Marla knocking on the door and calling “Peter? Are you awake?” woke him up. Lurching to his feet, he managed to unlatch the door and open it. “There you are!” He was prepared for the hug, but his strength hadn’t returned yet. Peter fell over backwards, thankful that what his head struck was the mattress. It still hurt.
“Good to see you, too, Marla. I think it’s time I ate some more.”
Marla sniffed his shirt. “A bath after that, I think.”
“Probably a good idea,” he said, not a second before he jammed a hunk of cheese into his mouth.
Marla went down to arrange a bath, and Egbert carried their things up from the animals for them. Peter stopped eating and started helping, though he felt he spent more time in the way. When their things were stowed, Marla rummaged around and selected clothing for him, took his hand, and dragged him to the bathhouse.
For once Peter didn’t make the slightest objection to her efforts to scrub him. He didn’t just let her do all the work, though. He just didn’t stop her. But when he was all scrubbed, he reached his arm out, grabbed her butt, and pulled her into the tub with him. He started scrubbing her.
Her biggest objection was that she started out with her head underwater by his feet.
Every step made Peter sleepier on the way back, and as a result he kicked off his boots and flopped onto the bed.
“The good news is that the next boat is due to arrive in two days. The bad news is that it doesn’t leave until four days after that.”
Peter looked at Marla, not awake enough to do the math. “And?”
“A fishing village in grasslands so far away from a major town doesn’t have much to do.”
“The way today has gone, I’ll sleep until then anyway. Are we taking the dire goats with us?”
Marla looked to Egbert, who was leaning in the doorway to be part of the discussion. She looked back to Peter and asked, “dire goats?”
“Well, the lynx the size of a tiger was called a dire lynx, so I figured you would call a goat the size of a donkey a dire goat.
“No, we call them a horny ass.”
Peter’s eyes went wide, threatening to pop out of his face. He bit down, hard, in order to prevent the laughter from coming out. Tilting his head and turning it to the side, he took a deep breath through his nose and said, “I think that one gets lost in translation.”
“Why?”
“Well, another name for a donkey is a jackass or just ass. The word ass is also used to mean butt, bottom, bum … whatever other names there are. Calling a person an ass can be comparing them to a donkey, but it can also be short for asshole, what we call your anus. Horns are horns, and an animal with large or multiple sets of horns could be called horny. But horn is also a word people use to refer to an erect penis, so someone who is aroused or desires to commit sexual acts is called horny. Which makes a horny ass someone who is mean or rude wanting to have sex.”
“None of that made sense to me,” Egbert said.
“I think I got it, barely,” Marla added. “Peter isn’t from our realm. He was given a charm that translates for him. It’s usually pretty good, but weird things happen sometimes.”
“That explains a lot. Yeah, it answers quite a few questions I’ve had.”
“Back to your question, Peter, taking the horny asses with us will likely be more trouble than they’re worth. They might make it slightly easier to transfer boats when we get to town, but we would also have to bring enough feed for them and clean up after them. Why? Did you get attached to them?”
“No, I was just wondering. Is there anything at all we need to do before getting on the boat?”
“Sell the horny asses. This trading post doesn’t have much useful to us. You can eat and sleep as much as you want for the next six days or so.”
“If you’d like to learn more about using that staff or sword to defend yourself, I’ve got just as much free time as you.”
“Not relying on luck would probably be a good thing. I doubt I’ll be much good at it, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Well, I’ll likely get hurt trying, that’s the nature of the practice, isn’t it?”
“We’ll start tomorrow morning, then.” Egbert nodded and returned to his room.
“He’s a nice man. He’s done a lot that he didn’t need to.”
“Yeah, it seems odd, but I get the feeling it’s genuine, not manipulation or subterfuge.”
“I hope so.”
When Peter woke up the next morning, Marla had one leg over both of his and an arm over his chest. She may have been overly familiar and not shy about sleeping close, but this was new. He smiled and stared at the ceiling until he started to doze off again.
Marla stirred, heaving herself up on her hands and knees above him, kissed his forehead, and left the room. Peter’s eyes had been closed, but he didn’t think he could have been mistaken for asleep. Sunlight was filtering through the shutters now, so he got up and ready, but sat on the bed to enjoy the peace and quiet for a few more minutes.
“Oh, good, Egbert’s waiting for you downstairs,” Marla said as she slipped back into the room.
