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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 11, 2006 21:01:28 GMT -5
There were two things that were always available in the town of Goldshire: fights and w-hores [see below]. As Hatch arrived at the outskirts of town he halfway felt like he was coming home.
Goldshire existed principally as a plaything for the young men of the soft nobility of Stormwind. With typical hypocrisy, the church imposed strict rules of “moral behaviour” with an iron fist within the city walls, and allowed a veritable a cesspool of depravity to continue not ten leagues away. To add to the irony, the devotional retreat and centre for “Alliance” indoctrinisation, Northshire Abbey, could only be reached by way of the Goldshire Road. As a result, the priests and paladins had to go through the town regularly. Some maintained that the town existed to stiffen the faith of the devout. Hatch figured that it wasn’t the faith of the fathers that was stiffened.
Hatch slowed Stupid to a walk at the outskirts of town, removed his colours, and slipped a grey hooded cloak over his head. There was a lazy military presence in the town, and though many of them were either sympathetic to or even, in the odd case, part of the resistance, he didn’t need any trouble. Besides, his disfigured appearance generally brought unwanted attention. He hunched forward in the saddle, trying his best to appear innocuous, no small feat for a man of his size astride a warhorse. Fortunately, he didn’t have far to go and the horse knew its way. He kept his head down.
As he plodded through the milling crowds, Hatch was struck, as usual, by the number of idiots filling the streets spoiling for a fight. He grunted disparagingly and corrected himself: not really fight. These shining “champions” were in town for the express purpose of engaging in gallant duels by which to test their prowess and advance their personal reputations. Not surprisingly, they were universally cowards. They swaggered around in immaculately crafted armour and flourished ferociously expensive weapons. They only challenged those who were complete greenhorns, with armour and weapons that were vastly inferior to their own. And even that absolute assurance of victory wasn’t enough. The greenhorn had to also promise that the duel would not be to the death. Then followed the trumpeted advertisement of the duel followed by all kinds of prancing about, running back and forth, swirling swords, leaping and other such nonsense. None of which had anything to do with really fighting, and Hatch had no patience for any of it. He learned long ago that fighting was not about honour or pleasure or proving one’s worth.
Besides the fights, Goldshire was famous across both continents for the “entertainment” to be found at the Lion’s Pride Inn. Hatch had heard that there were courtesans within the Orc capital city, Ogrimmar, that would pleasure a man, or women for that matter, in ways that the delicate flowers at the Lion’s Pride wouldn’t even consider. Hatch had no idea if it were true, though he had known a few Orc ladies and, from those fierce experiences, he was inclined to believe it. Still, he would never have enough gold, or inclination for that matter, to sample either wares. Lords and lordlings were their clientele, and they paid handsomely for even the smallest pleasures.
The stallion turned away from the milling crowds and up a narrow, and relatively deserted, street near to the edge of town. The rank smell of human waste and decaying garbage rose up around them, and the horse quickened its pace, knowing that their destination was at hand. A wind blew in from the south, as if nudging Hatch forward. At that end of the derelict street leaned a two-storey wooden building, its bright yellow and red paint peeling off in the sun. Over the sunken doorway a wooden sign squeaked and tilted. It had an old, cracked, and faded picture of a voluptuous woman lying with her back against a tree, her arms outstretched to the traveller. Engraved in thick black letters above her arms arched the less than subtle double entendre, “Shady Bush Inn.”
A small walled paddock preceded the low entryway into the inn, and Hatch dismounted and pulled open the gate. It squeaked on rusty hinges and stuck even more than he remembered. The enclosure was about twelve feet wide and extended about halfway down the building. Various nondescript items lay scattered against the walls and in the corners. The back wall of the enclosure was made up of a single storey addition that extended out and ran at a right angle to the main building, with a cracked window and a slanted door. There were no individual stalls for the horses, but a low roof covered six feet or so next to the house, and underneath, running along the side of the building, was a single long trough filled with bits of straw. One other horse stood tied up next to the wall, a fat old mare, and it stared at them with huge vacant eyes as they entered. sh*t-for-Brains went right over to the trough next to her and started nosing about for something to eat.
Hatch was had just finished tying up the horse when he heard the back door open. He knew she was there, standing in the doorway like always, but he did not acknowledge her presence. Instead, he went and forced the gate closed. Then, without making eye contact, he crossed over to the doorway, pushed past her, and wordlessly went inside.
[notwithstanding the language filter, I maintain that "fights and w-hores" has the right lilt, and is much more Hatch than "fights and prostitutes"]
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 12, 2006 22:09:55 GMT -5
The Shady Bush was for the locals. With the odd exception, the gals were farmers’ daughters or widows. They offered a plain fleshy fare, at an affordable price, which was generally to the taste of the working fellas roundabouts. The traffic was regular and the dining room was generally filled. And if the gals had a couple of extra pounds on them, or if their bodies sagged more than they might have, it didn’t seem to matter. They were an easy-going, friendly lot. They laughed easily and the men drank heavily, and the Shady Bush turned a modest coin.
The extension on the back of the house was little more than a small unlit hallway with a couple of extra room for the customers. The door to the stable was an afterthought. Hatch walked in, down the hall, and around the corner into the dining hall. It was early yet, and so the place was mostly deserted. Across the room, Buck, the bouncer, leaned back in a chair against the wall in the far corner of the room, snoring lightly. His thick tattooed arms sat folded on top of his ample gut. Buck was a big, stupid, ugly man, with a bad temper, which made his perfectly suited to keeping the peace in the place. He was also as lazy as an Orcish peon under a Barrens sun. All he ever did was to sit on his ass in the corner where the wall jutted out to accommodate the landing of the stairs leading up to the second floor rooms. Hatch wasn’t sure if Buck had his own place or if he just lived at the inn.
The room was decorated in various cheap paintings of half-naked ladies. Garish feather garlands were draped along the tops of the walls and wrapped around the supporting pillar in the middle of the room. The tables and chairs scattered about were of various sizes, shapes and heights. Nothing matched. Everything had been cobbled together on a shoestring budget. On either side of the front door were two large windows, with thick yellow curtains that were pulled aside now to let in the slight breeze from the street. But though the room had a dirt floor, it was swept clean enough and the tables were wiped and ready for the night’s business. Even so, the aroma of old liquor permeated everything.
Hatch instinctively checked for exits. There were four. The front door across the room, the stairs up to the second floor on the far right and behind Buck’s head, the double swinging doors into the kitchen on Hatch’s immediate right, and the hall behind him. He was glad that no one was around and his hunched shoulders relaxed slightly. Unless he was working, he hated the stares that inevitably came whenever he entered a room.
From the kitchen came various muffled clanks as Bonavita the cook set about preparing the house special.
“Pork roast?” he asked, drily.
“How’d you guess?” came the woman’s voice behind him. It was a joke. Bonavita had one customer. She had come on a few years back to run the kitchen. A big black gal, with enough ass for three women, she didn’t usually say much but she cooked up a storm. She was, in fact, a halfway decent cook, but her real gift was a knack for turning ten copper’s worth of leavings into a satisfying meal. This was enough reason to make her indispensable. But, as it turned out, she ended up more than paying for her own wages. About a year or so after she started one the regulars, a pig farmer as it turned out, fell in love with her cooking. It is said that the best way to win the heart of a man is sometimes through his stomach. This pig farmer, he took an interest in big Bonavita. She hadn’t had a man in years, but they worked out a deal, and she got laid. He paid in pork. After the pigs started to arrive, her salary was topped up according to their value to the establishment. For this reason, the house special was always pork roast.
“You want a drink?” the woman behind Hatch asked. It was technically a question, but it sounded more like a statement. Her voice was deep, clear, and resonant, with a touch of rough edge to it. The kind of voice that did not mince words and never suffered fools gladly.
Hatch turned his good side to her and nodded. “Somethin’ to eat,” he said, looking her up and down. Rose was the sole owner and the manager of the Shady Bush. She was a woman of indeterminate age, perhaps thirty-five or fourty-five years, with tanned skin and black eyes. She wasn’t young, and neither was she soft on the eyes, but she did take a certain care of herself. Her hair was dyed red and hung down to the middle of her back, tied up out of her eyes in a ponytail. On her feet were plain, low-heeled, polished dress shoes. Her legs showed thick and muscular behind a calf-length pale blue gathered skirt. She had little in the way of hips. On top, she wore a low-cut off-white blouse that accentuated her ample and well-lifted breasts. She wore a conspicuous amount of jewellery: bracelets, necklace, earrings, and four or five rings, none of which were wedding bands. Her facial features were firm and commanding. She had thick eyebrows, a large broad nose, and a square jaw. Her ample lips were painted dark red and smiled knowingly. Her dark eyes met his and, as always, seemed to Hatch to look right through him.
She turned her face slightly and shouted at the swinging doors, “’Vita! Pork, taters and ale!” The sounds in the kitchen stopped for a second, then started again. Across the room, Buck snorted at the noise then went back to sleep.
Rose turned her eyes back at Hatch. “You gonna take your cloak off and stay awhile?”
