"Hello Aggie," she said in passing. "You're looking well."
"Thanks, Sugar," Agrathor grinned. "A mug of your mead'll grow the glow."
Pierce started to imagine how that would work, how the bone man could eat or drink at all, but tossed the thought aside. Agrathor seemed to operate according to peculiar rules.
"So who's that?" Pierce whispered to Scythia as they sat. "She seems nice."
"Hence the name," Scythia said. "That's his sister."
"Sugar?" Pierce asked. "Why Sugar?"
Sugar heard from across the bar and said, "'Cause I didn't mean to be a warrior, no matter what our folks thought about it. Imagine, a respected brewer, innkeeper, and master baker named Spineripper!" She shook her head comically in distaste. "No, no, never. So, brutal as he was..."
"Our folks were brutal..." Axebourne interjected.
"...our Pops always called our Ma 'Sugar.' So I stole the name." Sugar studied Pierce as she spoke. "Well my my, you are a cute one," she said. "Think I'll serve you first."
"Oh, well, thanks," Pierce said. "I'll have..."
Axebourne caught Pierce's eye. "You don't order from Sugar, son. She'll bring you the right thing. Just trust it."
Axebourne was right. So right, in fact, that Pierce kept on about it for the rest of the day.
Sugar's mead was aromatic and sweet, living up to the name of its creator. For the entree, she brought out four spiced meat pies as wide as Pierce's hands put together. The crust was flaky, with a light dusting of powdered sugar, but the inside was salty and heavily spiced, with a peppery heat that begged Pierce to guzzle his mead to put out the fire. After several bites and sips, it felt like he was in a sparring match with the pie. With every mouthful came a fresh spike of hot pain, a wash of flavorful pleasure, and the sweet relief of cold mead on the abused tissues of his mouth.
The pie mocked him, lashing his tongue. Pierce speared it, again and again, jabbing the hog's meat that swam in its filling. Who would win, and who would succumb to the will of the other, yielding?
Pierce sweated, stared down that final, excruciating bite, and Axebourne casually finished his meat-pie and started asking Sugar about where to get a good mount nowadays.
"Well," she said, "old Wolf Runner is still set up by the market. Good stock, but big prices."
"As always," said Axebourne. "What about Osterak?"
Sugar shook her head. "No, he moved out to Grondell a couple years ago, took the whole family with him, and all those beautiful yellow-coated bloodhoofs. Hey, you might try Deathgripz, she's new in town, but I've been hearing good things."
"Deathgripz," Agrathor said flatly.
"Yep," said Sugar.
"Deathgripz, with a 'z,'" he said again.
"Yeah, hon', you got no ears?" said Sugar.
"Probably thinks the 'z' makes it sound cooler," Pierce said. He shrugged. "Kinda doez."
"Deathgripz it is," said Axebourne. "Bet it'll make Wolf Runner jealous if we see her first." He smirked.
"You gonna finish that, kid?" Agrathor asked, waving a hand at Pierce's last bite of meat-pie.
Pierce belched a little and considered giving it to the bone-man. Where had Agrathor's pie gone anyway?
"No. Um, yes sir, I've got to finish it." He looked up at Sugar. "It's delicious ma'am, just really hot. It's almost... addictive?"
Sugar beamed and spun on her heel to grab a fresh pitcher of mead. "You can do it, boy," she said. "You keep burnin' that tongue, you get numb to it like my little brother."
Pierce took a deep breath and scarfed the last bite. He was so full that food and drink were piling up into his throat, but he'd jump into the Chasm if that hadn't been the best pie of his life.
Deathgripz had replaced her hands with gem-powered, mechanical ones that each sported a second opposable thumb, and were symmetrical. Other than that, Pierce thought she was kind of cute. Her skin was pale and her dark hair was untamed. Her face was angular like Scythia's, but not as broad, and she had deep-set green eyes that seemed to be perpetually half-lidded.
Her stables were clean and orderly, like the rest of Cypha, and she had several grooms bustling about to care for the various breeds of animal she had in stock.
Her voice was lower than Pierce would have expected.
"Gorgonbane plus one," she said. "It's my lucky day." Her expression didn't indicate excitement, but neither did she sound sarcastic. "What are you in for?"
"Something that won't try to chew on me," said Agrathor, grinning.
Pierce blinked. Had Agrathor just joked about his ailment? He imagined the skeleton man socking himself in the face for it and chuckled.
"Shut your mouth, kid," Agrathor said. Pierce paid him no mind.
"Nothing canine," Deathgripz said. "Got it. I reckon you'll all want an equal gallop? Which means we need four of a similar stride and stamina. I think I can do that. How heavy are you, skeleton? The rest I can gauge."
"Three hundred fifty pounds," Agrathor said, looking to one side.
Deathgripz lifted one eyebrow a slight bit but said nothing. She turned and gathered a few grooms to get on the hunt.
"Three hundred fifty?" Pierce asked Agrathor. Scythia and Axebourne looked surprised too.
"Don't ask me," said Agrathor, shrugging. "Lost all the flesh, kept the mass. It never made sense to begin with, what happened, so I don't bother to wonder anymore."
"Fair enough," Pierce said. "Don't think I would either. So where does your food..."
Deathgripz had returned and said, "I'm recommending raptorions for the boys, but you, lady, I think you can handle the bloodhoof."
Scythia looked flattered. "I'm not much of an equestrian, but..."
"Well it's not a horse," said Deathgripz flatly. "Anyone ever told you it was," her eyes flicked over to Wolf Runner's stables, "they were lying."
"Not a horse," said Agrathor. "Huh. I never knew. It's a good thing we came to you, then, isn't it?"
Pierce finally got it. Aggie thought the young woman was cute, too. The skeleton was flirting.
Axebourne had adopted a shallow frown. "Now I've ridden a bloodhoof before, you know. I think
