Demi Heroes

by Andrew Lynch

  ‘Oh? I’ve been... holed up, and hadn’t heard,’ Lucian said. ‘Did he do a really good job on the Banished Baron, then?’

  ‘It was rather impressive, indeed,’ Jess joined in. ‘The Baron was beheaded on his own throne. Moxar managed to make the head fly up onto the chandelier. Very elegant.’

  ‘Keeping everything else intact.’ Darrius said. ‘A real craftsman.’

  ‘He know his work,’ Gar agreed.

  Lucian knew that admiring their Hero could pull a team together. He’d heard of Moxar Lightshield before of course, he was one of The Trio. The most popular Heroes the Company followed. Until now, Lucian had only been following middle tier Heroes, so such a big jump to a Trio member like Moxar had come as a pleasant surprise. Finally his work was getting noticed.

  ‘Until this idiot tried to clean the scene,’ Jess said.

  ‘Oi.’ Khleb shrunk at the accusation, knowing it was his fault, but also not being able to resist arguing with Jess. ‘I weren’t trying to clean nothing. He had a very shiny ring and clearly wasn’t using it anymore.’

  ‘Nothing good if mess with scene,’ Gar agreed.

  ‘Pfft, don’t join in with the Elf.’

  ‘Well, what happened?’ Lucian asked, curious to find how the previous commander fell. Something he hoped he could avoid with his superior skills. Well, maybe he’d need to keep training. He wasn’t sure how to specifically train to “not die”.

  ‘I had already sensed the power coming from the Baron’s corpse, but did not feel the need to mention it,’ Jess said, angry not just at Khleb, but at herself. ‘What idiot disturbs the final scene?’

  Lucian glanced at the Necromancer’s corpse hoping something similar wouldn’t happen today.

  ‘I have impulse issues...’ Khleb said, knowing he’d done wrong. Disturbing a final scene was a sackable offence.

  ‘Impulse issues that got our commander killed, I’m afraid,’ Darrius said without his previous smile. ‘Third one in as many journeys.’

  ‘Let’s work.’ Gar said.

  After some awkward silence and everyone shuffling back to their tasks, Lucian, putting out of his mind the fact that this group had gone through three commanders in as many assignments, went back to talking shop. ‘So, we'll get everything cleared for... what’s Moxar’s schedule?’

  ‘Week,’ Gar said.

  ‘Plenty of time then. We’ll finish the preliminary cleanup, and then the rest of the Company’s men should arrive in a few days and set everything up for the tours.’ He was mainly talking to himself now. ‘Right. Well, I'll get to the throne and give it a shine. Let’s keep the slip-ups to a minimum.’

  Lucian carried on towards the other end of the room. The throne was another standard issue bone-themed addition to the castle. What wasn’t a standard addition was the floor plate just before the throne - the one that depressed as he stepped on it. Generally not used, as inevitably the one sitting on said throne was the most likely to forget, and stand on it.

  Not the best way to make a good impression on his team.

  Everyone froze as they heard the distinctive click of the trap. For a second nothing happened and they all had the chance to stare daggers at Lucian.

  ‘Master tactician, my arse,’ Khleb said into the silence.

  But it was okay. Necromancers were big on ritual and made sure these sorts of traps usually required blood to activate. So the group was safe. It was at that moment that Lucian remembered what had happened just before he arrived at the Necromancer’s castle. He had thought the sentries dying words were a warning, but now that he considered it, they might have been more of a spiteful promise. And a bloody corpse. A bead of nervous sweat trailed down his nose, pulling with it the tiniest remnant of blood that had smeared on his face. The drop landed at his feet.

  A low pitched wail began, emanating from, rather specifically, nowhere. It grew louder and the party drew their weapons as one. The piles of bone which Darrius had spent hours stacking, rattled and began to form shapes.

  ‘Time to run!’ Lucian shouted, and turned to follow his own advice.

  ‘My kind of strategy!’ Khleb said as he sprinted for the exit.

  Before any of them reached that lone exit, a portcullis slammed down, trapping them all inside. They screeched to a halt and looked longingly at the now blocked path to safety. They heard rattling and scraping behind them.

  ‘Shall we look?’ Darrius asked.

