Kell's Legend

fire to banish vestiges of damp. Now they searched the cupboards and drawers at the back of the shelter.
    “Look,” said Kell, staring at Saark across the table. “I…I wanted to apologise. Again. For what happened back at the tavern. It rests uneasy with me, laddie. It shouldn’t have happened. I am ashamed of what I did.”
    “Don’t worry about it.”
    “No,” said Kell. “I feel bad. And it wasn’t totally your fault; when I drink whisky, it twists my brain. Turns me into the bad man from the poem.” He smiled wryly. “Yes, the stanza they never repeat, lest it sour my legend. Ha!” He turned, stared into the fire for a while. Then he reached across the table. “Take my hand.”
    “Why? You want to read my palm?”
    “No, I want to crush your fingers, idiot. Take my damn hand.”
    Saark took the old man’s grizzled paws, felt the massive strength contained therein. He looked up into Kell’s eyes, and swallowed. There was power there, true power, charisma, strength and an awesome resolve.
    “That will never happen again, Saark, I promise you. I count you as a friend. You have saved my granddaughter’s life, and you have fought with great courage on my behalf. If you ever see me touch a whisky bottle to my lips, please, smash me over the head with the fucking bottle. I will understand. And…I owe you, my friend. I owe you with my life. I will give my life to protect you.”
    Saark blinked, as Kell released him, and sat back a little. He grinned. “You could have just blown me a kiss.”
    “Don’t get smart.”
    “Or sent some flowers.”
    “I might not kill you,” snarled Kell, “but I’ll slap your arse, for sure. Now be a good lad, and go and find some candles…the dark outside, well, it’s getting kind of eerie; what with these Harvesters and cankers and damned albino bastards roaming the land.”
    “Candles won’t stop the horrors of the dark, my friend.”
    “ I know that ! Just find some.”
    As Saark was rummaging around in the bottom of an old cupboard, the door to the road shelter opened and three figures were illuminated by firelight. They stood for a moment, surveying the interior, and then stepped in, leading another four refugees, presumably from recent slaughter in a local village.
    Kell stood, taking up his axe, and stared at the newcomers. The villagers he dismissed immediately from his mind, for they were obviously refugees in tatters, half dead with cold. But the first three; they were warriors, vagabonds, and very, very dangerous. Kell couldtell from the glint in their eyes, the wary way they moved, the cynical snarls ingrained on weary, stone-carved expressions.
    “We saw your fire,” said one of the newcomers, stepping forward. She was tall, taller than Kell even, her limbs wiry and strong, her fingers long, tapered, the nails of her right hand blackened from constant use of the longbow strapped to her back. She had short black hair, cropped rough, and gaunt features, her eyes sunken, her flesh stretched and almost yellow. “My name is Myriam.”
    “Welcome, Myriam,” said Kell, watching as the other newcomers spread out. The four villagers cowered behind them, staring longingly at the fire. “Do you bring any supplies?”
    “We have potatoes, meat, a little salt. The villagers here also have food between them. Are those your horses out back?”
    “So what if they are?” said Saark, smoothly, standing beside Kell. “They are not for sale.”
    “I didn’t say I wanted to buy them,” said Myriam, and stalked forward, taking up a chair, reversing it, and sitting down, her arms leaning over the solid back. The two men approached, standing behind her; she was obviously the leader.
    Kell eyed the men carefully. One was of average height, squat, and inexorably ugly. He had pockmarked skin, narrow dark eyes, or eye, as the left was a lifeless socket, red and inflamed, and his cubic head sported tufts of hair as if shaved with a blunt razor. Worst of all, his lips were black, the black of the smuggler, the black of the outlawed Blacklipper, and it gavehis countenance a brooding, menacing air. Kell instinctively decided never to turn his back on the man.
    “This is Styx,” said Myriam, following Kell’s gaze. She gave a narrow smile. “Don’t lend him any money.”
    The second man was small and angry-looking, as so often small men were. He wore a thin vest, bloodstained and tattered, and scant protection against the cold. He was heavily muscled in