The Improbable Adventures of Scar and Potbelly: Ice Terraces of Crystal Crag (3 page)

Verin was the first to reach Potbelly. His attack lacked any finesse as had his previous ones. This time, Potbelly didn’t pull any punches. He twisted, allowed Verin to close and sunk his knife into the man’s chest. As he pulled the knife free, Potbelly struck him in the side of the head with the pommel of his sword. Even as another man wielding a sword closed with the pit fighter, Verin’s soon to be lifeless body fell to the ground.

Blades danced as Potbelly with sword and dagger stood back to back with Scar and his twin long swords. Their dance of death claimed man after man and still they kept coming. Then as Scar faced off against two men with swords, he caught sight of movement atop a nearby building.

“We got archers,” he announced.

Potbelly felled a knifer with a slit across the throat then ran a macer through with his sword. “Time to go.”

“Break left…” Scar said. Swords flashed and a mace was blocked on his right, a sword was deflected on his left then a quick follow up thrust dropped the macer. “Now!”

Both swords thrust at the swordsman causing him to stumble backward to avoid being run through. His withdrawal created an opening and the pit fighters raced off.

An arrow struck the ground where Potbelly had stood just a moment ago and another whizzed by his ear as he and Scar raced down an alley.

The unmistakable smell of a tannery filled the alleyway as they raced for their lives. The clatter of booted feet behind them said they were being pursued.

“We’re going to have the Watch after us sure as anything,” Scar said.

At the far end of the alley, they turned right. He paused a moment to glance back and saw the dozen or so men coming after.

“Will you move!” Potbelly said. Taking his friend by the arm, he pulled him onto one of the main thoroughfares of Castin.

This late at night, there were few out and about. Of those that were, even fewer were going about honest labor.

Oil lamps atop poles lit the street at twenty feet intervals. Beneath several, groups of men with the occasional woman stood in tight, huddled groups. A few raised their head as the duo passed though most ignored them, or at the very least feigned indifference so as not to be bothered.

Their pursuers boiled out into the street after them.

“Stop them!” they shouted.

“Murderers!” another cried.

Scar darted into another alley two blocks up. Potbelly followed close on his heels.

“We have to get off the streets,” Potbelly said.

Pausing only a moment, Scar scanned the alley; seeing a door slightly ajar a little ways down, he raced for it. “In here,” he said and shot inside.

Potbelly shut the door quickly and quietly just as their pursuers rounded the corner and entered the alley. They held their breaths as the stamping of feet quickly passed by.

“Maybe we should lay low until just before our ship sails,” Potbelly suggested. “Then make it there just before it leaves.”

Scar shook his head. “We are getting that map.”

“Are you addled? Tork said his hut was outside of town. There is still a lot of town to go before we leave it behind.”

“I don’t care,” Scar argued. “We aren’t leaving until we get that map. We’ve come too far to give up now.”

Potbelly had heard that tone in Scar’s voice and knew reason would have no sway over him. “How do you plan to make it to Tork’s place
and
get back to our ship by the time it sails in the morning?”

“One thing at a time. We get the map first then worry about the ship.” He glanced out a small window overlooking the alley, then turned to Potbelly. “If you wouldn’t dally with barmaids in every city we come to, things wouldn’t now be out of hand.”

Potbelly spat on the floor. “I did not know she was betrothed. Besides, seems to me I remember someone nearly getting spitted with sleeping with another man’s wife? Does Yearniga ring a bell?”

Scar chuckled. “She told me her husband was dead.”

“And yet we were in nearly the same predicament as we find ourselves now.”

“True enough,” Scar said and slapped Potbelly on the shoulder. “Now, let’s see where we are.”

The building proved to be occupied. Beggars, the destitute, and a plethora of ne’er-do-wells filled its various rooms. As they made their way through them, those they encountered looked up from their various forms of misery and watched them pass.

One old beggar held out a hand and Potbelly nearly gave him a coin but was stopped by Scar.

“Not here,” Scar warned in a quiet whisper. “If they know we have coins we’ll not get out alive.”

Potbelly nodded and they left the old beggar behind.

Five women dressed quite scantily were in various stages of repose in the main hall off the entrance. Two lay on old, stuffing-oozing couches, two sat on boxes, and the last leaned on the door jamb. They were in a state of boredom until Scar and Potbelly emerged from the inner corridor.

“Hey, boys,” one on a couch said. A busty brunette with an ample bosom patted the cushion she rested upon, “Could you use a tumble?”

A redhead on a box stood and strode forward very seductively. “I’ve been so lonely,” she said. Her hips swayed most suggestively. “Would love some company.”

“Sorry, ladies,” Scar said without even slowing down. “No time for a dalliance.”

As Scar made to pass by the lady leaning against the door jamb, she said, “Only two coppers.” She reached out and put her arms around Scar’s neck and made to kiss him.

Scar pushed her away. “Not tonight. We’re on business.”

She pouted. “Maybe when you’re done?”

Potbelly caught the woman running her hand down Scar’s side as Scar brushed past; saw her lift his coin purse.  His left hand punched her in the stomach. As she doubled over, he relieved her of Scar’s coin purse.  “Try this again and I’ll not be so gentle.” He tossed it to Scar.

Gasping and crying, she crumbled to the floor.

“You need to be more careful,” he advised his friend.

“Well, thanks,” Scar replied.

The other girls hollered at them, told them to get out of there and to stop beating up on poor, weak and defenseless women.

