An Axe in the Flames

Nail

The bar was like any other bar he'd seen, dirty wooden floors covered in saw dust to try to mask the smell of puke and spilled beer and maybe the occasional blood. Bar maids wearing next to nothing and looking like they'd been rode hard and put up wet a few times too many. Drunks talking too loud about ridiculous stories and their equally drunken friends one upping every tall tale with one of their own. Obnoxious bards singing about legendary feats and love songs. If you'd seen one bar or tavern or even an inn, you'd seen them all.

Nail sat in a dark corner booth, one leg propped up on the bench seat and was digging a smiley face into the wooden table with a small dagger. He stood out among the ramble rousers if only because he refused to ever wear a shirt. He had been blessed with a built in shirt, unruly chest and back hair. He knew not everyone understood it, but he didn't really care what everyone else thought. He was a dangerous man, and if someone had the nerve to say something...well, he had the means to set them straight.

He reclined back and took a long swig of his beer. It tasted awful but it quenched his thirst. He hated beer, honestly, but its all this piss pot of a dive had to offer. He tilted his head side to side, his long beard dragging across his chest hair, and popped his neck. He'd traveled a few days on horse back and it had absolutely killed his back and shoulders. Normally, he preferred to walk everywhere as he trusted his feet more than an animal that was bigger than him and almost as unpredictable. He had been hired by King Herrod to track down the man responsible for the Thanish uprising. All he had was the name, Rabbit. He'd been given less before to go on, but Rabbit had been easy to find and follow.

"Doesn't matter what they did today. We took resources from their precious ranks."

Rabbit was one of the idiots that talked too loud, and he was terrible at covering his tracks or even hiding. Perhaps he was too stupid to think about being taken out by a hired assassin, or he just didn't know what he was doing. His first go at a rebellion and all. Nail continued to listen to the obnoxious idiot, his cohorts crowding around him at a long table just to the left of where Nail sat in the shadows. His voice was whiny and speech was clipped in the Thanish common accent.

"Herrod sits on his throne, surrounded by the finest of furniture and gold trimmed everything. He wants for nothing and doesn't care about us commoners. He just wants more and more money and we have to work so he can afford his lavish life. I bet he's never even wiped his own ass."

This elicited a raucous laughter from his cronies and just hearing his stupid voice really pissed Nail off. Commoner, that explained a lot. He didn't understand his place in the pecking order of life.

"He didn't pay for our soldiers, he didn't pay our blacksmiths to make their armor. Our hard work and sweat did. Who's this mother fucker to come into our lands and demand more taxes and more rations, let alone drafting our people into his war effort to protect himself from the mad king of the salt desert?"

He was really getting into his speech now, the beer obviously working into courage to speak so freely and so loudly. Fuck this guy, seriously. He was short and skinny, his dirty farmer clothes hanging from his shoulders. The group around him barely looking better. Eight other men, probably carrying daggers or knives. Nothing to worry about really.

"We already give more than we should! Why should our people suffer so he can live like a fat pig? Eating enough for a family at every meal. His Battle Priests are barely better than him. Following his every command like it's the word of the Almighty. Well, I bet they couldn't even count their hands twice and get the same answer!"

Cheers of 'here, here' and 'say it man' sprang up from the morons around him. They tapped their copper mugs on the table in an odd appreciation of his drunken babble. He continued his drivel.