Kell's Legend

have the face of an angel,” he replied, voice a little husky.
    Kell entered, stalking down the stairs at the far end of the room, and Kat hurriedly removed her hand. Kell eased through the crowded common room, searching, and only spied the group when Saark waved his arm high in the air. Kell strode to them and stood, hands on hips, face full of raw thunder.
    “What’s this?” he growled.
    “A table,” said Saark, feigning surprise. “I’m agog with amazement that you failed to recognise such a basic appliance of carpentry.”
    “The clothes,” he raged, “you brightly coloured horse-cock! What do you think you’re doing?”
    “You would rather the ladies dressed in rags? Showed tits and arses through threadbare holes for every punter to see?”
    “No, but…something less… colourful would have been appropriate.” He lowered his voice, eyes narrowing. “Couldn’t you have bought some cotton shirts and trews? We’ll be travelling in the snow later; what good are silk dresses then?”
    “I have purchased a few normal items, and fur-lined cloaks, Kell, even for you; although I’ll wager you’ll be as grateful as a rutting dog after a savage castration. Listen, these were all the merchant had. What was Isupposed to do? Let them come here with knife rips in their shirts? For I know what would have been the more suspicious.”
    “Hmph,” muttered Kell, slumping to a stool.
    Saark turned, and winked at the girls. Kat covered her mouth, and giggled. “Anyway,” said Saark, twirling his wrists to allow puffed cotton to flower. “Don’t you like my noble attire, good sir? I find it serves when attracting the attention of sophisticated ladies.”
    “Saark, you’re a buffoon, a clown, a macaroni and a peacock! I thought we were travelling to King Leanoric carrying urgent news? Instead, you strut about like a dog with three dicks.”
    “We are,” snapped Saark, “but we can at least have a little fun along the way! Life is shit, Kell, and you have to grasp every moment, every jewel. You go out back and eat with the pigs from their slop-trough if you like; me and the ladies, we are going to dine on meat and sup fine wines.”
    “No drink,” said Kell.
    “Why not?”
    “We may have to leave fast.”
    “Bah! You are a killjoy, a grump and a…a damn killjoy! We will drink, the ladies are my guests, and if you have any sense, man, you’ll at least have an ale. You look like a horse danced on your face. Admittedly, it improves your savage and ugly looks, but it must hurt a little, surely? A whisky would do no harm, against the pain of injury and winter chill.”
    “An ale, then,” conceded Kell.
    The server arrived, a young woman, slightly overlarge and with rosy cheeks. Saark ordered the finestfood on the menu—gammon, with eggs and garnished potatoes. He also ordered a flagon of wine, and two whiskies.
    Kell muttered something unheard.
    They talked, and Kell surveyed the room. They had attracted a certain amount of attention with their fancy clothes, and the act of Saark buying the inn’s population a drink. He was showing he had perhaps a little too much money; they were certainly marked as strangers to the Falls.
    Little happened before the food arrived. When plates were delivered, Saark expressed his delight and tucked in heartily, knife and fork cutting and rising like a man possessed. The girls ate more sparingly, as befitted their new image as ladies, and Kell sat, picking like a buzzard worrying a corpse, despite his hunger, one eye on the crowd and the door, wondering uneasily at the back of his mind if the albino army was marching south. And if they were, how far had they traversed across the Great North Road? Did Leanoric know of the invasion of Falanor? Did he have intelligence as to the taking of Jalder? Surely he must know…but only if somebody had escaped the massacre, and managed to get word to him.
    Uneasily, Kell ate his eggs and gammon, allowing juices from the meat to run down his throat. Kell always ate slowly, always savoured his food; there had been times in his life when he could not afford such luxuries. Indeed, times in his life when there was no food to be had, camping in high caves in windy passes, the snow building outside, no way of making a fire, no food in his pack…but worst of all, there hadbeen times far too miserable and brutal to recollect, times
    running through dark streets, the only light from fires consuming buildings as citizens cowered indoors