by Prior, D. P.
“Aye, at least there’s that.”
“And the mead.”
“True, but nothing can make up for the mandatory circle fights with baresarks. Don’t think I don’t know, son: I hear things. I know you want to pit yourself against one of those crazy shoggers. I just don’t think the general populace is going to share your passion for getting your skull crushed and every limb mangled.”
“You’re thinking of Lok Tupole, not me.”
“If you say so, Carn. But seriously, this golem: I had a long talk with your brother about it. According to the Annals, he says, they were a frequent menace until the Founders went after them into Gehenna.”
“Where they lost the Axe of the Dwarf Lords,” Carnifex said. When Thumil scowled at him, he added, “You can’t pick and choose which bits of the story you believe. Either it’s all real, or none of it is.”
“Doesn’t work like that, Carn. You should ask old baldilocks. Tales are embellished, but even the most fanciful of them sometimes contain a grain of truth.”
“Well, Lucius clearly believes in the axe, if he wanted the Council to mount an expedition to find it.”
“He thinks we’re going to need it. He’s convinced there’ll be more golems, and that it’ll take more than scarolite mining tools to stand against them.”
“And what’s Aristodeus think?”
Thumil shrugged and accepted a fresh flagon of mead from the bar wench. “That I can’t say. He did speculate, though, that it was probably just a rogue. I suspect he was lying, telling the Council what they wanted to hear. I tell you, Carn, Baldilocks is worried about something, and yet there’s more to it than that.”
Carnifex’s eyes strayed to the game of seven-card. Captain Stolhok was raking a pile of tokens across the table toward himself.
“You read my mind,” Thumil said. “This is just a game to Aristodeus. A complex one, but a game nevertheless.”
“Aye, laddie, but what are the stakes?”
“Let’s hope we never find…”
Thumil’s eyes focused on someone in the crowd, an old dwarf with a black hood obscuring his features. He was leaning forlornly against the wall beside the entrance, as if he didn’t know whether he was coming or going.
Carnifex instinctively reached for his new axe atop the bar, but Thumil stopped him with a pat on the hand.
“It’s Jerid Garnik, Ming’s pa.”
“Oh, shog,” Carnifex said. “You want me to—”
“No, son,” Thumil said. “As marshal, that’s my job.”
Thumil downed his mead in one, then rose from his stool and made his way across the tavern to Jerid Garnik.
“I hope you two weren’t talking shop,” Cordy said, taking the opportunity to saunter over on the other side of the bar.
“During your beer launch?” Carnifex said. “Wouldn’t dare, lassie.”
She glared at him, but she was only playing. Behind her mask of anger, he could read concern in her eyes. For an instant, the facade dropped, and she softened her features with a smile that was half a frown.
“You all right, Carn? I mean, Thumil told me what you did, how you stopped that thing.”
“It was nothing, Cordy. Just got lucky. Shame Ming didn’t, or Muckman, or any of the others that didn’t make it back.”
Cordy leaned over the bar toward him. Her breasts pressing against the counter swelled above her dress, and he swiftly looked away into his flagon.
She slapped him on the arm. “You’ll ruin your palate. Can’t you wait a few minutes till the good stuff starts flowing?”
“I was thirsty.”
She rolled her eyes, then rested her hand atop his and grew serious. “It wasn’t luck, Carn. You know that. The same thing happened at the Ephebe, time and again. You were too fast for the rest of us, too strong.”
He shook his head. “It was you that was the scourge of the Ephebe, lassie. They sing songs about you, even to this day.” They didn’t. He and Thumil did. In the early days, Thumil had taught them both combat skills, until he left to become marshal; but he’d seen enough to know Cordy was a devil in a fist fight.
“Remember when they ganged up on you?” Cordy said.
“I remember when you broke Saw Shingle’s nose for being the ringleader.”
She laughed, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Seven of them had you down on the ground, Carn, kicking, punching.”
He shrugged and took another sip of mead. Cordy curled her fingers around his flagon and lowered it to the bar.
