Four Horsemen: Chapter 22

Chapter 22:

Valter knocked on the door to the tavern, the rain coming in heavy now.

“Door stuck again?” A man scowled as he opened the door, the sound of people drinking and talking filling the street.

“Looking to stable our horses and get a meal,” Valter said. Somewhere lighting crackled. Rain threatening the locals. They’d been closer than they originally thought,

The tavern owner looked at them. “Round back, I’ll send the lad.”

He shoved the door closed, tight against the swollen wood.

Valter led Ignus, the others following as they went around the back. Valter was careful of where he stepped, lest he lose a boot.

“You looking to stable your horses?” A boy asked as Valter flipped open the wood block on the half-height gate.

“Yeah!” Valter lifted the gate out of the mud and swung it open.

“Bring them into the stables.” The boy made a run through the rain to the stable, staying close to the door to stay out of the rain as he heaved on the door, creaking.

Ignus picked up his pace, Rezzie walked himself, Desari closing the gate.

“We don’t get many horses round here, got two stalls open. Haven’t seen real horses in a while,” The boy studied them as they entered the stable.

“Just a place for them to bed down and some food. You know how to care for them?” Valter asked.

“Yeah I know how to brush them and check their feet.”

“Good lad,” Valter tossed him a silver piece.

He snatched it out of the air. “Give you another tomorrow if you look after them.”

“Yessir.”

Valter guided Ignus into a stall, the straw was stale and things rushed away as he entered.

Ignus pawed the ground and everything that had been in the straw beat a hasty retreat. Valter pulled off his gear and put it on the side of the stall. Mya guided in Mesurial, and took her gear off as well.

The boy had out a brush and lit a lantern he put on a peg, most of the stalls filled with various farming implements.

Valter gave him a nod and headed out with the other two, his hand slid under his cloak, checking his dagger was easy to grab and draw.

Back through the ground turning to mud he reached the front door of the tavern and kicked open the door. Maybe with too much force by the way the music stilted with the conversation.

He headed for the bar.

“Looking for drink and meals for three.” Valter said.

“Need the fuel for the hunt,” Mya chuckled and slid into a seat against the bar.

“Remi, three meals!” He dipped tankards into a bucket of weak beer. “You hunting deer?”

“Nah, got a contract out here, look into the eclipse and the like,” Mya said. As blunt as Valter’s own shield.

Gets the job done.

“Eclipse?” The tavern owner made as if confused.

“Don’t worry we’re not official,” Desari accepted one of the tankards.

“Limos ring a bell?” Valter asked.

“I’d need some kind of identification, a medallion or card?”

Desari drew out Limos’ card and put it on the bar, its golden edge glimmered in the tavern’s lantern light.

The tavern-owner paled and bowed deeply, the room filled with low whispers and people trying to look over one another at the counter without being obvious.

“I didn’t think that the Limos trading company would send gold problem solvers.”

“Seemed like an interesting problem, but don’t worry you can tell your families and friends we’ll be heading out to the forest tomorrow night to hunt down whatever is harming your little village and slowing production,” Mya took a big swig of her drink.

Gold problem solvers? Just what were the other ranks? And a trading company? It seemed like Limos had a lot more hidden than the inside of his carriage.

“No need to bow, we’re just here to do a job,” Desari said.

The tavern owner stood up and coughed. “We weren’t expecting anyone from the company till tomorrow for the pickup. We’ve pulled in a large harvest the last couple of weeks.”

“Things got moved up a bit,” Valter said. He drank the beer, it wasn’t incredible, but it tasted like damn beer and took the edge off of the night. Hell he even felt slightly tired.

“Fair ‘nough.”

A group headed for the door, forcing it open and heading into the night as a meal of vegetables, meat and bread was brought out from the kitchen.

After a night of fighting he was still plenty hungry.

Thunder cracked through the sky, Valter grimaced, the rain was coming in now.

***

Bet they’re in a warm tavern with beer and music and hot food.

Petor breathed in the smell of fresh rain, the ferns around him drooped and rose with the rain drops, their cold leafy fingers pressing against his cloak and rubbing on his face.

He rubbed his hands against his arms under his cloak.

