The Black Business

Hello!

This post is in no way related to the book, just as a disclaimer before even begin!

In order to cope with the stages of grief caused by the closing of a long term DnD campaign in the next few weeks I set about creating a new character.

Whenever I do this these days I try and write a short piece of fiction, no more than a few thousand words or so, just to calcify the character in my minds eye.

This was the piece I wrote for the new lad. If folk like it I can always edit up pieces written for previous characters and publish those too.

Enjoy

Jim.

Varus did not consider himself to be a wise man, far from it in fact. His lack of high wisdom had been his downfall on more than one occasion. He was not learned in the ways of the Arcane and his grasp on history was… pitiful to say the least. If he understood one thing though, it was the Black Business. And these newcomers reeked of it.

It's a hard thing to describe, the smell that violence withheld, but that didn’t mean it couldn't be felt. The pressure of restrained carnage was a rabid dog held back by collar and chain. Only here the collar was self control and the chain was etiquette. Fucking fragile things in Varus’s mind.

The men had entered the tavern a short time ago and requisitioned a table by the door from a group of Dwarves. The longbeards had looked like they might argue at first but the better part of valour had won out and they had shuffled on out of the building. There were three of them, each armed with some nasty looking piece of steel and expressions of beaten iron that folk tended to wear in these parts. This was an expression Varus had fixed on his face, though in his defence the scar made it hard to look any other way.

They had commanded wine and ale to be brought and the barkeep had sent his serving girls to attend them. Then they had commanded food to be brought and the barkeep had sent his cook to prepare it. Now they were bellowing for rooms for the evening and the barkeep was glancing pale-faced in Varus's direction. He had paid for the last room not ten minutes before these three had walked through the door. The inkeep’s expression was saying:

“Please sir, you look comparably reasonable. Please could you give up your room so I don’t have to offer these men nothing, so I can spare myself the ruin they may bring?”

Varus slowly shook his head while holding the man's gaze. The room was no palace but it had been long weeks on the road spent mostly beneath the drizzly sky and he would be damned if these inbred nobodies forced him out of it.

Sorry, Innkeep. You will have to give them the bad news and pray to the blind gods that they don’t decide to cut their disappointment into your flesh. Perhaps more drinks, free of course, would improve your chances. Perhaps that would make them worse. Time to flip the coin, I suppose.

Varus couldn’t hear the conversation well but he could hear it wasn’t going in the inkeep’s favour. One of the men had placed his hand on a notched and rust-spotted axe at his belt. Never a good sign for the triumph of diplomacy. Then the innkeep spread his hands in a gesture of apology and pointed one finger at Varus.

You little shit. Passing the blame on for your own weakness will not spare you, my friend. If anything the coin tips more towards the blacked dark face you so desperately want to avoid.

All three heads spun slowly towards his table and eyed him hard. Or at least tried to. They were dirty, pock-scarred and mean-looking, but that was not remarkable here. The vitriol in their eyes, however, was a little extreme even for the times though.

Perhaps they have spent long nights under sodden blankets and low on food. Perhaps their need is greater than your own. Perhaps it doesn’t matter a shit.

Varus eyed them in return, sweeping his hair back a little to show them the mess of scarring and the blood red eye that filled his right socket. They didn’t flinch at it. Confident then, or foolhardy, it was remarkable how often those traits shared a bed, or a grave.

The largest of the men scraped back his stool and advanced down the rows of tables towards him. Hand still resting on that vicious-looking axe at his hip.

“I’ve heard you’ve been keeping our room warm for us, friend. That’s mighty kind of you, but we’re here now and your services are no longer required.” The man stopped a few feet away from his table and smiled. Middle-aged, Varus guessed. Probably a muscular man once but it had run to fat. No hair to speak of, just a few wispy strands around his temples and a badly shaved face.

“No.” Varus hated this part. Both men knew what was coming; both men could smell it. The Black Business, thick in the air like ozone in a storm. He knew they could both feel those chains and collars breaking and tearing. Still, they had to talk. That was just the way things were done.

“I don’t think you heard me right there, friend” The man waggled his axe a little as if the inch or two of movement would make it somehow more threatening.

“I heard you fine. Just don’t reckon I will be listening to you.” The man sighed and shook his head.

