Ouroug's saga Chapter one

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Chapter one.
“Meetings. Greetings. Regret. And the art of doing all of these with style”

The inn was easy to find. Next street across the healer. The problem was the pig found therein. Not an animal, but for nobles such as Aerrak and Quitera the human in front of them wasn't a member of their race. No human being ate it's food like that (though being nobles they might have been biased). Ouroug threw a bone away. Aerrak almost shouted “Retched Dirty Bastard! Will you or will you not undertake our mission?”
The “pig” looked up, burped, looked at Aerrak and said “Why sir you convince me with your harsh loud words...no” and went back to eating. Aerrak wouldn't have mined if not Quitera hadn't introduced herself most courteously to the dirty one. He naturally went berserk. “YOU BLOODY...” 1 second later you could spot noble armor, still containing the noble, on the floor. Aerrak was being choked by a metal circle fashioned like a snake eating its own tail. Ouroug touched it and the snakelike object released Aerrak and crawled up Ourougs arm. “Next time I'm going to wait until your head comes off, so lady? Do your best and convince me why I should bother with doing something as crazy as you suggest”
“We'll pay you generously” Quitera said.
“Can't spend it if I lie dead in some cave”
“Think of the fame”
Ouroug grinned “He died! Whether honorably comes after those words I don't care, thank you no, I prefer living cowardly to dying famously”.
“I heard you like beautiful women, if you do this I'll...” Quitera blushed.
“That desperate? You're certainly not modest about your looks. And no, I prefer paying for my women. That way it's all clear who owes who what” Ouroug went back to eating, examined his bottle and called for more swill (calling it wine or ale would probably offend some people).
Aerrak started walking out of the inn. “Let's go, he's a waste of our time”. Quitera tried to protest, but resignation set in and she followed.
“I wonder why they needed a magician...I'd bring an army to the Hemenar caverns...ah well more drinking!...I wonder what she had in mind...probably marriage, those types don't do IT without” Ouroug mused.

Ten bottles later inspiration came to Ouroug and struck him. “I'll follow them at a safe distance and if they're successful I'll steal whatever they wanted”. Mired in alcohol Ouroug had forgotten the reason he refused. That the Hemenar was hurrakin territory and you probably get torn apart most hastily. But after receiving four bottles for the road and running away from the bill (a feat for a drunk), “10 leejns for a bottle? Outrageous”, he set out to find the two, obviously in the mercenary district where muscles bulged and braincell, more often than not, didn't. Not that there weren't a good deal of smart fellows there, it was just there was great deal more for whom knowledge was timing of the swing of the sword, as opposed to books and the wisdom of math (as far as knowing that 2 leejns was lousy pay).
“So they were planning on bringing an army...they might have mentioned that, or were they under the misconception that a magician is the equal of 20 men?”
Ouroug climbed up on one of the roofs overlooking Mercenary Square, again quite a task for a drunk carrying four bottles.
Quitera was talking to Herrak, one of the mercenary captains that could his math and had enough brains to demand prepayment for a job he would ultimately leave to his lieutenants.
“Generous payment, tsk tsk tsk, if I knew they were this desperate I'd...no, I would have said no quicker, that's just not a smart thing to do, I even assumed the loudmouth was smarter than this” Ouroug thought, and for the first time in a while that abstract notion that was his conscience wiggled a little, “Ah I better tag along and make sure the little lambs are safe before I rob them”.

---


Quitera wasn't sure about this. They spent a lot on the 30 men, money she could have spent less of on the magician. He was an arrogant bastard, hadn't certainly didn't seem to be worth more than his mouth, until he'd used the circle on Aerrak. She didn't want to think of what he thought of her now, having made such a brazen offer, she didn't even want to know what Aerrak thought of her.
They had left the narrow streets of Longaron (a very foreign name for a city) and were crossing the Hemenor plains. Aerrak had gotten some respect from the mercenaries by being a strict disciplinarian , not something they taught at the Deskatu Academy for Young Gentlemen, but something he had picked up in the Deskat Royal Guard. And whilst many mercenaries were troublemakers, there were those that were professionals (for a price).
The landscape wasn't desolate, in that there were a large number of omnivores creatures around, yutturs, gamaasts and horses frequently let their presence be known. While not in abundance, waterholes were easy to find along with hunts meat, and cactus plants received the infrequent wind.

Some trouble began shortly after the fourth camp. Aerrak was walking among the mercenaries maintaining discipline, something their lieutenant appreciated greatly, when he heard a voice he didn't like, and liked less when he actually saw the person.
“And that is how the girl learned to pay her debts” Ouroug said whilst moving his puppets.
“You! What are you doing here?!?” Aerrak shouted.
Ouroug leaned over to one of the men by the fire and said 'I think he has only two ways of communicating, looking at people grimly and shouting'. The man looked amused before Aerrak looked at him grimly.
“I asked you a question, you do understand my language, WHAT...ARE...YOU...DOING...HERE!”
“What does it look like? I'm putting on a puppet show, a puppet show for the morally inclined. I was teaching these guys about the virtues of paying you debts unless you want your mother to die at the hands of a guy called Urk”.
“Urk be damned! I thought you made it painfully obvious that you didn't want to undertake our mission!”
“You mean her mission don't you?”
Aerrak was silent for a moment. Then he said “It's my mission as well! Cause I stood by her when nobody else did! What are you doing here?!”
“Relax! I'm here to help, your gonna need it”
“We don't need...”
“We do need you!” Quitera walked towards them.
Aerrak looked at her silently.
“Will you accept 15 juns a day? That's all the others are getting” Quitera asked.
Ouroug moved over to her and whispered 'make it 5, some of these guys will die and I'll be there to loot the corpses, the big one with the facial scar looks very promising. And if Arek dies we'll split the spoils'
“That's Aerrak and I'm not sure I like you looting” She whispered back with a mild look of disgust.
“You don't have to, I like it enough for the both of us”
Aerrak wasn't fuming as much as Ouroug had hoped, he obviously had training, and a good deal of self discipline. No fun at all.

