Chapter Four #2
“It’s a song about Stonehoof the Stalwart,” Asdren informed me.
The twins rode up to us on either side then stopped, short brown beards coated with road dirt as well as crumbs from the liver sandwiches they had eaten not that long ago.
“Down in the mines where the tunnels wind and the lanterns glow like gold, there walks a pony stout and proud with a heart both brave and bold. There, that’s all you need. ”
“But there’s more,” the twins cried out. Asdren said something in Dwarvish that sounded like several insults atop one another before pulling his horse back around. Off he went at a hearty gallop. I exchanged looks with Smuta and the twins.
“Is he always this charming?” I asked as Click dropped down from the sky to pick at some corn mash in a goat feeder. The goats ran him off.
“Meh, don’t pay him no mind. He’s just got a sore on his pucker that he’s got to go back home,” Smuta replied as she watched her leader bounce down the road. “Him and his da don’t agree on how Asdren should live his life, never did, so when he was—”
“Stop flapping your fucking lips and ride or you lose five percent of the reward!” Asdren’s bellow rolled down the road to us, startling some blackbirds from a cherry tree into the sky.
“He’ll settle once we get through the tunnels,” Smuta said and then tapped her pony on its sides with the heels of her boots. The twins and I sat there for a moment.
“Can you really talk to beasts?” Dulgar asked, and I nodded. “If we tell you the rest of them lyrics about Stonehoof, will you ask our geldings if they hold us in bad accord for lopping off their bollocks?”
“Oh! And ask them if having a cock as long as your foreleg is the blessing I think it is,” Narub rushed to say before they rode off in haste.
I would not ask that last question.
We rode for four days steady, pausing only at night to rest the ponies.
Asdren was a taskmaster, pushing us harder than even his legionnaires thought necessary.
They whispered among themselves when he went off into the woods to heed nature’s call while I tended to the steeds.
My hearing was quite good, and once I blocked out the requests for apples, water, and a song from the ponies, I could pick up their chatter around the new campfires.
“You know how he is when we get close to home,” Smuta had said the second night out, sitting cross-legged before the flames as she roasted a fat rabbit they’d hunted.
I had taken to spending my nights with the ponies when not on watch.
The smell of roasting flesh made my stomach tender while filling me with a sadness of spirit.
“Once we get past the miners’ mile, he’ll lighten his tone. ”
The twins muttered along, shoulders bowed, having felt the heat of the ebony-haired mercenary throughout the day.
Even Smuta felt the lash of Asdren’s tongue frequently.
When his gem-like gaze would whip to me, I would scowl right back.
My childhood with Kagon amid the bandits had taught me to never back down from a bully.
Unless that bully was an adult with a meaty fist or hefty boot.
Asdren was a tyrant by the looks. Why his followers stayed with him was a puzzle I had yet to work out.
So when he would fling barbs at me about my slight build, my ears, my freckly face, or my ginger hair, I would fire right back.
My cuts may not land deep on his hairy hide, but at least they did hit on occasion.
On this fourth day, we had to rest around midday, for the pack pony, Newt, had begun limping shortly after I picked up his distressed thoughts.
“Ho, we have a lame pony,” I called out and asked my mount to stop. It did as did the others, even Asdren riding out ten lengths ahead. “Let me see to it.”
Everyone dismounted, leading the horses to a burbling brook that sliced through the thickets of trees and pastureland.
Click took to wing at my request. I would not rest fully while the Ruby Ghosts were in the vicinity.
He would fly out ahead to scout for any signs of danger then return to my shoulder.
Yesterday he had come back with the all-clear and a small silver button for me.
I’d thanked him profusely and then let him eat a quarter of my hard bread.
The others watched in horror as if sharing your food with a raven was a sin of some sort.
They were a funny folk, the dwarves. They would look aghast at a bird enjoying some of my bread but would engage in farting contests while they ate.
Personally, I would rather share with Click than sit between the twins when their brown bean boil began gurgling.
A lesson I had learned on the third night out after the twins had eaten nothing but beans, strips of bacon, and wild leeks boiled over a fire for three days straight.
