The Butcher of Khardov by Wells Dan

Author:Wells, Dan [Wells, Dan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Steampunk, Fantasía
ISBN: 9781939480323
Publisher: Skull Island Expeditions
Published: 2013-06-17T22:00:00+00:00

Lola pulled another giant shirt from the pile of wet laundry, stretching it out like a sail as she pinned it on the clothesline. “Orsus,” she said, “do you ever think about the future?”

Orsus looked up from the side of the wide wooden washtub. “I certainly never think about the past,” he said, scrubbing another shirt vigorously against the washboard. It was kind of her to help him, the village orphan, with his laundry, but he’d been doing it on his own for five years, ever since his family . . . well, that was part of the past he didn’t like to think about. He looked up at Lola. Her hair was tied back to keep it clear of the wet laundry but was still ringed with summer flowers and framed her face in a red-gold halo. He smiled as he couldn’t help but do every time he saw her, and she smiled back shyly. “The present’s pretty great, though,” he said, then made a look of mock consternation. “Unless you mean that in the future you might do my laundry for me, instead of just hanging it while I do all the real work?”

She threw a damp sock in his face, laughing at the loud wet slap it made against his eyes, and he laughed with her, more peaceful and carefree than he’d felt in . . . ever, really. His life before Lola had been a cold grey trudge through a world all too eager to kill him; it hadn’t been a life at all, really, just a lack of death. But the six months since he’d met her, and the two months since they’d been officially courting, had opened his eyes to a kind of happiness he’d never known existed. It was more than just not being alone. Lola wasn’t a friend or a fellow worker or a member of Aleksei’s crew, she was a part of him. Finding her had been like finding his second half.

The thought that any part of him, even by association, could be so soft and kind and loving had changed the way he thought about the entire world.

Lola lifted the limp sock from his face with a laugh, then plucked the scrubbed shirt from his hands and unfurled it with a flourish. “I could never wash this much shirt in one go,” she said. “It’s like a giant flannel blanket. You could keep a whole family warm with this thing—two kids at least, maybe three if they’re small.”

“Is that how many you want?” The words were out of his mouth almost before he knew what he was saying, but only because he’d been thinking them for weeks—for months, if he was being honest. He’d never wanted a family before, but with Lola? He wanted everything he’d never dreamed.

Lola stared at him, shocked by the hint of marriage, but he’d come to know her eyes as well as he’d ever known anything, and the light shining forth from them now told him she was thrilled at the idea.

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