Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209645 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1048(@200wpm)___ 839(@250wpm)___ 699(@300wpm)
“Lahn, let’s go somewhere else,” Tor suggested.
“Won’t matter where you go, ’less you find one of them agitator’s places that’ll let you in,” the innkeeper advised. “Got our women locked down. We feel the cold winds blowin’. Not gon’ let some Nadirii put ideas in their heads.”
As they all processed this information, most of which none of them understood, some of it they didn’t want to understand, the innkeeper, and it would seem some patrons, became impatient.
There was shifting.
Tor went alert.
Lahn didn’t twitch.
“Best go, Valerian, and get your women outta here or they’ll be removed and so will you,” the keep warned.
“A man touches my queen, I’ll tear his arms from his body,” Lahn declared.
Fuck.
The feel of the room worsened.
Significantly.
“Lahn,” Tor said.
“Let’s just go, baby,” Circe urged quietly.
Unfortunately, one of the patrons was positioning either to better watch the byplay, or to do something about it.
And his positioning took him closer to Circe, something she noted.
“I’d back off if I were you,” Circe advised him.
“I’d keep my fuckin’ trap shut if I were you,” the man sneered, and, after sweeping her up and down with his gaze, very stupidly finished, “whore.”
A moment later, his face was slammed into the wall, and after that, he was flying across the room.
Not careening.
Flying.
Bloody hell.
Lahn.
When the onslaught came, that being the rest of the patrons (and the innkeeper) on attack, Tor did not draw his sword.
He kept his wife close behind him and fought with his fists.
He was capable with fists.
Lahn was a monster.
The twenty-odd patrons (and innkeeper) were littering the floor, some moaning, all bleeding, most unconscious within ten minutes.
Fortunately, there were no arms torn from bodies.
Tor could not say there were no fractured limbs.
Tor and Cora, Lahn and Circe stood amongst the carnage.
Cora was looking at Circe.
“Well…hell,” she said.
“Mm-hmm,” Circe agreed.
Tor was looking at Lahn.
“That wasn’t much of a welcome,” Lahn noted.
“Agreed,” Tor replied.
“Maybe we should go back to the ship,” Cora suggested.
Tor thought there was no maybe about it.
They exited the inn and moved down the paved street, all four of them agreeing without words to abandon their idea to escape the ship and spend a night or two on land before continuing on to meet Frey and Apollo in Notting Thicket.
Tor was surprised.
He’d never been to Airen, and although the eastern shores were a wonder of black sand beaches that were breathtaking, the northern coast was made of stark, craggy black cliffs that were as welcoming as that innkeeper.
Nevertheless, the port city was a veritable marvel. He’d wished to study the tidy pavings of the streets, because he’d never seen anything so smooth. And the architecture was austere, but undeniably impressive.
The city seemed modern and was clearly advanced.
Its people were not.
“I think it’d be best if I send a man to have a conversation or two and find out what the fuck is going on,” Tor said to Lahn as they moved back to the dock. “Apparently, you look Firenz and that seems only slightly better than being female.”
“This is a good plan,” Lahn muttered.
People stared at them as they moved through the streets and it wasn’t simply because Lahn was enormous and wearing the native hide clothing of Korwahk, except with a long-sleeved leather shirt with a long, amber-yellow wool mantle that went to his heels at the back (usually, he wore no shirt and definitely no mantle for it rarely got cold in Korwahk).
On their return journey to their galleon, Tor noted that there were far more men on the streets than women.
And the women scurried along, heads bowed, and if on their way they approached a man on the pavements, they got out of the man’s way, not the other way around.
His queen noticed this too. He knew it when she got nearer to the point she was practically walking sideways. She tucked herself so close to him, she no longer held him around his elbow, but he was forced to slide his arm protectively along her shoulders.
“I don’t like it here,” she murmured.
“I don’t either, love,” Tor replied.
They made their ship and made their way up the gangway.
Bain, Lahn’s man, was the first they saw.
“Refresh supplies quickly. We leave in the morning,” he ordered.
“I thought we were staying a few days,” Bain said.
“This is no place for us.”
Bain took in his king’s face, then looked to Tor’s split knuckles and finally at the expressions the women were wearing.
Then he quickly prowled away.
“I’m going to get you a cold cloth for your hand,” Cora announced, gave him a squeeze, got up on her toes and kissed his jaw, and then she made haste in doing that.
She was shaken.
Tor felt his jaw harden, because he wasn’t fond of his Cora feeling shaken.
“I’m just going to go below. I don’t even want to look at that city,” Circe declared, shot Lahn a glare, he returned it with a scowl, definitely a husband and wife of one mind, and she followed Cora.