Travels With a Fairytale Monster

by Elizabeth Gannon

  Ryle eyed him coldly. “You’re goddamn right it is.”

  Taylor stepped between them, trying to calm down the larger man before he executed Ryle. “He didn’t mean that.” She told him. “He’s just all keyed up for battle and…” She met Buggane’s eyes. “I know someone as… kind as you would never lower yourself to my brother’s level.” She nodded. “You’re too…” Her mind raced for an adjective flattering enough to distract him. Truth be told, she’d always thought Buggane had had a crush on her, so she was betting it wouldn’t take a lot to make that jackass’ head swell even more.

  “Kind?” Ryle offered.

  She nodded. “Yes, you’re too kind for that.” She finished, unsure if Ryle had been questioning her use of the word or suggesting it as a suitable adjective for her to use now. But either way, it didn’t much matter.

  Buggane considered that for a long moment, his eyes traveling over the tattered remnants of her uniform, obviously imagining what she looked like out of it. Truth told, there wasn’t much left to see. Years of war and starvation had made her frail and sickly. If she’d once been pretty, those days were long gone, and her formerly vibrant auburn hair now hung limply around her sunken face.

  She was used up.

  The whole kingdom was.

  The man had always had a way of looking at her that made her feel dirty though, a feeling which overshadowed her own depression and fatigue. Just being near him was revolting. It was like every time his eyes were on her, something inside of her yelled that the man was not supposed to touch her.

  Not ever.

  In this case though, he could continue imagining her however he wanted, doing whatever he wanted, just so long as he went away and didn’t hang her brother.

  Before the man would issue his final judgment on the matter though, an ox horn trumpet sounded, reverberating over the water and the noise from the fires.

  Her face paled.

  The river.

  The Baselanders were crossing the river.

  “ALARM!” Buggane roared, turning on his heel and dashing towards the sound of the horn. “TO THE WALL!”

  Ryle cursed savagely and grabbed his spear. “Told you we were gonna die tonight.” He raced towards the battle. “It’s not too late to get out of here, you know.” He offered again, falling back into his usual mantra of escape planning. It was really her brother’s only remaining hobby. He spent most of his free time spinning elaborate strategies about how they could escape the war and where they could go.

  But none of it would ever come to anything, and she suspected that they both knew that.

  For one thing, her brother was not a planner and his ideas were terrible, and for another, there really was no escaping the war. Not anymore.

  “Yes, it is.” She tried to readjust her own helmet, but then tossed it aside. It wasn’t like it was going to be much help anyway. The Baselanders had punched through everything else the Cormoranians had put in their way, so it was ridiculous to think that a thin piece of battered iron was going to hold them back now. “It’s been too late for months now.”

  Ahead of them, she could already see guards fighting with the Baselanders. One of the Cormoranian guards sounded his horn again from the third story of a building, half of which was gone. He braced his foot on the crumbled stone which had formerly been the missing exterior wall, and blew another long note before being silenced by a battle ax thrown by one of the Baselanders. The man fell from his perch and into the alley, hitting the cobblestones with a sickening thud.

  Something crashed into the wall next to Taylor and exploded, knocking her from her feet and covering her with debris.

  Her vision went dark.

  Ryle pulled her free a moment later, swearing. She slowly got to her feet and dimly watched the carnage play out around her. Another wave of Baselanders exited their landing craft and poured into the outpost, falling on the surprised Cormoranians.

  The result was pure butchery.

  But it all seemed a million miles away now for some reason. She was aware of the fact that Ryle was speaking to her, but she just couldn’t concentrate on what he was saying. Her mind was too muddled for that.

  She rose to her feet and began to walk slowly along the river, as if drawn by something downstream.

  Ryle swore again, stabbing a Baselander in the neck as the man jumped from the shadows and started to run towards Taylor. The man’s blood pooled at her feet, but it was as if it was something in a painting.

  It didn’t matter.

  Taylor had important things on her mind, not this silliness. For some reason, all she could think of was the river. Like something was calling her. And… there was something wrong. She wasn’t sure what it was, but… something. The answer dangled just out of her mind, teasingly. But she couldn’t quite figure out what it was. It was if a voice was in her head, both beckoning her towards it but also warning her of danger.

  Her ears were still ringing from the explosion, but the muffled sounds of battle raged through her head, distracting her from whatever the voice was saying. “Shhhh.” She hushed the soldiers who were struggling to kill each other next to her. “Let… let me think for…” She trailed off, too distracted to finish the thought.

  The grappling men toppled over the side of the wall and into the water.

  Her brother grabbed her arm. “Taylor!” He yelled into her face. “Taylor! Focus!”

  Yes.

  She needed to focus. But people kept distracting her.

  “There’s something wrong here.” She whispered. “Very wrong.”

  “Really?” Ryle ducked under a Baselander’s sword, then stabbed the man through the gut with his spear. “You think?”

  “No, I mean, there’s something wrong with the river…” She turned to look at it. “Something… downstream.”

  “Well, there’s the fact that the river’s currently filled with the dead people.” Ryle swept out his weapon, knocking a soldier off his feet and sending him toppling back into the water. “That could be it.”

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not it.” Her thoughts still felt clouded. “It’s something else. Can’t you hear it?” She turned to look for the source again, a sensation like fire on her skin. “Something’s… in pain.”

  “Fight goddamn you!” Buggane screamed at his men. “Send them back to The Demon of Gold in pieces!”

