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Vol.5, Extra 1, P.3

 

My eyes pinch shut. My arms shield my skull. The fist is coming. I can sense it, smell it. Like iron it reeks. Rusted iron. Rusted from scything the dead. Death is here. La Mort, come to deal unto me my doom.

The stroke falls. A breeze blows.

But then, a silence. A tranquillity, stretching on. The world spins. But the fist—it never lands.

I breathe again. The ringing in the ears stops. Slowly, like a turtle emerging from winter, I open my eyes—only to find the rascaille twisted up in a spasmodic pretzel. And behind him, knotting his wrists together…

…is that Nafílim femme.

With a jerk sudden as thunder, she slams her prey flat unto the floor.

“You swine’ve best quit squealing,” she grumbles.

A vein throbs. “None o’ yer bus’ness, ye bint!” shouts one of the gus. Being lumped together with lawless “swine” seems to please him as would a hot coal upon the tongue.

“’Tis every bit my business,” argues the femme. “I came to drink, not drown in the sty you’ve made of the poor place.”

A bruised, narrow look passes over the face of the other gus. His heart was in the right place, I think. His and his friend’s both; here to do a bit of good in a spot of bad. But to now be scolded like public nuisances, like little boys by their fuming mother—well, what could be more humiliating? Nothing, evidently, as I watch steam spout from his every pore and his claw-like hands fling themselves unto the femme, ready to shake some sense back into her.

She, however, does not retreat. Non non; she steps ahead—right into the attack.

“Hyeh!?”

Whose yelp that was, I could not say. It might have been mine. It might have been one of the other men. It might even have been all of us in unison. We were all just that aghast, for the femme, you see, has become something of a mirage. A spinning one, low to the ground, sweeping now the charging gus off his feet.

I do not profess myself a man of physickality. Food and drink occupy all my concerns. Fighting and harming are but faraway thoughts. But even to an eye as uninitiated as mine could I tell that this sweep of the femme’s is the most sweeping of them all. Cleanly, it whisks the gus’ feet, and instils such a spin into his entire body that he soon floats parallel to the floor, only to then fall as would a crêpe unto a pan: limply, and with a pwap.

Shock strikes me like lightning. And then, relief. At last; that ought be the end of this. But a rascaille proves me wrong.

Apparently feeling threatened, he steps over the moaning gus to give the femme a serving of his own fist. But in swift response, she snatches his wrist right out of the air with one hand and his elbow with her other, all before rotating the entire arm as if it were a loose crank. Then, by some irresistible mechanism, his whole body follows suit, gyrating before spilling itself all over the floorboards. And there, the rascaille squirms, rolling and clenching his arm in agony.

No time to process the absurdité: the femme is already standing behind the last two men. Gus and rascaille both swim in confusion, her speed having fled their senses. But looking to me and catching where my eyes are now gaping, they turn about… and take to each of their chins a straight drive of a palm. The ensuing sound reminds me of another from this morning: the dry crick! of a perfectly cracked egg.

The floorboards jolt again. Dust plumes. The last two have crumpled, and lie now completely limp.

“…”

A tingling silence returns. My lips tremble, but form no words. I feel as an ocean utterly still, save for one rippling thought.

This Nafíl. This femme.

What a belle she is.

The feeling confounds me. A Nafíl, beautiful? Oh, non non non. It cannot be.

But it is.

I fix my eyes upon her, and like curtains pulled back at the break of dawn, I perceive her aspect anew. Oh là là—“brazen” well-describes her attire, enough to make even a gamester blush. What’s the occasion, I wonder? To wear silks so scant? A custom of the Nafílim, perhaps? The questions, however, all perish as my eyes turn next to her hair. Long down her back it spans. Long and golden, like a stream running under a blazing sunset. And then there are her eyes, green as spring and purposeful like rain. And of course, her skin. Like other Men, I’ve long misliked the earthiness of her kind’s complexion. But now… now is it somehow pleasing to see, and maybe even alluring to behold, like a seduction whispering from deep below.

