A Tavern Tale
Emee Camp
The tavern was quiet. Jaxtyn’s eyes darted around the six other patrons, who were all quietly tending to their cups. Still, his paranoia persisted. The bar fae brought over his mead. He couldn’t tell if she was a sprite or a wood elf, both of which were common at this point along the King’s Road.
Tugging the hood of his cloak down over his brow, Jaxtyn hoped no one would look at him long enough to recognize him. Nervously, he thumbed the purse at his belt and tried harder to disappear into the booth wall.
The first part of his plan had gone smoothly enough. But he knew that escaping the castle would be the easy part. Now, he and Pytor just needed to make it across the three hundred kilometers of forest to the border of the neighboring kingdom. Then his future would be his own.
His companion was late, as usual. Jaxtyn nursed his drink while he waited. Thankfully, no one seemed to be paying him any attention. Even the waitress hadn’t bothered to check on him again. He pulled out the folded map from his pocket and studied it while he waited. All the while, he kept one eye on the tavern door.
Three-quarters of an hour had passed when a group of ogres barged into the tavern, shattering the tranquility of the place. From the griffin sigils on their leathers, they were a company in the king’s guard.
Shit. Jaxtyn was sure they were looking for him, that his father had set them on his trail. He had been so careful in planning his liberation from the kingdom, and this tavern was not well known. But the guards hadn’t spotted him yet, and he shrank further into the booth. Making any attempt to leave the barroom would only draw attention to himself. Small beads of sweat began to dot his forehead.
Don’t make any sudden movements and you’ll be fine. You’re just a traveler on the road. The mead helped him calm his fears.
Fortunately, the huge grayish creatures appeared to be unconcerned with their surroundings, slapping each other’s backs and barking praise at one another. Brutish and muscular, ogres were mostly used as the enforcers for the royal guard. They weren’t smart, but they were effective in deterring crime. This group appeared no different. All the patrons turned their heads to watch the jovial commotion of the company. The leader of the band swaggered up to the bar.
“Mead fer me and me boys!” he growled in his bass voice and slapped a heavy palm of coin on the bar top.
The bar tender, a small, wrinkled goblin, snatched up the coin greedily and rushed to pour the drinks.
While they waited, the ogres continued their loud revelry. They lumbered to one of the tables in the middle of the tavern and all five clumsily plopped themselves down. The bar chairs looked comically small under their bulk. From what Jaxtyn could hear, he deduced the coin they had procured was from a harpy that had the misfortune of meeting them on the highway. They had confiscated her purse under false pretenses.
Nothing worse than an ogre who needs to show off his brutality. Jaxtyn grimaced. Some part of him knew that if he stayed, he could put a stop to such barbarity. He shook off the thought and took another sip of mead.
As he drank, Jaxtyn glanced at the purse that hung heavily from the commander’s belt and his stomach dropped into his boots. The sigil on the purse was none other than that of Lord Danvers Svartur, the most nefarious wizard in the realm. Even Jaxtyn’s father knew it was unwise to provoke him. Ogres were stupid, but this level of idiocy was on a whole new level.
Stealing from a harpy was terrible in and of itself. But stealing from one protected by the most dangerous man in the realm was sheer suicide.
Jaxtyn began to tremble. Where the blast is Pytor?
He had no sooner thought about his missing cohort than Pytor slipped into the tavern. His arrival largely went unnoticed as the rest of the patrons were still fixated on the raucous ogre company.
Pytor slid casually into the booth with Jaxtyn. “Ho ho boyo. Ya got the goods?” He was referring to the jewels and gold he had taken from the palace.
“Yes...”
Pytor whooped, turning some of the patrons’ heads towards their table.
“Shh! Pytor, we must leave. Now.” Jaxtyn began to reach for his purse to pay for his mead. “Come now! Let us have a drink to celebrate. To freedom!” Pytor said delightfully and waved over to the waitress.
“Shut up! You don’t understand. We can’t stay here...” Jaxtyn didn’t have a chance to finish. The cacophony of flapping wings sounded outside, along with high-pitched shrieks.
“What in the seven hells is that?” Pytor asked obtusely. “Dark Harpies,” Jaxtyn whispered with terror.
The ogres remained oblivious, guzzling their mead and belching loudly. More of the golden drink was dribbling down their scraggly chins onto the dirty floor than going down their throats.
Pytor’s eyes grew wide, mirroring Jaxtyn’s fear.
The door to the tavern blasted inward off its hinges, spraying wooden splinters everywhere. In the entrance, a Dark Harpy stood.
Jaxtyn dared to pull back the curtain on the window next to the booth. The tavern yard was filled with winged figures, armed with swords, and clad lightly in black armor.
Wordlessly, the Dark Harpy sauntered inside, wood crunching beneath her boots. She, too, was clad in armor, a sword at her hip. But the tips of her long, fleshy wings, rather than dipped in black, were crimson. The General of the command.
Two lieutenants followed behind her menacingly. The first was massive, muscles rippling down her body. She could easily pop Jaxtyn’s head like a pimple between her bicep and forearm. The second harpy was a lean, scrappy looking figure, with a long, puckered scar down the left side of her face. Together they flanked the General, blocking the exit to the tavern.
