by Rhonda Parris and Jarrod K. Wade
in Issue 132, January 2023
Xen slumped into the taproom and climbed up onto the seat next to Eoghan. Her ears, which normally stood up like a fox’s, drooped, significantly less perky than usual. In fact, everything about Xen was significantly less perky than usual. Since they’d reached the city, Eoghan had seen her mood visibly change, darkening. Noticed her talking less, quieter, and generally making herself smaller. Which was actually kind of impressive because she was tiny to begin with – her head only barely higher than the table.
“Is this one of the bars you haunted last time you were here or a totally new one?” she asked, forcing a smile.
Eoghan looked around and scrunched up his face, trying to force a memory that just wasn’t coming. Having spent most of his life bouncing from one tavern to the next since he was Xen’s height – not that he was taller than anyone in the establishment besides the table of dwarves and the one halfling – it was familiar in a general sense but not specifically.
“Maybe?” he said. “Unlikely, but not impossible. We’re a little further into the city from the docks than I used to get.” It was, unlike most things Eoghan said, the actual truth without any “flavor”. But, Xen was his friend, and he was more honest with her than he was with most. She nodded in acknowledgment but did not speak. Eoghan raised an eyebrow and stroked his beard. He had never seen her in such a mood and didn’t like it. “So what’s up? Usually when I run off for a night of drinking you’re at a temple writing letters or studying something.”
“I… I kinda hate it here,” Xen sighed, propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand, swinging her feet which didn’t quite reach the ground. “I mean, maybe my expectations for the place were too high? Like, I – we – worked really hard and saved and saved for years so I could come here. And, like, it was supposed to be an amazing adventure, a clean slate where I could start over and master magic and… make friends…”
The last two words came out like a confession, whispered half under her breath and almost lost in the noise of the raucous tavern crowd before she rushed on, talking fast with barely a breath between sentences. “And then I got here and everyone was mean because I wasn’t rich, or powerful, and no one knew my family – all the rich people know each other’s families, you know? And they hated my ears and my eyes… just like back home. Even the teachers were mean, they all had favourites – except Frizle, she was nice. And Art when he came but I was here for two years before I met Art and it was even worse than being at home and—but now we’re back.
“And it’s sorta like… you know how when you get hurt everything is tender and sore but then it scabs over and it stops being quite so raw? The time I spent away from here sort of put a scab over things, but returning tore it back off. But, I can’t write to my father or Garryn about that – they worked really hard to get me here and I don’t want them to think I’m ungrateful. And I can’t study because that’s all I did when I was here before. Sit up in my room, by myself, and study. So that would just be like rubbing salt in the wound.”
She half-laughed. “Stupid, huh?”
“Hmmm…” Eoghan looked up and away – partly to genuinely consider the rhetorical question, but mostly to try and parse out the speech tsunami he’d just gotten buried under. “No. I don’t think so.” He looked back at her. “I mean, first off, the ears are cool. I bet you can hear everything people say – even the stuff they’d rather you didn’t. I only wish I could do that. Second-”
He was interrupted by a half-elven waitress with short red hair a little lighter than his own. She put a mug of ale and two shots of, “the strongest thing you got” in front of Eoghan. “Here you go, sweetie.” She smiled the smile of a busy, but still professional, server, “If you need anything else just let me know.”
Eoghan looked up at her, smiled a far more genuine one than hers, and said, “Thank you. Will do.” Then, he couldn’t help himself and winked at her. She rolled her eyes and walked off.
He looked back at Xen, “Where was I?”
“You were hitting on the waitress and fell on your face.”
“Right. Saw that, huh?” He grabbed one of the shots and downed it. His eyes went wide and he barely was able to exhale. He grabbed his mug of ale and took two gulps to try and quench the fire in his throat. If they stayed another night in town, he was definitely coming back here for more of that demon liquid.
“Second,” he continued once he was able, “those teachers at that magic school? The only reason they suck up to the rich kids’ families and treat them good is because they’re no good at using their skills to make any real money like you and me. I mean, yeah, we’re super poor right now, but only because we own a fancy burned-down country estate. We’re darn near nobles ourselves! You’re part of a big-time professional adventurer’s company. We saved a whole town! We saved a whole gaggle of rich folks – sure, they already paid us, but you know we’ll be able to squeeze some more work out of them.
“And, third, you got friends!” He gestured to himself. “Anyway, friend, you just say the word, and we’ll go to one of them teacher’s houses and burn it to the ground.”
“With pink-tipped silver flames, right?” Xen laughed, genuinely laughed, and looked up into Eoghan’s leaf-green eyes. They were twinkling mischievously but there was resolve in them too. He was joking right then, certainly, but he really would do this thing for her if she asked. And he was correct – she did have friends now. And she didn’t need the school anymore – she was learning so much more working with Nexus Argentum out in the world than she had locked in her room drowning herself in books. But still.
Still.
Wounds are wounds even if they aren’t bleeding.
However, she did feel better after talking about it and if anyone could help turn this evening around it was him.
“Thanks, Eoghan,” she said, leaning over to bump his elbow with her shoulder. “I don’t think that will be necessary, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“You got it!” he said and moved his hand to make some sort of gesture just as Xen was straightening back up. It jostled her slightly, and to keep her balance she grabbed a hold of the table, shaking it just enough to spill Eoghan’s remaining shot.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
She set the glass back upright as Eoghan pushed away from the table, moving far more quickly and smoothly than she ever could.
“It’s fine,” he assured her, looking down to confirm he’d avoided getting any of the spill on himself. “Fine, really–”
Xen traced a symbol through the air over the table, muttering a couple arcane words and as quickly as it happened the mess was cleaned up–the spilled booze whisked away into the ether. But that still left the matter of Eoghan’s missing drink.
Not that it would hurt him to drink a bit less – Xen had noticed he’d been consuming more and more alcohol every week. She’d actually wondered what wounds he was trying to drown with it, but this was not the time to ask him. This was the time to replace the drink she’d spilled.
Xen caught the eye of the pretty barmaid Eoghan had winked at. She pointed at the empty glass and raised two fingers. The woman nodded and started toward the bar, and as she strode past a table of rough-looking men, one reached out and slapped her across the bottom. Xen frowned and began to get up from her seat, but the barmaid stopped, turned around and, although Xen could not hear what the woman was saying she knew the unruly customer was getting a well-deserved dressing down.
Turning her attention back to Eoghan, Xen shook her head. “Some people, right?”
Eoghan scowled and replied, “Yeah, what’s up with that? I saw her first.”
The expression on Xen’s face turned from one of disdain to one of abject horror. Eoghan held his scowl in silence as long as he could before a smile broke through and he started howling, “Oh my gods! The look on your face!” His head hit the table and he pounded it with his fist. Between snorts and shrieks, he forced out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Worth it. Sorry.”
When he looked over, Xen’s expression had barely changed, and Eoghan realized he should actually be serious. “Yeah, you can’t do that,” he said, “you don’t know who that butt belongs to.”
“Wait, what?” Xen asked, “How would you not–”
“Back in the day, there was this gnome who was on the same ship as me–” Eoghan began, only to be interrupted by the reappearance of the server.
“Here you go.” The half-elven barmaid dropped off two new drinks.
“What’s your name?” Xen asked as she opened her coin purse and pulled out a small handful of silver.
