Descending Dragon - Chapter two

Things went as expected with the rubes.

Our newest hero came to the inn with his hired hand and a few bagfuls of gear from Mr. Franker. He slammed them down at the biggest table, and declared ‘The next round is on me!’, and the town got to drinking.

No man alive was better than selling hope to a rube than Mr. Franker. Not that it’s hard. You see, when your average rube sees the prosperousness of a little frontier town, he gets the wrong idea. He expects the gettin’s good for all. He assumes the Delvers who go down come back with riches, and for a few weeks the town is soaked in gold. But that ain’t how life is.

Everything that matters in this life comes from two places: mines and farms. Other folk are just fiddling with it, passing it around. In Tristwood we more or less have no farms, and only a madman would call what we got a mine. A mine is a place where men work for their living, pullin’ things that shine from filthy stone. The Delve ain’t got nothing but blood and souls and filthy rock, and the only thing that comes out from it is misery.

Leg helped me move the barrels of beer and wine from storage up to the inn, while Willy watched the drunks at their craft. Our new heroic Delver’s hired hand looked like a serious type, so I expected there wouldn’t be any trouble. Garet and his boys never made an appearance, and I thanked the lord for that, though I was a bit distracted hoping the youngest was alright. With my fifth barrel up the cellar stairs I tripped against the rail, lost in another damn coughing fit.

“You alright?” Leg yelled as I dropped and the keg near splintered against the stairs.

“Yeah,” I wheezed, pushing down the anger and frustration and the sheer bloody unfairness of it all. “Let’s keep moving.”

Instead I tried and failed to catch my breath, and when Willy saw he came over and took my end without a word, and he and Leg moved the keg to the bar.

“Thanks,” I muttered later, but I could see Willy was as mad as me and wanted to smash my head or the keg or the drunks or anyone at all because it was all just as unfair to him. Or almost.

“I’ll get a breath of air,” I told him, and he forced enough calm to pat my arm.

“See ya in a bit.”

I’d always liked the night. Where we lived near the Edge Mountains, the night air was cold and perfect and I could almost breathe like I used to when I tilted my jaw up and stared at the stars.

I heard Harry the Horse snort. He was my favorite and maybe he heard me, and I smiled as I walked over. He wasn’t actually a horse. He was a dried up old mule without much use anymore save dragging the odd wagon, useful at the mill once but when he got too old and feeble I took from the miller for a pittance.

“Don’t know what the hell for,” the miller’d said with a shrug. “Guess you could eat him if you had the mind.”

‘He’s like me’, I didn’t say. ‘Old before his time. Thrown away before his legs are gone.’

“Yeah,” I’d said instead. “Could mix him in a stew maybe at the inn.” The miller had nodded and I’d gone on my way, and here was Harry three years later, tough as old shoe leather, outliving his end. Just like me.

I took a carrot from the bag near the stable and went inside to find him nuzzling at his stall. “Still alive,” I said, feeding him and smoothing the old matted fur on his nose. “Nothing’s amiss boy, never you mind.”

We stood together, Harry and me, looking out at the stars. Two mules with the end in sight. In a way I wished I’d just drop then and there, and be spared the worst of things to come.

“Want a smoke?”

I damn near leapt from my britches as a man’s eyes glowed in the dark. The rube’s hired hand was sitting plain as day on a hay bail furthest from the light, and I’d walked right past him. Somehow he’d lit a cigar and I saw he held a metal flask in the other callused hand.

“I…” my words caught, which was unusual, but then I supposed he’d scared the hell out of me. I sat down on another bail and shrugged. “Wouldn’t be good for me. I’m a Lunger.”

The man’s hard eyes didn’t even blink. He drew a long puff from his cigar and watched me like I might spring across the stables and brain him.

“What you doing out here?” I said, feeling a bit disquieted.

“Same as you, I expect.” The man took another long draw, and I realized he was sitting in front of his horse, almost like he was guarding it.

“I took good care of the animal,” I said, feeling a little offended. “I brushed him and fed him oats and an apple. He’s a fine, good mannered fellow.”

