Selma Petterson

Short story

4-28-04

A Tale of Two Mercenaries:

The Best Way to Get Rid of a Cold

The inky blackness and pouring rain caused most of the streets of the town to be deserted. However, one place still spilled light into the dark streets and chatter could be heard coming from its door. Beldrar’s Inn always seemed to be buzzing this time of the year. Inside the building its worn wooden floors and smoke blackened beams were offset by the fire burning brightly in the hearth and the lanterns on the walls illuminating the majority of the interior. The inn was awash with merchants, townsfolk and other travelers. The townsfolk where there mostly for the good ale and to pursue a little business on the side mostly with the merchants, but not always...

Just as a lull came upon the usually talkative crowd, the door slammed opened and in walked a rain soaked pair of people, the one in front looking rather agitated, no, very agitated. Behind her hung a long soaking braid of what was probably blonde hair, but right now the stormy expression on her face took priority over other observations.

If she was a storm, her companion was what came after a storm. He looked miserable and soaked to the bone. Both of them were well armed, if not well cloaked, as their wet clothes told.

The woman walked right up to the bar with the innkeeper, Beldrar, behind it, slammed down her hands and made her demand.

“We need a room, two sleeping pallets; I don’t care as long as you can fit your foot between them.”

“Well...” began the innkeeper, taken off guard by her sudden demand, “your in luck, we do have a room, but it’ll cost two rynne’s per night.”

For a moment he was worried the woman wasn’t going to agree to that, and use the point of her knife for bargaining, but she merely glared and handed over the said amount of coin. Just then, her companion gave a great sniff and sneezed a sneeze to be reckoned with straight at the innkeeper. Shocked from having a few droplets of spittle landing on him, the innkeeper watched stiffly as the man gave an apologetic sniff and said, “Sorry, I have a cold...”

After they had gotten their room, which was large enough for four feet between the pallets, in order and changed into some dry clothes from their packs, the two companions went down to the common room to wile away the rest of the evening. Rhetta chose a table near the wall and looked to her traveling partner as she sat down.

“Gene, we’re really going to have to take up another job now that our cloaks have been lost in the flood.”

Gene shrugged as he sat and replied nonchalantly, “Well, I’ve heard there’s good jobs in the next town, it’s mostly low profile merchants here.”

Rhetta’s gloomy look rather tended toward not wanting to travel to the “next town”.

“Well, that rumor of yours better be good, or we’ll be stuck with a low paying high risk, shady job. I don’t want a repeat of the Nevis affair, that guy was a rat. I know we have a pretty good name, but being a sell sword isn’t all that easy, and a name’s not everything. We’re mercenaries, not heroes for hire or thugs for sale; I like good paying honest work, and that’s not easy to come by. Just because your standards are a little lower doesn’t mean... hey, are you listening?”

Gene was sitting cleaning out his finger nails with the tip of his knife, and didn’t answer.

With a growl Rhetta turned to stare out the nearby window, with an expression somewhere between pouting and brooding painted on her face. Their actions didn’t particularly inspire familiarity.

The morning was well on its way, and Rhetta awoke with a yawn and a stretch. After rubbing the sleep out of her eyes she glanced over at the matt of grey-blonde hair curled underneath the blanket. He was still asleep, and he looked so peaceful... Rhetta couldn’t help herself.

Standing up she lifted her foot and made a point of jabbing it into his side accompanied by, “Wake up lazy-guts, the sun’s already risen.”

Quite suddenly there was growl and a Gene attached to her leg, trying to squeeze it to death, which is why Rhetta had used her foot and not her hand. A muffled reply came from the disheveled mercenary, “I’m up.”

Rhetta began describing to Gene that which could be simply summarized as “stay here because your sick,” but with Gene, safe was better than sorry. He liked finding loopholes just for the fun of it.

As her speech finally ended, Rhetta continued getting ready and then headed out the door.

Left to himself, Gene spent a few moments trying to find something his friend had left out, and just when his mouth was curling into a smile of revelation, the she devil herself poked her head through the slightly opened door sternly saying, “And no girls!” slamming the door behind her.

Gene was left to pout, no loopholes this time. Besides he wouldn’t get their room that messy... maybe.

Rhetta sighed as she made her way down the stairs to the common room, why couldn’t her partner have been a girl? It would have been so much simpler. But no, she had Gene, who was a good compliment to her skills, but was most defiantly male. They had both been looking for a good, trustworthy partner to protect their backs, in the mercenary business that was often hard to come by, and they had happened to find eachother. Well, fate be damned, but fate’s what it seemed to be.

Finding a table near the window she sat down and took a moment to gaze out at the street. It was still muddy, but now carts, men and wives, children errand boys frequented its surface.

“Hello!”

Rhetta whipped her head around to see who had called. It was a woman—no, a girl at the edge of womanhood. The girl took Rhetta’s glance as a sign to continue talking.

“I’m the innkeeper’s daughter, Leayna,” after sitting down across from Rhetta, she continued excitedly, “Are yeh really a mercenary? And a woman? Da says girls shouldn’ fight, but yer a girl and yeh look pretty tough.”

“Yes... I’m a mercenary,” stated Rhetta cautiously, she didn’t like the way this impromptu conversation was going, “but it’s not that simple...”

“I’m bored...”

