The Golden Village had been founded by pilgrims and devotees of the Way, and as such, taverns and their like were not allowed within the village. This ancient law, however, did not stop its denizens from walking half a mile to the other side of the village border to have a drink at one of the three resident taverns: Maiden Molly’s, the Red Fox, and the Pretty Priestess.
Each tavern had its own distinct allure. Maiden Molly’s was run by a beautiful widow and her daughters, who drew in the young crowd looking for laughs and dance. The Red Fox was a more prestigious establishment haunted mostly by older men and their distinguished wives, tired of drinking wine at home and craving the company of others like them—the Pretty Priestess was the least distinguished of the taverns. It was a long, low building that may have once been a stable, in which some hopeful had found it fit to erect a long, rough bar out of broken slats of pine. Where once pigs and dairy cows had been penned in for the night, now sat the Golden Valley’s less scrupulous crowd—scalawags, mean-faced traders from the West, half-starved youths looking for work, old mercenaries, and thieves. Supposedly, the tavern had once been run by a young woman of stunning beauty, who’d become the shame of the Godskeep when it was discovered that she was actually a local priestess who had mysteriously vanished months before. When Sonder had first heard this tale, he had thought the whole thing was excessively amusing and had decided he must pay it a visit.
“Mum would never let me come here,” Connal was saying in hushed tones as Sonder led the young man inside.
“Your mum will never know,” Sonder said with ease, fairly pushing him indoors. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll grab us a drink.”
Sonder waded through the crowd. The tavern was thick with bodies, mostly travelers drawn to the Valley by the upcoming Midsummer Festival. Some were pilgrims (gods, had they picked the wrong tavern!), some were workers hired to help set up for the festivities, and all were drinking. He grinned at the barmaid, a big woman named Mal, and ordered two ales. Returning with ale in hand, he found Connal sitting uncomfortably at a little table in the far corner, his eyes wide and darting about quickly at the throng of drinkers that pressed ever closer to his seat.
“Drink up Connal,” Sonder said, setting down their tankards. He raised his in salute, “To the Holy Guard. May we one day progress from marching in circles.” He took a good, deep drink of his ale.
“Aye,” Connal said in a small voice, barely heard over the cacophony of the Pretty Priestess’ other patrons. He wasn’t drinking.
“Have you never had an ale before?”
He shook his head, likely blushing again, though it was hard to tell in the darkness of the tavern.
Sonder grinned, “Your mum won’t know, trust me. It’s just like drinking any other drink. Tip back your glass and take a swallow.”
Connal hesitated, looking uncertain. Sonder took another drink of his own, to encourage the man. His tankard was almost empty already.
“Right,” Connal said, and tipped back his glass—and kept tipping, and tipping, and tipping until there was no more left to tip. He slammed the mug down, belched loudly, and gave Sonder a sheepish look.
“Pardon milord, er, Sonder.”
Sonder in turned raised his eyebrows in approval and nodded his head, “Not bad,” he said. He raised his tankard in the air and shouted, “Another ale here!”
“Not another!” Connal said in a harsh whisper, scandalized.
“Connal,” Sonder said in his most serious tone, “If you are going to be a world-renowned warrior, you must learn to drink properly.”
“Must I?”
He nodded, “Yes. You’ll be an absolute laughing stock if you don’t.”
Connal had no time to protest as one of the serving boys, a handsome, if a bit gangly, young man came with more ale for the pair of them. Sonder gave him a winning smile and finished his first drink with a flourish.
“There you are, Jonuh,” he said, depositing the empty tankard onto the young man's tray. “And keep them coming won’t you?”
“Aye sir,” the serving boy replied, smiling as well. “Making up for lost time?”
Sonder laughed, “Teaching a new recruit how it’s done.”
Jonuh left to attend other guests, but his eyes lingered on Sonder from across the room. Sonder was feeling in quite a good mood all of a sudden.
“Lost time?” Connal asked.
Sonder grimaced. That good mood was short lived.
“I did not frequent this fine establishment while I was still in preparation for the priesthood,” He started. “When I, uh, turned my attention away from that life and toward my life as a warrior in training, I developed a…certain taste.”
Connal stared, uncomprehending.
“For ale,” Sonder said roughly. “And gambling. And late nights with strangers.”
Connal took another drink.
“Have you ever played dice before, lad?” Sonder asked.
Connal nodded, “Me and my friends would play with Tomm Kinsded’s dice when we were young.”
“And I’m sure it was very exciting. Gambling for pennies is a bit different than tossing the dice for all the gold in your purse,” Sonder said with a scoff. “I think it’s high time you played a real game. Come,” he stood, drink in hand, “let’s find you an adversary.”
The young man looked uncertain, but followed Sonder anyway. He was starting to actually like this one. Sonder had been with the Holy Guard a few months now. Every couple of weeks, lads like him showed up to training, eager to become part of the famous troupe. Once they saw all that silly marching, however, they threw down their puny practice swords and headed for home, back to selling pies, working in the fields, working wood…back to their little, quiet lives, laughing at how silly the once respected Guard had become. But Connal had stayed. Whether it was out of his apparent admiration of Sonder or out of a naive thirst for glory and renown, Sonder was not entirely sure. The lad did seem to like him, but the fact that Connal had apparently been so eager to prove himself that he had ended up in a fight with another recruit before training had even begun made Sonder think there was more drive in him than he let on.
Sonder led Connal through the crowds to a large, round table at which were seated five grizzly looking men, surrounded by a gaggle of drunken onlookers, men and women, in various states of cleanliness. They were all intent on the game the men were playing, but looked up when Sonder approached. Many met his eyes with friendliness and recognition. No one stared. No one looked at him with grim accusation in their eyes.
