Ale and Ashes

Tales from the Woldwood - Story Two

Two men walk away from a war that has already forgotten their names. What waits for them now is a choice between saving others and saving themselves. The war may be over, but some fires do not go out when the banners fall. They simply follow you home.

They called it an end because there was nothing else to call it. The camp had thinned to a smear of smoke and trampled mud, a place that had been their whole world a day before and was now only a scattering of men arguing over scraps of kit. The banners were down, the officers had already ridden away and the rest were left with just their bodies and their names.

Edric Laine walked with a pack retrieved from a dead man. His main concern these past years had been armour and he could not bring himself to abandon all of it. His clothes were bloodstained, his boots were cracked and he still expected ambush or attack.

Arnulf Pike had a roll of canvas slung under one arm and a swinging pot hooked through it by the handle. He had kept his knives and a bone spoon given to him before its owner met his death.

They said very little to each other at first. The roads away from the front ran through low scrub, broken stone and mud churned by boots and hooves. In the distance the hills held their grey line and Edric noticed that the birds had returned.

It was the only sound until Pike broke the quiet with a characteristic practical suggestion.

“Ironreach won’t have heard the half of it,” he said. “Not properly. They’ll know about the war, of course. Sailors will have brought talk but that’s not the same as knowing. They’ll drink to it then spit and go back to their ropes.”

“That’s fine.” said Edric.

Pike had known Edric since they were boys in Broch Heel, taking turns stealing apples and pretending it was for someone else. He could read his friend’s silences the way he could read the colour of a broth. This wasn’t anger, it was the silence of a pot left too long on the fire.

“You’ll need to work,” Pike said. “You can’t sit with your hands in your lap. You’ll go mad.”

“I won’t sit.”

“That’s what I mean,” Pike said. “Ironreach has work. Salt and iron. Engineers. Seamen. Men who don’t ask too many questions so long as you haul what you’re told and don’t cheat them.”

Edric nodded but he couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for it. Acceptance was all he had left.

They walked through the morning until the road took them past a burned patch where the grass had not yet returned. Heat rose in Edric’s mind, and memories of the Pirrus. He could see the fire-caster’s wand pointing at them, his skin already blistered from the sheer amount of casting. He heard the spells crack like a whip and the screams that came after. Worse than that was the smell of singed hair and bubbling fat. The fire had clung like oil and could not be extinguished by rolling in mud. They clawed at their own skin until they died.

Pike watched him as they walked. “You’re doing it again,” he said.

Edric blinked. “Doing what.”

“Going somewhere else,” Pike said. “You look like you’re listening to someone who isn’t there.”

Edric sighed. “I’m fine.”

“Well you’re clearly not. But you’re walking. That’s something.”

They arrived at Ironreach by early evening. It was busy but not huge or gleaming, no marble and pomp on this Marchlands coast. A working city, crouched by the water like a dog that lived on scraps. The harbour cut into the shore and masts rose, appearing to jostle for their berths. Smoke hung over the roofs. The air carried salt, iron and tar, yet beneath it were fish guts and excrement.

Pike pointed. “There she is.”

Edric stared down at the spread of it. The city was alive in a way the camp had not been. The war had been men arranged by force but this was men arranged by desire and necessity. It felt more dangerous to him because it was not bound by orders.

Pike clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on then.”

The streets swallowed them quickly and the sound hit Edric first. Shouting. Laughter. The clatter of metal. The scrape of barrels. A bell ringing somewhere. The creak of rigging and the slap of water against hulls. For some reason he had expected the quiet of home, instead Ironreach offered him a cacophony among the coal fires, brine and sweat.

They passed a group of dockworkers hauling a crate on poles, their backs bent and their mouths full of curses. A sailor leaned against a wall, vomited and continued his conversation with two other men. Two barefooted boys ran past carrying a net between them. Filthy, wild and free.

Pike moved through it like he belonged there. He nodded at a man selling dried eel from a cart and paused long enough to ask a woman where The Silverhorn was.

“You know where we’re going,” Edric said.

“I know the name,” Pike replied. “Names change in a place like this though, and so do streets. Taverns burn down and reopen under a different sign. It pays to ask.”

Edric did not argue with Pike because he had always been like that. In Broch Heel he had known which farmer would let you take an apple if you asked and which would chase you with a stick. In the camp he had known which officer would sneak into the cook tent at night and beg for more stew. He had listened to men talk when their mouths were loose with drink and their minds unguarded. He carried more secrets than a priest, but had only ever used them to keep people alive and fed.

Pike hooked a thumb toward the higher street where the clang of metal rang out. “Work first,” he said. “Then drink.” They followed the sound to Harken Blades, a long low shed with its doors flung open to the street and heat blowing out. Inside, men moved around anvils and a foreman looked Edric up and down, taking in his width, the calluses and the way he stood. He tossed him a bar of steel and Edric caught it.