“Good morning. I guess it’s time for me to go, then.” He stood and reached for his staff.
“Good luck.”
Egbert was indeed waiting downstairs. They walked out of the village to a flat patch of ground near the river. “Today will mostly be about footwork. How you stand changes how well you can hit and how easily you can move to avoid being hit. We’ll also go over things like how to hold your weapon and swing without hurting yourself or putting yourself in harm’s way.”
They spent at least an hour at it. Egbert had him switching between four stances and rapped him on the shins whenever his feet were placed wrong. Not hard, but his shins were still bruised. Peter understood the reasoning behind it, felt which stance to be in to be rather intuitive, but he struggled with getting his footing correct.
Finally heading back to the inn for breakfast, Peter intended to spend the day catching up on his journal.
The boat did indeed arrive as expected. A company of engineers from the capital were there to plan a road up to the pass. Peter wished them luck and said something about lots of bridges that got him confused or uncomfortable looks.
Arrangements were made to sail down the river to the lake. Three more days until they leave. They could not leave any sooner. Peter and Marla would have a cabin, Egbert would bunk with the crew. It would be about a week on the river, plus a few days when they stopped at other villages on the way.
Peter expanded his repertoire to a dozen stances, as well as fighting with four lengths of weapon whether round or edged. On the third day of lessons, they tried sparring. Peter’s ribs hurt, but he didn’t think anything was broken. Sometimes Marla watched, she even practiced alongside them occasionally. It was actually nice to have something of a routine to his day again, Peter decided.
The boat wasn’t anything fancy, just a river barge. It might have been twenty feet wide, and four or five times as long. Below decks was for cargo, on the main deck were a few small shacks that were getting called cabins. In the case of Marla’s, just a room big enough for the bed, which barely fit the two of them on it.
It seemed river barges were fairly stable, but they did still rock slightly. Sparring on a moving vessel turned out to be a bad idea, as evidenced by Peter’s bloody nose. Footwork was harder, but the increased challenge motivated him to try harder.
While there were trees along the river, there wasn’t a forest. They still saw the rolling plains sliding by. There were herds of the tusked bison, presumably wild. Peter spotted several other species of herbivorous megafauna. He spent most of his time in the cabin working on his journal and napping, or avoiding the crew and other passengers, but Marla dragged him out for fresh air regularly.
It was an uneventful week, really. Peter didn’t fall overboard. There were no rampaging animals. By the time the larger town on the lake came into view, he was on edge, expecting something to go wrong.
The lake was massive. It stretched to the horizon, unbroken. Peter hadn’t expected it. No wonder they wanted a larger boat to cross it. It seemed, however, they were out of luck on that front. None of the ships in port were leaving any time soon. Instead of finding an inn, the three went to the guard barracks first. There was plenty of room for them. Peter’s lessons continued. He had more instructors here, more sparring partners, and more equipment. He felt he might actually be making progress.
A week into their wait, they discovered why none of the ships were going out on the water. One limped into port, listing and visibly damaged. Peter and Egbert went down to the pier while it docked. While he didn’t know much about sailing, Peter was in far better condition than most of the crew and started helping under their direction, not even thinking.
“Thanks, lad, the men are lucky we made it here.”
“I’ve only recently arrived in town. What is going on out there?”
“The lake has always been home to serpents, but usually they leave us alone. Something’s got them riled up. We found out what. A couple young dragons. Young and stupid enough to be a nuisance.”
“How likely are we to find a ship willing to go out there?”
“Where are you heading?”
“The capital, ultimately.”
“That’s clear the other side of the lake. Not a chance, unless the dragons and serpents are taken care of.”
“I was afraid of that. Thanks for the news.” Peter left, finding Egbert waiting. “It seems a couple young dragons have moved into the area and have the lake serpents riled up. It’s not safe to cross the lake by ship until they’ve been dealt with.”
“I heard similar stories. Looks like we have our work cut out for us. Or we need to buy a smaller boat and hug the shore.”
“No road going around?”
“Nothing worth travelling on.”
“You’re free to proceed how you want, but I’m consulting Marla.”
“We still stand the best chance if we stick together.”
“That’s good.”
Marla was not pleased with the news. None of the guards were, either. The local captain wanted to send a messenger to the Capital. Peter hid in his bunk and tried to ignore all the noise.