Hatch grunted, then reached up and pushed back the hood from his face. After a moment he moved away from her, pulled back a chair from a nearby table and sat down heavily with his back to the wall. Rose stepped into the room, looking at the round purple welt on his face intently.
“What happened?” she asked.
He shrugged and shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it.
“Fine,” she said. “How long you staying?”
“Not long.”
She nodded, and then moved off to the kitchen.
Rose and Hatch went a long way back together. “Rose” was born Alison Smith, first of five children to the Smith household in the town of Moonbrook. It was Alison, then three boys, and then another girl who was born simple. Rose’s father had been the town blacksmith, but some time after his last daughter was born had was found guilty of stealing from a nobleman, and they hanged him for it. After that, Rose and her mother did the best they could, but the boys were too young to take up the smithing and the family fell into hard times. The three boys got into trouble of one kind and another and eventually disappeared. Hatch wasn’t sure what had happened to them; dead or rotting in the stockades, most likely. Rose’s ma just got worn down over the years and ended up falling sick, and mostly just wasted away. That was when Hatch met Rose again, only now she was a grown woman. Hatch’s wife had had a good heart and had got involved in the situation, and Rose and her sister had started helping out on the Hatcher farm. Back then, Rose was young, and buxom, and high-spirited. She also had a devilish sense of humour. Though Hatch had never cheated on his wife, he found himself watching her sometimes in a way that he knew he shouldn’t. One night, Hatch’s wife had gone to bed early and Hatch and young Alison had got into a bit too much wine. The wine had led to a midnight walk, and Hatch had found himself throwing her up against the back of the barn and kissing her roughly. She had been willing enough, but in the end he had pulled away. The next day she was just gone, leaving Hatch and his wife saddled with the simple-minded Smith girl. Hatch’s wife had not been furious, which had struck Hatch as odd at the time, but he didn’t say anything. Later on she set up the brothel in Goldshire and Hatch had come across her under her new name. By this point his family was gone, along with half of his face and most of his soul. To her credit, she was likely the only person in the world who ever was anything like glad to see him.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 13, 2006 20:42:47 GMT -5
Hatch sat quiet in the darkening dusty room. The evening was coming on and he had work to do, but his head still ached something awful. A three-hour trot through the forest hadn’t helped. Twice he had been forced to stop to heave up the watery contents of yesterday’s meals, and he was feeling pretty weak. Hatch realized that he must have been in worse shape then he had thought. Buck’s snoring, the hint of a breeze, and the dampened kitchen noises through the doors played upon him. A thick fog welled up in his mind and his eye drooped shut. Next he knew, Rose was back at his table, tossing down the plate of eats and the mug of ale in front of him.
Hatch took a long draught and started greedily into the food. Rose must have known he wanted something, for she sat down beside him. Rose didn’t say anything, which was nice, just took out some tobacco and leaves and started rolling herself a smoke. For a few minutes he just ate as she sat quietly smoking beside him. Slowly he felt his strength returning. When he was done, he drained the last of the drink off while Rose got him another. Then he was ready to talk.
As she slid the full mug in front of him, she asked, “You working?”
“Sorta. I got a problem I gotta fix.”
She took a long pull at her smoke, studying him. Then she said, “No one I know, I hope.”
He shook his head. “No. It aint like that. I’m dealin’ with a runaway. Maybe a snatch and grab. I dunno yet.”
Quietly, Hatch told Rose as much as he could. Even though he knew Rose was absolutely trustworthy, she was not a member of the Brotherhood. Plus, it just went against the grain for him to share information with anyone. But he knew that he needed her help. She would be able to send the messages he needed to get out with fewer questions asked. And he wasn't going to get her help unless she understood some.
“I’m lookin’ for a girl. Red hair. Short. Wiry. Got a mouth on her. I got word she been found hidin’ out at the Eastvale Logging Camp. Yesterday, some boys went and picked her up, but they botched the job. Left a trail. So when I got there, I sent them to fix it up. Then, before I took the girl with me, this Stormwind guard shows up. Big guy.” Hatch paused, trying to explain what happened next. Finally he said, “I had had a few drinks. Got into a fight with the guard, and…got clocked in the face by Asswipe outside.” Hatch made a jerking motion with his thumb through the wall behind him. “Put me out like a candle. When I woke up, the girl was gone.”
Rose took it all in. When he got to the part about his horse she grinned, like he knew that she would, but she didn’t say a thing. Still her twinkling dark eyes spoke volumes. He took another long drink to busy himself.
“So,” she began. “You’re looking for a girl. She must be important.”
There was a hint of something in Rose's tone that made him look at her quickly. She should know better than to think that he would have a romantic interest in anyone. He set her straight. Very quietly he said, “She’s important to VanCleef.”
VanCleef was not the sort of name that one mentioned casually. All of the laughter went out of her tone and she immediately got dead serious. Rose might not have been in the resistance, but she was a sympathizer. Anything involving VanCleef would be treated with utmost respect.
“What do you need?” she said.
“To write some letters and get them out to a few places fast.”
“What are we talking?”
“I need someone to talk to Brother Neals. I need some birds sent tonight.”
Rose blew out a long stream of smoke as she considered him. The only place nearby where they kept carrier pigeons was Northshire Abbey. Brother Neals was a defrocked priest who had been sent off to the Abbey in disgrace a few years back. Hatch didn’t understand most of it, but he knew it had something to do with some books or something that Neals wrote, that the church didn’t approve of. VanCleef had explained it once, but Hatch hadn’t paid much attention. All he needed to know was that the Brotherhood had a mole in the Abbey. VanCleef had apparently written to him under a fake name and had recruited Neals himself.
The Abbey was only about three hours northeast of Goldshire, but it might as well have been on the moon as far as Hatch was concerned. Because virtually all of the Stormwind recruits came through the Abbey at one point or another, it was guarded like a fortress. There was no way that Hatch would be able to get in and talk to Neals. Hatch saw the realization of what he was asking in Rose’s eyes. She took another drag, thinking long and hard.
“You are asking me to get involved in your fucking war,” she said, looking away.
Hatch said nothing.
The silence stretched between them. Hatch understood that what he was asking was a lot. The authorities suspected Rose of being a sympathizer, but they had nothing on her. She had always been very careful to just run a business and keep her nose clean. Sure, her gals serviced some of the boys in the resistance, but that didn’t mean anything. It was just business. This was different. If she were discovered carrying a half dozen letters signed by him, things would get very ugly for her very quickly.
Finally she turned back to him and asked blandly, “How many letters am I writing?”
Crazy woman, he thought, as they headed upstairs to write the letters. He almost smiled.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 15, 2006 16:54:23 GMT -5
In the end they prepared five letters. To the Brotherhood’s contacts in Redridge, Duskwood, and Westfall, to an agent in Stormwind, in case they Copper had slipped by already, and also one to Neals, telling him that Rose was on the Brotherhood’s business. Hatch told Rose what the papers needed to say, and signed the letters. When the ink was dry Rose quietly sealed them up and then folded them up in a soft leather carrying cloth for the short journey.
Rose grumbled that there would be no one to collect the patron’s silver if she was gone off to the Abbey, but she stopped short when brought out ten gold and tossed it on the table. Just in case she was stopped or had any trouble with Neals, he told her. It was enough to buy two Shady Bush inns, and Rose’s eyes sparkled just looking at it. You had to like a woman who appreciated the value of coin.
Once that was taken care of, they talked about Goldshire. Ever since he had entered the town his gut told him that she wasn’t here, but still he needed to be sure. Give a woman an inch and she would take a mile, and before long Rose was telling him that she knew people, that she would use the girls to make inquiries, and that she would stop over at the local healer to see if the girl was there. Hatch just stared at her and waited for her to stop yammering.
“I don’t need any help. You’re goin’ to Neals to get those birds out. I’m gonna ask around town.”
Rose’s chin got tight and her fist went to her hip. “This is your plan,” she said sarcastically. “You’re going to go talk to people you don’t even know to get information while I go off to waste my time and get arrested?”
“You do as I told you, and there aint gonna be no trouble.”
“Light dammit Hatch! You want my help, fine. But I aint going anywhere until we know she’s not right under our noses here in town.”
Now she was starting to piss him off. It didn’t matter that she had the right of it. Actually, it kind of made it worse. His bad hand itched to backhand her and wipe that glare off her face, but he restrained himself. Instead, he just quietly said, “you aint gettin’ your girls involved in this. They’re are too damn stupid and they’ll $@%*! it up.”
Rose’s eyes flashed angrily at the insult to her gals, but Hatch was right. “Fine. I’ll do it myself. Hatch, a couple of the guard are regulars here! I can talk them up. You can’t get that information.”
Hatch considered. He didn’t like to admit it, but she had a point. And as if to prove it, Rose dropped her eyes and sidled her body up near to him. She came so close that her prominent breasts slightly rubbed against his mail and her thick perfume wafted up to him. Leaning in close on his good side she laughed melodiously in his ear and smiled demurely up at him. “Come on, baby, I just want to talk for a second. I don’t want to fight…”
She was good at her game. Hatch felt himself stiffen and his hands started to slide up her body as a great aching need filled his chest. “Damn you, woman,” he whispered. He closed his eye and breathed in her warm scent.
