05

Dust motes curled into the air, bobbing from one narrow beam of sun to the next. Dawn pierced the slatted wooden walls and ceiling, illuminating the dim little tavern with strips of morning light. 

In truth, the Brist Alehouse was little more than a pig pen with delusions of grandeur. A spacious shack populated by cobbled tables and a handful of clay mugs, but at least it was clean.

The dark skinned proprietress slept with her head on the wood plank that served as the bar. Her arms interlocked to form a pillow and the thin matted locks of her hair slithered over her limbs and coiled on the bartop. Beside the beautiful barmaid, the oil lamps and candles had long burned out. Coins from the nights revelry had been counted and jammed into a furry ox testicle sack clutched tightly in her hand.

Granny Claymore sipped warm ale from a stein and eyed the tanned ox scrotum bursting with coin from her table.

“Keep them eyes on your game, ya wrinkled butter bag,” said the barmaid without opening her own.

Claymore’s face bunched up into a mischievous grin. “I’ll catch ya dozing one of these days, Ameh.”

“Look here, Swordmarm. You may bring in twice the business, ya old drunk, but you touch my balls and I will bury my boot in that dusty cunny,” Ameh said, hiding her smirk. 

The white haired barbarian cackled and turned back to the gambling table. The only remaining customers in the shack sat ringed around a slice of tree trunk that had been sectioned by lines and covered in ornate symbols. Several beefy fellows from the Brist carving tents had short stacks of coins on the table before them. They watched the old woman’s side of the table carefully, or gulped from their flagons, and muttered amongst themselves.

 The skinny man sitting beside Claymore palm-rolled the slender casting stones and the gathered players quieted. All eyes on Barnaby, he clutched the dice in one hand and blew on them fussily, then ran a palm over the ruddy stubble on his skull. Lean muscles tensed, as he prepared to toss, then stopped. The healer pinched the nostrils of his beaky nose with trembling fingers and bunched his empty brow.

The elderly warrior beside him slapped his elbow. She hissed, “Get on with it, beanpole! Yer making me look bad.”

“Ah, yes,” slurred the wildpriest. Squinting his eyes shut he tossed the stick-like dice, blind.

Silence. The small gathering held their collective breath, as the slim shards seemed to hang in the air. The lacquered polyhedrons twinkled before clattering on the large wooden table, and coming to rest at the center of a dozen mugs. There was a sibilant intake of breath as the crowd counted the colored faces of each stone. Suddenly, the small rabble of drunks pounded on the sticky oaken surface and roared victory or loss. 

At the bar, the tall snoozing beauty spasmed awake at the ruckus and fell out of her stool. Her scrabbling limbs overturned the bar and several stale mugs of grog crashed to the ground.

“Damnitall!” Ameh cursed, as she climbed back into her stool and rubbed her temples. “Cut that shouting, you lot!”

 Beer sloshed, as the celebrants cheered or lamented the game. One of the losers cursed and slammed his fist on the table. As he took to his feet to storm away, his chair toppled and he tangled his feet in its legs. Tripping, he smacked his head on the hay covered floor, and immediately began to snore. The rest of the players filled the alehouse with laughter. Some reset chits, and moved about coins, as the next player gathered the stones for his turn to cast.

“You are a natural, Barnaby! Luckiest -bloody- herb witch, I ever did meet!” said Granny Claymore over a hiccup.  

With her tongue poking between her teeth and one eye closed, she carefully thread a leather cord through the holes in the center of each silver piece she’d just won. The old woman’s grin grew wider with each clink. She jiggled the stack from the line tweezed between her fingers, tied it off, and tucked it into her shirt under her lucky breast. She laughed and pulled the medicine man to her level to plant a happy kiss on his forehead. A sobering blast of Barnaby’s pungent aroma followed, and she quickly released him.

“Lucky. Lucky. Lucky!” She said again, considering her next bet on the table.

