Woven Steel

CHAPTER 2: The Bearded Axe

It was a slow night at the Eloquent Squid.  The tavern held the dubious distinction of being the most renowned of all of Latimer's dockside drinking houses. Any young sailor coming to Latimer for the first time, ascending the steps of the famed seawall, crossing Wharf Street, and stepping over  the famed lintel would be sadly disappointed. Having been raised on tales of the brawls, dice games, and well-formed sharp-tongued serving girls contained therein, he would be sadly puzzled by the sparsely populated tables he saw. 

He might be a little mollified if someone reminded him that this was the off season, after all.  The last of the season's colonial trading fleet had weighed anchor two nights ago, hoping to shoot the gap between the flickery variable breezes of summer and the full-on gales of winter. There were few river sailors either, low water having made the Wurl unnavigable from Ten Cliffs to Dandell.

A slow night for the squid would still be rated moderately busy for many less prideful establishments. At least half of the tables were occupied. A group of six longshoremen sat together by the hearth, drinking away the last of that season's wages.  At the table next to them were four grey-robed university students. Slumming it with the commoners for a night. 

The four students all wore looks of studied boredom. Occasionally each one made a small furtive gesture over the table, showing off their respective art- making small puffs of flame, or causing a coin to dance back and forth across the table. A chronomancer , a pyromancer, and a metallomancer walk into a bar-  Yon thought, watching them. The students were flanked in turn by a gang of navy men. The sailors were dryfoot for the first time in two years after a circumnavigation of the new-found lands. In their exuberance, they were making enough noise to give the common room an appearance of life.

It was too much noise by far for the sweating, nervous nobleman at the small table in the corner.  Lord Birwain Hael was a man of middle-age. His neat red beard was the only visible feature of his face. He was desperate to seem nonchalant, but seemed not to realize that leaving one's cloak on, with the hood up, in a hot and smoky room, served to attract attention rather than deflect it. He had another man with him, a long-limbed blonde youth, his squire perhaps. The squire looked only slightly less out of place as he sipped out of a wooden mug, barely able to hide the grimace that wanted to come over his face at each swallow.  Each had a longsword, removed from their belt and laid on the wooden bench next to them. Each also appeared to have the muscle to swing it. 

Pretty muscle. Yon thought. Yard-sculpted muscle. Yon and his twin brother, Hither, who sat next to him at the bar, did not have pretty muscle, though they had the ugly kind in abundance. Each of them was just shy of seven feet tall, hairless as stones and about as friendly-looking.  Each had a two-handed greatsword slung across his back, with identical plain sweat-stained leather handles and plain, dark iron crossgaurds.  Their four matching dark brown eyes watched the nobleman intently.

"We should do it now." Yon said to his brother, speaking in a quiet side-mouthed voice. "Before his buyer shows up. No sense fighting more than the two of them."

"We need to see the axe first. We don't know for sure he's got it on him."  Hither replied, matching his voice to his brothers. "If he's smart, he'll have it someplace close by. Plus which, probably talking about some reedy little city pawnbroker or merchant, nothing to worry about.

"What about him?" Hither said, pointing to a figure siting a few tables away, who also seemed to be watching the nobleman - Brown skin, and messy brown curls peeking out through a red silk cap. He wore a matching red robe, a once grand garment now faded and somewhat threadbare. "Backup, you think?"

Yon scrutinized him for a minute. "Maybe. The lass over in the corner's been eyeing him as well, and I don't think she's got courtship in mind." He gestured with his drink at a slight, wiry figure sitting by the back door.