Post by theantichris on Nov 16, 2009 23:00:29 GMT 10
Title: At Bay
Rating: PG
Word count: 780
Summary: With one wrong word he burns, and the table's overturned./ When he's finished, there's a dead man on the floor. Stenmun wasn't always a mercenary.
Notes: Inspired by Stan Rogers' song Canol Road, which always makes me think of Stenmun.
I didn't think anything of it at first when the door crashed open a candlemark after we started serving supper. Folk get a little mountain-mad up here at that time of year, when summer sunshine's but a distant memory and the snow keeps us all indoors, for all the world like creatures in their burrows.
'Ale,' the man in the doorway growled in a voice that creaked like rotten snow.
I looked up to see a broad boulder of a man, whose muscles and brown-blond hair put me in mind of a long-claw bear, the kind with brown and silver fur that'll kill you as soon as look at you. Most of the fellows start to look a mite like bears with their winter beards and furs, but they don't make trouble unless trouble comes looking for them.
I didn't want trouble looking for this one.
There were two dogs at his heels, but I didn't notice them for a full breath, I was that knocked back by their master and the cold mountain blast he brought in with him. Mayhap it's fancy, I couldn't say, but it seemed to me the cold came from his eyes as much as from the icy wind. He'd certainly brought enough of the outdoors in with him - there was a deal of snow frosted on his hair and beard and outer furs, which my housewife's hands itched to sweep up straight off, but I was already scurrying for his ale.
I brought gruel for the dogs and a bowl of thick pottage for the bear-man, in hopes that the ale would sit the lighter atop it. With all manner of trapsmen and miners filling the inn every night, trouble had a way of pouring out of the tap with the ale.
The bear-man grabbed me as I set down the tray. Not playful-like, which a maid expects from lonely men who won't see their sweethearts again until the thaw, but with a grip meant to hurt. His fingers were frost-nipped, as red as my bodice, squeezing my breasts and tugging on my braids, and Father was in Norrboten until the morrow--
One of the silver-miners, Eyvis, sent his stool clattering to the floor.
'Nay, friend,' he rumbled, in the slow voice that has folk mistaking him for a porridge-brain. 'You'll not be handling our Geirdis so.'
The bear-man cursed, baring his teeth like one of his dogs.
'Ah, is that the way of it?' Eyvis said. 'Now, will you be going out quiet-like, friend, or will I help you?' Two other miners stepped out from behind their table, but before they were within arm's length of the bear-man, he gave me a shove that sent me stumbling into the kitchen doorway, upended his table, and tossed his candle-lantern in Eyvis's face.
I didn't see much of what came after, because Viggi the cook hauled me bodily into the kitchen where we crouched and listened and measured each crash against Father's store of crockery. The fighting stopped at last, and we crept out to see what was amiss. Eyvis's face was raw and red from the hot tallow, and his friend Galdur was stretched full length with his head stove in. Viggi clucked, but there was nothing to be done for him, so she tended cuts and bruises while I smoothed salve on Eyvis's burns.
The door swung wildly in a gust, and I realised the bear-man was gone. If Father had been there, he might have gathered a party to follow him into the snow and the wind and the green glow of the gods-lights, but when I looked around, the men were turning back to their drinks, hunching their shoulders in refusal.
Father sent word to the villages down-mountain to hold the bear-man if they saw him. We didn't know his name, but even in Scanra, folk don't often grow that big, and I'd swear, anyone would know from his eyes there was a blood-price to be paid. Still, they never saw him, and to this day I don't know where he went. We buried Galdur, put stouter bars on the doors and thought no more of him, until this last autumn Eyvis went down-mountain to trade his furs at a better price and heard tell of a mercenary - a frost-giant of a man, to hear the landlord tell it, and the right age to have been the bear-man - killed by a lady knight from the south.
Whether it was him or whether it wasn't I can't say, but I won't deny, I sleep better for hearing it.
