Little War, Part 4: Thom Garlic of the Thornrose

THWACK!

 

The bolt from Seamus Bandyford's smallbow grazed the top of Thom Garlic's head, pulling a small tuft of hair with it into the wall behind him. Seamus was either the world's worst shot, or he was deadly accurate, and Thom didn't know which option bothered him more.

 

“The more you move around the more likely you are to get one in the eye,” Seamus deftly loaded another bolt and reset the smallbow.

 

“I didn't...kill...your cousin,” he considered attempting to do a backflip, but the two muggins holding him against the wall would've just broken his arms.

 

“Nephew, actually. And, well, heheh he certainly wanted to kill you, now hold still...there's a fly right above your ear...” THWACK! “Damn, it flew away.”

 

They were toying with him, it was the only reason to toss him around like this. They wanted to make sure he was loyal, otherwise he'd be lying in a bog somewhere. Not that he could tell the difference between that and his prison cell. “It wasn't me, it was the boy. Finn. He caught Tarren-”

 

“Finnean Thornrose, a fool who's never snaked a muggin in his life, caught Tarren 'The Slicer' Bandyford while you, who've killed...four Bandyford men so far, poked Garny in the side and scampered away?”

 

THWACK!

 

It was time for a new approach, or rather, an old approach since this was the fourth interrogation they'd done this week. “Tarren was drunk! He was swaggering down the lane like he'd just gotten paid when he caught Tustin! Then the kid caught Willy and Garny made a move, and...what was I supposed to do?”

 

“So you admit it then? You killed another Bandyford?” Seamus eyed his next bolt with particular glee, admiring the steel head smaller than the tip of a man's pinky.

 

“I admit that I cut Garny. But Tarren was-” THWACK! This was going nowhere. Seamus was an ugly rotten idiot but he wasn't a fool. Time to throw the bones. “ALRIGHT! I killed him! And even if I was a Bandyford I'd kill him again! He was a drunk namby mewler with a head bigger'n his sword! Now, I'll catch yer coins for ya and do as ya like, but I'm not gonna let some stripling wash the bricks with me jus' cause his piglet's the runt of the litter!” Spit flew from his mouth and splattered his jailer in the chest.

 

Seamus let his next bolt fall to the floor. “You see? All I wanted was the truth.” He gave a quick nod to the two brawny muggins holding him. The first punch to Thom's stomach knocked the wind out of him. The fourth punch brought up his lunch. “Now then onto business...you're right, first of all. Nobody liked little Tarry. Well, the people who matter didn't like Tarry. He was rude,” he ruminated over each word as he dramatically produced a long silver dagger from his coat pocket, “he was a simpleton...he probably should've been a farmer rather than a member of the Family, but...” he frowned, “he was my sister's son. Turn him around. Now...stop...squirming...” Seamus pulled down what was left of Garlic's ragged pants.

 

The pain wasn't much to Thom at this point. He'd been beaten and whipped and generally maimed for the past seven days, after all. The tip of the dagger now scarring a 'B' for 'Bandyford' on his left buttock was just the whipped cream on his strawberry cake of the week's pain, and it was just one cake on the banquet table that was his life.

 

“Can you tell what I'm carving?”

 

“B...Bandyford...”

 

“If I wanted you dead, you'd be dead, Thom. But you knew that. You're smart. If I wanted to make you useless I'd have carved this over your heart and thrown you back to the Grandmum, let her know that we own you. But I'm only doing what's necessary for you, and for me. This is humiliation. You need to be shown your place. And you need to stop killing Bandyfords.”

 

“He tried...he tried to kill me...”

 

“You'd be surprised at how little my poor sister cares about that. Get the purewine. Bring it here.”

 

The cleansing purewine washed over Thom's fresh scars, adding a cherry on top of the whipped-cream. He tried to rein in the screaming but a few yelps escaped.

 

“What use...am I to you...now? Everyone knows...what I did...”

 

“You know, I don't think there's a proper way to bandage this, Thom. Try not to sit down for a while.” The two burly muggins let him go and he sunk to the floor. “This thing you did, and believe me I would've done the same if the little chaff came at me with a knife, it doesn't change anything. Tarren was really...rather loud against you catching our coins, but that's all blood under the bridge now, isn't it? Tomorrow evening I'll make sure the guards won't see when you escape, and you keep being my mockingbird on Payla Thornrose's shoulder.” Seamus let out a light chuckle. He could've been laughing at a bawdy joke at a tavern's hearth. “Just stop that nasty habit of yours of killing Bandyfords. Here, I'll leave the purewine for you.” He tossed the heavy bottle onto the chair, the singular piece of furniture in the room, and walked out the studded oaken door of Thom's cell.