Gene was not taking his confinement very well. He sniffled a little and looked about the room for something to do. When his eyes fell upon his sword he immediately went over and swept it up, he really wanted to practice with it or use it, but... the room was too small and Rhetta would probably kill him if anything was damaged... so, since the urge to practice his sword technique took precedence over Rhetta warning, he clipped his sword to his belt and made towards the window. He had been through training with both his parents since he was very young, and some habits die hard, like the urge to practice with anything sword-like when he came across it.

Unlatching the window and the shutters was easy enough, but as Gene looked down, the descent wouldn’t be near as simple. Of course, he could go out the normal way... but Rhetta was probably just waiting to catch him trying to escape. Beneath him was what appeared to be another window, and since their room was only one story up, it shouldn’t be too hard to climb down with as little noise as possible.

Some how Leayna had gotten on the subject of Rhetta’s “companion” and could not be convinced that she hung out with him mostly for financial benefit.

“Well, yeh’ve just got to be lovers!”

“No, like I said, we decided to go free-lance and break from the company to try and make a bit more and our skills happened to be a good match. Our relationship is purely business.”

“Well, I just can’t believe that!”

The two were so busy arguing that they didn’t notice the foot hanging down over the window. They didn’t even notice when the very head of the topic they were fighting over peeked upside-down through the glass. They did, however, notice the loud thump just outside.

“What was that,” asked Rhetta.

“I don’t know.”

They both stood up and gazed out the window, but could see nothing out of the ordinary, and nothing that could have made that noise.

Crouching against the wall, hoping against hope that they wouldn’t see him, Gene couldn’t believe he’d fallen like that, all because of a sneeze! He carefully listened for the sound of Rhetta and her visitor to sit down again before he darted off to the alley. Once he was safely out of sight Gene couldn’t help but jump up with an exclamation of “FREE!”

But his joy was quickly smothered when he sneezed and coughed and finally had to give into the inevitability of needing a hanky to wipe his nose.

“But still sick,” he muttered dejectedly.

Walking out into the street Gene was temporarily taken up with the bustle of the towns’ people going to and fro, completing their daily business. There was so much bustle that all the energy made even the drab walls seem alive with hurried excitement.

Gene continued to walk, dodging various passersby until he came to a less busy part of town. As he watched he saw a woman snatched into an ally, and she had definitely tried to scream. Willing to do just about anything for a bit of amusement he dashed off to see just how the situation was developing.

When he got there three men who looked rather shady and not to well off, had the girl by her throat, “Hey, what are you doing?”

The criminals turned to look at Gene, he was rather intimidating, that was until he broke down into a fit of coughing. They stared for a moment and then broke out laughing, “We’re be’en threatn’d by a ill man,” one of the man managed to get out between guffaws.

Gene did not find his state in the least bit funny and drew his sword.

“I wish I could be a merc...”

Rhetta was about ready to throw in the towel and end it all. After the argument over Gene finally came to a conclusion the girl had asked her ceaseless questions about her life and then began to ramble on about all of her impossible dreams. Rhetta was extremely tempted to be rude and tell the girl to give it up. After considering all the ways to get away from Leayna, she came to a conclusion.

Standing up and slamming her hands down on the table was sufficient for shutting the girl up. Rhetta looked her right in the eyes and said “I’m going to go check on my friend,” daring the girl to state otherwise with her eyes.

Leayna sat silent and shocked fore a few moments before shaking it off and replying “Okay!” with the same smile she had worn when she first accosted Rhetta.

Rhetta swung around, braid flying, and stalked up the stairs.

When she opened the room, she found it empty of two important objects, Gene’s sword and Gene himself. All she could do for a while was stand in the doorway and glare at the place where Gene should have been.

The sight of steel quickly sobered up the men, and they too drew their weapons, shorts swords and one with a knife. Gene could tell from their faces they weren’t taking him seriously, they thought he was too ill to be a real threat.

That just made everything a hell of a lot easier.

Gene readied his sword and charged.

The criminals were completely taken aback by his quick up take and didn’t have time to put up their guard before the three off them were plunged into darkness.

Turning around and surveying his work with his sword leaning on his shoulder, Gene contemplated with a mix of disappointment and satisfaction as he stated, “Too bad I only used the flat of my blade.

“Hey,” he yelled as he turned to the girl, still standing against the wall in a state of shock, “wanna pay me for saving you?”

The answer was a slap in the face.

Gene slowly ambled back towards the inn, hoping Rhetta wasn’t too angry with him for leaving. As he approached the inn he saw a figure standing there with Rhetta’s distinctive blue shirt, and knew he was in for it.

“Rhetta!” he called, running up and putting his hands on her shoulders, “Guess what happened!”

She wasn’t really listening as he began to tell his story. “You left.”

Gene stopped talking and began trying to quickly think of a comeback, when suddenly it dawned upon him, “My colds gone!”

“I know,” was Rhetta’s reply, and she then broke out in a cough.

“You know what they say,” said Gene as he flung his arm around her, “the only way to get rid of a cold is to give it to someone else!”

“But, we can’t take any jobs if I’m sick,” protested Rhetta lamely.

“Don’t worry, you can give it to the innkeeper,” Gene replied confidently.

“Humph, I’d rather give it to his daughter.”