Selr Chapter 1

There was a man, a woman, and a child.
The man yelled, "Stay back!"
The woman cried, "Save us!"
And the child smiled.

Chapter 1

Welcome to a little tavern called The Devil's Fiddle. Unfortunately this story you are about to read takes place in a mystical land that you probably don't know about. Don't worry, you'll learn quickly. Hopefully. Now back to this tavern, it's a dank little place close enough to the town of Relk to upset some wives, but far enough away to get the type of business who'd rather not show their faces in populated places...with guard posts. This is a world lacking all our great technologies but perhaps making up for it with a little something called magic. But there was no magic happening in The Devil's Fiddle, no, it was just a lot of drunk men with a few women jumping about, some actually trying to avoid grubby hands. Chable walked in, he glanced around, this was a money trap. A horrid money trap. A very loud group of men were playing cards, a woman with flowing red hair smiled devilishly as she took their money, they were so drunk they just laughed and laughed. The woman seemed to be quite the cunning drunk. Yes, it was apparent she was drunk, yet she kept her wits about her. He peeled his eyes away from her; he'd wait. His hood rested upon his head, leaving a portion of his face in shadow as he sat down at a table.

"I, my good fellows, know how to say the word 'knife' in thirteen different languages." She ran her fingers over the cards edges. "And 'Drink this it'll help' in six. But then why talk at all when you can be a mute?"
One of the men looked at her. He had a scraggly brown beard and a certain darkness under his merry eyes. "A mute? And how does that help a lady assassin like yourself?"
She smiled. "Men are more likely to trust a woman who they believe can't speak."
"You my dear are evil."

