“What happened to the Redcaps?” she asks, unconcerned about the rising voices at her end of the bar, as I start to serve tankards of frothing ale at my end.
“They had to leave, and they won’t be back,” I say loudly. “No one touches my staff,” I add with a growl, and a Reiver steps back slightly from the wooden surface swimming in ale.
“Lady Ryle?”
I look up from my pouring to see Cuthbert stood in the doorway to the bar.
The great warlock wrings his hands. He is the best muscle I can buy in a lawless place like the Night Lands. Shame he’s also the biggest coward going.
“The Redcaps are barred, Cuthbert,” I tell him.
“Yes, mistress,” he says.
I ignore him for a while as I continue to make my way up and down the busy bar, taking orders for the kitchens and serving up tankards.
When I get back to the door end, Cuthbert is still there.
“What is it?” I growl. “I need you on the doors. There’s a reason the Redcaps were barred.” I glare at him.”
“Mistress,” he whines.
“Whatisit?”
“There’s a…monster…”
The noise level in the bar seems to ramp up a level, and I can’t be sure what Cuthbert said.
“Whatever it is,” I shout over the noise, pulling yet another pint, “it can wait.”
I don’t look at him again, and when I finally get a second, he has gone.
Yep, the Redcaps chose a perfect evening to balls up by attacking my barmaid. I curse them under my breath whilst keeping a smile on my face and feeling the weight on my hip.
Whatever I do, I can’t let my emotions get the better of me. I can’t afford another massacre, not so soon after the last one.
Finally, there’s a lull in the clamour at the bar, and this time, instead of Cuthbert, Edgar is at the door, his face red with anger. Whereas Cuthbert is the muscle, Edgar is the half warlock you really don’t want to piss off.
“What is it?” I fire at him.
“There’s a Brag in the stables, and he is refusing to leave.”
“A Brag?” I query.
For all my memories of how I ended up here are gone, I like to think I have a handle on the inhabitants of the Night Lands, as much as I know how to run a tavern, even if I have no idea where this knowledge came from.
After all, it’s survive or die here, and I am refusing to die.
“You know, all hooves and hocks,” Edgar growls. “And shoes which can flay flesh from bone.”
“A centaur?”
“I wouldn’t call him that, not if I want to keep my head,” Edgar replies.
“What does he want?”
“You.”
HAZEL
