Read The Ships of Merior for Free Online

feet still encased in wet socks. Both boots appeared to be missing.
    The Mad Prophet moaned in self pity, but softly. With caution he managed to straighten up. His eyes refused to focus, a common problem; he had been born nearsighted. The point became moot, that Asandir’s tutelage had schooled him to correct the deficiency, as well as the torment of bad hangovers. To reverse any bodily failing,he needed to be sober and clear-minded, neither one a state to be desired. Dakar fumbled through a succession of capacious pockets in quest of a coin to buy beer.
    Across the tavern’s cramped common room, somebody screamed. Drilled through the ears by the sound, Dakar shot bolt upright and banged his knees against the trestle. He aimed a bleary glare at a mule drover who howled still, apparently over a winning throw at darts. The tanner with the frizzled moustache stood up as his opponent doled out the stake, while a half-toothless roisterer on the sidelines shouted, ‘Where’s your courage man? Try another game!’
    Dakar winced and groped tenderly through another pocket. As the barmaid whisked past bearing ale to the victor, he dredged up a hopeful smile.
    Blonde and fast-tongued and inaccessible, she noticed his search through his clothing. ‘Your pockets are empty as your purse. And no, you weren’t robbed while you slept.’
    The Mad Prophet absorbed this, lamenting that she moved too briskly for him to land an effective pinch. He stared owlishly as the flagon was carried on to the victor. Soon enough, the renewed thwacks of a fresh game’s thrown darts pierced through the complaints of the loser.
    About then it dawned with awful force that his pockets contained only lint. He found himself destitute on the edge of winter in a sheep farming village in the Skyshiels. Dakar’s yell rivalled the mule drover’s, and the barmaid, incensed, hurried over and clanged her tray of emptied crockery by his elbow.
    While Dakar cringed back from the din, she ran on, ‘I
said
, nobody robbed you. What coppers you had barely paid for last night’s ale.’ To Dakar’s softly bleared gaze, annoyance stole nothing from her charm. ‘I see you don’t remember? That’s odd. You put away fifteen rounds.’
    Probably truth, Dakar reflected muddily, the state of his bladder was killing him. He braced chubby hands onthe trestle, prepared to arise and embark for the privy.
    Warmed now to her tirade, the barmaid unkindly refused him passage. ‘The only reason you weren’t thrown out is because the landlord took pity for the weather.’
    Since Dakar had yet to raise concern over what the day looked like outdoors, he surveyed the room to fix his bearings. The tavern was of typical backlands construction: two storeyed, with the ceiling beams that supported the second floor set low enough to bother a tall man’s posture. The single lantern hissed and sputtered, fuelled by a reeking tallow dip that smoked far worse than the hearth. In a dimness tinged luridly orange, darts flurried between support posts into a shaggy straw target. The mule drover cursed a wide throw, which prompted a laugh from the tanner. A gnarled old cooper in the corner muttered slurred lines of doggerel, and sniggers erupted like the feeding squeals of a hog’s farrow. Dakar, brimming and uncomfortable, rolled long-suffering eyes. When the bar wench failed to move, he succumbed to temptation and shoved a hand down her bulging blouse.
    No matter how unsteady he was on his feet, his fingers knew their way about a woman.
    The wench hissed in affront. Her shove plonked the Mad Prophet backward on the unpadded timber of the bench. The air left his lungs in a whistle. Tediously, he started the effort of dragging himself upright all over again.
    ‘Slip on the ice,’ snapped the serving maid. She snatched up her tray to an indignant rattle of cheap crockery. ‘The door will be barred when you come back, and I hope your bollocks freeze solid.’
    Suffering too much for rejoinder,