  ‘Don’t want,’ replied Gar.

  Jess stood up straight. ‘We must.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Khleb. ‘I like my ignorance.’

  ‘Don’t worry, team. We can handle whatever it is. We have to do it.’ Lucian turned, shortly followed by the others.

  ‘Piss off!’ Khleb said.

  ‘That is quite a bugger, yes,’ said Darrius.

  ‘I do not like getting our commander killed,’ Jess said. ‘I like our commander getting us killed even less, Human.’

  ‘Gartumfug!’ No one knew what Gar meant but they all agreed with the sentiment.

  A dozen armoured skeletons stood in two rows before them, battle axes held menacingly.

  ‘It could be worse. Stand fast, I’ve got a plan—' Lucian began.

  As he tried to formulate the plan he claimed to already have, the skeletons began marching forward. The group took an instinctive step back.

  However, with the first step, the skeletons crumbled into piles of bone once again. All except one.

  ‘Uhh, Jess?’ Lucian asked, but not taking his eye off the skeleton.

  ‘The trap must have held a small amount of the necromancer’s power but be designed to draw more from him. With him dead, it only has enough for a single minion.’

  ‘Right. Five of us, one of him. Just hit it!’ Lucian shouted.

  They knew the dangers, but as the perceived threat had just dropped eleven fold, they felt emboldened. They surged forwards, Gar leading the charge with his battered sword held high in one hand, and Darrius close behind brandishing his rapier. Khleb skirted to the outside drawing twin daggers, waiting for his moment. Jess took a ready stance at the back of the room, staff in hand, and Lucian would have liked to have drawn his bow, but knew that was pointless - an arrow couldn’t harm a skeleton - so pulled out his hatchet.

  Being the first time he’d see his new group fight, Lucian decided to hang back and see how they handled things - just close enough to dash in if they needed help.

  Gar arrived first and delivered a massive overhead swing, but the skeleton blocked it with the haft of its battle axe. Gar let his momentum carry him around the skeleton and turned to face its rear. Lucian was impressed. Clearly Gar was no stranger to battle positioning. Gar then dropped his sword and took hold of his buckler. Lucian presumed he had his reasons, or was going to die very quickly.

  Darrius was a close second into the fight. He stopped within striking distance of the skeleton, shouted a wordless battle cry, and lunged. The rapier went straight through the skeleton. Skeletons don’t show emotion, but Lucian interpreted its blank face as a smirk. The skeleton turned to face Gar, its ribs ripping Darrius' rapier from his hands.

  Darrius scrambled to get his weapon back, leaving the skeleton’s rear open for a devastating fireball. It didn’t come.

  Maybe Jess’ timing was off? Lucian tore his eyes from the skeleton for a momentary glance at her. Sure enough, the fireball was being readied. It seemed smaller than he expected, but fire’s fire.

  Actually, it wasn’t so much a fireball as it was a spark. A large spark that went nowhere, with a frustrated looking Jess cursing at her staff. Maybe the necromantic magics were messing with Jess’ finely tuned Elven senses.

  Khleb wasted no time. Seeing the exposed back, he darted in and landed a flurry of blows. Lucian heard and saw the first damage done as several ribs clattered to the floor. Khleb’s follow up was to jog slowly away from the skeleton and lean against a wall, panting.

  The skeleton didn’t seem to care about minor annoyanc
es such as not having ribs, and swung his axe down against Gar’s shield. Gar absorbed the impact with his buckler, the blow shaking his whole body. With a curse he braced himself for another hit.

  Lucian could see Gar’s buckler wouldn’t survive many more heavy blows. It was time to show the team he was a useful addition to their fighting force. He leapt forward for his own attack. Just as Gar took another hit, pinned in place by the barrage, Lucian swung his hatchet against the skeleton’s helmet. It made an impressive gonging sound, and the skeleton casually swung one hand backwards to swat Lucian away.

  Lucian ducked but didn’t need to, as Darrius had just returned to the fray and managed to block the skeleton’s hand for Lucian.

  With his face.

  Darrius sprawled out on the floor and groaned.

  ‘Weapon,’ Gar said between attacks.

  ‘I’m using mine!’ Lucian shouted defensively as he swung at the skeleton again, loosening another rib.

