60. Past the Late Bell
Past the Late Bell
"Hey!"
"That's mine!"
"Get back here!"
Shouts came in off the road and Kain's eyes came open.
It took him a few seconds to find his bearings. It was pitch black. He was in the house. The night had a thing on it.
Something struck the front of the house with a heavy crack, and he groaned and swung out of bed. Ghost growled from the other room, and the shouting kept on.
"Coward!"
"Liar!"
"Traitor!"
Kain went into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of the coffee that had been sitting on the back of the stove.
A week had gone by since he had paid Will for Roan, and more warriors had come up the road in that stretch.
If a man could be woken by them down the lane, the waking would be worse in town.
He drank the cup off and went out the porch door.
The warriors had moved on by the time he was out. The shouting was up the road in town. Kain blinked the sleep out of his eyes and looked up at the sky. Stars. The sliver of the moon. Past the late bell. Not later.
He took Roan out of the stall. The horse had been up since the noise had started. The two of them went up the lane at a working pace, and the cool night air took the sleep off him by the time the lights of town came up.
Half the town had been pulled out of bed.
Two warriors were rolling across the main street, throwing punches and kicking at each other.
A handful of warriors stood off on the boardwalk watching.
Bleary-eyed farmers came out of doorways.
Sasha stood on the porch of the Kettle holding Matthew.
The boy was wailing. Sam was at the door of the store waving both hands at no one in particular.
Kain drew up.
The tents of the adventurers were off to the west of the road on the slope where the camp had set up. Half a dozen tents now. Banners of an assortment of colors and sigils.
Kain rode over to the warriors on the boardwalk.
"What's this."
"Jack told Jimmy that Jimmy hadn't made it through the room with the stone crawlers," an older warrior said. "Jimmy didn't like being told."
Kain closed his eyes and made himself remember that he was dealing with warriors, not with folks who understood a thing about town life.
"Would one of you stop them."
"Why. They're having a piece of fun."
"They're waking the town. If the town goes from tired to angry, the store will raise its prices and the smith will raise his and the Kettle will charge the lot of you rent for the patch of ground you're sleeping on."
The old warrior grumbled and turned and shouted something at the two on the ground in a tongue Kain knew a word or two of. A mountain tongue. Harsh at the corners.
Both men climbed to their feet. They were still shoving at each other as they went back to the camp. The townsfolk started going back inside. Sasha bounced Matthew on her hip. The boy kept wailing.
"I've got him." Kain swung down. "Let me get Roan somewhere."
"There's no room in the stable."
"All right." Kain slapped Roan's flank. The gelding turned and started up the road for the Martinson farm at a walk. "Carol will bring him back. Give me the boy."
Sasha passed Matthew across.
"Thank you."
"Anytime."
Matthew put his thumb in his mouth and snuggled in against Kain's chest. The wailing dropped to a fuss. Kain carried him into the Kettle.
He put a pot of coffee on the stove and sat at the corner table with the boy until the boy's eyes went heavy. Matthew was out an hour later. Kain carried him up the inside stair to Sasha's quarters and set him in the bassinet. Sasha had gone down a stretch back.
Kain came down the stair and laid the bedroll out behind the bar. Sasha was going to need help in the morning. With the crops in, he didn't see a reason not to.
He slept until the first of the rooms upstairs started waking.
He had the coffee on the stove and a pan of butter melting by the time anyone came down. He cracked eggs. The sausages out of the smokehouse went in.
Sasha came out with Matthew toddling at her ankle. The boy looked up at Kain.
"Thank you," Sasha mouthed across the bar.
"Tell me what to do."
The door of the Kettle came open and two warriors walked in.
White armor with blue at the joints. One of them thumped his chest as he came up to the bar.
"Drinks. We need drinks. We've ridden all night."
"Coffee. Or stronger."
"Coffee with a shot of whiskey in it."
"Coming."
"One for me too." The second warrior pulled a silver out of his belt pouch and slapped it on the bar. "That covers it."
"It does." Kain scooped the coin up and put it in the box and poured the two drinks.
Sasha leaned in at his ear.
"For all they tear up, they pay well. Most of them don't read the menu. They shout a thing and slap a silver down. Don't like carrying change."
"If it works for them."
He knew the lot of them probably carried a string of gold pieces between them. Adventurers who cleared dungeons cleared more coin than a merchant clearing a caravan.
The two ate, drank a second round, belched, and asked where to set up tents. Kain showed them the slope west of the road. He followed them out and stood at the porch a beat.
A bronze shield was in the middle of the road. Cracked down the middle. Goblin work by the lines along the edge.
He went to it and picked it up. The shield was heavier than it looked. He carried it over toward the camp.