 

For a moment, Thom wasn't sure whether he should use the purewine to cleanse his wound or to drink himself into a stupor. He warily stood up to take a sip but spat it back out before chugging a gulp or two more. Being sober was no proper way to think himself out of this.

 

The first order of business was taking stock of his new inventory of scars. He lightly pressed his ribs. No broken bones there. Stretched his fingers and craned his neck. Nothing out of place. Now for new business. He slowly stretched his left leg around in every direction, using the chair as his anchor. It seared itself into his mind until his vision turned white. After a few more minutes and a quick splash and swallow of purewine he knew his limits. The scarring was deep enough to cause pain, but shallow enough that he could still move around. But he could already tell that it was placed in a spot that made him subconsciously avoid putting pressure on his leg, though he really didn't need to. He'd have to train himself to put up with it.

 

There were no windows in the room aside from the small fist sized slit at the top of the door, but there was one down the hall that let in light from outside. It let in just enough of that light for him to have a vague idea of where his hands were. He searched in the near darkness for anything that could help him in the trials to come. He was through with the Bandyfords, despite an earlier promise not to kill him, and he'd be leaving this dungeon quicker than old Seamus intended if at all possible.

 

No one trusted Thom Garlic deep down. Maybe Callie Riverbend trusted him enough to keep him at arm's length, but even she had her moments of doubt, however fleeting. In Thom's experience, anyone who trusted you with all their heart and soul wasn't worth sticking around long enough to hurt. Just his luck then that he was 'persuaded' to join the Thornrose Family and couldn't get away. He was the best muggin he knew of when it came to running away from problems, but the kind of problems that could start to breed here in Gratham if he ran away were fast enough to catch up halfway across the world.

 

The best thing he could do in this situation would be to get back to the Nestle and pray the Thornroses won the troubles brewing here. Or on the other hand, he could let the Bandyfords take the Thornroses and he could slip away where no thrice-damned muggin Family would hear from him again.

 

But the Bandyfords wouldn't let him live afterward. Not after that stunt Tarren pulled. Tarren wasn't a bright muggin, as a matter of fact he was the definition of 'fool,' but he was popular. As Seamus had said, if he were more interested in honest work than Business he'd probably have done well for himself. At the very least he'd still be alive. If it were another hired guard or a second cousin twice removed that Garlic had caught out there at that fountain, no one would've spared the dirt to bury them. But it wasn't. It was Tarren 'the Slicer' Bandyford. Nephew of the Right and Left Hands of the Bandyford Family of Gratham.

 

He'd poured over the room three times in the search for anything useful. They kept moving him from cell to cell, for what purpose he had no idea. A bowl to piss in a chair to sit in, and a slowly emptying bottle of purewine were all he could come up with this time. He could splinter a chairleg and attempt to pick the lock, if there were any lock to pick. When he was a lad he cut his teeth with a muggin fayre, pickpocketing, doing acrobats, and slicking up his dagger when they were lucky enough to be paid. He met a lot of strange muggins who drifted in and out of the traveling fayre. Some were mercenaries, some were minstrels, most were both. But he knew a muggin trouper who could swallow any item smaller than his fist and regurgitate it on command. Thom always told himself he'd learn how to do it too, but at this point even if he had learned how to, he was sure he couldn't swallow a chisel and hammer big enough to get him out of here.

 

But as the great Shuyan scholar once said, “when there's nothing you can do, then you'd better hurry up and get nothing done,” or something like that. If Seamus expected him to escape he'd present him with an opportunity. He took another swig of purewine, hugged his tattered clothes and went to sleep.

 

And to his surprise sleep came easy enough, but he still couldn't rest. Dreams invaded the periphery of his consciousness before quickly taking center stage. Fireworks lit up the night sky, but instead of evoking awe they brought only fear. The snaps of smallbows and clattering of daggers permeated the background in a cacaphony, punctuated by a song he'd learned when he was a kid, but he'd forgotten all the words to. Muggins he'd killed and the bodies of men he'd never met littered the streets of Tannerel. As he turned a corner he was back in Farncaster poisoning a keg of ale. The guard who caught him that night reached for his shoulder, but as Thom spun around and stuck the dagger in the nameless muggin's chest it turned into his father. His father reached down at the wound letting the blood coat his finger tips. As he brought it back up to his face to examine it he became Breddin Thornrose. Suddenly Thom was back in Tannerel and the explosions grew louder and stranger. They were no more streaks of green and red lighting up the sky, but fire pure and hot. The city burned all around him. Muggins and men fired bolts at one another in the street and lifted gruesome trophies to the sky. A single figure wrapped in a red velvet cloak walked through the chaos towards him. It was smaller than any of the soldiers who surrounded it, man, muggin, or otherwise. It was too late to run as the figure threw back the cloak revealing the ancient face of Payla Thornrose, who's eyes burned hotter than the city around her. The explosions grew deafening as the enormity of her presence engulfed his vision. There was only her furious cold face filling the entirety of existence.