“Something happened to you, Carn. You changed. You threw them off and gave as good as you got. Better. I don’t think they landed a single punch once you started to fight back. I’ll never forget that moment. You practically danced around them, and everyone you hit went down and stayed down.”
“It’s what comes of being a miner’s son,” Carnifex said.
“No. No, it isn’t. There’s more to it, and you know it.”
And she’d never let him hear the end of it. Cordy had swallowed Droom’s stories about Yyalla being descended from the Dwarf Lords hook, line, and sinker.
“It’s in your blood, Carn.”
“If it is, it does a good job of hiding itself.”
She shook her head. “Maybe danger triggers it.”
“Or maybe I just respond well to fear. Some freeze up; others run; maybe I’m one of the lucky few who turns fear into anger, and then it all comes together: everything we learned in the Ephebe.”
“Maybe,” Cordy said.
The tavern door burst open, and a baresark barged in. His barrel-chest was naked, inked with swirling tattoos. Rings adorned his nose, ears, and nipples. His arms were thick and gnarled, and his tree-trunk thighs threatened to split the fabric of his tartan britches. He was a brute all the way from his crimson-dyed hair to his iron-shod boots.
He stood in the doorway and thrust his fists into his hips. “Heard there was free beer.”
The hubbub died, and no one made eye contact with the baresark, in case it was seen as a challenge. Thumil looked up from his talk with Jerid Garnik. His hand strayed to his side, where his sword would have been hanging, if he’d been on duty.
Cordy stood up straight behind the bar, and met the baresark’s gaze unflinchingly. “There will be, when I’m good and ready.”
“I’m ready now,” the baresark said.
Carnifex winced. He knew Cordy wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut.
“Well, I’m not, so either order yourself something from the bar while you wait, or get the shog out.”
A wave of tension passed among the punters, most of them peering into their drinks and scarcely daring to breathe.
“You got balls, lady,” the baresark said. He sounded impressed.
Cordy should have left it there.
“Sorry to disappoint,” Cordy said, “but all I got’s these.” She indicated her breasts. “If it’s balls you want, I’m sure one of the lads will oblige.”
The baresark stalked toward the bar. “Maybe I’ll just take what you’ve got.”
Carnifex started out of his stool, but Cordy put a hand on his shoulder and kept him seated.
The baresark brushed past Carnifex to lean across to Cordy. He stank like gibuna shite and a year’s worth of sweat. He turned his blockish head to look down at Carnifex. “Excuse me for interrupting.” The grin he followed it up with was anything but apologetic.
Carnifex drummed his fingers on the haft of the axe lying on the bar.
“Nice weapon,” the baresark said, eyeing it greedily.
“What is it with you baresarks?” Carnifex said. “First balls, and now you’re on about my weapon. People will talk, laddie.”
The baresark’s hand clenched into a fist. His grin grew tighter, more strained, and his cheeks started to redden.
“What’ll it be?” Cordy asked.
The baresark dragged his eyes away from Carnifex and said, “Ironbelly’s.”
Carnifex snorted, then rais
ed his hand in apology.
At a nod from Cordy, the bar wench started to pour.
“On the house,” Brol Farny said, coming over.
“Obliged to you,” the baresark said.
Cordy muttered under her breath and went back to her barrel. The instant she filled her first flagon with the frothing dark ale and held it up, the tension vanished, and the tavern devolved into cheers. One by one, dwarves started to line up for their free taster. Strangely, the baresark didn’t join them. He simply leaned back against the bar, cradling his Ironbelly’s, eyes roaming the room, but from time to time coming to settle on Thumil.
The door opened, and in came Bucknard Snaff, proprietor of Bucknard’s Beer Hall. He exchanged a few words with Thumil, uttered condolences to Jerid Garnik, then made a beeline for the fresh keg Cordy was setting up.
Thumil patted Garnik on the back, then crossed the room to resume his stool next to Carnifex. The baresark pretended not to notice, downed his Ironbelly’s, then got in line behind Bucknard. Whatever his problem, he clearly wasn’t going to miss out on free beer.
