Highlander Honor
By Daishi Prime
Chapter 03 – Tavern Brawl
Author's note: lyrics from The Gang's All Here, by the DropKick Murphys, with one modification to fit the setting.
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Natalia suppressed a sigh as she settled onto the stool at the bar, feeling her feet throb slightly as she took her weight off them. I should be used to this by now, she thought, reaching up to run a hand through her short blonde hair, shaking the heat out of it. "Ale, watered down," she demanded, and the barkeep moved relatively quickly to fill her order. He'd been slow once, when she first started singing here, and the resultant tirade had drained custom from the tavern in a flash, and money from the owner's pockets. Since Natalia's singing was the only real attraction the place had at the moment, the owner had taken his monetary loss out on his regular employee rather than risk having her move to another tavern and steal his custom. The result of that was that, even more than a week later, Natalia got her ale relatively quickly.
Taking it, she leaned back into the corner of the bar and wall, and looked over the crowd. It was larger than it had been when she first approached the owner, proof that she was keeping up her end of the bargain, and the ale in hand was proof that he was keeping up his. The food wasn't great, but she had not eaten well since she left home. Better bad food and freedom than home, she reminded herself, as the ale, harsh even when watered down, hit.
Scanning over the assembled dockworkers, merchants and artisans who populated the open area of the inn proper, she noted several anomalies. First, the man at the far end of the bar was doing a remarkably good job of watching everyone, and she thought that was probably the first mug of ale he had obtained on arriving – over an hour previously. Second, the number of armed street-toughs was higher than normal, though that could just be a response to her presence – she was no royal bard, but she knew her singing was good, even if the Avalon tunes she was currently performing were more than a little out of place in southern Eisen.
Natalia almost missed the third interesting person of the evening. A young woman, Castillian from her coloring, about Natalia's own age but more finely built, was heading up stairs, to the private rooms the owner rented out. Not necessarily remarkable in and of itself, the fact that she was alone, obviously not a Jenny, and doing a piss-poor job of being 'stealthy', marked her out as trouble. She moved smoothly enough, for a sailor on land, and Natalia had no doubt she could do some truly impressive things on a ship. But here, she was simply out of her element and obvious about it.
Sighing, Natalia shook her head. Stupid girl's going to get her head caved in, whoever she's trying to spy on. Several individuals who passed for interesting in this midden-heap of a town were up there, staying in the best inn for miles. Natalia had no idea who any of them were, but all of them had taken guards up with them, and left more down below. Continuing to observe the crowd, Natalia asked herself, Question is, how violent is the response likely to be? If it's quiet, no one will notice, I can get out of here at midnight as usual and not come back. But if it gets messy... those walls upstairs were none too thick, and any ruckus at all would be noticed down here, and all too easily spill over into the crowd. Realizing that, Natalia began very carefully noting the locations of every armed person in the inn, and making sure she had a safe spot to hide behind the bar when things exploded.
Why can't I just find a place and stop? It's not like anyone from home will be looking for me in a place like this. She was tired of running, even if she had only been doing it for a year. All she wanted to do was settle down someplace and live a quiet life with her music and her books, maybe a smart man to spend some time with once in a while.
You can't stop running because your family won't stop looking, her conscience reminded her, and anyone caught with you will likely pay the final price for that.
Putting away her worries, she focused on finishing her drink. Her deal was five minutes out of every hour undisturbed to rest her voice, with one free drink during that break and a single meal before closing. If there was a chance of a fight breaking out, she had to use all of that time planning her escape. Fighting was the one thing she was not interested in doing, no matter how well her knife would serve her in these close quarters.
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Shifting to bring a little more of the common area into his view, Manferd Stauffenberg turned his attention from the songstress to the crowd as she moved towards the bar for her latest break. She was a pretty young woman, dark and fine-boned, with a beautiful voice and the trained grace of a dancer. But something about her just screamed 'spy' to him, and he was here on business anyhow.