Like you expected this to go any other way, you fucking halfwit.

Then he turned to his companions and waved them over. Varus struck; in a single movement he cleared the table and drove the pommel of his sheathed sword into the man’s gut then leaned back and put the crossguard into his face as he bent double in pain. The other two had gained their feet now and were moving fast towards him. Two on one was manageable, three was not.

He took a step back to gain room and drew Resolution. Its silver-inlaced blade flickered in the warm firelight of the tavern and the sheathe dropped at Varus’s feet. He swung. His opponent had managed to get the axe from its loop and raised it to stop the weapon, but the greatsword cleaved through its haft and passed through, unimpeded, into the man's jaw. His head split like a melon and he dropped to the floor, the grey matter of his brain splattering the worn wood of the boards.

Not so fucking sorry now are you ‘friend’

The other two were coming on now though. Gloating could be arranged later. Varus crouched in his position and readied an attack. He directed his voice towards the man to the rear and filled it with Will.

“Kneel!” He did not shout, he did not need to. The Will lent his voice a power that volume could not produce.

The second man knelt, a confused expression passed across his face as he went from headlong charge to down on one knee in the blink of an eye. The first man was on him though and swung a wide blow with his falchion. It would have taken an arm off had Resolution not met it in the air. The ringing bounced from the blades as the man swung again, and again. Each time his own sword countered, but he was being pushed back.

The small confines of the tavern favoured this thug's shorter steel and its speed was starting to tell. On the fourth blow, Varus felt his arse bump into the table he had vacated not a moment before.

No more steps back then, time to flip the coin.

Before the fifth blow fell Varus threw himself forward at the man and grabbed the blade of his sword halfway up its length, wielding it like a short spear. His foe was taken off guard, his parry clumsy as the point of Resolution bit into the flesh of his left shoulder.

“Fuucckk” The man bellowed in a surprisingly high pitched tone. Varus dropped his left hand from the blade of the sword and pulled the long dagger at his belt. He used it to deflect the pitiful swing the man offered with his falchion before putting it through his throat silencing the wail. The man dropped to the floor, sliding off the end of his sword but taking the knife with him still tangled in the man's spinal cord.

Then the tavern exploded with light as a heavy impact rocked Varus’s skull. The third man must have regained his wits and approached from the side while he was busy. Focusing for a moment, Varus willed healing to flow to the affected spot and his vision steadied though he still felt like being sick.

You can vomit later, turn a-fucking-round and kill this shit.

Varus turned and swung the great length of his ornate sword in front of him as he did, forcing his latest assailant to jump backwards, bloody mace in two hands.

Good job you healed that quick, probably could’ve cracked your skull open with that blow.

The man’s eyes were wide with fear now. He probably expected the blow to finish him; it would’ve finished a normal man twice over. Varus, however, was not a normal man and while his reserves of healing were all but gone he was still standing.

Varus lunged. Maces were nasty weapons with a bit of motion behind them, but they were slow on the counter and a bitch to get moving once stationary. His thrust should..

The man disappeared. In a puff of misty air, he vanished.

Fuck

Varus spun around as fast as his beaten legs could manage and, sure as the sun rises, the man's spell had landed him right to his rear. A second longer to turn and his head would have been cracked like an egg for the second time today.

Explains how he got around you the first time at least.

This needed to end. Spell slingers were bad news on a good day and Varus’s bag of tricks was looking sadly empty.

He swung. There was not an ounce of subtlety or cleverness to the swing and the man raised his mace to block it in plenty of time. Then Varus poured his Will into the blade, appealed to its natural desire for blood and stoked that desire until there was a burning need for it.

Grey flames leapt up the four-foot length of metal. The man's shocked face was underlit with an unsettling cast of shadows as Resolution tore through the metal haft of the mace and split its wielder sideways in one clean cut. The top half of him flopped to the floor, black marks ringing the edges of the wound where it had burnt him.

Then silence. Well, not silence. Folk breathed and chairs scraped and someone was sobbing, but compared to the noise of the last half a minute… silence.

In that silence the smell filled his nostrils and stoked the fire already burning in his stomach, that smell he knew too well. The scent of the Black Business.