Kell's Legend

cheeks red. Her fists were clenched.
    Kat looked sideways at Kell, who continued to stare across the fields. “It’s fine, Nienna,” he said, voice little more than a whisper. Then, to Kat, “You’re talking about back at the tannery, aren’t you lass?”
    Kat nodded.
    Kell continued, “Yes. I was brutal, brutal and merciless towards you, and I shocked you into movement, into action! If you’d lingered on your injuries, on your fear, you could have killed us all. I could not allow you, even as a friend of Nienna, to be responsible for her death. I would not allow it!” He turned, stared at his granddaughter with a mix of love, regret, and nostalgia. He smiled then. “I would cross the world for you, my little monkey. I would fight an army for you. I would kill an entire city for you. Nobody will get close to you again, this I swear, by the blood-oil of Ilanna.”
    Nienna moved forward, took his hand, snuggled in close to him. “You don’t have to do all that,grandfather.” Her voice was small, a child again, nestling against the only father figure she had ever known.
    “But I would,” he growled. “No canker will get close. I’ll cut out the bastard’s throat.”
    “Saark’s coming.”
    They watched him approach, walking his horse with care over snowy undulations. He was smiling, which was a good sign; at least the Army of Iron hadn’t rolled through destroying everything in its path. For a long, hopeful moment Kell prayed he was mistaken, prayed to any gods that would listen that he was wrong; but a sourness overtook his soul, and he fell into a bitter brooding.
    “There’s an inn, with rooms. I’ve booked us three.” He glanced at Kell. “Wouldn’t like to put up with your snoring again, old horse. No offence meant.”
    “None taken; I am equally horrified by the stench of your feet.”
    “My feet! I am aghast with horror! Oh the ignominy! And to think, we risked mutilation and death to come back for you with a horse. Old boy, we should have left you to eat fried canker steaks for the next week; maybe then you would have learnt manners.”
    Kell pushed past Saark, leading his own horse. “That’s an impossibility, lad. A man like me…well, I’m too honest. A farmer. A peasant. Manners are the reserve of gentry; those with money, those born with silver on their tongue…” Saark smiled, inclining his head to the compliment, “…and equally those with a brush up their arse, shit in their brains, a decadent stench of bad perfume on their crotch, and a sisterwho’s really their cousin, their mother and their daughter all rolled into one. Inbreeding?” He growled a laugh. “I blame it on the parents.”
    He stalked off, down the hill, and Saark turned to the young women. “Who rattled his chain and collar?”
    “He rattled it himself,” said Nienna, stepping forward, touching Saark’s arm. “Don’t be too offended; back in Jalder, he made few friends.”
    “How many friends?”
    “None,” admitted Nienna, and laughed. “But he was a wonderful cook!”
    “So wonderful he poisoned them all?”
    “You are full of charm,” said Nienna, breathing a sigh as Saark took her arm. They started down the hill, leaving Kat with two horses, and she scowled after them, eyes narrowing, watching the sway of Saark’s noble swagger as he walked, one hand on his hip. He was going home; or at least, to a place of modest civility.
    “We’ll see who’s full of charm,” she muttered.
    Darkness had fallen as they entered the outskirts of the town, which Saark identified as Jajor Falls. Six cobbled roads ran out from a central square which acted as a hub and market, and there was an ornate stone bridge containing six small gargoyles over a narrow, churning, river. A fresh fall of snow began, as if heralding the travellers’ arrival, and they walked tired horses up the snow-laden street, hoof-strikes muffled, looking left and right in the darkness. Some houses showed lantern light in windows; but most were black.
    “A sombre place,” remarked Kell.
    “The inn’s livelier.”
    “What’s it called?”
    “The Slaughtered Piglet.”
    “You have to be joking?”
    “Apparently, there is a long archaic story of magick and mayhem behind the title. They’ll tell us over a tankard of ale.” He winked. “You have to admire these peasant types; they tell it like it is.”
    “Sounds grand.”
    They heard music before they saw the inn; it came into view, a long, low, black-stone building.