in the back of her head with my elbow.” I take a swig. “I’m going to finish my drink. Somebody take her out please.” Then I sit back down.
A couple of the guards carry out my orders, no questions asked. James gives me an extremely satisfied smile and nods happily. “That’s what I was looking for,” he says. I merely return his nod and take another swig.
“Best dang bar fight I’ve ever seen,” laughs the old bartender. His laugh is wheezy and breathy.
“There is no doubt in my mind,” says one of the soldiers, “That you have done what you say you’ve done.”
“Thanks,” I say. Then I finish my drink.
The guards had just dumped Genevieve outside, next to the door. She leans up against the wall, still unconscious. “Think she’ll sleep through the night?” asks James.
“Doubt it,” I answer. “She’ll come ‘round in a few minutes.”
“I just hope we’re not around when she does,” he continues.
“I don’t know,” says Percival. “I’d like to see what she does next time she sees Kadmus. Er, sorry. Captain Armstrong.”
I shake my head. “You know you don’t have to call me that, right?”
“Right,” says James. “Call him Dragonhammer.”
“I like it,” says Nathaniel. “It’s got a nice ring to it. Dragonhammer.”
Dragonhammer, I think. Dragonhammer.
Stagnant Tactics
Genevieve avoids me for the next few days. When we’re at dinner she avoids making eye contact, even to glare at me. She finds longer ways around the Acropolis just to stay out of my path.
James takes off the iron brace and sling, and begins to use his left arm again. He still won’t fight for another week or two, but now he’s not so helpless.
Right now we’re waiting for orders from the leaders of Mohonri before we take any action. It’s getting on my nerves slightly because I want to get out and accomplish something. Those responsible for the attack on Terrace are still out there. Those responsible for my father’s death.
So consequently I immediately accept the Lord Jarl’s summons to the council room.
I’m still having a little bit of trouble finding my way around the Acropolis, so the messenger who brought the summons leads me up to the roof of the third tier, where we enter the ten-foot doors.
It’s a big room with an arched ceiling at least twenty feet up. At the rear, easily forty feet back, long narrow stained-glass windows run the length from ceiling to floor. A lengthy oblong table takes up most of the floor with chairs all along its sides. Bookshelves line the walls from the floor to several feet above my head, some of them stocked with collections of books and others stocked with rolls of parchment. Books and scrolls lie open and shut, scattered across the table. At the end lies a map. As I near, I observe that it shows the province of Greendale, where we reside.
“There you are!” says Jarl Hralfar. “You’re late.” He wears a cloth tunic and a long blood-stained bandage that hugs his chest and left shoulder tightly. Genevieve stands on his other side, but she ignores my presence. I give her the same favor.
“I was eating,” I respond.
“And well deserved,” he grants. “I wanted your opinion on this, however.”
“What?”
He gestures with his head towards Jarl Theyor, who sits in a chair to our left. His hands are bound behind the chair and he wears only simple clothing.
This is the first time I get a good look at him. He’s somewhat chubby, with a little bit of a gut and some baby fat on his cheeks. He wears a short brown goatee and his hair is long, pulled back into a ponytail. His fingers are sausages, and his limbs are thick.
“Dragonhammer,” he says when we make eye contact. Hralfar appears confused.
“Why do you call me that?” I ask.
“Because you fight,” he answers quickly.
“Of course I fight!” I argue, slightly agitated. “That’s what everyone does in a war!”
Theyor doesn’t answer.
“I’m having trouble getting him to talk,” Jarl Hralfar explains.
“About why he calls me Dragonhammer?”
“No,” the Jarl corrects patiently, “about what Tygnar’s next plan of action is. We just took their most powerful stronghold in all of Greendale in a single night. We cannot expect there will be no retaliation. I thought maybe you could get something out of him, because I’ve been trying for the last three days with no luck.”
“Why me?”
He shrugs. “You got us into this city,” he answers. “It was your plan we followed and it worked almost flawlessly.”