Wanted: six brave swords for the capture of a beast spotted in the foothills of the mountains.
The handbill fluttered in the winter breeze and threatened to tear itself away from the community board. These boards were often filled with jobs like this, layered between lurid ads for brothels. Calls to all wayward adventurers to take up arms and do a great a great deed for the poster. The jobs themselves ranged from trivial to suicidal and Eddard had always given the postings a wide berth out of a deep need for self preservation. It was a terrible way to make a living.
Eddard pulled his cloak a little tighter against the cold and chanced a glance at the city gates across the square. The chill had slowed the market but the gates that led out of the city bustled with more guards than ever. They were checking everyone. A farmer with a cart piled high with hay threw his hands up in a heated argument with one of the guards, flailing as he tried to explain his outrage. The guard shrugged his shoulders and nods to his compatriot at the the other side of the checkpoint. A sword is drawn and the farmer screamed as the guard began to stab randomly at the hay bale over and over again. Resistance is met and the guard's sword draws back red. The farmer stops waving his hands, letting them dangle mid-sentence. The guard reached a finger out and swiped the stain from the wet edge. He smelled it. Then he tasted it. Beneath the cart, smuggled wine drained through the false bottom of the cart.
Ed winced and tore the bill from the board. Mercenaries weren't checked as closely, already carrying most of the contraband the city watch would be looking for as a matter of profession. It was a terrible way to make a living, but it would have to do for slipping out of the city.
Pulling the mouth of his bag open, he did a few quick calculations. He took one coin and set it on the back of his knuckles. It was different from the others, carved from a knot of dark wood, worthless to anyone but him. This escape would wipe out nearly all the profits from the debacle that got him into this mess in first place. He'd probably even lose money on the way out. Still, escaping with only part of his take sure beat the hell out of being thrown out with most of his neck.
Eddard looked around the rest of the market: a Furrier, a Leatherworker, a Blacksmith, a seamstress. The coin rolled effortlessly across his fingers and settled his stomach. The scam began to sketch itself on the inside of his head. With a smile he threw the coin into the gutter and hefted the small bag of gold experimentally. Just a little bit of this; mixed with a little bit of that. As he walked into the blacksmith his steps carried a new swagger, his chest puffed up and forward. His voice a new deeper timbre.
"What do you have by way of cheap crap?"
It took Ed hours to source what he needed from the market and as he strode into the Old Bones Public House the lamplighters had given up battling the falling snow. The heavy oak door hammered against the wall, drawing all eyes on him. He's freezing, opting for a massive fur slung across his shoulders in lieu of an actual shirt. Shirtless he's lean but sinewy, but between the thrusting posture and in the dim candlelight he could pass for muscular. At the far end of the tavern a small crowd of armed people looked up from a map they were considering to see his obnoxious entrance. A red headed woman wearing an eye patch cocks her eyebrow in his direction. Eddard swore under his breath. There were already five people standing around a bulldog of a man in the center.
"Oh?" Ed's voice boomed as he stomped across the room, his heavy boots echoing across the floorboards. He felt like a stilt walker on the two inch lifts he had put into the soles. His center of gravity swung precariously as he leaned low to swipe a tankard from a stunned man at the bar. He drained the tankard as he lurched toward the party of would-be monster hunters, sharing most of the amber ale with his chest and the floorboards. "I see I might be too late. Shame! I wonder how many of you might die without me." Ed dropped himself into the chair opposite the bulldog. Sitting hunched over and draped in the stinking matted fur shirt it was hard to assess how large he really was. He hoped so at least
The woman leaned onto the table. Her heavy breasts pushed forward and Ed took a moment to really get into character by ogling them them. Something dark flashes across the bulldog's face, then he gives the slightest of nods to the redhead. "And who might you be?"
"My name is Magnaboad, 'Magnaboad the great.', 'Magna the cursed' I've come to offer my services but I see you've already divvied the shares. Shame!" Ed gestured with the steel tankard as he speaks. Waving it through the air he let it dip beneath the table, dropping and catching it between his knees. On his way up he pulled the tin tankard he had made special at the blacksmith from his fur. He keeps it moving as he speaks. "I weep for the loss of a great battle!" Ok. Maybe this is laying it on a little thick, but he'd done the strongman scam before. The bigger asshole you are, the more people ignore your words and the longer the lie lasts.
