Carousing

1.
 
The wizard and the priest said I should keep a journal to help improve my written Rexen. They think I am but a murderous child in their employ, fit only to open stuck door and slaughter goblins. It is good to be underestimated. We are almost back to Merula. I cannot sleep and write close to the dying fire. Grey Death slumbers beside me. She whines and I rub her ears to calm her dreams.
 
 
2.
 
Merula. You can smell the town from far away. Shit and death and animal blood; kilns and smelters and coal smoke. The steppe calls to me in these moments: cold, clean wind, the graundac tundra, the dying roar of a mammoth, and the taste of its meat raw in my mouth. I know I can never go back. My offense was too great. But I miss my people.
 
Black banners at the gate. Someone important has died. The guards are shaking down everyone who enters. Theo, the priest, thinks he can appeal to his holy order but pays up in the end. Alex the Taint Ravager tricks them with worthless trinkets. I glower and tell them nothing. The Cold Grey Wind of Death chuffs at them, the laughter of the wolf. I give them only her Rexen name. They do not deserve to hear her real name.
 
 
3.
 
The first night out. I got to the tavern early, wearing clean travel clothes and my new chain. I stood, filling the doorway, with Grey Death beside me, until the little owner waddled over. “No beasts,” he says in his meek voice. “The only beast here is me,” I say, keeping all the light from my eyes. He backs away. “Meat for me and mine, ale, much ale,” I growled and shoved a handful of silver into his hands.
 
I take a booth away from the bar so I have only solid wood behind me, so I can see the door. A saucy barmaid, full at breast and hip, brings me a huge steak of auroch and a barely butchered bone of the same for Grey Death. She made to pet her. I told her not to if she valued her hand. She backed away as Grey Death growled amusingly. I gave her the massive bone and rubbed her ears as she began to gnaw her supper. A tankard of ale was set down without the wench even looking me in the eye.
 
Various rogues looked me over. The axe and the wolf kept most all from approaching me. The ones that did begged me to join their adventuring. Trust is hard won. Most would just travel me out into the woods and kill me for my equipment.
 
When the dark was full, I stood and walked to the owner. He fumbled with the silver I had given him and offered it back with minus a few coins for the meal. “Keep it,” I say. “I am Kegho. Keep ear out and earn the rest by telling me if anyone comes looking for me. There is much more for a clever man.” He’s bobbed his head and grinned.
 
The first night back and there were rites to perform, forms to obey. I stopped by the market and then sought out the cheaper doxy dens, trying three until I found one with a hunchback.
 
I bought her from her owner outright and rented a room for the night. I sought out and plugged many holes where the house let the local perventry watch for a copper. I bid the hunchback to undress. She had been truly cursed by the gods, spine twisted back on itself, one leg shorter than the other. I undressed.
 
The hunchback was not a whore, and she shivered at what I might do to her. “Relax” I whispered. I bathed her in the hot water I had brought to the room and then myself. I laid her on the bed and rolled her onto her stomach.
 
“I have a sorrow for this, but you will survive and there will be no pain.” I masturbated quickly and spread my seed across her hump. She was crying. “You are my camel now. You bear my burdens until it flakes off.”
 
I opened the backpack I had purchased at the market and dressed her in traveling clothes, armed her with a dagger. “You are free,” I told her. “Leave this shit city and go home if you can, or somewhere better if you wish.” I gave her a pouch with twenty gold pieces and we walked out of the whorebank as two men, her hood up, my arm around her to hide the hunch. “How can I thank you?” she asked on the street. “Go,” I said, “Go and never return.”
 
Theo calls upon his gods, begs for their attention. Our gods turn away from kind acts, disgusted by charity. Look away, Xte. Take no notice of me for the death I spread. My gods are terrible things.
 
 
4.
 
Rip out the proceeding pages if someone wants to read this. Even banished, I seek out to keep our rites private. To go to some building built by slaves to ask our gods for anything other than disinterest is hasen, the forbidden no one must be told to avoid. I have seen the power of Maya for myself, and I thank the lady but direct appeal… also hasen.
 
I spend the day drinking, Grey Death following me, overspending in more taverns to establish friendship and obligation. More approaches to join adventures. I took a walk after lunch and slapped heartily every beggar I saw, afterward giving them each a silver. Some said they were willing to be slapped again. I gave those a piece of gold.
 
Sing not my praises, poor of Merula. Xte dead eyes will not look away for long.
 
I went back to the tavern from the first night and asked if any had come looking for me. The owner pushed an ale on me and told me that no one had.
 
I let my purse clank heavily on the way out of the tavern but I made it back to our room. Grey Death wrapped herself around the gently snoring form of Alex and I got in bed. One more rite and I was to be free to properly carouse.
 
 
5.
 
The third night. Alex has agreed to go out with me for the night. He was tight-faced about what he was doing around Merula. I granted him his secrets.
 
I write now while the Mighty Alex slumbers. We had been asked to leave three taverns after I had Alex drunk enough to dance on the tables and throw coppers out to the crowd. I hated to endanger him but I needed freedom to enjoy myself. I let my purse spill out on the table a number of times, the heavy, ancient gold clanking and shining. I watched the eyes that watch my purse. I fingered my chain to make it glint in the firelight.
 
