Read Online The Twins by Gary Alan Wassner - Free Book Online Page B

know why we were given these instructions, but follow them we must if we are to keep our jobs!” Cairn heard one of the men say in a heavy Pardeauan accent.
    As he inched his way around the final bend, Cairn stepped into the grass just a bit in order to keep himself concealed while catching a glimpse of the crowd ahead.
    “It goes against me to do so, Petro. I cannot detain a man just because he is a stranger. Our town has always welcomed travelers,” a barrel-chested, tall man with a red beard responded.
    “I do nay want strangers coming to my town no more!” said another short man with long tangled hair and high, muddy boots. “I need to protect me own. Me wife and child is scared ‘nuf these days.”
    “Travelers are still welcome and always will be!” the man called Petro responded. “But, we have to be careful now. Mayor Steed has been told by the councilor to keep vigilant. I do nay know what they expect to come here, but they are mighty worried.”
    A fourth man, burly and silent up until now, spoke up with determination. “I trust not this councilor. He has our timid little mayor running around scared like a mother cackle bird who lost its babes. Why should we listen to this foreigner? Where did he come from anyway?”
    “Trevor speaks the truth!” another man chimed in. “Where did he come from? We here never needed outlanders to help us run our business. He just appears one day and then is gone and we now have a new boss? Strange times are surely upon us, and I do nay like the feel of them.”
    “Borland is right. Ever since this outlander showed up in our town things is turned topsy-turvy. ‘Strangers’ as he calls ‘em, have kept us alive for many a year with their trade and travel needs,” said Constant the farmer. “If I am to feed me kiddies and pay me taxes, I needs to sell me grain elsewheres. Are you going to buy it all from me, Petro?”
    “Nay, I cannot, Constant,” he replied, shaking his head and toeing the ground petulantly. “But there is truth to the warnings.” “Worse things may come of this than too few business partners, I fear,” Trevor added.
    “I do nay want trouble. We were told just to hold them up for a bit, not to harm anyone. I say we do as we been told,” a dark eyed and sinister looking man named Marto retorted.
    “I do nay like to be told by anyone how to do things, let alone some pale-skinned, slimy messenger boy from the south!” Borland exclaimed with finality.
    “You defy him and you will bring evil things down upon us all. I swear to you Borland, I will nay allow it. Trouble is as trouble does, and trouble is coming. I do nay want to be in its way when it reaches here,” the short, bearded man retorted.
    “You will nay allow it? And how do you propose to stop me from aiding whomsoever I choose? You have always been a coward, Gumley, and I would nay have expected more from ye.”
    Marto raised his staff in front of Borland, and as the lines were being drawn amongst the parties present with a nasty fight seemingly inevitable, Petro smacked the hilt of his broadsword against the lone tree trunk in the clearing.  
    “Enough now!” he exclaimed. “There’s no sense in fighting amongst ourselves. We can nay decide the matter here with our tempers red hot. Borland! You take Trevor and farmer Constant back to the town center and wait for us there. The rest of us will finish our scouting watch and meet you there an hour after the sun is down. We can sit at Parla’s and talk this over later. Some good ale and one of her peppered hens will ease these tensions, I suspect.”
    “OK Petro, if you say so I will. But you can nay get me to go against my better judgment here and change me ways,” Borland said, glaring at Marto.
    As Borland left with the others, it was easy for Cairn to determine that however good the intentions of some of the men might be, if he entered the town now, then his journey would surely be delayed. Something was going on here, that