The track climbed to a large plateau dotted with prosperous farmsteads with broad fields and verdant pastures. Men were busy everywhere with plow and harrow. Their wives and children walked behind them, casting seeds.
Eager for news of the outside world, the farm-folk welcomed the Adventurers. Friendly farmwives sold them soft cheeses, fresh meat, newly-baked bread, and wonderful ales made from their homegrown barley. Clean stone barns provided comfortable nighttime accommodations.
They came at last to a town—a real town, not just a cluster of huts. A town with merchants, craftsmen, and, best of all, an inn.
The Blind Pig was by no means a regal inn. It boasted no individual chambers, only a large communal sleeping loft, but the food was plentiful and tasty, and the bedding acceptably clean.
The Pig did have one unique feature, a bath house. This was a simple shed in which a large brick tub was fed by an adjacent hot spring. The bath was available to all the inn’s guests free of charge.
Bathing was a common practice in the North, especially during the bitter winter months. In the more temperate climate around Gorgonholm, it had never caught on. Thurmond had grown up hating baths. His mother had called it a filthy and immoral practice that was guaranteed to bring disease.
But Sarah had taught him otherwise. She had a large copper tub in her chamber at home, a most rare and exotic item left behind by the former occupant. It had taken quite a bit of convincing, but she had eventually coaxed him into giving it a try.
All his childhood baths had been in a pond or stream, where he scrubbed himself with leaves pulled from a nearby bush. They had served a single purpose—to remove some offensive smell or foul substance from his body. Often he had not even bothered to remove all of his clothes.
Sarah’s tub offered an entirely different experience. Surrounded by candles, with steaming hot water up to his chin, he would enter a dreamy euphoric state closely resembling the effect produced by Florio’s addleberry wine.
After the long, painful ride, he was quite eager to enjoy the tub at The Blind Pig. He tried his best to get Sarah to come with him, but she begged off. She could be so unreasonable at times. But no matter. He would go by himself.
After the evening meal, a tankard of ale in hand, he set off for the bathhouse. The water was almost too hot, but he finally managed to enter the tub and stretch out. He closed his eyes and relaxed. The cool night air streaming in through the open door felt good on his exposed face and shoulders.
He heard the scrape of the footstep coming from the direction of the door. Sarah! She had decided to join him after all.
Without opening his eyes, he reached behind him for his tankard and was surprised when a heavy boot came down on his hand, trapping it against the bricks. He looked up, astounded, to find himself staring into the malevolent face of Drax. The scout held a crossbow aimed squarely at his chest.
Drax leered wickedly.
“Seems just like before, don’t it?”
Thurmond was too startled to reply, so Drax continued, eager to gloat.
“Bart wanted you for himself, but I been such a good scout, I convinced him I was entitled to a little bit of fun. So he gave you to me.”
Thurmond finally found his tongue.
“Your arm—I thought you couldn’t lift your arm.”
Drax grinned.
“That’s right—that’s exactly right—I couldn’t. But then back in that fisherman village I stole those healin’ potions outta the witch’s basket. Been drinkin’ just a little every night so it wouldn’t put me to sleep like it did you and the others. And whadda you know? Little by little, my arm come back. I can move it real good now.”
“What do you want, Drax?”
“I’m gonna kill you, you little piece of shit. You was all set to murder me when I was a helpless cripple. Tell me, boy, how’s it feel to be helpless and lookin’ at death?”
Thurmond fought to subdue the panic that was surging through his body. His voice with tight.
“What did you expect? You tried to murder me before.”
“Maybe so, but that time don’t count ‘cause it was just business. This here is strictly personal.”
Just as his fingers began to tighten on the crossbow’s trigger, the weapon was suddenly dashed from his hand. Cob stood beside Drax, holding a shortsword. Wat and Tuck glided in behind him.
Now it was Drax’s turn to be surprised.
“Cob—whadda you doin’? You’re supposed to be keepin’ watch, not messin’ up the plan. What’s the matter with you?”
Drax reached for the fallen bow, but the archer kicked it away.
“You ain’t gonna kill him, Drax. You reach for that bow, and it’ll be the last thing you do.”
The scout’s voice was tight with rage and frustration.
“You dolt—the kid’s a heathen. He hobnobs with witches and dwarves. You said you’d help me kill him.”
“I was lyin’. That’s a terrible bad sin, but not when you’re talkin’ to a dirty snake like you.”
While they argued, Thurmond scrambled from the tub, pulled on his clothes and boots, then buckled his swordbelt around his hips. Ever since his near-fatal encounter with the charcoal burner, he always kept his sword nearby.
Dressed and armed, he felt much surer of himself. He drew his weapon.