 

It was that face of the Grandmother who stared him into wakefulness, rather than the loud knocks at the oaken door. They grew louder and more harried before Thom could piece together that he was no longer dreaming. He was about to squeak out a 'Who are you?' to the waking knocks but realized he couldn't open the door if he wanted.

 

“Pssst. Are you in there?” He had hoped it was a member of the Thornrose Family come to rescue him but he couldn't place the voice. Thom tried to speak but he had to clear his voice and cough first. The voice took this as an answer. “Tell me your name.”

 

The sudden soreness of his bruised scarred body came rushing into him, but he found the strength to form the words. “Thom Garlic...”

 

“Thom...Thom Garlic of the Thornrose?”

 

That was a loaded question, but how else could he answer? “Yes, Thom Garlic of the...the Thornrose Family...” he kept trying to reposition his scars so they wouldn't throb as much.

 

“Alright. One moment,” there came a sound of keys rustling in a hand. Thom strained to remember when Seamus told him he'd be escaping, but couldn't recall. It was hard to tell in such blackness but he was still under the impression it was the middle of the night. The key finally went into the lock but it wouldn't turn. Garlic took the weight off his left leg as he stood up and clutched the chair. A lockpick? Was it truly someone from Thornrose? One of the guards maybe? He was still waking up.

 

After a few tense minutes the beautiful click of the tumblers falling into place sang like a choir of minstrels to his ears. The figure that awaited him in the doorway was not what he expected.

 

“Sorry it took so long. I only just started learning them the other night,” the cloaked man in the doorway held up the set of lockpicking tools in his hand. He stood twice as tall as any muggin and twice abreast as well. A human? What was Seamus playing at? “Can you walk?”

 

It could have been the injuries and the strangeness of his situation, but Thom took a moment before he realized the figure was speaking to him. “Y-yes, with difficulty, but I can-”

 

“Good, come with me,” he held out his long lanky human arm. As Thom stepped into the moonlit hallway the man quickly but quietly shut the door and set to relocking it. “Blast, they fell out of place. The picks I mean. One minute.”

 

The man struggled with the tools for what seemed like far too long. Someone ought to have noticed them by now. “Let me have a go,” said Thom stepping in. In less then half a minute the lock was already back in place. He handed the tools back to the giant of a figure behind him. “I'm a bit more...practiced.”

 

“Very good, very good. As I was saying then, come with me,” he strode down the hallway on his enormous human legs.

 

They climbed a set of stairs. No guards. Down the hallway.

 

Another set of stairs. No guards. Down a second hall. Where in the hells was everyone? Seamus expected him to escape but even this seemed unduly lax.

 

Another set of stairs. The environment of whatever building they were in changed from jail to bunkhouse to armory. It was some manner of military building but it was gutted and strangely empty. As they climbed the fourth set of stairs it occurred to him that this was the Rooksnest, the abandoned barracks the Bandyfords squatted over at the countryside's edge of the Muggin Quarter. For being in the middle of a Trouble it was odd the Bandyfords found little use for an honest to goodness fortress like this.

 

He'd expected to walk out onto another empty hallway when the man finally stopped. Thom grew anxious. He tugged on the cloak. “Is it a guard?”

 

“No, it's a door,” said the man as it swung open.

 

It was a big room, taking up much of whatever floor this was. The cold that seeped into his bones in that dank jail cell melted as Thom ran over to a fire. He'd become learned in ignoring pain, such that he hadn't noticed the numbness in his toes and fingers til now.

 

“I have bread, cheese, water, and a little meat left, if you're able to stomach it.” The man closed the door behind him and set the lock. “It's over there on the table.”

 

His muscles were burning back to life when he realized how hungry he was. Hands snatched, and a scratchy throat gulped down as much food as he could before he'd be forced to give it up again. He was so excited that the cheese fell out of his hand which brought him back to his senses. “Ahem...thanks...thank you, sir,” said Thom through a mouth full of food.

 

“No worries. You were in a cell for goodness sakes. Eat, eat...”

 

He proceeded to eat and drink a bit more slowly and walked back to the fire. The man was soon sitting at the hearth in a chair. In the light Thom could see a short red brown beard peppered with white on the man's chin. “Why...who are you?”

 

The man smiled but kept staring at the fire. “You can call me Valin, lord muggin. And you are Thom Garlic.”

 

“Valin...are you...is this...Seamus said...”

 

“Ah, Seamus. What an ugly little troll, eh?” his laughs were deep but subdued. Thom was too afraid to say anything, lest it get back to him. “You're caught up in one of his many schemes aren't you? He certainly lives up to a muggin's reputation. Oh, no offense.”

