Part 2 of a fantasy short story (Set in the world of my upcoming novel!)
Estimated read time is: ~10 minutes. (Word Count = 2187)
See Part 1 here
III.
The old man gingerly set down his massive pack as he and Triph reached the camp. Triph had thought to offer his help in carrying the weight but the old man had looked determined hoisting the bag upon his shoulders. Plus it was too soon to make his move.
The walk back had not taken long, the hardest part for Triph was getting his bearings. He had not been careful walking out, when he went to find the source of the music, but the old man pointed him in the direction he had come from, and they walked together along the water until the scenery started look more familiar to Triph. The forest was less dense here, and the trees ever so slightly more organized, like the pathing of a true woodfarm. Triph smiled when he saw the small bundles of the bedroll and the tablecloth and his pack in the distance. He was not happy to be back to camp, he was happy for other reasons.
The old man looked around the small disheveled camp. The earth under in the area had been packed down over the days of Triph’s stay. Triph had not taken note of this. “Have you been here long?” asked the man.
“About a week,” said Triph.
“What brought you here?”
“That damned sheriff,” snapped Triph before he could think, it was only a moment before he feigned a smile across his face.
“Ah yes, there are many such songs in this world,” said the old man standing near his pack.
“None like mine,” said Triph. He sat on the forest floor and pulled out one of the smoked sausages from under his blanket. He took out his knife and sawed off the bottom fifth of the link. He held it out to the old man who took it and both began to eat.
A few moments of silent chewing rolled across the men before the old man spoke. “Thank you,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Triph, finishing his bite. “You look like you’ve gone a long time without some red meat. You’re all bones.” He laughed.
“I have been travelling for a while,” said the old man, sitting on the forest floor next to his pack, close to Triph. He set the sausage on his lap and pulled a flute off his pack and lay it next to the sausage link. “I would like to know more about why you are travelling,” he said. “How long has it been since the incident with the sheriff?”
“You don’t mind that I’ve had a run in with the law?”
“The heroes of many songs have run afoul of the law, that does not make them bad people. They are not a bad focus for a story or song.”
“Alright then,” said Triph, shrugging his shoulders. He looked up towards the treetops and grinned. “It was all her fault, the Sheriff’s daughter.” He looked back at the old man for a reaction. There was none, but he had not taken another bite of his food. “I had to pay her dowry somehow.”
“So it was a tale of love,” said the old man.
“Sure,” said Triph. “She was damn fine if you don’t mind me saying, damn fine. Prettiest girl I’d ever convinced to sit on my lap at the tavern. I was new to town so I wasn’t sure if she was the prettiest or richest in town but it didn’t matter. She was mine right then. Problem was, she was old fashioned. Well, she wasn’t too old fashioned,” he paused looking up again at the trees, smile not leaving his face, “but her old man was very old fashioned and I guess she took after him in that sense. Wanted a wedding and I said no, but she said yes so I asked her to be my bride. She called me a fool and said I had to ask her father. Now like I said, I hadn’t been there long, but I’d been there long enough to know that the sheriff was a miser. The damn girl wouldn’t be cheap, so I needed money. And it is a fault of mine, but I am an impatient man at times. I wanted her as my bride and I wanted that now.
Triph paused his story and looked down from the treetops back at the man. “You want something to drink?” he asked.
“I have plenty of water,” said the old man.
“No,” said Triph, reaching down to the bottom of his pack and removing a wooden flask. “Do you want something to drink?”
“I am fine, thank you though. Please continue telling me your story.”
Triph took a gulp from the flask and exhaled. “Sure, so like I was saying, I needed money now. There were no towns close that I could go and do business in so I was stuck making money locally. I was lucky though, when I’d first come to town I’d been thorough,” he took another swig from the flask. “I knew that in the basement of the tavern there was a cobbler who set up shop.”
“Why in the tavern’s basement?” asked the old man. He seemed to be taking in each detail and committing it to memory as Triph spoke.
“Not sure, heard he was some hermit and didn’t like people none too much.”
“How interesting.”
“Yeah, so anyway, I figured that the old cobbler didn’t have a whole lot of friends, and his shoes weren’t cheap, so I knew he had money down there. It all lined up when I heard a rumor that the tavern keeper kept most of his money down in the basement too. It was the biggest joint in town, so that had to be a lot of loot.” He paused, but the old man just watched. He couldn’t sense any judgment in the old eyes watching him tell the story. Maybe he wouldn’t have to hurt or kill the old man. It could go better that way. He continued unbidden.
“One night I stay out drinking there, only as I do, I have one of the back corner windows cracked. When the bartender wasn’t looking I snapped off the lock too, just in case, then made it look all solid and closed. When the shop closed up and me and the other patrons got the boot I waited outside. A half hour passed and all the lights went out. I waited another half hour and then I snuck in.
