Fractious by Carrie Lynn Barker Page A

held up his knuckles, which he knocked
against mine.
    The gray and wrinkly old man just watched, intrigued, as Cu whacked me for the
millionth time with that damned bright green top hat. And then he said, "So, do you need a sword
or what? I got better things to do than stand around here, watching you beat that giant with a top
hat, and a bright green one, besides."
    Cu didn't answer, just followed behind the old man as he went into his hut.
    * * * *
    The hut was the size of King Mac Gréine's place back in the city of Murias. I
couldn't stand in it, but I could comfortably hunch over so that at least I was inside. The ponies
seemed content to stand tied to a nearby tree that might or might not have been a pine, and both
seemed happy to be cropping grasses. Fractious the mule was more interested in the goats than
anything else. He was probably trying to convince one of them about how divine it was to be a
sacrifice to a dragon and how one of them could take his place if they wanted. By the way they
were bleating, I assumed they weren't having any of the mule's lies.
    Inside the hut, I sat cross legged on the dirt floor. I should never have doubted the old
man's skills at making swords because the room was full of them. There was a little hole in the
top of the hut that let out the smoke from his forge, which was glowing red hot. We'd apparently
interrupted him but he didn't seem to mind.
    He'd introduced himself as Tat, which I made him repeat seven or eight times before I
figured out that he wasn't pulling my leg. Tat was a master swordsman who hated the outside
world so he'd left the cities for the safety and snow of the mountain. And since there was a
dragon nearby who would someday have to be slain, he thought this mountain path was a good
place to set up shop. Many people had crossed through his territory but he said he couldn't
remember a one who had come back. That did nothing to lift my spirits.
    "So, Tat" I said over a steamy cup of something that was probably tea, but like the pines,
I wasn't exactly sure. "How did you learn to be a sword smith?"
    "College," the old man said. "What the hell do you do, giant?"
    "Me?" I said, stabbing myself in the chest with my thumb.
    "Ain't no other giant I see around."
    "I'm a banker."
    Tat laughed out loud, his voice crackly like dried old paper.
    I saw Cu smiling at me and said, "What's so funny about that?"
    "You don't look like you could count to twenty with your shoes off," Tat said.
    It was my turn to laugh. "Actually, I can only count to nineteen with my shoes off."
    Tat and Cu looked at me in morbid curiosity.
    They left me no choice but to remove my left shoe and show them my missing little toe.
I wiggled the ones that were left and said, "Lost it in a tragic accident involving a TV tray and a
garage door. I could reenact it, but we don't have a garage door."
    Both men sidled up to me and bent over my foot. Cu made a face but the old man
seemed even more intrigued then he was before. "Now that's cool," Tat said, twirling his kung fu
movie style mustache about his forefinger.
    "I don't know if cool is the word for it," I muttered. "Nothing I can do about it
now."
    "What about a prosthetic?" Cu said.
    I blinked at him but didn't answer. "Anyway, how about this tea stuff? What is it?"
    Tat drank from his cup, savoring the taste. "Just a little concoction I make from the bark
of the pine trees and the dung of my goats."
    The liquid in my mouth suddenly sprayed out onto the floor of its own accord. I wiped
the back of my hand over my lips and apologized.
    Tat stared for a moment before saying, "Get out."
    "Why?"
    "Because you insulted my cooking," Tat said, rising to his feet and putting his wrinkled
hands on his knobby hips.
    "You didn't cook anything," I said sternly.
    "I don't care. I don't like you. Go outside."
    I sighed and clambered to my feet, hunched over in this thatched hut. "Fine," I said
under my breath. "Nobody here likes me and I didn't even ask to come." I