Chapter 1 The Hound

♣Somewhere in the Northern Tribe Of The Kingdom Of Eldervale♣

The only thing keeping the northern cold from sinking into Kaelen’s bones was the heat of the two naked women riding on top of him.

The mattress was nothing but a lumpy sack of moldy straw that creaked and shifted with every thrust he made.

The room reeked of beer, cheap rosewater, and days of unwashed bodies, but Kaelen didn’t give a damn. He never did care about anything.

He gripped the women with his rough, calloused hands, their skin flushing and slick under his fingers, and used them the same way he used everything else in his miserable life, to drown out the voices in his head.

With a low gutteral growl, he finished, his heavy body tensing for a moment before he shoved them off of him. The pleasure was already gone from his face in a second, replaced by that dead, empty look he wore like a second skin.

The blonde on his left traced a finger along the long scar running from his collarbone down his ribs. “Why don't we stay a little longer, Hound,” she purred. “The night is still young, and it’s freezing cold out there.”

Kaelen didn’t even glance at her. He swung his legs off the bed and stood, his towering six-foot-five silhouette completely consuming the tiny room. Scars crisscrossed his back like a map of every brutal fight he’d survived.

“Get out,” he muttered, his voice rough like gravel.

The brunette’s seductive smile twisted into a scowl. “We gave you what you wanted. Least you could do is show a little courtesy to us.”

He ignored them, pulling on his rough linen shirt, then buckling his leather bracers. His fingers moved with practiced precision as he strapped a heavy steel dagger to his thigh.

Finally, he threw his dark cloak over his shoulders, the fabric settling across his broad frame.

When they still didn’t move, he walked to the door, yanked it open, and jerked his thumb toward the hallway. His eyes... cold, golden, and utterly empty, said the rest. The women grabbed their scattered clothes from the ground and hurried past him without another word.

Kaelen spat on the floorboards. “Crazy wenches.”

~

Down in the main room of The Fjord Tavern, the usual drinking spot, filled with drunken laughter and clinking tankards died down the second Kaelen’s heavy boots hit the top of the stairs.

A heavy silence rolled through the crowd. People turned their heads away from him. And some of their hands drifted toward their weapons.

Near the hearth, a woman with two small children took one look at him and went white. She snatched her kids by their collars and dragged them behind her skirt like the man that walked in was death itself come walking.

Kaelen didn’t care. He was Kaelen the Hound. The most feared bounty hunter Eldervale had ever known and he was glad his reputation precedes him.

He crossed the room and stopped at a heavy oak table in the darkest corner. Three local wine merchants were counting coins there. The moment his shadow fell over them, they scrambled up so fast one man knocked his stool over. They snatched their silver and practically ran to the other side of the tavern.

Kaelen dropped into the chair, propped his boots on the table, and struck a match on his thumb to light his pipe. He drew on the bitter smoke and watched the room through the haze. They feared him, and that was exactly how he liked it.

The tavern master’s wife, Helga, approached with a tray. Her hands shook so badly the wooden cups rattled a little.

“What… what can I get you, Hound?” she asked, her eyes glued to the floorboards.

“Bottle of your strongest black gin,” Kaelen growled. “Keep ‘em coming.”

She left and brought back his order quickly. Kaelen drank deeply, the harsh burn from the gin doing nothing to ease the constant ache in his joints. He kept drinking until the pitcher was empty, his mind wandering back to the empty state of his leather coin pouch.

Winter had been brutal, and his last bounty had bled out before he could deliver the man alive so his payment was cut in half.

When Helga came back to clear the empty pitcher, Kaelen leaned back, his pipe clenched between his teeth.

“I’ll settle the tab next time I pass through,” he said to her.

Helga stopped dead in her tracks. Her face hardened, for a second, her desperation briefly overriding her fear of him. “Hound, please… my husband’s sick. The winter taxes are due. We can’t give out drinks on credit. Not even to you. You have to pay up now.”

Kaelen slowly lowered his boots. The table creaked under his weight as he rose, towering over her. He leaned in close, close enough that she could smell the gin on his breath, the scar on his lip twisting into a sinister snarl. “You calling me a liar and a thief, woman?” he whispered to her, his voice low and venomous.

Helga stumbled back, her eyes widening with terror, then she turned and fled into the kitchen like a scared rabbit.

Kaelen scoffed and sat back down, draining the last drops from the bottle. He didn’t give a damn about her sick husband or her taxes. In Eldervale, the strong took what they wanted without consequences and the weak paid for it.

The silence in the tavern grew thicker.

Then the kitchen door slammed open. Helga stepped out, pointing a trembling finger straight at him. Behind her came three massive brutes. The tavern’s hired muscle. Thick-necked, built like oxen, carrying heavy clubs and iron-headed cleavers.

“There he is!” Helga cried out. “He refuses to pay his bit and threatened me! Teach him some manners!”

The biggest brute, a bald bastard with a broken nose, spat on the floor and cracked his knuckles. “You might be the big man out there in the wilds, Hound, but in here you’re just another deadbeat. Pay up now, or we carry you out in pieces.”

Kaelen stayed seated. He didn’t even take the pipe out from his mouth. He simply looked at the three of them, a dark glint of amusement in his golden eyes, and then he blew a slow plume of smoke their way.

“You three think you’re getting paid enough to die here tonight?”