(1) Welcome to Erde

[Piper Juunanagou]

"There's been another murder!"

With a grunt, Elder Anastious Guillermo motioned for one of the nearby men to try and silence the crier before he started another panic throughout the village. Unfortunately, the growing crowd indicated that it was probably too late to contain the matter. As the man ducked down beneath the door frame, the elder turned his attention to the mangled body that lie on the floor of the cottage. Just like the last five murders, the victim had been bound with rope and brutally stabbed. Smears of drying blood stained the stone floors and wooden walls of the small structure. The terror in the old woman's eyes conveyed more emotion than the scene of gore around her broken body.

"Elder."

Anastious glanced across the room at one of his young assistants, who had been scouring the rest of the quaint home for any clues. "What is it, Johan?"

"It's just like the other murders." To sell his point, Johan produced a small metal box from inside a rather mundane-looking crate. It took Anastious but a moment to notice that the locking mechanism had been smashed, but even still, his assistance popped open to box to reveal its contents. "Everything has been stolen."

"Why steal an old woman trinkets?" At every other crime, something of value had been taken from the scene, usually jewelry or old family jewels. As far as Anastious understood, the worth of the items didn't seem to justify such violent murders.

Despite the fact that each murder had been coupled with thefts, there were far too many individuals in Eisenhardt that blamed the crimes on monsters. Even through the other elders tried to calm the populace, there was only so much they could do to quell the superstitious minds of the people, many of whom were incapable of reading or writing their own names.

With a shrug of his broad shoulders, the member of the town's Elder Council rose to his feet and called over a rather grim-looking set of men. "Would you two mind wrapping Matilda up and prepping the pyre for her?" The two men, who were members of Elder Wynam's old tribe, nodded their heads and set about bundling the gnarled corpse up in cloth.

"Would you like me to do anything, Elder?"

Anastious, with a frown on his face as he watched one of the men wrap up the woman's smashed skull, turned to his assistant. "Just try and prevent people from overreacting too much, Johan." It seemed like only yesterday that the village had calmed down from the last murder-theft. Johan, with an equally grim look on his face, nodded his head and followed Elder Guillermo out of the cottage.

Outside the cottage, a group of about twenty-five people, nearly a third of the villages population, had already gathered. With a heavy sigh, Johan put on his best faux smile and waded into the fray.

[King B]

THUMP!

The door swung open violently. A keen young face bursted in from the opening, his face had a certain gloom but retained a tint of anguish. He was out of breath.

"Jamie..." the boy stopped to catch a couple of breaths, "you better come see this. There's been another one."

A cold shot went through the heart of Jamie Sickert. Just less than a week ago, he had heard of similar news. Much more dire for him personally, but just as savage. He dropped the hunting knife that he had been sharpening in his shed and ran after the young boy that had just trotted off towards the crime scene.

As the two approached the growing gathering of villagers, he saw many familiar faces. The butcher, the general store owner, the blacksmith all of whom had been very supportive of the passing of his father. Their expressions were mirthless and anxious, it wasn't a pretty sight. Surely, another villager had fallen.

Hand in hand with the younger boy, Jamie pushed his way towards the front of the crowd and looked down at the victim. Bound savagely, hands behind her back with multiple stab wounds covering an extremely wide range of her body. Her face contorted by the pain and her impending death, left to bleed to death. Just like his father.

"It's Mrs. Bottom..." the young boy's trembling lips managed to blurt out as tears swell out of his eyes. He took a liking to the recently retire weaver, and Jamie knew that very well.

"It's okay Johnny, everything's going to be fine," his arms tightly wrapped around Johnny's neck. "Listen, you're going to leave and go back home and have supper, okay? I'll come find you later." He pushed the boy off and sent him on his way home.

"Would you two mind wrapping Matilda up and prepping the pyre for her?" an indifferent voice called out.

Jamie swung his head back. It was a member of the Elder Council, as if they knew any better. As the men begin to pack Mrs. Bottom up, Jamie walked past the pacified crowd and walked straight towards the man, and swung right for his face. The punch missed, and the young man was sent to the ground by velocity of his misfired punch. He picked himself up clumsily and aimed another. By now, Johan who had witnessed the confrontation had already ran up to him and locked away his arms and attempted to pull him off.

"Another person's been killed and all you can think about is how to get rid of her body?" Still struggling and kicking, he finally pushed off of Johan by inadvertently striking the assistant with an elbow, and snapping out of his grip.

