Common Worlds

We came to a really big city called Arkat's Hold. I asked where we could find someone who thinks they have a big strong horse who can win pulling contests. When we got to the stable I could hear a mean horse in a stall and all the stable boys had bite marks on them. They liked Pony right away, because Pony is the nicest bestest horse in the whole world.

The mean horse was a big black thing named Bane and the blacksmith named Black Farlip owned him. He thought he would get a laugh or a quick profit off me when I told him that my Pony could beat his horse in a pulling contest. When I put Pony on the line as my bet, he was interested you bet he was! He bet any one thing from his smithy if I won. That's a lot because he is an iron worker. Even so, I could tell no one liked him. He was mean.

So we got everyone hitched up. He didn't laugh too hard after he saw Pony, I'll tell you! And I knew we would win, especially after we agreed on the rules and they were pretty much the same as Westhill rules. No magic, first to pull the other horse's back hooves over the line, and no rule against me pulling too.

So, right off the start, Pony put his head down and yanked Bane's back hooves over the line. Bane's hooves sparked on the cobbles, but he had lost. Farlip cheated though, claiming his horse's hooves hadn't crossed. He whipped Bane like crazy and I saw Bane twist and straighten trying to get a hoof down right on the cobbles. Pony just kept pulling like a champ while some of Bane's cronies in the crowd started yelling that I was cheating because I pulled too, even thought no one said there was a rule against it.

Later on, Ulric told me that one of Farlip's cronies had tried to work some cheating magic, but Ulric stopped him.

Bane locked his legs and Pony snorted with another pull, and all of a sudden we lurched forward about eight feet as Bane's back broke with a crack. The big black horse fell with a very bad sound, screaming and trying to bite. All the while Farlip kept trying to beat it.

So there was lots more yelling about cheating, and I tried to get Farlip to pay for a healer as payment if he would give me Bane, but he just yelled a lot and said bad words and made me go by the original bet. I was very sad about Bane so I left with one of Farlip's apprentices to go to his shop.

His shop had all sorts of mean looking iron weapons, but they were ugly and I knew all of them would remind me of that mean Farlip and how badly he treated Bane.

So I took his anvil instead and carried it off to a redsmith to trade for some good armor.