The Exodus Sagas: Book IV - Of Moons and Myth (4 page)

“How much?” Kimmarik kept walking, Azenairk with him, he knew where they were headed.

“Be seven gold coins as of this mornin’, maybe more by the time we gets to the pub. Hope ye’ can cover it.”

His smile was as repulsive to Kimmarik as his fat belly and greasy hair and beard. But, debt was debt. This one, the owner of the Pub o’ the Smokin’ Anvil, liked to stretch it out on the meadpounders though. They had fought a few words over tabs before.

“I be getting’ me boys first, see what the trouble and hurry is
all
about then.”

“Yer’ boys is part o’ the trouble, they be there already.
”

“Me boys
and I
be leavin’ tomorrow to fight for King Nalanobek in Tuscko, south in the Mountains. They just be celebratin’ a bit
early is all
, sure o’ that.”

“Ogre and giants
past the outdoors
in the Bori don’t concern me, Kimmarik. Yer’ father owin’ me pub a lot o’ coin is the issue. Yer boys be just tryin’ to get him out, but they is all young and eager to fight. Tis’ the problem.” Erden kept pace, eyeing the empty pouch of Kimmarik Thalanaxe and casting cross glances at his youngest.

“Me boys ain’t never a problem, barkeep, and I will thud hammers with anyone who dare say otherwise. So shut yer beard before I help ye’ lose a few more teeth.” Kimmarik growled and walked faster toward the underground pub in Boraduum.

The Pub o’ the Smokin’ Anvil was dark, open on three sides, and full of stone tables that numbered over one hundred. A golden anvil stood in the middle on a stone pedestal that connected to the end of fifty feet of brown marble polished bartop. The smoke indeed rose from the embers that were kept hot underneath the anvil, embers that matched the low lantern light of the whole tavern and its sixty or more current patrons.

Kimmarik looked around, then he heard and saw them at the same moment. Stocky Geadrik, his oldest boy, dressed in full plate of a soldier, greaves, steel gauntlets, and a drawn battle axe in his hand. His middle boy, Tadnek Thalanaxe, barely thirty years old now, had the family shield with the twin axes over a moon held out on guard. His helm was on the ground and dented, his head bleeding from a cut, but his battle pick twirled in his hand nonetheless. They stood like battle hardened warriors
, surrounded by nearly twenty
angry dwarves armed with shortblades
, barhammers,
and daggers.
The table they guarded held no
royal
king as one would think, but instead sat a wobbly gray dwarf, rambling aloud as he fished for which of the ten
or so
mugs and flasks before him held any spirits still.

“Ye’ don’t be
knowin’
the truth!
Truth
is, well it be a very long truth,
in truth
, ha!” Pentrik Thalanaxe laughed to himself, then threw an empty mug between his grandsons. It smacked a patron in the stomach and rattled its steel across the stone floor, tensing every dwarf in the room once more.

“
Truth is
ye’ be a worthless whiskey-licker, old Pentrik! Now get out, before we does get ye’ out
,
the hard way!” Surrounding men grew closer, circling like wolves.

“Me papi will be leavin’ soon, so
best ye’
back away
,
Silvunak.” Geadrik tapped his axe to the table and stared at the mob.

“And if ye’ want the hard way, come and get it. I be happy to show ye’ how it’s done
then
.” Tadnek slammed the flat of his warpick to his shield, smiling to the gathering dwarves that had tired of their grandfather throwing mugs and spouting off.

“
Tad! Gead
! Enough now boys, the fight is tomorrow, not in here.
” Kimmarik walked up to the table, the dwarves making way to let the father to his sons.

“
Ahhh
, me only
surviving
son! Look what they done made me do, ya’ see? They, them blasted trollsuckers there made me drink again! They want the box they do, trickin’ me into givin’ it when I be in my mugs too far.” Pentrik spat at the mob of angry dwarves, managing to only hit the back of Geadrik.

