Posted on 2007/09/12
Joe carries on working at the stables, trying to fit back into the old routine and almost managing. He works with the worst horses, copes with Nipper, and begins to train Bramble to come when called.
As the week wears on, he becomes aware of two well-dressed men standing in the market place and accosting everyone looking even remotely adventurous with questions and becoming visibly more frustrated about the answers every day.
Not wanting to draw their frustration down on him, Joe takes to wearing his daggers and new leathers under a loose shirt and breeches just to keep them out of the men's sight. On the (frequent) occasions he has to pass them to get something for his midday meal, he keeps his head down and tries to blend into the crowd.
Finally, at the end of the week, as he is haggling with the nearby baker, he overhears the men arguing in Elven.
“I told you back at the start that this way wouldn't work! Now, we're nearly out of time!”
“I suppose you'll say we have to do the stables after all, will you?”
“It's our last chance…”
“Fat chance, you mean.”
“If they weren't so picky about who they'd travel with…”
“Yeah, and if this town wasn't so snob-nosed about hard work…”
Spotting several elves and half-elves bearing furiously down on the pair, Joe hastily winds up his haggling and gets out of there before he can get caught up in the impending fight.
Back in the stables, Joe decides to give Nipper a workout and give himself something he can be doing and still keep an eye out for those men at the same time…
Posted on 2007/09/19
By the time the men finally show up at the stables, Joe has Nipper circling on a lunge rein at a careful distance from the other stable hands. He keeps half an eye on them as they stand by the entrance and look around for someone.
Just as their gaze comes to rest on Joe, and they start towards him, Bramble comes bouncing over and plants muddy paws on their knees. She bounces away again as they swat at her and charges over to Joe instead. Joe whistles her close to him and keeps most of his attention on Nipper - who is eyeing up the taller man's hat.
“Hey, you! Groom in the blue coat!” calls the shorter man.
Joe looks up and says, “Yeah?”
“Who's in charge here?”
Joe isn't at all sure that he wants to help these two, but he doesn't have any real reason to refuse either. He compromises be saying shortly, “That'd be Stablemaster Alun.”
“And where might I find him?”
“You might find him in the main stable block,” Joe says and adds under his breath, “and you might not.”
The two men don't even thank him, they just turn towards the stables. The taller one comments quietly in elven, “I told you this was a waste of time. We want adventurers to escort them, people who know what they're doing, not idiot stable hands who've never been 3 feet from home in their lives.”
Joe glares at their backs, looks at Nipper beside him and delibarately unclips the lunge rein from Nipper's head collar. “You want that hat, Nipper?” he murmurs into a twitching ear. “Then go get it. Take those snob-noses down a few pegs.” He slaps Nipper's rump.
Nipper trots after the men, waits until they pause in the doorway, snatches away the hat and runs off with it.
The men turn furiously after him, while Joe just stands back out of the way and tries not to laugh out loud. Nipper does eventually drop the hat - on Bramble, who bounds off with it in her turn.
After a minute or so of that, Joe decides that maybe he ought to return the hat before it gets chewed into small pieces and calls Bramble to him. She takes a while to obey, and he takes it off her, chewed around one side and plastered with muddy marks on the other, bows floridly and says, “Yours, I presume.”
“Yes,” snaps the owner, yanking it out of Joe's hand.
Alun, meanwhile has come out to see what the problem is and tilts his head at Joe. Joe shrugs and mutters back, “Nipper ran off with the hat.”
“And you got it back for them?” Alun nods thanks at Joe and crosses to talk to the men.
The shorter one says curtly, “We were looking for someone smart and sensible enough to escort a pair of particularly intelligent - mounts - to a certain place.”
“That could be arranged,” Alun tells them. He glances at Joe, who is now calling Nipper in.
“They would,” the man says, lifting his chin, “have to know how to care for young horses and, as it stands, have a working knowledge of Elven.”
Alun glances over at Joe again. “Do you?”
Joe nods and snaps in Elven, “Yeah, but seeing as I'm only an idiot stablehand, who has travelled more than 3 feet from home, I don't know as I qualify…”
The dagger Joe's got is masterwork,
and the price of magic is far too steep.
