Mercenary Captain Kerric: Episode 14, Settling in Den.

Kerric broods about how bad off his men have become as he waits the return of his scouts.

The two customers in the inn, peddlers by the looks of them, left before the last of his men entered, leaving the entire stale-smelling place to Kerric and his men. The old woman and the old slave continued to set out more flagons of beer, poured by a younger man behind a crude bar, all the while the old man tended the cooking. But none of the villagers were in the place for breakfast. That was a sign that the food would not be anything special, though it was just possible that they beat the locals in, and their own presence was now going to keep them away.

Watching each man enter, Kerric hid his disgust at the sloppy, haphazard way each of his men dumped their bedrolls. It was nothing like the attention to detail that they had when they arrived, where even the slightest thing such as setting down their stuff had been done with forethought and precision. It was one more testament to how very far his men had fallen. Catching Harkman’s eye, he glanced around.

Harkman’s own eyes shifted as he took in the sloppiness of everything and the fact that no villagers were here for breakfast. A tightening of the man’s focus was all the indication Kerric had that he saw and understood both problems. But that was enough. After all, Kerric had been reading the man for a few centuries now in a place where he hid all, and knew every nuisance of his body language: Cooking would be overseen, and the men would be seen to.

But it would take place behind his back. The whole set of the man’s shoulder said that. More than half of these men had seniority to him back home. Harkman would handle it, but his way, and behind Kerric’s back, and without making an enemy of any of them. Draining the flagon in a gulp, Kerric stood, which grabbed the attention of every man in the place. Yet even so, only three took stock of their surroundings. These were indeed a far cry from the men he’d rode south with. He left them to it.

Stepping out the door with the sun blazing right in his face, he turned and faced south. There, Ramo herded omark off in the distance, one each for all the Warcats, more substantial a meal than Kerric had ordered. Did he do that because it was easier, or did he determine that was the only meat in quantity available in this tiny place? Neither answer bode well for their stay here. Turning north, he started back toward where that trail branched off. It was time to rethink if any of these men were still worth taking back with him or not.

***

The smell of roasting omark filled the air and the shadows stretched long before him by the time Kerric returned to the inn of Den, though the sun was still four fists above the horizon, that question still unanswered and. Not only would returning without them do a lot of damage, but getting them back into shape would get him ready for the much more difficult task he would face at home. That one, more than the problems their death would cause, had him leaning toward letting them live, for now, but only by a hair.

Music hit his ears.

So a minstrel had stopped for the night. A talented one too, from what he could hear. The north had far more practiced, note-perfect minstrels, but for pure talent and passion, the southern musicians, fumble fingered in comparison to the northern perfectionist, played music that was far more alive. The stay at this inn would not be all bad.

Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

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