The Liar and the Bright-Eyed Ch. 02

The sun was rising, and their feet were tired. The lad would never admit it, though, because complaining out loud would break the second rule of the traveling accord he'd struck with the older man, and HE would never admit it because his pride simply couldn't. In place of any spoken words, his thoughts were abuzz with grievances against everyone but the self. Stupid shitty town robbing him blind so he couldn't afford an inn for the night, stupid whoresons calling him out so he couldn't show his face there, stupid kid slowing him down...

If it hadn't been for him, Talvan reasoned, he'd be in the next town by now. He should've just silently walked past, shouldn't have even said a word, just minded his own business, by the light, his feet hurt...

The traveler wheeled around, having come to his breaking point with the silent boy, when in similarly timed fashion the lad lifted an arm and pointed ahead, his gaze somewhere past Talvan. He turned to see what and was greeted with a wagon escorted by three soldiers donned in tattered green cloaks worn over their worn hauberks, strands of chain dangling out under the cloaks' flayed edges. Decorating their foreheads were fool's-gold wreathes. Crown Rangers. Men who patrolled the roads, stamping out vagrants and miscreants as they passed from town to town. Talvan had always been in favor of them and had even donated some coin to afford himself a little leeway, until he found his own visage printed over amber scrollings with a reward attached. That'd left him impartial to their cause. He stopped dead and scanned the fields surrounding them for perhaps some way to maneuver past the roadside wagon unseen, but a long and even horizon was all there was, nary a forest or thicket in sight.

It was much too late, anyways. The kid, curse his rottenly naïve heart, had gone ahead. "Well met, sirs!" He hollered, as though to further stomp any hope Talvan had of escaping this encounter into the dirt. The three Rangers turned their collective gazes upon him, the jumpiest of the trio hurrying for his sword before realizing the boy was just as worthlessly harmless as he looked. 'Like a little kitten traipsing into the lion's den.' But the lions, Talvan feared, were less likely to maul the kitten than they were the bok in its wake. 'I must wear a brave face and not allow them to smell my fear.'

"Lad," the tallest among them gave a curt, unbothered nod; half his attention was very obviously still elsewhere. He gestured to the larger of the two and the one that'd reached for his sword. A bald and bulky man that he might've suspected earned his size from the nerves he was wound up with, had his muscles not bulged against the sleeves of his ill-fitting fabrics. "Magn, lift the wagon for Alz."

"Oh, your wagon's broken?" The young man, clearly not receiving the message that he was far from wanted here, jogged to the visibly damaged wagon as Magn grunted and lifted the back left corner for the final ranger: a well-built woman, with the hints of her sunny hair only just fraying out from her hood. "Talvan might be able to -- Talvan! Do you know how to fix wagons?"

'Don't use my name, you little idiot!' Talvan masked his seething rage enough to respond in a measured, gentle (at least he thought it was) fashion. "No, boy, no I do not. Have I done ANYTHING to give the impression that I do?"

"Hmm..." The kid lifted a hand to his chin and sunk into deep thought. Either he had suddenly developed sarcasm, or he was cursed with so feeble a mind that he genuinely thought an answer was expected. Talvan feared he knew which of the two it was. But not so much as he feared the next words to hit him:

"Talvan?" The woman, Alz, looked away from the axel beneath the wagon and at the man. "That name sounds awfully... familiar. Do I know you somewhere?"

"It's common name," he laughed it off and hoped she was half as dumb as the kid. She wasn't.

"No, no, I know your face. Damn, where..?"

"Alz..." Magn grunted, red-faced and slick with sweat. His arms, at the great wood vehicle's edge, were violently trembling. The woman hurried out from under it just as he could suspend it no more and guided it into a gentle crash back down to earth. Evidently not gentle enough: the wood broke with an audible crack, and off popped the wheel, rolling down the street...

"Magn!" The slimmer of the two men, evidently the trio's leader, hissed loudly.

"It was her fault!"

"I got it!" After the wheel gave chase the lad. He caught up to it, gripped a spoke with two hands, and quite quickly proceeded to be thrown by the wheel into the dirt as it proceeded on its way, suffering a brief change in course. The man sighed.

"Alz?"

"On it." She hopped into the wagonbed and procured a bow that had previously been out of sight, taking an arrow from the quiver hanging over the wood walls. She bit the corner of her lip, closed an eye, arched back... and let loose. The wheel clattered to its side.

"Good shot. Magn, go grab that wheel. Talvan--" His heart sank as his name was called. The man glanced sideways at the Ranger, wondering how close he could venture his hand to the sheath at his hip without arousing suspicion. Turns out he wouldn't need to. At least, not yet. "Might wanna check on that boy of yours."

"Right." Talvan hung back a fair ways from Magn, more out of respect for his own personal space than the other man's. He stood over the boy on his ass as he struggled to his feet, raising his hand for a moment to offer it before recalling he had no reason to. Instead he shoved them deeper into his pockets and look around, checking that none of the Rangers had seem. "Come on, kid, hurry up."

