks.
Friends. Just the thought of the word struck a hollow chord. When was the last time I had friends? Or even just...enjoyed myself? It was a concept I hadn’t thought about in decades. As I looked around the table in contemplation, a smile crept across my face. Lia’s cheeks had already begun to flush as she choked down her beer at an alarming rate, and Val watched with quiet amusement as she kept pace with her own drink. I’m enjoying myself now. That’s enough.
Louis returned with three large dishes balanced along the length of his arm and set one down for each of us. Each plate was piled high with steaming piles of delicious looking food, the sight and smell of which made my stomach growl. The main course consisted of a large hunk of meat in a sticky burgundy sauce plated atop a creamy rice mixture. The fresh bread I smelled earlier was present in the form of a puffy dinner roll, topped with a large pat of mostly melted butter. I was delighted to spot a twinpepper, roasted and cut down the side to reveal the gooey interior, as well as a mixture of what looked to be apples mixed with asperfruit jam. A delicate filet of some sort of fish rounded out the plate, served on a bed of mixed greens.
“I hope this is acceptable, sir,” Louis said as he bobbed in place. “If anything isn’t to your liking, or, uh, if maybe you’d like me to make you something else, I can—”
“Louis, please,” I cut him off, smiling. “It looks amazing.”
He bowed deeply. “Thank you, sir. Is there anything else I can get for you or your companions?”
“A pitcher of water for the table, as well as another beer for me,” I said before downing the rest of my tankard.
Lia upended her tankard and finished the last of her drink as well. “One for me too, please!” she said loudly as she slid the empty tankard to Louis. I raised an eyebrow in her direction, but the look of challenge I found on her face stopped me from making any comment to the contrary.
As Louis ran off once again to fetch our drinks, the three of us dug into the platters of hot food before us. Apart from a few short exclamations of pleasure we ate in silence, far too focused on the delicious meal to hold any real conversation. Every part of the meal was excellent, from the fork-tender meat to the sweet and savory asperfruit dessert. I hardly acknowledged Louis as he returned with our refreshments, and he returned to his post at the bar with a hint of satisfaction on his face.
While I used the last of my bread to soak up any spots of sauce left on my plate, the door to the inn opened loudly at the far side of the room. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as the three men from the side of the road entered, all chatting loudly with one another. Louis’s reaction only served to put me further on edge; he shrank back at the sight of the group and busied himself with the task of cleaning tankards halfway down the bar.
After standing aimlessly at the entrance for a few seconds, one of them hollered across the bar. “Hey! Where’s our greeting, Lou?” Even though I was watching the group, the shout still startled me, but the other patrons seemed unphased by the sudden outburst.
Louis skittered to the entrance, head hung like a reprimanded dog. “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said in a small voice. “Will you be having the usual tonight?”
The lead man reached out and roughly messed up Louis’s short brown hair. “That’s a good lad, Lou. Bring the drinks to our table, and some of that bread of yours, too.” He clapped him hard on the shoulder before joining his companions as they made their way across the room. Two of the patrons who had been in a side booth since we arrived called out a rowdy greeting to the group as they passed by.
Just go by us. Just go by us and we’ll leave. Please don’t be one of those guys that—
“Well now, what do we have here?” The man said loudly as the group approached our table. He was a short man, standing only a few inches taller than Lia would, with a bald head that gleamed in the flickering firelight and dark blue eyes that sat too close together on his face. He wore a similar outfit to his companions: a tan woolen jacket and dark pants, all stained with multiple layers of dirt and sweat. “It looks like someone is sitting at our table, boys. Strangers, too.”
Before I had a chance to reply, Louis shouted from the bar. “Don’t pay them any mind, they’re just, er, late to leave the city, is all. They’ll be gone tomorrow.” His voice trembled and cracked as he spoke. “Your drinks are on the house tonight, Palo! For being, uhm, such a loyal customer.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and grimaced. Oh, you sweet, stupid kid.
“Is that so?” Palo replied quietly as he turned back to Louis. “If that’s true, why did I see them travelling towards the city just a few hours ago?” Louis froze in place and fell silent as the color drained from his face. Palo moved to our table and leaned in between Val and me, placing a hand on each of our shoulders. “So, what are you doing here?”
“We didn’t realize this was your table,” I said with a smile, “but we’re just about finished up here. You can have it now.”
“No,” he replied as he gave my shoulder a rough squeeze, “what are you doing here?”
“Our business is our own,” Val remarked coldly before I had a chance to respond.
I let out a jovial laugh. “You’ll have to excuse my companion, Palo. She’s not the most personable with strangers.” I turned and raised my eyebrows at her in annoyance, hoping she would read the room. “We’re on our way to visit some friends in the city. I guess we mistimed our travel plans, and we had to stop here for the night.”
