Night's Black Agent (Part Three) (Bramwald)

 (WIP)

I'zara looked over the cards in her hand... what she presumed was a winning hand. 

The sailing ship The Kraken's Wake was berthed at Ratchet, and many of the crew had come ashore on leave, seeking solace in the embrace of alcohol a few steps up from the shipboard grog, made from... well, I'zara didn't know from what grog was made, and given the taste, she had no intention of finding out.

Instead, she had found herself a card game at the Broken Keel, although to her chagrin her luck had been plentiful - but all bad.

Until this hand. Luck and persistence had conspired to bless I'zara with a run of four cards on the same suit. 

Then she had tossed back one card; she had two chances to fill the straight, on either end of her run. a three or a seven of Rogues would do nicely, and she had drawn the seven.

After a furious round of betting, only she and the captain of the Kraken's Wake, Vivian Heartsorrow, remained. I'zara had bet her last gold coin that she had held back to pay her bar bill, but Wiley would forgive her when she walked away from the table with her windfall.

And then Vivian raised, adding twenty - twenty! - more gold to the pot, arching an eyebrow.

"... I don't suppose you'd take a marker? I'm good for it," offered I'zara.

"I'm sure you are, but I run a ship... it might take months until I am back to Ratchet, and maybe years until you are here at the same time," refused Vivian.

"...how about if I have Wiley extend you credit at the inn?" I'zara countered.

"How about you pony up cash, friend. Or cede the pot if you can't..."

"How about if I indenture my slave to you for a year?" the orc woman said. "A year's service, and if I don't redeem him... well, he's worth at least twenty, in addition to the free labor you'll get out of him."

"The Kraken's Wake isn't a slaver," said Vivian slowly, narrowing her eyes. "And could use a new cabin boy..."

*     *     *

Bramwald's voice hit a pitch several octaves above normal. "What do you mean a year? You sold me?"

"I did not sell you... think of it as a lease? A year at sea will be good for you; you'll learn new skills, make new friends... it'll be a new experience, an adventure!"

"Adventures are stupid, getting killed for nothing," Bramwald said, his voice doing a credible imitation of I'zara. 

"...c'mon, kid... it's only a year."

"Then you do it. Its only a year, right?"

"You know I can't - Freke gets sick at sea." She turned to Freke. "Tell him you get sick at sea!"

The wolf, perched atop the bed, looked away with a whine.

"Fine. Traitor!" she snarled. "Look... I'm sorry, OK? I had a sure thing... almost a sure thing."

Bramwald came over to I'zara, and gave her a hug. "OK. A year. But you better get me back after the year."

I'zara looked disconcerted, disarmed by Bramwald's honest affection. She wrapped her arms around his slender body, and rested her chin atop his head. "Freke would never let me rest, otherwise, kid."

Night's Black Agent (Part Two) (Bramwald)

I'zara grimaced as the human named Bramwald entered their house; she had gone to bed at a late hour, and had been inebriated enough that she had simply collapsed across the bed. Her head ached with the buzzing like a swarm of hornets, made worse by the incessant talking of her human slave.

"Escaping slavery through death is not a good way to die, but if you keep up your chattering then you will soon be quite free... or what is left of you will..." I'zara grumbled, throwing her thick zebra hide blanket over her achig head.

"It's not my fault you over-indulged in Wiley's Wicket Ale, mistress," answered the human from the cooking stove. "Besides, if you kill me, you won't have anyone to make your morning coffee... although technically, its more your 'afternoon coffee' now." Bramwald seemed undaunted by I'zara's grumbling threat. 

Slowly I'zara recognized the scent of the black coffee available from the Broken Keel, which imported it by the bag for select customers. "I guess I will have to show mercy, then..."

"Yes, my most amenable and beautiful mistress! Show everyone the kindness and mercy you show everyone, even a miserable slave!" Bramwald wore an iron torc and wrist manacles denoting his legal status as I'zaras slave. He wore a simple cotton tunic, and carried no weapon openly; arming slaves was considered the height of stupidity in Azeroth.

Bramwald come to where she was still huddled in the hell of deserved hangovers, and made her wrap her hands around the large porcelain mug. She sniffed the beverage, and almost smiled when she recognized that Bramwald had added cream and sugar, the way she preferred (although in hard times she would take it any way they could afford).

"A second cup is ready when you need a refill. Are you eating breakfast today?" he asked, knowing that sometimes her post-bacchanal condition precluded aught but coffee.

"Just coffee is fine," I'zara grumped.