Even the plat won't stem that hurt,
So a better dagger will have to keep!
Posted on 2007/09/27
Both men scowl as Joe throws their words back at them. Eventually, the shorter one says in Common, “You didn't say you could understand us.”
Joe looks back at them, one hand resting on Nipper's shoulders. “You didn't ask.”
“Yes. Well.”
“Can you protect yourself? You don't seem to have any weapons.”
Joe just looks at them. “So I'm not a fighting man. Tell me, how big do my knives have to be before they hurt when I stick them in you?” He thumbs open his coat to reveal the top of his bandoleer.
The men both wince, look at each other and shrug. The taller one sighs. “We don't have the final say on the hiring. You would have to be assessed by the - ones - you would be escorting. Would that be - acceptable?”
Joe slides his gaze towards Alun for permission and gets it with a nod. He shrugs one shoulder. “Sure - when I've finished my stablework. Being just a groom…” He shrugs again and without waiting for a reply, he takes up Nipper's leading rein and starts towards the stable block.
The taller man calls after him, “We'll be at the north gate…”
Posted on 2007/10/03
Joe waits until he's eaten his evening meal before he calls Bramble to him, pockets a raw half carrot, and sets out for the north gate. When he gets there, no-one seems to be around, although the gate hasn't closed for the night yet. He's just sliding one of his knives free when the taller of the two men appears round a corner. Joe shoves the knife back in its sheath, but keeps his hand on the hilt as he waits for the man to reach him.
The man stops just out of reach and jerks his head towards one of the sidestreets, “They're that way.”
Joe nods, keeps his hand on his knife and says curtly, “Lead on then.” He follows the man round several corners until they arrive at a lodging house that has stables downstairs and rooms upstairs.
When Joe looks up the stairs to see if he can spot the people he'd have to escort, the man shakes his head and says, “They're in the stable down here.”
Remembering belatedly that he's going to be escorting intelligent mounts, Joe follows the man into the stable, keeping Bramble close beside him. As soon as the door to the stables closes behind them, two large white horsy heads appear over stall doors and two pairs of large brown eyes stare very hard at him.
Joe hastily moves his hand away from his knife and does his best to stare right back. Bramble bounces away from his side before he can stop her and yaps loudly. Both horses shy back into their stalls at the sound.
Then the stall doors swing open and the horses march out, heading for Bramble. Bramble takes one look at the six feet high masses of white coated muscle and hoof, yelps and runs to hide behind Joe's legs.
Joe crouches defensively beside her and snaps, “I thought you were judging me, not my dog!” The white heads swing round to stare at him again, and then glance at each other.
Joe takes the opportunity to calm Bramble and stand up again. Now he has a good look at the horses, he can see that they are only half-grown colts. Then, as they wheel and come towards him at an angle, he suddenly sees the downy wings furled against their backs. He stands very still as they sniff him over and adds quietly, looking from one to the other, “I don't suppose you like carrot, do you?”
The two young pegasi look at each other and nod emphatically…
Posted on 2007/10/10
“I'll need to bring Bramble,” Joe says, carefully splitting the carrot into pieces with one of his knives. “She's too young to leave. And there's a pony as well, I have to keep an eye on. If I can bring him too?”
The left hand pegasus lips up a piece of carrot and nods without even looking at the men in the corner of the stable.
“Then I have to get travel rations and things - I can't eat grass,” Joe continues, pressing his advantage while he has it, “so I'll need at least one day to prepare. It would help if I knew how far you wanted to go…”
The right hand pegasus turns his head and stares at the two men in the corner, before tossing his head and taking a piece of carrot. Joe splits the last of the carrot, wipes his knife clean and sheathes it before he looks over at the men himself. “How far is it?”
“To Hafumin?” the taller one says grudgingly. “A week at least. Maybe a day or two more. These two aren't fully fledged yet, so they can't fly there. You'll have to take the road.”