“Theyaerys,” she said with a grin as she accepted the coin. “Thank you.”
“Hey, question,” Eoghan said. Theyaerys turned to face him and her expression went from decidedly positive when dealing with Xen to maybe a shade below neutral with him. Eoghan took note but did not acknowledge it. He pointed at the drinks on the table, “How much would it be for two more of these, two more ales, and to buy everyone who’s here one more of whatever they got right now?”
“Everyone?” she asked. Eoghan nodded, and she looked around the room and started counting it up. “Seventy silver.”
With a single, fluid motion, Eoghan’s coin purse appeared in his hand. He pulled a platinum piece out of it, and with the opposite motion, his coin purse was gone again. He handed the shiny coin to the waitress, and said, “Keep the change.”
Mouth agape, she reached out and took the platinum piece and walked back to the bar, staring at the coin the whole way. Eoghan looked back at Xen and she had the same horrified look from before. “Watch this,” he said, and stood up on his chair as Xen tried to sit as low as she could in hers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Eoghan the Mighty.” There were a few snickers among the gathered patrons, but he was used to that by now. He pointed down at Xen and continued, “And this is Xenathea Silverflame, hero extraordinaire! We are representatives and founding members of Nexus Argentum, the greatest adventuring company here on the coast, and your next drink, already on its way, is on us… Nexus Argentum. Tell your friends.”
He held his arms out wide and the bar erupted in cheers.
Eoghan dropped back down in his seat and jumped right back into his previous conversation with Xen as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “Back in the day, there was this gnome who was on the same ship as me. Was. Fizzwickit. Anyhow, one night on shore leave, me and Fizz decided to hit up a tavern in some nothing town barely big enough to have a harbor. There’s a lot of giants there? Not like real giants, but big. Anyhow, we were there for a couple hours and Fizz decides he’s all about it. He walks up behind our server and smacks her on the ass. Overhand…you know, because he couldn’t reach it otherwise.”
“Pfft. Some people,” Xen muttered under her breath.
He continued, “Yeah, well let me tell you, our waitress was a sorcerer or a witch or something.”
“What?” Xen asked, fighting back an opened tooth grin.
“Yeah. She spins around and without a word transforms Fizz into a cockroach and stomps on him! Just like that, no more Fizz. And that’s why you don’t go around smacking people.” He gestured to the rough-looking table with his chin, “They’ll smack the wrong butt eventually.”
“I mean…” Xen raised a finger in the universal signal for ‘hang on a second’ and then with a shake of her head lowered it again. “Yeah, I guess that’s one reason.”
Theyaerys returned, her tray stacked with tankards and glasses which sloshed with liquid of many and varied colours and shades of amber… and some green. She rested it on the edge of their table as she delivered their drinks – the two shooters and ales Eoghan had ordered as well as two more he hadn’t. The surprise additions were a vibrant green of a shade rarely seen in nature, and then only on the insides of beasties, not the outside. They came in a small sculpture – a frosted glass cobra held the separate shot glass in its coiled tail with its head up and hood on full display.
“What are these?” Eoghan asked, looking at the drinks the same way he would a shady character in a back alley, but there was no mistaking the smile in his voice.
“We call ‘em Snake Venom,” Theyaerys said, and seeing the look Xen gave her, raised one hand in reassurance. “They aren’t really, but they’ll knock you on your ass sure as their namesake.”
“And why are you bringing them to us?” Eoghan asked.
“Tradition,” she said. “Anyone who buys a round for the house gets snake bit.”
“…so, like, you punish people for their generosity?” Xen asked, confused.
For someone so ridiculously smart, Xen sure could be clueless sometimes, Eoghan thought. Thankfully, the waitress saved him from having to explain.
“Nah,” she laughed gently. “It’s the best kind of bite. Or at least the second best,” she winked at Xen. “Try one.”
When the woman sashayed off to take the next table their drinks. Eoghan gasped, and then and shook his head with a rueful smile. He turned to Xen to say something but couldn’t find the words. Instead, he just sat there for a beat with his mouth half open.
“What?” If Xen had looked puzzled before she looked positively befuddled now.
“Never mind,” Eoghan waved his hand then gestured to the nearly fluorescent green drinks. “On the count of three?”
This was a very bad idea. You didn’t need to be a genius to know this was a very bad idea and Xen was, in fact, a genius. She knew it was a bad idea. The worst idea.
But tonight felt like the night for bad ideas.
So she picked up the green drink, looked at Eoghan, and nodded. “On three,” she said, managing somehow to sound far more confident than she felt. In truth she wasn’t sure why her fingers weren’t shaking–this was scarier than giant animated statues, armed robbers, or monstrosities from space, but somehow her hand held steady.
Eoghan raised an eyebrow, impressed she was going through with it, and picked up his glass, lifting it to her in a sort of salute.
“One,” he said.
“Two,” Xen said.
“Three.”
Xen tipped the glass back and swallowed the contents in one gulp.
At first, she didn’t feel anything but then a searing burn, liquid heat, poured down her throat. It was like acid. Like flame.
She coughed. Sputtered. Grasped at her throat.
The heat went deeper, settling into her belly and then exploding into a warmth that mellowed as it moved through her. It filled her torso and spread to her limbs. To everywhere. It didn’t stop until her scalp and fingers were tingling while her throat still burned.
Wide-eyed, she looked over at Eoghan. His face had gone a strange shade of red and even he was reaching for one of the mugs of ale on the table. That seemed like the best idea ever and she grabbed the other and chugged it down. All of it.
When, finally, she could speak rather than cough and the sear in her throat had turned to a simmer, she looked back at Eoghan, her expression like that of a child at seeing their first magic. “We’re having another one of those, right?”
Up until that moment, Eoghan had never seen Xen take a drink of anything that wasn’t water or apple juice, and a small part of him was concerned he was a corrupting influence. After all, he was a former juvenile gang leader that got run out of his hometown, who, if he ever returned, would probably be killed on sight. After running away, and before joining up with Nexus Argentum, he’d crewed on a pirate hunting ship that wasn’t actually a pirate ship itself in name only for almost a decade before they dumped him after he got arrested in a bar fight.
Despite his incessant boasting to outsiders about the company and his genuine affection for the other members, he was constantly worried about his place in it. His biggest fear was getting the boot for screwing something up, and that the only reason they tolerated him instead of dumping him in some unfamiliar town to fend for himself was how good he was at stabbing things. But, he was happy to not be drinking alone for the first time in weeks and decided to ignore his worries for tonight. Xen was a grown woman, she could do what she wanted.
“I don’t think that one was just booze. If it was, they lied to me when I asked for the strongest thing they got earlier.” He slid one of the shots of the now second-strongest thing they had over to Xen. “Let’s start with this.”
Without a word, Xen grabbed the shot glass, downed the brown liquid in one gulp, and stared up at Eoghan in defiance for daring to suggest a starter drink after the one they’d just had. And then the pain started. Again.
Her eyes started watering, and she broke her gaze with Eoghan and looked around for something to put out the fire in her mouth. Her ale! Yes! She grabbed her mug and then realized it was empty. Panic! She looked left. Looked right. Up. Down. Back again.
Eoghan let out a huge belly laugh at the sight of Xen frantically searching for something else to drink. As he raised his own to take a sip, he heard the little fox-eared fae say something he didn’t understand, and suddenly his mug was yanked away from his hand and into hers. She drank almost half of it before setting it back down on the table.
