'Shit!'
'What?' Kosthos stood up, looking towards his friend.
'It’s soured.'
'It can’t be, I cracked one earlier today, and it was fine.' Turning sideways, he shimmied between the kegs over towards where Landon stood, holding the whiskey thief out to him for a taste. Leaning across the top of a barrel, placing his hand upon its lid, he tasted it.
'Fuck!' Kosthos lifted his hand to his face and sniffed it. 'Bloody Bertie!'
'Bertie? For fuck's sake, what are you talking about?'
Looking around the darkened room, Kosthos scanned the barrel lids, his dark vision extending beyond the candle melted to the beam next to Landon. He could see it now, the darkened puddles on the lids of the other six barrels.
'The little shit has done something. What does it taste like?'
'Sour, like your frickin’ socks in brine.’
'All good, still drinkable, saleable.'
'No way! And not what Karlich expects. We're buggered.'
A sense of futility washed over Kosthos as he said this, the depressing question, will he be a street urchin, beggar forever? passed through his mind.
'Well, then, this won’t do.' Moving with agility, Landon squeezed past the barrel between him and his friend and pushed Kosthos into motion. 'We’ve got to get the six barrels as promised to Karlich tonight. Let’s go.'
The two pushed out of the alley, onto the wharf's dockside. Kosthos, not asking, simply followed as Landon turned right and ran along the wharf several hundred feet, then to its edge before stopping at the wharf's edge and dropping down waterside.
Not hesitating, Kosthos did the same, confident as he landed upon the familiar deck boards of Landon’s sloop. 'Where are we going?'
'Barthen’s got some barrels dockside, I saw them getting delivered, an easy two dozen, he won’t miss six.'
Kosthos said nothing. Barthen was a good man and had always treated him fairly, even letting him stay in the stables when the cold hit. Landon was right though, he probably wouldn’t notice, and they could always return the favour.
He moved forward and untied the prow line.
Landon expertly navigated the boat out and south along the wharf edge for several hundred metres before deftly turning it into the wharf again and securing the boat.
'Right.' Whispered Landon as he moved about the boat, lifting a piece of decking to retrieve two blackjacks, passing one to Kosthos. 'We don’t want to kill anyone.'
Again, Kosthos followed his friend blindly. He’d known Landon for a few years now, but it seemed of late Landon had seen something in him. A simple street urchin. He’d been bringing him into his exploits and undertakings, trying to show him a way off the streets, this beer run being his latest endeavour.
The only problem was he wasn’t sure if Landon’s loose interpretation of commerce was much better than living on the streets as he had been. They always seemed on the edge of legality. Not evil, not bad per se, but questionable.
He watched as his friend suddenly lifted his pace, sprinting forward. At what was a miff to him only momentarily and then the thug came into sight. It was one of Barthen’s henchmen hired to watch his wharves.
Landon’s speed never ceased to impress him, his speed, his style, and well confidence would be the best way to describe it. Skilled yes, but confident more. He moved in and in one belt of the blackjack brought the guard to his knees, catching him, and lowering him to the floor, dragging him so as not to block their entrance.
Suddenly Kosthos heard footsteps running from behind, he spun, head-turning, and he brought his blackjack up in a fluid movement, 'Kee Yah!' The bulbous end smashed into the temple of the fellow bearing down on him.
Eyes diluting instantaneously, his forward momentum propelled him into Kosthos who simply stepped to the side and let him pass through, landing face-first into the hard planking of the wharf.
'C’mon, we’ve got to get this done before more turn up looking for these two.' Again Landon ran forward further into the wharf into the lower entrance to Barthen’s warehouse.
Minutes later, the two of them had expertly spun the barrels on their edge. Lowered the last of the six into the boat, the two unconscious guards left reclined against each other would wake or be found sometime soon. Job done they pushed out into the Silver River.
They sat in silence, Landon at the tiller of the boat, expertly navigating it away from the waves and towards Brookdale. Each in their thoughts until Landon broke the silence. 'So who is this Bertie?'
'Oh,' Kosthos thought for a moment. 'It’s a creature that turned up a few years ago. I was at my loneliest, dark cold and miserable, and this little fellow turned up. Ugly bugger, all of a foot tall at most, bulbous head, snot-coloured eyes that glow in the dark, horizontal pointy ears, tufts, no, spikes of hair all over.'
'Sounds, um, weird. What’d it do, did it speak?' asked Landon as he took in his friend’s description.
'Yeah, he’s a bit simple, but could communicate, he kept me company, I tried to teach him and him me, we formed a sort of understanding. Where he came from, I don’t know, but he was a help when I needed him, and he has simply been around ever since. I’d see him for a bit and then not for a long while. He likes to play tricks, probably thought he was simply having fun souring the ale.'
'You sure? Sure it wasn’t anything more?'
Kosthos didn’t answer, they both returned to the silence they’d shared a few minutes before. It was at least two hours on the river to get to Karlich’s.
After an indeterminate amount of time, Landon spoke again. 'Kosthos.'
'Yeah?'
'It’s time you leave your Bertie behind. We’ll make this delivery and continue down the river.'
'Ok.' He leant back, it wasn’t a problem, everything he owned he had with him already. He leant back wondering what the future had to hold for him.
As he shifted his weight to get comfortable he felt it, that sticky, warm oily feeling. He raised his hand to his face, yup, he’d left home, but home may not have left him.
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