Michael Sullivan - Avempartha

It was nearing dusk when Royce, hauling three swords over his shoulder, found Hadrian and Magnus waiting at the well. The village was empty, its inhabitants holed up in their hovels, and the night was quiet except for the faint sounds of distant activity coming from the castle.

“It’s about time.” Hadrian said, jumping to his feet at Royce’s approach.

“Here’s your gear,” Royce handed Hadrian his weapons. “Be careful next time where you stow it. I do have more important things to do than be your personal valet.” Hadrian happily took the swords and belts and began strapping them on. “I was starting to worry the church had grabbed you.”

“Church?” Royce asked.

“Luis Guy was harassing me earlier.”

“The sentinel?”

“Yeah. He was asking about my partners and rode off toward the river and I haven’t seen him come back. I got the impression he might be fishing for Esra. Where is Esra anyway? Did you leave him at the river?”

“He didn’t stop back here?” Royce asked. They shook their heads. “Doesn’t mean anything; he’d be a fool to come back to the village. He’s likely hiding in the trees.”

“Assuming he didn’t get swept away by the river,” Hadrian said. “Why did you leave him?”

“He left me with a very don’t follow me attitude, which under normal circumstances would ensure that I followed him, but I had other things on my mind. Before I knew it, the sun was going down. I thought he had already left.”

“So did you find anything valuable inside? Gems? Gold?”

Royce felt suddenly stupid. “You know, it never even crossed my mind to look.”

“What?”

“I completely forgot about it.”

“So, what did you do in there all day?”

Royce pulled the bare half-blade from his belt. It gleamed even in the faint light. “All the other swords were in a neat display case, but I found this buried almost directly under the Gilarabrywn’s foot.”

“Its foot?” Hadrian said stunned. “You saw it?”

Royce nodded with a grimace. “And trust me. It isn’t a sight you want to see drunk or sober.”

“You think it broke the blade?”

“Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

“So where’s the other piece?”

“I’m guessing it’s sleeping on it, but I wasn’t about to try and roll it over to look.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t wait until it left.”

“With our client leaving in the morning, what’s the point? If it was an easy grab-if I could see it and didn’t have to spend hours digging through-well, stuff-fine, but I’m not about to risk my neck for Esra’s personal war with the church. Besides, remember the hounds in Blythin Castle?”

Hadrian nodded with a sick look on his face.

“If it can smell scents, I didn’t want to be around when it wakes up. The way I see it, Thrace has her father, Esra has access to the tower and Rufus will rid the village of the Gilarabrywn. I say our work here is done.” Royce looked at the dwarf, then back at Hadrian. “Thanks for keeping an eye on him.” He drew his dagger.

“Wha-wait!” the dwarf backpedaled as Royce advanced. “We had a deal!”

Royce grinned at him, “Do I really look trustworthy to you?”

“Royce, you can’t,” Hadrian said.

The thief looked at him and chuckled. “Are you kidding? Look at him, if I can’t slit his throat in ten seconds tops, I’ll buy you a beer as soon as we get back to Alburn. Tell me when you’re ready to count.”

“No, I meant he’s right. You made a bargain with him. You can’t go back on it.”

“Oh please. This little-dwarf-tried to kill me and damn near succeeded, and you want me to let him go because I said I would? Hey, he lived a whole day longer for helping us. That’s plenty reward.”

“Royce!”

“What?” the thief rolled his eyes. “You aren’t serious? He killed Amrath.”

“It was a job, and you aren’t a member of the royal guard. He upheld his end just as agreed. And there’s no benefit to killing him.”

“Enjoyment,” Royce said, “enjoyment and satisfaction are benefits.”

Hadrian continued to glare.

Royce shook his head and sighed. “All right, okay, he can live. It’s stupid, but he can live. Happy?”

Royce looked up at the great motte of the castle where already the torches of tonight’s contestants were assembling. “It’s nearly dark, we need to get inside. Where’s the best seat for this dinner theatre I hear they’ve been holding at the castle? And when I say best, I mean safest.”

“We still have an open invitation to the Bothwicks. Theron is there now and we’ve been-”

A screeching cry from the direction of the river cut through the night.

“What in the land of Novron’s ghost is that?” Magnus asked.

“You think maybe lizard wings found out his rattle was stolen?” Hadrian asked apprehensively.

Royce looked back toward the trees and then at his friend. “I think we’d better find a better place to hide tonight than the Bothwicks.”

“Where?” Hadrian asked looking around desperately. “If it comes looking for that blade, it will rip every house apart until it finds it, and we already know the local architecture doesn’t pose much of a challenge. It’s gonna kill everyone in the village.”

“We could run them all to the castle, there might still be time,” Royce suggested.

“No good,” Hadrian countered. “The guards won’t let us in. The forest maybe?”

“The trees only slow it down it won’t stop it any more than the houses.”

“Damn it.” Hadrian cursed. “I should have built the pit out in the village.”

“What about the well here?” the dwarf asked, peering into the wooden rimmed hole.

Royce and Hadrian looked at each other.

“I feel so stupid right now,” Royce said.

Hadrian ran to the bell, grabbed hold of the dangling rope and began to pull it. The bell, intended for the future church of Dahlgren, raised the alarm.

“Keep ringing it.” Hadrian yelled at Magnus as he and Royce raced to the houses sweeping their cloth drapes aside and banging on the frames

“Get out. Everyone out.” they yelled. “Your houses won’t protect you tonight. Get in the well. Everyone in the well now!”

“What’s going on?” Russell Bothwick asked peering out into the darkness.

“No time to explain,” Hadrian shouted back. “Get in the well if you want to live.”

“But the church? They are suppose to save us,” Selen Brockton said, huddling in a blanket in the arch of her doorway.

“Are you willing to bet your life? You’re all gonna have to trust me. If I am wrong, you’ll spend one miserable night, but if I am right and you don’t listen, you’ll all die.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Theron said, storming out of the Bothwick house, buttoning his shirt, his massive figure and loud harsh voice commanding everyone’s attention. “And it had better be good enough for the lot of you too. Hadrian has done more to save this village from death in the past few days than all of us-and all of them-combined. If he says sleep in the well tonight, then by the beard of Maribor, that is what I’ll do. I don’t care if the beast was known to be dead. I’d still do it and any of you who refuse, why you deserve to be eaten.”

The inhabitants of Dahlgren ran to the well.

Loops were tied into the rope for footholds and while the well was wide enough to lower four or even five people at a time, because they did not trust the strength of the windlass, they only lowered them in groups of twos and threes depending on weight.

Although people moved quickly and orderly, obeying Hadrian’s instructions without argument, the process was excruciatingly slow. Magnus volunteered to go in and drive pegs into the walls to form footholds. Young Hal, Arvid and Pearl, being too small to go down first, raced around the village fetching more shafts of wood for the dwarf to drive into the sides. Tad Bothwick went down and worked with Magnus feeding him the wooden spikes as the little dwarf built makeshift platforms.