“Sorry.” She said, looking down at the ground and then back to Eoghan. “But I needed it. That stuff is hot.”
“I know.” With that, Eoghan smiled, grabbed his shot, and downed it. It burned, but he had been drinking pretty regularly since he hit double digits, so he called on some of that experience to fight the burn down, not wanting to show any weakness. A grimace was all he gave up.
Xen held up what was left of Eoghan’s ale, “You need this?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he managed to say in a reasonable approximation of his normal speaking voice.
Xen stuck her tongue out at him and rolled her eyes.
Eoghan heard Theyaerys laugh from the other side of the bar. She was watching their table, so he held up Xen’s empty mug and raised two fingers. The waitress nodded, and before she could turn away he held up his hand to stop her, grabbed one of the little sculptures the Snake Venom came in, and held up another two fingers. Xen clapped her hands a few times.
When Theyaerys brought the drinks over and set them on the table, Xen started to fumble with her coin purse again. “How much?” she asked.
“For you, it’s on the house,” Theyaerys said to Xen with a grin, then looked over to Eoghan. “For you? Twelve silver.”
Xen said, “Thanks!” and went right back to looking at the tall shot glass in front of her, transfixed by the bright green concoction inside.
Eoghan half growled and pulled out a gold piece and a small handful of silver. In his estimation, Theyaerys was a terrible liar – she had charged him for all four drinks. He’d been planning on paying for them anyway, but her lying about it just annoyed him. “Here you go,” he said and placed the coins on the table. She took the small stack of money and headed back to the bar, checking over her shoulder at Xen, who was still mesmerized by the drink.
“Hey, after we finish these drinks, you wanna hit that other tavern we saw down the street?” Where maybe I can find a waitress less resistant to my charms, he thought but did not say.
Xen leaned back in her chair and considered the question as best she could through the alcohol-induced haze that was quickly enveloping her entire existence. “Yeah,” she said, “let’s go see what else is out there.” Then she picked up her Snake Venom and held it up to Eoghan. “On three?”
“Yeah, alright,” he said and picked his drink up.
“Onetwothree!” Xen yelled. She slammed her drink back, then let out an involuntary, “Woo!” and threw her glass on the ground. Instead of breaking, it bounced up and hit one of the patrons at the next table but Xen didn’t notice because she was too busy chugging her ale.
“What the?! You hit me with that glass!” The man who had smacked Theyaerys shouted. He burst out of his seat, knocking it over, and stomped over to Eoghan and Xen’s table. Eoghan set his Snake Venom back down, eyes narrowed, and moved his hand towards the hilt of the dagger he had concealed under his shirt. The very large human placed both of his very large hands on the table and leaned over their drinks. Eoghan couldn’t take his eyes off the hands at first – each was easily the size of his head.
Big Hands looked over at Xen and then back at Eoghan and with a raspy growl said, “I’m going to need you to keep your freaky little pet here under control.”
Before Eoghan could respond, Xen spoke. Her voice was cold, hard in a way he’d never heard before. The words came out slowly. None of Xen’s words had ever come out slowly before. Not ever.
“You don’t want this,” she said. And it took everything in her to do it, to warn him rather than just strike him down.
The alcohol had not only warmed her, it had also substantially eroded her inhibitions. She’d had years of practice turning the other cheek, years of experience dealing with bullies and name-calling – much of it in this exact city – but she didn’t have any experience with drinking and the alcohol was hitting her very hard and fast.
“You really don’t,” Eoghan confirmed, his fingers still creeping agonizingly slowly toward the hilt of his concealed dagger.
“Oh, I don’t, eh?” Big Hands’ breath washed over Xen, sour and soaked with the alcohol from the drinks Eoghan had just bought, adding insult to injury. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man’s friends stand up from their table, their hands moving toward scabbards on their hips.
“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry my glass hit you, why don’t you sit down and–”
He straightened back up and pointed at Xen. “Why don’t you suck my dick, foxy?” he leered.
Xen’s eyes narrowed and she made a gesture with her left hand. Eoghan watched as the glass she’d accidentally struck the man with was magically propelled from where it lay on the ground into Big Hands’ back, right between his shoulder blades. The impact drove him forward and he stumbled, catching himself before he crashed into their table.
Eoghan was shocked at the suddenness of the attack. He had seen Xen launch objects at various attackers, wild beasts, and fiends before, but never with that venomous look on her face. The guy was lucky she’d aimed for his back and not his head or she’d have taken it clean off his shoulders.
He glanced back at Xen – she had climbed up onto her chair, essentially standing over someone almost three times her size – then looked at Big Hands and back to the other two tough guys from his table making their way over. One was a human with leather armor and an eye patch, the other was far too big to be human – bigger even than Big Hands.
Eoghan grabbed the shot glass of Snake Venom and splashed it into Big Hands’ eyes as he was pushing himself up and away from the table. Big Hands screamed and clawed at his face as he stumbled away. Then Eoghan pointed at one of their would-be attackers and yelled “Xen!” as he tossed the empty shot glass in the air.
Xen wheeled around, wobbling on the chair and nearly falling off of it, but caught herself just in time. She raised her hand, somewhat unsteadily, and the shot glass stopped in midair for a fraction of a second before she pointed at Eye Patch and it fired in his direction, leaving a streak of silver and pink sparks in its wake. It struck him in the shoulder and spun him around to the floor as he cried out in pain.
Eoghan jumped up on the table, took two steps, and leapt into the air towards the giant. Grabbing him by the neck, Eoghan swung around toward his back and cinched his legs around the much larger man’s waist as he locked in a chokehold.
The big guy flailed his arms back and forth trying to hit Eoghan or shake him off, but to no avail. Eoghan felt the man’s knees start to buckle just as something heavy and hard smashed into his head, showering him with wooden splinters. The shock forced him to release his grip and Eoghan fell to the floor.
When Eoghan looked up, through the stars, he saw another, much more average-sized man standing next to the big guy he had been choking out. The new guy had a broken chair in his hand. This was bad–those thugs had friends he hadn’t accounted for.
The big one grabbed Eoghan by the neck, picked him up, and rag-dolled him into another table, sending glassware flying and patrons scrambling as Eoghan tumbled to the floor.
Seeing her friend get thrown around like a toy by the brute who, judging by his size – nearly as big as Maveith – had to be part Goliath, Xen growled.
She cast a spell, frowning at the fact her tongue didn’t seem to fit properly in her mouth anymore so she was slurring the words a little bit. It took her half a second longer than usual to reach the end of the incantation, but once she did, golden and green sparkles, quadratic equations, and tesseract shapes surrounded the stranger in a tight cylinder. And then he was gone. Xen pointed out the window to the second-story roof of a building across the street and smiled with satisfaction as she watched the cylinder reform there and deposit the Goliath atop it. She could not see his face from where she was standing, but his body language made her laugh out loud.
And then she was falling. Big Hands took a running start and tackled her off the chair she’d been standing on. They crashed into the floor, and Xen took the brunt of the damage as she cushioned Big Hands’ fall. He climbed to his knees, pinned her forearms down to the floor with them, and draped one leg back over her tiny body to keep her from squirming away. And then his fingers were around her throat. Squeezing.
Squeezing.
