xymnovel Chapter 361: A Message
Chapter 361: A Message
Inspector Finn was a man who genuinely enjoyed his life. He was well-fed, handsome, and carried a leather pouch completely full of jingling silver coins.
In the muddy kingdom of Dublin, being the High King’s appointed tax collector meant you were basically untouchable.
Finn spent his mornings shaking down local merchants, and his evenings drinking the finest ale surrounded by beautiful, scantily clad women.
Today was supposed to be just another easy morning...
"Break the fucking door down, Captain," Finn ordered, adjusting his collar with a smirk. "If the owner complains, tell him the High King charges an extra ten pieces of silver for making me stand in the cold."
The Captain swallowed hard. He didn’t like this at all. The rumors surrounding this specific tavern were incredibly dark, but he couldn’t disobey a royal inspector. He signaled his two burly guards.
The boots of the guards slammed into the wooden double doors.
The old iron lock snapped completely in half, and the doors swung inward,.
"Rise and shine, you cheap bastards!" Finn cheered, stepping into the tavern with a wide, arrogant smile.
However, the arrogant smile instantly melted off his face the very second he crossed the threshold.
It wasn’t the darkness that stopped him in his tracks... It was the smell.
It was unimaginably foul...
It smelled like rotting eggs mixed with boiling urine and burning rocks. It was so intense that it actually burned the inside of Finn’s nose.
"Damnit..." Finn coughed, waving his hand in front of his face. "Did a whole herd of pigs die in here? Captain, bring a lantern inside!"
Captain Torstein stepped cautiously into the room, holding up a burning oil lantern.
The large wooden bar counter had been smashed to pieces. The dining tables had been pushed together into long, crude workbenches.
And standing around those tables were dozens of dirty, shirtless men with rags tied over their mouths and noses.
They were crushing strange yellow stones into powder. In the corner, massive iron pots were boiling disgusting white sludge over open fires.
And covering every single surface in the room was a fine layer of pitch-black dirt.
Though Finn had no idea what he was looking at, his survival instincts screamed that he had just walked into something incredibly dangerous.
It looked like pure, dark witchcraft.
"Taxes, you say?" a raspy amused voice echoed from the shadows.
Finn jumped, his head snapping toward the back of the room.
Sitting entirely relaxed on a stack of empty wooden crates was a scarred man.
The man was casually flipping a throwing knife into the air and catching it by the sharp blade.
"I am... I am Inspector Finn!" he stammered. He puffed out his chest. "By the decree of the High King of Dublin, this establishment owes fifty pieces of silver in unpaid taxes. Pay up, or I will have my guards arrest every single one of you!"
*Thwack!*
Kjartan flicked his wrist. The throwing knife flew across the dark room with blinding speed, slicing a few hairs completely off the side of Finn’s head before burying itself deep into the doorframe right next to his ear.
Finn let out a pathetic squeak, freezing entirely in place.
"I think we are a little short on silver today, Inspector." Kjartan chuckled, slowly standing up from the crates.
"Who the fuck is yelling in my kitchen?!" a booming voice roared from the back hallway.
Heavy footsteps echoed through the tavern. A terrifying broad-shouldered mountain of a man stepped into the lantern light.
It was Ubba.
Captain Torstein took one look at the warlord and completely lost his mind.
"...I-Ivar’s brother!" Torstein gasped. Without a single word of apology to the Inspector, the guard captain dropped the lantern onto the floor, turned around, and sprinted out the broken doors as fast as his legs could carry him.
The other two guards didn’t even hesitate; they immediately ran right behind him, abandoning Finn entirely.
"Wait..! Come back here, you cowards!" Finn yelled, his voice cracking with pure panic.
Even so, Finn didn’t dare turn his back on the massive warlord.
He slowly backed up toward the broken doors, holding his hands up. "I... I made a mistake! The High King doesn’t need your taxes. In fact, you don’t have to pay taxes ever again! Just let me walk out of here!"
"Oh, you aren’t going anywhere, little pig." Ubba grinned.
