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From his position at a table in the back of the tavern, Kremy sipped at his over-priced wine that tasted like watered-down swill as he watched the disaster before him unfold.
It was only a matter of time, really. They'd been here for a couple of hours now, in this rundown tavern in the middle of nowhere, with Gricko trying to teach Hootsie new tricks, with Gideon getting friendly with a couple of barmaids, with Kremy taking tiny sips of his shameful excuse of red wine, and, more importantly, with Frost seated at a table across from a man with an ugly hat a stack with of gold coins beside him and an array of cards in his hand. Frost had been winning non-stop since the moment the cards had been placed on the table in front of him, and Kremy had nothing but confidence in Frost's intelligence and card-counting abilities, but even he knew when a good ruse had run its course and reached its end.
Because Frost was too good. He wasn't even pretending to be dealt rough cards. He was folding when it was necessary and bet double the money when his cards were good. The speed at which the gold had begun to pile up beside him in neatly stacked towers was mesmerising, like better magic than Kremy could ever possess. But he also had eyes. Frost was smart, but not smart enough to recognize when his opponent was starting to get frustrated and twitchy and was eyeing Frost and his pile of gold with ire that increased with every hand that was dealt.
From his little table in the far corner, Kremy kept an eye on the rest of the tavern. He could see Gideon easily, heads above the rest where he was posted up against the bar and Gricko was making a hell of a lot of noise in the corner of the bar than he ought to be, shouting and hollering and cheering Hootsie on as she tried to stand on her two front legs in a handstand, earning angered looks from the people who worked in and ran the establishment. Right now, the only one that Kremy was worried about was Frost, who was right in the middle of the room, oblivious to the ire radiating off of the man seated just across from him. The last thing he wanted was to get into another unnecessary fight that resulted in Frost getting hurt and all their recently-earned money getting taken from them, so with a sigh, he drank down the rest of his lack-lustre wine and heaved himself up and out of his chair.
His cane clicked sharply against the ale-sticky floorboards of the tavern as he leisurely made his way across it. Nobody paid him any attention as he manoeuvred around the sparse crowd in the general direction of Frost's blackjack table. Mostly, he just tried to stay away from any drunkards currently holding a beverage; god forbid they spilt anything on his pristine suit.
Coincidentally, as he was walking towards Frost's table, Gideon came from the same direction, having pushed away from the bar and was now attempting to make his way towards the rooms upstairs with two of the off-duty barmaids tucked under his arms, looking chuffed with himself.
While he was usually more than happy to allow Gideon to have his fun when he wasn't on the clock, but he felt a tension thrumming throughout the bar, and could smell danger coming. He stopped Gideon with his cane gently across his chest, and Gideon glance down at the barrier with an expression close to a pout. "Hey, what-?"
"Not yet, Gid," Kremy said. "The night is still young and I don't pay you to fool around with every pretty woman you see."
"You don't pay me at all," Gideon scowled as he ushered the barmaids upstairs to wait for him. They flicked their hair over their shoulder and fluttered their eyelashes at him before they disappeared to the upper landing, most likely making their way towards Gideon's room to wait. Gideon moved to stand beside Kremy with his arms crossed over his chest. "So, what's the problem?"
Kremy gestured with his cane towards the man seated across from Frost. He was no longer paying any attention to his cards but was entirely watching Frost with an intent that Kremy didn't like. "That man is going to try and start some shit with Frost."
"Who?" Gideon frowned. "The big guy with the ugly hat?"
"Yes, that one," Kremy said. "He's going to try and get at Frost and I need you to stop that from happening."
Even though Gideon shook out his shoulders and cracked his neck in preparation, he still looked at Kremy incredulously. "How can you tell?"
"I've been at this for a long time, Gid," Kremy reminded him, both hands folded over the skull that adorned his cane, the smooth sensation familiar under his grip. "And that man has the face of a man who has been conned out of his money one too many times and is going to get retribution with any means necessary. Believe me, if you've been in this business for as long as I have, you start to recognise it. And that man is about to snap."
"Alright, alright, but you owe me," Gideon grumbled as he manoeuvred around the crowd towards Frost's table. It was easy enough for him to do. With his immense size, the natural heat radiating off of him, the chains that dragged loudly against the floorboards, and the intense glower on his face, the rest of the patrons in the tavern hurriedly stepped out of his way and avoided him like the plague. Kremy couldn't blame them. Gideon could be scary when he really wanted to be. The only reason that Kremy had never been fearful of him was that he knew him so damn well by now. This was why, despite his complaints, Kremy knew that Gideon was eager for this approaching fight, no matter how fleeting it might have been.
He was so busy watching keeping an eye on Frost and Gideon that Kremy had completely forgotten about Gricko, and he was startled when he felt something small press against his leg, and when he glanced down, Gricko was perched against his leg, looking bored and sleepy. "What's all this then? Gideon looks angry."
