Chapter 7

Andrew grabbed Ledger by his left arm, pulling him around, then dragging him around the nearby corner out of the square, “Come on kid, we need to get you out of here right damned now,” Andrew said to the resisting boy. “We need to get away from here before the city guard arrives.” He continued to pull Ledger along. After a minute Ledger snapped out of the shock and started running on his own. “SPOOK!” shouted Andrew, “Come on boy, time to go!”

The scared dog saw his master and friend running away from the place with the bad noise and decided they had the right idea and was quickly ahead of them, tail down, ears flat, yipping in terror, making for the Inn that was his home for the moment. When he arrived, he went straight to the stall with the mule, curled up in the back corner, shivering and refused to come out for the rest of the day. He waited in the stall until his master came out to him later that day with food for him.

Andrew had Ledger back to the Inn and sitting at what had become his regular table in a back corner away from the windows and doors. Andrew wanted to be able to see who came in before they could see him. Once they had tankards of the bad, warm ale in their hands, he asked, “Ok Ledger,” Andrew whispered, “What in the nine hells did you do?” he demanded.

Ledger was lost in thought again. He shook himself, trying to lose the image of the destruction he had caused. In a hoarse whisper he said, “The bullies, they were threatening a little girl with robbery and harm. I had to stop them, Andrew. I had to stop them.” He took a drink of ale and sputtered, holding the mug away from his face, looking at it in disgust. “What is this shit? It’s awful.” He sniffed at the mug and held it even further away from his face.

“It’s the ale they serve here, so drink up, you need it.” Again, Andrew asked, “What did you do?” His voice sharp, his temper was getting hotter as the seconds passed.

Ledger seemed lost in another world when he answered. His voice hoarse and low, filled with barely controlled anger. “I had to stop the bullies Andrew.” He slammed his fist on the table hard enough to bounce the mugs a little, causing eyes to turn his way for a few seconds. “I have been bullied and beaten my entire life, Andrew,” he snarled, “I felt could stop them, so I did.” He took another swig of the foul ale and choked it down. “Things just got, well, a little out of hand,” he said sheepishly, his voice dropping to a bare whisper.

Andrew looked at him, eyes wide, his jaw now hanging open in disbelief. “If that is what you call a little out of hand, I never want to see totally out of control,” Andrew sipped the ale, trying to avoid drinking too much of it. “So you blew them,” he paused, trying to keep control of his anger, lowered his voice, “You blew them into freaking paste, and leveled the market square.”

Ledger looked even more sheepish now, face red, eyes downcast, “Yeah, I just wanted to punch them hard enough to get the point across. Instead, I blew them apart and left a crater.” He took another drink and choked on the ale, his face getting a faint greenish tint to it from his stomach wanting to send the nasty stuff back up in protest.

“I don’t think you noticed it kid, but you destroyed the entire market square with that blast,” said Andrew.

Now Ledger started to look scared, “Did I kill everybody that was there?”

“No, I don’t think so. Just a lot of injuries from the blast force that shoved everybody and everything into the far walls,” replied Andrew.

“I guess it could have been worse. I think this is what my mother tried to warn me about the power just before I was sent away.” Ledger lifted the tankard, looked at it, put it to his lips and sucked the down the warm ale. He shuddered and shook while gasping for air, then sat back in his chair to relax.

Andrew watched him for a few minutes. He waved to Jessa and asked for a refill of Ledger’s drink. Jessa looked at the empty tankard, “He drank all of it?”

“Yeah, he surprised me too,” said Andrew.

Jessa returned to the tap with the empty tankard. She returned with it and held out her hand. Ledger seemed at a loss for a second, “Oh, how much?”

“A Silver,” she said.

He handed her four gold and said, “My bar tab until gone.”

Jessa nodded and left. Andrew started in a new direction. “Ledger, when did your mother join the Merc’s?”