  ‘Take mine!’ Gar bellowed.

  Lucian hadn’t considered it before, but if he could manage one good swing at the skeleton with Gar’s monster of a sword, then this fight might be over.

  ‘He’s standing on it!’

  Gar grunted a foreign curse, and after the next swing from the skeleton, smashed his buckler into the skeleton’s face. The skeleton staggered back, but the buckler fell to pieces.

  Lucian dashed for the sword and struggled to heft it up while Gar grappled with the skeleton.

  Lucian braced himself for the effort, and lifted the sword to rest on his shoulder. With a quick gasp of breath he shouted, ‘Break!’

  Gar shoved the skeleton, allowing himself to jump backwards and giving Lucian all the room he needed. With a precision that would have been heroic if it hadn’t been a complete accident, the battered old weapon cleaved the skeleton in two, the impetus of the sword’s weight doing all the work. Lucian grinned in triumph. He had rather forgotten the whole battle had been his fault.

  The others clearly had not.

  There was a long, silent, pause. Lucian felt there was a definite air of tension as he received several glares. Four glares, if he counted.

  He went into triage mode - got to keep the team together - and made sure that Darrius was breathing. Luckily not only was he able to breathe, but he was also able to wheeze out a, ‘Happens to the best of us.’

  Lucian gave a bashful smile and tried to preempt the complaints by taking control of the situation.

  ‘Great job everyone, I noticed a few issues that I think we can—'

  ‘Oh, noticed something did you? Maybe next time, notice the trap!’ Khleb shouted, perhaps more annoyed that he was still winded from having to exert himself, than upset by the whole trap triggering ordeal.

  ‘Even the thief noticed it,’ Jess said.

  ‘Yeah!’ Khleb agreed. ‘Wait, why “even”?’

  ‘Because you are an insufferable fool, and anything that is not female with a pulse is normally beneath your attention.’

  ‘Pulse isn’t a deal breaker,’ Khleb shrugged. ‘But piss off! I actually did something!’

  ‘I would have done something if there had been an opening, but the commander was clearly about to block my shot!’

  ‘Oh, getting heated now? Could have done that during the fight! But nah, there’s always an excuse.’

  ‘He’s not blocking my shot now.’ Jess started to bind magic to her staff.

  ‘Jezithel! You will not maim Khleb!’ Lucian projected his voice and hoped the echo caught her attention. Sure enough, the glow from her staff ceased. ‘Do you understand?’

  She tapped her staff on the floor several times in annoyance, deciding whether to push the issue or not. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Whatever, she’s thrown her little sparks at me before. Don’t care.’ Khleb added pointedly, '“Master tactician”? “Very little gets past you”? “Won’t let us down”?’

  ‘Come off it now, Khleb,’ Darrius said, trying to rise to Lucian’s defence, but his nose started bleeding profusely half way up. He lay down again. ‘Could have happened to anyone. Bit of help here?’

  Lucian noticed Gar hadn’t joined in with this latest argument. He was massaging his wrist, his face scrunched up in pain. ‘Are you okay?’ Lucian asked, before realising how stupid a question it was given the evidence.

  ‘Know layout of castle. Don’t know where trap?’ Gar said.

  ‘Well, I’ve never actually been inside this variant before,’ Lucian said, removing some bandages from his satchel. ‘Just books, you know? Did the battering from the axe break your wrist?’

  ‘No. Skeleton no problem.’ Lucian looked at the splintered buckler but let Gar continue. ‘Kakthar wrists. Weak. I hit things, they hurt. Not things, my wrists.’

  ‘Weak wrists, our old chap here has, hence not really liking using swords,’ Darrius helped.

  ‘A warrior with weak wrists?’ Lucian took Gar’s hand to bandage it, but Gar swiped the bandages from Lucian and shouldered past him. He knelt and started bandaging Darrius' face.

  ‘Pfft. Warrior. Give anyone sword and shield, call them warrior, they are warrior.’

  ‘And who cares about their past training and their present joints. Right?’ Darrius said.

  ‘Ha. Right.’ Gar said.

  ‘Any spare bandages? I swear, my sides are splitting,’ Khleb said.

