Adventure Friends: The Port of Kanel, Brennan, and the Fight in the Restauraunt

“So who exactly is this Brennan,” Aurelius asked as they passed briskly through the intersection, the flashing red hand ahead urging them forward. The canvas bag he had over his shoulder bumped against his hip in an irregular fashion, provoking an occasional wince as one of the sharper objects poked out through the fabric. The sharper objects hidden on the insides of his sweatshirt sleeves caused him no discomfort at all, however.

“An exiled king,” Felix said. “He’s a cool guy. I know him. Knew him. Haven’t spoken to him in a while. We had a bit of a fight over something. I mean he’s kind of cool.” The thick tweed overcoat he’d chosen was proving to be a bit too warm for the mid-March afternoon, but he’d wanted something to conceal the red-white long barreled twin derringers he kept holstered on his sides. As well, the inner jacket pockets could contain plenty of ammunition, and they were tight enough that the casings wouldn’t make a lot of rattling around.

“What does he want mercenaries for?” Adrian asked. While Aurelius and Felix preferred to keep their weapons hidden, Adrian had her longsword sheathed at her side, in plain view, and her white-painted wooden shield on her back. The tabard she wore displayed proudly the falcon of the Falkenheim family, although she wouldn’t have dared wear it in any country that wasn’t Kanel. She stepped by a woman pushing a baby carriage, and received a stare. Adrian looked down at a child in the crib, and the baby immediately started squalling.

While Adrian wondered if her scars really were that awful, Felix answered her previous question, “I’m guessing he doesn’t want to be an exiled king. He told me that hiring mercenaries was his plan. It’s kinda the disagreement we had. I gotta convince him not to do it.”

“Seems reasonable,” Aurelius said. “I mean, wanting to not be exiled. I’d hate to be exiled from my homelands.” He looked crestfallen for a moment, and then added “Luckily, I’m right here.”

“Right,” Adrian said. “I don’t blame this Brennan, but if his situation is anything like mine, I’ll be happy to help you convince him otherwise, Felix.”

“His situation actually is a little different,” Felix said. “All he has to do is kill the joti who deposed him. But there’s a lot in between him and her. And anyway, I think Brennan has better things to do than mope over a lost kingdom. There’s plenty to do here, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Adrian said, thinking back upon the last mission she’d undertaken, clearing out an overgrown centipede from a farmer’s grain silo outside of town. “Plenty.”

They passed into the port side of the city, and so the cars and busses fell away and were replaced by foot traffic, horses, bicycles, and the occasional wagon. It was a setting that Adrian felt more comfortable in, and one that Felix had been in quite often during his travels. The road was cobblestone, just as the roads in the Barony were, and the buildings were more often of brick and timber than steel and concrete like the inner city.

“Brennan still has his old apartments, I’m guessing,” Felix said, “If we’re fast we can catch him before any of the other ‘mercs show up,” He paused to give direction, “this way past the fish market,” and resumed the conversation, “and make him actually commit to his folly.”

The fish market was just as smelly as a fish market should be, and so as they exited, walking alongside the dock that was currently clogged completely with arriving ships, the sights were a welcome distraction.

Aurelius had a limited understanding of foreign flags, but he didn’t fail to see some of the sigils of the Barony; bears, lions, crossed axes, a flaming arrow. Those sigils were mostly on the galleys and corsairs. Adrian saw the bears and crossed axes too and looked down at the sigil on her tabard with sudden fear that there might be a trader who recognized the falcon. But she reassured herself that since fighting in the streets was forbidden in Kanel and, she would be safe. Felix recognized the black and blue striped flags of the Endlong Alliance flying on the iron cargo vessel docked out at one of the larger concrete docks further up the strand.

Felix himself would have liked to climb on board and see what they were offering. He didn’t consider himself an exile, unlike Adrian and Brennan, merely an adventurer who longed to hear news of his homeland. He knew he would have been as safe in Endlong as in Kanel, and feared nothing.

Aurelius, of course, would tell Felix that you can’t climb aboard the vessel to browse for wares; the only ships that did those were the Arlandrians or the jotunn. Barony and Endlong ships offloaded to vendors who bought the merchandise and sold them at stores further inland.

Aurelius had spent time among the docks, an equal amount of time as a courier, a thief, and a merchant, and thus knew these things.

But they reached Brennan’s apartments before they reached the metal and steel docking platforms, and so Felix’s inquiries were left unanswered.

Brennan’s home was located above a rustic looking restaurant, one which, when you entered, was revealed to be more influenced by Kanel design than Barony decor (as the outside bricks and wooden pylons implied) with a clean carpet and whitish grey wallpaper. Television screens displayed mostly the news with captions that always seemed a second too slow to catch up with the news broadcasters themselves.

