A Promise of Fire

The scent of refuse and garbage filled his nostrils.

Rukifelth remembered when he was just a boy, playing in the streets with Emecar and some of the other orphans, and seeing children their age marching off to work in the textile factories and stone mills. At the time, he couldn’t figure out why, but now he was starting to see. He wondered how different his life would be if he went off to work like a normal person: to be a faceless factory worker in the endless cog of industry. No, he was never cutout for that kind of work; he was built to be someone fighting off highwaymen and clearing out goblins and ogres.

Eventually, he arrived at the Coalrock, the slum’s largest tavern, and home to some of Lionbrand’s worst. The patrons inside were often raucous drunks, pesty panhandlers, nogoodniks, and occasionally a racketeer or bootlegger would stop by. It was a place where one could enjoy all the worst vices: alcohol, gambling, brawling, and ill repute. It was an all-around terrible dingey place that reeked of old beer and piss.

It felt like home.

Rukifelth pulled a small pouch of tacleaf from his pocket, took a small pinch, and tucked it into his lip as he stepped into a tavern already crowded with people despite its time of day. Many of these people, he figured, probably didn’t have a home they could really go back to, so simply spent all their free time lounging about on cheap booze and food. He couldn’t help but notice most of the clientele were human with the scant few elves here and there.

As he made his way towards the bar top–carefully stepping around globules of tacleaf spittle on the ground–someone had hurled a pint cup through the air and struck another drunkard in the back of the head. It was impossible to know if the pint was intentionally thrown or not, but the cause didn’t matter, only the result. The struck man turned around and began swearing up a storm, demanding to know who’d thrown the cup at him. Another man–possibly the culprit, but he could’ve just as well been innocent–was shoved forward, and a fight broke out. No one tried to stop it. Instead, many began cheering the fight on and taking bets on who they thought would win.

The two men clobbered one another, blood spilling onto the floor, but Rukifelth just ignored them and continued sucking on his tacleaf. He sat at the countertop and waved down the barkeep who seemed completely unaware of the fight going on. There was a loud snap, followed by a scream, but neither Rukifelth nor the barkeep paid it any heed. Instead, he placed two pennies on the counter and ordered a beer.

The man’s scream continued to echo through the tavern as people cheered. He then heard the man get lifted up and hurled outside. Rukifelth didn’t even look to see if it was the man who started the fight, or the one who got struck by the errant pint. Instead, he slipped away into his thoughts. The shouts and the murmurings from the crowd drowned out the screaming, the same screaming he heard in his dreams that morning. He closed his eyes and tried to drown it all out.

The Black Beast prowls. It stalks silently and waits to strike.

The barkeep returned, placing the dingey pint of beer in front of him. Rukifelth went to grab the glass, but before he could take his first sip, someone crashed into him from behind, and caused his beer to spill all over the counter.

Without thinking, Rukifelth spun around and struck the man. He felt his fist tingle, and a loud crack rang in his ears. The man collapsed to the ground–unmoving–as blood trickled form his mouth.

Everything fell silent. Rukifelth looked across the faces of the stunned bargoers, all of whom stared at Rukifelth in total fear. His heart beat wildly in his chest, and his arms trembled as his breathing grew heavy.

“Vile cretins! Why can’t you control yourselves for a damned minute?” No one dared speak. A couple reached for their belt knives, but Rukifelth snarled and brandished a flash of steel from the sabre on his hip. Those who thought they could fight backed away. Rukifelth loudly snapped his sabre back into its sheath, spat a large globule of his tacleaf onto the floor beside the unconscious man, and sat back down, waving for the barkeep once again. “I’ll need another please.”

“Y-You killed him!”

Rukifelth looked over his shoulder at a man in grimy clothes and greasy hair who was pointing at the unconscious man on the ground. As the barkeep returned with his second drink, Rukifelth paid the man, took a long and deep swig before dumping the remainder of the contents on the unconscious man.

He gargled and twitched.

“See, he ain’t dead,” said Rukifelth to the greasy man, “but by fire if one more of you interrupts me, I’ll fill this whole tavern with dead men.”

The crowd began to disperse, dragging the unconscious man aside, and giving Rukifelth plenty of room to himself. Even the other patrons sitting at the counter moved further away. He could hear the people murmur and gossip about him, talking about how he seemed almost more monster than man. Some said they’d seen him before, and that he was notorious around these parts. It made Rukifelth smile.

The barkeep then dropped off a third beer. “You gonna actually drink this one?”

The man showed no fear around Rukifelth; he’d seen him lash out before and knew that if Rukifelth got angry, that he’d be the only one not targeted by his ire. Rukifelth smiled and paid him another two pennies.

Quickly, he downed his beer as he felt his hands begin trembling again. The screams echoed in his head yet again, and he could smell blood in the air. He set the glass down and rubbed his eyes.

Blood everywhere; the sight, the scent, the taste…

Rukifelth rested his head in his hands and tried to shake the nightmare from his mind. Their screams wouldn’t leave. He could still see their twisted faces. He big his fingers until they bled, and blood dripped down his chin. He ordered another beer, and then another, and then another; each one tasted worse than the last, but slowly the visions began to fade.

He didn’t know how long he’d spent in the Coalrock, but he knew he’d been there long enough. He stood from his seat and made his way out, not offering so much as a glance to the other patrons. Some scowled at him, but others–wisely–looked the other way. He heard some people daring him to return if he valued his life, and Rukifelth chuckled at that. Those people thought they could intimidate him?

No, try as they might, they were the ones scared of him, and that was exactly how Rukifelth liked it.