Clustered in amongst the crowd, he took note of the toughs and bully-boys, and the handful of quieter, less blatant figures who were patently the more dangerous ones in the room. None of them were his business, however, not directly. A few were hired thugs for the man he had followed in here, but that was all they were – hired muscle. The quiet ones held his attention, as they were the most likely to be involved.
A short while earlier, following up on the latest individual to badger her way into a berth aboard the Angelina's Gold, he had witnessed a rather spectacular battle. The fact that it had been utterly one-sided impressed him, given that he had expected to be the one coming to the girl's rescue, but the subsequent outcome had been an even bigger surprise. Watching one of the mythical Sidhe of Avalon simply appear, then watching her walk around the duelists like they were statues in a garden, that had been one of the most strangely awe-inspiring things he had ever seen, even if it did mark the Highland girl out as a threat.
What had brought him from monitoring the ship to this tavern was the Montaigne who offered her employment. Manfred had no idea who the foreigner was, but the man was obviously wealthy and powerful, given that the town's mayor had come running to the tavern at his summons. The Highland girl had proven that however dangerous she was, she would protect the boat, so he let her do that while he followed up with the Montaigne. The man in question had strolled back here, gone directly to his room on the second floor, and sent a steady stream of underlings and supplicants coming and going, including said mayor.
His slow steady scan of the room caught sight of someone who truly did not belong here. She was tanned, with dark black hair and a wiry build, roughly dressed in sailor's pants and vest, bare-foot but armed a pistol on each hip and a wickedly curved knife in the small of her back. He was slightly puzzled by the long work-gloves she was wearing, but the pistols explained those – poor quality pistols were known to shoot burning powder backwards, as well as forwards, even when they did not truly backfire. The girl moved with the rolling gait of a sailor, and the attempted stealth of an utter amateur, skirting up the stairs and out of sight too quickly to be unnoticed, but not quick enough to surprise anyone already up there.
Théus preserve, I hope this doesn't blow up into another fight, he thought, turning back to his beer and to checking his own, more discreetly placed, array of knives. I haven't even started my mission yet, and people are already getting killed over this thing.
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Rosetta slid up the stairs, as quietly as she could, mentally cursing the stubborn immobility of the entire building, and of land in general. She hated being on land, hated not having a ship under her feet, and most especially hated being away from her own beloved Fire's Rose. But family came first, and her family needed a certain letter from a certain man who was supposedly residing in this pathetic excuse for an inn. Which, given her previous run-ins with this particular individual, had required her to leave her precious ship several days down-river, lest he recognize it, or her, and flee.
Ah, if my cousins could see me now, she thought with some amusement, skulking through a dirty dockside tavern in bare feet and peasant clothes. Aunt Marisol would faint dead away. Gah, none of them have seen me since I left school, they probably wouldn't believe it even was me.
The stairs traveled up the back wall of the inn, and let out onto a small landing that turned into a hallway reaching to the front of the building. As she reached the top of the stairs and glanced around into the hallway, and saw two men sitting in chairs outside two of the doors. They were each sitting across the hall from a door, and close enough together to be talking. Over their voices, she could vaguely make out another more muffled conversation.
Right, too many to wreck quietly, guess I'll have to try to do this one subtle. Get the letter to his desk, then get somewhere private for a minute while he's out of the room…
She straightened up, and strolled out into the hallway, relaxed, confidant, and obvious. The two guards in the hall turned their attention to her almost immediately, one settling a hand on a knife as he turned to look at her, the other drawing a pistol, then letting it dangle beside his chair. Rosetta noted their weapons, checked only briefly, then continued walking towards them.
"Who are you?" Knife demanded, rising out of his chair and moving to block the hallway.
"Ho there, big boy, calm down," Rosetta said, smiling widely at him. "I'm just a sailor, here to drop off a message for someone."
His eyes narrowed suspiciously, "What message? Who sent you?"