The redhead laughed, but her smile showed too many teeth. "Don't we all Magna?" She leaned lower across the table. Her face inches from Ed's. She flipped up her eye patch revealing an eye that flickered orange in the dim of the tavern. It takes Ed a moment to realize that it was reflecting the candles on the table behind her head.
Ed's mouth was suddenly very dry. The glass eye swiveled impossibly in its socket. He kept his face stony but wondered just how magical the eye was. Could it see the future? A lie detector?
Satisfied with whatever she was looking for she turned to the leader who placed his huge scarred hands onto the table. When he spoke his voice had a surprising high pitch to it. "My name is Ogden. I won't bullshit you. Marion and I could probably do this alone. but you never know how strong one of these freaks are so we wanted to play it safe with some local talent. As the selection today was a little lacking," Ogden jerked his free thumb at a tall thin man behind him. The man's face sunk with hurt. "We'll hear you out So what can Magnaboad 'the great' do that he can't?"
Ed grinned widely. A great big bozo grin. Shifting forward in his seat, he leaned uncomfortably close to the redhead's face. So close he could smell her; Pine needles and blood. He set the fake tankard on top of the table, hand flat over the mouth. "I was cursed," He said dramatically. "To be the strongest!" In one motion Ed crushed the cheap tin beneath his palm and slipped the real tankard under his chair with his hidden hand. The party went silent and even the woman with the clear eye seemed impressed. The thin man audibly gulped.
"Well Magna, can I call you Magna? I'm Marion." The woman leaned forward, pressing her impressive cleavage farther up in her low cut tunic, threatening the lacework at the top. Ed was grateful for Magna's thick leather pants as he went hard under the table. She glanced back over her shoulder at Ogden's impassive face. "I've seen what we need to see to let you in. We've already promised skinny here a spot on the team though, so you'll have to be paid out of the plunder. The creature's traveling alone so it's bound to have something you can take with you. "
"I live only for the glory of battle!" Eddard shouts. That was too much. He had to clutch his chin dramatically to avoid laughing at the corny line. Marion just smiled and laughed, extending her hand across the table to shake his. Her grip was firm and it crushed his fingers a little. Another flawless infiltration. "So what are we hunting?"
"An exile. It's hiding up in the woods just north of here." The colour drained from Ed's face and he saw Marion smirk at him.
"Oh."
Orcs generally kept to themselves, preferring their own ancient customs to remain untainted by needless contact with human kind. You'd hear stories of traders making deals with them in times of famine or drought but the only contact most humans ever had was with exiles.
Exiles were dangerous. Usually disgraced chieftains whose blood debts prevented their outright execution, the caravan turned their back on them and cast them out. Exiles headed North, boiling with anger and shame. They raged across the countryside, razing entire towns to the ground by themselves.
Eddard once hid bare naked beneath an overturned dung cart for six hours during such an attack. He heard the Orc pacing among the fires shouting their worthiness to anyone that would hear. He sounded so sad.
"This one was spotted heading into the cave system here" Marion drew a line from the misshapen box that was supposed to be the town on the map into the little chevron trees on the outskirts. "It had something wrapped in leather on its back. Something wider at one end."
"A battleaxe." One of the other party members nodded sagely. Ed hadn't bother to learn his name or even his face really. Sell swords all tended to be the same sort of weasel haggard guys. "A favourite among their kind." Possibly the same man says, Ed wasn't really paying attention. The others hum and haw in agreement. They were nervous. Not nearly as nervous as they should be.
Edward himself had no intention of being anywhere near an orc on a rampage. The woods were a good place to slip a group. Or "twist your ankle" en route.
Ogden kept his beady bulldog eyes on him all through the briefing. Finally he clasped his hands together. "That's the plan then, sneak to the cave in the dark. Then kill or capture the orc before it gets a chance to get to that battleaxe."
"A masterstroke Mr. Ogden" Eddard as Magna said "Let us drink tonight and tomorrow we will crush the exile!"
Marion shook her head and got up from her chair. "No, get whatever shit you have Magna. We're leaving in ten minutes. I want its head nice and early in the morning." She watched Ogden herd the mercenaries out the back of the tavern. He paused to shoot Marion a look. The man's face smoldered with anger "You're going in the back of the cart with me "
