Ragged Heroes: An Epic Fantasy Collection by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Andy Peloquin Books
Published: 2018-03-26T22:00:00+00:00

Another side effect of the potion Tarin had drunk as an eight-year-old lad was that he could handle his drink. In fact, he had never been drunk. He could throw back strong drink after strong drink and never feel the effects.

It was another kind of curse in its own right, especially when Sir Jonathan was growing giddy beside him. “I am going to go home and make so much love to my wife,” the knight said, chugging the last quarter of his current poison of choice, a thick, dark concoction that was known to be exceptionally strong.

Tarin chuckled, certain he would be delivering Sir Jonathan home in a state similar to that of a coma. He finished his own drink, and then raised a hand to indicate to the tavern proprietor that they were ready to close out their tab. The barrel-chested, gray-haired man named Borg jotted the tally on a scrap of paper and pushed it across the wooden bar, spilled ale soaking through it and making the inky numbers run together. Tarin counted out more than enough coin and stacked it atop the paper. He wondered whether this was the true reason Sir Jonathan was his friend: Because I always pick up the tab.

Even if it was, Tarin didn’t care. Coin mattered little to him. Defending the north was all he had left.

He slung Jonathan’s arm over his shoulders and helped the man through the throng of sloppy soldiers celebrating their victory and mourning their fallen comrades in equal measure. A familiar feeling rose inside him, of heat, of walls closing in, of suffocation, and he could picture his future:

Slinging Sir Jonathan to the dirty floor, snapping the neck of the soldier directly to his right, spinning left, crushing the next soldier’s jaw. They would come from all sides and he would bloody them, break them, end them like the pitiful humans they were, cutting off their stares at long last, for he could never be one of them, only among them, a monster among soldiers, a thorn amidst roses…

Tarin burst through the door and into the frigid night air which felt…

Cleansing.

He breathed. Deeply. Forced the feelings back inch by inch. Closed off the monster with a mental wall, a final hiss sneaking through before it was gone.

Frozen hell, Tarin thought. I can’t live like this.

But, he knew, it was the only way he could live. The monster was a part of him, and without it, he would be dead.

He realized Jonathan, still clutching his shoulder and neck, had fallen asleep. An unexpected laugh snorted from his nose and he scooped up the muscular man as if he weighed naught but a feather.

Tarin strode off into the glistening night.

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