Brute
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Good Bones
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“…action and romance and a surprising amount of heart.”
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Literary Nymphs Reviews
By
K
IM
F
IELDING
N
OVELS
Brute
Good Bones
F
EATURED
IN
THESE
A
NTHOLOGIES
Animal Magnetism
Don’t Try This at Home
Men of Steel
N
OVELLAS
Speechless
C
OMING
IN
2013
Venetian Masks
Night Shift
Published by
D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
Dreamspinner Press
5032 Capital Circle SW
Ste 2, PMB# 279
Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886
USA
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Brute
Copyright © 2012 by Kim Fielding
Cover Art by Paul Richmond
http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Ste 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA.
http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/
ISBN: 978-1-62380-226-4
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition
December 2012
eBook edition available
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62380-227-1
M
USIC
was his companion.
Brute sang about a love lost at sea as he settled the stone slab more comfortably on his massive shoulders and began to trudge uphill on the narrow path. He sang quietly, because with his very deep voice and inability to carry a tune, he knew he sounded terrible and the other men would glare if he became too loud. Nobody was close enough to hear him if he kept his voice low, and the music made his burdens seem a little lighter, made the pathway a little less treacherous under his feet. He sang the bawdy songs that rumbled in the tavern under his room and the wistful ballads the women sang when they gathered around the well at dawn, and sometimes he even hummed the lullabies he half remembered someone crooning to him.
It had rained the night before, and although the sky was now clear, the ground was slick. So he set each foot carefully before taking the next step. His bare toes sank into the mud, giving him a little more traction. He’d once saved up enough money to have a pair of boots made—none of the shoemaker’s ready-made goods were large enough—but even though they were well crafted, the boots didn’t last long, and now he knew better than to waste his few coins.
“Hurry up!” came an impatient shout from the top of the ridge, but he ignored it. He had no wish to tumble off the path and onto the sharp rocks below. He kept on setting one foot in front of the other and singing about a storm and a shipwreck, until finally the slope leveled out. Then he grunted and let the stone slide to the ground, where it landed with a soft
squelch
.
Without even stopping to unkink his muscles, he turned to head down the path again for the next stone. But the foreman grabbed his arm. Darius was a lean man, his hard, weathered face set into a perpetual scowl. “You’re slow today. The prince himself is arriving tomorrow to inspect our progress, and we better fucking well have some progress to show him.”
“The path’s slippery.”
“I don’t fucking care, and the prince won’t fucking care either. Haul ass.”
The harsh words were nothing unusual and didn’t hurt. Didn’t hasten him either. As much pressure as Darius was under to finish the bridge quickly, he could hardly afford to lose a worker. Especially someone who was capable of carrying twice the weight that any other man could bear and who managed the tricky narrow bits of the pathway better than horses or mules. Brute’s immense size and strength were his job security, so long as his back held out.
Three more journeys down the hill, where the brothers Osred and Osric paused in their chiseling to heft another block of granite into the rudimentary back sling, and three more journeys back up, with the mud warm on his feet and a lullaby on his lips.
Just as he neared the crest of the hill, he heard a crash and a volley of swearing. “Don’t fucking touch it!” Darius yelled at someone. “Wait for Brute.”
Wait they did while he eased the stone off his back, two dozen men glaring at him as if he were somehow the cause of the current calamity. “Move this,” Darius ordered, pointing.
One of the structural timbers—an enormous tree that had grown in the forests to the north before being felled, stripped, and arduously hauled—had fallen from a cart and rolled, so that nearly half of it was hanging off the cliff. If the timber were to fall into the river below, it would be swept away, an expensive loss.
“Don’t stand there like an idiot, Brute. Move the damn thing.”
“The horses could move it.”
“I’m not going to waste time unharnessing them from the wagon and then hooking them back up again.”
Brute eyed the log for a moment, debating whether he could move it by himself and considering the likelihood that he’d go tumbling off the cliff if he tried.
Darius stepped forward, his hands clenched into fists. “It’s not that hard. Even
you
ought to be able to figure it out. You pick the fucking thing up and you move it back where it belongs.”
Brute thought about refusing, but his confidence in job security went only so far. If Darius decided that he was too difficult, the foreman wouldn’t waste any more time on him. He’d sack Brute and make sure none of the other foremen hired him. Brute had no skills beyond the simplest manual labor. Sometimes Darius called him an ox with hands. And without a job, well, Brute had enough coins saved to last him six weeks, perhaps two months if he ate very little. Once winter came, he’d either freeze or starve.
The other workers stood and stared, maybe hoping that Brute would create some kind of fuss. From the looks they gave him sometimes, he could tell they assumed that violence came as easily to him as to a bad-tempered bear. In truth, he hadn’t raised a hand to anyone since he was a boy, but he supposed he looked frightening enough. And Darius wasn’t popular—the men wouldn’t mind seeing him pounded and Brute fired. Or maybe they just wanted a diverting break from their labors.
Whatever the other men wanted, Brute didn’t give it to them. He nodded slightly at Darius and walked to the fallen timber. He looked at it for a few moments. He might possibly be able to drag it the few yards to the cart, but his arms—despite their length—wouldn’t fit around the broad trunk. “You’ll need to tie it to me,” he said to nobody in particular.
Sensing a new form of entertainment, several men scrambled forward. With some difficulty, they managed to tie a thick rope around the log, then handed the end of the rope to Brute, who improvised a sort of harness for himself. He took a few deep breaths, bent his knees a little, and began to pull.
At first nothing happened, except for the rope digging painfully into his chest and shoulders. He worried a little that his shirt might rip. He wasn’t certain it would survive another mending, and he owned only one other. Perhaps he should have taken it off before tying the rope around himself. Then it would have been his skin that tore, but that was nothing new. He’d heal. In any case, it was too late for that. He inhaled again, and as he exhaled he heaved with all his might.
The timber shifted a little. Unfortunately, it also began to roll and, slowly, more of the log shifted off the edge of the cliff. Only a few more feet and the entire timber would go over the edge, dragging him with it. He was apt to survive the fall less successfully than the log would. Panic began to nibble at the edges of his mind as he was tugged backward a few inches, his feet sliding in the mud as he fought desperately to retain his footing. “Help me!” he shouted, but nobody moved. They just watched his struggle, morbid interest sharp on their faces. If they’d had more time, they probably would have placed wagers on his success. He wondered what the odds would have been.
The rope hurt his chest and back. But it was less painful than crashing down the cliff and smashing into the jagged rocks, he reminded himself. He roared and lurched forward again, and this time the timber moved with him.
His audience responded, some men cheering and others hissing with disappointment. He ignored them, grunting as he set one foot in front of the other. His burden was a little easier now that momentum was in his favor, but it was still very heavy. His heart felt like a beast trying to escape the cage of his chest, and his lungs rasped painfully. Sweat dripped down his face, stinging the tiny cuts and scrapes he’d accumulated throughout the day. But he bent his body forward and continued to move.
He didn’t even notice that his eyes were closed until he bumped into the cart. Only then did he allow his legs to give out, and he collapsed to the soft ground where he lay on his back, fighting for oxygen and enjoying the bliss of being free of his burden.
“Shift your lazy asses!” Darius growled. “Get the goddamn log back on the wagon.”