A barbarian came up out of a tent and stomped over.
"No civilians."
"Then pick up your junk." Kain set the shield on the ground at the barbarian's boot.
"Not mine."
"Whose."
"Nah."
"Could you ask around."
"Why."
"If no one comes for it, it lays in the road, kills the grass under it, and breaks somebody's foot. If I pitch it, somebody might come looking for it."
The barbarian looked at the middle of the road. He looked at the shield.
"Pitch it."
The barbarian went back into the tent.
Kain picked the shield up and carried it down the street to Garland's forge.
"Got a present for you." Kain set the shield down at the edge of the shop.
Garland came out of the back wiping his hands on a rag.
"Goblin work. Not the sturdiest. D-rank at best. Most D-rankers aren't strong enough to use it well. That's why goblin-craft isn't traded much."
"Yours. Melt it. Use it. Hang it on the wall."
"I'll melt it down. Smith a sword out of it. Dip the sword in molten iron. Pass it off as a real one."
"You do that and word gets out, the village burns."
"I was joking." Garland turned back to his work.
Kain walked back up the boardwalk.
Hoofbeats came in behind him. He turned in time to see a red war-horse thundering down the main street. A second war-horse came behind it. Both riders laughed and hooted. A race, plain. Not a thought about who was on the road.
Kain dove to the side.
Maggarie was ahead of him. She put her hands over her head as the two horses went past her at the gallop, one on either side. Dust came up. The dust settled. Maggarie was on her feet.
"I'm going to Sam to file a complaint," she said. "Mrs. McGrath told me there were horses grazing in their yard yesterday. This is past hand."
Kain didn't disagree. He walked beside her to the store.
Inside, one of the racing warriors had a hand in the window display. He had the pair of gryphon talons up over his head.
"Check it out. I'm the gryphon-slayer farmer."
His companion, a woman, laughed against the door frame. Sam waved a hand at him.
"Put those back."
"All right. All right. Don't get your dander up. Having a piece of fun." The warrior set the talons back. "We're going."
The two of them pushed past Kain and Maggarie at the door.
Maggarie went to the counter and crossed her arms.
"Filing a complaint. Two, actually. One for Mrs. McGrath."
Sam took the ledger out from under the counter. He had to flip three pages to find an open line.
"Tell me."
Kain stood by while Maggarie laid the two complaints out. He walked her back into the street when she had finished. He went back down toward the Kettle, keeping an eye on the road.
Warriors raced the boardwalk. Warriors at the camp didn't know what to do with the time between dungeon runs. Only a couple of parties could go inside the dungeon at a time at this stage. The rest of them turned the village green into something a village hadn't asked the green to be.
Dinner at the Kettle was packed.
Oren came in to help past the bell his mother usually pulled him at. Kain worked the kitchen door and the bar. The big kitchen took the pressure. The room still felt like a bar with three times the regular trade in it. Warriors at every stool. Most of the locals had stayed home.
Kain was passing two mugs of ale across the wood when an argument broke out at the back table.
"I was the one who took out the beetle."
"No. I was."
Two warriors came up off the bench. One of them grabbed the table and flung it on its side. Ale and food went across the floor. The wooden plates held. Two clay mugs broke.
The first warrior snatched up his chair and brought it down across the second's head. Splinters came down. The second swung back, caught the first in the face, and the two of them spilled out into the street to keep going.
Kain set the towel down.
"Excuse me," another warrior said at his elbow.
"Yeah."
"There's a mess over there. Will you be cleaning it."
Kain's grip on the towel tightened a beat.
"In a minute."
He took the broom and a bucket of water out from under the bar.
He worked the broken pieces out from under the table and into a pile, swept the pile into a dustpan, and tipped the dustpan into the bin behind the bar.
The ale and the gravy came up under the brush with the warm water. The wood took the cleaning.
When he was done he set the broom back. The warrior who'd asked was already on the other side of the room.
Sasha came out of the kitchen with a stew bowl in each hand.
"How long can we hold this."
"Tonight. Probably tomorrow."
"And after that."
Kain didn't answer.
He went back out to the bar.
The dam was going to break. When it did, somebody was going to be there to pick the pieces up.
He rode home at the end of the night. The lane was dark, and the cool of the night made the back of his neck go tight against the collar. Roan didn't fuss. Ghost came out of the hedgerow at the bend and walked the right stirrup the way Ghost walked the right stirrup now.
At the barn he walked the line. Roan's water.
The smokehouse fires banked. The apple barrel in the cellar turned a quarter for the fermentation.
The pumpkin on the third hill had thickened across the week.
He set a fresh ring of straw under it. Then he went inside and barred the door, and the bar settled into its catch.