Hazel
Warden is pinned under a large beam, the interior of which has clearly been eaten clean away by death watch beetle.
His horse body and legs flail until he remembers himself and, with the usual sickening swirl, becomes humanoid once more, heaving himself out from under the beam and getting to his feet.
He shakes the dust out of his hair and looks up once more.
And he grins.
The monster has just ruined my tavern and he’s grinning at me.
“Get out!” I bellow through the hole. “Get out and don’t come back. You’re barred!” I stomp my foot before I remember myself and the rickety tavern floors. “Are we insured for Brag damage?” I say rapidly to Millie.
“What’s insured?” she asks, cocking her head on one side and contemplating both the hole and the Brag in the remnants of the floor and ceiling below us who still hasn’t moved. “It is for the Brag to fix,” she says, looking at me.
Shadows flicker over her face from the candle, and I can’t read her expression.
“I doubt he can fix it by tonight. No one can,” I say, trying not to make my voice sound high-pitched and needy. “It’s Saturday night. It’s a wolf moon. We’ll lose a fortune.”
The wolf moon comes once a quarter, and we are packed out. Most of our coin is made on these nights, the rest goes straight back into supplies and staff wages. Not being able to cater for a wolf moon will be disastrous.
And as much as I don’t quite understand why I’m here or who I am, as much as I want to find it all out, I have to do good for my staff. They deserve a living far more than I do.
“The Brag can bring his Duegar. They’ll have this place fixed up in no time.” Millie stares down through the hole. “Won’t they, Brag?”
The monster stares up at me, his face an unnatural white, even in the yellow candlelight, from the lime render on what was the ceiling of my bar.
“You want me to go get them, witch?”
“I would strongly suggest you do, unless you really want to feel the wrath of Lady Ryle and the Dark Gibbet,” Millie calls down.
“Millie!” I hiss her name. “Don’t encourage him.”
“He broke it, so he can fix it,” she says fiercely. “You’ve got enough you need to do, my dear.” Millie puts a hand on my shoulder. “And the Brag has powers you can’t imagine.”
“I don’t,” Warden calls up. “Not all of them.”
“You’ve got enough,” Millie responds. “Now get this mess cleaned up, and my mistress might even let you have breakfast.”
Below us, Warden grumbles to himself but shifts some more of the debris out of the way and stomps off in the direction of the stable yard. The next sound I hear is one of his hooves galloping past the tavern on the road.
“That’s the last we’ll see of him.” I sigh. “Come on, let’s get Cuthbert and Edgar up to move the worst of the damage.”
I go back into my room and grab my over gown, turning to find Millie barring my path.
“You need your rest,” she says. “I heard you, and the Brag heard you.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Let me take care of this. You go back to bed,” Millie says, the candle illuminating her expression, which is one of steely determination.
“My tavern has just been destroyed by a Brag. I can’t go back to bed.”
Millie puts her hand on my chest. “You can and you will,” she says emphatically. “For the good of us all. For the good of the Night Lands.”
I might not have it on my person, but I feel the weight of the sword at her words.
“Get your rest. You have more than enough to manage.” She gives me a knowing look. “I’ll get the boys up. They can help with the initial clean up until the Brag gets back.”
“But what is he going to do?” I try my level best to keep the rising anxiety from my voice.
“He will make it right,” Millie says, a calming hand on my arm. “Whatever else Brags are, they are creatures of the Yeavering, and they always keep their word.”
I want her words to fill me with confidence, but the mention of the Yeavering sets me on edge once more. It’s a place I’m only supposed to have heard of, but somehow in the depths of my mind, I know it’s something else.
But the memory escapes me like smoke, and even as I try to grasp at it, it evaporates into nothing.
“Go, sleep,” Millie exhorts me. “I promise it’ll all be better in the morning.”
A tiredness washes over me, making my limbs heavy and my eyelids droop.
There is no magic here in the Dark Gibbet. Nothing other than the tiniest bits of earth magic which simply empties the bins and turns out the lights. I really must be tired. I really must go to bed.
And hope I don’t dream about the enormous Brag, his more than impressive abs, and eyes which burn like coals.
Because that was my dream before, the one which Millie woke me from. The one where his hands were in my hair and his lips on mine, his body pressing close, his scent, all leather and hide, surrounding me.
The one where I would have let him do anything.
But I’m not that sort of lady, and certainly, if he attempted any such thing, I’d be using my sword on a very sensitive part of his anatomy.
The part which, if my dream was anything to be believed, is more than large enough to be chopped off.