She tried to cast a spell but her hands were restrained and her brain fogged by drink just enough that she couldn’t get the complicated finger motions to work.
And then an earthenware pitcher was smashed against the side of Big Hands’ head, soaking both he and Xen in ale. He looked up in surprise, same as Xen, to find Theyaerys standing over top of them, the broken jug in her hand. Without a word, she smashed the rest of it into the man’s face once more. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the side, his weight sliding off of Xen.
Theyaerys reached a hand toward Xen to help her up.
The room finally stopped spinning for him, and Eoghan got back to his feet. His face was hot and throbbing – he touched his nose and mouth and felt a stab of pain. When he pulled his hand away it was bloody. Looking around, he didn’t see the goliath that threw him and Big Hands was unconscious on the ground by where Xen was being helped up by the barmaid. The bastard that hit him with the chair was still up, though, and he was heading towards Xen and Theyaerys. Eoghan saw a chair leg on the ground and reached down to pick it up. For a brief second, the world began to spin again, and he almost fell over but was able to use the chair leg as a bit of a crutch to steady himself before stumbling forward.
Bastard had hit him with a chair, Eoghan would hit him with its leg.
In his leg.
It only seemed fair, really.
As hard as he could, Eoghan swung the leg and cracked it in two across the side of Chair Whacker’s knee. The man dropped to the ground and clutched his knee, wailing. Eoghan smiled.
He heard commotions stirring both ahead of him and behind, but could only deal with one problem at a time, so he grabbed Chair Whacker by his collar and pulled him to his knees. He looked at the broken chair leg in his hand and raised it up to bring the jagged end down in a killing blow.
“Noo!” Xen and Theyaerys yelled in unison, their combined voices cutting through both the sounds of the fight and the adrenaline coursing through Eoghan’s body.
He stopped himself just short of plunging it into the man’s neck and looked over towards Xen in surprise. She shook her head, and mouthed the word, “Don’t.” so he flipped the leg around in his hand, and with a sweeping blow cracked it across Chair Whacker’s jaw.
A few of the man’s teeth went flying, skipping across the wooden floor like stones across still water, and Eoghan felt him go slack in his grip. He let him go, and the man slumped, unconscious, to the floor.
Eoghan spun around and discovered that the thug who’d taken a supersonic shot glass to the shoulder – Eye Patch – was up on his feet. His right arm was hanging limp but his scimitar was drawn and held comfortably in his left. Eoghan let the cracked chair leg clatter to the floor and drew his hidden dagger as he dropped into a defensive stance.
Eye Patch took a swing that Eoghan barely dodged. Eoghan feinted a thrust, and when the swordsman moved to parry Eoghan flipped the dagger in his hand to make a backhand attack into the other man’s now exposed side. Unfortunately, just as he made the attack, the other noise Eoghan had heard suddenly made more sense. At a full sprint, yet another attacker picked him up on his shoulder, and drove him into the wall, knocking out his breath as his dagger flew from his hand and skidded across the floor in Xen’s direction.
Eoghan dropped to the ground, wheezing as the new assailant rained blows down on him from above. All he could do was cover up as he saw Eye Patch stalking closer.
“Xen, help!” he shouted.
Whirling to face the bar rather than the woman who’d just saved her, Xen took in Eoghan’s predicament. A moment later a pillar of gold and green equations surrounded him and then he was gone, reappearing in an alley across the street just as the swordsman with the eye patch reached his previous location and slashed through empty air, burying his blade into the floorboards.
“So sorry about… everything, “ Xen said to Theyaerys. Her voice was strangled and raspy–her neck was definitely going to be bruised in the morning. She reached for her coin purse just as the remaining ruffians seemed to realise Eoghan was gone and turned their attentions on her.
The barmaid stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “Just come back,” she said. “And bring your friend.”
Xen half-laughed and, grinning like a mad woman, ran straight toward the two thugs who were turning to face her like a pair of hungry wolves. Seeing her running toward them made them hesitate and look at one another in confusion. That moment was all Xen needed to scoop Eoghan’s dagger up off the ground, and the instant it was in her hand, she was swallowed by pink mist.
One step she was in the bar, the next she was beside Eoghan in the back alley–with a giant angry man swearing down at them from the roof.
Still laughing she grabbed Eoghan’s waist in a hug and pulled him deeper into the alley, away from all the commotion.
“You look like hell,” Xen said, her voice raspy but functional, as they stumbled down the putrid alleyway. “I don’t think noses are supposed to look like that.”
“Really?” Eoghan reached up and lightly patted his nose and the surrounding areas. It was completely numb. “I can’t feel anything,” he said.
Then, he pressed hard onto his nose and a spike of agony shot from his face to the back of his head, down his spine, and out his limbs as he cried out and doubled over in pain. His vision turned dark and stars appeared. It was all he could do not to pass out. He stood hunched over in the alley with his hands on his knees trying to will himself back from the edge of unconsciousness. And then he felt a small hand touch his elbow.
Warm energy flowed from Xen’s hand up his arm and into his face. Surprisingly, some went back down from his shoulder and concentrated in his chest in a couple of spots – he must have had some broken ribs that hadn’t yet registered. Five or six seconds and a few audible pops of his nose later, everything was at least functional. He could feel his face and breathe through his nose again. That was a win.
He looked at Xen. “Thank you.”
She brayed like a donkey with laughter and started coughing.
“You alright?”
“Your face.” Xen coughed a little more, and pointed.
“What about it?”
“You look like a raccoon. It’s funny.”
Eoghan shrugged and dropped to a knee to get closer to Xen’s level, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Anytime.” She smiled and hugged his neck. “Seemed the least I could after apparently starting a bar fight…”
He stood up and they started walking off in silence. Suddenly, they both turned and pointed to the other, “Don’t tell Art!” they shouted in unison before bursting out in laughter.
Xen coughed a little more, and when she stopped Eoghan asked, “You still wanna go to that one bar we saw on the corner?”
Xen nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do.” She took a step and stopped again, grabbing Eoghan’s forearm and spinning him around. “Wait!”
She made the same motion she’d used to clean up the spilled drink, said something in a language Eoghan didn’t understand and the blood all over his shirt just disappeared from existence. Then she did it again, to clean the spilled ale from herself.
“Okay,” she said, “now we can go.”
That was a lot of blood, Eoghan thought. It was no wonder he almost passed out so easily. It wasn’t from the pain at all! Nope. Blood loss! Still Eoghan the Mighty. Yep…mighty.
“Oh, by the way, I have your dagger.” Xen held out Eoghan’s utilitarian black and silver dagger.
“Thanks, it’s my favorite one!” Eoghan took it from her and in a single motion it was gone, hidden under his shirt again somehow.
Xen shook her head. “I don’t get it. All your daggers look exactly alike. How can you tell which one is your favorite?”
Eoghan took a second to genuinely consider the question. “Well, whichever one I have on me at the time? That one’s my favorite.”
Xen rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Let’s go.”
As they walked off to their second tavern of the evening, Xen deliberately bumped into Eoghan. “Hey… that stuff you said about Fizz – that wasn’t true was it?”Xen slumped into the taproom and climbed up onto the seat next to Eoghan. Her ears, which normally stood up like a fox’s, drooped, significantly less perky than usual. In fact, everything about Xen was significantly less perky than usual. Since they’d reached the city, Eoghan had seen her mood visibly change, darkening. Noticed her talking less, quieter, and generally making herself smaller. Which was actually kind of impressive because she was tiny to begin with – her head only barely higher than the table.