 

“None taken,” Thom ripped off another hunk of bread and stared at Valin as if staring could get him to keep talking.

 

“Well, you're probably wondering what this is all about,” the man produced a flask from his pocket and drank from it deeply.

 

“Yes, actually. Why did you...” was rescue the right word? He was still captive in the Rooksnest.

 

Valin smiled and his eyes twinkled. “Muggins are very good at understanding business, right? I need you to do something for me in exchange for what I'm going to do for you.”

 

With haste Thom finished the flagon of water. He had a feeling this was all a trick and he was about to be thrown back into a cell. “And what are you going to do for me?”

 

“Well, aside from rescuing you,” Valin reached behind him for a satchel. “Do your people have carpenters? Blacksmiths? Do the Thornroses have, um, artisans?”

 

They were the Thornrose Family. They owned docks and craftsmen all over the Overlands. It wouldn't exactly be letting out a big secret that Payla Thornrose could commission a hundred foot tall bust of herself in marble to stand in Ovelan. “Yes...”

 

“Good, good. Now, I have a feeling,” Valin became visibly excited at his own words, “that perhaps there is some loyalty left in you to stand by the Thornrose Family, yes?”

 

“I...I catch coins for...for whoever throws them my way...”

 

“Now Thom, the coins of a man who scarred his name on your ass aren't exactly worth catching, are they?”

 

He was in a bit of a bind. “What do you care? I'm...I'll be going back to...”

 

“Mr Garlic, if I have a defining trait, it would be that I'm not a fool,” he smiled and unlatched the satchel. “I'm actually well-versed in the politics of muggins, you know. You might say it was my area of expertise for a good number of years. Now take a look at this.” Valin handed him a strange looking smallbow. It was sleek and shiny with an odd gadget on one end.

 

“What is it?” Thom mounted it to his wrist and slung his fingers through the loops. It fit like any regular smallbow but it felt lighter although a tiny bit bulkier.

 

“I have another one over here, let me show you,” he stood and walked into the darkness and hovered over a table filled with tools and trinkets. To his word, he brought forth a small-bow strapped to his own wrist (albeit restructured to fit a man, so a crossbow really) and he set a number of bolts into the gadget hanging at its side. Thom suddenly felt startled and like he should hide, but Valin aimed it at a pockmarked wooden dummy on the other side of the room. “Are you watching?”

 

THWACK!

 

THWACK!

 

THWACK!

 

THWACK!

 

THWACK!

 

Five bolts!

 

“That...that's incredible!” A smallbow that reloads and resets with the ease of twitching your fingers!

 

Valin looked pleased. “Thank you, Thom. It's one of my more profitable talents. That one you have strapped to your wrist took me months to create actually. Making them the same but smaller is very time consuming.” He set the device back down on the table. “But all the others at the Bandyford workshops are being made much more quickly.”

 

“Bandyford...” Thom suddenly put two and two and three and five together. “You're a sage! You're a sage and they're forcing you to make weapons!”

 

Valin's smile didn't falter. “Yes, I'm being held prisoner here.”

 

“We can escape though!” Thom looked at the smallbow on his wrist. “Between the two of us we can-”

 

“No,” the smile on his face remained but the smile in his voice was gone. “It's not the stone bricks that are keeping me here. They own me. The Bandyfords are holding hostage some very precious people of mine, and I must comply until this muggin's war is all over...which is where this comes in,” he patted the satchel. It was full of more than just that one smallbow.

 

Thom suddenly felt a sting of pity for him, but it was raining all over, and it was time to get out of the storm. “What's in the satchel then?”

 

Valin opened it again and held out a stack of papers. The smile ran away from his face. The room suddenly felt very cold. “Prints. As many plans and prints as I could steal away that won't be missed. Each page contains little treasures like the one mounted on your wrist. You need to take them straight to Payla Thornrose.”

 

“Why are you helping us...me?” Thom had accepted poisoned help more than once in his life. He was taking the satchel, of that there was no doubt, but this wasn't adding up. “What do you gain from this?”

 

“If the Bandyfords win this trouble there's no guarantee that I'll ever see my precious ones again. For all I know they may already be dead. I need the Thornrose Family to liberate them and then myself. Then we'll see if we're able to turn the tide of war against them.”

 

“Where are they? Are they here below us?”

 

“No, they're being held outside of Gratham, but not far. My poor poor beloved...” a trick of the firelight made him look as though he were smiling, but his trembling voice held nothing but brave reserved tears.

 

They talked for another hour of liberating Sage Valin's loved ones and how to properly use and care for a quickbow (as Thom had named it) before he repelled down the side of the Rooksnest with the satchel swinging wildly against him and the bricks coated in dew. Something nagged at the back of his brain and seemed important but it vanished like a dream as he reached the wet grass and began the long dangerous journey back to the Nestle.