The left hand pegasus tugs open Joe's coat and snuffles along the bandolier of knives under it, before turning his head away and sneezing. The right hand one lowers his head to study Bramble, who retreats round Joe's legs again, but finally dares to lift her head and touch noses with the pegasus.
Joe puts a hand down to reassure her and asks the men, “What about pay? Rations don't came free and neither does lodging.”
“Standard escort rates,” the shorter man mutters. He looks at the taller man and they pull matching faces. “Plus danger money if you have to fight off those who want to trap and sell them. 6 silver a day, triple if you fight.”
“I have a pony,” Joe reminds them.
They wince. “9 silvers a day then.”
“Better.” Joe nods. “All right then, I'll take it.” He glances at the pegasi. “If you don't mind?”
They shake their heads and snort.
“Day after tomorrow?” Joe suggests and they nod, ignoring the men.
Joe nods back, calls Bramble to heel and leaves to make his way back to the stables, already working out in his head where he can get the cheapest trail food from…
Posted on 2007/10/17
Next day, Joe waits until his lunch break before moving out into the market and filling his food stores with flour and hardboiled eggs, onions and carrots, hard cheese and cheap hard sausage. Adding feed for Nipper and Bramble to his load, he humps it back to the stable and packs it down into a more wieldy load, strapping his sack to the outside of the load.
Alun comes in as he is finishing and asks, “You off on this escort job then?”
“First thing tomorrow,” Joe tells him.
“Right. Right. How long will you be gone?”
“Couple weeks.”
Alun nods glumly. “It'll be hard to find someone to fill in for you. I just hope you're taking Nipper.”
Joe nods and Alun sighs with relief. “That's one less problem. Take care of yourself out there, Joe.” He heads back out to check the stables.
Joe watches him go, thinks for a minute and then examines all his knives for nicks and scratches, carefully removing the few he finds, just in case he needs to use them in a hurry…
Posted on 2007/10/25
Joe slips out of the stables at dawn, leading a loaded and rather disgruntled Nipper and with Bramble (mostly) following at his heels, and heads towards the pegasi's stables near the north gate. He has to wait for some time outside the stables before the pair emerge.
When they do, followed by one of the men, yawning widely, they seem more interested in Nipper than in Joe.
Joe watches them stand nose to nose with Nipper for what feels like forever, fingers crossed behind his back against the possibility of Nipper misbehaving (and maybe taking a chunk out of one of those white noses.)
Joe does take the opportunity to ask the man if the pegasi have names he can call them. The man nods curtly. “The one on the left we call Snowflake, and the other one is Icicle. Snow and Ice for short.”
Joe nods and thanks him before edging into the trio of noses and suggesting that they make a start before they lose too much more of the day. Snow snorts explosively, while Ice heaves a sigh and turns towards the north gate. Joe hurries after them and finally leads the way out onto the road…
Posted on 2007/10/31
All through the first day, Nipper and Snow jostle for the closest position to Joe while Ice walks just behind them, occasionally giving an exasperated look skywards. Eventually as the group enters the forest, they settle into a routine stand-off. Snow uses his greater strength to jostle Nipper clear, whereupon Nipper bares his teeth and mock-bites back, causing Snow to step clear.
When they continue to jostle around Joe as he sets up evening camp, Joe glares at them and demands, “Have you quite finished messing about?”
Snow looks sideways at Ice's impatient gaze and then hangs his head.
Joe nods acceptance. “I'd rather you spent your time keeping an ear open for movement around us.” He gathers up Nipper's leading rein. “And you can behave too. Or I'll put a muzzle on that mouth.” Nipper looks sullenly at him and Joe moves himself quickly out of the way, taking the opportunity to unload Nipper. He adds over his shoulder at Snow and Ice, “If you're so desperate to get that close, why don't you just walk one either side of me?”
Snow looks at Ice and then sighs and shakes his head as if he simply hadn't thought of that before…
Posted on 2007/11/07
The next day starts fairly well, with no more than a snap or two from Nipper. Joe decides that since they may be being followed, his old brown shirt and breeches will probably blend into the forest better - and it won't matter so much if they get damaged by thorns or branches.