“
Quiet now father, we needs to get ye’ outta here
.” Kimmarik whispered.

“No naye, no! Here, see what they want! Maybe ye’ will just let em have it then, won’t ye? Or maybe yer wife will give it to em’ then
when I be dead and in Vundren’s halls
?”

Crack!

The rusty iron box slammed onto the stone table, a tied leather bag, a rolled parchment, and an old key sliding out amidst the mugs. It was quiet, the cut on Tadnek dripped a drop of blood onto his armor, everyone heard it as the pub was
like a grave for just a moment, all eyes on the box.

“
Father, put those things away now. This is not the time
---“

“Aye shut yer’ beard Kimmarik! The mines o’ Kakisteele be ours, the Thalanaxes they are. Far to the north and the west, in ruined Mooncrest where elves and men and temples be---“ Pentrik fell over, out of his chair, drunk for days and nights on end.

The laughter boiled over as old
grayed
dwarf, mugs, old junk from a rusty box,
frazzled beard and hair,
and
even
the chair all toppled. Everyone laughed, pointed, and shouted at the venerable fool of the Thalanaxe clan. Kimmarik, his three sons, and Erden Granvang were the only ones not finding anything humorous.
Little Azenairk ran over, helping his papi to the chair and began picking up the things that he knew went back in the box. He had helped do this before a few times.

“Maybe yer’ luck be better would ye’ head that way then!” One of the Silvunaks piped over the laughter.

“Aye, might be enough gold in Kakisteele to pay for ole’ Pentriks drinks then,
maybe
!” An Ordrimm threw an insult next.
The laughs were hearty,
black
beards of sixty dwarves bobbed up and down in the shadowy tavern.

“If the Thalanaxes believed in mining as much as fairy tales, then hells, we’d o’ had the whole o’ the Bori Mountains done dug out!” Erden Granvang, having to show some humor in his own pub,
tossed another jab of words toward the Thalanaxe clan as Zen helped Pentrik to stay in his chair.

Three dwarves fell down in laughter, it was too much for them to handle as Kimmarik and his two eldest stood while the little one that worked in the temple held up the drunk grandfather. It was an onslaught that they just stood silently and took.
Kimmarik looked to the mugs, counted eleven, he did some math quietly.

“Aye! And a six legged demon, the demon o’ curses and ruin, she has our mines held!” Pentrik roared in his stupor over the crowd.

“Father, shut yer beard now, enough---“

“She
does
, does she!? Maybe it be eight legs? Or perhaps she has
but
three and ole’ Pentrik be seein’ double!”

“That third leg might not be a leg, maybe the demon ain’t a
she
!” More laughter rolled, unstoppable.

“Ye o’ no faith, ye’ stupid drunks, all o’ ye! Me fathers, fathers, father was handed this and he knew,
aye he did
! That be no myth, it is there, ye’ stupid fools are no---“ Pentrik fell back in his chair again as a mug flew across the pub and hit him square in the nose. The laughter was deafening, the tempers boiled from his family.

“How much for a mug, Erden
!
?” Kimmarik spoke up amidst the laughter.

“Three silvers. Why, lookin’ to drown yer’ father out for the night and save some beard?” The pub owner laughed and pointed, seeing little Azenairk the temple boy helping old Pentrik up once more.

“
Son
.” Kimmarik spoke deep, an angry tone.

“Yes father!” All three boys answered, they knew that tone of voice. It was beyond the fights he and their mother had,
beyond
the battle cries out in the mountains his oldest had heard before,
it was
a calm
inner
storm of short words he would expect quick answers to.

“
Middle son, Tad
.” His growl almost a whisper, Kimmarik stared his blue eyes at the ground.

“Aye
father!” Tadnek stepped to his father, keeping an eye on the mob that continued to laugh over the Thalanaxe plight.

“
Who hit ye’
?” Kimmarik looked to the older Silvunak man, Forikk was his name, the one with the shortblade in his hand, he had a hunch already.