Cordy handed control of the keg to Brol Farny and carried three frothing flagons over to them. Carnifex raised an admiring eyebrow: she hadn’t spilled a drop.
“The way you’ve got him doing your bidding, anyone would think it was your tavern, not Farny’s,” Thumil said.
“I’ve done all the hard work,” Cordy said. “And do you seriously think most of these punters would be here, if not for my launch? I say, let the dog work for his dinner, and let’s go find ourselves a table.”
“You’ll be hard-pressed to tonight,” Carnifex said, but even as he looked around to prove his point, an old graybeard rose from his chair and indicated they could have his table.
“Beer not to your liking?” Thumil asked, hurrying over before someone else took it.
“Nothing wrong with the beer. Appreciate it, lassie,” the graybeard said to Cordy as she pulled out a chair. “Just can’t say I like the company all that much.” He shot a furtive look toward the baresark, who was camping out by the keg and drinking more than his fair share.
As the old man left, Red Cloaks started to file in, coming off the twilight shift. None of them were regulars at Kunaga’s, but Thumil had apparently put the word around about Cordy’s launch. He acknowledged each of them with a nod, and one by one they stopped to commiserate with Jerid Garnik. Pretty soon, though, there was a snaking train of red leading all the way across the room to the beer Farny was doling out.
Bucknard made his way over.
Cordy stiffened and rolled her eyes. “Come on, then, out with it. What’s the verdict?”
Bucknard was the Kilderkin family’s greatest rival, so his appraisal wasn’t likely to be good. Carnifex braced himself for Cordy’s inevitable backlash by taking a swig of beer. It went down the wrong way, and he sputtered and almost coughed it back up.
Cordy winced and looked like she was about to cry. Carnifex tried to reassure her with appreciative grunts. She knew how much he liked the beer from his birthday sampling, but she was on edge with the launch, and taking things in the worst possible way.
He swilled what was left in his mouth. It was rich and hoppy, with a texture like velvet, and he’d smite anyone who said otherwise.
“Well, Cordana Kilderkin, I have to say…” Bucknard paused theatrically.
Cordy’s fingers closed in a stranglehold on her flagon.
“I’m going to have to up my game,” Bucknard finished.
Cordy’s eyebrows flew up into her hairline. “What?”
“Congratulations, my dear. I do hope you’ll consider supplying my taverns.”
“Really?” Cordy looked from Carnifex to Thumil. Moisture glistened in her eyes. “But—”
“Good beer is good beer, never mind who makes it. And besides, Cordana, your pa and I might have been rivals, but we were friends first. Now, those aunts and uncles of yours running the show might be a bit stuck up, but with you on board, I’m willing to forgive them that. Congratulations on the launch, and when you’ve sobered up, I hope you’ll come see me and take my order.”
Halfway to the door, Bucknard stopped and turned back to Cordy.
“By the way, what’s it called? It’s usual to give a beer a name when you launch it.”
Before Cordy could answer, Carnifex said, “‘The Embalmer.’” He took another swig, and this time it went down just right.
Cordy kicked him under the table.
Bucknard chuckled. “It’s certainly strong enough.”
“My Aunt Ruitha wanted to call it ‘Ravine Gold’, but no one agreed with her, save for Uncle Hoag, and he doesn’t have much of a choice.”
Bucknard wrinkled his nose at the name. “And you? What did you think it should be called?”
“I didn’t have a clue, until after last night.”
Thumil leaned forward. “Last night?”
“What you told me about Carn, how he took down that golem. To my mind, that makes him a bit of a hero.”
“Only a bit?” Carnifex said.
“Got to leave room for the shogger part of you,” Cordy said. “So, I got to thinking what I’d call the beer, if it were down to me; if I could name it in his honor.”
Carnifex let out a loud hoot, which had everyone in the tavern looking his way.
“I thought about what Droom said, about Yyalla having the blood of the Dwarf Lords and passing it on to her sons…”
Bucknard shook his head at Thumil, and Thumil shrugged in return.