"Sorry, sir." He sighed, brushed off his pants as Magn passed them hefting the ring. "Wheel was heavy... whew."

"He's handling it just fine." Tarval gestured his head at Magn, attracting the kid's gaze to the man too.

"Well... he's strong."

"And you're not? What use do I have for a traveling companion that's not strong, huh?"

The kid gulped. Talvan sighed. It wasn't like he could abandon him on the side of the road here anyways, especially not with the Rangers present. 'Alright. I'll drop him off at the next town over. Leave him with enough to cover a carriage fee if he wanted to get back to that shithole village... for some reason.'

"Hey, you two! Lads!" The lead Ranger's call turned Talvan's attention to the man, standing beside a newly repaired wheel. "We figured out the problem! Good to go! We're headed to Greenrump, you wanna come with?"

'Hell no,' Tarval thought.

"Absolutely!" The boy waved back, taking some quick steps before glancing back at Tarval. "Right?"

'No, you go on ahead.' It was perfect. He gets rid of the kid now, continues on his own way. But... no, if he said that, the kid wasn't gonna just leave him. That was the annoying part: the boy seemed practically glued to his side, a lost puppy discovered in the rain. He couldn't just scrape him off, because he'd only follow. He'd need to be quiet when he finally did leave, disappearing into the dead of night...

But right now the day was young still, and he was tired. So Tarval nodded, trying to hide the begrudgidity in the gesture. "Alright." And into the back of the wagon he went, at the big man--Magn's--side, while the woman Alz sat next to the kid. "I'm Reggen," announced the leader from ahead. "Big one's Magn, and our lady with the bow's Alz."

"I'm Mykar," the kid said. Talvan realized suddenly he hadn't even known the boy's name yet, and reminded himself even quicker that he didn't care. "That's Talvan. He saved me from robbers further back down, so I'm traveling with him now!"

"That right, Talvan?" Reggen called over his shoulder. He parsed the man's voice but couldn't tell if there was any suspicion in it, and he was usually quite good at reading people. So Talvan nodded and played into it, almost subconsciously inflating the tale.

"Just a band, some five or six hooligans." The conman shrugged. He almost winced at himself, having forgotten his own rule: never con men paid in royal coin. Not for any respect for the bootlicking sots, but playing with the crown was a dangerous game. He'd seen how it ended for any poor bastard that thought to play against the house: hands bound behind your back and kicking at the air in your final few moments in front of a crowd. "Wasn't nothing to me."

"Well, it makes our job easier, that's certain." Redden laughed.

But Alz didn't seem to find the humor. Inquisitiveness draped her features as her eyes bore into Talvan's mask from across the wagon, trying to dig her fingers under it and tear it off. "Five or six?" She tilted her head. "Which was it?"

Talvan shrugged and kept his gaze on the clouds. He leaned back and pushed his legs out. Couldn't look her in the eyes, or even look at her at all, that would be suspiciously sincere. Talvan needed to keep casual. "Not sure," his tongue slithered out from his lips. The web was weaved as it went, every falsehood coming naturally. "It was late. I was touched with whiskey. The whole thing blurred together."

"You were touched with whiskey," she echoed proddingly, "and bested... five or six men?"

"Alz." Redden said sharply. "Ease off. Come on." So she did, retreating to her master's heels with a frown like a good little dog. He had to bury a victorious smile. 'Yes, Alz. Ease off.' "So where you boys headed? After Greenrump, I mean."

"Further east. I've got family in the Three Kings, I'm traveling to meet them." Talvan had no such family anywhere. He was a wanderer, never in the same town twice, though was beginning quickly to run out of road. In these lands, at least, the more civilized stretch of the world. He couldn't see himself playing his rackets in the deserts or the jungles or the furnace, nor any of the mysteries that existed beyond. To cite something so simple as family was an easier and more innocuous explanation.

"The Three Kings? That's the range out on the border, isn't it?"

"Sure is."

The rest of their ride repeated in a similar rhythm. A question came and he'd give a lie so inoffensive it had no reason to be further scrutinized. Sometimes Redden would ask further questions, but he could tell they were born of curiosity, not suspicion, and so further answers came easily. After all, Talvan wouldn't be breathing if he were the sort of liar to crumble under the lightest pressure. Redden was clueless. He couldn't quite say the same regarding the woman. He avoided her, but saw the glares she gave from the corner of her eyes, knew she 'wanted' to call him out yet kept her jaw fixed firm.

So the song continued, every verse something new but the sound the same all the way through, until on the borderline between esrth and sky ahead came their destination: the halfmen town of Greenrump. Thin, gray snakes slithered from chimneyed half-sphere homes into the light blue sea, disappearing among fluffy isles of white. Stacks of cobblestone made for circle foundations of every bump on the horizon, the rest made of compacted dirt supported by wooden bones. Wounded dirt rivulets ran between the homes, shrinking smaller the further they grew from the town center. Greenrump, like most halfmen settlements, did was not organized like an average human town. They were laid out like a spiderweb, with the public faculties in a clustered center, separated by a fertile circlet from the spaciously designed residential area surrounding it. At the center of it all was the only two-story construction in town, the elliptical home of the standing mayor's family. In this instance that would be Clan Quaint, as he'd learned from word of mouth during his time in this region.