Ledger had to think harder than normal. He was finding out quickly it wasn’t just that the ale was not good, it was also lethally strong. “I recall her saying she joined them late. That she only had a few small missions before the one that nearly destroyed them.”

“She joined them very late Ledger. My father’s journal has a reference to an ambush on a caravan they were traveling with.” He sipped his ale, gasped for air then continued. “The ambushers had explosive arrows. Enchanted explosive arrows.” He gave Ledger a hard look. “The Mercs’ took the bandits down, but made sure to capture the enchanter alive, or in this case, the Enchantress.”

Ledger looked hard at Andrew. “Are insinuating my mother was with the bandits?” His voice was noticeably slurred now as the Ale began to take its toll.

“Ledger, all I’m saying is that is what happened. From what I have been able to put together from my father’s journals, an Enchantress joined the Merc’s on the way to a location they had been hired to protect during the harvest season. He didn’t list her name though, only that she was captured and brought along,” said Andrew. He started to take another sip, then stopped, putting the mug down.

Ledger lowered his head to the table, he took a long breath then sat back up. “Andrew, I’ve never known my parent’s full history. I had to hide to protect myself most of my life, so asking questions like that was not possible.” He took another swallow of the bitter ale, “It was in the last year before I left home, that I began to discover I could almost perform any form of enchantments. It was only the day before I fled home that I came into my power for the first time.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, fighting the urge to just lay his head down and sleep.

“You say you had to flee your own home? Why? Why in the hells would you have to flee from your home? Wouldn’t your parents have protected you from outside harm?” asked Andrew, not sure he could believe what Ledger was saying.

Ledger snorted in derision, “Protection? By them? Andrew, I’m lucky I’m still alive I was beaten so badly several times by my brothers and sister.” He took another heavy pull from the mug now, “My sister, my own damned sister,” he snarled in anger, “She planned to cut off my cock and dance on me while I bled out.” He took several more deep breaths, trying to calm himself. “That Andrew, that is true hatred. That is true evil walking the world. That is what I fled from. And from the events these last two days? I know for a fact that she is here, right now, in this city.”

Andrew sat in contemplative silence. To him, the family was everything. That was the reason why he was away from home, to protect them from the evil that had begun to stalk the lands for the old gems. He took a long pull from the ale, coughed and took another, smaller sip this time. “Well, I guess we had different lives growing up.” He put a hand on Ledger’s shoulder, “Listen, I may have found a job for you on the caravan. They’re short on drivers for this run. Can you handle a cart with several horses or mules?” he asked the shivering boy.

Ledger was well on his way to being completely shit-faced-drunk now. It took a minute to focus his eyes and work out the question then form a coherent answer. “Yeah, I can drive a cart, I think. We’ll get paid too, right?” This a slurred mess that was hard to understand.

“I should think so,” said Andrew.

“What about this girl you mentioned, what about her?” slurred Ledger. He was starting to sag down in his seat, his eyes closing even as he fought to keep them open.

“Free passage for her. We all could travel free if we wanted. I would rather work and learn from veterans of the combat trade,” said Andrew.

“Yeah, work...” Ledger lost the battle and his eyes finally drooped closed, his mouth falling open, then his head fell to the table and he started to snore loudly.

“Took it long enough for that crap to kick in,” said Andrew, now more than a little bit bleary himself. “Jessa, some help here getting this idiot to his room.” He stood, then grabbed the edge of the table as the floor threatened to come up and smack him in the face. “We need to keep him out of sight for the next week for his own good.” Jessa turned and ran upstairs rather than help lift Ledger. Andrew grumbled about women never helping when needed. He got Ledger up and the small amount he had drunk hit him in the head now. “Bear crap, that shit is strong.” He pulled Ledger on his shoulders up and dragged himself across the room to the stairs. Getting him up was challenging since his own balance was slightly off now. Andrew struggled, but he managed to get Ledger to his room and on his bed. Jessa checked that the room key was hanging by the door. She locked it with her master key on the way out.

