Page 31 of Feral Guardian
The smell of sour ale and gamey stew hits me as we pass into the crowded tavern. The room is wide and long but not very tall. Alastair has to dip his head to pass under the support beams and move around the magic-fueled orange lanterns. Smoke from candles and cigarettes creates a thin film on the ceiling that gives the entire room a hazy ambiance.
There are ten rectangular tables on the main floor, with a few standing barrels tucked away against the walls in hidden alcoves. There’s a stage at the very back of the room near the hearth, but it’s currently unoccupied. I was hoping there’d be some bard I could learn interesting new things from, but alas, no such luck. Eyzanth didn’t have it in the cards for me.
Oh, cards!
“No,” Alastair whispers as he grabs my upper arm and steers me away from the gambling table.
“But I could earn us some coin,” I say.
“Or you could lose what little we have left, which is not much,” Alastair says.
“If you’d just let me make some more—”
“That’s immoral,” Alastair says, cutting me off.
I pout a little, but he’s right, I suppose. Throwing off the economy of a foreign country by adding new tender isn’t the best way to start my career as a diplomat. Plus, I hardly know the rules for the games in Fynren, and I didn’t get many lessons on Seterian games, just what I could sneak from the academy staff.
Alastair leads me to the bar and leans in to speak with a man tending it. “We’re looking for passage to Fynren.”
My attention wanders as I look at all the lovely people in the room. Men and women wearing big smiles and bigger personalities as they tell jokes and enjoy themselves. It’s nice to be around people who don’t have sticks shoved all the way up their asses.
“What are you having?” a woman tending bar asks me.
I turn to her with a grin that burns my cheeks. “I will have the biggest drink you’ve got.”
She smirks and grabs a tankard from the shelf behind her. The thing is about the size of Alastair’s helmet: enormous.
“Are you sure you can handle it?” she asks, cocking her hip out.
“Oh, I’ve handled bigger,” I say, waggling my eyebrows.
Alastair’s head snaps in my direction, cutting off his conversation with the other bartender. “Prin—miss, that was inappropriate,” he growls.
“How much?” I ask the woman.
“If you can drink the whole thing in a minute, I’ll give it to you for…” She taps her chin playfully as she thinks. “Five bronze. If not, it’ll be a silver.”
I leer.
Challenge accepted.
I place the coins on the counter, and she fills up the massive wooden tankard with the sour-smelling beer. It’s got a red tint to it, and I swear they’ve cut it with beet juice. All well, this is what I want.
Alastair grumbles as the woman slides the drink to me and accepts my money. I wrap my hands around the massive thing and lean down to drink the pinkish foam from the rim. It is definitely cut with beet juice.
I get a few gulps in and pull the tankard off the counter, tilting it back farther and farther as the lukewarm beet beer bubbles down mythroat. The space around me goes quiet as I continue to take in the drink. More and more, my stomach is stretching to accommodate all the bubbly brew.
My eyes shift left and right to see that people are staring and Alastair is glowering. I keep chugging, taking deep gasping breaths through my nose after every swallow. The whole tavern has fallen silent now as I near the bottom of the drink. My stomach threatens to spill everything back up into the cup, but I battle it down. Who cares if they’re looking at me!
I finish the last drop and slam the tankard down on the counter.
Cheers erupt around the room with a shout of, “I’ll buy her another!” coming from somewhere near the hearth.
“You will not,” Alastair says, but it’s lost to the raucous crowd.
“I need a moment,” I say, a hiccup interrupting me. “I’m very full now.”
Men young and old are pushing up to the counter to order me another tankard.