"Dunno," she said, shrugging to indicate her total indifference, "passenger on my ship, dropped 'im off in the last port, paid me a guilder to deliver a note here to a 'Montaigne gentleman' he was certain would be staying here tonight. Well, he said, 'the best tavern in town', and this technically qualifies, so, here I am," she reached beneath her vest and pulled out a folded up letter, "and here it is. So, can one of you boys tell me if there's a Montaigne up here somewhere? Your fellow below at the hatch said there was."
After glaring at her for another few seconds, Knife stepped to one side and looked questioningly at Pistol. Slightly smaller than his compatriot, Pistol looked Rosetta over for a moment, then held out his hand. "Lemme see."
She stepped up next to Knife and handed over the letter, still smiling comfortably. I'm just the messenger, I have no idea who's getting the letter or what it contains, she kept repeating to herself, I'm just the messenger. Pistol looked it over for a moment, studying the seal pressed into the wax, then, stepped over to the door he had been guarding and knocked twice. At a shouted command from within, he went inside, closing the door behind him.
"Well, I've done what I was paid for," she said turning to head back down the stairs.
Knife didn't like that, "Hey, wait a second you..."
Rosetta was out of his reach before he reacted, and the need to watch over his own door held him just long enough for her to reach the stairs. "I'll be below having an ale if his boss wants anything." Then she was down the stairs quick, and weaving her way through the crowd. Thinking quickly, she asked herself, Bolt, or ale? If I run, he'll be gone just as fast, and he'll probably burn my letter. If I stay, he'll send a bully-boy down, and I'll risk getting slammed around. She paused halfway between the stairs and the door, and swung right, siddling up the bar. Better to be sure it's up there, she decided.
With a few moments to herself, she took the chance to look over the common room and plan how she would use the various people there to affect her escape. There were a number of toughs sitting around, enjoying the singing of the Avalon woman currently holding forth from a table in the center of the room. A few more looked interesting, like they would probably know which end of a gun was dangerous, but most of the people here looked like this mud-hole port's version of 'well-to-do'.
Stretching her neck, checking her pistols as unobtrusively as she could, she closed her eyes and listened, letting the Avaloner's next song wash over her.
Well Legion's nippin' at y'r heels,
an' this time it's for real
A lon'ly hunga starts ta gnaw
as you wish away the pain
of another desperate dead-end day
forever filled wi' sadness
to forget about the pain
Ya take y'r bottle, drink y'r grain
Singin' hail, hail th' gangs all here
Leave y'r worries at th' door...
A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and spun her roughly around, and Rosetta sighed as she slammed back against the bar. Standing behind her was Pistol, frowning mightily as if that would scare her. Standing behind him, she could see the Montaigne she had come to find. "Ah, Tuomas Praisse du Rachetisse," she said as innocently as her poor acting skills could manage, "fancy meeting a fop like you here."
He glared at her, and tapped his man's shoulder. Pistol moved sideways, and Tuomas stepped up in front of her. "You should be more careful, Rosetta Allina Catalina Gallegos de Sandoval. This place is hardly proper for a lady of your caliber. Some uncouth local might mistakenly knife you for you shoes." He glanced down briefly and sneered disdainfully, "or has someone already relieved you of them?"
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Natalia almost fell off the table when the girl came strolling back down stairs. The Strands appeared of their own volition, a web of colors and chaos, with a massive knot of Swords about the girl. The shock of it, the surprise, caused her to stumble, but she managed to pass it off as someone's tankard tripping her. The Strands never appeared on their own any longer, they only came when she called them, but now there they were, frighteningly strong. Surreptitiously, suppressing the shiver as one Strand, then another, twirled from the girl to her, she checked the knives hidden beneath her clothes. Watching other strands settle amongst the crowd, some tenuous, some not so tenuous, she both realized she was not getting out of here unscathed tonight, and came up with her next song. Tonight's going to get interesting.
