Free A Stone's Throw (The Gryphonpike Chronicles Book 3) by Annie Bellet Page B

to pay.”
    “Fine,” Myrie muttered. “The challenge is that anyone with a rapier can try to fit his sword into great granddad’s sheath there. If it fits, the sheath is yours.”
    “I wouldn’t mind giving it a go,” Drake said, testing the length of the scabbard against his own. “I’m pretty good at fitting my sword into things.” He smiled down at Myrie’s plump face and her cheeks turned red.
    I put my head in my hands and sighed. He hadn’t even started drinking yet.
    “There some magic here or something?” Drake asked, fishing a silver coin from his belt. He looked at me and made a tiny motion at the door with his head, but I gave him a flat look. I wasn’t going to go get Rahiel just so he could make sure he wasn’t being cheated out of a coin. Of course there was some magic, or any dolt with a rapier of about the right length and thickness could have taken the sheath already.
    Not that these women should have been betting the thing anyway. If it truly was dwarfwork, the sheath was priceless or at least exorbitantly expensive to the right buyer, even without the sword. It could have bought them a hundred beer-stained taverns.
    Myrie took the coin from his hand with another blush. “Go on then,” she said.
    Drake unsheathed his blade with an extra flourish. All eyes were on him now; even the women in the corner had stopped their dice game and turned to look. I picked up Thorn and then backed away until my back was against the smoke-blackened hearthstones. None of the seven or so locals or the two tavern owners looked worried, so I guessed that nothing would explode or anything, but still felt it prudent to keep some distance.
    Drake gripped the sheath in his right hand and, with a big dramatic sweep of his arms, sheathed his rapier. Or tried to. The tip stuck in empty air just in front of the scabbard’s mouthpiece as though lodged in an invisible surface. Drake grunted, his eyebrows knitting together, and shifted to put his weight behind his blade.
    It didn’t move. He huffed out a breath and dropped his arms in defeat. “What manner of magic is this?”
    “Only my great grandad’s sword would ever fit, or so granmama told us. When she built the tavern, she put it up with a bet. Helps pay the Duke’s taxes, so thank you.” Myrie smiled and tucked the silver bit into a pocket in her apron.
    “Where’s the sword?” Drake set the scabbard back on its stand with only a small hesitation, rubbing his thumb over the scrollwork.
    The women went back to their dice and Occo and his shepherd buddies resumed their low-voiced conversation speculating on the mating habits of elves. I returned to the bar also and set a few copper bits on its surface, hoping that one of the sisters would notice and bring me something to drink.
    “She likes wine,” Drake said as he glanced my way.
    “Our great granddad was a duelist, a great one, even after he retired from your Guild. He’d meet challengers from all over,” Myrie said, going back around the bar and uncorking a jug of wine for me. “He always dueled up on Widdershin hill, in these old ruins. One summer eve a man came to challenge him. All the way from Dro Bal he was, in the south.”
    “Aye. I’ve seen that vast city,” Drake interrupted, struggling to regain his mystique and worldliness. “I’m southern, myself.”
    “From how granmama tells it, his skin was darker than yours, black as night it was, and his cloak all crimson. My great granmama didn’t like his look, said he stank of magics, but Rucao, my great granddad, never turned down a challenge. So they met on the hill just before sunset. Rucao handed my granmama his scabbard, you see, it was her job to hold it til he won, even though she was only maybe six or seven years then.”
    “They fought,” Myrie’s sister picked up the thread, her voice falling into the cadence of a story repeated until it became as much habit as memory. “Back and forth, each matched well to the other.