“Must be m-my lucky day,” Barnaby slurred. The lanky figure bent to scoop up his own winnings, and lost his balance.

“Easy there, healer,” said one of the other players, who quickly stood and caught the counting herbalist. The burly man wore a loose knit sweater with sleeves rolled over forearms the size of small logs. His hearty laugh burst from a dense coppery beard patched in white. Massive palms gripped Barnaby’s shoulders, as the woodworker righted the younger man, gently helping the healer sit. 

Claymore arched an eyebrow at the barrel chested woodcarver, then winked at him. His bristles parted in a grin, and the warrior decided she’d invite this one for a roll in the hay. 

First, however, she needed to attend to the mounting pressure of her bladder. Grog was never owned, merely rented.

Claymore stood from the table. A bit wobbly, she spilled some of her watery beer. With a crooked smirk she set down the mug, patted the bound great sword that leaned against her chair, and excused herself to no one in particular. Glancing at the piss pots at the bar, she sneered before stumbling toward the door in search of more comfortable accommodations.

Once outside, the grizzled barbarian blinked for a moment in the brilliant light of morning. Contrasting the stuffy tavern, the air was fresh, bright, and filled with the sounds of morning commerce.

Granny Claymore’s ruddy nose wrinkled. Barnaby’s town of Brist was an oasis of cheery business and daily routine. For the swordmarm, convalescing in the beautiful pastoral village was a living nightmare of banality.

A grimace slowly draped from the wrinkled face. Considering the fact that a her long career as a fighter nearly ended due to a lowly blood infection, who was she to judge the banal? A sleepy death from corrupted blood and burial in a rustic town of woodworkers and farmers? The thought made her cringe. She, Claymore, felled by brownies, and worse, dying dry? Suddenly parched, she raised her hand for a sip from her mug. Staring at her empty fist, she blinked dully before remembering she left her beer on the game table.

The old woman wiped her hand on her breeches and licked creased lips. Three days in this little village had begun to make the wanderer’s hide itch. She shuddered, then tried to stretch her arms overhead and winced. Her body was on the mend, but it looked like she was stuck fermenting in this adorable little hellhole a bit longer.

Another day. Maybe two? 

At least there were the lumbermen. Claymore purred, as she watched a couple of brutes, sweaty and grunting, push a modified cart buckling under the weight of a few gigantic sections of tree trunk. Her eyes followed the struggling men, leaving the market with the new stock. 

The swordmarm knew the wood they moved was harvested from Brist’s dense surrounding forests. One by one the gigantic bones of trees were carted down the street. The wood portioned and purchased here in the market, then moved to the colorful tents nested in the meadow protected by the high wall.

The staccato clatter of wooden mallets striking chisels echoed in the cool air. Crafters and carvers labored under the marquees, constructing beautiful furniture and architectural reliefs. These works of art would be shipped to distant kingdoms, and foreign shores, Barnaby had told her.

The malodorous healer had buzzed around his workshop showing Granny Claymore the special dyes and pigments he made for varnishes and his healing glyphs. In her many years, the barbarian had witnessed the great power of colorcraft. She had to admit, Barnaby was surprisingly knowledgeable. 

She followed the lanky wildpriest around the impressive wooden wall that protected Brist. She had limped along using the great sword as a crutch, listening as he jabbered on about hues, stains, warding glyphs, and woodgrain.

The young man had toured her along the small market road on which she now stood, and even down to the grassy far-walker pens, where Claymore demanded a step stool to pat the adorable long legged foals. 

Of course, this introduction to the town happened only after she was intimately familiar with Ameh’s bar. The pretty black girl ran a tight ship, and kept one’s mug full and the stories flowing. Qualities in a barmaid the elder greatly respected. 

The swordmarm frowned as she swayed in front of the door to the alehouse, thinking of  Ameh and her watery beer reawakened the old woman’s grumpy bladder.