Watching the play of Strands, as three men came stomping down the stairs behind the Castillian girl, Natalia began making her way towards the center of the room. There was no way she was going to try to directly influence Fate tonight, it was too dangerous given these hostile and unpredictable circumstances, without a safe place to retreat to. But she could flow with the Strands, take their warning and try to anticipate the best possible result. So when the lead thug grabbed the girl and roughly spun her against the bar, Natalia was half way across the room hanging off the central support post, next to a passed-out drunk the giant guarding the door had yet to remove.
A twitch of her foot, a particularly boisterous dance move to make her teachers faint in scandalous shame, and a half-full tankard of ale was airborne, pulling Swords strands in its wake like a fishing net caught on a galleon.
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Manfred could see the entire set up, every step of the play, and entertained a brief thought that the two girls knew each other, had planned this. The Montaigne he was following came down stairs seconds behind the Castillian girl, but before he was even visible, the Avaloner was opening the angle between her and the bar. He saw her spin around the column, saw the Montaigne's local guard spin the Castillian around, and slumped slightly in disbelief as the songstress 'accidentally' lobbed a tankard at his target.
Théus be merciful to young and foolish women, he thought. The tavern was crowded, the people were all armed, and the presence of at least two paranoid factions upstairs made that flying tankard as deadly as a grenade. Fortunately, he had been expecting something along these lines, and was well placed. Bar to his right, wall behind him, exit to his left over a few patrons, and all the primary participants right in front of him.
Watching the tankard begin its downward fall on a still-unsuspecting target, predicting its subsequent trajectory, he muttered, "Long night indeed."
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Rosetta was surprised Tuomas knew her full name, she thought he had only gotten her first name from their last encounter. She was about to make a snappy reply when she saw the motion out of the corner of her vision, a flick of sight showing her the airborne tankard. So instead, she just smiled, reaching out to 'straighten' his coat, oh so incidentally putting him more directly in line with the tankard, and shook her head, "Tuomas, you pretty, pretty fool. You should know better than to take on a sailor in a tavern. We've always got friends."
The tankard landed at that moment, and the initial result was both more and less than Rosetta could have hoped for. On the good side, it landed bottom first, then momentum rolled it right over, dumping the contents all over the back of Tuomas' expensive coat, not to mention his precisely coiffed hair. Insulting as that was, it was barely enough to cause the Montaigne nobleman to turn and sneer in the direction it came from. On the lesser side, it did not inflict enough damage to do more than annoy the man.
But while he was turning, the tankard was rebounding, its energy redirected. Rosetta crouched, stepping sideways to position herself in the slightly more open space between Tuomas, Pistol and the bar. Tuomas was half way through his turn when the tankard hit its next victim, bouncing off the bald head of a rather large individual. That was bad, but the fact that surprise caused the man to flinch face-first into his own tankard sealed the following course of events in stone.
The man in question lunged to his feet, front and back covered in ale, a vicious snarl on his face as he spun to find where the attack had come from. His action shoved the bench he was sitting on away from the table violently, sending a chain-reaction of disturbance through the other patrons, though none faired as poorly as he did. He paused only for a moment, just long enough to spot Tuomas half turned towards him, then swung wildly with one ham-like fist.
Rosetta did not wait to see how well he fared, but matched his lunge with one of her own. She shoved off the bar with one foot, right into Pistol's gut. The impact barely moved the larger man, though it did cause him to grunt, and he tried to grab her. While he was doing that, however, she grabbed the pistol stuck through his belt at the hip, wrenched it to point straight down and as 'in' as possible, and pulled the trigger.
She would later admit that she was surprised the gun went off, given the angle it was at and the apparent quality of its user. But he had seated the powder and ball properly, so they remained tightly rammed into the firing chamber, and after a gratifying snap and hiss, the weapon discharged with a thunderous report.