“Is there not another chair for me?” Sonder asked with mock offense. “Someone bring me a chair. I’ll be playing the next round. Connal, stand close and see how it’s done. You’ll play next.”
“Aye milor—Sonder,” the boy returned, standing close behind Sonder, who was now seated in an old wooden chair that a man with braided hair pulled up for him.
“Place yer bets boys,” said one of the men at the table. He had a harsh, scar-crossed face framed by a mass of matted dark hair and an equally unruly beard. Sonder had never seen him in the Pretty Priestess before—not odd in the season of travel, but there was something entirely other about the scar-faced man. Something impressive. The table at which they sat had been pushed into a corner formed by one of the tavern's walls and where the bar ended. So thick was the crowd around it that their forms blocked out nearly all the candlelight from the rough-hewn candelabra that hung over the center of the room, leaving the dice players in almost complete shadow. Yet, the scar-faced man's eyes glinted through the dark in such a way that made Sonder shiver.
The players stacked their coins in little towers and set them in the middle of the table. Most were betting five or six gold pieces. Sonder bet eight. The crowd whispered and laughed behind them. They were playing Red Ogre’s dice, a favorite with those in the Valley, picked up from the red ogres who, three centuries ago, had left their homes in the Enalgath Mountains to the north after the Clansman War. The Oshkuk, Mabri’nka, and Jorreesh clans had been forced south and east after losing their lands to the Esh’kur and Yishjaa clans. Carrying their lives on their backs, the losing ogres uprooted and marched down the mountains to the Golden Valley below, terrifying its residents. The Holy Guard could not subdue them, and the Keeper at the time would not resort to calling upon the wizards of the Repository to destroy them. Thus, some five thousand ogres had migrated through the Valley, past the Godskeep, and into the world beyond, though not without incident. Sonder had read of killings on both sides, of ogres who had feasted on human flesh, of humans who had trapped ogres in massive pits and had let them starve to death, of priests who had damned the ogres as they walked in the shadow of the Godskeep as being worshipers of false, evil gods and possessors of unholy powers. Amid all this conflict, the histories often failed to mention that many of the ogres passed through the Valley peacefully, or, at least, with civility, and had even paused long enough in their migration to teach the locals their favorite game.
The game was simple enough. Anywhere upward of three players would place a bet in whatever currency was fit (the red ogres were known to bet jewels and the ore found in their cavernous homelands) and each player chose a die with a different number of faces at random from a sack with a spoon. This was done to prevent anyone from being able to tell which die was which with their own fingers. The object of the game was to roll either the highest number or the lowest number, depending on what the starting player called before their roll.
Right now, it was Sonder’s turn. One of the women standing around the table presented him with a rusted old ladle, which he used to scoop up a die of eight sides. Not bad, Sonder thought. The die could range from four to twenty four sides. He would have to first roll this die, then roll the die of the player to his right, and combine the two numbers together. The trouble was, each player kept his die’s identity a secret. Sonder had no way of knowing if the portly gentleman to his right had the four sided die or the twenty-four sided one. That was where luck came in.
“Watch how it’s done Connal,” Sonder aid with grin.
Connal nodded, “I’m watching,” he said nervously.
The hardy looking man with the scarred face growled, “What'll it be, boy? High or low?”
“Low,” Sonder said. The ale in him added, “For all us lowlifes.”
The drunken onlookers guffawed, and his opponent smirked unpleasantly. Sonder wasn’t bothered. It was all part of the game for him. Get them loose enough and they were bound to slip up—make a huge bet, let their die show for just a moment or two…
The crowd was now urging him to roll. Some men had a lucky routine before they cast their dice—prayed over them, kissed them, shook them about between their hands. Sonder just rolled, and closed his eyes.
He heard the crowd give a little cheer, most of them anyway, as the players at the table gave a groan. He looked and saw that he rolled a three.
Sonder turned to his neighbor, “If you please, sir.” He stretched out his hand and the portly man consented with a grunt, dropping his own die in Sonder’s palm. Twenty sided. The scarfaced man was grinning. Sonder took a long swig of ale, closed his eyes, and cast the die.
“Oh!” Connal exclaimed behind him.
Sonder looked—a two. He let out a loud laugh, much relieved. He called for more ale.
Next it was his neighbor’s turn. The big man snatched up his die in his sausage-like fingers and rolled—a fifteen.
“Seltos save us!” he roared. Sonder joined in the crowd’s derision.
Red-faced and muttering, the big man accepted his neighbor’s die and grimaced when he saw that it was twelve sided. He rolled with a sigh and shook his head at the nine marks indented in the bone. Next went a leathery old man with black skin whom Sonder knew somewhat—a spice trader and something of a legend for how well he threw the dice by the name of Jezzo. The crowd cheered him on with cries of luck and fortune, asked the gods to bless him. He held his die aloft for long enough for Sonder to see it was four sided, and then cast a three. Jezzo beamed and politely asked for the die of his neighbor, the burly scar-faced man. Jezzo held it aloft, but this time Sonder couldn’t quite make out the number of its faces. The old man rolled and the die stopped at twenty. As the crowd moaned, he just shrugged and handed the man his twenty-sider back.
Sonder watched intently as the scar-faced man shook his die within his cupped palms, and rolled a one.
“Ha ha!” the man shouted victoriously. “Low as the price o’ yer mother’s honor.”
Sonder reddened and the crowd grew hushed. It seemed a good number of them knew who his mother was, though no one made any move to enlighten the grizzled-looking man of this fact. With another wild laugh, he shook up Sonder’s die, begrudgingly given, and rolled…an eight.
“For the love of Dartos!” He cursed as Sonder stood and collected all of the coins on the table with a laugh.
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