The Crucible of the Dragon God

obviously a particularly challenging cryptosquare. She stared at Fester Grimlock and Jurgen Pike, who in turn stared at their quagmire board despite the fact their game was clearly over. Then she stared at Ronin Larson, the ironweaver, and Hetty Scrubb, the herbalist, who were staring hard at their feet or out of the window, the former humming something tremulous and the latter giggling uncontrollably. Of Dolorosa herself, there was at first no sign, then Kali caught sight of her peering warily from behind the bravado barrel at the far end of the bar. The bravado barrel was a game of nerve with a single arm-hole in its front and there were a number of… interesting creatures provided by Red hidden inside it, but having someone hide behind it was a first.

Something was definitely up.

'Dolorosa?' Kali said, cautiously.

'What?' Dolorosa objected loudly, throwing her hands in the air. 'You thinka that iffa there is something you will notta like it hassa to be Dolorosa's fault?'

That clinched it.

'Dolorosa?' she said again, emphasising her question. 'What will I 'notta like'?'

Dolorosa squinted at her, saying nothing, but from the corner of her eye Kali saw Red Deadnettle pointing towards the rear of the tavern, mouthing something that looked like 'band.' Kali turned and stared up the few ramshackle steps that led up to her Captain's Table and saw that what had traditionally been her domain, had been filled with a number of strange musical instruments, including a road-worn, sweeping, stringed affair that looked almost elven — what she thought was called a theralin. Frowning, she mounted the steps and saw that the Captain's Chest — storehouse of her papers and sanctum sanctorum of the peninsula's history — had also been buried beneath a spread of tattered music sheets for such appropriately forgotten classics as 'Boom Bang-a Thud', 'What A Wonderful Pie' and 'Yes, She's Heavy, She's My Mother.

'What,' she asked Dolorosa, 'is this?'

The thin woman threw up her hands in protest but, nonetheless, looked guilty. 'Wotta you theenk eet is? Eet is, eet is — '

Her words were lost as one of the thick timber beams, supporting the rooms above, suddenly curved downward with a stressed and prolonged groan that drowned out every other sound in the bar. Kali looked upward, blinking dust from her eyes. The next beam along bowed down, as did the floorboards in between, and then the next, and then the one after that. It was almost surreal, as if the whole infrastructure of the tavern had suddenly turned to rubber.

Then the top step of the stairs sounded as if it were splintering.

'Oh Gods,' Pete Two-Ties said. 'They're waking up.'

Kali double-taked. 'What? Who? Pete — who's waking up?'

'Them,' Pete pointed.

Kali span. Whatever it was she expected to see, the last of it would have been a small mountain range, but that was exactly what appeared at the bottom of the stairs. A small mountain range squeezing itself into the bar and made up entirely of flesh. One of the mountains spoke. 'Coo-ee, boys,' it said, with a wink.

Oh Gods, Kali thought. No, it couldn't be. Not here.

'The Hells' Bellies,' she mouthed with dread. Her ordeals of the last few weeks notwithstanding she turned as white as a sheet.

The eyes in the peaks of the talking mountain lit up. 'Our fame has spread! This young lady, she has heard of us!'

Kali was tempted to point out that the entire peninsula had 'heard' of them and that their fame wasn't the only thing that had spread. But she held her tongue and, instead, glowered at Dolorosa.

'Explain,' she demanded, darkly.

'What issa there to explain?' Dolorosa said in a slightly high pitch, clearly going on the defensive. 'We thoughta you dead and so we thoughta we woulda make a few changes…'

Kali caught Aldrededor waving from behind his wife, desperate to catch her attention. He was shaking his head vigorously and pointing at Dolorosa.

'Changes?' Kali asked, flatly.

'Entertainment!' Dolorosa declared. 'Cabaret! Culture! And so I contracted the most popular dancing troupe in the two provinces!'

Kali felt her heart seize. 'Contracted? For how long?'

'They havva performed for three nights,' Dolorosa said, 'and they havva forty one left.'

Kali did a quick calculation. 'You've contracted them for a month?'

Pete Two-Ties head thudded down onto his table in defeat and shook back and forth slowly.

'The whole of Cantar?' Kali said in disbelief. She signalled to Aldrededor to pour another thwack, which she grabbed and downed in one. 'No, no, no, no, NO, NO, NO! Cancel it, Dolorosa, now.'

A small moon suddenly orbited in front of Kali's face. Except that it wasn't a moon but another face. It took a second to fold itself into a jowly frown. 'Cancel… contract?' it said, and Kali wished that Merrit Moon was there so that the Hells' Belly and the Thrutt side of his personality could communicate on equal terms.

She swallowed and used her words slowly. 'Yes. Cancel. Contract.'

'Pff,' the moon said, throwing up its arms. Hairs the length of mools tails sprang forth from dim and horrible pits. 'How can you, wisp of a thing, demand she cancel contract?'

'Because I own the place.'

The Hells' Belly guffawed and Kali was blasted with the odours of stale and cheap wine, cigars, and the assorted yellow remains of potato crunchies still providing their money's worth where they were stuck between huge, horse-like teeth. 'Missus Dolorosa, she owns the place. She told us this is so.'

Kali turned to Dolorosa, but the door to the Flagon's courtyard was already slamming shut behind her.

'Look,' she said, wearily. 'I'll pay you twice your contracted fee to cancel the remaining performances.'

The moon loomed again. A hand snapped a garter on a thigh the thickness of a tree trunk and Kali turned away before she was involuntarily mesmerised by what happened to the flesh around it as a result. 'Our fee is nothing compared to the tips we receive from our… gentlemen.'

Across the room, Red Deadnettle and Ronin Larson coughed in embarrassment. Kali stared at them and sighed.

'Fine. I'll give you three times your fee. How's that?'

The offer was clearly tempting but a frown still crossed the Hells' Belly's face. It thrust itself at Kali interrogatively. 'If we leave now, how will you guarantee our safety?'

'Your safety?'

'These are dangerous times, strip of a thing. What if we are attacked on the road?'

Kali pictured bruised and screaming grabcoins flying through the air. 'Are you serious? Who in their right minds would take on you lo — ?'

She stopped as a hand suddenly rested on her shoulder and Aldrededor whispered in her ear.

'I do not think she is talking about grabcoins, Kali Hooper. I believe she refers to the k'nid.'

'The k'nid?'

'Those things that have flooded our land and will soon be everywhere. The… Wait, you do not know?'

'There wasn't much news where I've been.' Kali frowned. 'Tell me.'

Aldrededor told her of the reports of strange creatures coming from the west, of the deaths and invasions of towns, and Kali absorbed the information, worried but simply nodding. Again, she sighed. 'All right… ladies. For now you can stay. But under one condition. While I'm around I do not, repeat do not, want any danc — '

Her words fell on deaf ears. The Hells' Bellies were already skipping, if that was the word, to the makeshift stage, clapping their hands in glee, and Red and Ronin turned their stools toward them appreciatively. As if from nowhere, a number of small, thin and sallow looking men — their husbands? — appeared and took up the instruments that lay on the stage, stroking, blowing or strumming them respectively to produce a discordant wail that would have repelled a Vossian army. Then, without any tuning up, any rehearsal, it just… began.