I told the barmaid to water Alex’s wine as the night went on and he was near sober when we left, still shouting at slim-hipped wenches that his equipment dwarfed any tall man. I turned down darkest alleys, sought out the worst parts of the city I had seen by daylight. They finally braced us on the street of tanneries, rancid piss like a mist in the night.
 
“Barbarian!” the largest one said. “Give us that fat coin purse and we will let you live.”
 
“I think we’re being robbed,” Alex said in a loud whisper.
 
I heard the ones that were tailing us catch up.
 
“Do you mean to hurt us?” I asked in ritual challenge.
 
“Don’t try to run,” someone said behind us.
 
“Do you mean to take what we have won through work or adventure?” Another ritual challenge. It didn’t really matter if they answered. They knew not my gods but soon my gods will know them.
 
I took my axe from my back, my nameless axe. It must have a name soon or the magic within it might depart. Alex drew his short sword and let out a scary laughter. I said her real name and The Cold Grey Wind of Death spun around and jumped for the throat of one of those boxing us in. I roared and Alex screams and we laid into them.
 
The red mist came over me. I remember little of the battle. Alex ramming his sword into the belly of a hugely fat man with a comically large wooden hammer. Grey Death running past me with a severed arm. Splitting the man who had spoken in two as some of his companions scream and ran. Carrying Alex to the town square and using water from the well to clean us both up. Grey Death and I howling together at the night sky.

Vigilante charity. The dead ones would never waylay travelers again and the blood splashed on those that ran away would be a reminder to commit no more evil. Xte might have seen me doing good with murder and turned away. Xte might not have seen me. Maybe he couldn’t see me in this land at all. The gods are ill luck. Good fortune in this life and the scars you carry into death should be all that matters to man.

We slept until the town guard rousted us from bed. I explained that Alex and I were set upon by bandits and forced to defend ourselves. We could produce no witnesses. I gave the two guards five gold each and ten for their captain. And then I went upstairs to sleep even more.
 
 
6.
 
I paid the innkeeper to make a specialty of my people and stood with the cook as she prepared it. The whole roasted goat head came to our table, eyes tender, tongue split from the heat, horns adorning it on the platter.
 
Theo blanched and Zhuge ate a small amount. Alex sawed off the tongue with his dagger, split it, and tossed half to me. I pried out a choice bit of cheek, split it, and gave half to him. Politeness over, we both fell on the roasted head, tossing pieces to Grey Death as she watched the people that came near our table. Theo and Zhuge left us as we began to drink. And drink. And we left to drink further in other places.

The last thing I remember is lifting up Alex so that he could pee in the town well, and running away when guards shouted, Alex tucked under my arm, his cock flapping in the night air.
 
 
7.
 
Alex turned down a night of athletic whoring. Grey Death stayed with him. She still misses Riven. Alex promised to feed her. I had the innkeeper draw me a bath and paid extra to bathe alone. I scrubbed my nethers until they shone and washed all the blood out of my hair. In loincloth, sandals, axe and harness, I measured out a bare handful of silver and gold and hid the rest in our room. Never whore with a full purse was the first lesson my father ever taught me.
 
“No barbarians!” the madam of the whorehouse yelled when I stepped inside. Rumor said this was the house that provides all the women for the landed rich. “I am clean,” I said and handed her a thick gold coin. She felt the edges and rang it by tapping it with a coin from her own supply and finally bit it with her few remaining teeth. She grinned and clapped three times. Six girls in wispy dresses and veils walked into the lobby.
 
“Four,” I said, holding up my finger.
 
“Two,” the madam countered.
 
“Gold,” I said.
 
She grimaced and said, “Three.”
 
“All night,” I said.
 
“Three hours,” she said. “Very busy. Other customers.”
 
I pulled out three silver coins but ended up giving her four.
 
I lifted their veils, checked their teeth and smelled their crotches, and chose the best three. A plump one, a tall skinny one, and one that might have been an elf, or a very good glamour.
 
[pages missing]
 
I stumbled out that next morning, my balls aching and penis chafed. The last time, on the durable elf girI, my balls clenched like an angry fist and nothing came out. I slept an hour or so until the madam came in screaming for me to leave.
 
I still had my axe and chain and my purse. I’m not sure I trust a brothel where the girls do not try to steal from you. I walked back to the inn, adjusting myself to find a comfortable arrangement. The priest prayed to Mara after listening to the night’s entertainment and a healing light shot from my loincloth. I used the chamberpot without feeling a burning sensation and spent the day with the bed to myself.
 
 
9.
 
The first I realize is that I am lying in pig shit. My hands hurt. I have mud in my mouth. It was day and everything hurt. I flexed my hands. In my right hand, I could feel the handle of my axe. In the left was something soft. I drew my legs up beneath me and got up in a kneel. I wiped the mud and shit from my eyes with my right hand. There was a dead man in the alley with me and my fingers where still buried in his throat. I pried my hand away and checked myself. My purse was gone, and my small bag for medicinals, and my chain. THE CHAIN Alex gave me for slaughtering giant hawks with him. I put my bloodied axe on my back, picked up the corpse by the harness he was wearing and walked back to the inn.
 
I write this now after a bath and sending my clothes to be boiled. I sat in the room with the dead man and brooded while sharpening my axe. It hums with power.
 
Someone has my chain.