"Get your filthy hands off me you scum. There's people out there that has committed several murders and you're trying to contain me? Fuck off!" Jamie screamed with frustration, pointing towards the crowded towns square. "Why don't you concentrate your resources and go out and find them?"

[Undrask]

Karl thumbed the edge of the taut sinew and it buzzed almost silently in the grip of the tall wooden longbow. The pad of his boot rolled over leaves and weaved between branches as he slid along the dim border of the forest. The creak of the old wooden wheels had gathered his attention and soon as he had expected a tradesman appeared upon the winding, ancient road. A broken donkey with a worn bit drug behind it a weathered cart with a tired driver sat atop it as he lazily tapped a crop against its back. The dim light of the dusk cast an amber glow to his face and long shadows made every wrinkle seem deeper.

The string drew back, the arrow already set atop it. He took a moment to aim, both eyes locked firmly upon his target. He slowly let his breath from his lungs and allowed his shoulders to relax, calm and firm and still. He blinked once and released the arrow.

The man gasped as the arrow entered his flank, instantly releasing his reigns and tumbling from the cart, wheezing. Karl watched from the woodline as the man grasped at the arrow, curious to know if he would break it or leave it in. Eventually he must have decided to leave it in because he groggily brought himself to his feet, glanced in either direction and plod into the green, opposite the direction of the assailant.

The fostri had known this might happen if his shot did not strike the heart. He watched the road a moment before slowly inching out and dancing on almost-silent feet over the soft dirt and grass. He followed the dabs of blood, the downturned twigs, footprints over the leaves. The man had only one lung to breathe with, blood pooling inside of his chest. It was only a quarter mile.

Karl gathered the copper awl from his pocket and poked him just below the chin, where his father had shown him, to be certain the man was done in his suffering. He wrapped a braided leather rope about his feet to draw him up but he was uncertain if they were far enough from the road. He left the rope upon him and returned to the road, drawing the donkey off of it and into the woods far enough to be out of view, tying it to a tree. He dragged the man down over a hill, beside a creek and hung him from a branch there, beginning to do the work he had done many times before with his landi, his countrymen.

The man had a large black pot on the cart, and Karl took both a strange pride and a clenching fear in his chest as he took up the cold-iron in his hands and to the river. He boiled the bones into a broth for the stew he would make, began to cure most of the meat, boiling the scraps in the brine. He found a few onions and a bush of mint, they too found themselves in the pot.

The fire was warm to him, very different than the cold black nights he had spent under moss-cover, wrapped on either side by his clansmen. The world of menskr was different, he decided, but he was yet unsure of how great the difference was. He did not like to sit in the open with fire, here on the surface where he might be so easily spotted. The trail of blood he had so lazily left felt unclean and childish. Though, these were the things that made men like men, and his father had told him that he was to live and speak as a child upon the bosom of the forgiving woods.

Night fell and Karl could not quell the temptation to kill his fire and heat himself by still-too-bright embers of the coal. His stew was hearty and rich, though he wished that the pot had not been so large. His belly felt too full, though he knew that he would only have this one hunt to live upon for the coming weeks; that he should be thankful to be too full for soon he would be too empty.

After his meal he buried the parts which were better not found, cleaned his hands in the creek and collected his things. He travelled back up to the donkey and laid out his bed. He grinned that he could keep himself warm under wool and moss as he fell into sleep.

[Maruset]

Jeremy trudged along the faint dirt path towards down, the comforting weight of his club bouncing against his thigh with every step. If the man's sheer size was not enough to intimidate any highwaymen, the crude but imposing weapon would surely deter anything short of an organized party of attackers. Wiping his brow with the back of his sleeve, he replaced his wide-brimmed leather hat atop his head.

Why a man as paranoid as his boss chose to live so far from the relative safety of town was a mystery, although given the recent events it seemed town was more dangerous than the distant farm the thug had left a few hours earlier. Regardless, well-worn shoes did little to protect his feet from the constant assault of sharp rocks and other general debris on the backwoods road and Jeremy briefly fantasized about joining the crime spree and bringing his club squarely into the old man's face. He imagined sliding the codger's polished copper ring onto his finger and staring into the roughly cut garnet as it glittered on his hand, the hand of a man far better off in the world.

A particularly sharp stone found its way into his shoe and cut deeply into the side of his foot, eliciting a quiet curse and breaking his daydream. Sighing heavily, he resumed his journey. Even if he were to murder the old man, Jeremy was no farmer and had little desire to be, and though the farmstead was fairly far from town, eventually someone would come looking when the donkey-drawn cart loaded with grains failed to appear in town.