Rose wrapped her arms lazily around his neck and purred in his ear, “So you’ll wait for me and I’ll be back in about an hour? You need another drink…”
Though Hatch was a regular at the Shady Bush inn, he never slept with any of the gals. He saw the fear and revulsion in their eyes, and he didn’t need their pity. Rose was not for sale, and nothing had ever happened between them. In fact, though she sometimes patted his shoulder or punched him in the arm, she had never got this close to him. Normally he just came in, sat in a back corner and drank until the place shut down. When it was quiet and everyone else was gone, Rose would come over and sit or talk quietly with him. Those were the good times. He couldn’t say that he had never thought about $@%*!ing her, but he knew that such things were no longer part of his life. She and he were old friends, and that was something that he wasn’t going to mess up by making a fool of himself. Ever since that night so long ago behind the barn, he had never felt her body this close to him. Now, with her musky scent filling his nostrils and her rough skin against his neck, those same old primal instincts swelled up inside of him. His hands pressed against her blouse, just under her heavy breasts, and he yearned to grab her roughly and pull her face to his. A spasm rippled through his body. Then, as his mind uncontrollably raced over the idea of passionately pressing her lips to his own, he felt something wet upon his chin and the horror of his disfigured face came back home to him like a cold shower. The burns had forever stretched his lips apart on the left side of his face. Normally he concentrated and kept his jaw and lips clamped together. But now, as Rose pressed her warm body against him, his mouth hung open and a line of spit drooled down upon his chin disgustingly. What was he thinking? It was just a power game she was playing on him to make her point.
He ripped her away roughly and growled, “Just go.”
She was breathing deeply and her hands covered her arms where he had hurt her. A wounded fire burned in her eyes. She turned and quickly left the room.
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Post by Emizael on Jul 15, 2006 23:18:33 GMT -5
I bow to the Master!
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 16, 2006 11:56:35 GMT -5
Hatch went back down to the dining hall and waited a few minutes after Rose stormed away from the inn before he headed out. Bonavita got him another drink, and though she looked daggers at him she kept her thoughts to herself, which was a good thing too. Hatch was in a black mood.
Hatch never felt sorry for himself; pity was for the weak. For some reason, however, as he sat in his usual chair at the back of the Shady Bush inn he found himself thinking about his old life, before the militia came and burned his heart away forever. Twelve years. Twelve long years since he had met VanCleef.
Edwin VanCleef appeared in Westfall like a strike of lightning. He was a small, lean man. Muscular, without a shred of fat on him, with a shock of red hair, and the wild blue eyes of a prophet. But it was not so much his appearance that you remembered as his voice. It was deep, but sharp and clear, and he had a strange way of speaking, like waves of sound. VanCleef would get his message out in a rush and then would suddenly grind to a halt. After a moment of silence, he would do it again. One could not help but be riveted. And when he spoke, there was something magical about him. It was impossible to doubt him. It wasn’t just Hatch who was affected. Normally weak and downtrodden farmers became passionate followers when they heard him. They came to barns and basements just to hear him. They pressed in around him wherever he went, just to touch him as he passed. The farmers were poor and oppressed, and VanCleef fed their need for respect, decency, and a higher calling. He spat upon the “Stormwind Levy,” telling them to refuse it. The nobles did not need their gold, he cried; the tax was simply an attempt to oppress them, to keep them beggared. Hatch bought it all: hook, line and sinker. They all did.
When his family was murdered, Hatch went to VanCleef and begged him for revenge. He had nothing else left. It was then, as Hatch kneeled before VanCleef in an upstairs room in Moonbrook, that VanCleef first spoke to him about a secret society called the Brotherhood of Lordaeron. The Brotherhood, he said, had existed in the shadows for countless generations. They were pledged to protect the ancient bloodline of the King, and the true strength and higher calling of humanity. He promised Hatch his revenge and more. VanCleef told him that a foul corruption had crept into Stormwind, twisting all that was good to darkness and evil purposes. VanCleef told him that he needed Hatch to build an army, to win a war. The King had already been spirited away by the Brotherhood and VanCleef had been tasked with gathering an army to root out the Stormwind corruption so that the King could again retake the throne and restore dignity upon the common people. VanCleef called Hatch’s suffering a ‘chalice.’ Laying his wiry hand on Hatch’s face, he told Hatch that the pain would make him strong. Strong enough to serve a higher purpose. Strong enough to get his revenge. That night, Hatch swore an oath in blood that he would give his life to the cause. He was knighted into the secret society of the Brotherhood and became VanCleef’s personal bodyguard.
VanCleef and Hatch traveled all over Westfall. VanCleef told the people that, like it or not, a war was coming. He preached that it would be all quickly over once the resistance mobilized. Righteousness was like a beacon, he said. He told them that the people in all the neighbouring provinces would rise up to support their cause. That justice would be served upon the wicked. Justice would be restored. That once the nobles saw the will of the people in force, they would have to treat with them. And every time VanCleef spoke, the ranks of the resistance swelled.
Hatch remembered as if it were yesterday the day that they took Westfall. VanCleef planned it all. A military masterstroke. Hatch hardly believed that so few men could take control of so much in one night, but he saw the plans. The Brotherhood had people perfectly placed in every community. It was all there, indisputable. Secret beacon flares were set up in the Dagger Hills, and on a signal they went up together. They walked into the guard halls, the nobles’ mansions, and the churches, and decapitated the Stormwind control. In the morning, Westfall belonged to the people.
Stormwind sent their troops in glistening formations, but VanCleef was always ten steps ahead of them. The resistance attacked in ambushes, disappearing before the Stormwind troops could re-organize their lines. They had men on the inside. Platoons turned upon their officers, slaughtered them, and defected to the resistance. VanCleef made a secret pact with goblins engineers from Booty Bay and across the sea, and the leather-skinned creatures provided diabolical weapons of war that decimated the enemy. VanCleef had them bury shining fist-sized devices under the ground of the roadways, and when the plate-clad armies stepped over them they were devoured by flames, cooked in their armour as they fled. An armada of ships arrived in Forest’s Edge, bringing reinforcements from the north, but VanCleef had already taken the town. The resistance ambushed and slaughtered the troops as they slept, then pillaged and stole the ships.
The nobles fell back inside the walls of Stormwind. VanCleef send messengers requesting that they come and hear terms, but they were slaughtered. VanCleef was enraged. He called a summit and declared that they would take the Brotherhood’s message out to the people. He declared again that the people of Elwynn, Duskwood and Redridge would rise up. And when they did, he told them, Stormwind would come and treat. But he had underestimated the ignorance of the common folk. The church proclaimed the Brotherhood heretics and unbelievers. The nobles began a campaign of lies, with travelling tents of preachers turning the people against them. The boy King and his court of nobles cried, “They defy us! They defy us!” and, unbelievably, the common folk took up the cry. ‘Wanted’ posters cropped up everywhere, mockingly calling them the Brotherhood of the Defias. Hatch was stunned. VanCleef had never mentioned the Brotherhood in public and yet, somehow, Stormwind knew. But VanCleef was not surprised. They faced an old, vastly powerful, and devious enemy of the Brotherhood, he said. Both sides knew each other well.
Inside Stormwind, General Marcus Jonathan took charge of the war. He was a cold calculating bastard. Stormwind began to advance again, but more cautiously this time. Jonathan set up garrisons outside Westfall, on the other side of the Elwynn River. Forest’s Edge was razed to the ground. He snuck his people inside their lines and established a bastion at the old garrison on Sentinel Hill right in the centre of Westfall. Loyalist sympathizers came out of the woodwork and fled behind their walls. Seige engines were set up and began to advance. The armies salted the ground as they came. The resistance simply did not have the training or the numbers needed to survive a sustained face-to-face military campaign.
It was then that the scheming goblins revealed their most terrible weapon. In a secret meeting with VanCleef, deep in an underground lair beneath the Dagger Hills, they whispered that they had constructed of an army of metal golems to fight for the Brotherhood. They claimed that they had long used such machines for harvesting trees over in distant Kalimdor, but that they had modified the design so that these ones ran without controls. Their armour plating was twice as thick as anything a man could wear. No sword could break them. But there was a catch. Not only would such an army cost more gold that the resistance could possibly afford, but also, once unleashed, the golems could not be controlled and would kill anything that moved. With every setback, VanCleef became more and more desperate. They could not afford to pay, but VanCleef pledged that the Brotherhood honoured its debts. That was acceptable to the goblins, so long as there were generous interest terms. Finally, he ordered that the golem army be unleashed upon the countryside. Better Westfall be a wasteland than that the corrupt oppression of Stormwind be forever entrenched, he cried. So it was that Westfall was forever broken.
The Brotherhood fell back to the hills and underground, to eke out the meagre existence of outlaws. But the war did not end. VanCleef still commanded a strong amount of support. Stormwind was corrupt and the people still suffered. There were new recruits all the time. If you listened to VanCleef, their support was growing. He claimed that he was just biding his time; setting up the next stage of the war. But for Hatch it was one unending bloodbath, and whatever meagre faith he had borrowed from VanCleef eroded in the long darkness. Hatch knew his destiny. The war would never end, at least not for him. There was no going back, and the resistance would never move forward. It would be just one long unending cycle of violence and death until the darkness covered him for the last time.
