The Legend of El Shashi Read Online Free Page A

you slobbered over my hand like some hog at the trough–disgusting!”
    Our audience roared and hooted. Shame made me angry enough to momentarily burn through the fug in my head. Leaning across the table, I shot back, “Have you something intelligent to say, Rubiny? That’s what I meant. Because way I see it, this beer makes for the better company!”
    Some distant part of me could not believe what had just spilled from my lips. It cried that the goose was loose, that the Alldark Hounds had been unleashed and the recall whistle tossed into the ocean’s blackest depths. Another part of my quatl cheered lustily. This makh, for the first time, Arlak was man enough to speak his mind plain and clear.
    I felt sick.
    I may as well have driven my hunting knife between her ribs. Rubiny’s features blanched to a dreadful pallor and she sagged like a half-drained wineskin, clutching the nearest chair back for support. Tears started in her eyes, a sight I had never seen before–but, rather than summoning the herald for a victory chant, I pictured myself slinking away beneath the tables as a cur flees the beating of a master’s stick.
    Thick silence enfolded us.
    An apology should have been in order. Instead, all I could grit between my teeth was, “I care for nought but a quiet drink, Rubiny o’Telmak. Now leave a man be.”
    I saw her spin, but I never saw what she held. Pain exploded in my jaw. I dropped as though I had been kicked by an angry jatha.
    Next, I remember being sprawled beneath the wooden bench I had been sitting on, watching an ulinbarb-twig broom sweeping toward my tender skull.
    The morn was upon me .

Chapter 2 : Elaki Fountain
     
    Riddle me rhyme, riddle me ree,
    What silk ties tighter ,
    Than Getha madi?
    Traditional Hakooi handfasting ceremony: Love Knot
     
    There was no athocary at Telmak Lodge, so I had to make do with pinching shut the gash on my chin and continuing my journey. I fingered the bruised skin with grudging admiration. It would scar later.
    Rubiny must have struck me with a goblet. Roymere goblets are hardwood on a cast ormetal base, with a moulded ormetal rim, often carved with pithy sayings or charred with the heated tip of knife in a process called umanthi. Evidently they made for serviceable clubs as well as drinking vessels. Surely no woman alive could otherwise possess such strength of arm?
    For once, I had stood up to her and not just meekly bowed my head. Good. Served her right, the number of times she had humiliated me!
    Anyways, best I forget my a dder-tongued nemesis. I should find a sweet girl to grace my home–a Janos phrase shop-worn by recent overuse. A vein throbbed at my temple. Gods, I had anna ahead to sample life’s richness. Staid and settled at my age? I should think not!
    Why did thinking about her always make me fume? Rubiny o-blasted Telmak! So much for Janos’ jerkin improving her favour. Rubiny had proved her favour upon my jaw instead.
    The day’s travel was thirsty work, made thirstier by the lingering queasiness of my abused innards. My hangover pounded like Janos’ forge at full blast. A sultry humidity rose in waves from the tilled fields and the cloying burnt-umber scent of bragazzar woods alongside the track tickled my nostrils with gritty pollens. I removed my undershirt and let the sweat run freely down my neck and chest. At a small river crossing I paused to refresh myself, but after a makh or two in the muggy depths of Hadla’s Skirts, the cool waters seemed but a fever-dream. I tossed the jatha their head, and slumped into a lolling doze upon the sun-drenched bench of my cart.
    In the l ate afternoon, the weather broke in a thunderstorm that grumbled and snarled overhead like an elderly dog which has lost his former menace. I ducked beneath the cart to shelter from the short but heavy shower that followed. Come nightfall, I carefully set about my camp the tripwires and bell-snares that would warn of a wolf’s approach–knowing I had to sleep or