3430 year of the Fifth Age
Mordurel, West of the Shimmering River
Cloven
He jammed the spiced chicken leg into his mouth and felt the honey and butter sauce that dripped from it. He chewed off the meat and casually tossed it to the ground across the long table. Cloven preceded to reach for another with his large hands and made short work of it. Working on the third he grabbed his cup and let the ale easily help sweep down the chowed meat filling his mouth. He put down the cup hard and threw a chicken bone at the singer who sang a light ballad about a brave elf of the First Age. Cloven chuckled and pointed a grotesque finger at a young serving woman three meters away.
“Keep my cup full!” He hollered.
She came to his side of the tent and gave him a quick refill. She looked to the man across the table and silently asked if he wanted a refill. The exile lord put his hand over his cup in response. He returned to give the fat giant of a man a look of utter contempt the next moment. Cloven found it amusing more than anything and groped for the rabbit roast drowned in butter and honey. There was onions, Kyroshi spices and common herbs to reinforce the taste.
“When I spoke with the Leather Lancers about hiring their services their captain had his officers with him, to advise and help make a decision that was best for the company,” the lord remarked.
Cloven swallowed, mostly, before he spoke and spat food from his mouth, “My men knows I always give us the best deals. They trust me. How much do you offer to buy our services, Lord Shattershield?”
The lord shifted slightly in his chair. Cloven recognized him as half Easterling and half Kyroshi. He drew his grotesquely oversized hand through his unwashed ink and ashen hair and chewed on a piece of rabbit. The lord sipped from his cup of ale before answering.
“Five thousand coins from the start and a steadily rising sum as you slay my enemies and help me sit on the throne in Culhaven with that usurper Aldrich’s crown on my head.”
Cloven was amused that he referred to the young king as a usurper considering the history between house Silverstag and Shattershield.
“Mhm. Eight thousand.” He emptied his cup again and this time the young woman was quick to react and refill it.
“No,” the exile refused.
“Eight thousand.” He groped for the bowl with strawberries and tossed them into his large mouth.
“Five thousand, plus this meal and the singer. I even brought you a full barrel of this grotesque Vódor ale. It all goes to the price.”
Grotesque ale for a grotesque man, Cloven thought.
“My lord pretender, since you came into my camp with the ale and food I shall settle on demanding six thousand.”
Akio groaned and covered his mouth with his hand.
“Look, I can’t pay you more than five thousand,” Akio confessed. Perhaps he saw truth as the only way forward. “I wouldn’t be able to hire the other mercenary companies I plan to meet.”
Cloven grunted and washed down his food with the ale and the young woman refilled his cup. He was pleased that she only needed to be berated ones. Her lengthy blonde hair was tied in a bun and she wore a plain gown with silver embroidery around her chest. His eyes lingered on her lovely full breasts for a moment.
“Buy a few barrels of Vódor ale in Ostpool and leave the wench and we have a deal,” Cloven said.
The woman froze in fear.
“Agreed,” Akio answered. He didn’t spare the woman a glance.
Cloven chuckled, “The Emerald Company and Cloven the Monstrous in his grandness will put your enemies on pikes and feed them to the pigs where they belong. One other thing. I have heard tales of the beautiful queen, little thing named Raenys. I want her too. Not in bed I assure you. Respect her rumored beauty too much for that.”
He raised his cup and Akio found it in him to touch his cup to his.
“Cheers lord pretender Shattershield,” Cloven laughed.
When the lord left the overweight man they called the ‘Monstrous’ turned to stare at his new servant with a hunger.
“You got a name?”
She shivered when he licked his lips.
“Melia m-milord,” she stuttered.
He grinned in amusement in answer to her fear. He rose and walked to the entrance to the tent.
“Fetch my sword wench and get some ale to refill my cup.”
She was quick to bring him wife for his cup and then the scabbard with his longsword. His normal sized right fingers tapped against the emerald pommel of the sword. There were hundreds of tents around his tent and men was seen everywhere. Drinking, eating, fighting, paying professional and amateur women for a ploughing and practiced with arms. The whores was either locals or camp followers that followed the Emerald Company around. He turned his eyes to watch the exiled lord depart. He rode away on a buckskin courser, which wasn’t the horse of choice for a nobleman. As an exile he had to be satisfied with it though. He had fifteen men in full plate armor riding with them and a few without. Two men clothed in traditional garments of the Burgher Cities just across the Shimmering River. Merchants willing to loan coin to the exile’s cause Cloven assumed. The word was indeed loan for he would have to pay them back with interest. Probably a good one considering the troublesome task ahead, claiming a crown. It was more often a losing proposition then not.
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