“So, I came up with ‘Arnochian’, you know, after Arnoch, the lost city of the Dwarf Lords.”
“Like it,” Bucknard said. “Kilderkin’s Arnochian Ale.”
“But my aunts and uncles will never go for it.”
“Nevertheless,” Bucknard said, “that’s the name that’ll be going on my order sheets. Good night, all.” And with that, he stepped outside, and the door closed behind him.
“Drink up, lads,” Cordy said. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”
Carnifex did as he was told, then collected up their tankards and went over to the keg so Farny could refill them. The baresark muttered something under his breath, but Carnifex just offered him a big, toothy smile. He half hoped the shogger would take a swing at him, give him an excuse. He’d been wondering for some time how he’d fare in a fight against one of the wild dwarves. It was almost disappointing when the baresark lowered his eyes and took a long, slow pull on his beer.
“What’s he say?” Thumil said, when Carnifex carried the drinks back to the table.
“Nice arse, I think. Came out as mostly a grunt, though. I think he’s shy and playing hard to get.”
Cordy thumped him in the arm as he sat. “Shush, you silly shogger. He might hear.”
“Don’t mind if he does,” Carnifex said, far louder than he needed to.
“But I do,” Thumil said. “I’m a lot older than you, Carn. The excitement would kill me.”
“That’s not all that’d kill you,” Cordy said, casting a nervous glance over toward the keg.
“Is he looking our way?” Thumil asked, staring into his drink.
Carnifex turned his chair round, not caring that the legs scraped and screeched against the flagstones. “No. He’s more interested in his own boots right now.” With just as much noise as before, he came back round to face the table. “That’s the thing about baresarks: they’re like dogs. All you have to do is stare them out, let them know who’s boss.”
“And you know this how?” Cordy said.
“I watch the circle fights. You can always tell who’s going to win from the pre-bout eyeballing.”
“Well, let’s just hope you’re right, Fexy,” Thumil said, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a book with a floppy leather cover. It was the same book he’d read from on Carnifex’s birthday.
Carnifex stood with slow deliberation and held his beer above Thumil’s head.
“What? What are
you—?” Thumil said.
Carnifex poured the entire flagon over him.
Thumil surged to his feet, spluttering and red in the face. “What the shog do you think—?”
“Told you what would happen if you called me Fexy again.”
Cordy giggled and slapped Carnifex on the rump.
Thumil sucked in a long breath, rolled his eyes, and then burst out laughing. “You utter shogwit.”
“You’re right there,” Cordy said. “You waste my beer like that again, Carn, and I’ll mangle your fruits.”
“And you’d be right to, lassie,” Carnifex said, resuming his seat. “Next time, I’ll hack his beard off and feed it to him.”
“You and whose army?” Thumil said, settling back down at the table, and making a show of flicking through his book. “The pages are wet.”
“Nothing you’re not used to,” Carnifex said with a wink.
Thumil shook his head. He grew intent on something he’d found to read, and it was as if a wall had suddenly enclosed him.
“He’s been doing that a lot lately,” Cordy said. “Reads that shogging book in bed at night, then first thing on waking.”
“Does he now?” Carnifex said. “And how would you know?”
Thumil glanced up at her, but swiftly returned to his reading. “Won’t be a second,” he said.
“One of his whores told me,” Cordy said. “I run into them from time to time.”
“Oh aye?” Carnifex said.
Cordy went to slap him again, but stayed her hand. “Want me to get you another?”
“May as well bring a tray over, lassie, save all the toing and froing.”
Cordy headed back to the bar and barked out some orders to Brol Farny, then waited for him to fill a dozen flagons on a tray.
Carnifex was momentarily transfixed by the way her close-fitting blue dress hugged her hips. Through it’s thin fabric, he could make out the ridges of muscle running either side of her spine. She craned her neck, caught him looking, and his face prickled with shame. She was his oldest friend, his mate from the Ephebe, more a sister than anything else. But if she was offended, she didn’t let on. Her eyes glistened in the orange light coming off the hearth, and one corner of her mouth curled in a half-smile.
