Realm Raiders – Chapter 4

Andre Becker was a waste of space. This was a well-known fact. He was a reprobate. A drunken good-for-nothing who ran a business into the ground and half his family out of town. The sort of man who’d drink his last coin and leave nothing of value behind. 

Which, alas, included his nephew, Lute.

But Uncle Andre was dead, and Lute was very much alive, so that was something to be said at least. 

Lute looked in the box. As did the man considering it. Hold your nerve, he scolded himself. Lute’s palms were sweaty, much like the rest of him. The box held good tongs, worth at least twelve pieces. The man inserted one grimy weathered hand into the box and poked forlornly at the contents. 

Hold fast. Don’t let him see you’re desperate.

‘Five pieces,’ the man offered.

‘Done.’ 

Shit. Lute took the money and handed the box and its contents over, desperately wanting a hole to open up and swallow him, and preferably the box too. 

The money was warm in his hand, about an even temperature with Lute’s hot shame. He waited until the man was out of sight before pulling the pouch from around his neck and adding it to what he’d already taken. Half-turning, he caught sight of the cold forge in the corner of his eye. 

His inheritance. 

Kicking a crate, he ignored the swelling hunger in his stomach. How long had it been since his last good meal? A few days at least. Did stale crusts of what he severely hoped was bread count as a meal? Make that a week then. Which meant he could go on being hungry. He obviously had a talent for it. Why not turn it into a career?

 There was an ominous creaking followed by a crash as the sign hanging outside the smithy fell and splintered into two equally useless large pieces. Lute sighed. 

That was about right. 

He walked over and grabbed the pieces, tossing them into the forge. The coals sat idle, the char of dozens of years of craft marring the stone with patterns of smoke. Lute remembered making his first horseshoe there, aged eleven, eager to learn. 

Andre had shown him how to do it—had stood over him, his thick hands guiding Lute’s, telling him how the heat worked to make the metal pliable. Given him gentle encouragement as he hammered out the shape.

 Then a dark shadow had fallen over Andre’s face, a shadow as familiar by then to Lute as the rising of the sun or the hiss of the rain, and he talked about the pig men and the music boxes that trapped people’s voices. 

Lute should have known he wasn’t quite right back then.

Lute’s eyes flickered to the window, beyond which, in the circle of mud and grass that counted as the half-acre that came with the smithy, Andre lay, no longer jabbering about nonsense, at least not so as anyone could hear. 

The rain had turned the mud around the burial plot into a quagmire. It was all cold and wet. A pauper’s grave. Lute had dug it himself, rolled the body into it with great effort—no one ever tells you how heavy a body is—and stood alone, trying to remember his prayers, and forgetting, ending up in a simple mutter that Langos keep him, Langos watch over him.

Langos was the spirit of the hearth, least this side of the hills. He had piss all to do with dead uncles, but they were smithies so it felt right.

‘You still sifting through that old crackpot’s junk?’ called a voice from the doorway. Gill stood there, arms crossed, leaning against the jamb. He had a shit-eating grin across his gormless face, which improved it considerably to be fair. His mop of red hair was usual around these parts, as was his wonky nose from multiple scuffles, scuffles being the polite word for beatings, both given and taken. But whatever Gill doled out (and received) in violence to his enemies he made up for in being a good, laidback friend to Lute, the kind who’ll listen to you whine and throw up with you in the early morn.

 ‘You know I wouldn’t pay three pieces for this pile of shit,’ Gill continued. He scuffed one boot across the floor.

‘Didn’t ask you to.’ Lute picked up a fork and tossed it into a box where it conspired to look somehow more worthless. ‘But someone’s got to clear this place out. I’ll never sell it while it’s in this state—and if I don’t sell this place, I’m never getting out of here and away from you.’

Gill grinned. ‘Well, fuck you and your shit box very much. Hungry?’

‘Yes, but I’m not spending money on food. I need every lousy penny I can get.’

Gill whipped something out of his shirt pocket, something whose aroma carried straight over to Lute. He was a good friend. You could always tell someone was a true friend when they brought you pies. Thick pastry, warm gravy. Lute made it disappear like a beggar making coin vanish. Brushing the crumbs from the corner of his mouth, he nodded. ‘On your way to the Seven Worlds?’ He tried not to sound hopeful. 

‘Of course I am, and so are you.’ Gilli gestured back towards the road that led down into the town. ‘Come on, cheap arse. You can watch me get drunk.’

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Realm Raiders Chapter Five lands on Spotlight Indie on 05^th June

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Before . . .