The man nodded as if he’d accepted something unpleasant. The closer I inspected him now the more wary I became. His clothes were baggy, but beneath I could see muscle so tense and wiry he was like a statue made of springs. As I’ve said, I’m a big lad, and I suppose prone to squabbling, but not for a moment did I want this man’s violent attention.

“You, ah, a hired man of the…” doomed rube, I thought, “the Delver there in the inn? Or you boys more like partners?”

The man stared so long I should have thought it was rude, but then I didn’t know much of the world or the habits of other folk.

“Just a job.” He spit in the habitual way of traveling men. “How long you lived here in Tristwood, boy?”

“All my life. Pa owns the inn.” I gestured.

If anything the man’s eyes only narrowed more. I got the feeling he didn’t like or trust me, though I couldn’t rightly see why. I’d have got up and left him alone save for I never really got the chance to talk to outside folk. Boys like me never talked to the rubes or got a chance to hear news save from the others, and I suppose I was hungry for it.

“What’s the latest from the War of uh, Three Kings is it? Them fellas still fighting in the South?”

The man snorted, but when I said nothing his brow quirked. “War’s over, kid. Why, you thinking of leaving town?”

“No, sir.” I shrugged, not embarrassed since how the hell should I know anything. “Just making conversation. Don’t get the chance to talk to many visitors.”

“Why is that?”

“On account of being young and a lunger, I guess. People think your contagious. Anyway, nobody talks to the innkeeper’s son.”

The man kept on smoking and staring like I was some kind of dangerous creature. Truth was I didn’t know what to say, and mostly we sat in silence as he finished his cigar. He rolled another without a pause, and gestured in my direction.

“Still don’t want one?” he asked again.

“Still a lunger,” I said. The man smiled a little.

“Then how about a drink? I expect you could use it more than me.”

I didn’t drink on account of my Pa, but for this night at least I thought why the hell not.

A dead man drinking with a dead man, I thought, and walked over to take the flask. I sat closer as I sipped, hardly feeling the burning liquid as it scorched down my throat and disappeared into a chest of ash.

“Appreciate it,” I told him without looking. I took a few more swigs and decided it was a fine night and a fine drink, and though I was sad for myself I thought maybe things would be alright for Willy and Leg and Suzie. Thinking of the future though made me look at the poor bastard who’d soon be another corpse in a rotten pit.

“Hey,” I asked, though I knew I shouldn’t. “what’s your name, friend?”

The grizzled traveler quirked the same brow as before, as if he’d been right to suspect my intentions.

“Rosco. Yours?”

“Sam,” I answered, feeling awkward and rotten, knowing I shouldn’t talk because the whole town depended on the trade. But the man was right here and sharing a drink with me and it just…it just wasn’t right.

“Listen, Rosco,” I licked my lips, “about the delve.”

“What about it?” the man took another long drag. He stared at me and I could have sworn he knew what I was about to say. I took a deep breath and coughed.

“Just…you want my advice? Don’t go down. You give that man back whatever he paid you, you get on your fine horse there, and you ride back South or wherever you come from. I don’t know what you’re looking for, sir, but it ain’t down that god cursed hole. I promise you.”

There. It was out. I suppose I should have felt shame for what I’d said, but instead it was like a weight had lifted off my back. I took another long breath and hardly even felt like coughing. The man’s face lost a bit of the edge I’d seen, and his brow smoothed as he flicked an ash from his cigar into the tray at his lap.

“What did you say your name was, kid?”

“Sam, sir. Sam Hardin. I’m the Innkeeper’s son.”

“And you said you’ve lived here in Tristwood your whole life, Sam?”

“Yes sir,” I said, not sure what that had to do with anything. “Seventeen years, and ten months, give or take.”

This time Rosco looked at me as if for the first time from head to toe. His eyes changed as if maybe he were only just paying attention, come back from that place we all go when we’re doing those things we have to. “Have you heard the voices, Sam? The whispers at night?”

He was watching me real close now, and my breath damn near caught in my throat.

