Magic And Sword Chapter One

Magic And Sword
By Sakenichi

Chapter One

It was another gloomy night in the town of Aldwyn as the priestess Jielle made her way to the local tavern.  

She had been rather busy of late, more and more people were turning to the ways of the goddess Wee Jas and Jielle found herself spending all her free time assisting those making the transition from their previous religion to her own.  Frankly, she was glad to turn everything over to her assistant whom had just arrived from the neighbouring village, enabling her to have the evening off.  

She was going to sit down and be served a nice hot meal and a frothy stein of ale, whilst the tavern’s wait staff attended to her every whim.  Being the local priestess came with its perks.

As she rounded the corner, Jielle bumped straight into something… or rather someone.  In front of her was a tall, rather widely built blonde man, who was looking rather confused.

“Ahh, where does a man get a meal in these parts, frau?” he asked, peering down at her, his breath stinking of more ale than one should drink in one evening.

Jielle grimaced and held her hand to her face, her robe sleeves covering her delicate nostrils.  She pointed in the direction she had been heading, “That would be the tavern you just came from you stupid git!”

The man blinked for a second, seemingly confused at her tone of voice.  It took him another second to recover and then he looked over at the tavern.

“The tavern is just for the ale ya?”

Jielle finally picked out the man’s accent.  He was German and quite obviously not aware of her important status in this town.  If this had been a local, he would have been punished for his rude behaviour towards her.

“No, you idiot German!” she exclaimed, unable to comprehend his silliness. “The tavern is also for getting oneself a hot meal to go with ‘the ale’.  Which is what I am currently being delayed for, if you don’t mind moving your large behind out of my way!”

The German looked a little sad at her harsh reaction to his question.  Jielle sighed, feeling a bad for snapping at him.

“Look, just come with me and I’ll tell them what you’re after.”

This caused the German to break into a happy grin and he jiggled a little, apparently excited about being asked to a meal with such a pretty woman.  Jielle rolled her eyes and motioned for him to follow.

“Come on then… err what’s your name?” she asked.

“Hans,” came the reply as he ambled behind her into the tavern.

***

It took little effort to steal food in such a busy tavern, and Jimmy was making the most of it.  The town priestess had just entered and there was a mad rush over to seat her and bring her her meal.  The skinny young thief slid another apple into his travelling satchel and started heading for the door.

“STOP THIEF!” a voice cried suddenly.

Jimmy silently cursed and froze on the spot.  A silence fell over the tavern as everyone looked around wildly for the supposed thief in their midst.

One of the large cooks pounded his way out into the middle of the tavern and looked at him menacingly.

“You little weasel!  I have the right mind to pummel you for taking our stores!” he said gruffly, his chubby cheeks red with anger.

Jimmy raised an eyebrow and stared down the cook.

“What makes you think that I would steal any of this second rate food?” he scoffed, eyes narrowing, refusing to be caught out.

The cook pulled a knife from his belt and held it threateningly in Jimmy’s face.

“Now listen here you scally wag.  We is got a special guest this evening and we is not gunna have any of you sneaky thieves ruining milady’s dinner!” the cook snorted, ignoring the townspeople watching on in silence, “Milady came specially and I plan to make her night a good one.”

There was a scraping sound as someone stood from their chair.  Both thief and cook turned to look as the priestess rose from her seat and strode over to the commotion.

“Listen cook, I just wanted one night where I could relax and now you’re doing this.  Just make him give whatever he stole back and let him go.  I’ll deal with him later,” she said, eyeing the thief.

Jimmy swallowed nervously.  He was going to get off from stealing, but a priestess with powers like hers would surely be more damaging than whatever short and tubby, the cook, could dish out.

“Well, you heard milady thief!  Give us the stores and we’ll let ye go,” the cook looked rather smug.  He apparently had come to the same conclusion as Jimmy.

Jimmy opened his satchel and tossed the cook three red apples and a banana.

The cook took the fruit and headed back into the kitchen.  The rest of the tavern returned to what they had been doing previously while the priestess eyed the young thief.

“Go sit at my table.  Hans will take good care you,” she smiled at him, but it was a creepy smile that sent a chill down his spine.

Jimmy looked over at the table the priestess had come from and saw a bulky blonde man seated near the door side of the table.  If the priestess didn’t turn him into a toad, this guy would surely squash him like one.  He sighed in defeat and walked slowly towards the table, ignoring the darting glances from the people he passed, obviously curious as to what the priestess might do with the thief.

“Ello!” Hans said with a jolly voice as Jimmy slid onto the bench.

“Whatever…” Jimmy mumbled and looked towards the exit, slowly making a plan of escape.

“Do ya like ale boy?” Hans continued, not noticing Jimmy’s disinterest in a conversation.

“Mmm…” Jimmy murmured, not really paying that much attention to what was being said.

“Wunderbar!”

Jimmy jumped as Hans plonked a big mug of ale in front of him.  He looked from the mug to Hans and back again.

“You’ve got to be kidding!” a voice exclaimed.  Jielle sat back at the table, “You stupid German!  Why are you giving him ale?  He’s clearly not old enough to be drinking such things.”

Hans gave her that kicked puppy look and pulled the mug back over the table and started drinking it silently.

Jielle looked at the blonde man and shook her head.  She then turned to Jimmy.

“Listen here.  You better be grateful.  You could have ended up being tomorrow night’s stew.  I’ve never seen the cook so livid before.”

Jimmy folded his arms and leant back against the tavern wall, “Psh, I coulda got away if I’d wanted to.  Makes it more amusing if I taunt the guy a bit.”

“Right,” Jielle cleared her throat, “Yes well, you do seem like you’d be agile enough.  Now, as for me, I could do one of many things to you,” Jimmy grimaced, “but I’d prefer for your help.  I have an assistant who travels once a month from the next village who aids me with work around the temple.  I find this is now becoming nowhere near enough due to the sudden popularity of my great goddess, Wee Jas.  If you can, I’d like to employ you to work at temple with basic things like cleaning and setting up for mass etc.”

Jimmy cut in, “And what if I don’t want to?”

“Well,” Jielle smirked, “I could always kill you as a sacrifice and make you my zombie minion.”

A weird expression crossed Jimmy’s face, “When do I start?”

TBC