“Can you haul,” the man asked. “Can you hold a blade and tell me if it rings true, or will you lie to save your pride.”

Edric looked at Pike and back to the man. “I won’t lie.”

The foreman smiled. “Then you start tomorrow. You’ll earn your ale before you drink it.”

The Captain Silverhorn sat close to the docks, and from inside came the roar of voices and the clash of mugs. Pike’s nostrils flared. “Smells like stale ale and bad judgement in here.”

“We could go somewhere else.”

Pike shook his head. “Nope. This is where sailors drink and their coin pools. Perhaps also where trouble gathers. If you want work, this is where you’ll hear who needs strong arms. If I want work, this is where I find a kitchen that feeds more than ten mouths.”

Edric followed him in.

The room was packed, and heat and stink rolled over them. There were men in salt-stiff shirts, engineers with soot under their nails and dock-hands, dozens of them. A few women in plain dresses moved between tables with trays, and smoke from the hearth fought with the smell of sweat and spilled ale. Someone had dragged a fiddler into a corner and was trying to make him play over the shouting.

The tavern-keep stood at the back like a man who had surrendered to his own life. He was broad but soft, his eyes watery, his apron stained. He barked at a serving girl for dropping a cup and then turned to flirt with a woman who did not smile.

Pike stared at him with open contempt. “Look at him. He lets the place run him.” He hauled Edric to a table and beckoned the man over. “Ale,” he said. “And something that won’t make my guts turn.”

The tavern-keep looked at them and saw what he always saw. Two old soldiers, two purses and a potential problem.

Edric took his mug and drank. The ale was sour and burned a little but he drank again.

“We’ll just sit here and watch. Then we’ll decide.”

Edric nodded as Pike set his canvas roll on the bench and sat with his back to the wall. Edric sat beside him, facing outward. For a time they simply took it in. Pike listened to the talk around them. A sailor complained about a captain who’d cheated him of wages, an engineer boasted about a new winch design and two dock-hands argued over a woman. The words washed over Edric as he drank and watched Pike watch.

A young serving girl moved past them carrying a tray. Edric thought her not much more than a child and noticed a bruise darkening her left forearm. When she tried to slip between two nearby benches, a man caught her by the hip and pulled her close, laughing as she stiffened.

“Careful, love,” the man said loudly. “You’ll spill if you shake like that.”

She tried to pull away. “Let go.”

The man tightened his grip on her. “Make me.”

There were laughs. Someone slapped the table. The tavern-keep looked over and then away, seeing everything and nothing.

For a moment Edric was back in a village with straw roofs burning, a rebel wizard laughing as traitor mortals dragged women from huts, using them as punishment to send a message. He remembered being unable to do anything while it happened because his commanding officer thought it too dangerous.

The sound of the girl’s voice disturbed his thoughts. “Let go!”

Pike was also watching the man with the grip and noticing the tavern-keep’s refusal to intervene. He looked at the girl’s face, and set his mug down slowly.

Edric spoke. “Pike.”

“I see it.”

Edric strained. “We should do something.”

“If you leap, you’ll make it worse.”

Edric turned his head. “Worse than what.”

“Worse than this moment. That man is drunk and he’s showing off. He thinks the world belongs to him. If you break his teeth, his friends will come and they’ll blame her for it. They’ll also blame the tavern, in fact Edric they will blame anyone but themselves and she’ll pay for it.”

“So we just sit.”

Pike shook his head. “We can get her out without blood. Watch.”

Pike stood up and walked toward the tavern-keep, catching his eye with that look that had fed officers and shamed them in the same breath.

“You,” Pike said.

The tavern-keep blinked, surprised at the stranger’s tone. “What.”

“You’ve got a girl being handled in your room,” Pike said, loud enough that a few looked on. “If you’re too blind to see it, you’re too blind to keep a tavern.”

The man’s face reddened. “Mind your tongue...”

Pike spoke low into his ear. “Mind your house. Or I’ll mind it for you.”

There was a boldness in Pike that came from the camp and from feeding men who carried weapons. Handling their moods had meant keeping order with a ladle and a stare. The tavern-keep faltered, then shouted out, “Verna! Get back here.”

The girl’s head turned at her name and the distraction loosened the man’s hold just enough. Pike’s hand shot out and grabbed her.

“Kitchen,” Pike said to her, his voice dropping beneath the noise. “Now.”

At first she did not move, not trusting any hand on her but soon nodded and slipped past Pike toward the back door.

The man who had held her noticed too late. “Oi,” he shouted, standing and swaying slightly. “Where do you think you’re going, little...”

