Tales of a Horse Thief, Cycle 2 Part 7a

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Part 7) Loden

Loden had not wanted to waste too much time in the city. It felt urgent to some part of his inner being that he should be rapidly acquiring the supplies and horses that he expected to be needing. The feeling had subsided once he had left Asta at the inn where she had rented a room. Thankfully he had napped earlier at the temple and, despite his leg still being sore, he was feeling pretty good being out and about.

He did not really understand what had been happening to Asta, other than she had been in some serious looking trouble. She had certainly been in a distracted and exhausted state, a little snappy even, after they had left the temple. She had been waspish when he initially offered to stick around the inn to make sure she was not disturbed. Asta had very pointedly reminded him that between herself and the goddess, she felt that she was, in fact, going to be alright by herself at the inn. It had seemed an opportune time to run some errands.

He puffed on his pipe as he made his way through the streets of GreensBridge. He had come to the Grey District to find the dwarves, a specific one at that. He had never really dealt with the StoneFolk before, he was of the opinion that such an interaction would potentially be very time consuming. Flint had said that dwarves could take an entire day just to say hello.

Loden had supposedly been in the Grey District for some time without realizing. The lad selling meat pies had informed him that he had been in the Grey District after he had passed through the gate in the Eldra wall. So, supposedly, he had been in the bad side of town for a while. At least the kid’s pies were good.

He was coming to the conclusion that Tisp had been a steamy-pile-of-dung sort of a city. Most of it, except the Mountain, which was really only a hill, had been in much worse shape than the area he was presently walking through.

Loden darted across a wide street and spotted another wall in the distance, the pie-kid had said that at the GreyWall Gate he could go to the goblin and dwarven sections of the city. Certainly the wall ahead of him was grey and not green. A couple of wagons rolled past, splashing dirty water across his pants. He shook a fist at the drivers, then moments later laughed as the clothing cleaned itself, leaving only a slight dampness.

One thing he was sure of, these walls around the Grey District were not meant to keep people out, but rather to keep people in. More folks lived in this northeastern section of the city than all the rest combined. The working poor, the destitute, disenfranchised, crippled, mixed-bloods of all sorts and otherwise undesirable folks. Including the dwarves and goblins.

Fucking goblins. There were so many of them. Some were outlandishly dressed in styles imitating present popular human clothing. Almost always, these ones wore a veil or sometimes a mask. Most of the others did not. Loden had been very disturbed by their ugly, bat-like snouts and sharp teeth. Not to mention their chatter, shrill whistles and chirps were rather jarring. Until recently he had only ever seen a goblin from a distance, in fact most places he had been to usually offered a bounty on goblins, what with them being baby eating thieves and all.

As he approached the gates of the GreyWall the press of people slowed traffic to a crawl, he did his best to skirt the busier areas. He was also aware that he had become very conspicuous as he delved deeper into the Grey District. Here near the gate, where the three races regularly interacted, everyone made a pretense of getting along, though Loden was under the impression that dwarves and goblins hated each other. There was a decent sized market with lots of colours and different sorts of folk from all over. He thought one man he saw was a wild-elf, parading around mostly naked, very self assured.

He noted that an ugly looking, unveiled, goblin had been following him the past couple of blocks. It was wearing a sack with the bottom and lower sides cut open for its head and arms. The word beans was stencilled in bold letter across the sack. Loden was not sure if the goblin was actually interested in him, but it did seem to be the case.

He stepped over a suspect looking puddle as he made his way along the edge of the market area. He also noted that across the street a small group of children had become interested in him. He wondered how many other people were also eyeing him up at the moment, thinking to themselves that he was a foolish and easy mark.

He saw a dwarf ahead of him, jogged a bit to catch up and tapped the fellow on his shoulder. Startled, the dwarf spun away, his hand dropped to the knife he carried, and he looked around for other dangers. “If you would test the courage of Iflarga Thusvraanda of the Clan of Dorghragdiv, Exiled from The Red Mountain seven hundred and thirty seven years ago. Sired from the loins of Harvergdrougmor of the Traghnang Dwivwjn, borne by Wathwargji Forgalnen, daughter of the renown Wratkergji, Master of the Sphere of the Lojkikmar, Red Mountain line. Be advised little man, I will make a good accounting of myself.” He drew his knife and raised the blade, spat to one side then dropped into a fighting stance.

