The whore pursed her lips and spat at his feet, some phlegm landing on the tip of his boot. He frowned and toed it in the mud as she cackled. He put his hands on his hips and lifted his chin at her. “You gonna let me pass?”
“Not wit’ out a big fat kiss I ain’t,” she said with a wide grin to show off her rotting front teeth.
“As tempting as that offer is, every single time you make it, I’ll pass. With regret.”
She cackled again. “You young ’uns always turn yer noses up at the packagin’, but experience has ya sniffin’ round in the end.”
Bile rose in his throat and took a moment before responding. “Charming, Mel. As always. ‘Young ‘uns’,”he mumbled. “You realize we’re of an age.” He cleared his throat and winced at the tang still at the back of it. “Just a question, if you don’t mind?”
“Nothin’s free, even questions,” she said and hitched up her skirt to scratch at a rash on her thigh.
Croak closed his eyes as a shudder passed through him. “Uhm, just curious. Any gents visiting from out of town?”
“Our whole bidness is out of town gents.”
“Bidness?”
“Ya ye fool!” she spat. “Bidness. How we’s make a livin’?”
“Ah yes, bidness. Of course.” Croak smiled thinly. “Any chance any of those gents going north?”
“Lots of folk headin’ north just now. Ye blind as well as stupid?”
“Right,” Croak said with a frown. “Know of any waiting on weapons from Benson? They’d be big fellas, swordsmen? Mercenaries? Here until Saturday. Two of them, traveling together.”
Melissa narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms over her big breasts.
Croak waited.
Melissa lifted a pale eyebrow at him. Croak sighed and dug into his breeches for a coin. He flicked the silver at her and she snatched it out of the air with one big paw.
“Saw a one such as fits that descriptin’.” She nodded down the street. “Had hisself a good time wif Jana then off to grab some food at Nathaniel’s.”
“Just the one?”
“Well, one’s all I’s seen,” she answered.
Croak looked down the street, then back at Melissa. “A pleasure, as always.”
She grunted in response and he tipped an imaginary hat at her, then strode off down the street, his pace more leisurely now the rain had settled to a fine mist.
He knew it could turn into a downpour at any moment, but for now, he enjoyed not having to run from awning to awning like an alley cat.
Benson was right; Laurica was busier than Croak had ever seen it.He shot quick glances at the people he passed on his way to the tavern but noted mostly families, more than likely refugees, trying to return home by the looks of them.
More than a year had passed since the first quake had shaken the ground beneath his feet. Weeks afterward, they’d heard stories from those running south, fleeing the devastation wreaking the north, decimating the land.
No armies, no war.
This was the work of Gaia, the superstitious northerners claimed. The old Titans stretching their limbs, reminding them they were still around a thousand years later.
After the earth shook, there were months of freezing temperatures in the north stretching as far south as Lindeloris, snow falling so heavily it buried entire villages. Then swirling cones of air ravaged cities, tearing through them like a sword through the neck.
In Laurica, the rain started shortly after and hadn’t stopped since.
Croak jogged up the walkway on the left, passing shops selling everything from hats to feed and tack. At the end of the cobbled street, a large stone structure stood with wooden doors and glass windows. The glass was thick and glazed in patterns of fish and water. A few men mingled outside and more streamed in and out. Business was good.
He slid past a couple men in front of the doors and swung one open, apologizing to the two as they shot him a look. Inside, the heat was almost as oppressive as Benson’s.