Pike turned and met him. “She’s going to do her work,” he said flatly. “If you want to drink, drink. If you want to paw, go find someone who’s paid to pretend to like it.”

The man looked confused. “And who are you?”

“A man who’s sick of watching pigs,” Pike replied.

Laughter rippled, but it was nervous now and the man’s friends took an interest in the conversation, one of them standing up.

Edric was already on his feet and reached the man in three strides. The man turned, saw the size of him, and grinned. “You want some, soldier?” he said. “War’s over.”

Edric’s fist came up and drove into the man’s mouth, his teeth cutting Edric’s knuckles. Blood sprayed as the man staggered back, his hands flying to his face. The room went still. Then erupted.

“Hey!”

“That’s my brother!”

Edric grabbed the man by the front of his shirt and slammed him back into the table. Mugs toppled. Ale spilled. The man’s head cracked against the wood and his eyes rolled. Edric became somehow disembodied and saw fire, heat and women screaming again. Something in him just wanted to make the world pay.

A hand grabbed his arm and Pike’s voice cut through. “Edric. Enough.”

Edric did not hear at first. He had the man half off the floor, and someone swung at him from the side. Edric pivoted and drove an elbow into ribs that cracked as another man lunged. Edric caught him and threw him into a bench. The room had become a melee of bodies, curses and adrenaline.

Pike moved in a different way. He stepped between Edric and the men who wanted to pile on, fighting with precision. He shoved one hard into another, hooked a foot and tripped a third. He barked at the tavern-keep, “Get these fools out of here, or you’ll have a corpse on your floor!”

The tavern-keep finally shouted for the city watch, while Edric had hold of the first man again, the one who had grabbed the girl. The man’s mouth was ruined, blood and spit, his eyes pleading. Edric gripped him harder but then felt Pike’s palm on his chest, pushing just enough to force him to look.

“Edric,” he said. “He’s not worth it. Don’t bring the war into our hands again.”

Edric’s eyes aligned with Pike’s. Pike was not afraid often, but now there was a recognition of something in Edric that he had not seen before, something that could only have grown among the fire and the screams.

Edric loosened his grip and the man sagged. “Get out, you snivelling dog.” The man stumbled away, clutching his face and scrambling toward his friends.

For a moment Edric stood in the wreckage, blood on his knuckles, the room watching him like a beast deciding whether or not to pounce. The city watch burst in, two men with batons, their eyes taking in the scene.

Pike raised his hands, showing empty palms. “It’s done,” he said. “He was grabbing the girl. We stopped it. That’s all.”

One of the watchmen looked at Edric and took in the size of him. “You stopped it,” he repeated, sceptical.

“We’ll pay for what we broke,” he said. “And we’ll leave if you want.”

The tavern-keep spat. “Pay? He’s ruined my room!”

“You ruined your room by letting it become a place where men can do what they like. Count your losses and be grateful it’s only wood.” Pike barked.

The watchman hesitated because he understood that sailors fought, men bled and taverns mended their benches and moved on. But there was a line, and Edric had come close to it.

“Out,” the watchman said. “Tonight. And if I see you again with blood on your hands, I’ll put you in a cell until your anger cools.”

Edric nodded and Pike reached into his pouch, counted out coin, and thrust them into the tavern-keep’s hand. Then he turned and gestured to Edric. They stepped back into the street and then walked in silence until they reached a quieter lane.

Pike stopped, looking at Edric with an expression of plain understanding. “You nearly did it,” he said.

Edric stared at the blood on his knuckles. “I didn’t.”

“You nearly did,” Pike repeated. “You had him like a rabbit.”

“He was going to...”

“I know what he was going to do,” Pike said. “I’m not defending him. I’m telling you that you were about to make a corpse in a tavern and call it justice. And then what. You think that saves her? You think that saves you?”

“I couldn’t watch it,” Edric said. “I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing.”

Pike was unmoved. “You can’t save everyone,” he said. “You never could and you’ll burn to ashes if you keep throwing your body into every fire. You scared me.”

Edric looked at him properly. This was his boyhood friend Arnulf Pike, who had fed men that howled in the night, listened to confessions and laughed at death. Pike, who did not suffer fools. and had been his friend before any of this.

“I didn’t mean...” Edric began, then stopped because he did not know what he meant any more.

Pike rubbed a hand over his face. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll find a room. We’ll sleep. Tomorrow we’ll talk like men who aren’t half in the grave.”

They found lodging in a place that did not ask questions so long as coin was paid. The room was small, the beds narrow and the floor creaked. Pike sat on the edge of a bed, while Edric washed the blood away, and unrolled his canvas, checking his pot and his knives. “I spoke to the kitchen girl as she slipped back,” he said without looking up. “Verna. She’s been here a month. Came off a ship and has no family in the city. They work her hard and let men touch her because it keeps them drinking.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the kitchen,” Pike said. “Safe enough for tonight.”

