The task this time was to write a story based on this picture. Actually quite fun. If you like the picture the artist is called Leesha Hannigan.
“The one constant in the Cracked Barrel was the noise. The intentions and source behind them might vary but the sounds themselves never did. A chink of metal on metal could be coin purses or chainmail. A clack could be ale flagons in celebration, could be a fist to a face. A roar of camaraderie or fury. Everything else was a constantly shifting maelstrom of faces, factions, and fights.”
The storytellers voice was low and smoky, like the tavern she described.
“And the smell”, added a second reedy voice from on high.
“I’m sorry, what?” asked the husky voice.
“The smell was always constant. Always smelt awful in the Barrel.”
“Oh. OK. I mean, that is true. Look, who’s telling the story here, you or me?”
“Sorry Mistress Feniic. You tell it better than me, I’ll keep quiet.”
“In the Barrel, dangerous people were always looking for people who could keep a secret”, the storyteller continued.
“So that was a constant as well then”, interrupted the second voice to the annoyance of everyone trying to listen.
“For Graks sake, Strix, if you don’t shut up I will pluck the everloving life out of you, and chuck you to the palace dogs.”
“Sorry, sorry. I’ll definitely keep my trap shut this time.”
“Right, where was…”
“Not a peep out of me.”
Someone in the audience threw a knife in the direction of the voice. Strix muttered reproachfully. “I was gonna be quiet, no need for that. I can take a hint.”
“Anyway, AS I WAS SAYING”, Mistress Feniic said, pointedly, “the Barrel was the place to go if you had a problem that needed to be taken care of in an especially final way. There were adventurers and mercenaries and criminals from all ends of the 6 Kingdoms, and while ownership of the city would change hands, it was understood that the Barrel was outside of the jurisdiction of whoever was in charge that week, so all could drink and fight and tout for work.”
The audience relaxed and settled in. They loved a good Whispering Death story, and Feniic was the best at spinning them. She’d run with him back in the glory days before the Kingdoms were united and Barrel’s regulars lost their job center. A single drunk at the back belched loudly.
“The Barrel was full of the meanest, roughest, most ruthless beings in the land. Some hulking, some vicious. None to be trifled with. But above them all, one soul was revered. A legend with an unblemished record of success. Most of the sellswords and cutthroats had made errors in their past. A capture that resulted in a kill, a kill that made a miraculous recovery. But not him.
“The Whispering Death”, one of the audience whispered reverentially.
“Bullshit”, slurred the drunk.
“The Whispering Death struck from the shadows time and time again. Impossible to wound, let alone kill. His services were the sole preserve of the wealthiest owners of problems.”
“I heard he was 12 feet tall and his arms were like Ochewood trunks!”
“My dad told me his blade was so fast the victim was dead before the blood even started to flow.”
"I heard”, bellowed the drunk, “he was an annoying little shit who just paid bards and women to sing his praises. Never did nothing.”
“Well, that’s just rude”, said the nasal voice.
“It were fucking”, he belched again. “It was fucking meant to be.”
“You watch your tongue, you dog!” hissed Mistress Feniic. “The Death could be upon you in an instant.”
The man laughed and stepped through the crowd onto the small stage. “Oh aye?”
“Aye”, said the voice from behind the storyteller. “I will be unless you hold your words.”
The crowd drew back. Even the belligerent heckler seemed momentarily cowed. He plucked a torch from the nearest rafter and held it behind the storyteller, illuminating….. nothing. Just a small owl sitting on the rafter.
“Where are you?”, the man demanded.
“I”, said the owl, “am right here! Strix, at your service!” He drew a tiny sword with a flourish. “But you will know me better as ‘The Whispering Death!’”
The drunk snickered. Then chuckled. Then completely lost control of his diaphragm in a paroxysm of laughter. When he pulled himself together and wiped the tears from his eyes, he prodded the owl in its now very puffed up breast. “You? You’re the fucking Whispering Death? I knew it was bullshit. You and that sword are just so bloody cute!”
“Cute in the light”, said Mistress Feniic, her low storytelling voice returning. “But by dark, the scourge of the 6 Kingdoms.”
The man laughed again. “I’d like to see that!”
“Then you shall”, said Feniic, drawing a shape in the air with her outstretched ring finger. The runecast glowed as she completed it, and the audience gasped. With a flick of her wrist, it flew to the torch flame in the hand of the drunk, then on to every torch in the tavern. They flickered out as one.
There was a rustle of feathers on air.
Then the torches relit.
The drunk coughed and dropped the torch. As Mistress Feniic retrieved it and trod out the small ember it left on the ground, his hands found his neck. There was no holding his throat closed though, and the movement of his arms was enough to release a torrent of blood from the clean incision that stretched from ear to ear.
Back on the rafter, the Whispering Death wiped his tiny blade on a wadded up spider web. “What a horrible accident”, he said to the audience. “I’ve no idea what happened. Funny thing though, there were a lot fewer accidents around me back in the old days when people showed me some damn respect!”