“No one did father. Old Silvunak threw a chair at papi to shut him up about the lost mines, so I jumped in the way of it. Ye’ always told me to use me head.” Tadnek felt the bump, saw the blood
on his hand
, and smiled to his father. The smile was not returned.

“
Gead
.” Kimmarik glared at Forikk Silvunak, then to Erden Granvang.

“Yes father.” Geadrik lowered his axe a little, pulled his beard to keep his anger down at all the laughter still roiling in the pub.

“
Watch yer little brother Zen, and papi, just for a moment. I need a word with a few o’ these men here.”
The slightest smile, though not of anything pleasant, crept from under his beard.

“Then what?” Geadrik looked at his fathers eyes, blue
and serious
like his papi’s.

“
Fight like hell
.”

Geadrik took a breath as he gazed at the now
eager
twenty angry dwarves
circling
from other families. He looked to little Zen, then to his rambling grandfather, finally he cast a wink to Tadnek. The wink was returned.

Kimmarik Thalanaxe walked up to Erden, warhammer in hand, which drew all the angry dwarves involved up close. They knew he had fought in several wars, he had a reputation as more a warrior than a miner, and they all knew he was likely unable to pay the bartab again.

“Granvang, I see eleven mugs there, would be thirty three silvers, or three gold and a bit extra. Ye’ told me seven.” He pointed to his fathers table.

“For all the trouble, the price be double. Shart, ye’ don’t have any coin anyhow, Thalanaxe.
Everyone knows that.
” Erden smiled his toothless smile, surrounded by twenty angry patrons, his confidence was sound. “Maybe I will take that box o’ junk for the tab, but ye’ will still have to wash me mugs cuz’ it is about worthless.
Hand it over then
.
”

“Naye. It be
ours
.”

Kimmarik ignored the laughter at another jest aimed toward his family and walked up to old Forikk Silvunak, smiling with each step. The laughter died off early, all the dwarves could sense anger now brewing in the quiet grinning dwarf.

“Forikk, did ye’ throw a
chair
at me father?”

“
Aye!
” Forrik stared right
down
at Kimmarik.

“And it hit me son in the head?
Then did ye’ throw
a mug
at him, right at me fathers face?”

“Aye, sure did
, you was here! Tried to shut his stupid ars up.
What ye’ think ye’ gonna do---“

Crack!

Crack!

“
That
!
” Kimmarik lowered his warhammer, passed on from his old father, after two brutal swings to the ribs sent Forrik to the ground.

“Now ye’ done it Thalanaxe! Take this load o’ shart out o’ me pub and send for the guard! Not before we rough em
all
up a bit ourselves!” Erden Granvang pulled a small hammer off his belt as nineteen dwarves in his tavern pulled weapons and stepped up on Kimmarik.

“
Boys!
Time to settle the tab at The Smokin’ Anvil,
the hard way!
” The old warrior, followed by his two sons, dove into the mob that charged them.

Geadrik smashed the pommel of his axe into an angry dwarf, then swung his plated fist into the face of another, wild swings, brutal and hard. Tadnek slammed his shield into breaking dwarven noses and heads, his pick
was
held upside down and clubbing everything in sight with a
black
beard. Kimmarik whipped
the hammer twice, then his elbow three times, then even headbutted another bar patron. The dwarves flew and fell like sacks of squash.
Many other patrons just watched, moving away for a bit of safety, but enjoying another fight at the Smokin’ Anvil.

Azenairk watched his brothers and father pummel twenty dwarves through chairs, over stone tables, and even slammed their heads into the hot anvil centerpiece more than once. He stood, guarding his papi, and watched his heroes in action. His smile hurt his face it was so wide, yet he never blinked, not daring to miss one second, one blow, not one brave strike that his
outnumbered
family dealt the patron
s that had insulted them
.
They were giants to him, Gods
even
, three dwarves that no one could match.
Within a minute or three, it was all but over.