Lady knights. Did you ever hear the like?
Rating: PG
Word count: 780
Summary: With one wrong word he burns, and the table's overturned./ When he's finished, there's a dead man on the floor. Stenmun wasn't always a mercenary.
Notes: Inspired by Stan Rogers' song Canol Road, which always makes me think of Stenmun.
I didn't think anything of it at first when the door crashed open a candlemark after we started serving supper. Folk get a little mountain-mad up here at that time of year, when summer sunshine's but a distant memory and the snow keeps us all indoors, for all the world like creatures in their burrows.
'Ale,' the man in the doorway growled in a voice that creaked like rotten snow.
I looked up to see a broad boulder of a man, whose muscles and brown-blond hair put me in mind of a long-claw bear, the kind with brown and silver fur that'll kill you as soon as look at you. Most of the fellows start to look a mite like bears with their winter beards and furs, but they don't make trouble unless trouble comes looking for them.
I didn't want trouble looking for this one.
There were two dogs at his heels, but I didn't notice them for a full breath, I was that knocked back by their master and the cold mountain blast he brought in with him. Mayhap it's fancy, I couldn't say, but it seemed to me the cold came from his eyes as much as from the icy wind. He'd certainly brought enough of the outdoors in with him - there was a deal of snow frosted on his hair and beard and outer furs, which my housewife's hands itched to sweep up straight off, but I was already scurrying for his ale.
I brought gruel for the dogs and a bowl of thick pottage for the bear-man, in hopes that the ale would sit the lighter atop it. With all manner of trapsmen and miners filling the inn every night, trouble had a way of pouring out of the tap with the ale.
The bear-man grabbed me as I set down the tray. Not playful-like, which a maid expects from lonely men who won't see their sweethearts again until the thaw, but with a grip meant to hurt. His fingers were frost-nipped, as red as my bodice, squeezing my breasts and tugging on my braids, and Father was in Norrboten until the morrow--
One of the silver-miners, Eyvis, sent his stool clattering to the floor.
'Nay, friend,' he rumbled, in the slow voice that has folk mistaking him for a porridge-brain. 'You'll not be handling our Geirdis so.'
The bear-man cursed, baring his teeth like one of his dogs.
'Ah, is that the way of it?' Eyvis said. 'Now, will you be going out quiet-like, friend, or will I help you?' Two other miners stepped out from behind their table, but before they were within arm's length of the bear-man, he gave me a shove that sent me stumbling into the kitchen doorway, upended his table, and tossed his candle-lantern in Eyvis's face.
I didn't see much of what came after, because Viggi the cook hauled me bodily into the kitchen where we crouched and listened and measured each crash against Father's store of crockery. The fighting stopped at last, and we crept out to see what was amiss. Eyvis's face was raw and red from the hot tallow, and his friend Galdur was stretched full length with his head stove in. Viggi clucked, but there was nothing to be done for him, so she tended cuts and bruises while I smoothed salve on Eyvis's burns.
The door swung wildly in a gust, and I realised the bear-man was gone. If Father had been there, he might have gathered a party to follow him into the snow and the wind and the green glow of the gods-lights, but when I looked around, the men were turning back to their drinks, hunching their shoulders in refusal.
Father sent word to the villages down-mountain to hold the bear-man if they saw him. We didn't know his name, but even in Scanra, folk don't often grow that big, and I'd swear, anyone would know from his eyes there was a blood-price to be paid. Still, they never saw him, and to this day I don't know where he went. We buried Galdur, put stouter bars on the doors and thought no more of him, until this last autumn Eyvis went down-mountain to trade his furs at a better price and heard tell of a mercenary - a frost-giant of a man, to hear the landlord tell it, and the right age to have been the bear-man - killed by a lady knight from the south.
Whether it was him or whether it wasn't I can't say, but I won't deny, I sleep better for hearing it.
Lady knights. Did you ever hear the like?