Tavern fights throughout Théah had many rules, albeit unwritten. They varied slightly from place to place, from Innish fighting circles where single warriors faced off, to Vodacce gang-fights to Ussuran wrestling matches, many variations on a rough theme. One of the most pervasive was also one of the easiest to break – no weapons. A tavern fight was supposed to be a physical contest, wits and speed and strength, not a thing of blades and guns. So when Rosetta set off that one pistol, she instantly turned the incipient match between Tuomas and his new enamored from a simple pugilist match, into a deadly free-for-all. People who had been making room to avoid involvement, or preparing to place their wagers, were suddenly drawing knives and pistols of their own, looking for the threat and making sure it was not aimed at them. But men who hold weapons looking for threats will always find them, especially when surrounded by other men doing the same, a fact Rosetta counted on.
As Pistol fell against the bar, stunned and crippled by his own weapon, she wrenched the empty weapon out of his belt, then rolled over the bar herself. She landed in front of the bar-keep, who was diving for cover himself, just in time to hear the next pistol shot of the night, quickly followed by several more, along with the screams and shouts of a very general melee. The barkeep, for his part, simply slid backwards and spread his hands. Behind him, she could see a small trap-door to the inn's cellar. No need to get more people than necessary killed, she thought, pointing to the trap-door, and made a shooing gesture.
The barkeep acknowledged her unspoken order in equal silence, crawling backwards, opening the door just enough to slide beneath it, then pulling it closed. That left her alone behind the bar, which was just how she wanted things at the moment. She had not felt the letter on Tuomas when she checked his coat, so it had to still be up stairs. "Here's hoping it's on his desk," she muttered, pulling off the long work-gloves.
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Manfred tried to avoid the fight, he really did. Pushing himself back into his corner, he swung no punches, threw no tankards, and tried not to look at anyone. He was here for information, not combat, and tavern brawls were notoriously easy to die in. Worse, he lost sight of the Montaigne almost immediately, which removed any need for him to be there at all. Still, he was present, he was not fleeing, and half the people here were drunk, violent, or both. It did not take long for someone to stagger into him, swinging wildly.
Ducking beneath the punch, Manfred reached out and wrapped an arm around the man's shoulder, then turned sharply. The combined shove and his own momentum slammed the drunk into the bar, from which he ricocheted back out into the general melee. His motion created a cleared spot, which drew the attention of a pair of rather rough looking boys with more knives than hair. A glance around showed Manfred that, close to the door though he may have been, reaching it would be almost impossible without having to kill anyone, and the two now moving in on him were likely to pursue. So he leapt up slightly, just enough to gain a seat on the bar, and rolled over it.
He landed hard, dropping to get his head below the bar, and found himself face to face with the Castillian woman. She was staring at him in shock, and more than a little fear, but what really got his attention was her arms – specifically, the fact that one of them was buried to a point halfway between her elbow and shoulder in a red-bordered hole in nothing the size of a dinner plate, and the other was covered in what looked like blood, holding open the circle.
For a moment, he felt a snarling rage swell, and wanted nothing more than to kill the girl immediately. He knew instantly that she started this bar fight as nothing more than cover for her foul sorcery. But practicality won out, as always. He had a mission, and murders along the way, even the murder of a sorceress, would make that mission more difficult. "Finish up and get the hell out," he snarled.
A shadow passed overhead, and he looked up in time to see a knife coming down at him. He batted it aside, reaching up with his other arm to try and stop the attacker from coming over the bar completely. He was mostly successful, his lower, crouched position giving him better leverage than the man sprawled half over the bar. But keeping the man there, and keeping his knife away, took most of Manfred's concentration.
The two of them twisted and wrestled, until Manfred came up with a bright idea. With one hand on the man's wrist, and the other twisted in his collar, Manfred heaved straight forward, pulling the man over the bar and flipping him to land hard on his back, just missing the girl. The blow stunned the brute long enough for Manfred to recover, and caused the brute to loose his knife. A few seconds, and several punches later, and the man was out cold.
A flash of motion caught his eye, and Manfred looked up just in time for the girl to shove a pistol past his ear and fire it. Flinching back from the explosion, he looked back over his shoulder, in time to see his wrestling partner's companion slump onto the bar, shot through the chest.
