The first day in port was a productive one for Cormac. He had a walk around the market, noting a few things that could always prove handy to have more of: extra rope, pitch, tar, a tinderbox, some oil, and a good lantern to boot. He also bought a small keg of mead (a shit drink, but it'd do in a pinch) and a sewing kit for keeping his armor in shape.
"Let the yanks and those who ain't been on a march say what they will," Cormac growled at the first sailor to question his purchase. "A good soldier keeps a needle and thread. Ain't nothing unmanly about it."
The mercenary took stock of his belongings again that night, noting his mule's relative discomfort with his surroundings. The beast was itching for a stretch, so Cormac obliged the animal's desire and took it for a walk. It was a smart beast - most mules are - and needed to be reminded why it trusted its owner.
The second day was a rather different sort of fruitful. Cormac played cards with the seamen and finished with a big win, so to celebrate he grabbed the two most amiable of the bunch and dragged them off for a night of boozing. The nearest bar only served that honey-rot they called mead, but the next had ample supplies of all the good stuff: whiskey and rum and the darkest of ales. Before long, Cormac's coinpurse was a few gold coins lighter.
How the fight started, Cormac didn't remember. It was his eighth mug of ale. He remembered someone saying something to him, and him laughing it off with a few choice words of his own, but then he'd felt that someone's fist smash into his jaw. Everything blurred together after that: a few more punches were thrown, the other man drew steel, and before long Cormac had wrestled the smaller man to the floor and knocked the weapon from his hands, though not before getting a gash across his shoulder and having his wooden leg kicked out from underneath him. In fact, it was very possible he'd fallen onto the sword-waggling man.
Whatever the case, no real harm was done. Cormac found himself being asked not to come there again, and he was helped out the bar with the help of the sailors who'd accompanied him, his wooden leg in his hand. He laughed the whole way back to the ship.