“I doubt if there is anything weak and defenseless about any of them,” Scar said. “Like as not they are each carrying and would have slit our throats when we were at our most vulnerable.”

“You got that right.”

Out on the street they moved quickly, but not so quickly as to draw attention, in the general direction where they believed Tork lived. Once the hollering women had fallen behind and their cacophony had diminished in the distance, they strained to hear anything to indicate their pursuers were nearby. Not hearing anything, they kept to the main street.

Every few blocks, they would duck into an alleyway or pause in some building’s dark threshold to see if they were being pursued. When no one seemed unduly interested in them, they would continue. They had gone seven blocks and had just passed through an intersection having a statue of a swordsman standing proudly upon a pedestal when motion up ahead caused them to dart up three steps and shelter within a darkened doorway.

“Think it’s them?” Potbelly asked.

Scar looked around the doorway’s edge to the street ahead. Three forms strode purposely their way. Heads turned to and fro and at each alleyway entrance, they would pause to look down it.

“Must be,” Scar replied.

Potbelly checked the door and found it locked. He pulled his knife.

“How long?” he asked as he knelt before the lock and inserted his blade’s tip.

“Not very,” Scar replied. “Best make it fast.”

Moving the blade about the inner workings of the lock, he discovered the locking mechanism’s release.

“Two seconds,” he said.

“Make it one,” Scar replied, “they are almost upon us.”

Carefully, he pressed the knife’s tip against the release and ever so slowly, pressed it inward.

“Now, if you would,” Scar urged.

Potbelly felt the lock click and sink into the open position.

“Got it!” Turning the handle, he pushed open the door and hurried inside.

Scar followed and passed within just as the three men came abreast of their position. He shut the door in a normal, relaxed manner though his instincts said to slam closed as fast as possible.

They waited half a minute expecting someone to break in the door or at the very least, knock. When neither transpired, they breathed a sigh of relief.

“We’ll wait a few minutes and let them get further down the street,” Scar suggested.

Potbelly nodded and then looked around the foyer they found themselves in.

Though cloaked in shadows, they could tell the owner of this place had money. Two pieces of artwork hung on the wall and on a pedestal not far from the door sat the bust of a man’s head and upper torso. A rug ran the length of the foyer and continued into the room beyond.

“I’ve been thinking,” Potbelly began.

“What about?” Scar said as he moved to look out a small window to the right of the door.

“It may be possible that they will know we mean to visit Tork.”

“Hardly,” Scar replied. “Only one that could have known that was Verin and he’s dead.”

“Not necessarily,” argued Potbelly. “There was already a crowd gathering when Tork and Verin were speaking. Any one of them could have put it together that we were accompanying Tork; especially since he said to meet him at his hut if we survived.”

Scar turned from the window. “Guess we’ll find out when we get there.”

Potbelly joined him at the window. “Clear?”

“I think so.”

Opening the door slowly, they stepped out on the front stoop. There they scanned the street in both directions; the three men were nowhere to be found.

Scar started down the steps. “Come on.”

Once on the street, they hadn’t gone ten feet before a very aged and ragged looking beggar stepped out of the shadows with hand held out. “A coin, good master?”

Potbelly flipped him a copper. “Here you go, old man.”

As they moved to leave him behind, the old beggar said, “Avoiding Garrock’s men?”

They stopped in their tracks and spun about. Scar’s hand gripped one of his swords. “What are you talking about?”

“I couldn’t help but notice that you ducked into that house awfully fast when his men approached.”

“This is none of your business, old man,” Scar warned.

Grinning a gap-toothed grin, the old beggar said, “I have no love for Garrock. Mean and nasty he is. Truly a blight upon this city.”

“Who is he?” Potbelly asked.

“He and his men extort the locals, those that can pay anyway. They leave me alone for the most part though there have been times his men got it into their heads that making an old man’s lot all the worse would be good sport.”

Pausing, he eyed them both in turn before adding, “Heard there was some trouble down by the docks. Two strangers killed three of his men long with several others; murdered them as I hear it.”

“That isn’t how I remember it,” Potbelly replied.

Scar shot him a look that silently said he should be keeping his mouth shut about such things.

“So I thought,” the old man said. “His men are all over the city looking for you two. I hear the odds of you getting out are not good.”

“How bad are they?” Potbelly asked.

“Fifty to one.”

“Any chance of laying some action down on that?”

The old man chuckled as he turned to Scar. “Not with me and any who would, would turn you over to Garrock.”

“Just a thought.”

“What’s your interest in all this?” Potbelly asked.

“I could get you out of the city,” the old man said.

Scar immediately grew suspicious. “Turn us over most likely.”

The old man shook his head. “If such was my plan, you would already be in their hands.” He sighed. “No, if I can cause Garrock some irritation, it would ease this old man’s heart.”

Scar cast a questioning glance to Potbelly.

“He’s got a point,” Potbelly said.

“Very well,” Scar said to the old man. “Lead the way.” As the old man turned to go, he added, “But if you betray us, you will be the first to die.”

The old man chuckled. “Fair enough.”

“What should we call you?” Potbelly asked.

“Old Man will do just fine.”

“As you wish, Old Man.”

Again the beggar cackled with amusement. He waved for them to follow. “This way, we must hurry. Already spent far too long talking out in the open.”

Old Man led them down the street a ways then turned into a side alley. Midway down, he came to a stop before a pile of refuse. Reaching down, he gripped a frayed, rope loop and pulled. A trapdoor buried beneath the refuse came up spilling some of is covering.