---

At the fifth camp things went even less smoothly. A fight broke out and suddenly there were only 27 mercenaries, Ouroug assured Quitera this was a good thing. “They are ready for a fight but at the same time professional enough for only 3 to get killed, these guys are almost worth a bit more than 15 juns”. Aerrak thought differently, but he had the experience of being member of a well payed guard, a guard that had never been expected to travel into the unknown for slightly above average pay.
Another event of that evening Ouroug won the ire of Aerrak, Quitera and the only two morally inclined mercenaries by putting on a puppet show that ended with the words “and that is how the little girl learned that there was money to be made by laying down”. Quitera let it slide for the reason that you cannot argue about taste with 25 heavy, muscular and slightly irritable men. She also wondered if it was a wise thing to discuss Ouroug's choice of subject with him, as the outcome of that conversation might prove slightly disturbing. On the seventh camp she decided to risk it, being only a day away from the Hemenar caves.
“You seem to pick strange things for your puppet shows”.
She had approached Ouroug while he was sitting by his own fire. While the men usually flocked to see his puppet show, and would talk to him quite freely if he approached them, they had little interest in disturbing a magician sitting alone by the fire, not to mention one with a reputation like Ouroug. Apart from the fire the two moons lit the place up casting only the shadow of the bigger one. The mercenaries had by Aerrak's orders been given two cups of swill, most likely to strengthen their spirits before arriving at the Hemenar, so there was loud talking by the fires in the main camp area.
“Some puppeteers show historic events, some silly things and some stories of morally correct behavior. Me? I prefer to show the truth of things. I've seen girls, and boys, sold into slavery, I've seen how the flower-lenders recruit fresh meat, believe me the shows I put on are happy by comparison. That's why I do like these guys, they know I'm only showing the nice bits. What I'm not so pleased about is how easily they accept it as a fact of life” Ouroug let out.
“Why I do think there lurks a moral person even in you” Quitera said.
“Morals? There is a difference in sneering at a crude tale and seeing a woman raped before your eyes. Don't get me wrong, I'll not got out of my way in either case, this is everyday stuff. However if one of the fellows has a coin or two to weigh him down, who am I not to lighten his load”.
“So your saying you prefer to do nothing unless it suits you?” Quitera hadn't ever heard such things.
Ouroug thought a bit if he should say anything in his defense...decided against it, she was still young, a straight path suited her still. “You say that, and you're probably right, I do that a lot”
Quitera relented a bit. He didn't seem to bad, couldn't be as bad as she had initially thought. He certainly didn't say things just to please her like the men at her fathers court did. It was a quality Aerrak and he shared.

“About the offer I made you at the inn”
“What about it?”
“You must think I'm an awful person”
Ouroug sat thinking for a while.
“I been in this world for some years, seen things, seen some more things and lets not forget about the people I've met. I'm not a sage though I'm old enough to be one, but as I see it people never do anything without a reason, not even madmen, although eating grass doesn't make you run like a horse. If I'm going to accuse you of anything it would be, and forgive me for saying this, breaking a deal. Because I don't think you would have done what you offered. By the way what did you offer?”
Quitera blushed “Why marriage of course”.
“And I would accept because I like marrying beautiful women?”
“That was my offer, shame you didn't accept” Quitera smiled mischievously.
“Hey! I'm here ain't I?”
“At your own volition, you rejected the initial offer. Anyway would you really have married me?”
“As often as you'd like, in the evening, morning and afternoon”
Quitera laughed “I don't think we're talking about the same thing”.
“Your loss, you haven't seen what I can do in the afternoon”
Quitera looked at the moons for a while, the little one was her favorite, always a bit above the big one.
“You're surprisingly charming for a backstabbing, double dealing bastard” she finally said.
“When you are a backstabbing, double dealing bastard you have to be. I prefer to solve my conflicts talking”. Ouroug sighed. “Most people use violence, and the ones that listen already know me, so you can understand my predicament”.
“I wish my father had you as a friend. If he did you could have advised him better that snake who took over”
“Am I not a snake?”
“No, not really. Sure I bet you can back stab like the best of them, but if it's a friend you'll probably find other ways of solving your problems. And if not you would probably have a very good reason to drive a big one straight into the back”
“Well I know that when a woman starts to shower me with praise then it's time to call it quits. I ran out of swill some time ago, so I'll tuck down and leave you to admire Urutskar”
“Who?”
“Urutskar, that's what people from Alenter call the little moon”
“Funny, we call her Urutar, she follows her big sister Aleska”
“Funny, we call the big one Elantus, and he lies in conflict with his eternal foe Urutskar. Once a giant piece of Elantus flew down to the earth from a blow Urutskar gave him”

Both Quitera and Ouroug slept well that night.