There weren’t many patrons in the restaurant; here and there a single sailor from the Barony, or a whole table of business suited Endlong executives, a tall and muscular man with his polearm and massive shield resting in a seat as though they were eating with him, and a few jotunn seated at the far end of the room, at tables whose proportions much better suited their massive stature.

The stairway to the apartments lay past the table with the jotunn so Felix, Adrian, and Aurelius had to pass. The jotunn gave Aurelius a curious but hostile look, and ignored the other two. Felix noticed the glare more than Adrian did, who merely wondered whether they were jotu or joti.

The stairs they took up to the apartments were creaky and perhaps betrayed the true age of the structure, although at this point Adrian had ceased to care whether the building was fake or authentic. She had a certain anxiety growing to meet this exiled jotunn prince-king. Felix was framing arguments in his mind to help him know what exactly he would say to Brennan in hopes of convincing him not to go.

Aurelius reached the door first; there was a posted note which declared Prospective Mercenaries Apply within to Help Brennnan Fyrn Reclaim the Throne of the Jotunn Nation and so Aurelius did not have to ask which apartment was Brennan’s. He rapped against the door with his knuckle and entered first when he heard an affirmative grunt from within. Felix entered next and finally Adrian who took one last glance down the hallway towards the restaurant’s dining hall before stepping through the doorway and shutting it behind.

Brennan turned out to be a jotu of fairly human height; slightly taller than Aurelius who was by far the tallest of the three. Unlike most jotu that Adrian had seen, including the ones down in the restaurant, this one wore his hair short, still ink black and wavy, but not in the pony-tail that was more popular among jotu. There was a massive sword in the room propped against the chair Brennan sat in. His right hand rested on the blade. “Felix Williams,” he said in a softer voice than Adrian and Aurelius had been expecting. “You can leave now.” There was a bed and a desk in the room as well, but that was it. Sparse arrangements for a king, exiled or not.

“Hear him out,” Adrian said before Felix had chosen a reply, “I think you will find his argument worthwhile.”

“Don’t go,” Felix said.

“Yes, very worthwhile,” Brennan said.

“I wasn’t done,” Felix said impatiently. “Don’t go… yet.”

There was a collective gasp among Brennan and Aurelius, although not one between Adrian and Felix. Adrian didn’t gasp because this was secretly her plan as well, and Felix didn’t gasp because the thought never even occurred to gasp (it would have been silly anyway). Brennan leaned in closer in his chair, “What’s this argument, then?”

“If you spend enough time getting ready to go, you can actually be prepared for everything that happens. You know. And you’ll get more money to actually pay mercenaries with, if you do little jobs here and there.”

In Brennan’s mind he recognized it as a logical argument. It did make sense. Except for one thing… “All the time I spend waiting for the right time to strike, Viin is getting stronger and marshaling her armies. If I’m not fast enough, she’ll send mercenaries after me instead. I have to end this as soon as possible.”

“Listen,” Felix said, “I brought with me two of the greatest… thieves and warriors…” To this Aurelius beamed, but Adrian merely listened with a straight face, almost as if she hadn’t even noticed the compliment. “I’ve ever met. This is Adrian. She killed five men in single combat armed with the same blade and shield she wields right now.”

“Tis true,” Adrian said, with a slight nod and smile.

“Humble,” Brennan said. “Where did you get all of those scars. Not in just that one fight, I hope?”

“I got this,” Adrian said, indicating with two fingers a long scar that ran across her forehead, “When a knight on horseback took a swing at my head with his tallaxe. This,” she indicated a pale pink misshapen star shape on her right cheek, “Is where an arrow pierced my skin and broke a tooth. I pulled it out and continued fighting.” She removed the leather gloves she wore, tucked them into her belt, and held up her palms. Each had long scars going horizontally across, “I once grabbed a sword from an enemy and then stuck it halfway into his stomach.” As she pulled her gloves back on, she said, “I have never seen a surgeon, and live to tell all these tales. I have no talent, unlike Felix and Aurelius, other than perhaps persistence, although I do not think the Wern Magnifier would recognize it.”

“You do seem to have a skill for getting injured,” Brennan said. “I have been in hundreds of battles but I retain no scars, because my enemies have never gotten past my blade. Scars are mistakes, signs of weakness.” He nodded his head, “If you’ll beg my pardon.”

Adrian inclined her head and that was that. There was an unspoken threat passed between them, a certain obligation from one to the other, and only the mercenary at the door would have known what it was. But he was not there to witness it, only to listen to the voices beyond the door. He’d only just arrived, and had propped up his polearm against the wall, resting his hands on his shield, waiting politely for their conversation to end so that he could enter.

“What are you saying?” Asked Brennan to Felix.