"Hail, friend, come to kill again?" Startled, Jeremy realized that he had reached town as his mind had wandered, and he sized up the guard cheerily approaching him. "You'd make a good start," growled the thug, his hand resting on his weapon and his eyes narrowing. "Whoa, friend, rest easy, " replied the guard, his smile unwavering. "Trust me, I'd prefer you were the murderer, a death at the end of that club there would be far more merciful than the torture being dealt the folk of our fair town. Wouldn't be much need for an investigation either, as much as a simple following the trail of crushed bones. Don't suppose you're here to help with that, provide some muscle or whatnot, friend?"

The brute briefly considered punching the guard in the throat before he could utter the word "friend" again, but thought better of it and lumbered towards the town hall. Hopefully, there would be minimal investigating and a lot of quick bone breaking to be done before he could put this nonsense behind him and get back to his life of relative ease.

[Jonathan Meer]

She was made of buttons. Buttons were grounds for nervous energy, and she was made of it. It wasn't a conscious decision, as though she sat down one day and realized what she needed were grounds, and buttons were the logical choice. It was sneaking and gradual. A few extra buttons along the center, to keep the garment tight on the shoulders. Maybe a few more pockets, each double-buttoned. An ornamental button, or two, or more. It was a quirk, and if she had known about it, she would have stripped most of them from her clothing.

But buttons aren't ugly teeth. Most polite people won't comment on jaggedy teeth, but it comes up. You see the cringe. People are tolerant of an excess of buttons, such that a person can almost swim in buttons without any social tension.

I'm not trying to imply she's a caricature. She's not. The buttons are incidental; one of those brute facts that aren't useful for understanding a person, but are simply very noticeable. The first thing a person might think if they saw Karen was 'Button.' She was, of course, more than just buttons.

Today, she did something off. She presented herself to Johan, to help with tracking down the murderers. She had no skills for the task, but she did have faith. She emphasized that point with Johan. She didn't know where he stood on faith (these days, you just never knew), but she had to say it. It's what she had to offer. She could pray, like no one else. There were fewer spiritual obstacles between her and the divine. And if anyone knew how to resolve these murders, if anyone could protect them, it would be the gods.

Johan was a nice boy, but very unhelpful, and Karen knew she wasn't making an impression. With no other way forward, Karen knelt next to the body, and prayed aloud.

[ooc: no clue what the religion is of this place. just making it up. polytheism ftw]

[Valora Crow]

“Stay here and keep workin’,” Master Fulcher had instructed when word of a riot in the village square had reached them. That had been hours ago.

Toby had kept quiet about his disappointment. Since the murders had started, their orders had almost tripled, and that meant longer shifts for master and apprentice fletcher. More to the point, he dared not say any word of disagreement in front of the mistress. Especially since she had begun threatening to kick the orphan out when he had started eating more.

Thus the scrawny teenager had remained in the workroom without protest, bent over the jig, attaching feathers he had trimmed earlier to shaft after slender shaft before setting them on the drying rack. His hand hovered over the glue pot when he finally heard the main house’s heavy door groan open.

“-- shame strikin’ a respectable ol’ man like he was the one as caused all those crimes!”

Anna Fulcher was in a rage about whatever she had seen in town. Toby could hear her wrathful grumblings as she stomped across the room to the hearth. Toby decided to stay in the workroom till he was summoned instead of risking his own neck by asking what was the matter. After a few minutes of soothing murmurs with intermittent trills of discontent, the door connecting the house and workroom finally creaked open.

“Tobias,” Stephan Fulcher began wearily as he closed the door behind him. “Be a good lad an’ fetch the ale.”

Toby brought out a clay jug from behind a crate in the back corner or the room and poured a healthy measure into a leather jack. Mistress Fulcher was also not fond of the boy because to her mind having a helper had made her husband lazy. Husband and wife had fought about the issue on occasion, but even Master Fulcher could hardly deny how his girth had expanded after taking in the hapless orphan.

As his master settled onto a stool by the worktable, Toby handed over the drink and went back to his work. When the man simply mulled over his cup, Toby lost his patience. “What was that mess in town?” he asked bluntly.

The man paused before answering. “They found Matilda Bottom dead in her home an’ her trinket box smashed an’ robbed.”

