The Gripes of Rath

The pounding on the door gradually pulled me out of the depths of a dark, spinning limbo and into a whole new hell, the hell that is a midday hangover. Opening one eyelid, a quick scan of my surroundings told me I was in a rented room, completely naked, and tangled up on the floor with someone else completely naked, a soft someone with pleasant curves. We rested atop a pile of furs, surrounded by discarded clothing and empty wine bottles.
I jumped upon hearing the pounding at the door again, I was going to have to put a stop to that. My new sleeping partner jumped but did not wake. I carefully and reluctantly separated myself from her, and began to search the room for my pants. On the bed I saw two more naked bodies, presumably my associate and a soft, curvy thing of his own. Must have been quite a night. There was no way it was good enough to justify this headache, however. Glancing down at the body parts not covered by blankets I realized it was definitely worth it.
I found my pants and half stepped, half fell into them then stumbled over to the door before the fellow on the other side of it could do any more damage to my sanity. I opened it to see a tall, nervous kid I vaguely recognized as the blacksmith's apprentice.
"Master Talbert," he gasped, "you must wake Master Rath and come with me! There's a bunch of men over at the Goblin asking about 'im. Babarians, with beards and axes!" All of this he practically shouted at me, and I instinctively reached for my dagger. Lucky for him I was barely dressed. I closed my eyes and tried to remain civil.
"Easy, take it easy there...," his name escaped me.
"Balthus!"
"Balthus, take a breath there, son, and tell me all that again in a more....domesticated fashion."
"Huh?"
My jaw clenched. "What happened?"
"Well, the old man sent me across to the Goblin to get us somethin' for lunch, but there's this big man at the door sayin' that Turian Gurnn's inside and he knows that 'Rath the Horsefucker' is here in Pak's Creek, and if he don't show his face then he's gonna start choppin' up drunks!"
Rath the Horsefucker. Well, that was a new one. I liked it.
"Tal! What the hell's going on?" It appeared all the commotion had finally stirred my counterpart. "Shut that damned door, this is an inn, people are trying to sleep!"
The apprentice's eyes widened with recognition at the sound of anger emanating from behind me and he leaned to look over my shoulder. "Master Rath!" he exclaimed. "Master Rath you have to go to the Greasy Goblin!'
In response an empty bottle caused both Balthus and myself to duck and move from the doorway.
"I don't have to do anything you say, boy! I was fighting on the Sarian Plains when you were just a lump in your whore-bitch mother's belly!"
At this the boy's face lost its color and I turned and scowled at my ill-tempered friend. The two girls came pushing through the doorway, scrambling down the hall with clothing in hand.
I turned to Balthus and smiled apologetically. "You run on back to work, son. The two of us shall head to the Goblin directly."
He stood silent a moment longer, then, bewildered, turned and took his leave of our insanity. Closing the door, I began to gather the rest of my clothing and tossed Rath his leather breeches.
"Come along then, Sunshine," I told the horizontal pile of hungover grouchiness, "it appears news travels fast in this little shithole, an old friend of yours wishes to buy us a drink."
"Hrmph?"
"Dunno exactly, I didn't recognize the name. Tureen Grin...Gron...
He removed the blankets to reveal his face. "Turian Gurnn?" he asked, although from the way he said the name I knew that no answer on my part was required.
"He's at the Greasy Goblin with reinforcements and hostages, apparently. Sounds like he really misses you. Shall I alert the local militia?"
He remained in bed a moment longer, considering this option. "Nah," he replied, swinging his legs out of bed and sitting up to pop his back. "No reason for innocent bumpkins to die, just because I hacked some barbarian's brother to pieces."
I pulled on my shirt then slid into my light leather vest. "A hacking that was justified, I presume?"
Having pulled on his boots, Rath was now looking under blankets and behind furniture for his sword. "You bet your peasant-kissed ass it was, son of a whore cheated me in a game of dice. He knew better, he'd seen me go orcshit on men for less." Searching under the bed for the third time, he then leaned out the window, came back inside, then gazed upward at the ceiling.
"You know it never occured to me when I was deciding to hire a bodyguard against highwaymen that he would spend more time fighting his past than he would defending my merchandise."
"C'mon, Boss, you know you love it," he said absently, "have you seen my damned sword?"
"Rath, how can it be that a man has made it to where you are in spite of your ability to get drunk and lose your sword as often as you do?" It honestly did amaze me.
Abruptly he discontinued his search. "It doesn't matter," he nonchalantly announced. "I'll find something to kill him with, let's go."
I followed him through the inn's common room and out into a completely deserted midday town square. The sun was an angry bitch threatening to boil my aching brain. We looked around at the eerie stillness, exchanged a knowing glance, then turned and headed for the other side of town.
Pak's Creek was, for lack of a more tailor made description, a backwater town far, far away from anything resembling modern civilization. We found ourselves here occasionally, having an extremely mutually beneficial arrangement with Aldor, the local alchemist.