While Mykar was enraptured by the rose-riddled ring separated the two parts of town, the businesses from the dwellings, Talvan's thoughts were alive with any number of schemes to harvest a fortune from the Quaints. He was just about done with the region anyhow. Whatever he did though, he'd 'need' to be careful. Halfmen might've lived simple lives, but their minds were anything but. Most assumed halfmen were gullible folk, trusting by nature, but the truth was they 'chose' to be trusting, and, unlike their other vertically-challenged kin, were quicker to let slights and grudges slide. People often mistook their silence for stupidity. People often were wrong. Talvan knew from experience, 'nothing' goes over a halfman's head.

Redden rolled the wagon to a stop outside a wide inn. The stench of the nearby stables struck Talvan's nose as he hopped off, eager to escape both the smell and his present company. While all four backs were away from him, a moment born of coincidences lining up like the confluence of stars, Talvan made off. He found a bar some winding streets away, stooping through the wooden door and entering into the establishment. The man wasn't quite out of place here: a good third of the tavern's population were human, maybe even somewhere closer to a half. Greenrump, though established on the outskirts of the Western Kingdoms of man, was still behind its borders. The ones here were of a different breed from those on their island on the other side of the Grenwal anyways, this particular fringe of halfmen at the eastern edge of the continent vastly different in attitude than those off its western coast. The bluntness of farmland humans had rubbed off on them.

"Drink or room?" The man situated behind his waist-high bar asked, both palms firm on the wood top. Talvan crouched.

"This place is big enough for rooms?"

"Down them stairs." He gestured sharply at a set of wood stairs on the far side of the room leading to darkness. Two roses a night. Man-sized rooms are three."

"And the drinks?" He rubbed the back of his neck, the weariness finally dawning at the first prospect of relief. What a torturous past few hours it'd been.

"First one's on the house, if you get a room."

"Hm..." 'Three roses. That's not so bad. I'll probably end up having to stay here a few hours anyways, if I'm gonna sneak out at night.' Though maybe it wouldn't be necessary. With how quickly he'd departed, the lad might've even got the message, that he was unwanted, and wouldn't come--

"Talvan!"

"Fucking kidding me..." He hissed, turning from the bar to see the lad approach from the entrance, cutting past routes of roiled man and halfman alike.

"You disappeared! I had to follow your footsteps, track you down to..."

"Sorry, kid. I can't do this right now." He sighed, digging his thumb and index into his eyes. When the lids raised again, he saw fluttering past him a wench armed with an impressive set, the top half visible from above. He was never too personally fond of the halflasses--nothing better than a good, human whore--but it'd do the job nicely enough. He reached a gentle arm out to her own, slowing her march. "How much?"

"Two king." Two? Talvan balked at the woman. The chestnut hair bound in a vast storm of curls behind her head displayed her broad face, the bulbous nose and wide chin shown off as though proudly. 'They've a unique taste in these parts, that's for certain.' Two king was a steep price, but one he was willing to pay for even a hint of rest. The man swallowed his parsimoniousness and nodded, reaching to procure the payment from his pocket and drop it into her waiting palm.

"Give the lad a good time." For two king, it better be the best night of his life. "Room, ah..." Talvan glanced over at the bartender for a number. The man stared blankly back. Their silent standoff continued until the human at last surrendered, hand returning to his pants before dropping the coins on the bar in front of the keeper.

He took them with a grateful smile, looking to the wench: "Room five."

"Come on, big boy." The wench reached around Talvan and took the youth's wrist, pulling him away. He put up all the resistance of wet paper, looking to the elder as he was guided towards the stairs as though the man that gave him her would suddenly take her back.

"Have fun." Adept eyes dodged Mykar's gaze, Talvan's own returning to the bar with a sneer. He watched his drink's journey from the tap into his cup.

...

The door groaned shut behind them. He was ushered to the bed by the woman, practically pushed back onto it. She dropped beside him, moved up close. Without a word spoken but with practiced expertise, her hands navigated to the strings of his breeches. His heart leapt into his throat as her hands brushed over his crotch, her fingers dipping over the rim of his pants and against his bare flesh. Mykar's pulse thundered through his every muscle, and he realized then--

"I..." The youth gulped dryly. "I don't wanna do it. Not right now." Her touch lingered. Mykar dared to find her gaze, trained quizzically upon him. He sighed. "Sorry."

"Your friend won't get his money back." She said brusquely.

"I know. Sorry."

The woman's silence stretched between them before she ultimately drew her hands away with a shrug. "If that's what you want." The bed groaned as she stood to leave, but Mykar was quick to sit up and speak up just as she reached the door.

"Wait."

The woman stopped with her grip on the door handle, looking back at her canceled client.

"Can we... do something else?"

"Like?"

"I don't know." Mykar shrugged weakly. "We could just... talk?" A doubtful stare was cast his way. The woman faltered. Then, her hand slipped from the handle. She sat beside him. And they talked.