As they neared they saw it was a carved wooden dog, its tail on a swivel and swinging back and forth in the stirring air.
“See, I told you,” said Binkton, his voice taking on a tone of superiority.
“Wull, you had your doubts, too,” declared Pipper.
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
They were still quibbling when they arrived at the inn. And as they pushed the cart to the edge of a roofed- over porch with tables and diners thereon, a dark-haired lad jumped up and asked, “Are you them?”
“What?” asked Binkton.
“Are you them?” repeated the boy. “You surely must be, ’cause you’re Warrows.”
He turned and bolted through the swinging doors, shouting, “Da! Da! They’re here.”
As the boy ran into the inn, customers glanced up from their meals. And one burly man looked at his tablemate, a small, skinny man, and declared, “Well, strike me dead, Queeker, but it looks like two pip-squeaks got lost and strayed outside the Boskydells.”
The tablemate laughed and in a high-pitched voice said, “Yar, Tark, I do believe you’re right. Got all turned about and accidentally wandered out into the world.”
Binkton bristled and said, “I’ll have you know most of us are not like some of those mossbacks back home.”
“Bink’s right,” said Pipper, and he made a sweeping, theatrical gesture that took in all the others dining on the porch. “We are daring adventurers, and we have the blood of heroes in our veins.”
“Heroes? Ha!” sneered the Tark. “Weakling runts like you, heroes?”
The skinny one, Queeker, hooted, as if somehow a victory had been won.
Binkton muttered, “Ruck-loving, rat-eating idiots,” and he reached for a rock, but even as he bent down, Pipper grabbed his cousin’s arm and hissed, “Remember what Uncle Arley said: Turn hecklers into part of the act.” Then Pipper pulled himself up to his full three-foot-four height. “We are descended from the great hero and healer Beau Darby, and Captain Trissa Buckthorn of the Company of the King is our cousin.”
At these words, two men, each wearing a scarlet tabard emblazoned with a rampant golden griffin, looked up from their own meals.
“So?” sneered the skinny man.
“So,” answered Pipper, “adventurers we are, and quite bold, with the blood of warriors in our veins, as you’ll see tonight if you come to the Black Dog and watch.”
“Ar,” scoffed the skinny one, “as Tark says, y’r nothing but pip-squeaks. Pah! As if you could fight anyone.”
Even as this exchange went on, one of the tabarded King’s men stood and strolled to the table where Queeker and Tark sat. With a flinty gaze he looked down at them. “I fought beside Captain Buckthorn and her company in the Dragonstone War, and finer or better warriors I ne’er saw. So, if I were you, I’d keep my gob shut.”
As Queeker flinched down, Tark looked up, his eyes filled with suppressed rage. Then he glanced at the other King’s man, who had also risen to his feet, but who merely stood waiting.
In that moment the lad burst back through the doors, a sheaf of paper in his hands. And on the boy’s heels bustled a small, rotund, bald-headed man who burbled, “Binkton Windrow and Pipper Willowbank, I presume? Welcome to my establishment. Graden Finster at your service. Which of you is which, might I ask?”
“Um, I’m Pipper, and this is Binkton,” said Pipper.
“Well met. Well met,” said Graden, nodding enthusiastically. “Have you brought your gear? Oh, I see you have. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. Indeed, I see you have. If you’re anything like your Uncle Arley, well. .” He turned to all the diners at hand, and even though there were no women present he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, I invite you, each and every one, to come tonight to see these two perform. All the way from the mysterious and exotic hidden land of the Boskydells they came to delight all. Tonight, sometime after”-he looked at the buccen-“sundown?” Pipper nodded. “Tonight after sundown they’ll be here exclusively in the Black Dog. You don’t want to miss them.” Finster then said to the lad, “Pud, start passing out those handbills. Make certain that everyone in town gets one. And post several down at the Red Coach station”-he glanced at the King’s men-“and make sure the garrison gets some as well.”