"Come on," the girl said, hooking a finger in his shirt and pulling slightly despite the heavy pistol she still held. Her other hand held one of the tavern's lanterns, and tucked into her belt was a stack of letters. "Over the bar and head for the door, I'll buy us some time."
"I've been trying to do that since you started this," Manfred snarled, heaving himself upright and over the bar, before drawing both his knives.
"Whine, whine," she muttered back, hopping up on the bar. She exchanged the pistol she was holding for a third, cocked it, and took careful aim at one of the kegs halfway down the bar. "I'd suggest running about now, people are about to panic."
Damn all Legion-worshipping sorcerers, he thought, lining up on the door, and charging for it. This was not Manfred's style of fight. He could manage well enough in a knife fight, especially if given enough time to don the two panzerhands currently cased in the small of his back. In general, he much preferred a dark alley and an un-aware target to this sort of generalized tumult. But he was Eisen, a warrior, and absolutely certain he did not want to wait around to see what she was going to do.
He started working his way through the crowd by the simple expedient of slamming the pommels of his knives into whoever was unfortunate enough to get in front of him. He tried not to knock anyone out, or kill anyone, but he was forced, given the tight confines and chaos, to use the blades more often than he would have preferred. A few moments after he started, he heard the girl's third pistol go off, followed very quickly by a thunderous rush of noise and heat.
Some intelligent individual shrieked, "Fire! Fire in the ale! Everybody out, now!"
He reached the door just ahead of the rush, and barreled out into the street. Pausing was a bad idea, with that mass of people behind him, so he just kept running, right across the street and up against the warehouse facing the tavern. Turning around, he took a moment to study the situation. People were streaming out of the door of the tavern, and a shift in lighting to the rear of the tavern told him someone had opened a rear door as well. To his surprise, despite being able to see the flickering flames through one window, the patrons moved more calmly than he had expected. They moved fast, and the press at the doors was still bad, but the short fight seemed to have taken most of their energy, and the panicked mob he expected did not materialize.
"Move quickly, Eisen," a soft voice whispered, "She leaves by the back way, and if the Montaigne gets hold of her before you do, your mission will fail."
Manfred stiffened at the unexpected voice, turning to glare down at the small woman beside him. She had thrown a cloak on, and had the hood up, but the blonde curls and size of her told him exactly who she was. "What do you know or care, songstress?"
She giggled, a high-pitched almost panicked sound. When she spoke, her voice had a sing-song quality, "Silly little Eisen, standing in a street. Thinks he knows, is in control, when Theus has him, by the throat." She paused and her voice returned to normal, "She will leave by the back way, you must make sure the Montaigne does not get her. I will meet you at the ship."
She vanished into the darkness of an alley before he could grab her, and he snarled in frustration. Whoever she was, though, he could not risk her being right. So he forced his way back through the crowd, that was now starting to get organized under a couple of bright boys into a fire brigade, then down the alley between the tavern and its neighboring building. It was dark, stank worse than the tavern had, and he was uncertain of a few of the things he stepped on, but when he burst out of the alley, he found the Montaigne standing there, with two bully-boys on hand and a sword in hand.
Manfred was tempted to just remove him, but he had to be sure the girl was going to be coming out here, so he put the knives away and began strapping on his panzerhands. Sure enough, almost a minute later, the angled doors leading into the cellar slammed open. The barkeep stumbled out, coughing heavily, and stumbled away. The Montaigne let him go, and was rewarded a moment later when the girl popped up, neither breathing hard nor apparently burned by the fires she had started.
The Montaigne was on her before she could get her bearings after exiting from the fire-lit cellar into the darkness behind the inn. He slammed the wire-basket guard of his rapier into her jaw, and the girl stumbled, falling to the ground, but still holding onto a reversed pistol. "I'm tired of suffering your interference, Castillian," the Montaigne snarled as his bully-boys piled onto her. A moment later, they were upright, holding her tight between them. "And I will no longer have to. I don't know what you hoped to accomplish tonight, but you have at last given me all the excuse I need to do away with you. So sad, the poor little rich girl, had no idea what such a rough and violent place she was going in to. I'll have to express my deepest condolences to your mother, of course."