Placing his mug down upon the table and tossing down a few coppers for Bonavita, Hatch slipped his cloak back over his face and then stepped out into the streets to make his inquiries. He had three calls to make.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 19, 2006 0:38:52 GMT -5
Goldshire did not get quieter at night; it got busier. After leaving the relative quiet of the dusty street that led up to the Shady Bush, Hatch quietly made his way through the swelling crowds. There were two main roads in town; the one that travelled from Westfall in the west to Redridge to the east and cut through the town, and the one that started in Goldshire and headed the short way north to the city of Stormwind. The famous Lion’s Pride Inn sat prominently where the two roads met, and perhaps for this reason alone, or perhaps because the Lion’s Pride kept the corner brightly lit throughout the night, the corner attracted all sorts of rabble-rousers every night. Hatch pulled his hood further down to ensure that his face was in darkness as he looked for his contact. The Stormwind militia maintained a visible presence at this one corner, and though they rarely did anything but stand about, Hatch didn’t need trouble.
As it happened, the corner was even busier than usual. The travelling Darkmoon Faire was in town, and, as usual, had set up in the tourney field just south of the main corner. Various colourful tents and decorations were strewn haphazardly around the trampled grass and in front of each some form of barker, harrying the passers-by with proclamations of the "celebrated wonders" found inside for a few silver. The din of competing voices was atrocious, and what with yesterday’s rains and the traffic of spectators, the dusty faire grounds had been churned into a muddy smear. It didn’t seem to matter; the Faire was fit to bursting with patrons.
Hatch slowed to scan the corner. Six guards by the looks of it, he noted. Roughly twice as many as usual, likely on account of the Faire. There were likely at least two patrolling as well. Still, with the press of bodies filling the corner, it was actually easier to pass unnoticed through the crowd, notwithstanding the increased military presence. Hatch raised himself up to his full height and looked over the crowd. Lounging over in the shadows near to the painted door of the Lion’s Pride Inn was the man he was looking for.
Antonio Perelli was a long-time informant for the resistance. He travelled everywhere, ostensibly hawking wares as a travelling salesman. He hardly ever sold anything, on account of the fact that his wares were astonishingly overpriced junk. Anyone who bought anything from him was either a simpleton or a fool. In fact, Antonio did not need to sell a damn thing. His job was to lounge about, right under the nose of the guard in every town, and to report whatever information he was able to overhear. For this, he was paid well. Too well, in Hatch’s opinion, seeing on how rarely Perelli’s information turned out to be anything they didn’t already know.
Hatch had noticed Perelli in Goldshire yesterday, just before he headed out to Colley’s shack. For once, it seemed that Perelli was in the right place at the right time. Assuming he had been lounging about all day, he would certainly have seen if the girl came through. Hatch had been moving with the flow of the crowd and was now standing next to the muddy entrance into the Faire. As he turned and started to push his way across the crowd someone grabbed onto his cloak, and a crone’s voice behind him called out, “your fortune’s in your palm. Only one copper!” Hatch’s hood was pulled back, revealing his face for a moment. He whipped around to confront the woman, ripping the cloak out of her hands. With his left hand he grabbed the hood and pulled it back roughly into place. His right slipped into his boot and brought out a hidden dagger. In an instant he had it at the old woman's throat.
The woman was shrivelled and old, was dressed in ragged beggar’s clothing, and stared up at Hatch with milky clouded eyes. At the prick of the knife her mouth closed sharply. Her body shook uncontrollably. A few people about stopped and Hatch felt their stares upon him. For a second everything seemed to still. Then he removed the knife from the woman's throat and slipped it back away. The old crone collapsed upon the ground before him. Behind him, Hatch heard a buzz of disapproval ripple through the watching crowd.
'Light take it,' he thought. Holding his hood in place he swept away from the old woman’s form, avoiding eye contact. A path in the crowd opened in front of him, and he took half a dozen steps before a voice behind him brought him to a stop.
“Halt, coward!”
The voice was high and slightly slurred, a young man’s drunken voice. There was no mistaking the fact that it was directed at him. Hatch stopped, then after a second started walking again.
“Oh ho! Afraid to face a man, are we? He only duels blind old ladies, I see.”
A titter went up from the crowd at Hatch’s expense.
'That’s right. Go ahead and laugh it up,' Hatch thought. Someone blocked his way, and he was forced to stop again. Without looking up, he knew what was happening. A ring of spectators was gathering for the inevitable duel. The jackass behind him probably did not care two coppers for the fainted old beggar. Most likely, he had been tooling about looking for an opportunity to challenge someone all night. Likely too, he was already well into his cups. Slowly, Hatch turned around.
The man is front of him was in truth little more than a boy. Everything about him made Hatch’s stomach turn. Tall and thin, with a carefully coifed mane of blonde hair and a wispy patch of hair on his face that pretended to be a beard, he could not have been more than sixteen years old. He had a pretty face, and the rich, arrogant eyes of the Stormwind nobility. He was dressed in a suit of what looked like ornate mithril armour, and sported a matching jewel encrusted long sword and dagger. His armour and weapons were likely worth more that half the town. A silk cloak was bound around his neck by a golden cord and tossed nonchalantly over one shoulder. His weapons were drawn and he fixed Hatch with a steely gaze down the length of his longsword. He wasn’t even holding the sword properly.
“Oh ho! The coward turns!” the boy-man cried to the crowd, then turned back to Hatch and slurred out, “Sirrah, I, Baurles Wishock the Second, challenge to a duel thee…for honour…for what you have done to this hapless woman. How…now do you answer?”
Hatch itched to cut out the idiot’s tongue, but he just stood with head bowed and said, “You’re drunk. Go home.”
The lordling sauntered forward. “That is no answer. You must accept the challenge or tuck your tail and flee…the coward you are!” As he walked forward, he put away his dagger and then pulled at his calfskin glove with his teeth, unsuccessfully trying to remove it.
Hatch looked at the crowd. Sure enough a couple of guard had sauntered over to watch with everyone else. The boy-man was now within swords reach and still could not manage to remove his own glove. Giving up, he loudly proclaimed, “I would know my enemy,” and then attempted to flip off Hatch’s hood with the tip of his longsword. Hatch pulled his head back, but Baurles Wishock the Second began poking at him repeatedly, threatening some serious harm if Hatch continued to do nothing. Finally, Hatch reached up and grabbed the blade with his good hand.
Hatch forced himself to say through gritted teeth, “I decline your duel, boy.”
The boy was either not listening or not satisfied. Crying, “So it begins!” he yanked at the longsword, but Hatch held it securely and it did not budge. Hatch watched from within the darkness of his hood as the boy blinked, momentarily confused, then whined, “Give me my sword!”
Someone in the crowd started shouting out, “Duel! Duel!” and soon the whole crowd seemed to have taken it up. After all, this was the entertainment that they loitered around waiting for, Hatch thought. The crowd continued to swell as the drama played itself out. Hatch made up his mind. Avoiding the fight was impossible now; he would just have to make sure that the crowd was disappointed.
For a few seconds, Baurles Wishock the Second continued to furiously tug on the sword. Hatch watched his eyes, waiting for the boy to remember that he had a dagger at his side. When he finally did, and as his hand reached down to grab the dagger, Hatch suddenly rammed the longsword up and forward into the boy’s face. It struck him in the mouth and blood and teeth poured out. Baurles released hold on the longsword as his hand flew to his mouth. Hatch’s deformed hand flew forward to smash into the young man’s bleeding face. Baurles' pretty face twisted around disturbingly, but Hatch was careful to hit him just hard enough to break his jaw, not his neck. A quickly as it had started, the fight was over. Baurles Wishock the Second lay moaning and writhing on the ground. The crowd fell quiet. Hatch tossed the jewelled sword point first into the ground, then turned and walked away. Only after he had turned the next corner and made sure that no one was following him did he breathe a sigh of relief. He would have to make his other call first, then come back to talk to Perelli.
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Post by Thelanya on Jul 19, 2006 10:44:29 GMT -5
((well written as always, and very nice incorporation of the online experience of Goldshire! Not to mention making Hatch seem almost likeable -- you've created some very complex characters in this story, especially for this genre. Yay!))
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 19, 2006 23:12:59 GMT -5
((I have moved the First Aid trainer out of the Lion’s Pride Inn. Purists, I beg your forgiveness.))
The local healer maintained a small shop a few blocks off of the main thoroughfare. It was a two storey whitewashed wooden house with a covered front porch and a converted main floor to serve the healer’s purposes. A well kept sign beside the door advertised first aid and midwifery services by Michelle Belle, physician. Given the condition of the shop, it looked like the healer did quite well for herself. Likely on account of a steady stream of idiot combatants around town, Hatch thought. With luck, Baurles Wishock the Second would scurry off to his mama and the priests in Stormwind rather than trust himself to the care of a country doctor.