It was less offensive to eat with the ponies and the raven.
Over the morning ride, I had noted that the Glotte—which we had taken great lengths to not enter fully, for whispers of the Ruby Ghosts setting up camp in the woods had reached our ears—was thinning out.
The Witherhorns range was growing larger with every new sun.
Now it stood above us, gray rocky sides that climbed into thick clouds.
According to my new squad, there would be snow by the Iron Gate.
When I had asked where the gate was, they all snapped their lips closed like a clam pulled from the sand.
Padding over to Newt, I reached out to him mentally.
What pains you?
He lifted his right front leg.
A hard thing.
I placed his foot on my thigh. He twisted to remove it.
Did the hard thing pain you when you stepped on it?
Yes. Hard things hurt. Make it stop hurt. Sing a song?
I had to smile as I gently lifted his foot to run my fingers along his hoof. When I touched a certain spot, he tried to pull free.
Easy, Newt, I will not touch the spot again. I think a stone has bruised your foot. Let me tend to it, then we will rest.
Sing a song for Newt.
I glanced back at the sellswords lounging about beside the brook and then softly began singing the song I had learned by sound. I knew my vowels were still off—too softly spoken—but I had listened and committed a few lines to memory.
So lift your ales, you miners all, let the mountain hails resound,
For Stonehoof, Stalwart Stonehoof, the strongest steed around.
Newt was ecstatic, tossing his head as he and the other ponies repeated the chorus.
As he was so pleased, he let me place his sore foot to the hard road and then rose.
I gave him a pat on the nose before walking to Asdren, eating an apple under a massive pine tree.
His bright blue eyes locked onto me as I neared.
“Newt has a stone sore. He will require a poultice for the swelling, a soft boot, and rest. Perhaps if we did not push them so strongly over this hard road surface, this kind of injury would not happen.”
He chewed, swallowed, and then chucked the apple core at me. I caught it crisply. “Give that to the pony. You know how to heal?”
I longed to lob the sticky core at his head. “No, I am no healer. I do know horse care, though. I can find what I need to ease his pain, but the best remedy would be for him to not be pounding along this rocky road for a few passes of the sun.”
“Yeah, that ain’t on the itinerary, Chirp.
The sooner we get into Grommveldir, the sooner we get out.
This elf that your king is so heated up to find ain’t going to sit about waiting for us to ride down on him.
We need to make speed. If the pony can’t go at our speed, we’ll sell him to the next farm we come to and get us another pack animal.
We rest over in that clearing by the oak that’s bent.
” He jerked a thumb at a small circle of grass amid the woods’ edge.
“Come morning, we head back out. That’s the best I can do for the pony. Time is money, boy-o.”
I glared down at him, squeezing the core in my fist. “I am not a boy. I am an elf grown! Money is all you sellswords care about!”
He shrugged. That made me even madder. “You’re a right pretty boy with your ire up. I like how them dots on your cheeks get ruddier when you’re pissy.”
Without a thought, I whipped the core at him. It hit his brow with a solid thunk, leaving a lone dark seed stuck to his forehead. His blue eyes went round as a wagon wheel.
“You are a cold bastard with no heart at all for anything not related to coin.” I spat at his boot, missing the mark sadly, and stormed off into the woods to find some yellow oak.
I could boil down the bark and add some hara moss for a liniment for Newt if I could locate a copse.
I heard Asdren say something, but what it was I could not make out, nor did I care.
How terrible he was! Cruel! Uncaring of anything other than wealth.
Shitty mud-fucking cockatrice. Tezen was not the only one who could cuss.
I grew up poor. Not one son of a bandit that I knew could not curse like a seafarer.
Nor could most of the boys I grew up with read or write.
Most were now dead or locked up in various dungeons for thievery or worse. Such was the fate of the undesirables.
If only that apple core had been a rock. That would have felt much more satisfying. Although the seed sticking to his brow was rather amusing. Hopefully it would still be there when I returned from my search. If nothing else, it would give me a chuckle. Danubia knows I could use one right now.