Manfred cursed himself for a fool, as he finished securing the last of the straps on his arm, then announced his presence in the most intimidating manner he could think of.
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She had thought getting the barkeep out, and exiting by the cellar, would let her escape notice, but Tuomas was still too damn lucky for her own good. The blow to the side of her face disoriented Rosetta badly, and by the time she could gather her wits again, two men were holding her literally off the ground, by painfully tight grips on her arms and hair. Tuomas brought his rapier up, setting the point against her heart, and she started struggling harder. She reached for the fire, but it was too far and too small to respond in time. She saw the blade going back, and for a moment thought she could see death.
The tip paused, however, when a rumbling voice sounded out of the darkness behind her. It took her a moment to realize that the strange, foreign-sounding syllables were Théan, the ancient tongue of the Numan Empire now spoken only by scholars and priests. Tuomas looked over her shoulder in annoyed surprise, which caused Rosetta to listen more closely, twisting her head around as far as she could to try and see behind her. She felt a shock of fear roll through her as she recognized exactly what that deep voice was reciting, in perfect Vaticine form, the Prayer of Last Rights.
The figure that stepped out of the dark alley was unrecognizable to her, and as the flickering light of the fire leaked out a window to cast insane shadows over his face, she felt a moment of utter terror that Legion himself had finally come for her. Then one metal clad fist slammed into the head on her left, and she suddenly found herself spinning free. She did not manage to take advantage of the initial surprise, merely bouncing off the man still holding her, but he still let her go, turning to face the new threat.
Rosetta landed and let herself fall backwards, hands scrabbling. She came up a second later with the pistol she had dropped and, without getting up, put her whole shoulder behind a swing that ended with the butt of the gun crashing into the man's knee. He yelled in pain, and dropped right next to her, hands on his knee. She rolled onto her knees and brought the gun down again, this time on his head, sending him into a different world for a while.
When she looked up again, the apparition that had come to her rescue was beating Tuomas rather savagely. The Montaigne nobleman had apparently made one attack with his rapier, then had it caught in one metal-clad fist. The matching fist proceeded to pummel him rather viciously until the Montiagne managed to let go of his sword and fall down, unconscious and bleeding.
Shoving herself upright again, Rosetta grabbed her second and third pistols off the ground and shoved them in her pockets. While she did that, she said, "Thanks for the assist, stranger, I owe you one."
"You owe me several, sorceress," the apparition rumbled back.
Rosetta froze, staring at him, then slowly brought two of her pistols back out, reversed and ready, "Don't know what you're talking about, stranger."
He turned from looking at Tuomas to glare down at her, and she finally got a good look at his face. It was the same Eisen who had come over the bar and seen her stealing Tuomas' mail. "I gave you the opening you used to get out of there, Porté-mage. You owe me. Now follow me. We both need to get out of here, and I have a means available. In return, you tell me exactly what your interest in this scum is." The kick he gave Tuomas indicated the subject of his insult.
Rosetta debated for a few seconds. She hated anyone knowing about her sorcery, and the fact that this complete stranger knew was bad. But even worse, he was right. She had to get out of town, and fast. Whether he lived or died Tuomas would warn everyone who's letters she had stolen, down to the last man, and that meant her target would know she was one step closer. It also meant that any of those people in this town, and she knew there had to be some, would be trying to kill her almost immediately to protect the contents of their notes to the Montaigne, and to get their hands on the others. It would be almost as bad even if she left, but the faster she got moving, the faster she could get to the Fire's Rose at Tamis, and thence to freedom.
"Deal. Name's Rosetta. Call me Rose it'll be the last thing you ever do."
