Roar - A Wardstone Short Story

***

Once at the festival grounds and settled, Bolly Heath and his wife Milvred, rounded up coins from a dozen other traders that trusted them. The old tinker handed Loudin a sack heavy with copper, silver, and more than a few gold coins. There was half a hundred gold pieces worth, in all. The problem was, people had already heard about the Valleyan Stallion. The current odds were barely two to one. After tonight’s preliminary bout, they would be even lower, for the Stallion was certain to pulverize the squat grappler from Xwarda he was supposed to fight.

“It’s not a lot then, is it?” Loudin asked, thinking just the opposite. He wasn’t out to rob these people. He was just brokering a wager for them after all. This was far more than he’d hoped to have to work with though. If he just kept betting on the Valleyan at even odds, he could win as much as the other way, but finding even odds would prove hard after this night.

“It’s a fair bit of coin if you ask me, sir Loudin,” Bolly said. “We’re hoping to get two coins to one in return, as you suggested.”

Loudin had faith that he could make enough to cover these folks investment, so he said he would get them their odds and was off. He found a reputable Wildermont gambling pavilion and placed all fifty gold pieces worth of coins, at even odds, on the Valleyan to beat the Xwardian in his first preliminary bought.

“Can’t you tell us who to be rootin’ for?” the trader asked when Loudin returned. Loudin chuckled, realizing these people though he just made a bet on the outcome of the entire competition and didn’t know who he’d taken.

“I can’t say,” Loudin smiled confidently, “But I wouldn’t be cheering for Willa the Witch’s man when the time comes.”

The trader was off then, spreading the word to those who’d trusted him with their earnings. They returned before long with new concerns.

It turned out that there were two Xwardian fighters in the preliminaries. Though the traders knew who not to cheer for, they still had no idea if it was the Westland Lion, or the Valleyan Stallion who was their man. They knew it had to be one of them, for they were the only two men fighting Xwardians. Loudin, out of sheer meanness, wouldn’t tell them which.

There were two contestants from Westland, one from Wildermont, and a man from Salazar Island that carried ship timbers for a living. Ungol was the only fighter that worried him. If that bastard managed to get in the Brawl, it was all for nothing. Loudin would end up a slave, or have to run for the rest of his life. He could only hope that the second round of preliminaries would match Ungol with the Stallion, or that Ungol was beaten early.

The days passed and the festival grew crowded. There were hundreds of pavilion tents, fold-open wagon displays, and even a score of folk who just laid their wares out on blankets, or in the grass. There were hawkers everywhere. They were selling everything from fresh baked bread, to fantastical potions, to daggers that never needed sharpening. Loudin took it all in and even tried to enjoy himself while he waited on the competitions to commence.

He spent a long afternoon looking at the strange names carved into the base of the towering spike that rose triumphantly up out of the middle of the Leif Greyn Valley. It was a solid piece of black stone that was at least two hundred paces tall. The base had three sides, about twenty paces wide each. It was on those smooth, yet otherwise featureless faces that the names of the champions from the yearly competition had been carved for more years than Loudin cared to imagine. The whole thing tapered slightly as it reached up into the sky. It had to be solid. It didn’t budge and sway when the occasional gust came blasting down out of the mountains, but every banner pole in sight did.

Who could have stood such a monolith, Loudin wondered? The Gods maybe? Or that monstrous dragon they say lives out in the marshes. Whatever the Spire was, it drew the people in each summer. It marked the middle of the sacred Leif Greyn Valley, and the heart of the Summer’s Day Festival, too.