A sign on the door showed that the clinic was closed, but the door was unlocked and Hatch stepped quietly inside. A small bell rigged up to the door sounded his entry and a woman’s voice called out from somewhere inside, “One moment!” Hatch took in his surroundings. The front room was clearly a reception area, dominated by a large oaken desk in the centre of the room and covered with various scattered papers and parchments, along with a feather quill and sealed inkpot. A large bay window spread across the wall to Hatch’s immediate right and pushed out into the covered porch. Pale blue curtains hung down loosely on either side of the window, and lining the wall underneath the window was a series of waiting chairs. Three exits led from the room: the front door at Hatch’s back, a white door to the left of the oak table and directly in front of him, and an opening to the right of the table where the room continued around the corner and out of sight. Evidently the industrious doctor maintained a small store as well, for as Hatch wandered over to the right corner of the room various advertisements and display cabinets with first aid supplies came into sight in the back portion of the L-shaped front room. A third door sat at the back of the store area, behind a small counter and till. Satisfied that no one else was around, Hatch proceeded to draw the curtains closed on the front window, throwing the room into semi-darkness. Then he pulled back his cloak, exposing his armour and face. Finally, he brought out his the signature red bandana of the resistance, tied it loosely around his neck, and settled in to wait.
A few minutes later, the doctor pushed backwards through the white door, wiping her hands with a small cotton hand-towel. She was a pretty young woman of about twenty-five or so with a round face and broad shapely hips. Her blonde hair was shoulder length and neatly brushed and she had light brown eyes. Hatch estimated her height to be just over five feet and her weight to be in the range of one hundred and ten pounds. She had long fingers but little strength. No more than a twig in his hands if necessary. She was wearing a floor length purple striped skirt, and had a frilly bright coloured blouse under a good quality, short-sleeve, white cotton jacket. She was looking down as she came and entered the room saying, “Can I help you? We closed…” but her voice died on her lips when she looked up and was confronted by the darkness and Hatch's looming bulk.
Hatch was usually able to read a person’s mind in their eyes and body language. It helped in his line of work. The healer stood stock still and her eyes scanned about the room taking in the situation. A wave of nerves washed from her. Good. A little fear would only work to loosen her tongue. Staying in the darkness Hatch answered, “I want you can help me, doctor.”
She tried to collect herself. “We closed…”
Hatch stepped forward, cutting her off. “Just a few questions.” He towered above her, increasing the power imbalance.
Hatch let the silence stretch as she peered up in the half-light at his “Defias” colours and his disfigured face. He could see the questions behind her eyes, but she just waited, saying nothing, her mouth hanging slightly open. Hatch saw the helplessness in her eyes and on sudden intuition said, “You are not married, but you have a child.” Her eyes flicked up to the second storey, giving away that he was right, at least regarding the child.
“Strange. Pretty young woman, unmarried.” He looked up at the ceiling. “The boy's upstairs?”
“What do you want?” she asked, fighting hard to keep a tremor out of her voice.
Hatch went into the routine. How many times had he interrogated someone? Always the same: fear, control, pain, truth. Hopefully it would not take too long.
“We just need to have a little talk. Only thing is, I need to know that you aint lyin’ to me. That aint gonna be so easy for you, on account of I’m not a very trustin’ man. But you just be square with me and we’ll have no problems. Got it?”
Half an hour later, Hatch closed the door behind him and left the shop, satisfied that Copper had not come by the clinic. Likely because he had guessed about the boy upstairs, it had been very easy to break the healer. He hadn’t even needed to hurt her more than a bit of bruising and couple of backhand slaps. When she cried and pleaded with him, she kept her voice down, not wanting to bring the boy down. The answers tumbled out of her to all of is questions, no matter how strange he made them. He learned about the fellah in town who had knocked her up, and about how her boy Michael was growing fast and was learning to read at only five years old. Hatch shrugged. He supposed knowing how to read might save a bit of coin, but told her she needed to make sure the boy learned how to fight. She agreed with him, of course, and she told him that Marshall Dughan had volunteered to teach the boy. Hatch suspected that the Marshall would only spend time with the boy until he managed to bed the pretty doctor; still her connection to the Marshall was a stroke of luck. Hatch turned the conversation to the Stormwind guard. Had she met any of the Marshall’s men? Hatch described the man who had attacked him the previous night as well as he could remember. A big man, six foot five perhaps, and pushing three hundred pounds. Good with a mace. Blue eyes. Doc Belle shook her head. Her lip quivered, but she told him there was no such guard. Hatch wasn’t satisfied, and was about to press her harder when her eyes lit up and she remembered treating a young man who fit that description a few weeks back. He had hobbled in to the clinic complaining of a sprained back, but it had turned to only be only muscle tension, she said. He had complained to her about how everyone wanted to fight in town and how it made him nervous. He wasn’t in the guard. He was someone’s son from the city. Anyway, he had moved on from town a few weeks back. He needed a name, he told her, as the first ripple of excitement washed through him. She started frantically flipping through the papers on the desk but the light was too dim to see, so they got a lantern from the next room and came back, and a moment later she had found it. There on the pages of the clinic’s registry she read out to him the name. Robbyn Jonathan.
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Post by Celera on Jul 20, 2006 13:25:51 GMT -5
((I imagine the doctor has to visit the Lion's Pride frequently. The young ladies who work there are probably exposed to a number of maladies that require her assistance. So it's no surprise that she can often be found away from her office. )).
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 20, 2006 22:33:55 GMT -5
Jonathan. It was strange enough to be true, Hatch thought as he made his way casually back towards the Lion’s Pride Inn and Perelli. He would need to get someone to get some information on the General and his family. Strange that the son wasn’t in the guard with his old man, especially given his size and skill with a mace. Hatch considered whether or not he was just so damn drunk last night that his memory was twisted, but he was sure that the guy he met had been decked out in Stormwind mail. Perhaps a special military operation? It was possible, but Hatch’s instincts said no. More like, the General’s son was just like all the adventurers that seemed to pour out of the Goldshire woodwork, looking to make a name for himself. Not too smart. Hatch wondered if the fella had any idea the hornet’s nest he had decided to step into.
Hatch put his hood back up, then took a last look back at the whitewashed clinic before pressing himself back into the milling throng on the main road. The healer had not come out and the main floor was dark. Upstairs, a single light shone out from the middle window, but the curtains were all drawn and no faces peered out. Little chance that the healer would squeal any time soon, he figured. He had made clear to her the consequences to her and to her boy should she “accidentally” remember him to someone like Marshall Dughan. She would have some bruising on her face, so he suggested she close her shop for a few days. Maybe take her boy on a little vacation up north. She had promised she would. Of course, by that point she would have burned her house down had he told her to. It didn’t really matter one way or another. Women lied about their bruises all the time. She might whisper her secret out eventually, but not until she was damn sure that her house was safe with a big man or two and maybe a couple of dogs. Maybe not even then, if she was as smart as she seemed.
Perelli had set up a little table at the main corner and Hatch began to quietly browse through the displayed goods, making eye contact. Perelli knew him, but did not react, just kept hawking his wares to the crowd of passers-by. Hatch was surprised; Perelli had brought the quality of his wares up significantly. Not only that, but he had actually got his hands on a couple of decent weapons. Not spectacular, but serviceable enough. They were secured to the table against thieves with rough cord, and to pass the time Hatch reached forward and flicked the metal of the great sword that sat in the middle of the table, gauging its strength and weight. He preferred blunt weapons, but he could still appreciate good craftsmanship in a blade.
Perelli’s story was that he was from across the sea, in an uncharted land where no one spoke Common. Once you got him started, he would put you to sleep with never-ending tales about the majesty of his home country and the proud beauty its women, but he never explained how it was that he had come to Azeroth. Instead, he would just hang his head and say it was a story that could never be told lest the whole world would weep and break in two. Hatch wasn’t sure how much of it to believe. What was undeniable was that Perelli had the strangest way of speaking Hatch had ever heard this side of the Horde.
Turning at the sound of Hatch's test of the blade, Perelli fixed his eyes on Hatch, then announced in a loud voice, “Ah, my friend, jou have excellent taste. Is she not… magnífico?”
“I’m lookin' for a sword…that was taken from me,” Hatch responded, looking steady forward to make sure Perelli understood his meaning.
“Oh? Taken from jou? Muy malo! What was this…sword?”
“A young copper blade. Small, but vicious. You might know her?”
Perelli’s eyes bulged. “A small copper blade? Ah, sí, I know of such a weapon. But I have not seen her, my friend.”
“Perhaps you have seen a large Stormwind mace? I am lookin' for that also. Actually, I was hopin' to buy them both. They would be together.”
“There are many Stormwind maces, my friend. But…perhaps you should consider this one?” Perelli waved his hand back towards a heavy spiked mace strapped to a tree behind him. “Oh jes, is it not fearsome? Monstruo!” “Excuse me?” A young woman was browsing through the jars of herbs on the table. “How much for the liferoot?”
“Ah, señora…Liferoot is very rare at this time of year. What jou see, she is the last of Perelli’s precious supply. But for jou, though it breaks my heart to do it so, I will give it away to jou for only five silver.”
She turned the bottle in her hands, unimpressed. “It looks a little sparse for five silver. I think it goes for less at auction...”
