The coachman eyed the coin warily.
"Eh? It's good gold. Nary a sliver missin'. Minted in my homeland, you see? I know."
He raised the coin to his mouth and bit. Mumbling something approaching agreement, he spat at Gurni's feet and shook the reins, and the coach headed out of town at a near gallop. Gurni's pack tumbled off the siding, spilling its contents across the muddy path.
"Bloody fool," he muttered. He collected is assorted belongings, scraping the mud and filth of as best he could.
He turned to face the town. Several passersby had stopped to watch the tiny drama unfold. Now, their interest piqued but not sated, they watched the newly arrived dwarf with expressions running from bemused right on through unfriendly to downright nasty.
"What? Haven't you seen a dwarf before? Shoo!" That broke up the crowd. Thugan rolled his eyes at the few lingering glares. "Peasants...hmph."
Shouldering his pack, he strode into – he checked his map—hmmm, Redwall. He glanced about. Not very red, really. More like…..brown.
He sighed, stamping some more mud off of his boots.
---
"Keep off of me! Keep off!"
The dark-haired woman struggled to free herself from the grasp of a man in blackened armor. Rather overdressed for the occasion, isn’t he?
Gurni stopped alongside one of the many booths lining the market square, focusing on the confrontation playing out across the street. He ignored to sour looks from nearby merchants.
“Now Martya, you know Lord’s orders. This is not the first time you’ve been naughty, been sticking your nose places it doesn’t belong. Lord says something, you do it. Lord says don’t do something, you don’t do it. That is how this town works.” The armored man’s grip showed no signs of giving way, despite the woman’s increasingly intense effort. The armor of covered in graven images, Death’s Head and angelic figures, strange perversions of the types of iconography Thugan had seen the holy orders favor. Fallen from grace a bit this one has.
The woman slipped in the mud and fell, prompting a laugh from the men-at-arms surrounding the two. The man’s grip barely kept her from falling completely on her face. It did not stop the mud splatter from coating the man’s lacquered greaves. His gauntleted backhand across her face stunned her momentarily into silence.
“Listen here, woman. If I have to come back to this shithole a third time, I will leave you staked to the side of your stall and split in two. And that’s only if you have the good fortune to not be summoned as a….special guest of his Lordship” He gave her a good shake. “And now…you’re not to trouble the Lieutenant again. You’re not to be seen at the garrison again, or I swear it, the next time I return it is with a naked blade.”
Gurni pushed forward without thinking. One of the men-at-arms moved to block his way, partially unsheathing the short sword at his waste. “That’s far enough, squat.”
The armored man turned, his face a mix of surprise and amusement. "Think you have enough men for an unarmed female trinket seller?” Gurni asked. “Might’n you want to bring along….I don’t know, a dragon next time?”
The man favored Gurni with a thin smile. “A funny dwarf. And one that speaks passably well for one of your kind. Curious," he said. "Begone. This is none of your concern, outsider.” He kicked at an object on the ground. A small knife skittered away through the mud. “And she was not unarmed.”
He stood thinking for a moment. “I will give you a pass on this, squat, on account of your obvious mental handicaps.” He jerked his head, and the men-at-arms formed up to return to the keep. “See that you mind yourself in our town. Your kind are not welcome here.”
Gurni watched the men head back towards the keep that dominated the town. Several of the men-at-arms smiled at him as they marched off, pregnant with the promise of future violence. He smirked right back at them.
“Huh. I think I’m going to like this place.”
