Demontech: Onslaught (16 page)

Three or four workmen were engaged in chores around the main building. A painted wood sign hung from an iron arm above the door, indicating that it was an inn.

“What are we waiting for?” Haft demanded when he saw the sign, and gave his mare a kick in the ribs.

The inn should have been an inviting sight to Spinner as well, but it wasn’t. He grabbed the mare’s bridle as she started to go past and stopped Haft.

“Look at the sign,” Spinner said slowly.

“What about it? It’s the name of the place.”

“What’s the name?”

Haft peered at it. It had a painting of a man who looked like he was running: one leg and one arm slightly bent at hip and knee, shoulder and elbow; the other arm and leg were more sharply bent; the head was tucked down. He couldn’t tell how the figure was clothed—it was painted a solid black. He couldn’t make out the three words written under the figure.

“The Racer?” he guessed. “The Running Man? I don’t know. Can you read it from here? Your eyes are sharper than mine. Anyway, what does it matter what the name is? I never heard any warnings about Skragish inns. Let’s go. I’m hungry and thirsty and I want a bath with soap.” He flicked the reins to start his mare toward the inn.

Spinner didn’t let go of the bridle. The mare rolled her eyes as though to say, Make up your minds.

“I can read the sign,” Spinner said quietly. “It says, ‘The Burnt Man.’ ”

Haft’s brow furrowed. “What an odd name for an inn.” He looked at the sign again. Yes, the figure on the sign could have been the corpse of a man who had burned to death. “Well, I’ve heard the Skragish are an odd people. But this just looks like an inn. The Rose and Thistle back home looks just like it.” When he flicked the reins, Spinner let him go. The mare eagerly cantered into the trees, headed for the stable and corral.

Spinner sat on top of the ridge a moment longer. The Burnt Man, he thought, so odd a name. He wondered what significance it had. And the size of the inn bothered him. It was as big as any he’d seen in New Bally. He looked all around the glade, but the only road he could see entering the valley was the one they were on. The road was wider here than it was closer to the border, and looked as if it bore more traffic—even though they’d seen no one else traveling it—but it was still just a little side road. It didn’t seem likely that enough people would pass that way, at least not on the road, to support so large an inn. And he was curious about a low rumble he heard somewhere in the background. Wondering all those things, he tapped the stallion’s flanks with his heels and slowly followed Haft.

The stableman was as helpful and friendly as any Spinner had ever met, and once they found a language they could all speak—Frangerian, as it turned out—he was more talkative than most. He assigned stalls to the three horses, unsaddled the mare and the gelding, and had their tackle hung before Spinner finished unsaddling his stallion.

“Now you don’t worry about a thing, sirs,” the stableman said. “I’ll take right good care of your horses. Me and horses, we get along fine.” The horses seemed to agree; they closed around him and nuzzled at his face and shoulders. They nickered when he gave them sugar cubes. “And don’t you worry none about cost neither,” the stableman continued, while briskly rubbing at the horses’ necks and ruffling their manes. “The price of a stall for your horse is included in the price of a room for yourself. If you’re only stopping for a meal, the price of oats for your horse is included in the price of your dinner.” He leaned away from the horses to look at Spinner and Haft. “I know what you’re probably thinking when you hear that, and you’re wrong. When you go inside and pay for your meal and your room, I think you’ll find that the price you pay is about the same as you’d pay for a meal and a room at an inn that charged extra for bedding and feeding your horse.” His chest puffed and he looked smug and proud. “The Burnt Man doesn’t gouge its customers, no sir. And we’re mighty proud of that. And there is entertainment, the finest entertainment to be found within a week’s ride. That makes The Burnt Man a very profitable inn. We get lots of happy visitors coming back. Now you go inside and see Master Yoel. He’ll take right good care of you.” Stepping away from the horses, he shooed the two men toward the inn.

“See? Nothing to worry about,” Haft said. “A name is just a name. I think I’m going to enjoy being here tonight.” He strutted toward the inn. “I wonder what the entertainment is.”

“What’s that noise?” Spinner said. The low rumble he’d heard on the ridge top now resolved itself to a drone that came from the far side of the inn. He’d wonder about the entertainment later.

“We’ll find out about that noise soon enough,” Haft said. He reached the inn door, flung it open and strode through.

