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The first turned to me. “How about it, human? Do you play?”
I glanced around as if there might be another human they were talking to, then shrugged. “I don’t have any money.”
One of the Skaags set a trio of brown jugs on the table. “Then we play for drinks. Last one sober loses.”
I didn’t want to get drunk, but there was nothing else to do, and that seemed to be what everyone else was doing, so I sat. “What’s the game called?”
“Donkey bones,” grunted the Skaag to my right as he passed out the cards, five each, face down. “There are six suits: damsels, dragons, defenders, dukes, demons, dragons, and donkeys in order from weakest to strongest.”
I frowned. “Why is a donkey stronger than a dragon?”
“Nobody knows,” replied the Skaag across from me, lifting his cards for a peek.
“Well,” said the Skaag to my left, arranging his cards, “have you ever seen a dragon carry heavy bags? The damn things have to be trained to fly with riders. And a donkey isn’t scared of dragons. He’s too stupid.”
The Skaag across from me struck his shoulder. “How would you know? You’ve never seen a dragon before.”
“I’ve got a cousin who has.”
“Which means we’ve all got a cousin who has,” grunted the one to my right.
All three of them snickered.
“We are partners,” said the Skaag across from me. “Which means we play together for points and the other two play against us. Since you’re to the dealer’s left, you get to call trump first. The trump suit is the most powerful, except for donkeys, and then everything is in order based on what he told you. Cards that are the same suit, the lower number is better. If donkeys comes up in the center, or gets called as trump, you play as normal. Got it?”
“Not really,” I said, arranging my cards based on what he told me. “But I’ll learn as we go.”
“Well, learn fast, because you get to call trump first or pass.” The dealer set the unused portion of the deck on the stump between us, flipping over the top card.
It was two maidens kissing, which was apparently not a good card, based on the disappointed grunt my partner let out. I agreed, but mostly because I had only one other maiden card in my hand and mostly what I assumed were demons and dukes, so I passed. The Skaag next to me picked up the maiden card, discarding one of his own, making maidens trump. We squarely lost the first hand, losing every trick except for one where my partner threw down a donkey card to best four maidens.
Both my partner and I had to drink the entirety of one of the brown bottles when we lost. It wasn’t sweet like the other drink they’d given me, but it burned all the way down and I coughed after the first gulp, drawing laughter from the Skaags.
“I hope that’s safe for human consumption,” I muttered, passing the bottle to my partner.
“It’s Skaag liquor,” he said, taking it from me. “It’s not safe foranyone.”
We won the second hand, thanks to a timely throw of a donkey from my partner, but lost the third.
I lost count of how many hands we played, and no one else was keeping any sort of score. The goal seemed to be to play until we were all too drunk to continue, which probably wouldn’t take long.
Surprising absolutely no one, I was the first to put down my cards and shake my head. “I don’t think I can keep going,” I slurred drunkenly. “I should go to bed while I can still find my bed.”
“Falling into the wrong bed is half the fun!” My partner grinned, showing off his needle-like teeth.
“One more hand!” The Skaags on either side of me pulled me back down when I tried to stand.
“Oh, all right,” I mumbled, and we wound up playing three more hands, all of which I lost badly.
By the time I got up to stagger away, I was hopelessly drunk. I took two steps before I bumped into a Skaag having his dinner, spilling his bowl of meaty stew everywhere.
“Sorry,” I mumbled while his compatriots howled with laughter at the sight of their friend covered in stew.
He scowled up at me before slowly standing up…and up. All Skaags were big bastards, averaging about eight feet in height, but of course the one I’d bumped into was even taller than most. He clenched his fist and shook bits of chunky stew from his sleeve before grabbing a handful of my tunic and lifting me so that only my toes touched the ground. “Watch where you’re going, human!”
If I had been smart and sober, I would have apologized more profusely and backed away, but I wasn’t either of those things, and the filter in my brain wasn’t working. Words spilled out before I could even try to stop them. “Shit, you’re bigandugly.”
He flashed his teeth at me. “What’d you say to me?”