Edric sat on the floor, back against the wall, his long legs stretched. Pike looked at him. “You want to go find a woman?” he said.

Edric was a little startled by the directness, but nodded. “Yes.”

“So do I.”

There was no shame in it, the war had reduced them to bodies. Peace demanded they remembered they were more than that, and sometimes the only way back was through flesh and warmth and the sound of someone breathing beside you who was not dying.

They went out again into Ironreach’s night, not together this time but in the same direction. They found what they sought without romance. A house where women were lined up like goods and looked at men with eyes that had seen too much. Coin changed hands and words were few. Edric chose a woman with tired eyes and soft hands. Pike chose one who stared at him with something like defiance.

Edric lay with the woman and felt her skin, trying to stay in the present, to not see fire or hear screams. When it was over he lay still , listening to the city’s noise through the shutters. The woman did not ask him his name.

Pike returned to the room later than Edric, smelling of ale, smoke and sex. He did not look pleased and they said nothing about it. They lay in the room with the darkness between them, each listening to the other breathe and each wondering what came next.

For the next seven days they worked hard, hoping labour might wear the war out of them. Edric hauled steel at Harken Blades from dawn until the light faded, carrying bars, turning stock and testing finished edges with the same honesty that had earned the foreman’s respect on the first morning.

Pike spent his time in and around the Captain Silverhorn, not yet master of anything but already making himself useful, setting stores in order, scolding idle boys, calming tempers before they broke into blows and showing the kitchen how to stretch a pot without thinning its soul.

At night they shared cheap rooms, sore hands and little talk, each too tired for much more than bread, ale and sleep, yet something steadier grew in the silence between them. Edric began to see that Pike was not merely passing through Ironreach but taking root in it, while Pike saw just as clearly that the city’s noise, injustice and constant friction were only tightening whatever strain the war had left inside his friend.

In the grey before dawn on the 8th morning, Edric woke to Pike snoring and could still remember his words

You can’t save everyone.

Don’t bring the war into our hands again.

He looked at Pike still sleeping. He looked like the boy from Broch Heel again, who had stolen apples and laughed when he was caught. Edric rose quietly, pulled on his shirt and laced his boots. As he gathered his pack, Pike stirred and his eyes opened. “What are you doing?”

“Leaving.”

Pike blinked once, then the understanding settled, heavy and inevitable. “Now... And me?”

“You’ll stay.” Edric nodded toward the window, toward the city beyond. “You were looking at that tavern-keep like you wanted to pull him apart and put him back together properly. You want to make a place in this city. I can see it.”

“And you. You think going home fixes you?” Pike asked.

Edric shook his head “I don’t think it fixes me. I think if I stay here I’ll do it again. I’ll find another man with his hand where it shouldn’t be and I’ll smash him, and next time I won’t stop. And then what. I become a story sailors tell over ale. The big soldier who can’t put the war down.”

The room was quiet except for the distant gull cry and the muted rumble of a cart outside. “You think I can’t keep stopping you,” Pike said finally.

“It shouldn’t be your job.”

Pike’s thoughts were hard to read. He was not a man to beg or plead because he understood choices even when he disagreed with them. He looked older than his years in that moment, lines etched by smoke and worry and too many nights listening to men crying. “I’m going to get something here,” he said. “That place needs order. It needs someone who knows how to feed men and keep them from tearing each other apart. The tavern-keep is a fool. He’ll lose it within a year if he keeps letting pigs run his room.”

Edric watched him. “Be careful.”

Pike snorted. “I’m always careful.”

Edric hesitated, and for a moment he did not know how to be a friend without a battlefield between them but then he reached out and clasped Pike’s forearm, a soldier’s grip, firm and honest. Pike’s hand came up and gripped back. Edric nodded, unable to speak for a moment. Then he let go, slung his pack, opened the door and stepped into the corridor.

Behind him, Pike’s voice followed. “Edric.”

Edric turned his head.

“If you ever decide you want something other than saving strangers, there’s a place in this city where you can sit and drink without someone grabbing your soul. I’ll build it if I have to.”

“All right,” he said.

Outside, Ironreach was waking. The city did not care that Edric had fought in a war or that he had nearly killed a man in a tavern. He walked through it, and soon left the noise and the smells behind him. He walked alone, the pack pulling at his shoulders, the war still in his bones, moving toward home and whatever small chance there was that if he saved something else he might one day save himself.

Edric Laine and Arnulf Pike learned that between ambition and duty lies a narrow road, and those who walk it must decide whether they are building something new or merely carrying the old battlefield forward in their own hands.

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