“I thought ye wid ne'er ask,” he replied, making me smirk up at him.
“And I thought you would never buy,” I quipped back before slapping him on the top of the arm and walking past him, smirking to myself when I heard him growl before grumbling about ‘bloody woman’, only doing so in his usually growly Scottish way.
“Well, it has tae be said, lassie, yer certainly resilient,” Gryph said as I sat down at their round table. It was one that was in the corner in a back room, away from the ruckus of the bar area where they could no doubt get away with talking among themselves.
“That or mair luck than a moggie wi' nine lives,” Trice grumbled as he sat down next to me.
“What the Hell is a moggie, because at this rate I think it must be one of the only things I haven’t come across down here?” I said with a bite of sarcasm, one that left me feeling pretty foolish when Trice smirked. Then he draped an arm at the back of my chair and leant in close, before mouthing only one word at me that a toddler could have understood.
“Cat.”
“Oh,” I replied lamely making his brothers chuckle, something that ended quickly when I shot them my best death glare. They wisely picked up their ale and concentrated on drinking, though even that was done with a knowing grin on their faces.
After this I finally took the time to have a good look around the tavern, something admittedly I hadn’t had much chance to do when first arriving. But then this was hardly surprising considering I pretty much managed to piss everybody off within the first two minutes of me being there. A new record even for me, but once again Trice had come to the rescue, saving me from what was quickly becoming an angry demonic mob.
But getting back to the tavern and how it looked now I had the time to take it in. The place was most definitely old fashioned, with a kind of medieval vibe to it that you saw all throughout England, with its wooden panelling surrounding the lower parts of the walls. It had been knocked, scratched and stained through countless years of abuse that no amount of varnish could remedy. As for the top half, this was a painted stone in a pale, yellow tone that at one time could have been white. But then, like the wood, it had no doubt been stained through years of tobacco smoke that had literally seeped into the walls.
It also looked like the plaster, that had once been used to skim the stone, had been mixed with bits of hay or animal hair, as there wasn't a flat or even surface to speak of. In between these sections were crossbeams of dark wood to match the panels. These beams also held another purpose other than being architectural, as they doubled as a place and means for demonic looking heads to be nailed to. Meaning it also looked like some sort of crude Hellish hunting lodge, and I almost questioned if its keeper was Hell’s Huntsman?
I had heard tales of him through my family members growing up, and even read a few chapters about him in one of the books I had managed to get my hands on and sneak into my room. It was named the Hierarchy of Hell and admittedly, it was also one I had wished to have memorised, now knowing how handy it would have been for my future. Although, had I known, then I think my first choice would have been how to build an underground bunker and survive a lifetime of hiding.
Now, as for this famous Hell’s Huntsman, not a lot of history is truly known about him, however in the Hierarchy of Hell, it speaks little of his life before being forced to sell his soul to the Devil. Though, in what little it did mention him, his name back then was Charietto. He was a German mercenary who was employed by the Roman Empire and would use barbarian bounty hunters to kill bandits, criminals and any dangerous rogue soldiers. He was famous during this time as he would stalk his victims at night and attack them at their most vulnerable, before cutting off their heads as proof of death necessary to receive the bounty.
Because of his expertise, he rose up through the ranks quickly within the Roman army but