Three cheers!

Slate raised his mug high into the air. “Three cheers for Fregi, Granite, Basalt, and especially Mick, who was the first to run away from all the bandits!”

“It was uphill too!” Mick shouted.

People laughed, and Fregi reached up to slap Mick on the back. He was the farmer who had first spotted the bandits and ran to warn the rest of the village.

Mick grinned and toasted his mug of ale. Fregi, Granite and Basalt raised their mugs high and cheering erupted from all around the inn.

It had been a while since the village had a proper excuse to have a full-blown party, and everyone had been working hard for weeks. Everyone would also need to continue working hard for weeks to come, so the break was welcome. People had started drinking immediately after the attack, and Slate had pulled out all the barrels of wheat beer.

Fregi took a swig from hig beer. His eyes went wide, and he took another, slower this time. He closed his eyes and sighed a long, contented sigh.

Flint finished drinking his whole mug in one go. “I’ll have to give it to Slate. He really outdid himself this time.” He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“I thought you didn’t like wheat beer,” Fregi said.

“Are you serious?” Flint looked at Fregi with a raised eyebrow. “Didn’t you just taste it?”

“I did. Yeah,” Fregi said and took another drink. The beer tasted like spring: sunshine, mild breeze, like some exotic fruit he had never seen or tasted. Fregi felt like he was two hundred years younger. Joy bubbled up in his chest. A small laugh escaped from his lips and he shook his head in disbelief. Maybe it was just all the excitement from the attack that did it, but the beer tasted better than any he had had in ages.

“Pretty good,” he said.

Flint spluttered. “Even you can’t pretend this isn’t amazing. Look at how people are knocking it back!”

Slate had managed to put together an impressive number of barrels in the weeks after the first harvest. Everything had gone off without a hitch. The malt had sprouted quickly, it had dried perfectly, and Slate had only grudgingly added some old barley malts into the mix. The wheat malt had looked too good to mix with anything else, but you needed to have some barley, too. Even with the amount of barrels, it seemed likely the inn would run empty this very night.

“What’s up with the Brineys, though?” Flint said and pointed a stocky finger at a human couple having a discussion with Jordan.

“True. That is uncanny. At this point, you usually see them just crawl around and mutter something incomprehensible.”

Flint squinted his eyes and leaned towards the discussion. “Now I can actually sort of understand them. Something about chicken feed? Maybe Jordan is finally rubbing off on them.” He shrugged. “Anyway, you want another?”

“Obviously,” Fregi answered and handed his mug to Flint. He then nodded at Linn, who was making his way towards him through the crowd.

Linn Grim was the wiry doctor of the village. He moonlighted as a veterinarian. He was an older man with grey eyes and grey hair and a soft voice. Fregi still remembered when Linn had arrived and settled in Böndelheim a couple of decades ago, but not many humans did. He was a permanent fixture of the village by this point. He stayed out of the village politics but was a friend of Fregi.

Fregi would be sad to see him go eventually, but that was the way human and dwarven friendships went. “Linn! Have you tried the beer?” he asked.

Linn smiled sadly and shook his head. He rubbed his hands together like he was washing them and stopped a bit nearer to Fregi than he normally would have. Maintaining a polite distance and being able to hear what the other person was saying would have been a challenge in the loud inn. “Fregi,” he greeted him. “You know my stomach can’t tolerate wheat. I took a sip and I know I’m missing out, believe me.”

“Shame, shame,” Fregi said and glanced at Flint queuing.

Slate and his wife were swamped. The line to the counter snaked around and circled the room. Some people kept going directly back to the end of the queue after reaching the counter and getting a new mug of beer.

“There are going to be some sore heads in the morning in this village,” Linn said. He reached to drag a stool nearer and sat down on it to be on the same level as Fregi.

Fregi chuckled. “A couple of bandits are going to have it worse.”

“I hear Basalt threw a mallet at one. Did they live? She has one hell of a throwing arm.”

“I think she held back. The guy managed to crawl away on his own.” Fregi said. “Granite, on the other hand, really did a number on the leader.”

“Hmm?”

“Yeah, he threw a potato at her,” Fregi said and chuckled again. “You should have seen the way she dropped. Crack!” Fregi punched his fist on his palm and let the hand drop like the bandit leader had. “She was completely out cold. They had to carry her off.”

“A potato?” Linn asked. “You sure?”

“It was a really big potato,” Fregi said, shrugging. “Granite is a hell of a thrower as well.”

“Hmm,” Linn said and rubbed his jaw. “Well, no matter. The main thing is that a real fight was avoided. You think they will be back?”

Fregi rubbed his jaw as well. The difference was that he had a beard, unlike Linn. Fregi kept his beard short by dwarven standards, but it was thick and strong, like the fur of some wild animal. “I’m not certain. We showed we’re no easy target. On the other hand, we have no real defences to speak off, and they did boast about it being the bandit’s world for some reason.” Fregi said and took a look at the surrounding party. “We can have this night, though. The bandits won’t move anywhere without their leaders, and they will be out of commission for a while.”

“Good, I would hate to have a crisis when the villagers are… also out of commission.”

“Ha, true! Will you head home before the throwing up begins?”

“I think so. Just remember to roll everyone unconscious on their side before going home yourself,” Linn said and sighed.

Fregi chuckled and took another look around the room. He frowned.

“What’s wrong?” Linn asked.

“It’s nothing. I just would expect to see some people in worse condition already. There hasn’t been a single brawl yet. Jordan always takes it easy, but now he doesn’t look even flushed yet.”

“Maybe people just don’t feel like brawling after narrowly avoiding a real fight. I’ve always said someone will get injured or worse one day at these parties,” Linn said and shook his head.

Fregi was about to answer when Flint arrived with three mugs of beer and shoved one at him.

“That took a sweet minute,” Fregi said, taking the mug from him.

“You saw the queue,” Flint said and offered the second mug to Linn. “Doctor, will you have one with us?”

Linn smiled and rose. He bowed to the dwarves.

Fregi could not avoid noting how Linn’s bows had started to look a bit stiffer during the last few years.

“I was just about to head home. Enjoy the evening, gentlemen.”

“Thanks Linn, take care,” Fregi said.

“If he doesn’t want it, I’m happy to drink it for him,” Flint said. His own mug was already half drained.

So was Fregi’s. He nodded his head at the counter. “I’m going to go and queue up already.”