Next, she escorted Andrew to his room. She could see the ale was too much for the boy. He was only fifteen and not at full growth yet. She could tell just by looking at him he would be a giant of a man when he fully filled out. He had made it to his bed and collapsed heavily on it. She was pleased that he was had filled out in the way that mattered to all women, whether they wanted to admit it to themselves or not. She considered for a moment seeing if he was interested in a bit more fun in bed. When his eyes closed and he snored loudly, she decided he wasn’t. She closed and locked his door and returned to running her tavern.

The market square was a scrambled mess. The city guard had arrived as folks had begun to straighten out the mess the explosion had made. Several people had serious injuries but would live. Most just had bumps and bruises. The worst was a broken arm and a few cracked ribs. His table had crushed him into the wall behind him. The watch commander looked at the crater in wonder. It was ten feet across and almost as deep. He had never seen anything like this before. Turning to a merchant that was nursing a bruise on his left cheek, but doing better than most, he asked, “Are you sure of what you saw when this happened?”

“Yes my lord, several of the local bully boys had little Glernia cornered near the center of the hole. They stopped suddenly and the girl ran away. A few seconds later, BOOM!” Big hole and every loose item and person went that way from the blast.”

“You didn’t see anybody else nearby afterward?” asked the commander.

“I couldn’t say, I was a bit addled by the blast right then and was digging myself out from under a collapsed table,” said the old merchant.

“I have never seen the like. Who was here that wasn’t right after the blast?” asked the guardsman.

The old man thought about it for a minute, looked around at who he could see still around. “I know a few folks left as soon as they could stand and walk.” He glanced around and spotted a glowing gem on the ground, “I don’t recall seeing the enchanter boy around right after. His table was really close to the blast too.” He stooped and picked up the glow-stone and pocketed it. “Shame really, he had been doing really good business after the palace stones fell apart.”

“A stone enchanter? Here, now? Where is he staying, do you know?”

“Well, last I heard he was set up at the old flop in the inner city. He has been around for about a year now,” said the old merchant.

“Thank you, and no, I didn’t know he was here.” The watch commander yelled for his second and soon had him on his way to the old flop in the inner city. He returned in less than an hour with word that the boy had packed up and left the day before. He didn’t say where he was going though.

“Damn. All right then. Start searching all the Inns in the area. Ask around, see if any of this lot might have a clue as to his whereabouts,” he ordered. “A real stone enchanter, and he’s been around for a year already. I wonder if he was responsible for the failures,” he thought.

All afternoon the city watch asked and searched. Nobody seemed to know anything. Word had quickly and quietly gone out that nobody was to assist the guard in finding the boy. The folks of the Crossing knew who really ran the city, and it wasn’t the prince. It was when he entered the Rusty Shovel that he found a clue. One barmaid admitted to having seen him a few times staying with some fighter type. She wasn’t sure where he went when he left though. Now the Guard commander had to wonder, is he here, or at an outlying Inn. If anywhere, it would be the Broken Wheel. He knew how asking about the boy there would go. He left the Shovel to continue searching across the city.

Andrew woke up late in the afternoon. He tried to sit up and regretted it immediately. His stomach hurt. His head hurt. “I will never touch that stuff again,” he groaned. He managed to sit up without his head exploding so he figured he wasn’t in too bad of shape. Thinking about the little he drank versus what Ledger drank, oh lord that boy was going to be sick for days. “How did folks just suck that shit down like that,” he wondered.

Andrew splashed some water from the basin on his face, then rinsed his mouth out with a bit of gumweed to remove the sour taste. A simple cleanup completed, he tried to open the door. It was locked. He didn’t remember locking it. “Jessa, it had to have been Jessa.” Andrew smiled thinking back to the previous night and her visit to him. He had learned more about pleasuring a woman than he had ever imagined possible. “She is a good woman,” he thought. “I just have to avoid developing feelings for her, or anybody else I bed with.”