“Is this one of the bars you haunted last time you were here or a totally new one?” she asked, forcing a smile.
Eoghan looked around and scrunched up his face, trying to force a memory that just wasn’t coming. Having spent most of his life bouncing from one tavern to the next since he was Xen’s height – not that he was taller than anyone in the establishment besides the table of dwarves and the one halfling – it was familiar in a general sense but not specifically.
“Maybe?” he said. “Unlikely, but not impossible. We’re a little further into the city from the docks than I used to get.” It was, unlike most things Eoghan said, the actual truth without any “flavor”. But, Xen was his friend, and he was more honest with her than he was with most. She nodded in acknowledgment but did not speak. Eoghan raised an eyebrow and stroked his beard. He had never seen her in such a mood and didn’t like it. “So what’s up? Usually when I run off for a night of drinking you’re at a temple writing letters or studying something.”
“I… I kinda hate it here,” Xen sighed, propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand, swinging her feet which didn’t quite reach the ground. “I mean, maybe my expectations for the place were too high? Like, I – we – worked really hard and saved and saved for years so I could come here. And, like, it was supposed to be an amazing adventure, a clean slate where I could start over and master magic and… make friends…”
The last two words came out like a confession, whispered half under her breath and almost lost in the noise of the raucous tavern crowd before she rushed on, talking fast with barely a breath between sentences. “And then I got here and everyone was mean because I wasn’t rich, or powerful, and no one knew my family – all the rich people know each other’s families, you know? And they hated my ears and my eyes… just like back home. Even the teachers were mean, they all had favourites – except Frizle, she was nice. And Art when he came but I was here for two years before I met Art and it was even worse than being at home and—but now we’re back.
“And it’s sorta like… you know how when you get hurt everything is tender and sore but then it scabs over and it stops being quite so raw? The time I spent away from here sort of put a scab over things, but returning tore it back off. But, I can’t write to my father or Garryn about that – they worked really hard to get me here and I don’t want them to think I’m ungrateful. And I can’t study because that’s all I did when I was here before. Sit up in my room, by myself, and study. So that would just be like rubbing salt in the wound.”
She half-laughed. “Stupid, huh?”
“Hmmm…” Eoghan looked up and away – partly to genuinely consider the rhetorical question, but mostly to try and parse out the speech tsunami he’d just gotten buried under. “No. I don’t think so.” He looked back at her. “I mean, first off, the ears are cool. I bet you can hear everything people say – even the stuff they’d rather you didn’t. I only wish I could do that. Second-”
He was interrupted by a half-elven waitress with short red hair a little lighter than his own. She put a mug of ale and two shots of, “the strongest thing you got” in front of Eoghan. “Here you go, sweetie.” She smiled the smile of a busy, but still professional, server, “If you need anything else just let me know.”
Eoghan looked up at her, smiled a far more genuine one than hers, and said, “Thank you. Will do.” Then, he couldn’t help himself and winked at her. She rolled her eyes and walked off.
He looked back at Xen, “Where was I?”
“You were hitting on the waitress and fell on your face.”
“Right. Saw that, huh?” He grabbed one of the shots and downed it. His eyes went wide and he barely was able to exhale. He grabbed his mug of ale and took two gulps to try and quench the fire in his throat. If they stayed another night in town, he was definitely coming back here for more of that demon liquid.
“Second,” he continued once he was able, “those teachers at that magic school? The only reason they suck up to the rich kids’ families and treat them good is because they’re no good at using their skills to make any real money like you and me. I mean, yeah, we’re super poor right now, but only because we own a fancy burned-down country estate. We’re darn near nobles ourselves! You’re part of a big-time professional adventurer’s company. We saved a whole town! We saved a whole gaggle of rich folks – sure, they already paid us, but you know we’ll be able to squeeze some more work out of them.
“And, third, you got friends!” He gestured to himself. “Anyway, friend, you just say the word, and we’ll go to one of them teacher’s houses and burn it to the ground.”
“With pink-tipped silver flames, right?” Xen laughed, genuinely laughed, and looked up into Eoghan’s leaf-green eyes. They were twinkling mischievously but there was resolve in them too. He was joking right then, certainly, but he really would do this thing for her if she asked. And he was correct – she did have friends now. And she didn’t need the school anymore – she was learning so much more working with Nexus Argentum out in the world than she had locked in her room drowning herself in books. But still.
Still.
Wounds are wounds even if they aren’t bleeding.
However, she did feel better after talking about it and if anyone could help turn this evening around it was him.
“Thanks, Eoghan,” she said, leaning over to bump his elbow with her shoulder. “I don’t think that will be necessary, but I’ll let you know if anything changes.”
“You got it!” he said and moved his hand to make some sort of gesture just as Xen was straightening back up. It jostled her slightly, and to keep her balance she grabbed a hold of the table, shaking it just enough to spill Eoghan’s remaining shot.
“Oh!” she said. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
She set the glass back upright as Eoghan pushed away from the table, moving far more quickly and smoothly than she ever could.
“It’s fine,” he assured her, looking down to confirm he’d avoided getting any of the spill on himself. “Fine, really–”
Xen traced a symbol through the air over the table, muttering a couple arcane words and as quickly as it happened the mess was cleaned up–the spilled booze whisked away into the ether. But that still left the matter of Eoghan’s missing drink.
Not that it would hurt him to drink a bit less – Xen had noticed he’d been consuming more and more alcohol every week. She’d actually wondered what wounds he was trying to drown with it, but this was not the time to ask him. This was the time to replace the drink she’d spilled.
Xen caught the eye of the pretty barmaid Eoghan had winked at. She pointed at the empty glass and raised two fingers. The woman nodded and started toward the bar, and as she strode past a table of rough-looking men, one reached out and slapped her across the bottom. Xen frowned and began to get up from her seat, but the barmaid stopped, turned around and, although Xen could not hear what the woman was saying she knew the unruly customer was getting a well-deserved dressing down.
Turning her attention back to Eoghan, Xen shook her head. “Some people, right?”
Eoghan scowled and replied, “Yeah, what’s up with that? I saw her first.”
The expression on Xen’s face turned from one of disdain to one of abject horror. Eoghan held his scowl in silence as long as he could before a smile broke through and he started howling, “Oh my gods! The look on your face!” His head hit the table and he pounded it with his fist. Between snorts and shrieks, he forced out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Worth it. Sorry.”
When he looked over, Xen’s expression had barely changed, and Eoghan realized he should actually be serious. “Yeah, you can’t do that,” he said, “you don’t know who that butt belongs to.”
“Wait, what?” Xen asked, “How would you not–”
“Back in the day, there was this gnome who was on the same ship as me–” Eoghan began, only to be interrupted by the reappearance of the server.
“Here you go.” The half-elven barmaid dropped off two new drinks.
“What’s your name?” Xen asked as she opened her coin purse and pulled out a small handful of silver.
“Theyaerys,” she said with a grin as she accepted the coin. “Thank you.”
“Hey, question,” Eoghan said. Theyaerys turned to face him and her expression went from decidedly positive when dealing with Xen to maybe a shade below neutral with him. Eoghan took note but did not acknowledge it. He pointed at the drinks on the table, “How much would it be for two more of these, two more ales, and to buy everyone who’s here one more of whatever they got right now?”