Stunned, Toby set down his work. That old widow had always had a bit of stew or a kind word for him after his parents had died four years ago. She had even talked over Master Fulcher to let Toby stay on with him as his apprentice so the boy could grow up knowing an honest craft. She was that nice to every soul she met. Who could have harmed that woman?

Stephan patted the boy’s shoulder and continued. “When they was wrappin’ her up, that Jamie you run about with tried to strike Elder Guillermo. Some folk took offense. Mistress Fulcher included.”

Toby grimaced. He knew his friend cared not a whit for the Elder Council. And he did not appreciate that attitude setting off his mistress, as if she couldn’t find cause enough.

“Tha’s when the fights started. It was a long time afore they settled down, too, but by the end folk was callin’ for a huntin’ party to track down the murderers. The Council started takin’ down the names of volunteers.”

Fulcher stopped to drain the jack, and Toby looked down at his hands. The skin was scarred on the backs and up the forearms where the fire had burned him. With his parents and their house gone, he had been left with naught but memories and the clothes on his back. He did not feel much love for the townspeople, who had shooed him away when they saw him eye their trenchers and soup pots. But he turned cold over the thought of old Matilda, beaten and knifed for sommat pretty she had managed to save away despite her own hard lot. That wasn’t right.

Toby raised his eyes to the fletcher, who was now watching him expectantly. “I want to volunteer, as well,” he stated determinedly.

Master Fulcher gave the boy a rare patronly smile and ruffled his dirty blonde hair. “Good lad,” he said warmly. “Let’s get you outfitted.”

[Jarka]

She simply thought she might die.

The weight of the satchel tugged at her shoulders as she plodded forward. Every bone in her body ached. Marie Shepard was exhausted.

Her fist shot up before she hesitated. Eyes darting anxiously, she performed a quick inventory of her appearance. Bony fingers alternately tugged and smoothed her dress over her lanky frame. The satchel, much too full for this late in the day, was adjusted and readjusted until it sat at the perfect balance between comfortable and easy to access. She raised her hand once more, paused to exhale sharply, and rapped the cottage door.

Nothing.

With a slight frown, Marie plucked a ball of yarn from the satchel and rewound the thread that had loosened itself. She knocked again.

Nothing.

Her neck arched to scan the surrounding field for movement. Perhaps the Millers were tending the crops or whatever it was that wheat farmers do.

Nothing.

An exasperated growl rolled from her throat as Marie returned to her cart. Settling into her seat, the girl cracked the mule’s reins. No sense dawdling on a day like today.

It had started as a day full of promise. Tomas was not one to fall ill, so the excitement of venturing on his weekly route soon overwhelmed any pity she felt for his sour stomach. Granted, it was a fairly established barter route – no heated arguments, no scales, no appraising – but it was a much desired break from the monotony of spinning and herding. She often rode with her brother when she was younger, so she had looked forward to a chance to prove herself on her own. Maybe her family could even expand the route, give her a route of her own!

It had turned into a day of disappointment. Just like the rest of the houses, there would be no warm morsels of beir bread from Missus Miller, no loaves or flour to trade for her family’s wool. Not even a pleasant greeting and an uncomfortable discussion about tough times in the fields and oh we’re so sorry dearie, but we just can’t afford a luxury like wool when we are struggling to get food. Just… nothing.

It was strange. There was no festival, no esteemed visitors, no illness that her family had heard of.

At least the final stop was the market within the town itself – a chance to see people on this long, lonely day. Two nights at the inn would give her a chance to pick up some groceries, unload some of the surplus wool for a lower value, catch up on some gossip. And, if she was lucky, she might see…

Marie blushed. No sense getting lost in her girlish fantasies. Not when there was business to be done, especially not on a day like today. She straitened in her seat as the cart rolled to the outskirts of town.

Well. Now she could see why nobody had been home. The streets around the square buzzed with people, more crowded than she had ever seen, maybe the most crowded streets ever. There had to be at least fifty people gathered! Something must have happened, something recent, something urgent. Tying the mule off at the inn, the girl pressed towards the commotion.

A break in the crowd and her heart skipped a beat. It was him! His steely gaze seemed focused on everything and nothing all at the same time. So intense. So rugged. So… dreamy.

“’Tis a cryin’ shame, yeah.” Missus Miller’s brogue snapped Marie from her musing. The older woman wrapped her arms around the gaunt teenager with a mournful sigh. “A cryin’ shame.”

