Karisa

“The tavern keeper, a wiry man with a sharp-nosed face, round, prominent ears and a receding hairline that combined to give him a rodentlike look, glanced at him, absentmindedly wiping a tankard with a grubby cloth. Will raised an eyebrow as he looked at it. He'd be willing to bet the cloth was transferring more dirt to the tankard then it was removing.
"Drink?" the tavern keeper asked. He set the tankard down on the bar, as if in preparation for filling it with whatever the stranger might order.
"Not out of that," Will said evenly, jerking a thumb at the tankard. Ratface shrugged, shoved it aside and produced another from a rack above the bar.
"Suit yourself. Ale or ouisgeah?"
Ousigeah, Will knew, was the strong malt spirit they distilled and drank in Hibernia. In a tavern like this, it might be more suitable for stripping runt than drinking.
"I'd like coffee," he said, noticing the battered pot by the fire at one end of the bar.
"I've got ale or ouisgeah. Take your pick." Ratface was becoming more peremptory. Will gestured toward the coffeepot. The tavern keeper shook his head.
"None made," he said. "I'm not making a new pot just for you."
"But he's drinking coffee," Will said, nodding to one side.
Inevitably the tavern keeper glanced that way, to see who he was talking about. The moment his eyes left Will, an iron grip seized the front of his shirt collar, twisting it into a knot that choked him and at the same time dragged him forward, off balance, over the bar,. The stranger's eyes were suddenly very close. He no longer looked boyish. The eyes were dark brown, almost black in this dim light, and the tavern keeper read danger there. A lot of danger. He heard a soft whisper of steel, and glancing down past the fist that held him so tightly, he glimpsed the heavy, gleaming blade of the saxe knife as the stranger laid it on the bar between them.
He looked around for possible help. But there was nobody else at the bar, and none of the customers at the tables had noticed what was going on.
"Aach...mach co'hee," he choked.
The tension on his collar eased and the stranger said softly, "What was that?"
"I'll...make...coffee," he repeated, gasping for breath.
The stranger smiled. It was a pleasant smile, but the tavern keep noticed that it never reached those dark eyes.
"That's wonderful. I'll wait here.”
― John Flanagan, Halt's Peril

“Isn't that someone we know?" asked Horace. He pointed to where a cloaked figure sat by the side of the road a few hundred meters away, arms wrapped around his knees. Close by him, a small shaggy horse cropped the grass growing at the edge of the drainage ditch that ran beside the road.
"So it is," Halt replied. "And he seems to have brought Will with him.”
― John Flanagan, Halt's Peril

“Uphill? There's nothing up the hill," Colly said, trying desperately to work out where this conversation was going.
"As a matter of fact, there is. There's a bluff about twelve meters high, with a river running below it. The water's deep, so it'll be quite safe for you to jump." In his brief glimpse of the river, Halt had noticed that the fast-flowing water cut under the bluff in a sharp curve. That should mean that the bottom had been scoured out over the years. A thought struck him. "You can swim, I assume?"
"Yes. I can swim," Colly said. "But I'm going jumping off some bluff just because you say to!"
"No, no. Of course not. That'd be asking far too much of you. You'll jump off because if you don't, I'll shoot you. It'll be the same effect, really. If I have to shoot you, you'll fall off. But I thought I'd give you a chance to survive." Halt paused, then added, "Oh, and if you decide to run downhill, I'll also shoot you with an arrow. Uphill and off is really your only chance of survival."
"You can't be serious!" Colly said. "Do you really-"
But he got no further. Halt leaned forward, putting a hand up to stop the outburst.
"Colly, take a good, long look into my eyes and tell me if you see anything, anything at all, that says I'm not deadly serious."
His eyes were deep brown, almost black. They were steady and unwavering and there was no sign of anything there but utter determination. Colly looked at them and after a few second, his eyes dropped away. halt nodded as the other man's gaze slid away from his.
"Good. Now we've got that settled, you should try to get some sleep. You have a big day ahead of you tomorrow.”
― John Flanagan, The Kings of Clonmel

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero