"Pint?" Dante said, gazing down the street.
"As long as we're here," Blays grinned. They found a public stable and parted with some silver as their horses were led away to be groomed and fed. Blays elbowed Dante in the ribs and raced ahead through the damp chill of the early night. A fat turtle was printed above the doors of the first place he chose.
Blays flagged down a servant and they were brought mugs and ale. Dante drank slowly, pleasantly surprised to find he liked the taste. Perhaps he was getting older. When Blays wandered off to the latrine, Dante made a round of the room, holding a few brief conversations with any man or woman who looked at home.
"Drink up," he said when Blays got back.
"Suddenly there's a hurry again?"
"I have a terrible urge to go see if the inn where they arrested you was burnt down."
"If it hasn't, mind if we finish the job?"
"Let's see where the night takes us," Dante said. Blays drained his ale and they hit the street again. The laughter of men echoed through the alleys. They wandered the city, half-remembering streets they'd last seen half a year ago, their direction sense aided by a couple pints apiece. Dante kept an eye out for the boys who'd helped them then—he couldn't remember their names—but didn't see either. Probably, they hadn't made it through the upheaval; they'd had nothing to protect them even in times of peace. But they had had their wits. Maybe they lived yet, hiding under the docks, peering down from the roofs on the men who owned the streets, waiting to descend till they could take a piece for themselves.
Finally Dante and Blays came to the corner near the north end of town where they'd slept a single night. The building was gone, torn down, replaced by a few tents and a small shack. Blays spat on the dirt.
"Too bad buildings don't have tombstones," he said, giving the grounds the finger. "I have a sudden urge to urinate."
Dante peered down the street, knowing the pub the man in the Fat Turtle had directed him to had to be near. Blays finished his business and Dante headed down a cross street. Just when he thought he'd gone too far his eyes seized on the image of a four-fingered hand painted above a pub door.
"This looks as good as any," Dante said, swinging through the door. He glanced through the room, then sighed and took a seat. After an hour and two pints for him and four for Blays he was ready to try their luck somewhere else. Blays was rambling on about how they should try to get arrested again just to see if the watch had the guts when the door banged open.
"Be right back," Dante said, threading past tables and outstretched legs to intercept the man who'd just entered. He stood behind the brown-bearded figure and tapped him on the shoulder. "Time to meet your maker, you villain."
Robert Hobble turned and punched blindly for Dante's head. Dante sidestepped the blow, then jumped forward and grabbed the man's collar. Robert screwed up his face, eyes leaping between Dante's.
"Lyle's soiled drawers," he said with beer-thick breath. "You made it? Did you really do it?"
"It's done." Dante heard bootsteps behind him. He stepped aside.
"No thanks to you, you cowardly son of a bitch," Blays said. He brushed past Dante to face the old friend Dante'd been hunting since they stepped foot in Whetton.
"You'll understand some day, you filth-mouthed pup," Robert said, lips and eyes creased with a smile. He staggered forward and crushed Blays up in a hug. Blays' chin rested on the man's shoulder and he gave Dante a strange, knowing look he'd remember years after Blays had gone but would never be able to understand. At times he thought he saw gratitude in that look, but at others it could have been betrayal. Sometimes he saw nothing in it but a confusion so faint it was barely there at all, like the face of a man who's forgotten how it had ever felt to be young.
Robert unclinched, laughing and clapping his hands. "This calls for a round. Many rounds. Rounds until they get the picture and roll the keg right up to our table."
Dante hunted down a servant and let her know she had some lively stepping in her future. When he returned to the table Robert was already yammering on at Blays.
"So much has happened, boys," he said, draping one hand over the back of a chair and pointing at them with the other. "Came back and the place was a battlefield. I rallied a few of the fellows I knew to help retake the town and what do you know, they made me a captain!" He flicked a tri-colored badge on his chest. "How long are you here? Got time to hear a few of my stories before you start boring me with your own?"
"I think I know how all of yours start," Blays said. "'There I was, rum-soaked as the bottom of the barrel, when all of a sudden—'"
"It's like you were there!" Robert said, reaching across the table and giving him a knock on the shoulder.
"We'll be here for a while," Dante said. "For the moment there's nothing more."
They settled in to the warm smoke of the hearth, the earthy smell of simmering stew, the stinging taste of bitter ale. Around them men came and went and argued and joked. Dante bent down to his pack and made sure the book was still there. He was a young man in a strange world. Some day he would take his place among the black, but for now the book was his. Just as much, Robert would be there whenever he took the time to find him; for Blays, he couldn't imagine what could drive them apart. Dante leaned back on the solid wood of his chair, listening to the raucous calls of the crowd, to Robert's beery words and Blays' guarded laughter. His ears soared with the sounds of all those who still lived.
Credits, about the author
Hi readers! If you'd like to be notified when I've got a new book out, please sign up here. Promise that's all I'll ever use it for--I hate spam, too. To drop me a line, please email [email protected]
If you enjoyed the read, please consider checking out the sequel, The Great Rift. And if you'd like to leave a review of The White Tree, just click here. Reviews can really help out authors like me. I've you've got a few minutes to spare, I'd definitely appreciate it.
I also have a blog at http://edwardwrobertson.com
Cover art by Char Marie Adles. Map by Rhys Haug.
Ed lives in LA's South Bay, where he works as a movie critic for The Tri-City Herald and has sold twenty-odd short stories to magazines online and in print. Though he studied literary fiction at NYU, he found most of it had far too few explosions and turbocharged death machines.
MORE BY EDWARD W. ROBERTSON
NOVELS
The Cycle of Arawn, Book 2: The Great Rift -- The epic fantasy sequel to The White Tree
The Roar of the Spheres -- Planet-hopping space opera
Breakers -- Apocalyptic sci-fi/thriller
NOVELLAS
Lightless
The Zombies of Hobbiton: A Martian Love Story
SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS
The Battle for Moscow, Idaho & Other Stories
When We Were Mutants & Other Stories
The Kemetian Husesen Craze & Other Stories
The White Tree Page 46