The Greasy Goblin Tavern and Firepit was a scene of total chaos. Everyone was here, ready to watch a fight. Upon notice of our arrival they rushed to us as one, and a thousand questions ensued. While I tried vainly to clear a path with words Rath chose a more effective method, shoving them aside with his heavily muscled arms. Apparently the militia had already assembled, more or less, as several of the younger men had surrounded the place, nervously brandishing swords and spears that likely had more dust on them than bloodstains. Their captain, a farmer named Matthias whom we had run in to more than once, stood near the entrance to the establishment, barking orders to the would be soldiers, who dashed to and fro in an effort to carry out his various commands. The moment he spotted our approach he stopped in midsentence and pushed his subjects aside.
"Bastards!" he spat. "I ain't never seen two outsiders bring so much trouble to my town without bein' strung up from a tree! I don't care what you did in the war ten years ago, Rath, this is it! If you come out of that bar alive then I don't want to see you or your pretty-boy buddy in Pak's Creek ever again!"
I bowed sarcastically in acknowledgement while Rath ignored him completely. Then, acting as if he had just noticed the captain's presence, Rath nodded.
"Good afternoon, Captain," he said before returning a studying gaze towards the tavern. "What's the situation in there?"
Matthias, visibly enraged by Rath's unconcerned countenance, could only open and close his mouth silently for a moment, unable to vocalize any rational response. From my position ten feet away I could still clearly see the vein on his forehead that threatened to take a life of its own. Then his shoulders slumped, and he turned his eyes to the dark doorway as well.
"There's six of 'em, far as we can tell," he answered, dejectedly. "Dunno how many locals they have in there with 'em. I sent a man in to negotiate, to tell 'em hostages weren't necessary, that we would gladly hand you two clowns over, but he ain't come back out!"
"I see," Rath replied absently, staring into the empty doorway. "Not to worry, Captain, if yer man's still alive I'll send the little fellow on his way." He then advanced toward the building casually, stopping to say a brief hello to a couple of little tramps that looked vaguely familiar to me.
I couldn't resist. "It'll all be over soon, Captain," I assured him as we watched Rath manage to get a good luck kiss and generous grope from each of the concerned maidens before he disappeared into the tavern. Immediately the crowd closed in as though the building itself were sucking them inwards.
"Get away from me before I have you deboned." Matthias advised, not looking away from the doorway.
Before I could even goad him further a number of large, hairy men began flying out of the Greasy Goblin's doorway, crashing through its windows, and one poor bastard even made his own exit, through the wall. This was followed by a mad rush of frantic, screaming yokels, some of whom still clutched their half emptied mugs. A quick glance at the bodies revealed they were all dead, or mostly dead, bludgeoned to death with something. Counting six men total, I decided it was more than likely safe enough to go up to the bar and grab the hair, as they say.
It was nice and quiet inside the Greasy Goblin, and it was such a contrast that I decided then and there that one day I would own a tavern and I would sit in it and drink alone. Rath was the only person in the room, and he had found the good stuff from behind the bar.
I took a stool next to him. "Looks like you found something to kill them with."
He handed me a glass and raised his own. "They killed themselves when they came looking for me."
"Well, I believe that's the most arrogant thing I've heard you say all day, Rath the Unconquerable." I met his toast, took a drink, and grimaced. Apparently he had not found the good stuff from behind the bar.
"So what's the plan, Boss?" He finished his own drink, refilled our glasses, and set the bottle down on the bar next to a blood soaked club, apparently he had taken it from the first guy and instructed everyone present on how to use it.
"Well, I'm thinkin' we owe Hump over at the inn a pretty good bit after whatever we did last night in there, and as much as Farmer Matthias tries to hide it, I'm beginning to think he doesn't like us very much."
Rath chuckled and finished his drink. "So we're packing?"
I took one last gulp and got on my feet. "Yeah, I reckon' so, old boy." Stretching, I looked straight up and realized that we had been here the previous night as well. "Rath?" I said, pointing up to show him his sword thrust into one of the beams overhead.
Well, that grouchy bastard Matthias didn't disappoint. By the time we came strolling out the front door of the Greasy Goblin the bristly old captain had lathered the crowd into quite a hostile bunch of folks. They were all snarling and bitching amongst themselves, and when they noticed the two of us they immediately blocked our path and began their accusations.
"You two ain't nuthin' but bad people!" One townsman accused, with three children huddled around him. "You come in here, to a good town full of wholes'm actin' people, then try to spread yer demon ways on all us." I couldn't help but notice the way he rubbed his young daughter's shoulder, and I knew all too well what these people considered 'whols'm'.
I noticed to my left that Rath now had a bloody club AND his sword, time to start talkin'.
"All right, all right! Settle down, good people of Pak's Creek. I, Talbert Seriano, of the Serianos of Saer-Dalleoon, and my good friend, Rath the Liberator, will take our leave of your town now. Please just allow us to gather our wagon and horses and we'll be on our way."