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Manfred found the ship almost exactly as he had expected it – sitting at dockside, only two hawsers still holding it to the dock. No more cargo was being loaded aboard, and the ship was secured, waiting only for dawn and the slack tide to float off into safe and comfortable distance, though the docking lanterns were all lit. The only odd point was the giant of a man standing in the bow, leaning against a stay-line. He had not been aboard when Manfred left.
Studying the man, Manfred could not make up his mind if it was safe enough to approach or not. A few moments study identified him as Vesten, since no Vendel in his right mind would be that unkempt. That made him dangerous, especially with the sword over one shoulder and a panzerhand already on.
"He is an ally, for the moment." The songstress' voice was almost not a surprise. Manfred at least managed not to flinch at it, though Rosetta standing behind him did, going so far as to whip out one of her pistols.
Without looking down at her, he asked, "How sure of that are you?"
"Fate favors the foolish, the bold, and the trusting," she replied cryptically. "Come, I wish to be aboard and asleep as soon as possible. I have seen enough, I wish to see no more this day."
She strolled out of the alley they were standing in, aiming directly for the Angelina's Gold's dock and the gangway. Unwilling to leave her to her own protection, Manfred followed, gesturing Rosetta to follow. Along the way, he told her, "Put that away. You can get it again quick enough in case of trouble, but I don't want you making the Vesten nervous."
"What about him making me nervous? I don't like people who're twice me size. They make me feel short."
"Hold your tongue, sorceress. We can't afford fights aboard this boat."
"And the weird woman you're following like a love-sick puppy?"
"Trust her less than you trust me," he said, "she's no Avaloner, but I don't know where she is from."
"Blinded by the pretty smile?"
"Be silent, I need to focus."
They were at the gangway by then, and the Vesten was standing at the head of it, arms crossed over his chest, glaring down at them. "Bad time of night to be walking about a dockside," he rumbled. "You don't look like any of the boys I beat on earlier, but I'm not taking chances now."
"Relax, Vesten," Manfred said, "we're passengers departing tomorrow. It's already arranged with the captain."
"Wouldn't know about that, now would I?"
Another figure stepped up behind the Vesten, and Manfred felt a mildly comforting rush of recognition. "Scaromene," he said, "I remember you from this morning, when I arranged passage with your uncle."
The Vodacce swordsman looked him over carefully, then nodded. "I remember your face, Eisen, though not your name. I also remember you arranged passage for one, not three."
"Your uncle misunderstood me," Manfred countered, "and we have more important concerns. A pirate is planning to attack this ship in the next day or so, and these two will help with that."
"We know that," Leon told easily. "But how do you know neither of them is with the pirate?"
"Fool of a boy," the songstress muttered. "Show me a swordsman, I'll show you a puppet, unable to think, unable to see. We are not your enemies, we are no threat to you."
Leon gave her a searching look, but she shifted behind Manfred, muttering to herself just below intelligibility. "I need more proof than an insulting turn of phrase."
Rosetta stepped out, and held up a sheaf of letters, "Would the pirate's mail help? I swiped it while he was busy burning down a tavern."
"That little stir was your fault, kid?" The Vesten sounded rather more impressed than he should have been, laughed loudly at her nod, "I like you! You're fine to come aboard. There's another swordswoman aboard, but she's out cold up on the quarter-deck. Had her own run in earlier."
Manfred let the two women go ahead of him, and glanced back towards the town. The glow of the tavern fire was visible, though the building and flames themselves were not. It did not look to be spreading, but it was still a terrible loss for the town. After a few moments, however, he contented himself with the thought that at least one sorcerer and pirate had been eliminated, and one threat to his mission. He flexed his hands, remembering the feel of the Montaigne's neck snapping under his last blow.
Despite all his time training, all his missions, it was the first time he had killed someone. He thought he should feel something, but the only emotion he could find was worry over the rest of his mission.
As he settled down against the rail across from the gangway, he could hear the songstress, who's name he still did not know, singing softly to herself.
Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
Leave your worries at the door,
They're not going anywhere.
Hail, hail the gang's all here,
When the going gets tough,
I know my friends'll still be there…