“Everyone?” she asked. Eoghan nodded, and she looked around the room and started counting it up. “Seventy silver.”
With a single, fluid motion, Eoghan’s coin purse appeared in his hand. He pulled a platinum piece out of it, and with the opposite motion, his coin purse was gone again. He handed the shiny coin to the waitress, and said, “Keep the change.”
Mouth agape, she reached out and took the platinum piece and walked back to the bar, staring at the coin the whole way. Eoghan looked back at Xen and she had the same horrified look from before. “Watch this,” he said, and stood up on his chair as Xen tried to sit as low as she could in hers.
“Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Eoghan the Mighty.” There were a few snickers among the gathered patrons, but he was used to that by now. He pointed down at Xen and continued, “And this is Xenathea Silverflame, hero extraordinaire! We are representatives and founding members of Nexus Argentum, the greatest adventuring company here on the coast, and your next drink, already on its way, is on us… Nexus Argentum. Tell your friends.”
He held his arms out wide and the bar erupted in cheers.
Eoghan dropped back down in his seat and jumped right back into his previous conversation with Xen as if nothing out of the ordinary had just happened. “Back in the day, there was this gnome who was on the same ship as me. Was. Fizzwickit. Anyhow, one night on shore leave, me and Fizz decided to hit up a tavern in some nothing town barely big enough to have a harbor. There’s a lot of giants there? Not like real giants, but big. Anyhow, we were there for a couple hours and Fizz decides he’s all about it. He walks up behind our server and smacks her on the ass. Overhand…you know, because he couldn’t reach it otherwise.”
“Pfft. Some people,” Xen muttered under her breath.
He continued, “Yeah, well let me tell you, our waitress was a sorcerer or a witch or something.”
“What?” Xen asked, fighting back an opened tooth grin.
“Yeah. She spins around and without a word transforms Fizz into a cockroach and stomps on him! Just like that, no more Fizz. And that’s why you don’t go around smacking people.” He gestured to the rough-looking table with his chin, “They’ll smack the wrong butt eventually.”
“I mean…” Xen raised a finger in the universal signal for ‘hang on a second’ and then with a shake of her head lowered it again. “Yeah, I guess that’s one reason.”
Theyaerys returned, her tray stacked with tankards and glasses which sloshed with liquid of many and varied colours and shades of amber… and some green. She rested it on the edge of their table as she delivered their drinks – the two shooters and ales Eoghan had ordered as well as two more he hadn’t. The surprise additions were a vibrant green of a shade rarely seen in nature, and then only on the insides of beasties, not the outside. They came in a small sculpture – a frosted glass cobra held the separate shot glass in its coiled tail with its head up and hood on full display.
“What are these?” Eoghan asked, looking at the drinks the same way he would a shady character in a back alley, but there was no mistaking the smile in his voice.
“We call ‘em Snake Venom,” Theyaerys said, and seeing the look Xen gave her, raised one hand in reassurance. “They aren’t really, but they’ll knock you on your ass sure as their namesake.”
“And why are you bringing them to us?” Eoghan asked.
“Tradition,” she said. “Anyone who buys a round for the house gets snake bit.”
“…so, like, you punish people for their generosity?” Xen asked, confused.
For someone so ridiculously smart, Xen sure could be clueless sometimes, Eoghan thought. Thankfully, the waitress saved him from having to explain.
“Nah,” she laughed gently. “It’s the best kind of bite. Or at least the second best,” she winked at Xen. “Try one.”
When the woman sashayed off to take the next table their drinks. Eoghan gasped, and then and shook his head with a rueful smile. He turned to Xen to say something but couldn’t find the words. Instead, he just sat there for a beat with his mouth half open.
“What?” If Xen had looked puzzled before she looked positively befuddled now.
“Never mind,” Eoghan waved his hand then gestured to the nearly fluorescent green drinks. “On the count of three?”
This was a very bad idea. You didn’t need to be a genius to know this was a very bad idea and Xen was, in fact, a genius. She knew it was a bad idea. The worst idea.
But tonight felt like the night for bad ideas.
So she picked up the green drink, looked at Eoghan, and nodded. “On three,” she said, managing somehow to sound far more confident than she felt. In truth she wasn’t sure why her fingers weren’t shaking–this was scarier than giant animated statues, armed robbers, or monstrosities from space, but somehow her hand held steady.
Eoghan raised an eyebrow, impressed she was going through with it, and picked up his glass, lifting it to her in a sort of salute.
“One,” he said.
“Two,” Xen said.
“Three.”
Xen tipped the glass back and swallowed the contents in one gulp.
At first, she didn’t feel anything but then a searing burn, liquid heat, poured down her throat. It was like acid. Like flame.
She coughed. Sputtered. Grasped at her throat.
The heat went deeper, settling into her belly and then exploding into a warmth that mellowed as it moved through her. It filled her torso and spread to her limbs. To everywhere. It didn’t stop until her scalp and fingers were tingling while her throat still burned.
Wide-eyed, she looked over at Eoghan. His face had gone a strange shade of red and even he was reaching for one of the mugs of ale on the table. That seemed like the best idea ever and she grabbed the other and chugged it down. All of it.
When, finally, she could speak rather than cough and the sear in her throat had turned to a simmer, she looked back at Eoghan, her expression like that of a child at seeing their first magic. “We’re having another one of those, right?”
Up until that moment, Eoghan had never seen Xen take a drink of anything that wasn’t water or apple juice, and a small part of him was concerned he was a corrupting influence. After all, he was a former juvenile gang leader that got run out of his hometown, who, if he ever returned, would probably be killed on sight. After running away, and before joining up with Nexus Argentum, he’d crewed on a pirate hunting ship that wasn’t actually a pirate ship itself in name only for almost a decade before they dumped him after he got arrested in a bar fight.
Despite his incessant boasting to outsiders about the company and his genuine affection for the other members, he was constantly worried about his place in it. His biggest fear was getting the boot for screwing something up, and that the only reason they tolerated him instead of dumping him in some unfamiliar town to fend for himself was how good he was at stabbing things. But, he was happy to not be drinking alone for the first time in weeks and decided to ignore his worries for tonight. Xen was a grown woman, she could do what she wanted.
“I don’t think that one was just booze. If it was, they lied to me when I asked for the strongest thing they got earlier.” He slid one of the shots of the now second-strongest thing they had over to Xen. “Let’s start with this.”
Without a word, Xen grabbed the shot glass, downed the brown liquid in one gulp, and stared up at Eoghan in defiance for daring to suggest a starter drink after the one they’d just had. And then the pain started. Again.
Her eyes started watering, and she broke her gaze with Eoghan and looked around for something to put out the fire in her mouth. Her ale! Yes! She grabbed her mug and then realized it was empty. Panic! She looked left. Looked right. Up. Down. Back again.
Eoghan let out a huge belly laugh at the sight of Xen frantically searching for something else to drink. As he raised his own to take a sip, he heard the little fox-eared fae say something he didn’t understand, and suddenly his mug was yanked away from his hand and into hers. She drank almost half of it before setting it back down on the table.
“Sorry.” She said, looking down at the ground and then back to Eoghan. “But I needed it. That stuff is hot.”