But most alluring of all is not what I see, but what I have seen: the faerie-like elegance of her movements. Like a portrait in motion they were. A portrait more comely than even Son Altesse herself. Étrange; considering all the cups this femme has emptied thus far, she ought be as dextrous as a stone.

“Eyesores, all of you,” she states with a pout. “Your mothers’ve not taught you, or? ‘The higher the fall, the harder the horse’.”

…Hein? A moment. The harder the hor… What?

Dubiousness chuckles from the shadows. I squint, and discern next a ruddiness now glowing upon the femme’s cheeks. My inner detective then snaps his fingers: the scuffle must’ve quickened the vapours through her veins, that only now is she beginning to feel tipsy.

“…”

With sly-looking eyes, she scans about. And then, a grin. Unsheathing a long dagger from her effects, she flits over to the doorway. Nom de Déesse, what is she up to now?

Non. I shouldn’t have wondered.

Arriving at the entrance, she bends low and begins… begins…

“Heave-ho, heave-ho.”

…picking away at the hinges.

Hein? Hein? What connerie is this?

My body quakes with déjà-vu, but I dare not approach. The femme’s jabbing motions possess the bloodlust of a vengeful sculptor. Yet it wouldn’t have helped, anyhow: the hinges all dislodge, and I next witness the femme remove and heave the entire door over her head. And with her grin stretching now from ear to ear, she tip-toes over to the men moaning on the floor.

And then… and then…

“Hard! Ho───orse!”

…non! Non non non non!

“Not my door, not my door! Emmanuel! Emmanuel Sinoo───n!!”

 

∵

 

In spite of being visited upon by this most deplorable of circumstances, it was not even a week thence that the tavernkeep reopened his doors to business. That is, his doorway, rather, for as it happened, the tavern from there on boasted no door to speak of. Indeed, the erstwhile exclusivity of his establishment was all but abolished, being made into an unpresumptuous place for all to gather and make all manner of mirth and merriment. A true “watering hole for the masses”, to borrow his terms. Word spread of this most curious and welcoming of communes, that soon enough, it came to enjoy an absolutely bubbling patronage.

And also was it said that thereafter, the racketeers dared never to step foot in either premises or perimeter. For one look at the hanging sign, so emblazoned as it was with a bemuscled, rearing stallion, served to haunt their hearts and weaken their knees.

A sign, upon which was painted the words: La Jument Dure—”The Hard Horse”.

 

∵

 

At the break of next dawn, all the Víly-Gorka alliance that were encamped outside the city walls made ready to depart. Today would see another long march, one trained to the holy mountain of Déu Tsellin.

“Monika. No trouble last night, I trust?”

A question asked by Lise to the so-named aide at her side. And by the manner of her mien, it was a serious question, indeed. There existed no other institution as needful of sternness and stringency as the military, after all. And so necessarily must any soldier making too much merry with himself—on the occasion of an allowed “unwinding” in a nearby town—be punished to the fullest extent.

“If by trouble, Fräulein, you mean a certain damsel in salacious silks, stirring up a storm in her insobriety,” answered Monika with curious exactness, “then yes. There was trouble.”

“What?” gasped Lise, disgusted. “She should be ashamed of herself! Twice-ashamed!”

“Truer words never spoken,” Monika concurred, seemingly exasperated by her superior’s displeasure.

“One of ours she is, then?” Lise pressed. “Have her handled, Monika! Handled hard!”

Monika returned a stern stare. “You are sure of this, Fräulein?”

“Of course! An example must be set!” Lise puffed. “As war-chief and jarl-daughter, I abide no hubbubs nor brouhahas!”

Monika sighed. “A hard handling it is.”

And on that day was it writ in a report that a war-chief wept upon receipt of a ruthless spanking from her aide.

 
 

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“The Test of a Tavern”

End

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