Part 2

Chapter 21: Morning Manners

Alcar awoke.

He was in bed, but could barely remember how he had gotten home the night before. At the very least, getting into the poor quarter had been easier than getting out of it, especially as the late hour had meant no lines to get past the city guards.

He rose up on his elbows, and groaned. He stomach was churning, and his muscles ached. The previous day had been long and tough, and while his involvement in the two tussles with the dwarves had been brief, he knew he had also consumed a lot of ale and ogram leaf, and done his fair share of running through the city. Or had that all been a fantasy of his dreams – the illusion that he had teamed up with lizardfolk and the like to rescue a mysterious sorcerer?

Just then there came a growl from the foot of the bed.

“Brutus!” said Alcar softly, and reached out and stroked the dog. Knowing that the dog was there made everything else feel more real – they really had hatched plans with Lox’aar, Warlik and Master Maluhk to find the mysterious Viperstar Codex and bring it the the dwarves as part of the plan to help change the regime in Katresburg.

They were revolutionaries now.

But feeling Brutus now squirm and roll onto his back in the dark, Alcar patted him again and smiled. “First things first – we’d better get you some food, boy.”

Swinging his legs around, Alcar stood up. His bedroom doubled as a supply closet for his father’s trade, and it was dark, with no window. As such, he needed to reach out with a toe and kick the door open so that he could see his possessions where he had dumped them the day before.

As the door swung open, he saw his father’s workshop beyond; currently unoccupied. His father would be at market. And on the floor, there were his clothes, tunic and breeches, all splattered with mud, blood, ale and vomit. There was his belt–slash-dog leash. And there was the dagger that he had appropriated from Golgrasanna, still in its sheath, but taken from his belt and secured in his tunic pocket for his late-night walk home.

Alcar stood, and prodded around at a pile of clothes in the corner, pulling out a spare pair of underpants. These he sniffed; perhaps not perfectly clean, he decided, but better than the ones he had been wearing.

After changing them, he gathered up his other clothes, taking out the bronze coin, jar of loris root, and knife, and made his way outside.

“Stay here, Brutus!” he called out. “I won’t be long. And then I’ll use my remaining money to get you some breakfast.”

Still wearing only underpants, he pushed open the door to his father’s workshop, and walked out to the street beyond. Swordfish Way – a tiny but busy street in the heart of the poor quarter, barely wide enough to run a cart along, with many people passing one way another. Just outside the door was a half-empty barrel of rainwater. It was far from clean, but he and his father used it for washing both themselves and their clothes. It was in this that Alcar now immersed his clothes scrubbing at them as best he could.

As he worked, he considered again what he had promised the night before. Clearly Maluhk wanted their help in order to track down the book – that was very promising, even if he hadn’t actually had any confirmation that he was to officially become an apprentice.

And it appeared that he and his companions were going to get some help and training, too – all of them were due back at the tower that morning. If nothing else, they should find themselves in a better position to become proper adventurers.

However, it remained the case that there were – apparently – no plans to pay any of the youngsters for their efforts. It would mean leaving their studies, probably becoming fugitives in the city (where lessons were mandatory for citizens below the age of eighteen), with no money or alternative accommodation. Maluhk, Warlik and Lox’aar had seemed entirely unconcerned about this side of things, but Alcar wasn’t sure he could be as relaxed.

Alcar wrung out his clothes and hung them over the rim of the half-empty barrel to drip, and then reached up to take a little wooden-handled brush from where he stored it in a gap between two stone blocks. This he dipped into the same water, and began to brush his teeth. There was a nasty taste in his mouth, that was for sure. Perhaps Maluhk would have some herbs that could help with that.

“Hey buddy!” said a voice behind him.

Alcar turned, raising his eyebrows, then nodded with an awkward smile to see Sprigg standing there. “Hey Sprigg,” he replied, twiddling his toothbrush between his fingers. “How you been?”

“You missed lessons again yesterday.“

“Right, right. Anything interesting?”

Sprigg frowned. ”Alcar. It doesn’t matter if it’s interesting or not, man. This is important for our future.”

“I know, I know. But I have a new master now – I’m going to be apprenticed, sort of. He wants me and the other apprentices to go somewhere.”

“Go? Out of Katresburg?”

“Sure.”

“But where?”

Alcar waved vaguely in a westward direction. In truth, though there had been much discussion of the mountains, the swamp, and even of other provinces, he hadn’t actually gained a firm idea of where it was that Maluhk wanted them to begin their search for the Viperstar codex, and he was fairly sure that Olynka hadn’t either. At the very least, though, he was sure it would involve travel.

As the two friends were speaking, Brutus had appeared at the door, and whined. Now the dog now stepped outside and began to sniff at Sprigg.

“Oh, mate – this is my new dog, Brutus.”

“Wow – you got a dog? How did you afford that, man?”

Alcar looked from side to side, take one step back as a cart moved past them. “Well, I didn’t exactly pay for him.”

“He’s a fine-looking dog. I wish I...” Sprigg trailed off, and both of the friends found themselves looking northwards up the street as the cart sped away, and Brutus began to run after it. “Shit – that’s the butcher’s cart.”

“We need to grab him!”

Alcar began to run up the street, painfully aware of his near-nakedness. The street surface was soft, at least – unlike on some winter mornings, the compacted dung wasn’t frozen solid.

The cart turned ahead, and Sprigg raced ahead of Alcar, panting hard.”Shit, shit,” said the tall boy. “I’ll be late for lessons!”

“And I’ll lose my dog!” Alcar sped up, aware that his penis was now lolling out from his underwear as he ran nearly naked through the streets. The pair careered around the corner just as two city guards – one woman, one man, both human – were coming in the opposite direction, and it was all the could do not to crash headlong into the two.

“Ah, shit, sorry!” called Alcar, beginning to push past. But not for the first time, he felt a heavy gloved hand on his shoulder.

“You two – where are you going?” said the man. He was a very dark-skinned individual, with no helmet on his bald head.

“I ah...” said Alcar, tucking himself back inside his underwear, while struggling to think of a way to avoid any further attention from the guards. “The think is, my younger brother here, he’s lost. He can’t remember the way to his daily lessons. Can you help him?”

“Brothers, huh?” said the male guard, looking from the hulking Sprigg to the much slighter Alcar.

“Oh, it’s that way,” said the female guard, a paler-skinned woman with very long auburn hair. “Down this street, turn left onto Wanderers’ Way, and follow that until you reach the temple. You can’t miss it.”

“Okay, then – thanks,” muttered Sprigg, beginning to hurry back they way he had come. He caught Alcar’s eye, looking apologetic, though it was Alcar who was now feeling bad.

“As for me,” said Alcar cheerfully, now pointing onwards towards where the cart had gone, ”I’m the butcher’s new apprentice, so I really have to...”

“In underpants?” queried the woman.

“Aye,” said Alcar, stepping backwards as he spoke to her. “They insisted that I come dressed this way, and get an apron from the cart. My own clothes were too dirty to be near the food, you see!”

The guards nodded at this, and began to continue on the way they had been going.

“So in the interests of public decency, I’d better...” Without finishing his sentence, Alcar turned and began to run on. But he didn’t have far to go before he saw Brutus racing back in his direction, now with a long string of sausages in the dog’s mouth. The angry yells of the butcher could be heard from further on.

“Great work, boy,” said Alcar, reaching the dog. “You’ve got breakfast without having to part with a single coin! But we’d better find another way back to the workshop. Let’s go, boy!”

And ignoring the angry and disgusted looks from further passers by as he pushed past, Alcar skipped past the backs of the receding pair of guards, and began the job of circling around in order to make his way home.