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Hey guys. I've seen a few other posts around here for writing projects so I figured I'd add mine. Its a bit unique in that I am writing it with a friend who I met overseas. We are trying to write about two characters inspired by our own backgrounds as their worlds intertwine. I'll continue to add pieces as it comes together.
The genre is light fantasy, as I have a hard time getting in to hardcore fantasy stories, but who knows where it will go.
There has been little to no editing done yet, that will happen after the project takes shape.
Henry knew well the Duke’s reputation for cards, but he still found himself at knife point.
“I don’t lose to the likes of you,” said the Duke.
“Apparently not,” said Henry.
“Wipe the smirk of your face. You’ve been beat. Perhaps not the way you thought of, not the way you usually lose your money, no — but I don’t have much need your coin. I’d rather take your dignity, lad. That’ll give you something to grin about. I'll take your dignity.”
“Sir -- sir -- please, I’m afraid its my face, you know. Dimples. Born with them. A curse, to be honest. They always make me look content, even when I am absolutely horrified.”
“A pity. Might want to carve them out.”
The Duke motioned with a leather-clad hand. The only two of his guard left the tent and stood outside. He withdrew his knife and began to carve an apple, while walking circles about the tent.
“What is it that you do in this little shit-city, Henry?”
“I’m a — well — a gambler, a gamesman, a man of the dice. And all the sort that goes along with it, sir. Nothing more, nothing less, or so it goes.”
“Your life is for this? For a little coin next to campfires and stolen from drunkards? Pathetic, even for a northerner.”
“No, my lord,” said Henry. “I do it to take their dignity.”
Henry felt a muddy boot slam against his garb, knocking him to the ground in a daze. The Duke laughed and towered over him, fire growing in his eyes.
“You’ve got a tongue, lad. Might serve you well to cut it out of ya.”
The knife’s edge was cold, pressed firmly against his cheek. Henry could make out his reflection in the blade, mirrored by the dull lamplight. He was filthy, tired, and certainly convincing.
“Sir, you could. But if you did you’d be missing out.”
“Missing out? On what, exactly? What could you possibly offer a man of privilege?”
“I — well — I never lose, sir. At poker, at gin, at five-draw, at any — I never lose, and I never will. That aside, I can teach you. In fact, I’ve taught many, sir.”
A wasp’s sting dragged across his face. HenryHenry felt his cheek seared, and saw a bit of red trickle down on to his lap. He bit his lip, perhaps a bit too bold.
The Duke shook his head and smiled, golden teeth flashing under burning eyes. His face was foggy, now, like a man days from sleep.
“You lot just don’t understand, do you? A man like me is born in to victory, your conditions do not apply to me. You may have the ace in your sleeve, sure, but your blood is as filthy as the bucket I shit in. In fact, that might be a compliment to you, lad. If I want someone’s money, I simply take it, if I want someone’s woman, I simply have her. ”
“No, no, not that,” said Henry. Two shadows grew shadows behind the tent, then faded in to darkness again. “I can teach you who I am.”
Henry gripped the dagger hilt tucked in to his left boot. In a flash it was pressed in to the weaponhand of the Duke, earning a scream. The big man was keeled over, wrapping his new wound in cloth.
“Guards! Guards, for fuck’s sakes, kill the bastard!”
Two men rushed in to the tent. Neither were guards. The first was Joseph, and the second was Andrew.
“My lord,” said Henry. “These are my brothers, both good lads. We are here to rob you tonight, and I daresay we’ve succeeded.”
“What is this? Guards! Guards!”
“They’re quite asleep,” said Joseph. “Ain’t going to wake up any time soon, mate.”
“Aye,” said Andrew. “Had the barkeep fix a few extra potent pints, just for you lot. Word gets around when someone like you comes to town, yeah.”
The Duke began to breath heavy. His focus was lost, gaze drifting around the tent.
“What do you want, filth?”
“Now we are getting to the point!” said Henry. “Much like you, I don’t have a need for coin. Like I explained, I never lose. A man like me has to earn every victory, but it comes easily when you make the rules, Duke.”
“Oi, stoppit with the theatrics, mate,” added Joseph.
“We ain’t getting any younger, brother,” said Andrew.
Henry shrugged.
“All right. A fortnight past you and your men took the town of Bristol. You ransacked an old woman’s cabin down by the woods.”
“That old witch? We were doing them a favour — that kind of demonry and satanic bullshit — she was occult. She had to be removed.”
“Right, right, I don’t care about the bitch — but you took her belongings before you burned her, did you not?”
“Of course.”
“She had a mirror I am most curious about.”
The Duke laughed and gestured to the chest at the edge of his tent. “All this — for a handmirror from an old crow?”
Henry bowed, and smiled. “More or less.”
Andrew opened the chest and Henry could hear him rummaging for the mirror, tossing junk all over the tent.
“Pathetic,” said the Duke. “You won’t get very far. The king’s men will be on you by morning.”
Henry yawned and shook his head. “The king doesn’t like you, Duke, and he certainly won’t trust you in this state. You stink of booze and you’ve been out gambling.”
“Found it, Henry. Lets go.”
His brothers tipped their caps, and Henry followed suit.
“Whoops,” said Joseph, turning around. “Almost forgot.”
Joseph took out a hand axe and pointed it at the Duke, still kneeling and moaning about his wound.
“What now?”
“Your clothes, my lord. Going to need them all. Off with it now.”
“You can’t be serious. Why?”
Henry simply laughed with Andrew.
Joseph smiled. “We’ve beaten you, mate. Now we take your dignity.”
A few miles by horse took them to a clearing by the lake. It was shrouded in a misty fog, but the winter’s cold was ending, and they made fire by the moonlight. They ate stale bread and stewed beef, and drank a barrel of ale between them. His brothers never asked why the mirror — they knew that they wouldn’t understand the answer, Henry figured. Or maybe at this point they were just along for the thrill of the ride. Not that they ever had much choice, anymore.
When he heard the snoring, Henry took the mirror and walked to the lakeshore. It was warm to the touch. The handle was encrusted with cheap gems and layered in a fake muddy gold.
“By the moonlight in a coming spring,” mumbled Henry. “Destiny and fortune appear, only for darkness to swallow, when you see in it not yourself but of the other.”
He remembered her words clearly, even though that fortune was told three years ago. At first it was a ridiculous, obtuse, meaningless. But as the months went by, the words resonated in dream, pounding like a drum, constant, inescapable.
Three years prior, Henry and his brothers robbed that old woman, and she smiled and croned on all the while. When the old witch handed him the mirror, and the curse along with it, Henry shook his head and smashed it on the ground. She shrieked with laughter.
“Destiny is not so easily shook, boy,” said the witch. She lifted the mirror and the shards flew back in to place, leaving not a crack on the glass pane.
The three brothers fled Bristol and never returned. Henry used to tell himself he didn’t see anything in the witch’s mirror that night.
The lake was calm, the northern wind had died leaving only the sound of a wolf in the distance. Henry looked in to the mirror, through the misty reflections of moonlight.
Looking back at him was a beautiful girl he had seen three years ago.