Loden took a step back, raised a hand and looked down at the fierce looking man “I don’t know what you just said, but I’m just looking for Brokak Borntiven, the artificer.”

The dwarven man rolled his eyes. Loden noted the two of them had drawn a lot of attention.

He tried again, speaking slower, “Do you know Brokak Borntiven? The artificer?”

“For fucks sake man!” The dwarf spat to the other side. “It is Bronkarak Bjorttenver, Master Artificer of GreensBridge as the very least. Even for a bright-light, like you. I refuse you the dignity of the Master’s Kragetta, as you are not worthy.”

Loden grabbed his pipe, hacked and spat casually onto the road, “Alright then, but, yes that’s the guy. Brognark Buttoner.”

Iflarga shook his head. Loden noted that the man’s colouring was somewhere between brown and grey, he could not really remember having seen that shading on someone before. At least he understood why they were called StoneSkin Folk and EarthBorn, though it was obviously flesh and muscle, Loden could not deny that it looked like granite.

People were definitely watching them. Loden spotted the children that were stalking him and the beans goblin, a small group of dwarves were heading in their direction as well. Loden set his satchel down and pulled out his harness. “Do you mind if I put these on? I would not want to give people the wrong impression.”

The man’s eyes widened noticeably and his posture shifted out of a combat stance as he pointed to the harness. “Where did you get those?” He said breathlessly.

Loden casually put the harness on. “I assume you mean these beautiful shooters?”

“What symbol is that? By stone and hammer! Who are you? How dare you remain nameless.” He spat again, the bluish gob landed a hand span from Loden’s foot.

The other dwarves had come up to the front of the crowd, they crossed their arms and gazed on with threatening looks. A number of goblins had gathered on the other side of the street, they were chattering, dancing around, making a racket. Dozens of his own kind watched the situation, most with open curiosity.

In the distance, seemingly from the area of the gate, Loden heard the shrill of a whistle. A few people immediately made themselves scarce, including the little gang of hoodlums that had been stalking him.

“Look, mister, I just want to get some ammunition for the repeaters. This doesn’t have to get messy.”

The dwarf looked unhappy, he glanced towards his peers and then down the street towards the gate from which military sounding shouts were heard. To Loden it sounded like a small troop was being sent out from the gate. Surely not for this? “Follow me then, nameless cure. Keep up.” The dwarf turned and headed down one of the nearby side streets.

“I’m starting to understand why everyone likes you guys so much.” Loden had no trouble keeping pace with the man.

They wound through the streets, circled around the market area and passed into a small courtyard beyond the gate, to one side a gate led to a rather ramshackle looking community, while a third gate led into an area that had obviously seen regular maintenance. Wordlessly the dwarf lead him along winding streets. There were a few folks out and about, he saw only a handful of non-dwarven people. The roads and buildings were in excellent shape, everything was clean.

They came to a wide road and crossed over to a sizable stone building from which he could hear the sounds of one or more smiths working, though the sound seemed oddly muted. They came to the main entry, in front of which a stone had been placed, the surface had been carved with a large amount of text. The dwarf stopped and pointed to the stone, “Read that, learn the name of the master you seek and understand his linage. I will go see if a man such as yourself, nameless and without kin of note, may enter to do business. Don’t wander off.”

“Sure, alright.” Loden found his tobacco pouch and filled his pipe, he took one of his last quick-strikes, lit the pipe and puffed until the tobacco was burning properly. Then he looked at the stone. It was an abbreviated version of the artificer’s name and linage, taller than he was and only slightly narrower than its height. The lettering was on the small side, it took a long time for him to struggle through the entire thing. Even at that, most of it made no sense to him. So many dwarven names.

He knew that this was one of only a handful of people from whom he would be able to get black powder from in the city. Or, so he had been told. So after he had struggled through the first reading, he recharged his pipe and went through it all again. Eventually he sat down, leaning his back against the name-stone and waited some more.

Most of the afternoon passed and still he waited.

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