“The rooms will be fine,” Cutter said.
She grunted. “Alright,” she said, then she reached under the counter and passed him two keys. He glanced up at her, and she shrugged. “Two’s all I can spare. The rest are taken up by folks bleedin’ or dyin’ or both. If it ain’t up to your standards, I ‘spose you can go sleep in the fields—plenty of room out there.”
“Two’s good,” Cutter said. “Thanks.”
“You go on and get some rest, lad,” she said to Matt, who mumbled what might have been assent. “And you, big fella,” she said, turning back to Cutter, “you want a piece of friendly advice—I’d get yourself in one of those rooms quickly as possible, don’t come out ‘til you plan on leavin’ Ferrimore behind ya, understand?”
Cutter frowned. “No, I don’t—” He cut off as he felt a hand fall on his shoulder. Not much to go on, maybe, but it was enough, and he understood even before the man spoke.
“A big bastard, ain’t ya?”
Cutter fought down a sigh, turning in his stool to look at the man standing before him. He had the broad shoulders and thick, calloused fingers of a man who’d spent his life in manual labor, and the protruding gut which said he liked his ale more than was healthy. The two men standing on either side of the first and slightly behind him were also big, though not quite as big as the man himself and which, considering that men, when violence was on their mind, were not so very different than wolves, explained their respective positions easily enough.
“Something I can do for you?” Cutter asked.
The man flashed him a grin without humor, glancing back at his comrades. “Oh, I was thinkin’ there might be somethin’ we can do for you. Or maybe to you’d be more accurate.”
Cutter had plenty of problems on his plate, and the last thing he needed was to get in a pissing contest with a man who, following the night’s events, had found himself with a lot of anger, a currency that only ever spent one way. Blood. “Look, we aren’t looking for any trouble, alright? We’ve been traveling for a long time and are looking for a room, that’s all.”
“Weren’t lookin’ for trouble myself, last night when I laid down with my wife. Didn’t stop those things from comin’ in the night, rippin’ her out of bed and givin’ her a good chew for I bashed the bastard’s skull in. Sometimes, fella, trouble finds you whether you look for it or not.”
“Oh, let off, Cend,” the old innkeeper said with a weary voice. “These folks don’t—”
“No, you let off, Netty,” the big man said, holding up a warning finger. “You know well as I do who this big fucker is. This bastard is the one responsible for what happened last night.”
The woman grunted. “That right? He the one that attacked us, that it? He the one that killed your wife and my husband? Got to be honest, Cend, he don’t much look like the thing that took my Berden from me. But if your aim is to pass around blame, well, why don’t we blame him for my stiff bones too, how’d that be? Maybe blame him for the bad weather or old Frank’s horse goin’ lame a year gone.”
The man’s face twisted with rage, a rage only brought on by suffering some terrible loss. Perhaps in normal times, he was a nice enough man, pleasant. Probably his wife had thought so. But rage makes monsters of all men, and he was fully in its grip now. “You shut your fuckin’ mouth, you old hag,” he said, thrusting his finger at her like it was a sword. “You heard the same shit I heard from that green demon last night. There’s a man comin’ he said, one responsible for your fate and the fate of your loved ones. He described ‘em, shit, and while I was lyin’ there half unconscious, well, I listened, didn’t I? Listened so close I’d know that bastard, if he came, know him as well as I know my own brother, as I knew my wife,” he finished, the last word little more than a bestial growl. “And if that weren’t enough, that green demon, he said this man, if he showed up, would be carryin’ an axe, an axe, friend,” he said, staring at Cutter, “much like the one you’re carrying.”
“Look,” Cutter said, knowing it would be worthless but trying anyway, “I’m sorry for what happened to you and your people. But—”
“Damn your sorry,” the man hissed, lifting him up by the front of his jerkin with a not inconsiderable strength. “Someone needs to pay, you son of a bitch, understand? Someone needs to pay.”
With his free hand, he drew a knife, a cruel, wicked looking thing, and he brandished it in front of Cutter’s face. “I’m owed, stranger. And I mean to collect what I’m owed. I mean to cut the price out of your flesh bit by bit until I’m satisfied, and—”
“Hold on, Cend,” one of his companions said, narrowing his eyes and studying Cutter like he was a mystery in need of solving.
“What?” the big man, Cend, growled. “Look, if you don’t have the stomach for it, then turn around and—”
“It ain’t that,” his friend interrupted. “Only look at him, Cend. Really look at ‘em. Seems I know that face.”
The man, Cend, frowned, studying Cutter carefully. Then, his eyes went wide. “Fire and salt, it’s him,” he said in a voice that was not full of menace, not at that moment, but shock and disbelief.
“Yes,” the other man said, nervousness clear in his voice now. “That’s the Crimson Prince. I seen ‘em once before on campaign, and by the gods, that’s him.”
“Prince Bernard himself,” Cend said, his tone emotionless in his surprise.
“Prince?” Matt asked, his voice weak with