Hatch was losing patience. “A Stormwind mace and a copper blade, have you seen them together? Maybe a day ago. Or today.”
“No, no. Perelli has been here all day, señor, and has seen no such thing! But…a grande hombre like jou…does not need a copper blade, or a mace. Jou need this blade.” Perelli ran the back of his hand down the length of the great sword between them with a flourish. “She is so fine… an executioner did use her once. It is no lie!”
Hatch had heard enough. Perelli had seen nothing. He moved away into to crowd as the woman started up again behind him, “What about that bruiseweed?”
Hatch looked up at the setting sun. The letters would need to be redone. Rose was likely back at the Shady Bush waiting for him. One last piece of business to take care of before heading back.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 22, 2006 0:01:57 GMT -5
Out behind the faire grounds and on the south end of the town were a few scattered houses on the edge of town, and there, sprawled on an ill-kept piece of land, sat Colley’s farmhouse. There wasn’t much in the way of road, and even the path was starting to get hard to see in the setting sun, but a wooden signpost advertised Colley’s Tannery, with a picture of a skin being stretched on a frame like a rough five-pointed star. It was a fair sized farm, with a simple wooden fence running all around it, the kind that was useless for anything but keeping in big livestock that were too stupid to know better. A lone horse grazed off in the distance, shaking its mane against the flies.
Hatch lifted the latch on the gate and stepped into the field leading to the house. It had been a long day from a bad start and he was tired. Though he always walked with a sort of jerk on account of the damage to his left leg, as he started up towards the house he knew that his limp was more pronounced than usual. He would just get the business over quick. He sure could use a drink.
The farm was composed of three main buildings. In the front, and next to the path was the tannery. It was little more than a wooden roof on four supporting beams, with a collection of frames, display racks, barrels, stools, and tools scattered underneath. As Hatch approached the wind shifted, and a sharp smell, somewhere between spoiled wine and alcohol, mixed in with the reek of lime, wafted towards Hatch, reminding him of Colley’s infamous brew. Next to the tannery was a low hut where Colley smoked the skins. Behind the tannery and off to the back was a large wooden barn, its great double doors left wide open. In the fading light, Hatch could just make out a horse stall, a few farm tools, and a rough collection of straw inside the barn.
At the end of the overgrown path was the house. The was a single storey dwelling that appeared to be composed of several additions, for the wood and stone did not match and the lines of the walls and roof did not meet up exactly. It was all well enough made, it was just as if Colley had either run out of materials, or lost interest, or both, repeatedly as it was constructed. The front portion of the house appeared to be the original building, about twelve feet square and built out of logs. A single small window had been added to the front wall at some later point, and a cheap frame of distorted glass was hammered into place. Beside the window was a plain wooden front door, without ornament or step or landing, and outside, next to the door, was a small metal bench. The place appeared deserted.
Hatch wandered around to the back, examining the house. It had few windows and though a few lights shone ruddily from inside, he saw no one. Notwithstanding the several additions, there was only one other exit, and it was on the far back corner. Here, a recent addition seemed to have engulfed an old fieldstone shed with a rough door hanging slightly a kilter on rusted hinges. The door opened outward, and its hinges were mounted on the outside of the stone and clay wall. A worn path led from the back door the fifteen feet or so to the outhouse, and a large rain barrel sat full beside the back corner of the house. The barrel weighed a ton, but Hatch managed to quietly move it in front of the back door and blocked the exit. Then he went back around to the front of the house.
Hatch checked the front door and it swung open. He stepped inside. The front room had been converted into a kitchen and had three exits: the front door, a twisted hallway in front of him, and a door across the room into what was most likely a pantry. The furniture and fixtures were made out of sturdy materials. A large dark-stained oak table sat in the middle of the room, littered with the remnants of Colley’s cooking. The smells of recent cooking still filled the room and a roast bird sat half-eaten on a wooden cutting board with a large carving knife protruding out of it. A couple of empty bottles of wine sat on the countertop and table. A half-finished plate of baked potatoes sat cooling nearby, along with a bowl of gravy with a ladle. Evidently either Colley was a cook and enjoyed cooking for himself or he had company.
Hatch didn’t really know much about Abel Colley’s private life. He figured Colley to be in his mid-fourties. He had heard about Colley’s dead wife only by the name of the stupid boat. From the looks of the farm, either Colley never had kids or they were all grown and moved off. Colley had been running his racket before he joined the resistance, but as Colley simply directed the operations and didn’t make the deliveries Hatch had mostly just known of him by reputation. For the most part that reputation was that Colley was a tired old man, that he was inflexible with his prices, and that he delivered on time. He was known for his vicious booze, of course. Other than that, Hatch only had what he had seen yesterday to go by. Hatch’s assessment was that Colley was an idiot and a coward, that he didn’t give a damn about the resistance, and that he was just in it to turn a coin for himself.
Hatch quietly confirmed that the far door was the pantry, then stepped out of the kitchen and proceeded down the main hallway. The front rooms were composed of a large living area, and a couple of darkened small room. Hatch proceeded methodically through the house. The furniture was mostly the same; well made, from solid wood or cast iron, but generally old and worn. The floor was covered in a few well-cured bearskin rugs. An oil lantern remained lit in the living area, and the half-eaten remains of Colley’s meal were spread out on a low table. Dinner for two it was, with another bottle of wine and two empty glasses.
Then Hatch heard it. Through the wall from the back of the house came a rhythmic thumping and a quiet moaning. Hatch sighed. A woman. Well, it complicated matters, but he needed to move on tonight, so he couldn’t come back later. The question was, did she have to be disposed of? Hatch stood in the living room considering his options. He had wanted to talk to Colley first. But he couldn’t have her running off and bringing the guard. The humping moans of their sex played in the background as Hatch made up his mind and headed back out the doorway and down the hall.
Hatch opened a doorway and passed into the new addition he had seen from the outside of the house, led by the ecstatic squawking of the woman. She was a noisy one, all right, and was now moaning and crying out with wild abandon. In the middle of the hallway, a light shone out from the doorway into the bedroom and cast a bright band of light across the floor and wall. At the end of the hall the addition ended and the fieldstone of the back of the house began, leading to the back door Hatch had blocked up. A small trail of silken clothes and shoes lay near to the doorway. Hatch stood for a moment in the darkness outside the doorway stretching out his bad hand, while Colley pounded away and the woman cried out various encouragements and stated the obvious fact that he was ‘giving it to her’ repeatedly. Finally, Hatch stepped into the light and looked into the room.
The bedroom had no exit other than the one Hatch filled. The walls were undecorated, other than an old wooden mirror on the left wall. A heavy pine dresser and an old locked chest sat against the right wall, and a large four-poster bed dominated the room, piled high with feather mattresses and the woman. She was large and well past her prime, with huge flopping breasts and a massive jiggling belly, and she lay naked and splayed upon her back on the bed, tied by her wrists to the two far posts of the bed and blindfolded. Colley’s back was to Hatch as he stood upon the floor at the end of the bed and leaned forward, thrusting away frantically. Evidently he had gotten too excited to get fully undressed, for his shirt was off and tossed aside but his pants were still down by his ankles. The bed rocked madly back and forth and the woman tossed her head back and forth moaning blindly.
Hatch’s bad knee decided to act up just as he stepped into the room, and his foot came down more heavily than he had intended. The floorboards squeaked and Colley’s head spun around into the mirror. A look of utter panic washed into his eyes as he locked eyes with Hatch. Hatch’s mind worked rapidly, taking in the entirety of the situation. ‘Ah…fuck it,’ he thought, changing his plan of asking Colley to step out and talk. Stepping forward, his right hand reached down and unbuckled the morningstar at his side. It flew forward in one fluid motion to wrap around Colley’s neck. The chains clinked against each other like falling coins as it wrapped three times around his neck, cutting off the small man's voice and breath. The spiked ball hurtled faster and faster before slamming into Colley’s face, drawing forth a spray of blood upon the bed and woman.
Dazed, Colley's piece yanked out of the woman as he fell sideways, tripping over his pants. One more step into the room and Hatch was next to the end of the bed. With his deformed hand he grasped the chains wrapped around Colley’s neck, pinning them in place. Then, releasing the handle of the weapon with his right hand, he lifted the dazed man up with his left and delivered two quick punches to the centre of Colley’s chest, just below his ribs. Colley’s mouth flapped open as the air was forced up through his constricted neck, his eyes flew up into his head, and his body collapsed entirely.
“Abel?” the naked and blindfolded woman on the bed gasped out. “Abel, what is happening?”
Hatch dragged Colley’s small limp body out the door and down the hall as the woman began thrashing about and screaming on the bed in panic. At the end of the hallway he closed the door that led into the addition and, reaching down into his boot, he brought out his knife and jammed in through the wood, sealing her inside. Colley was coming to and his hands were fumbling at the chain around his neck as his eyes rolled wildly and his body fought for air. Hatch took him into the living room and threw him down on the table roughly. Colley's back hit the wood hard and he fell onto the floor buckled in pain and gasping to breath. Calmly, Hatch whirled the cruel spiked ball twice, and then brought it down hard on Colley’s knee to a satisfying crunch of breaking bones. Colley screamed.