His eyes bounced between different points of interest, picking out different ones and different paths to move his eyes through, keeping his vision fresh and ready.

How many nights had he spent in the rain with nothing but the hissing fall of more to keep him company?

His eyes narrowed at the sound of cloth against fern, someone moving fast.

He released his arms to the side, tensed the muscles through his body, warming them, readying them.

A man wearing a cloak, its hood down behind him rushed along the path.

Petor opened and closed his hands.

Now!

In one movement he stood up fully and drove into the runner, throwing them off the path and using them as a cushion for the fall.

He cracked the man in the face with a solid punch that sent his eyes rolling back.

The man was younger, he pulled our a blade covered in runes and stabbed it at Petor. Petor smacked it away. Shadows started to shift around Petor, trying to grab him.

There was little justice in this world or the next. Petor drew his blade and drove it through the man’s jaw and into his brain.

He completely tensed and released.

One less bastard we have to deal with here.

There was no essence, but his death would remove the threat of the shadowlings and disappearances.

Petor wiped the knife on the man’s cloak and rifled through his pockets, some notebooks, a vial of liquid shadow. The coins went into his own purse and he checked the ground, finding the man’s knife and storing it.

“Mirradon,” His mount appeared beside him and looked down at the dead man and back to Petor as if to ask. ‘Really, you brought me here to clean up your mess?’.

“The faster we get him to town the faster we can get you a warm meal and out of this crap.”

She moved closer as he picked the man up and threw him over Mirradon.

“At least we have a path to follow.”

He led the way towards Windmolen.

***

The patrons had thinned out over the last few hours.

Three knocks from the door brought Valter out of his thoughts.

He heard Mya pull back the hammer of a pistol she had down at her side.

Valter rose, and crossed the tavern. The keeper and the few remaining patrons watched him.

He opened the door to Petor.

“Tavern, a drink and a warm meal, thought so,” He shook his head.

Valter looked past him at the cloaked figure slung over his horse.

“Good hunting?”

“I think so.”

“Tavern keeper I have a need of your eye if you could help us,” Desari asked in a way that wasn’t a question, moving for the door.

“Ah, sure,” He moved to follow her, Valter moved to the side. Petor moved to the horse.

The tavern keeper and Desari arrived in the doorway.

“Just who is this?” Petor raised the head of the dead man.

The tavern keeper recoiled, Desari’s arm keeping him close.

“That, that’s Brisken’s boy, Pavel.”

“Where does he live?” Desari asked.

“Edge of the village, down near the steam.”

“Family? Friends?”

“His parents were killed when they went up to the city to visit him, he was studying up there. He came back sold off the farm, was quiet, had his friends, he was drinking here tonight.”

He looked like one of the first few to leave the tavern Valter reckoned.

“Lets go and see his home,” Desari said.

She pulled him forth into the night. Valter joined her.

“You need me?” Petor asked.

“We should be fine,” Desari said.

“The body?”

“Let it be a warning.”

Petor grunted and scanned the village.

“You see any trees?”

“Just down past the village entrance,” Valter said.

“Back through the rain then. Come on Mirradon.”

He headed off toward the village gates with his load.

Valter followed the tavern keeper and Desari through the rain. He led them through the mud streets to a small building of waddling and thatch roofing.

“This is his,” The man said.

Valter threw him a cloak and drew his sword. His foot went through the door, seeing through the darkness at the cold room, the hearth slowly smoking with a half-left log. A room to eat in, a curtain separating it from the bedroom.

He threw it back. “Nothing here.”

Desari stepped into the building, her eyes roved over the building. She tipped over a bucket and lifted a piece of wood to find books and items. She moved through the room, flipping the bed, books under the slats of the bedframe.

The tavern keeper watched as she moved through the room methodically, opening hidden places as if she knew their existence the entire time.

Valter grabbed a shirt and piled the items into it.

“That should be about it,” Desari said.

He tied the shirt back up.

“Thank you,” She said to the tavern keeper as she exited.

Valter had the shirt-bundle over his shoulder as he exited behind her.

“Now what?” Valter asked.

“I’ll read through his books, I’m curious as to just what he intended to do.” Desari said.