“I know.” With that, Eoghan smiled, grabbed his shot, and downed it. It burned, but he had been drinking pretty regularly since he hit double digits, so he called on some of that experience to fight the burn down, not wanting to show any weakness. A grimace was all he gave up.
Xen held up what was left of Eoghan’s ale, “You need this?”
“Nah, I’m good,” he managed to say in a reasonable approximation of his normal speaking voice.
Xen stuck her tongue out at him and rolled her eyes.
Eoghan heard Theyaerys laugh from the other side of the bar. She was watching their table, so he held up Xen’s empty mug and raised two fingers. The waitress nodded, and before she could turn away he held up his hand to stop her, grabbed one of the little sculptures the Snake Venom came in, and held up another two fingers. Xen clapped her hands a few times.
When Theyaerys brought the drinks over and set them on the table, Xen started to fumble with her coin purse again. “How much?” she asked.
“For you, it’s on the house,” Theyaerys said to Xen with a grin, then looked over to Eoghan. “For you? Twelve silver.”
Xen said, “Thanks!” and went right back to looking at the tall shot glass in front of her, transfixed by the bright green concoction inside.
Eoghan half growled and pulled out a gold piece and a small handful of silver. In his estimation, Theyaerys was a terrible liar – she had charged him for all four drinks. He’d been planning on paying for them anyway, but her lying about it just annoyed him. “Here you go,” he said and placed the coins on the table. She took the small stack of money and headed back to the bar, checking over her shoulder at Xen, who was still mesmerized by the drink.
“Hey, after we finish these drinks, you wanna hit that other tavern we saw down the street?” Where maybe I can find a waitress less resistant to my charms, he thought but did not say.
Xen leaned back in her chair and considered the question as best she could through the alcohol-induced haze that was quickly enveloping her entire existence. “Yeah,” she said, “let’s go see what else is out there.” Then she picked up her Snake Venom and held it up to Eoghan. “On three?”
“Yeah, alright,” he said and picked his drink up.
“Onetwothree!” Xen yelled. She slammed her drink back, then let out an involuntary, “Woo!” and threw her glass on the ground. Instead of breaking, it bounced up and hit one of the patrons at the next table but Xen didn’t notice because she was too busy chugging her ale.
“What the?! You hit me with that glass!” The man who had smacked Theyaerys shouted. He burst out of his seat, knocking it over, and stomped over to Eoghan and Xen’s table. Eoghan set his Snake Venom back down, eyes narrowed, and moved his hand towards the hilt of the dagger he had concealed under his shirt. The very large human placed both of his very large hands on the table and leaned over their drinks. Eoghan couldn’t take his eyes off the hands at first – each was easily the size of his head.
Big Hands looked over at Xen and then back at Eoghan and with a raspy growl said, “I’m going to need you to keep your freaky little pet here under control.”
Before Eoghan could respond, Xen spoke. Her voice was cold, hard in a way he’d never heard before. The words came out slowly. None of Xen’s words had ever come out slowly before. Not ever.
“You don’t want this,” she said. And it took everything in her to do it, to warn him rather than just strike him down.
The alcohol had not only warmed her, it had also substantially eroded her inhibitions. She’d had years of practice turning the other cheek, years of experience dealing with bullies and name-calling – much of it in this exact city – but she didn’t have any experience with drinking and the alcohol was hitting her very hard and fast.
“You really don’t,” Eoghan confirmed, his fingers still creeping agonizingly slowly toward the hilt of his concealed dagger.
“Oh, I don’t, eh?” Big Hands’ breath washed over Xen, sour and soaked with the alcohol from the drinks Eoghan had just bought, adding insult to injury. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the man’s friends stand up from their table, their hands moving toward scabbards on their hips.
“Look,” she said. “I’m sorry my glass hit you, why don’t you sit down and–”
He straightened back up and pointed at Xen. “Why don’t you suck my dick, foxy?” he leered.
Xen’s eyes narrowed and she made a gesture with her left hand. Eoghan watched as the glass she’d accidentally struck the man with was magically propelled from where it lay on the ground into Big Hands’ back, right between his shoulder blades. The impact drove him forward and he stumbled, catching himself before he crashed into their table.
Eoghan was shocked at the suddenness of the attack. He had seen Xen launch objects at various attackers, wild beasts, and fiends before, but never with that venomous look on her face. The guy was lucky she’d aimed for his back and not his head or she’d have taken it clean off his shoulders.
He glanced back at Xen – she had climbed up onto her chair, essentially standing over someone almost three times her size – then looked at Big Hands and back to the other two tough guys from his table making their way over. One was a human with leather armor and an eye patch, the other was far too big to be human – bigger even than Big Hands.
Eoghan grabbed the shot glass of Snake Venom and splashed it into Big Hands’ eyes as he was pushing himself up and away from the table. Big Hands screamed and clawed at his face as he stumbled away. Then Eoghan pointed at one of their would-be attackers and yelled “Xen!” as he tossed the empty shot glass in the air.
Xen wheeled around, wobbling on the chair and nearly falling off of it, but caught herself just in time. She raised her hand, somewhat unsteadily, and the shot glass stopped in midair for a fraction of a second before she pointed at Eye Patch and it fired in his direction, leaving a streak of silver and pink sparks in its wake. It struck him in the shoulder and spun him around to the floor as he cried out in pain.
Eoghan jumped up on the table, took two steps, and leapt into the air towards the giant. Grabbing him by the neck, Eoghan swung around toward his back and cinched his legs around the much larger man’s waist as he locked in a chokehold.
The big guy flailed his arms back and forth trying to hit Eoghan or shake him off, but to no avail. Eoghan felt the man’s knees start to buckle just as something heavy and hard smashed into his head, showering him with wooden splinters. The shock forced him to release his grip and Eoghan fell to the floor.
When Eoghan looked up, through the stars, he saw another, much more average-sized man standing next to the big guy he had been choking out. The new guy had a broken chair in his hand. This was bad–those thugs had friends he hadn’t accounted for.
The big one grabbed Eoghan by the neck, picked him up, and rag-dolled him into another table, sending glassware flying and patrons scrambling as Eoghan tumbled to the floor.
Seeing her friend get thrown around like a toy by the brute who, judging by his size – nearly as big as Maveith – had to be part Goliath, Xen growled.
She cast a spell, frowning at the fact her tongue didn’t seem to fit properly in her mouth anymore so she was slurring the words a little bit. It took her half a second longer than usual to reach the end of the incantation, but once she did, golden and green sparkles, quadratic equations, and tesseract shapes surrounded the stranger in a tight cylinder. And then he was gone. Xen pointed out the window to the second-story roof of a building across the street and smiled with satisfaction as she watched the cylinder reform there and deposit the Goliath atop it. She could not see his face from where she was standing, but his body language made her laugh out loud.
And then she was falling. Big Hands took a running start and tackled her off the chair she’d been standing on. They crashed into the floor, and Xen took the brunt of the damage as she cushioned Big Hands’ fall. He climbed to his knees, pinned her forearms down to the floor with them, and draped one leg back over her tiny body to keep her from squirming away. And then his fingers were around her throat. Squeezing.
Squeezing.
She tried to cast a spell but her hands were restrained and her brain fogged by drink just enough that she couldn’t get the complicated finger motions to work.