Palo looked around the table before moving his face so close to mine that I could smell his last meal, presumably an onion sandwich based on the stench. “Let’s not lie to each other, now. I would hate to have to report you to the Company, but if you don’t tell me what your business is…” He trailed off and gave me a knowing look.
“Why don’t you just mind your own business?” Lia yelled, her speech slurring. The outburst surprised everyone around the table and left us all in a momentary stunned silence. Palo looked between the two men he arrived with before throwing his head back and barking with laughter.
“It seems like your other friend can’t handle her drink!” He slapped his leg in amusement as he pushed off from the table and rounded to Lia’s chair. I felt my whole body tense up like a coiled spring, and my hand clenched the edge of the table with a white-knuckled grip. Although I knew the goons were no match for us in a fight, a confrontation with the Company had the potential to ruin our plans before they had truly started. “What’s your name, fair lady?” he asked her, leaning casually against the tab
le.
“None of your business!” she yelled with a scowl.
“How lively!” Palo laughed again. “You have such a pretty face, my dear, it’s a shame for you to ruin it with such a sour expression.” He reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his thumb.
My fists balled as I prepared to launch myself over the table at him, but the feeling of Lia’s mana wrapping around my body stopped me. Despite her drunken, angry demeanor, I felt a cool and level-headed aura emanating from her, with a small touch of excitement. I sat back in my chair with a grin as the adrenaline pumping through me began to cool down. She’s playing him.
Lia’s scowl was suddenly replaced with a beaming smile. “Aww, you really think so?” In one fluid motion, she pushed out her chair, stood, grabbed her tankard, and smashed it across the side of Palo’s head. “Thanks!” she called out after him as he toppled sideways.
The atmosphere of the room shifted instantly. Our background music cut out and was replaced with cries of alarm from the stage. The two men who had greeted Palo jumped out of their booth and rushed across the room towards us. The remaining patrons seemed generally unphased by the commotion, although their attentions had all turned in our direction. Somewhere at the back of the bar, Louis let out timid, half-hearted yells advising everybody to settle down. Val kicked out from the table and stood with her fists raised in a defensive boxer’s stance, but she remained in place and watched the action play out before us.
The closest man of Palo’s entourage lunged out towards Lia in an attempt to grab her by her hair. With a lithe slide, she ducked under his outstretched arm and landed a devastating punch in the man’s gut, which sent him to his knees to wretch. The second man followed close behind, but was unprepared as Lia jumped off the back of the man vomiting on the floor and flew at him with a brutal haymaker aimed directly at his face. His body went limp as the blow knocked him out cold, and he collapsed into a pile as his legs gave out.
Lia spun to face the two remaining combatants as they charged towards her. As the first of the pair rounded the final table, she hooked her foot around the leg of her chair and flung it at him. It connected with his shins and sent him to the floor in a flailing tangle of limbs. The second man had just enough time to leap over his companion and throw his momentum into a heavy right hook aimed at Lia’s head. She redirected it with ease, then countered with a quick jab up towards his nose. There was an audible crack as he recoiled and attempted to hold in the blood that gushed from the injury, to no avail.
Palo finally managed to climb to his feet, his face now covered in the remnants of Lia’s beer and a multitude of bloody cuts from the shattered tankard. As he attempted to sneak up behind her while she engaged the two men that remained standing, he reached down to his boot and withdrew a small dirk. At the sight of the weapon Val rushed ahead to intercept him, but the action proved unnecessary; I had already grabbed her empty stein and hurled it at the back of Palo’s head. The tough clay shattered on impact, and the man fell to the floor for a second time.
It didn’t take long for Lia to end the fight. She kicked the man she had tripped with the chair before he could regain his footing and left him sprawled out on the floor in a daze. The man with the broken nose was still recoiling in pain when she chased after him and landed a solid kick on his groin. He let out a high pitched yelp and sank to his knees, where he curled into the fetal position and rocked back and forth pitifully.
After a quick glance around the room to confirm that all of her assailants were down, Lia returned to our table and pulled up a new chair. She scanned the table and, realizing my tankard was the only one left, casually stretched her arm out to grab it. I looped my hand through the tankard’s handle and pulled it just out of reach of her grasping fingers. “I’m not sure you need any more of this,” I said with a wry grin.
“Well, he ruined my other one!” she shot back playfully, pointing over her shoulder to where Palo still laid motionless on the floor.
“That’s true, although I think you may have also had something to do with that,” I laughed. After a moment’s thought, I slid the half-full drink back towards her. “I’m going to help our new friends find their way outside, so you can finish mine. But that’s all you get for the rest of the night!”
She let out a giddy laugh as she snatched the tankard, nearly spilling its contents in the process. “Deal!”
I stood and motioned towards the men collapsed on the floor. “Could you give me a hand, Val?”
“Of course,” she nodded. I moved around the table to grab Palo and the next closest man by their collars, and Val did the same with the two closest to her. There was a moment of confusion when we failed to find the final thug, but I spotted him engaged in a full army crawl a few rows away.