He lunged forward, grabbing Finn by the collar of his expensive wool coat.
With a single heave, the massive warlord lifted the wealthy inspector completely off the ground. Finn kicked his legs in the air, gasping for breath as the coat choked him.
"Put him down, Ubba," a voice called out from the corner. "We don’t want to break our new guest before we can properly entertain him."
Ubba grunted, opening his hand and letting Finn drop to the floor.
From the dark hallway, two guards slowly pushed a man forward into the dim lantern light.
Finn recognized the pale face instantly... Every single person in Dublin knew the face of the most cunning raider in the north.
"Ivar... the Boneless..." Finn whispered.
"Welcome to my new kitchen, Inspector Finn." Ivar smiled, "I apologize for the mess and the terrible smell. As you can see, we are trying out a few new... recipes."
After hearing such words, Finn swallowed hard, looking around at the shirtless men grinding the yellow stones and boiling the white sludge.
"What... what are you doing in here? This is dark magic... If the High King finds out you are practicing witchcraft in his city, he will send an army to burn this place down."
Ivar let out a laugh, leaning forward on his crutches.
"Magic? Oh, no, my friend," Ivar said, "This is not magic... This is science. I stole it directly from the Iron King himself."
"You...?" Finn stammered, looking down at the black dirt covering his own boots. "You are making the Iron King’s thunder?"
"We are making something much better," Ubba laughed loudly, walking over to a long workbench. He picked up a perfectly round clay pot. The top was sealed entirely with thick wax, and a short, crude rope fuse was sticking out of the center.
Ubba walked back over and shoved the clay pot directly into Finn’s hands.
"Hold it," Ubba ordered.
Finn grabbed the pot. It was packed incredibly tight.
He looked down at it, having no idea what a bomb was, but knowing instinctively that it was something that could kill him.
"What is this?" Finn asked.
"That, my dear Inspector, is the future," Ivar smiled, slowly swinging himself forward on his crutches until he was standing right over the kneeling tax collector.
He reached into his fur coat and pulled out a small piece of flint and steel. "You just need a little bit of this magic black dirt, a cheap clay pot, and a single spark."
Ivar struck the flint against the steel right in front of Finn’s face.
A bright orange spark flew through the air, landing directly on the thick rope fuse sticking out of the clay pot.
The fuse instantly ignited... It began to burn rapidly, spitting out tiny, angry white sparks and a thin trail of thick smoke as the fire raced down the rope toward the packed black powder inside the pot.
"No... No! Please!" Finn screamed. He tried to drop the pot, but Ubba’s hands clamped down hard on Finn’s shoulders, forcing him to hold it against his chest.
"Look at it burn, Inspector!" Kjartan laughed wildly from the crates, highly amused by the man’s pathetic panic.
The fuse burned shorter and shorter... Two inches. One inch. Half an inch.
Finn squeezed his eyes tightly shut, bracing himself for the thunderous explosion that was going to tear his body to bloody shreds.
But the explosion never came... Instead, two thick fingers pinched the very end of the burning fuse, completely snuffing out the flame just a fraction of a second before it reached the wax seal.
Finn slowly opened his eyes.
Ivar the Boneless was standing right in front of him, his face inches away, a dark smirk playing on his lips.
His fingers were completely blackened with soot from pinching the fuse.
"You see, Inspector Finn?" Ivar whispered, "You didn’t even know what this clay pot was a minute ago, and now, you are crying on your knees, begging for your life."
Ivar reached down and plucked the clay bomb out of Finn’s shaking hands. He tossed it casually to Ubba, who caught it with a grin.
"I am not going to kill you today, Inspector, I need you to be a good little tax collector and deliver a message for me." Ivar said, turning around and walking back toward the hallway.
Finn knew with absolute certainty that whatever message he was being forced to carry back to the High King would inevitably drown the entire kingdom of Dublin in an ocean of blood and fire.
The arrogant tax collector who had strutted in that morning was gone, replaced only by a shaking messenger... After all, what defense could a kingdom of mere men possibly mount against warlords who now commanded the power of thunder?