Fairytales Slashed Vol 1 by Derr Megan

Author:Derr, Megan [Derr, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The Soldier

Grigori stared into his ale and wondered morosely what he was going to do now.

It was a question he’d been asking himself from the very moment he’d decided to desert. A question he’d asked himself even as his stupid mouth sealed his fate, and his feet had betrayed him to side with his mouth.

So here he was, in a tired looking tavern with barely enough coin to pay for the ales that were failing miserably to drown his sorrows. He looked up to glance around the room. Little had changed in the thirty seconds since his last look around.

Tired and worn out, that’s what this place was. The reason he’d chosen it, of course. This was a place for farmers, craftsmen, and otherwise less than well-to-do. No one would notice or care about a sad, lonely soldier hiding away in the corner.

Sad, lonely, pathetic, and in rather deep trouble should he ever be caught.

It occurred to him, again, that deserting the army had not been the smartest thing he’d ever done. Even if…

300 lashes, for daring to suggest you are blood-relation to a General in His Majesty’s Army.

His fingers tightened around his tankard, sliding on the wood long worn to slick-softness, and with a rough noise suspiciously close in sound to a sob he downed the last of his ale in one long swallow. He signaled for another as he slammed the empty tankard back down.

What was done was done, he supposed. His only real problem now was finding work. There was always a need for hard labor, and he had more than a bit of skill with his sword.

That would be the best way to go; ten years in the army, more than a few battles to his name. Selling his sword was definitely the best route. But how did one go about becoming a mercenary? He frowned at the table, realizing he was right back where he’d started, feeling utterly lost.

Someone set his ale down for him, and he muttered an absent thank you before falling once more into the bitter memories that had driven him to desert the army.

“Are you for hire?”

The voice was rough but firm. Grigori snapped out of his wallowing and looked up.

A farmer, clearly. The heavily lined face, the graying hair. The dirt. The old before his time appearance, the thin graying hair, heavily patched clothes on a lean but muscled frame. The man could nearly have been his father, right down to the smell of sweat and earth that clung to him.

“Depends on the job and the price,” Grigori replied, barely able to hold back his laughter. Surely it was a joke; it could not be this easy to come by a job. If he’d known all it took to become a mercenary was sulking over thin ale in an old tavern, he would have deserted a long time ago.

The old man held a beat up hat close against his chest, the hand clutching it as old and strained as the rest of him, nails dark with the grime that had gotten beneath them.

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