“Hey, you,” I called out to him as we began to drag the bodies towards the door, “I recommend you get out of here before I decide to help you along.” The man sprung to life upon being discovered and half ran, half stumbled his way out of the room. As we approached the bar, Louis looked back and forth between Val, myself, and the men we dragged across his inn with an awestruck expression. “Louis, I could go for another beer, if you wouldn’t mind.”
He blinked at me with glassy eyes a few times without response, then suddenly shook his head and nodded. “A drink, right. I can do that. A beer? You said beer, didn’t you? Yes, you did.” He shuffled away as he continued to mutter quietly to himself.
A combination of the conversation and the forced movement brought Palo back to consciousness. “I’m...hey, where am...uhm, wait, let me—” His confused rambling was interrupted as I tossed him out the door of the inn and into the dirt at the base of the stairs. The remaining three men joined him on the ground soon after, but his party remained incomplete as the man who had run away earlier was nowhere to be seen.
“Let me give you a suggestion,” I hollered down to him from the porch. “Head back to whatever farm you were stealing from and stay there. I don’t want to see you again, and you’d be wise to make sure that happens.”
Palo rolled onto all fours before heaving himself upright on his knees. “Who do you think you are, bastard?” He pulled on a cord he wore around his neck and revealed a small leather tag, stamped bright blue with the Elta’sahn triangle sigil. “I’m a member of the Elta’sahn Company! When you attack one of us, you attack all of us! If you think I’m afraid of your threats, you’re wrong.”
“I don’t remember threatening you, Palo,” I said with a friendly smile. With a burst of mana, I leapt across from the porch to the ground next to him in a single jump, aiming my leading knee directly at his chest. The blow knocked him a few feet backwards into the dust and left him gasping desperately for air. I crossed the space between us and knelt down next to him.
“Here’s a threat for you. If I see you and your friends again, I’ll kill you, and anybody else you bring along, too,” I whispered into his ear. I reached out and yanked on the sigil laying on his chest, snapping the thin cord that secured it around his neck and shoving it into my pocket. “By the way, if you try to make yourself feel better by taking your impotence out on our friend Louis here, rest assured that I’ll find you. I won’t kill you for it, but you’ll wish that I had.” Palo stared up at me with panic in his eyes, though whether it was from the lack of breath or the threats, I couldn’t tell.
I clapped my hands together loudly as I stood up. “Okay, good talk! You interrupted a very nice evening for me and my friends, and it’s far past time I returned to it.” As I walked back to the inn, I nudged Palo’s foot with my own. “Don’t forget what we talked about!” I called out to him in a cheerful, singsong voice. Val gave me a small nod as I climbed the stairs, and we left the men behind as we reentered the building.
“You’re back!” Lia greeted us exuberantly from the bar. She held a different stein in her hand that, based on the beer sloshing over the edges as she swayed in place on her stool, was completely full. “I was just getting worried ab
out you.” After a long swig from the stein, she let out a single, sharp laugh. “Not really. Those guys were dumb.”
I pursed my lips in an attempt to stop a smile from spreading across my face. “I think you’re drinking my drink.”
She shook her head back and forth vigorously, spilling more of the beer down over her hand. “No! You told me I could have it.”
“I told you that you could have my last one. That is clearly a different drink.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the stein. “I don’t think so,” she said after some quiet contemplation, her voice full of doubt. She took another long drink and swished the liquid around in her mouth. “It tastes the same.”
“Alright, you,” I chuckled, placing a hand on her shoulder, “we have important things to do tomorrow. I’m cutting you off for the night.”
“Awww,” Lia pouted loudly as she set the stein down on the bar. “I guess I’m pretty sleepy.”
“I bet you are.” I slid the stein far out of her reach before turning to Val. “Could you help her to her room?”
“It would be my pleasure,” she replied, the corner of her mouth ever so slightly curled in amusement. “Come, Lia. I will assist you on the trip upstairs.”
Lia made a grand gesture of waving away the offer of help. “I’m fiiiine, Vaaallll,” she said, loudly dragging out the words. She attempted to stand from her seat and fell directly into Val’s expectant arms, which caused her to giggle loudly. “Whoops!”
I shook my head and left the two to their arduous journey, crossing the room back to our mess of a table. Louis was mopping the various fluids that had been left on the hardwood floor, having already picked up the furniture and tankard shards. “Hey Louis, sorry about...all of this,” I said with an embarrassed laugh. “We generally aren’t this messy.”
Louis looked up from his task with a start, apparently startled by my sudden appearance. “Oh, please don’t worry about it, sir, it’s quite alright.” He paused as a sheepish grin appeared on his face. “It was nice to see Palo on the losing end of a fight, if I’m to be perfectly honest with you. But don’t tell him I said that!”
Restart Again: Volume 2 Page 19