  ‘No,’ they all said in unison. Jess may have added “Idiot” after it. It was hard to tell with the echo.

  All things considered, this hadn’t been his worst introduction to a new group. Not by far. But still, Lucian resigned himself to an awkward few weeks of travelling as he led his group back to the capital and their commerce break.

  Chapter 2

  Lucian had been back in the capital for less than a day when he found himself stumbling out of one of his old haunts. He had gone back there out of habit. He didn’t like the tavern, and he didn’t even want to drink again. He was just bored. Now his vision was blurry and his legs uncoordinated. The barkeep shouted something very insulting, but it didn’t seem to matter in his current state.

  Maybe he hadn’t just been bored. Maybe he’d wanted to forget. But right now, he couldn’t remember what it was he was trying to forget.

  Success!

  ‘Don’t bother,’ the barkeep said to the guild-provided roughers. ‘He doesn’t have any coin on him.’

  ‘Yeah well I...’ Lucian stuttered for a few long seconds. ‘I spent it all inside.’

  The barkeep walked back inside, shouting over his shoulder, ‘You’ve only had one.’

  Lucian did some quick drunken mental arithmetic. Huh. He could only remember the one drink, that much was true. Clearly even after two months of this Company mandated “drowning your sorrows” time, and meeting a new group, he still couldn’t handle his ale.

  He started home, stumbling all the way, getting a lot of solid drunken mumbling done in the brisk night air. He skirted around the slums of the city, the Monarch district. He was lucky not to live there, but only thanks to being gainfully employed as a Company man.

  Employed... oh damn! Thinking of his job reminded him of why he had ended up in that tavern. Just before he was able to fully remember, he heard a scream.

  He’d made it outside the walls of the capital now, nearly home. No guards would be patrolling, so maybe this could be his chance. He could redeem himself. Prove he wasn’t as useless as he felt.

  His drunken stumble quickened to a drunken march. He rounded a building close to where he had heard the cry, and saw... not quite what he had expected.

  A woman was surrounded by three men. These men were the sort even he, a well trained Company man, would dread to meet. Two of the men were on the floor, rolling around holding vital parts. Now that he thought about it, the scream hadn’t been female.

  Lucian slurred the shout, ‘Shtop!’

  Sure enough, the woman did stop, no doubt due to Lucian’s commanding presence. She released the thug’s throat, dropping him to
the ground.

  ‘Why?’ she shouted back.

  Lucian advanced on the scene, and realised he had left his weapons elsewhere. ‘Well, they look thoroughly done, to be honesht, sir… err, madam.’

  The woman looked at her assailants. ‘I suppose these ones are. But there’s two more right behind you. You mind?’

  Lucian spun, and sure enough two burly men were bearing down on him. With no weapons, he did the only thing he could think of in his current drunken state. He curled into a ball just before they reached him. A classic move that he’d perfected from years of practice. But something went awry this time, and his head connected with the closest man, forehead becoming intimately acquainted with groin.

  A cry of deep pain and anguish was forced from the man. Lucian decided his best option was to promptly apologise and hope they could laugh about all this later back in the tavern. He stood, and saw both men on the floor. The one he’d hit was writhing in agony, and the other one was out cold, having been hit on the way down by the first man’s helmet.

  ‘Wow, you’re pretty good. Sir...?’ the woman asked.

  Lucian was befuddled, but rallied at the sight of the woman up close. She was striking. ‘Lu...’ his voice squeaked, partly because of the adrenaline from the fight, but also the fear of this woman. He cleared his throat. ‘Lucian.’

  ‘Hello, Lucian.’ The woman curtsied, uncaring of the five bruisers on the ground around the couple. ‘I’m Lily. Shall we?’

  Lucian took her arm, and escorted her home. Just to make sure she was safe.

  Perhaps things were taking a turn for the better.

  * * * *

  The bowstring thrummed as Lucian released it. A second later the deep thwack of an arrow hitting the target let him know that he hadn’t lost his skill… or the arrow. It was a huge improvement over missing the target and having a large man telling him where he should go and what he should do when he got there. That had happened the first day he’d dusted off his bow.

  Lucian knew he would never excel at close combat, and he wouldn’t claim to be an Elf when it came to the bow, but he knew what he was doing.