“Simply that we, together, could protect you against any hired blades sent after you,” Felix said. “Aurel, I know you brought a bag full of some of the most priceless artifacts you’ve ever thieved, and I know that your intent was to sell them here at the docks,” Aurelius made a startled face but he’d known why Felix hadn’t asked him to leave the canvas bag behind when they’d set out, “but before you do, could you perhaps show a few of these items? A demonstration of your larcenous gifts.”

“See,” Aurelius said, “My Wernified talent is one of extreme agility. Rooftops are a second road to me, ladders are little more than vertical walkways for all the trouble they give me; I can outmaneuver any museum guards as I wish to outmaneuver, and it is with these most daring feats, that I acquired some of the most priceless artifacts known to man, jotunn, or Ayra.”

He flipped the canvas bag around so that it rested against his stomach and pulled out the first object he could find; a jewel encrusted goblet, with a dark purple liquid suspended perfectly inside of it so that while it dripped it was clear to any observer that the goblet would never run dry.

“Behold the Eternal Cup.” He set it down on the desk next to Brennan who immediately grabbed it for a closer inspection. By the time Brennan had nodded his approval, Aurelius had already produced another object, a pyramidal shape with dark obsidian sides and a series of parallel runes written in gold on its edges.

“The Eventide Mark,” Brennan said, “It is not just the Kanel Museum of History that misses this, it is the Eventide Cult, too. A dangerous item to steal, it will be more dangerous to find a fencer brave enough to buy it from you.”

“You haven’t seen the best one yet,” Aurelius said, clasping it within the bag and feeling the rough edges. “Sought after by a great politician of the northern lands, an object of such supposed power that it can bring worlds to the knee of whoever wields it. Forged in the fires of Circe’s funeral pyre, it is,” he presented it with a flourish, “The Staff of Circe!”

“Oh yeah,” Brennan asked. “Never heard of it.” He leaned sideways in the chair, resting his head against one fist, the elbow propped against the armrest. It was a posture he hoped regal, and the attempt was not lost on Adrian.

The mercenary waiting outside had to stifle his chuckle, he’d been sure for an instant that it was the object he’d been hired to retrieve, from another, years ago. The thief’s voice continued inside, although the mercenary could not witness whatever it was that the fourth item turned out to be, “I have this too. I found it in some archives, but it seemed pretty heavily guarded. Thought it was valuable.”

“And that’s it?” Brennan asked. “One item of actual worth, one too dangerous to sell, and two worthless staffs? Felix, I am not impressed by your clumsy swordswoman and your misguided thief. Unless you have something more worthy for me, I suggest you leave.”

The mercenary heard some rustling from the other side, booted shoes scraping against the hardwood floor. He stepped away down the stairs, taking his polearm and shield with him; he did not like the tone of this jotunn very much, and felt sure that it was all bark and no gold. He stopped by his table and sat down again, ordering a drink.

As Felix, Aurelius, and Adrian came down the stairs, the tall mercenary with the polearm and shield was drinking from a flask the size of a small child. Aurelius was busy pushing his items back into his canvas bag, and while he’d managed three of them (the goblet was the hardest; it must be upright or else it would leak everywhere), he was having difficulty with the fourth. The mercenary’s eyes fixed on this one, circuits flickered on in the deep reaches of his declarative thought.

“I think I remembered the name of this one,” Aurelius said. “The Banner of—”

“Day,” the mercenary finished, standing. “One thousand kanners for the Banner of Day.” The mercenary recognized it from the one photograph that had ever been taken from it; four feet long folded, silver white, and black, with a lever that, once thrown, would double its length.

“What?” Aurelius asked. It was still in his hand. “One thousand?”

“Two thousand,” the mercenary said. He knew that he would not be able to raise his price much higher; the coinpurse he kept with him only had three thousand, two hundred, and seventy nine.

“Five thousand,” Aurelius said.

“Damn you,” the mercenary said. “Do you know who I am?” He rose from his table, grabbing his shield and his polearm. He stepped to block their most immediate path to the door.

“No,” Felix said. He threw open the sides of his jacket and reached his hands into their opposite holsters, grabbing the twin derringers he’d brought. He drew them out and held them before him, not quite aiming, but sure that if he needed to, he could snap all four of their barrels towards the mercenary’s eyes. Beside Felix, Adrian had already drawn her sword and brought her shield from her back onto her left arm.

“Roland of Endlong, and before then, of the Bloodlands. Falkenheim should understand the meaning of those words.”

“The bloodlanders are fools,” Adrian said. “Any who bowed so easily to the Baron do not deserve respect.”

Roland’s eyes widened and his cheeks flushed, but he stood his ground and refused to give into the taunt. Aurelius hadn’t moved. “Five thousand or I walk out.” At this point the other restaurant patrons had already done so. Only a barmaid in an evening dress remained behind the counter, watching with eyes that were neither fearful nor brave; merely curious.