Chable took out some papers, not ordinary papers, mind you, but wanted posters. He flipped through them and glanced around the room, a lot of thugs and her. She was probably the only one worth noticing, but there were a few others in the room with some good money on their heads, few of them had the bounty she did or the history. He doubted she remembered him, but she would before she died. She would pay for his brother. His kind, wonderful older brother...
"Are you about to cry?"
He looked up. It was the barmaid.
"You're hurting your papers."
"Uh," he hadn't realized his hand had drawn closed like a mantrap in a solid fist around the wanted posters. He let them go and looked up into her worried face. "Hello."
"Hi," she said glancing down at the posters. "So you're a hunter?"
"Uh, yes. You have quite a lot of guys in here with some impressive sums," he said trying to make conversation.
She smiled. "Yeah, we get a lot of big names in here. Hunter's paradise. Want a drink?"
"Uh, okay."
"Right. I'll get you an ale." She rolled her eyes as she walked away.
He slipped the crumpled wanted posters back under his cloak and out of the public view. He looked around. The man with the merry eyes was Razput Weer, the leader of a gang of robbers. He recognized a few others in the room as his comrades. He wondered how many men Razput had under him exactly, and just how many of them were sitting in The Devil's Fiddle tonight. The man seated next to Razput had dark, flipped hair and a long braid, there was a patch over his left eye. Besides all that, he was also missing one ear. That would be Tyru the Ear, he sold information, a spy wanted for treason. There would be a public execution for him. There would be a public execution for many of the men here. Also seated at the table were the Wiburn twins, Shep and Tapp, who would do, and pretty much had done, anything and everything to undermine the king. There were two other men, completely wasted, at the table whom he didn't recognize, probably locals from the looks of them.
And then there she was. They called her Selr. A mistress of mischief. She could get away with just about anything. He scowled. She looked nothing like that ridiculous wanted poster. He had a feeling she was behind this. But then some of that was the people's fault, for some reason no one could give an accurate description of her. Not that he planned on filling in the blanks for others, others who might be more able to catch her then him, he had to be the one who got her. Otherwise all he had done to achieve his revenge would be for nothing. Revenge came before money, and that was big.
She was a lovely woman, probably somewhere in her twenties with dark red hair and green eyes. She hadn't changed a bit in the last five years. There wasn't a hair different since he had last seen her, she was timeless. It was amazing that she looked the way she did. He would've expected at least a few visible scars, of course it was even more impressive that she was still alive. Five years in this land was a lifetime. People died of illnesses everyday, robbers made their livings on the road, people got caught up into all sorts of trouble. And yet, she wasn't dead. She was as happy and healthy as she ever was. He found it quite annoying considering all she had done.
The barmaid brought him the drink. "Recipe for disaster," he mumbled watching them.
"You cheater...you filthy woman!" One of the locals had lost his temper, he knocked over his glass, his cards lay on the table. Selr leaned confidently back in her chair and smiled. "So, what are you going to do about it?"
Razput looked at the man darkly. "Are you insulting this lovely young lady?"
The other man at the table looked up, "Lovely young lady? Really. I mean you've heard what she's been saying..."
The Wiburn twins stopped handing cards back and forth under the table in order to look up  with horrible grins plastered on their faces, "Do you even know whom you're sitting with boys?"
The first man looked about angrily. "There's no way she could've won this many times. She's obviously cheating!"
Razput touched the giant hammer propped against his chair, he was no longer the merry giant of a man he had been a few moments earlier. Tyru took this moment to have his own say on the matter at hand. As Chable watched, he wasn't certain whether Tyru was trying to make things worse or better. "I do not think, my dear gentlemen, that this beautiful lady enjoys being the target of your angry sexist remarks. I can see how men like yourselves might feel threatened in her presence, but attacking this lovely child with your hurtful accusations is just uncalled for. Is this the way of real men?"
The second man spoke. "Oh. It's nothing like that. Really. Now is it Lark?" He said looking to the first man.
The first man, Lark, however, did not budge on his opinion of the matter. "She can't just get away with it!"
Chable shook his head, little did Lark and his more intelligent companion know that she could and would get away with it. That was the way things were. From what he knew, fate had always smiled kindly on Selr and gifted her with the best of luck.
"Now that is more than a little..." Razput began, he looked to Tyru for the word.
"Sexist, which means to discriminate against one because of their gender." Tyru the Ear and Selr looked equally amused. Chable had the feeling she was enjoying the attention.
"Right." Razput said, he was definitely not the brightest at the table. "Why else would you accuse this lovely miss and turn a blind eye to these boys' doings?"
The Wiburn twins looked at one another and shrugged. They were cheaters at heart. "Besides it's not like we were winning or anything like that..." Tapp said slyly.
Shep laughed. "We may be cheaters. But we're horrible cheaters. Just horrible."
"I would say that he thought it would be less trouble to accuse the lady." Tyru added.
"Oh, now don't be mean to the silly little men, I fear we must take into account that they, as I and other individuals at this table, may possess a logic a little more then lightly coated with alcohol at this moment. I do dare to guess they would be more reasonable if not within its influence." Selr laughed. "Besides there's no reason to go defending my honor, I've had worse said about me and frankly, I'm well equipped to take care of it myself."
She stood. "Continue your game without me, I fear debate and lack of drink have made me lose interest."
She laid her cards face down on the table and, turning her back to the others, walked straight towards Chable, hidden by hood and seated at the table in the corner. Lark took a look at her cards as she walked off which sprung a much more heated argument at the table.
The next thing Chable knew, Selr had sat down and stolen his drink. He couldn't help but stare. Once she had drained it dry, she looked at him, scrutinizing every feature not hidden by the shadow and clothe of his hood or engulfed by the cloak around his body. "Hmm, I do believe I know you."
"The drink..."
"Oh yes, thank you."
"You won't be paying for it will you?"
"So you do know me."
"Do you know what that drink could have meant to me?"
"Is this a hypothetical question?"
"I could've been traveling for days and days without seeing a soul, slowly running out of food and other provisions, surviving only by the goodness of mother nature herself, and I arrive here and order that one drink for ten copper. Do you know what that ten copper could've meant for me? No, no you don't. Why I could be destitute! But do you care? No. You just sit right down, and drink away my money. Perhaps I begged for that money. Ten copper could've..."
He look around. She was gone. "Uh."
"Hey Razput! that redhead just left on an Arabian."
"An Arabian?" Chable said, "A black Arabian?"
The man looked at the cloaked figure. "Yeah, the horse was a black Arabian."
Chable was at the window after a mad dash across the room. "Damn it, she stole my horse! She stole Valiant! That vile, cursed woman..."
He stopped. He had most of his money craftily sown into the blanket under Valiant's saddle. The saddle, his saddle, the saddle that was a gift from his brother and father. He had lost his money, his saddle, not to mention his other possessions to her. How could he have been so stupid? She had stolen his horse! Cursing he ran from The Devil's Fiddle only to be hit in the back of the head with a very sturdy object.
When he awoke the next morning, the barmaid happily informed him that he would be paying for his drink, a night's board, and the bandages used to wrap his head. That, of course, didn't include the  cold, untouched, unappetizing breakfast laying before him. The Devil's Fiddle had been nothing but a money trap. A filthy, money trap.