And then an earthenware pitcher was smashed against the side of Big Hands’ head, soaking both he and Xen in ale. He looked up in surprise, same as Xen, to find Theyaerys standing over top of them, the broken jug in her hand. Without a word, she smashed the rest of it into the man’s face once more. His eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped to the side, his weight sliding off of Xen.
Theyaerys reached a hand toward Xen to help her up.
The room finally stopped spinning for him, and Eoghan got back to his feet. His face was hot and throbbing – he touched his nose and mouth and felt a stab of pain. When he pulled his hand away it was bloody. Looking around, he didn’t see the goliath that threw him and Big Hands was unconscious on the ground by where Xen was being helped up by the barmaid. The bastard that hit him with the chair was still up, though, and he was heading towards Xen and Theyaerys. Eoghan saw a chair leg on the ground and reached down to pick it up. For a brief second, the world began to spin again, and he almost fell over but was able to use the chair leg as a bit of a crutch to steady himself before stumbling forward.
Bastard had hit him with a chair, Eoghan would hit him with its leg.
In his leg.
It only seemed fair, really.
As hard as he could, Eoghan swung the leg and cracked it in two across the side of Chair Whacker’s knee. The man dropped to the ground and clutched his knee, wailing. Eoghan smiled.
He heard commotions stirring both ahead of him and behind, but could only deal with one problem at a time, so he grabbed Chair Whacker by his collar and pulled him to his knees. He looked at the broken chair leg in his hand and raised it up to bring the jagged end down in a killing blow.
“Noo!” Xen and Theyaerys yelled in unison, their combined voices cutting through both the sounds of the fight and the adrenaline coursing through Eoghan’s body.
He stopped himself just short of plunging it into the man’s neck and looked over towards Xen in surprise. She shook her head, and mouthed the word, “Don’t.” so he flipped the leg around in his hand, and with a sweeping blow cracked it across Chair Whacker’s jaw.
A few of the man’s teeth went flying, skipping across the wooden floor like stones across still water, and Eoghan felt him go slack in his grip. He let him go, and the man slumped, unconscious, to the floor.
Eoghan spun around and discovered that the thug who’d taken a supersonic shot glass to the shoulder – Eye Patch – was up on his feet. His right arm was hanging limp but his scimitar was drawn and held comfortably in his left. Eoghan let the cracked chair leg clatter to the floor and drew his hidden dagger as he dropped into a defensive stance.
Eye Patch took a swing that Eoghan barely dodged. Eoghan feinted a thrust, and when the swordsman moved to parry Eoghan flipped the dagger in his hand to make a backhand attack into the other man’s now exposed side. Unfortunately, just as he made the attack, the other noise Eoghan had heard suddenly made more sense. At a full sprint, yet another attacker picked him up on his shoulder, and drove him into the wall, knocking out his breath as his dagger flew from his hand and skidded across the floor in Xen’s direction.
Eoghan dropped to the ground, wheezing as the new assailant rained blows down on him from above. All he could do was cover up as he saw Eye Patch stalking closer.
“Xen, help!” he shouted.
Whirling to face the bar rather than the woman who’d just saved her, Xen took in Eoghan’s predicament. A moment later a pillar of gold and green equations surrounded him and then he was gone, reappearing in an alley across the street just as the swordsman with the eye patch reached his previous location and slashed through empty air, burying his blade into the floorboards.
“So sorry about… everything, “ Xen said to Theyaerys. Her voice was strangled and raspy–her neck was definitely going to be bruised in the morning. She reached for her coin purse just as the remaining ruffians seemed to realise Eoghan was gone and turned their attentions on her.
The barmaid stopped her with a hand on her wrist. “Just come back,” she said. “And bring your friend.”
Xen half-laughed and, grinning like a mad woman, ran straight toward the two thugs who were turning to face her like a pair of hungry wolves. Seeing her running toward them made them hesitate and look at one another in confusion. That moment was all Xen needed to scoop Eoghan’s dagger up off the ground, and the instant it was in her hand, she was swallowed by pink mist.
One step she was in the bar, the next she was beside Eoghan in the back alley–with a giant angry man swearing down at them from the roof.
Still laughing she grabbed Eoghan’s waist in a hug and pulled him deeper into the alley, away from all the commotion.
“You look like hell,” Xen said, her voice raspy but functional, as they stumbled down the putrid alleyway. “I don’t think noses are supposed to look like that.”
“Really?” Eoghan reached up and lightly patted his nose and the surrounding areas. It was completely numb. “I can’t feel anything,” he said.
Then, he pressed hard onto his nose and a spike of agony shot from his face to the back of his head, down his spine, and out his limbs as he cried out and doubled over in pain. His vision turned dark and stars appeared. It was all he could do not to pass out. He stood hunched over in the alley with his hands on his knees trying to will himself back from the edge of unconsciousness. And then he felt a small hand touch his elbow.
Warm energy flowed from Xen’s hand up his arm and into his face. Surprisingly, some went back down from his shoulder and concentrated in his chest in a couple of spots – he must have had some broken ribs that hadn’t yet registered. Five or six seconds and a few audible pops of his nose later, everything was at least functional. He could feel his face and breathe through his nose again. That was a win.
He looked at Xen. “Thank you.”
She brayed like a donkey with laughter and started coughing.
“You alright?”
“Your face.” Xen coughed a little more, and pointed.
“What about it?”
“You look like a raccoon. It’s funny.”
Eoghan shrugged and dropped to a knee to get closer to Xen’s level, placing his hands on her shoulders. “Thank you for saving my life.”
“Anytime.” She smiled and hugged his neck. “Seemed the least I could after apparently starting a bar fight…”
He stood up and they started walking off in silence. Suddenly, they both turned and pointed to the other, “Don’t tell Art!” they shouted in unison before bursting out in laughter.
Xen coughed a little more, and when she stopped Eoghan asked, “You still wanna go to that one bar we saw on the corner?”
Xen nodded. “Yes. Yes, I do.” She took a step and stopped again, grabbing Eoghan’s forearm and spinning him around. “Wait!”
She made the same motion she’d used to clean up the spilled drink, said something in a language Eoghan didn’t understand and the blood all over his shirt just disappeared from existence. Then she did it again, to clean the spilled ale from herself.
“Okay,” she said, “now we can go.”
That was a lot of blood, Eoghan thought. It was no wonder he almost passed out so easily. It wasn’t from the pain at all! Nope. Blood loss! Still Eoghan the Mighty. Yep…mighty.
“Oh, by the way, I have your dagger.” Xen held out Eoghan’s utilitarian black and silver dagger.
“Thanks, it’s my favorite one!” Eoghan took it from her and in a single motion it was gone, hidden under his shirt again somehow.
Xen shook her head. “I don’t get it. All your daggers look exactly alike. How can you tell which one is your favorite?”
Eoghan took a second to genuinely consider the question. “Well, whichever one I have on me at the time? That one’s my favorite.”
Xen rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Let’s go.”
As they walked off to their second tavern of the evening, Xen deliberately bumped into Eoghan. “Hey… that stuff you said about Fizz – that wasn’t true was it?”
©January 2023, Rhonda Parrish and Jarrod K. Wade
Rhonda Parrish and Jarrod K. Wade meet every week with the other members of Nexus Argentum to test their DM’s patience and attempt to save the world. This is the first time their adventures have taken them to Swords & Sorcery.