Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery

“They going up to the keep?”

Graves lifted the mud and bones and tipped the mess onto the ground opposite the back pile. “I expect so.” He set the shovel down and clambered out, then reached back to pull the boy out of the hole.

“They was looking at us as they went past.”

“I know, boy. Don’t let it bother you.”

“I don’t. I was just noticing, that’s all.”

“Me too.”

They went over to broach the second cask of water, shared the single tin cup back and forth a few times. “I shouldn’t have had all that ale earlier,” said Graves.

“You wasn’t to know, though, was you?”

“That’s true. Just a normal day, right?”

Snotty nodded. “A normal day in Glory.”

“I’m thinking,” mused Graves, “I probably shouldn’t have put up the rags, though. Soldiers can count that high, mostly, if they need to. Wonder if it got them thinking.”

“We could find out, when we get back to the bar.”

“Might be we’re not done afore dark, boy.”

“They’re soljers, they’ll stay late, drinking and carousing.”

Graves smiled. “Carousing? That’s quite the imagination you got there.”

“Taking turns with Slim, I mean, and getting drunk, too, and maybe getting into a few fights—”

“With who?”

“With each other, I guess, or even Swillman.”

“Swillman wouldn’t fight to save his life, boy. Besides, he’ll be happy enough if the soldiers pay for what they take. If they don’t, well, there’s not much he can do about it, is there?” He paused, squinting toward town. “Taking turns with Slim. Maybe. Have to be blind drunk, though.”

“She shows ’em her ring and that’ll do.”

Graves shot the boy a hard look. “How you know about that?”

“My birthday present, last time.”

“I doubt you is—”

“That’s what her tongue’s for, ain’t it?”

“You’re too young to know anything about that. Slim—that wretched hag, what was she thinking?”

“It was the only present she had t’give me, she said.”

Graves put the cup away. “Break’s over. Don’t want them t’drink up all the ale afore we get there, do we?”

“No, sir, that’d be bad.”

The sun was down and the muggy moon yet to rise when Flapp went off with Slim into the lone back room behind the bar.

Huggs snorted. “That man’s taste…can you believe it?”

Shrugging, Wither drained her tankard and thumped it down on the bar. “More, Swilly!” She turned to Huggs. “He’s always been that way. Picks the ugliest ones or the oldest ones and if he can, the ugliest oldest ones if the two fit the same whore.”

“This time he’s got it all and no choice besides. Must be a happy man.”

“I’d expect so.”

Captain Skint had gone to one of the two tables in the bar and was working hard emptying the first cask all by herself. Dullbreath sat beside her, mouth hanging open, staring at not much. He’d taken a mace to the side of his head a week back, cracking open his helmet but not his skull. Hit that hard anywhere else and he’d be in trouble. But it was just his head, so now he was back to normal and his eyes didn’t cross no more. Unless he got mad. As far as Wither could tell, there’d be no reason for Dullbreath to get mad here and on this night. This place was lively as a boy’s Cut Night after three days of fasting and no booze.

She and Huggs glanced over when a man and a snot-faced boy came into the bar.

“He ain’t so bad,” Huggs said. “Think he’s for hire?”

“Y’can ask him.”

“Maybe I will. Get his face cleaned up first, though.”

“Them two was the diggers.”

Huggs grunted. “You’re right. Could be we can find out who did all the dying.”

Wither raised her voice, “You two, leave off that table and come here. We’re buying.”

The older man tipped his head. “Obliged. And the lad?”

“Whatever he wants.”

Sure enough the boy moved up to stand close beside Huggs, wiping at his nose with a dirt-smeared forearm. His sudden smile showed a row of even white teeth. Huggs shot Wither a glance and aye, things were looking up.

A life on the march sure messed with the bent of soldiers, Wither reflected. Camp followers were mostly people with nothing left to lose and lives going nowhere, and plenty of scrawny orphans and bastards among ’em, and so a soldier’s tastes got twisted pretty quick. She thought the older man looked normal enough. A grave digger like every other grave digger and she’d met more than a few. “Swilly, more ale here.”

The digger was quiet enough as he drank and he showed plenty of practice doing that drinking.

Wither eyed him a moment and then said, “Five graves. Who up and died?”

He glanced at her, finished his tankard, and then stepped back. “Obliged again,” he said. “Snotty, you coming?”

“I’ll stay a bit, Graves.”

“As you like.”

The man left. Wither stared after him, and then turned to say something to Huggs, but she had her hand down the front of the boy’s trousers and he was clearly old enough to come awake.

Sighing, Wither collected her cup and went over to join Skint and Dullbreath. “A piss pit of a town,” she pronounced as she slumped down in a chair. “Captain, you scrape an eye o’er that keep on the hill? Looks like it’s got a walled courtyard. Stables.”