The ogres clumsily jumped to their feet, sloshing mead across their table. Crudely, they drew their swords. But in their first wise move, probably of their entire lives, none of them dared to strike first.
Coolly, the General surveyed the tavern. Her red eyes stopped for a fraction of a second, boring into Jaxtyn. His breath caught in his chest. If she found out who he was... Jaxtyn’s heart pounded in his ears. It seemed as if time had frozen.
But then her gaze rolled back to the ogres.
The General flicked her claw to the muscular lieutenant, who whistled to someone outside.
A fourth harpy marched in, dragging a bruised and bloody creature behind her. The beaten harpy whimpered loudly as yellow tears streamed down her face. She was thrown at the General’s feet.
“Narene,” the General said finally. “Are these the filth that caught you on the road and robbed from his Lordship?”
“Yes, General Duxia,” Narene sobbed.
Duxia snorted in disgust. “Larise, take her outside and slash her wings.”
“No! General, please...” Narene begged.
The General cut her off, “You should be thankful I let you live. A Dark Harpy does not let such trash best her.”
Narene kicked wildly, her pleas became desperate as she was violently dragged out of the tavern by her hair.
Involuntarily, Jaxtyn’s head turned to the window again. An earsplitting wail rang out as the thin flesh covering Narene’s one wing, then the second, was sliced through. The rest of the Dark Harpies watched unsympathetically as their sister was disciplined.
Duxia waited until only soft moaning could be heard through the broken tavern doorway.
Her heinous red stare remained on the ogres. The shortest of them easily had two feet on her. But the General was unimpressed.
“Now, you all dare steal from the great Lord?” The malevolence in her voice suggested she was hoping the answer would be yes.
The commander spoke, “The ‘lil bitch lies. And yar are under arrest fer crimes ‘gainst da crown.” Despite his authoritative words, the commander was unable to articulate them without a quaver in his voice. It was a pathetic scene.
Jaxtyn would have laughed if the threat of death had not been so immediate. He saw only two possible outcomes: The Dark Harpies knew who he was and would hold him for ransom, or they would assume him a local traveler and simply kill him along with everyone else in the tavern.
The General smirked and clicked her long talons together.
Perhaps encouraged by drink, the ogre commander stood his ground. He puffed up his chest and with a firmer voice said, “I’m commander of this har reg’ment and by order of da king, yar and yer company are t’ come wid us under pain of death.”
Duxia smiled wickedly, her needle point teeth chilling Jaxtyn to his core. “So be it,” she declared.
In the blink of an eye, the ogre commander’s head was sailing through the air. It landed on Jaxtyn and Pytor’s table with a loud, wet thud. The wretched mouth gasped open and closed like a fish out of water before falling slack. Putrid drool pooled out onto the table, mixing with the blood flooding from the neck.
In the space it took for the head to fly across the tavern, the scarred harpy had disarmed and fatally stabbed another ogre. She had a third splayed out on a table and was grinning manically as she disemboweled him, throwing his guts all about. He screamed until she ripped out his lungs.
The other harpy was engaged in a sword fight with the fourth ogre. Jaxtyn knew she was toying with him. He watched as she grew bored and, in one fluid motion, severed his sword arm. The creature collapsed to the floor, blood gushing from the wound.
The final ogre, in his terror, had fled through the tavern entrance. His howls cracked through Jaxtyn as the harpies stationed outside ripped him to gory shreds.
Duxia held the goblin tavern owner off the ground by his throat. His feet flailed as he tried impotently to wiggle out of her long claws.
She grinned at him. With a flick of her free hand, she twisted the struggling goblin’s arm off at the elbow.
The goblin shrieked like a stuck pig as Duxia dropped him to the ground. “Let that be a lesson in accepting coin from those who have stolen from the great Lord Svartur,” she announced to the tavern.
The other patrons had become petrified in shock. Out of the corner of his eye, Jaxtyn spied the fae waitress slip out of an inconspicuous door about five feet away from the booth.
Without hesitation, Jaxtyn grabbed a whimpering Pytor and followed the fae. In a stroke of good fortune, the hidden door opened to the hitching post. The fae was nowhere to be seen, but both their horses were patiently waiting despite the blood bath around them.
The fresh air snapped Pytor out of his stupor and the two quickly mounted their steeds.
As Jaxtyn spurred his mare into a gallop, he risked a look back towards the tavern. Duxia stood in the doorway, blood dripping from her talons, staring after them. Harpy shrieks filled the air.
“That’s right. Run back to Daddy, little princeling!” Duxia mocked.
Jaxtyn pressed his horse harder into the night, back towards the safety of the castle. Without slowing, Pytor shouted, “Do you think they followed us?”
“No,” Jaxtyn said. “If they were after us, we would be dead by now.”
In speaking the words aloud, Jaxtyn realized the horrible truth: The General had let them go. With his plan for escaping the kingdom in tatters, the realization struck him that whatever was coming from Lord Svartur, he was about to inherit the consequences.
Emee Camp
Emee Camp has loved writing for a long time. She especially enjoys writing horror, suspense or anything that doesn’t have a happily ever after. The daughter of journalists, the Oxford comma causes her great distress. When she isn’t writing or driving her kids somewhere, she enjoys sewing, knitting and being an introvert. She lives in Rhode Island with her spouse, two wild kiddos and a lazy basset hound named Peggy.