“Consider it a present,” Iados proclaimed. “Your tables and chairs have gotten worn, Lukkob You should think on this as a much needed blessing.”
“Only if you can pay for what you break.” Lukkob reached out with amazing speed and caught a metal tankard speeding toward him. The serving girls cheered again.
“What was the problem this time?” Shang-Li asked.
Kwan Yung stood nearby and dodged the occasional impromptu missile. His face held no expression, but his hazel eyes followed every movement.
“They insulted our serving girl.” Iados placed his empty hand on the head of an opponent and vaulted over. As he landed, he whipped his tail out, caught the man in the back of the skull before he could turn, and knocked him flat.
“Me!” one of the young women standing at Lukkob’s side said in a prideful way and clapped her hands enthusiastically. “They insulted me.” She put her cupped hands to her mouth. “You malodorous swine!”
“When Thava took umbrage with them” Iados began.
“Honor cried out for vengeance,” Thava rumbled in her deep voice. “I only answered to serve my god.”
She stood half a head taller than any of her attackers. Ocher scales trimmed in dulled gold covered her thickly muscled body. Her face was low-browed and wide, with golden eyes on either side of her snout. Her mouth was a curved beak that looked capable of snapping a man’s hand off without trouble. Darker ocher scales surrounded her neck and coils of scales slightly darker than her body scales formed horn-like structures that curled over her broad shoulders like human hair.
“the sailors mistakenly thought Thava was fair game as well,” Iados finished. “To complicate matters even worse, they didn’t know Thava was female. She felt horribly insulted.”
“How could anyone not know I was female?” Thava roared again as she flailed about with the flat of her bastard sword. Despite the possibility that the casual observer might miss the fact that Thava was female, there was no missing the actuality that her heritage had dragon mixed into it at some point. She opened her mouth and roared in the face of one sailor, who promptly fainted on the spot.
Shang-Li grinned. He’d missed the two fiercely these past months.
Iados tossed a man forward, narrowly missing Kwan Yung. The sailor tried to stop himself from sliding across the floor and finally succeeded amid a clatter of chairs. He took a fresh grip on his sword and pushed himself back up, roaring with rage.
Kwan Yung reached over to place a hand briefly on the back of the man’s neck and head. The sailor grinned suddenly, then dropped in a boneless heap. Noticing that Shang-Li had seen him perform the action, his father lifted an imperious eyebrow and looked away.
“Are you seriously not going to help?” Iados demanded. He slammed his buckler into the stomach of another man, then whirled, braced himself on his tail, and lashed out with a flying kick that knocked an opponent through the front window.
“If I do, who’s going to bail you out when the watch comes to arrest you?” Shang-Li asked.
“Surely the watch will be understanding,” Thava said. “This was a matter of honor.” She lashed out with a big hand and punched a man in the face.
The man went out like a candle flame in a wind and rolled up against the wall.
“The watch doesn’t understand honor nearly as much as you want them to,” Shang-Li said. “Now fines and punishment? They’re very clear about those things.”
Lukkob, the tavernkeeper, placed a tankard of hot tea in front of Shang-Li. “It’s good to see you, Shang-Li. It’s been a long time.”
“It has.”
Lukkob looked at Kwan Yung. “Would you like anything, master?”
“Master?” Kwan Yung stroked his beard and smiled in obvious delight.
“I have spent some time in a Shou monastery,” Lukkob said.
“To learn to fight, I suppose.”
“To learn to read. My father was very adamant about my life taking a different turn than his had. Reading was important to him, and it is to me.”
“Ah. So you listen to your father?” Kwan Yung shot a disdainful glance at Shang-Li.
“I did,” Lukkob agreed. “He’s gone from me now, but I knew him to be a very wise man.”
“It is so refreshing to hear a son praise his father,” Kwan Yung said. His elbow dug sharply into Shang-Li’s back as he bellied up to the bar. “Did you hear what he said?”
“Yes.” Shang-Li moved away and blocked a thrown chair with one of the fighting sticks. “He offered you tea.”
“Is it good tea?” Shang-Li heard his father sniff the tea he’d been given.
“Very good tea,” Lukkob replied. “A special blend that I have shipped in. You won’t find better tea in Westgate.”
“Then yes, please.”
The fight ended quickly. Near the end, with the grunts sounding winded and the blows coming with less enthusiasm, the watch arrived in their burgundy jackets and chainmail shirts. By that time, the mercenaries and sailors had realized they were totally outmatched and had started to flee.
The watch captured many of them before they could get away. Either they would be ransomed back to their ships or places of business by the watch, or they would be put to work for a time building new dock improvements in the city. Either way, their imprisonment wouldn’t be wasted.
“Who started this?” a watch sergeant demanded. She had fair hair and a good figure that the chainmail didn’t quite disguise. Attractive and self-assured, she commanded instant respect.
“Not us,” Iados blustered. “We were beset by these ruffians”
“We started the actual fighting,” Thava said.
Iados rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. Then he glared at Thava. “Must you persist in always putting the noose about our neck?”
Shang-Li smiled. Thava never lied, not even by omission, much to Iados’s chagrin. The paladin’s sense of honor had gotten them into bad situations before because her view was so black and white.
“I like her,” his father whispered. She’s very truthful.”
“The two of you?” the watch sergeant said in obvious disbelief. “You decided to take on a whole tavern full of mercenaries and sailors?”
“No. But some of these men made disparaging comments,” Thava replied.
“To you?” The watch commander said that with some disbelief. “They must have been deep into their cups.”
“To our server.”
The watch sergeant blinked. “They made disparaging comments to your server?”
“Me,” the serving wench sang out happily and waved her arms for attention as if she’d just won a prize. “They disparaged me.”
The watch sergeant shot the server an irritated glance. Then she glanced at Lukkob, who only shrugged and smiled. She looked back at Thava. “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to simply ignore those comments?”
Thava drew herself upright and looked almost offended. “No. It did not. Her honor was at stake. As was mine. I live for honor. It is as necessary to me as the air that I breathe.”
“Gods save me from paladins.” Cursing beneath her breath, the watch sergeant turned to Lukkob. “You’ve got someone to pay for this mess?”
Lukkob pointed at Iados and Thava. “Them.”
She turned back to the paladin and warrior. “You agree to this?”
“Of course,” Thava said. “This is an honorable debt. I could do no less.”
“You know,” Iados said, “since we’re traveling together, you might at least ask my consent before you speak for my purse.”
“Then will pay the debt,” Thava said. p›
“No you won’t,” Iados growled. “You haven’t enough coins for all this mess. You keep giving your coins away to churches and paupers.”
“Some of us follow a higher calling.”
“Some of us like to eat regularly and sleep in dry places.”
“Then I assume all the debt and you won’t have to pay a single copper.” Thava folded her massive arms as she turned once more to the watch sergeant. “I will gladly work off the debt.”