"Where's Hootsie?" Kremy was momentarily distracted by the lack of the large, friendly owlbear at Gricko's side.
"Oh, I put her down for a nap, she was getting testy," Gricko waved at his nose like he was trying to swat a fly. "Now, what have I missed? What's going on? Because- correct me if I'm wrong- but that's Gideon's 'start a fight for the fun of it' face, and I'd like to know what kind of hubbub we're going to get into before I waste my spells healing you all. They're very precious resources, you understand, and I'm not about to hand them out like candy if you don't deserve it."
"Well, if it all goes well, Gideon isn't going to be fighting anybody, and the night will end peacefully, we'll retire to our rooms, and we'll move on from here in the morning," Kremy replied. "If it goes poorly, Gideon is going to tear some poor soul apart limb from limb for trying to take his coin back from Frost, and we'll have to deal with the retributions."
Gricko nodded sagely. "Ah, I see. In that case, I hope Gideon gets to smash a few heads in. I'll have some whisky ready for him."
"Hold on now," Kremy warned. "We don't know if there's going to be a fight at all. This is just a precaution."
"Oh, Kremy, you sweet summer child," Gricko laughed, patting Kremy on the thigh. "You've sicced your guard dog on him! When Gideon's involved, there's always going to be a fight."
And while Kremy would like to give Gideon the benefit of the doubt, he also knew his track record, and how many trips to the farm they'd had to make in the past month alone, with accidental deaths and intentional deaths and deaths that were somehow somewhere in-between. But he couldn't find it within himself to be annoyed, not in the slightest. You could say whatever you wanted, but you could never say that Gideon's methods didn't get results.
Soon enough, he was glad that he had sent Gideon over there because ten minutes and another couple of rounds later, the man in the ugly hat threw his cards down on the table with a disgusted grunt. "You're out of your god's damned mind, cat."
Frost tilted his head to the side and gestured at the cards. "If you're going to fold, all you have to do is say so. There's no need to be insulting."
The man leant forwards, elbows braced on the table and pointed an accusing finger at Frost. "You're cheating. I know it."
"Sir, there is no cheating in poker," Frost said kindly. "The cards are entirely random. I am not controlling the outcome of the game any more than you are."
"You're lying. You've rigged it, I just know it," Ugly Hat gripped the edges of the table as if he were going to try and flip the entire thing over until its legs were sticking upwards and the cards and coins went scattering across the tavern in a free-for-all. "Give me back my money."
"I'm afraid that I can't do that," Frost stroked his beard. His voice sounded sympathetic but his eyes were calculated. "It was your choice to gamble all of your money away. You lost, fair and square. If you try and take back your money- which now belongs to me, which makes it my money- then I'll be forced to take action against you, and I just don't think that you're worth it."
Ugly Hat scowled and lunged at Frost, leaping across the table to reach for Frost's throat, but before he could get his meaty hands around him, he was boldly grabbed by Gideon who wrapped his arms around Ugly Hat's waist and tossed him through one of the tavern's windows, leaving him lying in the middle of the street, surrounded by shards of broken glass. He eyed Frost carefully. "You alright, Frosty?"
"Fine, fine," Frost waved off his concern as he began to load stacks of gold into the sack Kremy had loaned him for just this occasion. "I did warn him. Some morons just never listen."
"Everyone's a moron compared to you, Frosty," Gideon said as he cracked his knuckles. "But yeah, that guy was really stupid."
"You would have thought that he'd have seen you coming," Gricko piped up as he moved forwards to help Frost shovel gold coins into the sack before anybody else could get any more bright ideas and try and lunge for them. "Considering you're a giant and all red and everything."
"I don't think I'm a giant," Gideon frowned as he contemplated. "No, no giant blood, just efreet blood. But I think I know what you're trying to say."
Frost gestured behind Gideon with the hand not busy with the gold, at Ugly Hat, who was now trying to stagger up to his feet, where he stood there, swaying and bloodied. "Are you going to deal with him or what?"
"Oh, yeah," Gideon patted Frost on the shoulder as he turned around and exited the tavern through the recently-broken window, having to hunch his shoulders and duck his head to fit his body through the window frame. "Be right back."
With a relieved sigh, Kremy slowly backed away from the group and returned to his secluded table in the corner, relieved to have avoided a major incident and appeased Gideon's need for a good fight every now and then at the same time. He paused his approach when he caught sight of the empty wine glass, the dregs of his red wine coalesced at the bottom and changed directions so he could instead swing by the bar.
"Excuse me, my good sir," he summoned the barkeep, who had previously been preoccupied with watching the very one-sided fight outside. "I must say, I just had the worst red wine that I had ever had in my entire life. I should mention, that's my friend out there outside. The big red man with the chains and the smoke? Yeah, him. Now, let me ask you, and answer me honestly, do you have any whisky that doesn't taste like goblin piss?"
It's safe to say that the three fingers that the barkeep poured for him- for free, he might add- was the best whisky that Kremy had enjoyed in a very long time.