“My eyes are pretty good in the dark so I got around without nudging any tables or kicking any chairs. The place was pretty clean so it was easy to move through without shaking anything up. Plus I’d spent my fair share of time aquatinting myself with the joint prior to the job at hand. The cellar door was behind the bar and it opened up with a creak. Nothing to be done about it at that point. I didn’t hear any other sounds or movement, so I went down.
“It was dark down there, but there was still enough moonlight making it through the tiny windows and the cellar door for me to do my work. After a bit of shuffling and searching I found the chest I’d come for. I don’t even think it was locked. It’d be a better story if I had to pick the lock though, no?” He looked at the old man, but there was no response. He was sure that would get a response, the man seemed to be loving his story. He was just about to begin again when the old man spoke.
“You aren’t sure?” he asked. Triph smiled, the man had taken the bait. It really was a good story to tell.
“Never got the chance to check. Heard a noise behind me and saw the cobbler. Must have woke him when I was looking around. He had something in his hand and he swung it at me, and, well, you can’t instigate something like that without accidents happening.”
“Did you hurt him?” asked the old man.
“Accidents happen and he swung first,” said Triph. He waited for a rebuttal but none came. The man just looked at him. Triph found his eyes looking up at the treetops again. Evening was setting in and there was a chill in the air moving the points of the trees.
“So the noise we made down there caused a real ruckus and the barman came down. Well he was armed and after he saw what had happened down there he could not be convinced of any other path. He took me to the sheriff that night and they locked me up. I was lucky he was a law-abiding man.”
“Did you escape?”
“Nothing so fancy. I heard the sheriff and his daughter arguing late into the night from my cell. They lived there, above the jail and the cells.”
“Very small town.”
“But when morning came, the sheriff came for me anyway. Not sure how the whole damn town heard the news, but they were all around the chopping clock that the sheriff was walking me towards.”
“And his daughter?” asked the old man. He seemed to be hanging on every word that left Triph’s mouth.
“Crying her eyes out, front and center. Sheriff had to have seen it too. He had a black mask on but the whole town knew it was him. Ceremony and all. But to my surprise, and you won’t believe this, he leaned in real close, just before we crossed into the crowd at the block and whispered ‘Run boy. Never let me see you again, and run!’ Well I didn’t need to be told twice. I elbowed his gut to make it look real and then I ran. I ran and I ran and then I looked up and was passed the town and the farms and I was in these woods.”
Triph’s eyes left the treetops and made contact with the old man’s. He looked away, and it was the first time Triph thought, since he had started talking that the man had stopped staring at him. He took a bite of the sausage he had left in his hand and washed it down with the flask.
“That is a sad tale,” said the old man, his voice carried by the gentle wind as he looked out into the woods.
“I survived it though, so sad is it may be, it had a happy ending.”
“That is good, but it does not make it happy, it was a good story though. I think I will make a song tonight.”
“Tonight?” Triph said. He looked around and realized how dark it had gotten. The sun was below the trees and was almost below the horizon. They had not started a fire. Triph wasn’t sure how the old man might react to burning the wood.
“I make the best songs during sleep,” said the old man.
“I’ve never heard of that,” said Triph, yawning. “But I’ve never spoked to a musician before either. I always thought you’d be a weird bunch.”
“I don’t think we’re all that strange,” said the old man and Triph laughed. “Well, it is getting dark, I must be setting up my bed now before too much of the night falls.” He stood and hoisted his pack onto his shoulders.
“Don’t go too far! I want to hear that song in the morning,” said Triph.
The old man chuckled as he walked away, his laugh was a soft as his voice and it flowed through the air like music. He lifted a flute to his mouth and began quietly playing a tune.
Triph watched where the man went into the woods, he had a hunger in his eyes. He took another swig of the flask and as the sun went down, the hunger faded away and his eyelids grew heavy. “Maybe no fire tonight,” he said quietly to himself as he lay down on his bedroll. The last thing he saw as his eyes closed for sleep was the sausage link he gave to the old man, alone and uncared for on the forest floor.
IV
Music played in the forest as the sun rose above the treetops. The forest floor was pristine as the finest of woodfarms. It looked untouched everywhere save for a small fire pit next to an empty bedroll. The bedroll had a blanket and tablecloth nearby, and leaning against a tree was a pack full to the brim. It was packed to tightly that the seams were beginning to wear on the corners, but there was no person to carry it. Everything looked placed, as if from above. There was not a single footstep in the floor that could have brought it there. Deeper and deeper into the woods, beyond the order of the woodfarm and into the natural part of the forest there walked an old man. He was playing a song on a flute. The flute was new, and the song sounded like something played in a tavern.
The End.
(11/14/2021)
Thanks for giving that a read! The best way to support my work (for now) is comment below, check out a pledge, and share my work however you like.
Love ya!
Max