Finally, Hatch spoke. “Weren’t polite of you to leave me lyin’ on the ground like a sack of shit, Colley.”
Colley begged for his life. Hatch just reached down and picked up the little man with one hand, then threw him back against the wall. Colley spun in the air, then hit the wall at the corner of the doorway and crumpled to the floor. Hatch walked over and knelt down beside him, then said quietly, “Tell me about Copper and the guard.”
“Please…Hatch, w-we thought you were dead,” Colley stuttered out through bloody lips.
Hatch hit him hard across the face. Calmly, he said, “Copper…and the guard.”
Colley didn’t look up, just letting the blood pour out of his nose to cover the floor. From the back of the house, the woman’s screams continued, along with a wooden thumping as she tried to untie herself. Colley had done a good job of tying her up. “Ok! Ok!” Colley gasped, covering his face with an arm. “Give me a second to get all the details straight…”
“It was yesterday, Colley. Don’t try to play games with me. You know I aint a patient man.”
Colley shuddered and nodded. “We were off at the lumber camp. We torched the place, just like you said. When we got back she was gone.”
Hatch walked a few steps away to look out the window. The last of the light was fading and the horse was making its way to the barn. Colley didn’t have any information. He was wasting his time. He should kill him and go have a pint at the Shady Bush.
“That’s it? You got nothin’ else to tell me, Colley?”
There was a silence. Hatch turned back to Colley but though Colley's pants lay on the floor, Colley was gone. Quickly, Hatch limped back over to the hallway. He turned the corner just as Colley stumbled away into the kitchen, dragging his broken leg and leaving a spattered trail of blood down the hallway. Hatch tromped down the hall after him, his morningstar swinging loosely at his side. When he entered the kitchen, Colley was standing naked on the far side of the table, holding the carving knife in his shaking hands. Fear poured off him.
“Hatch, you got no right to kill me. I never did nothing!”
Hatch took a step forward, but Colley hopped on one leg and kept the table between them. “You’re losin’ focus Colley. Copper, and the fella. That’s what you should be talkin’ about.”
“I told you, I don’t know! We came back and found you dead. Your fucking horse wouldn’t let us get near. My boys didn’t see anything. By the time I came back, the little bitch had broke out of the chair and took my boat!”
Hatch limped around the table, but Colley kept moving. The knuckles of Colley's hand were white as he clutched the table to avoid putting weight on his broken leg.
“You find it?” Hatch asked.
“The boat? Yes, I found it. Down past the Stonefield farm. Washed up on shore.”
Hatch kept slowly circling, wearing out the younger man. “We’ve got some people down there, Colley. You ask after the girl?”
Hatch could see in Colley’s eyes that he hadn’t. All he cared about was his damn boat. “Yes,” Colley lied, “They said she was last seen heading back to Westfall.” “Don’t lie to me, Colley.”
The sounds of the woman’s struggles faded away in the distance. Maybe she had got free or maybe she was just getting tired. Hatch looked into Colley’s eyes and decided that the idiot didn’t know anything else. He had returned from the lumber mill to found the girl and the boat gone. Hatch believed that Colley had thought him dead. If Shit-for-Brains hadn’t been guarding him, like as not Colley’s boys would have picked his pockets and tossed him in the river.
“Your boat, Colley,” he began. “She was named ‘Martha,’ right?”
Colley looked at him blankly. “No. Delilah.”
“Delilah. That’s it.” Where had he got Martha from, he wondered? He shrugged, reached down under the table and got a good grip, then lifted and pushed it into Colley as hard as he could. It was heavy, but Hatch put his weight into it. Colley fell on his back and the table fell upon him. The roast bird landed with a slippery plop beside Colley’s head and broke, spewing stuffing across the floor. Hatch put a heavy foot onto the table, pinning the thin man to the floor. Then he swung his weapon lazily to get up enough speed to finish the job. Colley’s scream was cut short abruptly as the spiked ball flew into his face and crushed his skull.
Before he left the farm, Hatch went out to the tannery and grabbed a few large earthenware jugs of oil along with a container of the strong-smelling tanning liquid. Then he returned inside, spattered it all over Colley’s body, the overturned table, and down the hallway. The woman was still quiet, but he decided to leave the knife in place, just in case. Then he grabbed the lantern from the living room, limped back to the front doorway, and threw it down like a molotov cocktail. As the house lit up behind him, Hatch decided that Rose would need to write another letter. Maybe VanCleef should cut a deal with the goblins to take Colley’s business as part payment on the Brotherhood’s debt.
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Post by embermoon on Jul 23, 2006 10:08:21 GMT -5
((No, no. Hatch is NOT a likable man....))
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 23, 2006 15:35:14 GMT -5
A Coward’s Tale – Chapter 6
Crumbling embers pulsed and cracked as the dry wood spat sparks up into the thin mountain air. The small fire still gave off a comfortable heat, but the meal was done and an evening chill was coming on. Robbyn was surprised and pleased. Though he wasn’t one to draw attention to his accomplishments, he felt the rough meal had been particularly good. Copper leaned against the base of a nearby tree, staring off down into the distance with a satisfied expression on her face. Robbyn puttered about, scraping and cleaning the dishes as best he could with rationed water. Who knows? Maybe he had discovered something he could be good at.
The General had never approved of his sons learning to cook, so Robbyn had never been taught. There were military cooks, to be sure, but the boys were to have higher aspirations. A servant’s place was in the kitchen, not a leader of men. That was not to say that the General did not appreciate good food. In fact, not only did he enjoy a good meal, he prided himself in having one of the better cooking staff in all of Stormwind. He and Robbyn’s mother would regularly hold dinner parties for the officers, usually complimented with expensive wines. And even without company the Jonathans never lacked for food. The trouble was that, because of Robbyn’s weight, the General would always be quietly scrutinizing the portions that Robbyn helped himself to. If Robb took too much, or asked for seconds, or ate too greedily, he would invariably be quietly confronted by the General with a loaded question such as, “how much exercise today, Robbyn?”
Well, he certainly had been getting enough exercise these days, Robbyn thought dryly. He wondered if he had lost any weight. He and Copper had been walking all day up into the hills, following a rough map that Abercrombie had drawn for them that showed a secret way through the Duskwood Mountains. With luck they would make it to the Duskwood Road in another two day’s time. From there it was a half-day’s walk up the road to the town of Grand Hamlet. Almost two day's journey saved by travelling through the mountains. Robbyn couldn’t wait to be back in the safety of town, not to mention sleeping in a proper bed again. He and Copper had planned to leave at first light but had not managed to get away until almost midday, and so they had pressed hard, trying to put as many miles as they could behind them before night fell. They were both weighed down with proper provisions for the journey, and with the added weight of Robbyn’s mail, he had been puffing and sweating copiously. Robbyn knew he was carrying the lion’s share, but he didn’t mind. He was stronger and it felt good to be useful.
In the end, they had stayed three days with Abercrombie. Visions of the nightmarish attack by the Flesh Eaters still made Robbyn shudder but, curiously, it had actually brought the three of them together in a strange way. As they had sat in the house waiting for the unnatural storm to pass, Abercrombie had quietly started to answer their questions and explained everything to the best of his ability. It didn’t all make sense. Abercrombie’s mind had been forever twisted and broken by his grief and sometimes he would just ramble off incoherently. But, even despite the frustration of these lapses, Robbyn’s heart went out to the old hermit for all that he had been through. Even Copper softened towards him. The storm had lasted past nightfall, and by morning they were sitting around and laughing about the look on Abercrombie’s face when Robbyn launched him over the table. The change was more than strange, but it was good.
From what Abercrombie told them, Robbyn pieced together that a plague had come to Raven Hill a few years back, possibly the very same that had come before the armies of the undead rose up against them in the Third War. There was no doubt that the dread plague was the most terrible weapon of the Scourge. No one knew how it was contracted or how to avoid becoming infected. It struck without warning and spread throughout the victim’s body, eating them away from the inside. Death would inevitably come within weeks, if not days. There was no cure. There had not been a lot of medical research of the plague, for it was apparently extremely contagious. What scientific study there was was primarily based upon anecdotal reports from soldiers and the few survivors who were willing to speak about it at all. The writings Robbyn had seen described a myriad collection of conflicting symptoms: burning fever, blindness, cracking skin, internal bleeding, cold sweats, lesions, madness, numbness, frothing mouths, bruising, discolouration of the skin, and disfigurement. The lists went on an on, each writer making vague assertions of how the plague might be fought. But accordingly to the army, the only real solution was to quarantine the infected, and to burn the bodies of the dead. During the war, great pyres of the dead had been burnt as the humans fought desperately to survive. In some cases entire cities had been sacked and burned to the ground. For if the bodies were not burned, they would rise up from their graves, transformed by the plague into hideous monstrosities like the Flesh Eaters that had attacked Robbyn and Copper.