About mid-morning, as they round a corner of the road, the faint buzzing that Joe has been ignoring as not important suddenly reveals its source as a group of bees that are as long as Nipper!
Nipper takes one look, flattens his ears to his head and tries to bolt back down the road. Joe hangs grimly onto the the rein and takes a careful look himself.
The bees drift back and forth across the path ahead and the hive beside the path is nearly as large as the fanciest mansions in town.
Joe hesitates, torn between the extra money and his own safety. A glimpse of one bee's sting decides him. Fighting is one thing. Fighting these is quite another. Wincing at the thought of those stings, Joe peers through the brush off the path. He doesn't see nearly so many bees in there so he leads the group back around the corner and tells the pegasi, “I think we go around this.”
They shudder, flick manes and tails and nod emphatically. Ice looks left and right and then back at Joe as if to say, “Which way?”
Joe bites his lip in thought and strokes a trembling Bramble with his free hand. There doesn't seem to be much of a difference. “Left,” he says at last and leads a very reluctant Nipper through a gap in the brush.
They work their way through the brush in single file, one ear constantly pricked to the incessant buzzing. At last it fades out and Joe works his way back towards the road. He stops behind a clump of trees and murmurs, “Wait here aminute. I'll go and check if the road is clear.” Ice promptly takes a firm grip of Nipper's lead rein with his teeth and stares at Snow until the other pegasus nudges Bramble away from Joe's legs.
Joe nods his thanks, squeezes his way through the last bushes and peers out at the road. It seems clear of bees, at least on the short section he can see, so he steps clear of of the bushes and moves to check both ways. Just as he turns from checking the trees, two huntsmen emerge from around the bend he was planning to take next.
“Any luck?” the man asks his partner.
She shakes her head and hitches the bundled net higher on her back. “Not so much as a hoofprint or a shed feather.
They look up and see Joe before has a chance to hide. “What you doing out here, boy? Hunting?”
Joe shakes his head quickly. “I prefer trapping to hunting,” he says, “and I know a man who's always willing to buy skins.”
The hunters grin. “And the fact that you can look to catch several beasts at once with traps has nothing to do with it, of course.” The woman adds, “Say, boy, in your trap seting, have you seen any flying horses?”
Joe frowns, his brain racing as he tries to think of an answer that won't give away Snow or Ice…
Posted on 2007/11/14
Joe purses his lips. “I might have seen them,” he says grudgingly, “if there's coin in it.”
The hunters smile sourly. The woman says, “Your sort are all the same, aren't you? How about I give you a clip on the ear to loosen your tongue?”
Joe looks at her. “Yeah? So I guess you wouldn't ask if you were me? Haven't you ever heard that you get nothing for nothing?”
“I'd ask,” the man said, “but if I was facing two well-armed fighters, I wouldn't expect to get.”
Joe moves out of reach as the man advances on him, swinging his spear down to point at Joe. “All right, all right, keep your hair on. I only asked.”
“Yeah? Well maybe we'll pay you after we hear it.” The woman rests her hand on a pre-loaded crossbow. “Now, talk.”
Joe ducks his head and backs out of the man's reach again. Peering out from under his fringe, he says sullenly, “All right, be like that. I saw them down there.” He points down the road towards the giant bees. “They were on the road, coming this way. You do what you want, but I'm not hanging around waiting for them to bite me again.”
“They bit you? Let's see.”
Joe rolls up one sleeve to reveal his latest Nipper-bruise.
The woman looks at it and then nods to the man. “Horse teeth, all right. I told you they wouldn't have got this far yet!” She straightens and moves off down the road the way Joe pointed. “Pay him.”
The man scowls, digs into a belt pouch and tosses a few coppers and silvers at Joe, who scoops them up and pockets them.
The man follows the woman down the road. Joe waits until they turn the first corner and then dashes back into the trees to move the pegasi before the hunters realise what he has done…
Posted on 2007/11/21
Bramble comes racing to meet Joe, almost before he reaches the clump of trees. Ice is grimly hanging onto Nipper's rein and looks very relieved when Joe takes it back.