“Missus,” The girl twisted to see her embracer. “What’s going on? I went to your farm, and nobody was there, well, nobody was anywhere, and they’re all here.”

The woman stepped back and clutched her scarf. “Oh, mercy, mercy me. Oh, dearie, I apologize, but there’s been a- an accident. It’s put people over the edge, it has. Poor Missus Bottom, she was always such a sweet– and now she’s gone.”

“Gone? She’s… gone gone?”

“Aye, afraid so. Like Mister Parish and the others. Oh, poor Matilda…” Tears welled in the woman’s eyes.

Marie glanced to the center of the crowd. Swallowing a hard lump, she turned back and twisted her hair between her fingers. “What ab-, er, how is Master Sickert handling it? What with his, uh, father and all?”

The woman chuckled. “Tried to give a black eye to an elder. Boy’s got spirit, yeah. He’ll need it. He’s helpin’ lead the volunteer investigation, the one set up by the Council, bless his soul.”

Marie’s eyes clung to the fur-clad youth seated with the elders. “We should all do what we can.” She squeezed the woman gently. “Thanks for- for letting me know about Missus Bottom.”

“Aye, lass.” The woman tucked a stray lock of hair behind the girl’s ear. “Take care. Especially these days.”

Her polite smile turned to a confident smirk as Marie marched towards the Council member at the center of the square. She took her place in line with the other volunteers. Oh, she would take care, all right.

[Piper Juunanagou]

It took a few hours to calm the situation down in the village square. From what Johan could garner, the stress was at its boiling point, and the attempted altercation between Elder Guillermo and the young Sickert boy had been just the excuse for the situation to turn into mass hysteria.

Fortunately, for Johan, the small number of armed guards and a few burly individuals had managed to quell the riot. When everyone finally settled down, the decision was made amongst the members of the former mob to form a search party to scour the Green Sea. From what the assistant could imagine, the promise of traveling in a large group of people allowed for the individuals to suppress their fears and apprehensions.

Out of a pool of about twenty men and women, Johan had broken the collective into three groups of six. Two people had to be turned away due to lingering injuries that would have made them a liability out in the unmapped expanses of the Green Sea.

As the village had no central cache of weaponry, the volunteers were relegated to locating their own means to defend themselves in case of attack. Most had weapons on them already, so only a few of the women had to go home to fetch a club or blade. By the time all the arrangements had been made, the sun was beginning to start its western descent, but despite the threat of enduring night in the Green Sea, no one slipped out of the groups as they made their way to the edge of the village.

"Well." Johan paused and glanced into the dense forest. While the sun may still have several hours, the Sea would be dark in half that time. "This is the spot where that little boy heard the commotion the night of the second murder. It's probably as good a place as any to start and branch out from."

A coarse hand fell on Johan shoulder and squeezed just a wee bit too tightly for his tastes. "Sounds great." The voice was that of Jamie Sickert, who smiled faintly as gave Johan a gentle shove toward the treeline. "You are going to come along, aren't you?"

I hate you. Suppressing his ire at the man just a few years his junior, Johan a fake smile and rested a hand on the hilt of his short-sword. "Of course, Jamie. Let's find us some murderers."

[Undrask]

The thin bridle straps were tight in Karl’s hands as he all but dragged the donkey back towards the town. It had woken up angry because over the course of the night it had rained a little bit. The tall man wondered how much easier the land of menskr really was, contemplating if he would actually be able to fit in. Vinr, his leader, had informed him that the best way to be like one of his own kind was to be stupid and get lost easily. There had been no lessons on leading animals.

He had spent a few moments rifling through the goods on the cart and he had found a few things that he knew: a few spearheads, freshly smithed, which he had put into his satchel; a lamp that he still did not know how to operate; a thick wool blanket which he wished he had looked for the night before; a few horseshoes. The cart had a wide assortment of other iron goods and some oval, brown objects that were soft to the touch and about the size of a dog’s head. When he tore one open he found it had a fluffy white interior that crumbled if he played at it.

It felt strange to walk in the open, no trees overhead, no shadows to lurk through. The road was loud, the wheels of the shoddy cart louder. It set him on edge, knowing that if any creature of the wood was to creep along the wild’s edge they could so easily set upon him. He asserted that if he felt that way, he was doing a good job of being human.

The trail wound in a big knot that spliced in several directions. Cut wood with markings upon them was hanging from other cut wood that was stabbed into the ground at their center, as if to keep the road from coming unwound. He was not sure where the other paths lead but he knew the direction of the town and so that was the road he took.

