Chapter 3

I knew I was supposed to come out in a bank vault type thing, kinda like the one where they take you to look into your safe deposit box. Of course I didn't have a box, but Kathy assured me the bank would pay no attention to me showing up in the vault without having the bother of coming in the front door.

She'd told me there might even be a guard in the bank, but said he'd probably just say hello or give me some other greeting as I went by. Wrong. There was no guard and in fact there were two robbers in the bank when I arrived, luckily for me. I guess they'd come in to try their luck at robbing the bank, but the teller was behind a cage and when they noticed me they must have thought I'd do just as well since I came walking out of the vault.

One of them had a sword out and there was another one in front of him with a wicked looking knife. It was dagger style and I just knew both sides had to be sharp.

He didn't give me long to get my bearings and he attacked me with the knife just about as soon as I walked out of the vault. It didn't really matter because some of the terrorists in Afghanistan had been even quicker on the draw and they'd still ended up in a mess that would have made their mother's puke if they got a look at them after the fracas.

I let him swing at me and stepped back just enough for him to miss. I grabbed his arm as it passed and clamped down on it with all my strength. He wasn't a very big fellow in the first place and as I started twisting his arm I heard a bone or two snap. He dropped the knife and commenced screaming.

The other one had his sword out and by now he wanted in on the fight too, but I just swung the little one onto the point of the sword. While he was trying to remove it from his friend I grabbed him around the neck with both hands and it was pretty much the end of things.

I snapped his neck easier than I had the other one's forearm. Meanwhile the first attacker was lying on his back moaning about his arm and the wound his buddy's sword had made to his guts. I stomped down on his windpipe and the fight was officially over.

The teller, behind his cage, didn't even ask me if I was hurt, he just started going on about me getting the bodies out of his bank.

"Hell feller, are you drunk or just naturally that stupid all the time? I was just coming out of the vault and they attacked me. You want 'em out of here come get 'em out yourself, or else start bidding for my services. While you're making up your mind I'll just relieve them of the things they won't be needing any longer," I said, and stooped down to go through their pockets.

I found two shells and four pinches in the pockets of the one who'd been swinging the sword and I found a shell and a pinch in the other's pocket, along with a small pocket knife. I took the sheath he had for his dagger too.

As I was buckling on the belt and sword of the other one I considered myself through with the matter. I knew the change they'd had in their pockets wouldn't pay for any armor and I knew I needed some.

No matter, I could get by with a buckler for a while and a good mail shirt if I could find one. I had the sword on my hip by now and the knife in its sheath around my waist. I was headed out the door when the teller shouted at me.

"You can't leave them there," he said, apparently not believing what I'd said before.

"Just watch me. You let them hang around in your bank to attack me without even trying to get rid of them. If it was alright for them to hang around alive it's gonna have to be ok for 'em to hang around dead."

I'd caught the scent of something in the bank, but hadn't paid much attention to it. When I made it outside I could tell it was the smell of shit. I could recognize horse, cattle, and human varieties. Oh well, even though there was plenty of it in the street it wasn't so bad. I'd smelt worse cleaning out stalls for my own horses and I'd smelled a lot worse after opening the guts of other combatants in Afghanistan.

Taking a look down the street I realized I was already money ahead after meeting the two in the bank. I had a good knife, a fairly good short sword, and three shells and change. It wouldn't last a lifetime, but it was enough to get me started.

I saw a livery down the street and headed toward it. I figured horse shoeing would pay best of all if I could get a job doing it without tools. I was in luck again when I made it there.

There was a farrier working already, or part of one anyway. Turned out he was the stable's owner and he was shoeing at a horse. I knew at once I was much better at it than he was and from the looks of things he had several horses to tend to.

"Need any help?" I asked, as he took a break.

"If you can shoe horses and know what you're doing I can use some help for a few days at least. Mr Martin, just outside of town, has hired several new men and he sent these horses in for me to tend to. The pay is half a shell per horse," he said.

"Well I don't have any tools, but all I need is a rasp and a couple of hammers. Do you want me to spell you or just take care of it?"

As an answer he took off his leather apron and handed it to me. I unbuckled my sword, set it against a wall of his stable, took up the hammer, and finished the shoe he was working on.

As I worked on the second horse I remembered why I didn't like shoeing horses much. It was a strain on the back, but these horses were more cooperative than the ones I was used to and the work went pretty fast.

It was a little more work than doing it at home on my own horses too. I had to shape the shoes from bar stock, but still I did six of them before dark, and Bill, the stable owner, told me I could sleep there tonight if I wanted to.

I nocked off at dark thirty and headed down the street to an inn where they were serving supper. Inside I found out it was all I could eat for three pinches and so I sat at the rear with my back against the wall and started on the first bowl the serving girl brought me.

It was remarkably tasty and I welcomed the second serving, gobbled it down, and called out for another bowl. She had just started my way with it when a big lard ass between the kitchen and me grabbed her and spilled my bowl of stew while trying to get a free feel of her ass.

The girl saw me stand up, but she looked a little frightened and of course there was nothing she could do about the bowl of stew. She couldn't get loose from the fat ass either, and the other three at his table were egging him on.

There were four men at his table, including him, and the two facing nominally in my direction saw me get up, head their way, and raise my dagger over lard boy's head. They were trying to get their heads around what I was doing when the bottom of the dagger's grip smacked fat ass on top of the head, hard. He went out like a light and as the girl escaped back into the kitchen I swapped hands with the dagger and used my now free right hand to draw my sword.

The others at the table, the third one having caught on after fat ass dropped, jumped up trying to draw their own swords. I let them finish and then started waling on them with mine. I actually don't know what they were thinking, because I could see at once they owned precious little skill in the use of the implements they had holt of. Hell, I knew I was an amateur at sword fighting and they were worse at it than I was, by a long shot.

They certainly had no chance against my strength. My third blow, which they were only trying to block by now, cut two of the swords into pieces and my next one removed a head and one hand half way up the forearm. Kathy had told me time after time any fight on Chaos was usually to the death, so I went ahead and dispatched the three and then, thinking of it, I cut the throat of the man I'd nocked unconscious.

During the fracas many of the nearby tables became suddenly vacant. Now things had come to a rapid close a few of the men were making their way back to their seats.

I looked around the room to see if anyone wanted to take up for the four dead men and no one seemed to. I did feel like I needed to at least say something though.

"I have no quarrel with anyone in here, but I want to tell you all I get a little twitchy when someone causes the serving girl to spill my stew," I said, in a loud voice.

I saw the serving girl hurrying back with another bowl then, but asked her to hold it until I got back from disposing of the trash.

I took hold of fatso's arm and headed out toward the back door with him and then dragged him on outside. I felt like I'd hit a gold mine when I went through his pockets and found a conch, two shells, and eight pinches. He also had a nice single edged knife about eight inches long. His sword wasn't bad either, but I thought the one I was using was a little better.

The other three had a shell or two each and some pinches. None of their swords were worth shit, and only the one still had a whole blade - and I didn't have any trouble removing the hand I'd cut off him from the grip. They each had sheath knives too, but they were mostly just shitty made examples. No matter, I gathered it all up and walked back into the Inn and resumed my seat. The serving girl was quick to bring another bowl of stew for me and I resumed my meal.

When the girl came again to ask me if I wanted another bowl I told her no, and I gave her a pinch as a tip. Apparently it wasn't the custom, but she took it gladly and hid it in her dress.