Chenga

The Inn of Kimlar

The air was chill.  The cold, like some relentless creature, gnawed at the gloved fingers and rag-wrapped toes of Kirad Nirgalen.  His life's breath billowed from his mouth, to form ice on his beard and eyelashes, as he shuffled through the snow, following in the deep footprints laid down by the shambling figure of Kahutchek Simarl.  Nirgalen saw his companion only as a tattered cloak and a pair of cloth-covered legs that strained against the biting wind.  Blue skies lay above, but the sun was pale... its fire consumed by the hungry spirit of Winter, which sucked life from all around.

They were on the road to Kimlar... on the road to better fortune.  Smuggling spice in Deneb, they'd gotten caught up in a fight that wasn't theirs.  They had carried spice for the wrong side: the losing side.  They escaped with their lives, but even that was now in doubt.  In Deneb, the Kula-Mar clan had put a price on their heads.  And now they were tramping through the snow, on back roads, heading south, as the birds flew north, escaping from the scum-infested streets of Deneb, but heading for the Bounty-Hunters' homeland.  It didn't make a whole lot of sense, but, with the cold of Winter, few people were on the move and the Peytahn Bounty-Hunters wouldn't expect them to come knocking at their door.  Simarl knew a free-lance privateer who sailed out of Kimlar.  They had nothing to lose... except their lives.

Hunger, thirst and the aching cold were now all they felt.  With the sun dipping below the black, silhouetted, grasping fingers of the bare trees by the roadside, they had to reach shelter before nightfall, or the cold would cheat the Kula-Mar and they would die in some drab ditch by the wayside.

Dark came.  With each laboured breath life dwindled away.  A dull numbness descended on Nirgalen.  He was no longer sure if he moved... if he lived.

Simarl raised his head and peered through frosted lashes.  A dim light shone ahead.  Kimlar... it had to be Kimlar.  His head dropped back down and he staggered on.

The black mass of skeletal trees thinned and lamp-lights shone out amidst a huddle of huts and dwellings.  The smell of animals carried on the cutting night air, along with the stench of human habitation.  Nirgalen's head rose to savour the smell:  that heavenly stench meant life.

Simarl shambled to the door of a large building.  It reeked of smoke, sawdust and bad ale.  A battered sign hung from a post over the door.  In the faint light cast from a frosted window the outline of a black boar could be made out on the sign.  Sure enough they'd found the Inn of Kimlar.

A tatter of parchment flapped against the door where it had been nailed.  Simarl grasped it between his two rag-covered hands and pulled it to his red-rimmed and watering eyes.  He drew closer and tried to focus.  Nirgalen stumbled and fell against him and Simarl almost dropped the parchment.

'Kahu... what the...?'

Simarl looked down again.

'Stout hearts wanted... 1000 gold pieces... see Innkeep.'

Simarl clutched at Nirgalen to stop himself from falling.

'Let's get inside... before we freeze.'

Welcoming warmth swirled around them, as they entered the inn, but a sea of dark faces threw glances of suspicion their way.  In the flicker of an eye, Nirgalen and Simarl cased the room.  Three Peytahns, drunk but huge, and no doubt bristling with hidden weapons, sat by the fire, draining flagons of ale and singing raucously.  The tattoos on their faces revealed that two were of low rank and the third was young, but high ranking.  Five K'Vathin traders, or slavers more like, played Peloose at a table as far from the Peytahns as possible, shielding their cards and their slit lizard eyes looking shifty.  At the bar sat an old local, who smoked on a pipe; from the smell it was weed he was smoking rather than spice, which was just as well for Nirgalen and Simarl.