A Match of Monsters

Chapter Twenty Seven

It was crowded, it was loud, it was smelly. It was full of life. Everywhere Elain looked she saw tables cluttered with people; men and women laughing and singing openly with eachother, raising their tanards along side their voices. Boys and girls in thin but modest clothing bussled about with iron trays carefully balanced in their deceptively delicate hands, dogding between the merry patrons with practiced ease.

Behind the smooth and polished bar that ran along the entire back wall, three robust females polished and filled glasses in quick, effortless movements. The calluses on their hands spoke of the had work that they had persisted in to gain the skill. Occasionally, the dwarven woman on the left would give a command to the two younger ones, barking out quick, sharp words without losing concentration or rhythm in her own work. Their features and mannerism were similar enough that the longer she stared at them, the more certain she felt that there was a blood relationship between them. Possibly even mother and daughters,

Elain was jerked out her her musings by Councilman Dondurr as he gently pulled her along behind him. He had to push and elbow a few people before they began to notice him and clear themselves out of the way, crowding back up again so quickly after he had passed through that she was shoved into his back more than a few times in the length that it took to travel the short distance from one side of the room to the other. The careless brushes of the tavern's customers would normally provide no isue for Elain to ignore, but everytime she was touched where her skin had been bruised or cut, she would flinch and bite her abused lower lip to keep from crying out.

"Tavern Mistress," her companion called out as he reached the raised wooden bench. "How has the business been for you and your daughters? If it were a little quieter, Captain Nier and I would like to share our patronage with you."

The elder of the women scowled at him, but the crows feet that stretched from the corners of her eyes crinckled with amusement as she looked over at them. "There's no need for your double-speak, Dondurr. If you want me to clear the tavern, you say it outrught to me. You hear? I have nowant for any of your politics inside these four walls - I get quite enough of that from the drunks as it is."

With those palin words ringing through the air, she clapped her hands. Twice.

Suddenly, the dwarvesstillsober enough to think and walk for themselves proceeded through the exit as quicklyas they could without running. Behind them, the drunks were being herded away by the tavern's staff. The slight figures of the boys and girls showing surprising levels of strength and determination as they forced all of the swaying idiots out of the doors without any struggle.

It was only minutes before the room was all but empty. The Tvern Mistress's daughters and all of the wait staff had all retreated through the swinging doors that lead to a back room with the aroma of food leaving it. The kitchen. They left Elain alone in a too quiet room with only the Mistress and two male dwarves for company.

It was not until the wooden boards had stopped swinging and the pound of footsteps no longer echoed from their exit that the Tavern Mistress put down the heavy glass and the fine cloth she had been using to polish it with. She turned around until she was facing them fully, her neck no longer twished past her shoulder to see them. Untying her grey cotton apron, she folded and placed it on the bar between them. She bared the full skirts of her fine silkdress to the smokeless torchlight that illuminated the building from every corner. As much as she denied it, Elain could see by the expense of her dress that this woman was more that she presented herself.

The material shimmered and shifted as she made her way around the solid bar and back towards them on the other side. She did not stop, though, until she had passed both of the other dwarves and approached Elain, coming close enough that seh could reach out and the human girl's gaunt cheek with her arm not fully extended.