It worked again, though I wasn't sure how many more times I could use my family name to get us out of a potential lynching. These people knew who I was, and what my family represented, but I believe this incident had exhausted the use of that card. As much as I loved the idea of a simple life amongst simple people, it was really exactly what it appeared to be: a disheartening sentence amongst ignorance and pigshit. My old man was right.
The crowd gave way and Rath headed over to the stables to get our wagon ready, and I returned to Hump's Inn to gather our things and settle the bill.
Hump was behind the bar, wiping things down with what might have once been a cloth but was now nothing but grease stuck to grime. He looked up on my arrival and threw the rag down onto the bar with a wet slopping sound.
"That how 'ye thank me, city boy?" he accused as I came up to take a seat at the bar. "I put you and yer bloodthirsty friend up in here, let ye bring all kinds of hellraisin' in here, and then ye drive everybody on the Creek over to the other bar in town! You know how many puddles of piss I've mopped up in here?"
I was quite sure I didn't, but I decided not to participate in that line of questioning. "We're leaving, Hump. I'm going upstairs to get our things, and you start figuring how much we owe you."
"Oh, you bet yer ass I'll do me some figurin'!" He disappeared back into the kitchen, I'm guessing it was so he could sit down and count using fingers AND toes.
I went back up to our room and began gathering our clothing, personal items, and a big sack of some special mushrooms that the alchemist Aldor had given us for trade back east. I was flirting with the idea of trying a couple of them out when I first noticed the old man's head hovering to my left.
Yes, you read that correctly. Just ahead of me, and near the corner of the room, the bodiless head of an extremely old man floated just four feet off the floor, and kind of bobbed up and down slightly, as though he were treading water. He still had a head full of long, white, unkept hair and a beard that was even less unkept. His rimmed spectacles were as ancient as he was, and the old bastard just sat there, bouncing, staring at me as though I were a stain on the floor that he really didn't want to apply himself to cleaning.
I suppose I just sat there for some time, looking as though my water had broke. Finally it occured to me that even though this creepy bastard should be initiating the conversation, I could be the bigger man.
"Who the hell are you?" I asked, trying to decide whether I should just stab him in the ear with my dagger.
Naturally, like any random floating geriatric head this one was maddeningly cryptic. "Who am I?" He asked with an accent that reeked of academia. "Maybe I'm an almighty being. Maybe I am a ghost. Maybe, MAYBE I am a figment of your alcohol soaked imagination. The question, young Seriano noble, is who the hell.......ARE YOU!?"
After hearing him go on like that I wasn't so concerned by his eerieness. "Who the hell am I? Well damn, old man, sounds to me like you already know that! Why are you in my room and where the hell is the rest of your body? If anything turns up missing in here I'll thump you in the nostrils!"
He didn't like that. Suddenly he erupted into flames, and the skin melted off to splatter onto the furs that still lay on the floor. The stench of incinerated flesh and hair made me double over and vomit violently. Over the noise of my gagging the old man's voice boomed.
"Fool!" he scolded. "You have no idea of the forces that are in motion, of events that are about to transpire! The fate of the entire world is in jeopardy, and it will all be YOUR fault if things do not go well, so just remember that when you're playing the part of the jackass to impress the ladies!"
You can't imagine how bizarre that was, hurling my very innards onto a pile of melted old man skin while that old man's flaming skull called me names and told me the world was about to end. Wasn't this the kind of shit I paid Rath to prevent?
Suddenly he stopped yelling at me and I stood up, wiping my chin, to see the old man's head again, as it should be, and not engulfed in flames.
"Who are you?" I asked again, panting from my wretching.
"It matters not, at this point. What matters, Seriano noble, is that you be aware of your situation, at least that you be aware that you are about to be in a situation. Actually, what matters is that you know that there will be a situation that occurs, and that it will involve you as a major element, and that you be aware of its impending relevance." He looked off into the distance, as though trying to make sure he had told me everything he came to tell me, which was absolutely fuck-all, then nodded his head and said, "Yes. Well, I apologize for the earlier theatrics, its just that sometimes you younger people don't take things seriously like you ought to, and it makes me want to maim your organs. I'll keep in touch!"
And then the prick bastard disappeared. I couldn't believe it. Any of it, of course, but most of all that he was just gonna pop out of there like that and....what? What was the point of that? Why come in here and tell me absolutely nothing? And why.....nevermind. Obviously there was only one explanation: ghost. Hump's Inn had been here for at least forty years, was that long enough for a place to get infested with ghosts? I wasn't sure, I can honestly say the subject had never been a factor in my day to day existence until now. Dumbfounded, and pissed off, I looked down at the floor to see that the furs were just as they were this morning, stained surely, but not from molten brains. Yep. Definitely a ghost.
"Hey! What the hell, Tal?" It was Rath and I swear I almost jumped out the window I was so spooked.
"Vamerea's curlies! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?"
He pushed me out of the way and began picking up packs and bundles. "The hell's your problem? Playing with yourself in here?" He walked back out the door, with most of our baggage. "I'm ready to go, damn! I'm done with Pak's Crotchsore!"
Idiot. Taking one last look around the room, I collected my bags and followed Rath outside to the wagon.