Spinner followed, less grandly. He knew that something was wrong. The inn was too big for where it stood; he’d never heard of a stableman in an out-of-the-way inn like this who spoke as many languages as this one seemed to; and there was that name. Well, he’d watch for whatever it was, he decided, and hope he was ready for the trouble when and if he discovered it. He only hoped he wouldn’t discover it too late to do anything about it.

Spinner was surprised when he stepped over the threshold. Even though few of the windows were unshuttered and open, the interior of the inn’s main room was as bright as the day outside, lit by a light with an odd, bluish tinge to it. Before he could locate the source of the strange light, or even get any more of an impression beyond the fact that there were several customers sitting about, the innkeeper bustled over to them—if a thin man can accurately be said to bustle.

Master Yoel was shorter than Haft, and a stoop made him look even shorter. His eyes were widely spaced and his nose beaked. His scalp was exposed by an almost perfect disk of baldness; a few strands of hair combed across the front of his scalp completed the circle of hair.

“Good young gentlemen, welcome to The Burnt Man,” he said in Frangerian. He alternated briskly rubbing his hands with briskly drying them on his snowy white apron. “Come in, come in.” He let his hands and apron go and waved his new guests into the room, put a palm on Haft’s arm and aimed him at an empty table. “Would you like a flagon of beer? How about a crock of wine? If you can read, the slate over the kitchen door has today’s menu. Not that I think such fine-looking young gentlemen as yourselves can’t read.” He got them seated and made sure their chairs were stable and they were comfortable. Then he started to recite the day’s menu.

“Don’t bother,” Spinner interrupted, somewhat sourly. “We can read the menu for ourselves.” The innkeeper talked so fast about so much that Spinner didn’t even wonder how it was he knew to talk to them in Frangerian instead of starting with Skragish and then having to work his way through other languages until they found a common tongue.

“Of course you can, of course you can. I meant no harm or insult, I was merely trying to be helpful.”

“Well, a flagon of beer would be most helpful,” Haft said eagerly.

“Beer, instantly.” The innkeeper shot a hand up and snapped his fingers. “Doli,” he shouted. A serving maid darted to his side. His voice sounded like the crunching of gravel when he spoke to her in Skragish. The maid curtsied and dashed off. “Will you be wanting a room for the night?” the innkeeper said, returning his attention to his guests and his tongue to Frangerian. “Did the stableman see to your horses? Do you want a bath?” His nose nearly crinkled when he said “bath.” “I recommend you be in this common room tonight for our evening’s entertainment. Nearly all of our guests find it to be grand. Even the farmers and woodsmen hereabouts find our evening’s entertainment to be grand. Soldiers come from garrisons four days ride distant—sometimes even farther—to see our entertainment.”

“That sounds great,” Haft said. “What is your entertainment?”

Master Yoel lay a finger alongside his nose. “You’ll have to wait until tonight to find out. But I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.”

“We do want a room for the night,” Spinner said. “And we will want a bath. First, though, what we want is to sit here and quietly drink a flagon of beer, to rest from our day’s journey. In a while we will order dinner.” Then, knowing the sometimes suspicious nature of innkeepers, he opened his purse and put a small gold coin on the table. “This should more than cover our stay, should it not?”

The innkeeper snatched up the coin and held it close to his eye to examine. One side held the visage of a fierce-looking, helmeted man, the other had a crossed sword and lance. Words in a strange language were inscribed on it. “Jokapcul?” he asked. When Spinner nodded, the innkeeper bit into the coin, then looked closely at the tooth marks he’d left in it. “Well, I guess this will be legal tender here soon enough. And if it isn’t, it’s still gold and can be melted down.” He peered at them from under lowered brows. “You don’t look like Jokapcul. Not that I’ve ever seen one, of course. All I know about them is what I’ve heard from travelers who have stopped at my humble inn. I hear they are a gnomish people with orange skin and hair blackened with dripping tar.” He looked pointedly at their weapons, then back at them, and asked, “Are you soldiers of some foreign army fighting them? Does your being here mean the Jokapcul are coming this way?”

“We aren’t Jokapcul,” Spinner said. He ignored the other questions—and the implication that he and Haft might be deserters. “This coin was legal tender where we just came from.”