The donkey had finally begun to cooperate and Karl loosened his tug upon the reigns as the two of them marched towards the land of menskr and their ilk, a land of iron and farms, where they stacked wood atop other wood and never moved away. They dug themselves into the earth and buried their heads in the soil like ticks, sucking the life from the world around them. Cutting the trees all around them and raising the same animals over and over, watched as they tugged the grass too quickly for it to grow. How they stripped the fur of sheep without the skin, winding the fur into cloth as if by magic.

It seemed to Karl that for all the work that menskr did, they lived in terrible unhappiness. Gilfr wandered the woods, cut only what they used. They pushed into caves and made love to the earth, watching the child of the love grow all around them. Rarely did they even have to hunt the animals because man walked the same paths every day so near to their home, fat and large as a deer but so much easier to stalk.

He remembered the nights of he and his clansmen buddle tight with each other, skin bare and marked with the brown of their lover whose bosom they rested atop. Only in the summer months would they sleep under the tears of the sun, draped in thick blackness. When snow tumbled off of the clouds, the gilfr used their one and only stationary home, Hillir, the Mouth of The World, a cave not far from a life-rich lake. His family waited for him there, expecting retribution upon the menskr.

Kerling, old woman, sooth speaker, story catcher, troll-wife, had been stricken down by a thin knife, her body bound to tree, her red mingling with the green at her feet. A bauble old the Kerling the man had taken, but left within her his blade. It was not unknown between the menskr that the people of the wood would not, could not touch nor bear the sight of cold-iron and so Vinr knew the killer left it as a message. Humans felt that they might rape their woods, take from them their elders, steal from troll-folk their pride and purpose. Anger rumbled in the hearts of Karl’s clansmen, trembling in their souls like an earthquake. And so, set forth Karl to set right the minds of men and prove the worth of a troll.

Smoke trickled into the sky ahead and Karl knew that he was almost to the settlement of the menskr. The smell of their waste was on the air and the woods began to fill with their refuse. The true mark of mankind was that they left all of their filth in one place, and then chose to live amid it.

The troll-son was greeted by a large wooden structure as he crossed the border of the town. Several horses rested inside, troughs of water and wheat for them to lazily much upon. How would the best be chosen amid them if there was no struggle? A portly man with a shiny head, a feast Karl considered failing his mission to fell and devour, wandered from the building and stood before him. For a moment Karl wondered if all menskr were so tiny, standing at least four hands shorter than he.

“Isn’t that O’Douls cart?” the chubby human asked.

Karl took a moment to clear his throat, fearful of using the language of man. “Yes, cart is his, yes?”

From the look that the man gave him, Karl was fearful that his disguise might have already been ruined. “Well, where is O’Doul then?”

“Oh, he is across the trail, under stones.” He tried his best to be honest.

“What? What do you mean he’s-“

“I have bring cart back!” Karl shouted excitedly.

“Yes, I see that, but-“

“You are having cart, yes? You take and I go to town?”

With a groan the stable-hand slowly drug himself around the cart and inspected goods, lazily flipping over the wool and tilting the lantern in the light. He came over a bag and casually opened it, but Karl could not help but notice the twinkle in the menskr’s eye. The troll-son knew this look, familiar with the lust in his twitching fingers, the wetness of his lips. The man had found the object of his hunt, and now all that was left was to kill it and drag it home.

“You have found something you like, yes?”

The stable-keeper nodded shortly, trying not to give away his excitement. “Yes, yes. So you say you’re giving away these goods, right?”

The massive man nodded enthusiastically, ready to sell his lie at any cost. “Yes, yes! I am here for the business of old girls and revenge!”

The man cast him a queer look, but ignored whatever blather the foreigner had to offer in exchange for the fat sack of coin the trader had left behind. “Oh, yeah, I see. So I take the cart and you go into the town. That’s the way it is around here, you see? It’s a fair trade,” he assured him, ready to snatch the coin and buy his fair share of bread, ale and women.

“Is my want, yes yes. I can go into town now? I am take shoe of horse, lantern and spear-stabber.”

The stable-hand had long since stopped trying to understand what the giant had to say and fell into a pattern of nodding and smiling. “Of course!”

Karl’s massive arm reached over the short, old man and collected a handful of horseshoes and the latern. With a too-wide grin and a tip of the hat he strolled into the town, casting a shadow longer than any other man could ever dream to.