Granny Claymore looked away from the market road toward the nearby shit house cuddled in an alley by a ratty copse of saplings. The drunk cocked her head and haltingly calculated the water closet’s distance from the table and the sheathed sword in the tavern. Biting her bottom lip and squinting at the maths, the white-haired woman nodded, then tugged up her sagging pants, before stumbling in a wavering line aimed loosely at the privy. 

A scraggly chicken stood blocking the door to the planked enclosure. The feckless hen ignored her, clucking and pecking for worms or some silly such. Claymore glared at the noisy bird, but the idiot creature seemed unaffected by her silent rage.

The tiny barbarian punted the flea bitten wretch, which took wing and flapped a short distance away. Unruffled, the skinny fowl plopped in the shaded dirt of a basket maker’s stall. There, it resumed scratching for food, jerkily glancing about at the foot traffic.

Claymore opened the shit house door, and reeled. Gagging at the blast of earthy stink, she glanced away to take a fresh breath and steel herself to enter the hut. In that moment she spotted the men beside the weaver’s booth, the stalwart chicken clucking beside their feet. The old woman wobbled a moment and squinted. 

They stood, watching the bar and talking amongst themselves. At intervals they would glance up and down the alley of market stalls, and then back toward the door to Ameh’s establishment. Finally, they walked across the dew muddled street toward the ale house.

Claymore shut the door on the mystery men, and dropped her trousers. She plopped on the open bench and groaned in

relief at her heavy stream.   

Some time later, had it been hours? The swordmarm was startled awake by an urgent knock, and the sound of her name hissed through the privy house planks. She had been dozing against the wall, and her legs had gone completely numb.

“What do you want?” Claymore groused.

“Granny! You disappeared. There’s a problem in the tavern. Please! You need to come!” Barnaby said, he continued knocking looking urgently up and down the road.

“Damn the Flame!” the old woman cursed. Screwing up her face, she leaned forward and tugged up her pants. “Stop that bloody rapping! I am coming, damn it!”

The ancient warrior pushed the door open and slid past the healer. “How long was I out?”

“Twenty minutes or so, but things just went crazy. The game… men came. Ameh is hurt,” said Barnaby his face a mask of terror.

 “Fuck,” said the swordmarm as she waddled toward the alehouse. She balled up her fists and beat her thighs trying to work out the pins and needles that throbbed in her legs.

The ale house door slammed open, and gilded splinters of hay kicked up in its wake. 

Granny Claymore stood silhouetted in the doorframe absorbing the scene. In the split second before acting, she thrust her senses into the darkened room, like bats bursting from a cave. 

The handsome bearded carver was strewn across their table, blood pooling from his mouth. His unfocused eyes reflected his own claret as it spread across the woodgrain. Red bubbles in the briny tide crawled, making islands of coin and casting stones alike. The copper scent of his ebbing life blossomed in Claymore’s nostrils. One of the drunken men cowered behind a table, the legs of another poked lifeless from behind the bar. The other players must have fled.

The ancient warrior could taste dust, stale grog, spicy vomit, and terror shits in the air. 

One of the strangers from across the street sat at the bar counting coins from Ameh’s bag as he toyed with a small gold loop dangling from his ear. Another, held the dark-skinned barmaid face down on the counter. She gasped weakly in a puddle of stagnant beer as her attacker barred his forearm behind her neck with all of his weight. Her assailant wore a ragged mesh of savage scratches on his face, spittle and blood spattered through his gritted teeth, as he growled to the other men. A third, head wrapped in dark linen, stood behind the bar with Claymore’s greatsword. He slashed at the many knots that fixed the scabbard to her blade with a knife shaped like a small talon. Finally, there was the ham-headed dolt that had thrown a tantrum when he lost and knocked himself out. His laughter died in his throat when he saw the tiny white-haired barbarian at the door.

Granny Claymore smirked, her eyes glinted beneath the wrinkled folds of her brow. 

“Must be my lucky day,” said the swordmarm before stepping into the tavern, and closing the door behind