by Serrus » Fri Mar 13, 2015 12:53 pm
"Belcaw."
His world was a spinning top, his ears a ringing clamour of bells, and a persistent voice that would not. Shut. Up.
"Belcaw!"
He closed his eyes to the golden field and black tree, and opened them to a bleak overcast sky. Two short faces and one long face stared at him from above, looming over him. He blinked, and the memory of the dream was gone, lost within the recesses of the mind. His vision cleared, and two men stood, men in uniform. Men he knew. To the left of them stood the blue roan, the stallion letting off a nicker, as if echoing the other men's call to awake.
"Greison," croaked the sellsword. "You still smell of pig shit."
They helped him to his feet, and his world spun again, around and around, He felt a hand on his shoulder and a word of concern before his stomach churned and he doubled over and wretched, the two soldiers letting out jeers and slapping him on the back. It was at this juncture the sellsword remembered, or rather forgot how much he'd drunk easing off the pain from the previous night.
"You still look like shit," countered the man-at-arms. "Get into a scrap?"
Belcaw touched his hair, where something was warm, and a hand pulled away to reveal fresh blood. His ears rang again, and his eyes flicked to the stallion, where they narrowed angrily, and the horse shied a slight. "Stable accident," the sellsword replied. He glanced back to the men-at-arms. "Anyroad, what t' bloody hell you two want? I wer't due for call while noon."
"Lady Warden sent word t'find yer. Message for yer person." A folded note sealed with the same insignia pin he carried was handed to him.
"That dwarf of 'ers say what she was after?"
"I'm smart enough not to ask."
They left him with his horse and sealed message in the muck and cold morning mist, while on the outskirts of the town, labourers already pulled their carts, with cutthroats and nefarious men of varying kinds standing guard as they made their way to the gates.
"That fuckin' beast 'as got 'alf everyone in this town right flayed." He glanced to the stallion, and as he did so, a great pain shot up his side where the hoof had fractured bone and bruised, and he felt the sting of anger rise through his blood, his hands reaching for a broken bit of fence he'd likely collapsed into the night before.
The stallion nickered softly, hooves trudging in mud, and it's head lowered, further and further, to rest still at the man's chest, nostrils flaring against the wet leather brigandine, and there it stood still, unmoving. An apology if there ever was one. The man's hand became knuckle white, his breathing harsh. Then he sighed, his shoulders sagged, and the wood fell softly back to the muddy earth.
* * * *
"Make a bloody hole there! MOVE!"
He arrived in the town streets like an arrow, a streak of bistre and black, the thick cloak trailing behind him, the Lady's own insignia pin at the centre of his chest. The blue roan's hooves thundered through the mud streets like falling stones, vapour mists trailing from hot nostrils as it pounded through the street, townsfolk having to scramble aside, many yelling protests and shouts of anger that he did not care about in the slightest.
He knew the Floating Dragon as well as any other nefarious member of the town, and was upon it with a thunderous gallop and a streak of protest from those behind him. He slowed to a trot, heading for the establishment's stables, though they were anything but; a set of butts and posts for beasts to be tethered to. Street urchins were on him like flies, hands reaching to pet and bat at the side of the storm-grey rouncey looking for coin, to which the stallion gave an angered whinny as the rider whipped the animal around on all fours, and it made a savage snap of teeth and wild empty kick through the air that sent the urchins scampering like the roaches they were. No copper was worth a bite to the face or a kick to the chest.
He found his way indoors toward the room without much aplomb, dressed in his armour of brigandine, hauberk and coif, rolled back, over a thick gambeson. His kriegsmesser hung at his side, steel an amber glow in the candle, rondel-hilted dirk sheathed at the other side. He hadn't a mirror to see himself, else he might have stopped to note the trail of blood that ran down his left cheek, smattered with mud, both drying now. He might have made himself more presentable, had he the time, but he'd served under her men for more than three seasons, and she hadn't called his summons in all that time.
He decided he'd rather be punctual and dirty than clean and late.