As the boy darted off, Graden turned to the Warrows again and said, “Now let’s get your gear inside.”
“Um, Mr. Finster,” said Pipper, “we’ll need some help with the chest. It’s quite heavy.”
“Right-o,” Finster started to answer, but the King’s man looked at the buccen and smiled and then turned to Tark and Queeker and said, “These two here will be more than happy to carry your trunk inside, right?”
Queeker leapt to his feet, but Tark said, “Hey! We’ve got a Red Coach to catch.”
“Don’t worry,” said the guardsman, placing a hand on the hilt of his sword. “You’ve time.”
Tark snarled, and his own hand twitched toward the dagger at his belt, but the burly man did not complete the move and, growling, got to his feet. He and Queeker stepped to the handcart, and, grabbing the leather handles at each end, they hefted up the iron-gray case with its painted-on flames, Queeker grunting under the unexpected load. Following Finster, they toiled up the steps and into the inn, the King’s man coming after, Binkton and Pipper, their duffle bags over their shoulders, trailing the parade.
The Black Dog’s interior was huge. “Used to be a hay barn, back before Junction Town became a way station,” explained Finster. He took a deep breath and said, “Still smells like clover at times.-Anyway, they were going to tear it down, and that was when my great-granddad said to himself that it’d make a fine inn. So he bought it and changed it over, and it’s been in the family ever since.”
As they wended among the tables, Pipper looked up at the rafters and beams high overhead. “Perfect,” he murmured to Binkton.
“Just like Uncle Arley said,” replied Binkton, gesturing at a stage sitting well below what must have been a small loft of sorts.
To one side sat a bar, and swinging doors led somewhere-to a kitchen, the buccen guessed.
They crossed the large common room and passed through a door to one side of the stage, where they entered a hallway. Graden led Tark and Queeker along the corridor to a modest room.
As Queeker and Tark set the trunk down, Finster said, “I turned a storage room into this dressing room a while ago when I realized we’d have bards and dancers and such passing through. It’s had lots of use, and for the next sevenday it’s all yours.”
Binkton looked about. “I don’t see any cots. Where do we sleep?”
Finster laughed. “The main inn is out back in another building. One of the guest rooms is waiting for you. Come, I’ll take you to it.”
Pipper said, “First we need to push the cart back to the Red Coach station.”
“Oh,” said the King’s man, “I’m sure Mr. Queeker and his sidekick, Tark, will be glad to do that for you. After all, they have a Red Coach to catch.”
“Yessir,” said Queeker, heading out, even as Tark, relegated to the status of sidekick to his own hanger-on, glared and followed. As he passed the Warrows, he muttered, “Someday, pip-squeaks. Someday.”
“Oh, yeah?” spat Binkton, as the man went onward.
“The blood of heroes beats in our hearts,” Pipper called down the hallway after Tark.
The guardsman laughed and looked at bristling Binkton and said, “I believe it does at that.”
That evening, the large common room of the Black Dog was full to the walls with King’s men and townsfolk, along with most of the passengers on layovers while waiting for Red Coaches to roll through heading toward their various destinations: some would fare north through the land of Harth and toward Rian and the Jillian Tors, as well as the Dalara Plains; other passengers waited for a southbound coach en route to Gunar, Valon, Jugo, and Pellar; a few travellers would bear west through the Boskydells, aiming for places in Wellen, or Thol, or Jute, or Gothon, or perhaps across the waters to Gelen. But on this eve, the townsfolk and soldiers and wayfarers were not thinking of these things. Instead they were in the Black Dog to see a show. Quite often bards and minstrels came through, and occasionally dancers, and many onlookers came to hear them sing or see them perform, especially if they were Elves. But this show would be different, for these were not singers, not musicians, not dancers, but entertainment of a different sort. Not only that, but this diversion boasted legendary Warrows, a folk seldom seen outside the Boskydells, except in times of strife.
