Abhorrent Practices - Book 1

Chapter 9.3 - Dicing with Death (Scene 3: Teeth and Bones)

In the centre of the Drum, a thick sheet of canvas had been stretched taut over the four corner posts of one of the animal pens, creating a raised dais, and a table with two chairs had been placed on top. When Alyss protested that she'd never played Teeth and Bones, Brunlen informed her that "etiquette" allowed her to nominate a champion. Without hesitation, Perrick had volunteered, and she'd felt her eyelids grow heavy with tears welling beneath them. The tall merchant now sat in one of the two chairs, stoically facing the glare of Commander Priss Myre in the other.

News travelled fast in the Drum, and spectators crowded the rock path that ran around the sides in a spiral all the way up from the bottom to the surface. Since Brunlen had first acquired the Drum as his base of operations, it had become home to a dozen or more of the island's more prominent captains. Together with their crews and their families, the camp's population now numbered in excess of three hundred. It seemed to Alyss as if every one of them had turned out to watch the game, and judging by the slips of paper being frantically passed between them, it seemed they'd all placed bets on the outcome.

Farrer stood beside her. He'd been in conversation with Brunlen all morning, supposedly selecting crew members for the next leg of the Jennie's journey. Left alone, Alyss couldn't help but suspect they were also striking a deal that concerned her. She'd joined the crowds out in the centre of the Drum, and picked out a place on the path from which she could watch the match. It was higher than she'd have liked, but she could see Perrick and Priss clearly enough. She lowered the hood of her wax-coat, and drew out the pale green shawl she wore around her neck. AllFarrer would tell her about his discussions with Brunlen, was that, if Perrick won,Brunlen had agreed to give her safe passage to Durhoun. If he lost, she'd behanded over to the Knights of Endurance. The midnight green beads sewn into her shawl bit into her hands as they clenched tightly around the lace.

The excited chatter that filled the Drum died to a discreet murmuring as Brunlen appeared and approached the makeshift dais. Under his left arm, resting on his wooden hand, he carried a small mahogany casket with polished silver clasps. By the time he climbed the half-dozen wooden steps and mounted the canvas, a complete hush had fallen over the entire crowd.

"My friends," he announced, the hard rock of the Drum's walls carrying his booming voice all the way to the spectators at the top. "We are all accustomed to seeing disputes settled by a roll of the dice, but I guarantee you have never seen a match like this. Here, representing the formidable might of the Knights of Endurance is Commander Priss Myre, captain of the Endurian clipper, the Sanctity."

A subdued round of applause rippled reluctantly around the walls of the Drum. The crowd did not know Priss, but they knew the Knights of Endurance. They were always lobbying against the Orresian tradition of public executions. From the disgruntled muttering around her, Alyss guessed that most of the spectators had bet against her.

"Her opponent today is Perrick Gann, a simple merchant from the island of Thar." Perrick's introduction was greeted with far greater enthusiasm, and Alyss felt cheered to know the crowd was on his side. "At stake," continued Brunlen, "is nothing less than the fate of a young woman, all alone and far from her homeland; a beautiful young woman with no one but this fine man to call her friend."

Alyss's fingers tightened around her shawl. Almost everyone in the crowd seemed to know each other, and she feared someone would identify her as the "young woman" in question. She stole a hurried glance at the spectators to her left, and another at those standing to her right. To her relief, no one was paying her any attention. All eyes were focused on Brunlen, Priss and Perrick.

Priss was glowering at her opponent. She didn't trust Brunlen and, in her eyes, Perrick was every bit as bad as the Griellean woman herself. He was protecting her. He knew she was wanted for murder, and he was protecting her. It made her ashamed to be a Tharn.