When the plague came, it was terrible. There was no warning, and no way of knowing the horrible enemy that they faced. Grief-stricken survivors were killed and sometimes devoured by their dead loved ones, risen up from the grave and shambling forward with inhuman strength and power. Armies could not fight the plague, and the men and women would die in their armour, only to rise up to strengthen the advancing armies of the undead Scourge. These undead creatures became the armies of the Scourge, mindless in their own right but somehow bent and devoted to their masters’ terrible purposes.
Robbyn had been told that the soldiers that were interred at the Raven Hill memorial were only those that were safe from the taint. And possibly they had been. Abercrombie told them of a dark necromancer named Morbent Fel that had taken up residence in the Duckwood woods. Abercrombie had discovered the warlock’s dwelling as he had foraged for herbs in the forest a few years back. He claimed that only after Morbent Fel arrived did the forest start to turn sick and die, and Abercrombie believed that dark magic had been used to bring forth a new plague at the Raven Hill cemetery.
Where Robbyn and Copper were perched, the air was thin and clear. But down below them, a dull fog crept and hung over the vast expanse of the Duskwood Forest. It seemed to pour out from a spot far to the southwest, near to where the remains of the Raven Hill would lie. A dark cloud spread out from the necromancer’s lair to corrupt the woods, twisting the minds of the beasts there and giving them an unnatural feral intelligence. Abercrombie believed that Morbent Fel could cast out dark clouds such as the one that had come to Abercrombie’s shack. And under the shadow of the necromancer’s storm clouds came the living dead. Abercrombie told them that shortly after he and Eliza had escaped, he had watched as pitch-black clouds had billowed out to cover the town. When Abercrombie had gone back to check on the town, he had found Raven Hill ripped apart. There would be no going to Raven Hill for Copper and Robbyn. The undead had killed everyone and destroyed everything in their path.
Robbyn never did see what became of Eliza. It seemed pretty evident that Eliza had fallen victim to the same plague that had infected the other denizens of the town, but Abercrombie would not hear it. He maintained that she wasn’t dead, and they didn’t press him on it. The old man’s false belief seemed to be the last thread of hope left to him. Over and over he told them that she just wasn’t herself, and that she just needed to live underground. He didn’t explain why, other than that the sun burned her. But evidently on moonless nights she would rise up and ravage the house and yard, sometimes wandering off to hunt in the woods while Abercrombie hid inside with the dogs. By morning her rampage would be over, and she would have dug herself back into the soft soil of the grave that he had made for her.
When Robbyn asked him about the pickled hearts, Abercrombie replied that it was part of Eliza’s ‘treatment.’ He was fanatically devoted to the idea that he would one day cure her of her illness. Back when she first broke out of her bonds and escaped, he had followed a trail of carcasses to finally find her in the woods. Each one had had the chest ripped open and the heart bitten out. Robbyn was sick at the thought, but Abercrombie related the facts as if it were normal to him. He told them that the heart had fantastic healing properties, and that Eliza’s horrific behaviour was just a symptom of her trying to heal herself by consuming the hearts of her victims. He then told them that he periodically hunted with the dogs and brought the bodies of the slaughtered beasts back to his workshop for study and use. He had designed a ‘treatment’ regime for Eliza that involved dissecting the hearts of the beasts he killed and then injecting them with various potions and distilled herbs to enhance their naturally regenerative properties. When he knew it would be a new moon, Abercrombie would take out a bottle and leave it beside Eliza’s grave for her to consume when she “woke up.” Robbyn skin crawled at the thought and he was uncomfortably aware of the broken bottle that he had buried in Eliza’s grave, but he said nothing.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Jul 24, 2006 23:53:56 GMT -5
As for the sunken stone workshop, Abercrombie said little. Robbyn gleaned that the building was the last remnants of an ancient fort or garrison, and may at one point have served as a defensive installation. Abercrombie had chosen the location for his home because he could be safe from the townsfolk who he claimed might have been chasing him. Though small and dark, it had served as a temporary dwelling while he build the house by hand. And with the ever-growing numbers of the dead that spread out from the burial grounds, Abercrombie had retreated underground for safety on a few occasions. Abercrombie got agitated when they asked what he was working on in there. But every day, the old man would quietly slip out of the house and go lock himself inside of his workshop for hours, working at something. It was clear that the workshop was where Abercrombie performed his dissections. Robbyn decided that he didn’t want to know anyway.
Other times, Robbyn heard Abercrombie off in the woods by Eliza’s grave, talking. Apparently, she was back “home” underground. Robbyn was simultaneously terrified and fascinated by the grave in the woods and its fearsome inhabitant. He did not eavesdrop, but as he worked in the yard he heard the old man’s rambling voice, and Robb’s formed the impression was that Abercrombie engaged in conversations with Eliza in her grave. Repeatedly, the hermit’s wild mutterings would stop as if listening to a silent response and then start up again. Curious, Robbyn asked Abercrombie if Eliza talked to him. The old man fixed him with a stunned expression before saying “of course!” Abercrombie had then volunteered that ’Liza was not good with strangers but that she had said that would leave Robbyn and Copper alone as long as they left her alone. Robbyn’s throat had gone dry and Copper had had to rescue him by putting in, “That’s fine. Tell her we’re not staying long.” Abercrombie nodded, satisfied.
Abercrombie was temperamental and not always easy to understand, but there were certain themes to his ramblings that he kept coming back time and again. He was consumed with hatred for Mayor Ello Ebonlocke and his brutish Night Watch, who he blamed for dooming the town of Raven Hill and for destroying Abercrombie and Eliza's life together. He was terrified of the woods and the living dead. He raged against the foul powers of Morbent Fel and his corruption of the forest. But over and above them all was Abercrombie’s devotion to his wife. The smallest thing would set him off reminiscing about the lost glories of the past and the love that they shared. Sometimes the thread of the narrative would break down as the hermit lost himself in wild uncontrollable laughter, but he might just as easily start weeping inconsolably. Other times, his mind would simply wander off and the words would fade away, leaving the meaning hanging, unresolved. Robbyn had to listen very carefully to follow the train of thought, and it broke his heart to see what had happened to the poor old man.
Copper did not have Robbyn’s patience. Somehow, she guessed that Abercrombie had a stash of skins somewhere. She pointed out that Robbyn needed new clothes and volunteered that she could work leather. To Robbyn’s surprise, that evening Abercrombie brought a stack of tanned hides back from the workshop. It was obviously very hard for the old man to part with his stash, but he gave them up, along with a pile of threading. After that, when Abercrombie started off on one of his narratives, Copper would go outside and busy herself working the leathers into an outfit for Robbyn. Her hands were very good, and fast, and before long she had made for him clothes that fit like a glove. Robbyn was amazed. When they were done she tossed them roughly into his arms and said, “Get dressed, I’m tired of looking at your fat ass.” A tear slipped from Robbyn’s eye as she stalked away; he was so touched by her kindness.
They did what they could to repay Abercrombie before they left. The old man insisted that the torn bodily remains of the Flesh Eaters scattered around the back yard were no longer contagious, but Robbyn could not get up the courage to gather them together to be burned. Instead, he went and gathered the logs and kindling for the bonfire. Then, while Copper and Abercrombie tossed the strangely bloodless remains on the fire to burn, Robbyn fled off into the forest to cut down a fair sized tree. He used Abercrombie’s double-handled saw and busied himself making replacement boards to fix the broken table and the damage to the house, all the while trying desperately to ignore the stench of burning flesh. Abercrombie tossed some kind of herb on the fire, which cut the smoke, but they still watched the sky carefully for another dark cloud and they slept fitfully that night. Robbyn and Copper slept next to each other on the floor, in beds fashioned out of the scattered clothes. When he quietly asked Copper how she got up the courage to handle the dead, she just shrugged and said it had to be done. She didn’t criticize, but he heard unspoken condescension in her tone and, not for the first time, Robbyn wished he were as brave and fearless as her.
On the second day they took a journey to the tiny remnants of a mountain stream that still trickled down a few hours walk from the house. They filled as many jugs as they could carry and lugged them back to the house. It was exhausting, but Abercrombie was very appreciative. he told them that it was impossible to get the cart to the water. Now he and ’Liza would be set for months, he said. Robbyn started to ask if Eliza drank water before Copper shot him a look. He took the hint and shut up. Better just to let it go. Robbyn also offered Abercrombie gold, and though the old man grumbled, “where would he ever use it?” surprisingly, he accepted it. Robbyn was glad. He knew that they could never fully repay Abercrombie for his strange kindness, but he told himself that someday Abercrombie might accept that Eliza was forever lost and then return to society. Or, who knows, he thought, maybe Abercrombie would find a cure. It wasn’t impossible.
Finally, they were ready to leave. Abercrombie told them that due south the woods were infested with gargantuan spiders, half the size of a man, and told them to use the mountains to get to the main road. He mapped a path for them and sent them on their way with proper travelling provisions, even some of the precious water. They asked Abercrombie to come with them, but he was adamant that he could not leave his wife. Robbyn had become very fond of the crazy old man and his handshake somehow turned into a teary-eyed bear hug. After that, they all stood around for a few moments uncomfortably before Copper said that they needed to get going, and they started out into the mountains. The last Robbyn saw of Abercrombie, the old man was shambling off toward Eliza’s grave again.
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