“You can give it to me,” Roland said, “Or you can die.”

None of them replied.

He took three long strides towards them and closed the distance. Aurelius reacted in time, but severely underestimated how long the polearm was. So when he leapbackwards, the polearm’s blade cut through the strap of his canvas bag and let its contents tumble to the floor, the goblet pouring itself all over the carpet, and subsequently refilling itself to do it again a second later. Aurelius flipped under the second swing, this time losing nothing else.

Felix fired all four barrels, mistaking Roland’s backswing for an opening, but instead, all four superheated shells bounced off of the six foot tall steel shield, bouncing carefully to the ground, smoking where they stopped.

Adrian edged to the side, avoiding the mercenary’s gaze.

Meanwhile, Brennan had come to the foot of the stairs, partly motivated to watch, and partly motivated to end it. He had his sword with him, should the second motivation overpower the first.

Aurelius managed to dodge each of the thrusts and swings that Roland forced his way and had even drawn two shortblades from his sleeves, holding them upside down in his hands, waiting for an opening. But Roland had fought many different opponents from many different lands, and one of the people he had killed favored a similar lightning quick short ranged technique. All Roland had to do was take advantage of the range his polearm offered him, and to make the thief painfully aware of his lack of armor.

Felix reloaded, holding one derringer in his mouth by the handle, one tucked into his belt, as he pulled four rounds out from his pocket. He tossed the shells into the air two by two, pulled his derringers out, and let the shells fall into the empty chambers. He leveled the barrels again, hoping for an opening, but he could see Roland’s eyes dart toward him, and soon Roland’s shield was up again, his footing readjusted to protect against another salvo.

At the moment wherein Felix and Aurelius both wondered where Adrian was, Brennan had noticed that she had circled around to Roland’s flank. She darted forward on Roland while he was in mid-swing against Aurelius. While he was able to bring his shield about to block her, he was unable to bring the polearm in against her before she was too close for it to be effective. She bashed the dull steel away with her shield and cut deep into Roland’s shield.

Her blade lodged itself just above his wrist, and as he moved his arm to try to shake her off, she instead leapt up onto the handle of the sword, releasing her right hand, and then twisted on her blade’s hand guard to deliver a closed fist square between Roland’s eyes. While he was disoriented, he stumbled, and she pulled her sword out from his shield with her legs.

As the sword came loose, and his shield burst open, ruined, she attempted to spring backwards to flip once in the air and land on her feet. But Roland shifted the shield upwards, throwing off her balance, and she careened backwards, awkwardly crashing against a table on her upper back, knocking the wind from her lungs.

At this point Felix was aiming right towards Roland’s back, but just as he fired, Roland stepped forward, and two of the bullets went off through the open doorway into the street. Aurelius was too far away to be of any help, having not expected Adrian’s aid when it came. So when Roland swung his polearm through the air, dropping the ruins of his shield as he did so, there was nothing Adrian could do to defend herself except swing her shield to block it.

The polearm’s blunted blade came crashing through the thin wooden plating, and split through the skin on her arm. When Roland wrenched the polearm free of her arm (with her shield still attached), a bright red mist exploded into the air where her shield had been. She rolled aside when Roland swung down again, and rolled off the table, sprinting out the door into the street. Roland followed, and then Aurelius, who’d now closed the gap. Aurelius managed to jump onto Roland’s back, catching him by surprise, but before Aurelius could swing his blades down, Roland turned, shifting his shoulders, throwing Aurelius to the cobblestone street.

The daggers went tumbling from Aurelius’ hands. From the doorway Felix fired the other two bullets from his other derringer, and scored hits in Roland’s back, but Roland merely turned after Adrian.

Adrian had adopted a defensive stance, no longer running. Roland swung into her right, but she stepped back, avoiding its range. Blood flew each time she jerked aside, dodging Roland’s swinging. As Felix reloaded, he wondered if Roland would get to her before the blood loss did.

When Aurelius had finally grabbed his daggers again, and Felix leveled all four barrels once more, Roland turned as if to face all three of them at once. Adrian saw this opening and went for it immediately, rolling forward and then, when Roland took another swing, she parried the polearm with her sword and kicked through the air into Roland’s abdomen. He lost his footing and fell, and Adrian scrambled forward, and as he grabbed the length of the polearm he felt cold steel against his throat.

“Yield,” Adrian said.

“This is the police!”

All four looked up in surprise to see blue uniforms all around, all having drawn pistols, pointing at Adrian and Roland down on the ground.

“Fighting is forbidden on Kanel streets. You are under arrest for disturbing the peace and endangering your lives, as well as the lives of others!”