The relief vanishes when Joe tells them softly, “There are hunters on the road, looking for you. We stay off it. Suit you?”
Both Snow and Ice flatten their ears, roll their eyes towards the road and nod.
The group sets off through the brush as quietly as they can - which is not always that quiet. Behind them, the buzzing suddenly rises to a crescendo, punctated by screams and yells.
Joe glances over his shoulder. “They've found the bees. Let's move a little faster, shall we?” He picks up the pace without waiting for an answer. The rest of the little party follow closely, but there are no sounds of the hunters coming back, only the screams that gradually die away into silence as the light fades from the sky and the forest grows dimmer.
Eventually, Joe finds a small clearing mottled with grass well away from the road and decides it will do for the night - but he won't light a fire in case the hunters smell the smoke. He eats a scant, cold meal instead, feeds Nipper and Bramble and tethers them in place, before slipping away back along the trail to see what the hunters are doing.
They aren't on the road where he first met them and he can't see any signs that they have come back that way. As he edges cautiously down the road, relying on the scant moonlight to see by, he finally reaches the edge of the bee colony.
All he can see are piles of dead, bees, and among them, two still human figures…
Posted on 2007/11/28
Joe stands frozen on the edge of the road, squinting through the darkness for any kind of movement from anything. When there isn't any, he darts over to the first human and peers closely before he recognises the woman hunter.
He stabs her between the ribs just to make sure she is dead and quickly strips free everything he can get at quickly - knife, belt pouch, buckler.
He scrabbles briefly around for the crossbow but doesn't find it. He does find a discarded empty quiver and a backpack held by only one strap.
Hastily moving on to the man he does the same thing, acquiring a second pouch, another knife and the spear and dumping everything except the spear into the backpack. Then, before any more bees come out of the hive and attack him, he gets out of there, returning to the animals and pegasi as fast as he can see to place his feet.
Eventually he reaches the clearing and tosses the pack down with a sigh. As he unties Nipper and Bramble, he comments over his shoulder to Snow and Ice, “The hunters won't be coming back to catch you.”
Ice cocks his head on one side and looks curiously at Joe.
Joe shrugs, pulling his bedroll out of his sack and climbing into it for warmth. “They tried to go through those giant bees we bypassed. The bees taught them better bee-havior.”
Ice snorts loudly and returns to grazing, but Bramble climbs into Joe's bedroll and snuggles up to him.
Grateful for the extra warmth, he lets her stay there with her nose just peeking out the top and settles down for the night, deciding that he'll leave investigating the pack and pouches until morning…
Posted on 2007/12/07
Joe is woken by a cold nose shoved impatiently down his ear. He flinches back as far as he can and pushes Bramble away.
Bramble simply bounces round him and sticks her nose down Joe's other ear. Joe sits up and swears at her under his breath, adding out loud, “Bramble, do you have to?”
Bramble licks his face despite attempts to fend her off and wags enthusiastically. Joe swears a bit more and decides that since he is awake, and there is just enough light from the rising sun, he might as well take a look at the pack and pouches he picked up.
He pulls them closer and rummages through. The pouches are heavy with silver pennies, some still whole, some cut into halves and quarters, and the whole lot sprinkled with coppers.
He pulls the oddments out of the pack and checks them over. The buckler is ordianary apart from a dented edge and the quiver is very basic, but the knives are both masterwork. He sets them aside to add to his baldric and digs deeper into the pack, coming out with a coil of silk rope, half a day's worth of trail rations, a couple of candle stubs, enough dry kindling to start a fire, a broken mug and a much patched grey shirt.
Joe strokes the rope several times before he reverently returns it to the pack along with the other odds and ends. After eating some of the dried fruit from the trail rations and thinking for a while, he decides that he might as well transfer some of his own gear from his bulging sack into his new backpack.
After transferring clothes, both new pouches of coin, his bedroll, tool sets and lantern to the pack, he feeds Bramble and straps on Nipper's pack saddle.
Looking round at the pegasi, he swings the pack up onto his back and slides the two new knives into place. “Shall we make a move?” he asks, tilting his head towards the road…
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