The serving maid addressed as Doli returned with two flagons of beer and put them on the table.

“If I may have your names, good sirs?” Master Yoel pocketed the coin. “I’ll keep a tally and give you your change on the morrow.”

“They call me Haft. He’s known as Spinner.” Haft either didn’t notice or chose to ignore the glance Spinner gave him.

“Anything you need, Master Spinner, Master Haft, Doli will attend to you.”

Haft’s look was close to a leer. “Anything?”

“Anything within the powers of this humble inn,” the innkeeper assured him.

Doli smiled wanly, curtsied, and hastily retreated.

Master Yoel made an almost perfunctory bow and left them alone. Spinner watched him walk away. Had the innkeeper really looked at his purse as though weighing it, or was that merely his imagination?

Haft tilted his head far back and upended his flagon as he poured half the beer down his throat in one gulp. “Ah,” he sighed deeply, and thunked the flagon down. “I needed that.”

Spinner drank his beer more slowly, almost as though drinking merely out of politeness. Trying not to be obvious about it, he examined their surroundings.

Eight other men occupied four tables, drinking and eating quietly; one man sat alone, three were at another table, the others were paired. It seemed to Spinner that all eight were making a great show of ignoring everyone other than their own companions—except for the lone man, who seemed almost too obvious about ignoring everybody, while being constantly aware of everyone.

In addition, a man and woman with a half-grown son and daughter, a young boy, and perhaps an older aunt, sat around a large table. This family of six didn’t seem as comfortable as the men did, and they sat hunched over their dinner dishes. The women and girl seemed closed in on themselves, the man and the older boy kept darting nervous glances at the other men.

Spinner noticed that all six occupied tables, including the one at which he and Haft sat, were in the same area of the large common room, then he realized that was because several serving maids were engaged in cleaning the rest of the room. Two of the maids diligently cleaned the unoccupied tables, and two more swept and mopped the floor in the larger, unoccupied area. Another industriously cleaned flagons, mugs, bowls, and serving dishes at a counter that also held spigots for beer kegs. She kept glancing toward them, but the others seemed to keep an eye cocked at the other customers. Spinner thought the one watching them was Doli, the serving maid who had brought them their beer. The maids were all dressed alike, in pastel blouses, though each wore a different color, with very short, puffed sleeves and necklines so wide and deep that they couldn’t help but expose themselves when they bent over. They all wore floor-length, dark blue skirts that bellowed out because of the many petticoats worn under them, and a small bonnet topped each maid’s head. A workman carrying a hammer and a small box of tools rushed in, made a repair on a shelf, and hurried back out.

As for the room itself, swinging double doors into the kitchen were next to the counter with the dishes and spigots. A stairway opposite the entrance probably led upstairs to the rented rooms. Trophies and weapons adorned the walls.

Spinner could tell that most of the weapons were for hunting, though a few were for war. There were bows—long, short, and cross. There were short jabbing spears, javelins, and lances, on up to a halberd and a heavy cavalryman’s pike. A variety of knives and swords were arrayed around a two-handed sword that was mounted point down on the wall. The smallest blades were at the top and bottom, the largest in the middle, so the hilts formed an almost perfect circle.

And there were trophies on the walls, most of game animals. A fearsome hog’s head with sharp tusks hung over the serving counter. The huge white pelt and head of a bear from the far north was splayed on the wall opposite the swords. A large dais or small stage was against the wall, under the bearskin on a wall. There were skins of cats, large, small, and in between, and the heads of mighty horned ibexes and mountain sheep, as well as common antelope and antlered deer. But the most striking trophy was a battle standard from an army or regiment Spinner didn’t recognize. It hung on a stand in a corner. Wires attached to the wall stretched out the banner so it almost seemed to be fluttering in a breeze. Two archaic suits of plate armor of an unknown style flanked it.

What most interested Spinner, though, was the source of the light. More accurately, the sources. Milky-white panels he thought were vellum, more than a pace long and less than half that wide, were set in rows in the ceiling. The panels glowed with an inner light that didn’t flicker like the light from candles or oil lamps. The slightly bluish light seemed to diffuse through the room so that it cast no shadows—or at least no shadows with sharp edges; it was dark under the tables.