Anyone who lived in Tristwood would know what he meant. There were voices just as he’d said, some that spoke from the hills and from the Delve and sometimes from the air itself.

We learned to ignore ‘em, just as we ignored the footsteps and the…creatures that sometimes roamed, closing our doors tight if the moon was full, the windows always locked and barred. It wasn’t discussed. Not ever, save between kids too young and dumb to know better. And sure as hell no stranger had ever said it.

“How did you…”

“Listen, kid.” He cut me off. Rosco stood up and jammed his smoke into the tray, reaching into a pocket. “You ever seen one of these?”

In the middle of his palm he held a kind of talisman, something you might buy from a smith’s wife who felt like making jewelry. It was round and smooth like a disc, with gold and silver filament circling it like light from a cresting sun.

“No, sir.” I couldn’t help but stare. “But it looks mighty fine.”

“You want to hold it?”

I met his eyes because for some damn reason I sure as hell did. In fact I almost imagined it already in my hand, and what it would feel like—the raised edges pressing into my skin as I cupped it in my palm.

“If you don’t mind,” I told him, trying and likely failing to hide the fact that I wanted nothing more. I didn’t hear him answer but then somehow it was in my hand.

The metal was almost warm, as if he’d been holding it before he took it from his pocket. It felt just like I’d thought it would, and I ran my thumb over the edging, then the flat iron. As I did I saw an imprint of maybe letters start to somehow shift and change, like they spelled something else I couldn’t read.

“Woah.” I looked at Rosco. “You see that? How’d it do that?”

Rosco snorted, and shook his head, as if unhappy with the world.

“It’s called a soulstone. That’s its magic. It looks a little different for everyone.” He hopped off his bail and lifted a sack over his wide shoulders, collecting a sword and a loaded crossbow he’d had sitting right nearby. The weapons should have alarmed me but all I could think was that he was leaving and would want back his charm, and how I didn’t want to let it go.

“It’s incredible sir,” I forced my hand out. “Thanks for letting me see it.”

He snorted again, staring at the stone, then at my hand.

“Seventeen years, he says. You keep it, kid. Belonged to a friend of mine. He doesn’t need it anymore.”

“I…” the thought filled me with a joy I couldn’t explain, and didn’t trust. “I can’t do that, sir, it’s too fine. It wouldn’t be right. I ain’t got nothing valuable enough to trade for it. Please.”

I tried to hand it back but Rosco was staring again.

“Strange town, this. It’s yours, kid. For the advice. I’ll sleep here, then do as you say. I’ll get my horse in the morning and head out.”

I wasn’t much for talking, as I’ve said, but I was well and truly speechless. I knew it was just some fancy bauble and I was still a lunger at the edge of the world, but it seemed to me the finest thing I’d ever had, and that anyone had ever done for me.

“Alright, sir,” I said, in not much more than a whisper. “Thank you very much, that’s mighty kind, and as far as I’m concerned I still owe you, whatever I can do, you just name it.”

Rosco smiled, and I thought maybe it was even real this time. “Don’t worry about it, kid. You gave me some advice, want to hear some of mine?”

“Yes sir.” I nodded, wiping my eyes with the cleanest bit of my dirty sleeve.

“Some people and some places can’t be saved. Pack a bag and get on that road. Leave this town and never look back.”

Before I could answer he’d slung his crossbow over a shoulder and turned back to the inn, his footsteps crunching gravel as he walked.

I just stood there for a time, staring at the trinket. As I thought maybe I’d saved that man’s life I felt a thing I couldn’t hardly express, and as I did I could have sworn the disc glowed even warmer in my palm.

I knew it was some trick of the metal but still smiled as I watched it, wishing I could read more than just the language of the Eastern folk, and so maybe understand the little words in the metal.

I put it in my pocket and figured I’d stitch some pouches in my pants to hold it going forward. The thought of losing it damn near brought a shudder to my spine. Then I walked back to the inn to help Leg and Willy before I lay down for the night, hoping only that Rosco really did follow my advice come morning.