“Stand back, Cob. Drax and I will settle this by ourselves—fair fight.”
Drax snarled.
“I ain’t got no sword. I got nothin’ but my little belt knife. What kinda fair fight is that?”
Before the young man could respond, Wat dropped his shortsword at Drax’s feet.
“Here, Drax, you’re welcome to borrow mine.”
Thurmond’s voice was hard.
“Pick it up, Drax. It’s time to settle up.”
Then he shot a look at Wat.
“Whatever happens, don’t interfere. This is between him and me.”
Drax weighed the odds carefully. Thurmond was younger and stronger, but he was more experienced and far more cagey. Moreover, he was entirely unencumbered by the concept of fighting fair, a foolish ideal that might hamper his naïve young adversary. The shortsword would be light, fast, and much more suitable to the limited space of the bathhouse. Neither of them wore armor, so Thurmond’s heavy broadsword would offer no advantage.
With the speed of a striking snake, Drax scooped up Wat’s blade with his right hand and a small, three-legged stool with the left. Now he had a shield of sorts. With the odds on his side, he sneered.
“Come on, you egg, let’s dance.”
“I’m ready, you shaggy-eared scum.”
For all his bluster, Thurmond knew he would have to be very careful. Drax’ advantages were not lost upon him. If his blade were to lodge in the soft wood of the stool, the weapon could be wrenched from his grasp. If that happened, he could only pray that the three archers would intervene.
Drax was on him in an eye-blink, getting in close with the shorter weapon, slashing at his throat, his belly, his face. Thurmond was able to parry the first two blows with the flat of his sword. He jumped back from the third, but the tip of the shortsword opened a shallow wound along the line of his jaw.
Thurmond punched the scout’s chest with his pommel, knocking him back a step, then cut down hard at the base of his neck. Drax side-stepped, then moved in again before his opponent could throw another blow.
They slammed together, chest to chest, Drax endeavoring to work his point into stabbing position. Thurmond again shifted back, striving for the space to bring his longer weapon into play. His legs struck the brick lip of the bathtub. He could retreat no further.
Drax pushed in again, still trying for the stab. In desperation, Thurmond dropped his blade and grasped his adversary’s sword arm while Drax attempted to brain him with the stool. They grappled awkwardly against the edge of the tub, shoving, fumbling, losing their balance, until with a final stumbling lurch, Drax propelled Thurmond backward into the water.
He landed on his back with Drax on top of him. Both were entirely submerged in the near-scalding bath. With his right hand, the scout sought to draw his belt knife while he drove his left forearm into the young man’s throat, pinning him against the tub’s brick-lined bottom.
Thurmond’s dagger, worn stylishly across the small of his back, was out of reach. He struggled desperately to dislodge the arm from his throat, but Drax’s grip was too strong. Finally, gathering his legs beneath him, he stood, lifting both of them from beneath the water, then threw himself forward so they fell once again, but this time with Thurmond on top.
Drax’s back smashed against the hard, sharp bricks of the bathtub’s rim. Something inside him broke with a sickening crack. He groaned and slipped once more beneath the surface. Bubbles gushed from his open mouth.
Thurmond retrieved Wat’s shortsword from the tub’s floor, then reaching down, pulled Drax’s head from the water by his hair. The scout’s eyes were wild with terror. He coughed and coughed, while water ran from his mouth and nose. When he at last regained his breath, Thurmond placed the point of the sword against his throat.
“Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t finish you off right now?”
Drax was not listening. He began waving his arms in a frantic motion as if attempting to fly. When he finally spoke, he seemed to be talking to himself.
“Can’t move my legs—can’t even feel ‘em. I can move my arms, but not my legs. Ohhhh—I’m bad hurt. What’s gonna happen to me now? What’ll I do?”
Thurmond had, in the past, given the mercy blow to a badly wounded opponent, but something now kept him from killing this broken, miserable, luckless man. Drax would no doubt die from his injury—ruptured spines were notoriously fatal—so he left him there to live or die as Lady Fortune would have it.
The young Adventurer addressed the three archers, who stood by the door with drawn weapons. He had no doubt they would gladly slay Drax for him.
“I want to thank you—you men saved my life….”
He faltered, unsure what to say, especially to Cob for whom he had always felt a deep dislike. Wat grinned at Thurmond’s uneasiness.
“Aw hell, we saw Drax was a bad one right from the start. So Cob decides to make friends with him to see what he was up to. Tonight he tells us about Bart’s plan and how Drax gets to be the one to deal with you.”
“What’s Bart’s plan?”
At that moment, a chorus of shouts and screams, accompanied by the clang of steel on steel, erupted from the inn.