Swords & Dark Magic - By Jonathan Strahan Page 0,160

Failing that we’ll poison both servants and dogs, and burn the house to show we called.”

“True, you’re wise, Ovrisd,” relented Kange. “But before we set forth on our mission, let’s see what money we can squeeze out of that foreigner over there, with the pumpkin-colored mane.”

Bretilf put down the meat bone.

The guardsmen were advancing, smiling winningly upon him, carefully ignored on every side by the rest of the inn.

“Greetings, stranger,” said the unpresentable Kange.

“Welcome, stranger,” added the revolting Ovrisd.

“To you also,” replied Bretilf, rising. “I believe you wish me to render you something,” he presumed.

“Oh, indeed! How perceptive. We would like all of it!”

“And pretty fast.”

“Perhaps not all, but certainly a great deal. All that you deserve,” said Bretilf. He finished mildly, “Nevertheless, once is enough. To seek me later for more will not be to your liking.” And, leaning forward, he grasped both their unlovely necks and, in one sleek, quick movement, smashed their heads together. Like two halves of a severed pear, each guardsman fell, thumpingly senseless, to the floor.

Instantly, every person in the inn, including the landlord, his slim wife, and large cat, fled the premises.

Bretilf placed coins in generous amount on the counter, and toting the jug and the sculptable bone, walked off into the riverine night.

A golden moon howled radiance like wild music in the sky. The insane river answered. Bretilf sat awhile on the bank and started the carving of the bone. But his own bones guessed the night’s difficulties were not done.

Sure enough, about an hour later, two sore-headed and bleary-eyed guardsmen came staggering to the bank with drawn blades and antisocial motives.

“I said,” gently reminded Bretilf, as once again he rose to his feet, “it was not advisable that you ask for more.”

Seething and blathering, Kange and Ovrisd leapt ungainly at him. Bretilf flipped back his cloak. The moon splashed like hot lava on a sudden broadsword, that had the name Second Thoughts. Swish, swish went the two severed heads of Kange and Ovrisd, plunging off the land’s edge into the hungry river. Their now leaderless bodies slumped, this time conclusively, to the earth.

Bretilf strode away into the slinks of Cashloria. It was his creed never to kill, if at all possible, at an initial encounter. But so many people were determined to try his patience. Reticence and extremity coexisted always with him. Presently, he found a much less clean, and more secluded, inn where he might spend the night in peace asleep, or carving the figure of a militant stag.

Bretilf awoke to find, with some bemusement, he was staring at himself in a mirror. Zire awoke to find exactly the same thing.

Neither man recalled a mirror placed before him, in either of the inns they had last night occupied. In fact, Zire had fallen asleep at the table in the Plucked Dragon, after his first cup of wine. Bretilf had done much the same in his own inn, the Affectionate Flea. Besides, the mirrors were unreliable. Bretilf immediately noted that his own reflection rubbed its eyes, which Bretilf had not done and was not doing. Zire noted that, though he had rubbed his eyes, his reflection refused to copy him. In any case, said reflection’s eyes, in both instances, were the wrong color.

“Oh,” said Zire then, boredly, “are you some sorcerous fetch summoned up to haunt me?”

“No,” returned Bretilf. “I think rather your—or possibly my own—father played his flute away from home. And I, and you therefore, are half-brothers.”

“Hmn,” said Zire. “You may be correct. We’re certainly nearly doubles.”

Then each got up, conscious as they did so of three further things. First, that in height and build they were also neatly matched. Second, that the faint bee-ish buzzing in their skulls, and taste of dry wool in their mouths, was very likely the result of their having been drugged. The third revelation was that, rather than remaining at an inn, whether wholesome or squalid, they were now in a cramped stone room with iron bars across the window.

Glancing at each other, they observed as one: “Dead guards. Royal disapproval. The False Prince.”

A moment later, the door was opened, and several more guards, these ones with whom Zire and Bretilf were unacquainted, bundled into the space. They seized, then dragged Bretilf and Zire, the foray ornamented by a selection of punches and kicks, up many stairs and into another cell, plain but less prisonlike.

“Lie there, you scum,” the guards instructed. “And prepare for horrors. The prince will arrive soon to judge you.”