The town of Ratchet was a goblin port in Kalimdor, near the Northern Barrens. Owned and operated by the carefully neutral goblin Steamwheedle Cartel, it had unofficially - meaning there was no solid, tangible proof - that Ratchet had served the Horde. Ratchet's mayor, a goblin named Gazlowe had taken over the Horde-aligned Bilgewater Cartel.  As with most things goblin, solid answers were unclear and changed with circumstance, but Ratchet was still available to Alliance merchants and visitors.

After all gold had no loyalty.

After I'zara's wolf partner Freke had adopted Bramwald as his "cub", I'zara had found registering Bramwald as her slave covered a variety of legal nuance with one overriding truth; anyone threating or mistreating Bramwald would be repaid with a bullet. 

As he grew, Bramwald had learned how to scrape and cure the pelts that I'zara brought home. Wiley, the innkeeper of the Broken Keel taught the boy other skills while the boy did odd jobs for the tavern; goblin accounting, cooking, and the proper way to make coffee. 

If I'zara and Wiley taught him other skills, like how to throw knives, or fight with axe and dagger.... it was nobody else' business. The wharf ad warehouses were kept remarkably free of rats, and Freke was well-fed.

I'zara was troubled; Bramwald was almost an adult by the reckoning of the humans. Orc and goblin children would long since been sent out into the world to make a place for themselves; it wouldn't be long before Bramwald should be allowed to do the same. He seemed content to continue indefinitely as I'zara's bondsman, but one of the skills that Bramwald had learned from his goblin neighbors was to lie with skill and guile. 

(WIP)

Night's Black Agent (Part One) (Bramwald)

The grass on the sides of the ridge of the Dagger Hills was as gold as a dragon's wet dream, but much less valuable than a dragon's hold. The rocky ridge straddled the area between the deserted village of Moonbrook and the Stranglethorn Jungle. Before the Cataclysm, this area had been the home of several caps of the Defias bandits, but they were long since gone in the aftermath of the brutal invasion of the lands of Westfall by the Burning Legion. Only the living beings here were now the lonely camp of  Grimbooze Thunderbrew, and the occasional miner seeking to find and exploit the area's prodigious copper veins.

There was no one to note the plaintive screams of a terrified infant human, sprawled in the dry amber grasses. His parents were being ripped apart to assuage the never-ending hunger of a pair of rotting ghouls which haunted the area, drifting over the Dead Acre from the accursed woodlands of Duskwood. The ghouls had surprised the pair, who had been hauling a load of hops, seeking Grimbooze Thunderbrew to convince him to make them a keg of Thunderbrew Lager. Both humans had died, and the child they had brought with them had been fortunate enough to find a relatively soft landing in the grass. His screams had not yet attracted the attention of the ghoulds during their depredations, but the child's escape would only be temporary, until the ghouls finished their grisly feast on the remains of his parents. The terrified wailing of the child would act as an unwelcome beacon for the ghouls.

A thunderous crack momentarily drowned out the child's cries. A bullet splattered the rotting cranium of one of the ghouls. The other raised his head from the gorey meal, looking for the source. A second loud crack, and the other ghoul collapsed, now headless.

A large white-furred wolf padded ver to the two ghoul carcasses, and spurned their rotten meat with a disdainful sniff before turning to where the infant lay in the grass, warily silent after the gunshots. The wolf nuzzled the child, and licked it. 

The child began to giggle at the soft nose and tongue.

"What you got there, Freki?" asked the wolf's companion and hunting partner.

The wolf arched his back, and whined hopefully.

"No!" The woman said in a firm voice. "We are not bringing it along. We're not in the orphan-adoption business!"

Another whine from the lupine creature.

"Not happening!" the woman orc named I’zara said, turning and heading back along the ridgeline to the coast. She had came from the Grom'gol Base Camp via boat to the abandoned pier in southern Longshore, dodging murlocs, fruitlessly searching for treasures left behind. Guided by a treasure map purchased from a goblin in Ratchet, the cache of gold and gemstones failed to materialize.

"Serves me right, buying a treasure map from goblin..." she muttered. "C'mon furball... wait, put that down." Freki had picked up the child by its cloth diaper, and had followed I’zara along the path.

Freki gave her a look of studied innocence, but did not put down her bundle. 

"Fine!," she said. "You want to adopt a human pup, then remember - it's your responsibility. You get to feed it, you get to keep it clean, you get to sleep with it..." She kept up an increasingly improbable litany of the wolf's responsibility, without any hint that she well knew who would find up with the necessary duties.