  She ignored his rousing but futile attempt at inspiring the troops. This battle was over before it even started and was, at this point, merely an opportunity for the Cormoranians to kill themselves quickly rather than dying from starvation or being tortured to death later. It was almost like Buggane was trying to kill all of his men.

  Her brow compressed in thought.

  For some reason though, now that she was paying attention to it, the battle wasn’t as one-sided as any logical person would have assumed. True, the Cormoranians were dying by the score, but they were holding the wall. Aside from those initial waves of troops, the Baselanders’ attack had slowed and all but stopped.

  She remained focused on her brother. “Why would they cross here?”

  “Huh?” Ryle dodged to the side as an arrow impacted the wall behind him. “Are you really going to sit there and try to discuss battle strategy while there’s…” He swore as a man wielding a mace crashed through the remains of a wooden door to his left and immediately grabbed Ryle, pulling him into the darkness. He wrapped his arm around Ryle’s neck and started to choke him.

  Taylor followed, feeling far calmer than she should have been. Ordinarily, such an event would have terrified and infuriated her. But for some reason, it was like the battle had faded away and she was talking to her brother in one of the town’s quiet cafés. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

  Ryle made a gasping sound. “…Fo… cus…” He tried to breathe, but the man’s arm prevented him. “…Not…” He made several more gasping sounds. “…Hee….ll…t…”

  “What?” She inquired calmly. “Focus on what?
I can’t understand you.” She tried to decipher several more of his gasps, then rolled her eyes. “Hold on.” She stabbed the attacker and Ryle fell back to the floor, inhaling deeply. “What were you saying?”

  He gasped several more times, trying to regain his breath. “I… don’t understand… you… sometimes, Taylor.” He pulled himself to his feet, looking drained. “You’re a really weird girl.”

  “It’s important.” She argued.

  “So is dying.” He met her eyes. “You are not thinking clearly at the moment.”

  “I know.” She nodded. “But it’s something to do with the river. Something is happening down there. All I need is a few seconds to think about it and…”

  “No.” Ryle shook his head. “We’re going.”

  “We can’t go.” She argued. “We just talked about it, remember? We agreed.”

  “Well, now I’m un-agreeing.”

  “That’s not even a word.” She shook her head. “That’s, like, just a made up word that…”

  “Focus!” He snapped. “That explosion has given you a concussion or something and now you’re out of it.” He pressed a finger to her temple and then held it up in front of her, showing her the blood which was dripping from her wound. “See?” He grabbed her arm. “As such, all previous agreements are now null and void and I’m in charge of making sure you don’t die.” He dragged her through a shattered hole in the wall and into a neighboring building. “So we’re leaving. We stood our ground, we defended the crumbling remains of your precious stupid village, but the war is lost and we’re going.”

  Behind them, Buggane continued to shout out orders to his men, his voice obviously pleased with how the battle was going.

  It was… a miracle.

  Her eyes drifted down to the ox horn trumpet the watchman had sounded earlier, alerting them all to the assault.

  The horizon to the south suddenly lit up, as if something else exploded downstream. A strange noise drifted over the water, an inhuman scream she didn’t recognize. A roar of surprise, rage and... pain.

  The fog in her head cleared. “We’re leaving.” She decided, quickly picking up the instrument in question.

  “That’s what I said!” Ryle agreed in relief. “We’ll take the river road north and…”

  “South.” She pulled him in the other direction. “We’re going south.”

  “Why would we ever want to go south?”

  “Because that’s where they’re crossing, Ryle!” She shot back.

  He gestured towards the river. “And what do you call this?”

  “A distraction!” She yanked his arm towards her destination. “They’re drawing us away.”

  “They don’t need to draw us away!” He argued. “They outnumber us fifty to one!”

  “I don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, I only know that they’re doing it!” She started to run faster through the narrow alleys, jumping over the stones and wreckage which littered the familiar cobblestones. “And we need to figure out why!”

  “This is stupid.” He pronounced. “Even if you’re right and aren’t still out of your gourd, which is a huge ‘if’ right now, that just means that there’s a lot more Baselanders down this way!” He pointed over his shoulder. “And I’ve already got enough of them back over there!”

  “There is something down here. I can feel it. Something important!” She sounded the ox horn in her hand as she ran, blowing a deep loud tone of alarm and drawing the remaining guards to her position as she raced forward.

  Ryle winced. “Buggane’s not going to like you doing that.” He predicted, but continued running after her. “That’s going to get us hanged. You don’t have permission to blow that thing.”

  “He’d have to live long enough to hang me, and if we don’t shift south, he’s not going to!” She blew the horn again. “Move!”

  They burst from the decaying buildings and into a clearing which had formerly been a park. She knew the space well; her father had taken her here every weekend morning to feed the ducks. But these days, the ducks had all long since been eaten by the last starving remnants of the village’s population.

  She immediately crouched behind a low stone retaining wall and pointed towards the shore. “Told you!”

  Ahead of them, the Baselanders had set up a makeshift ferry and were in the process of shuttling soldiers and cargo from one shore to the other. Once everything was in place, they’d either move north to surround the fort from both sides, or perhaps just ignore it entirely and move on the capital itself.

  A couple dozen soldiers stood around several large crates on the improvised dock, waiting for the ferry to return. The Baselanders had set up a crude cable ferry from one shore to the other; a rope which stretched over the water, that the ferry pilot used to pull the ferry raft across. It was quick and dirty, but effective.

  Buggane suddenly grabbed Ryle from behind. “What is the meaning of this!?!” He yelled. “Why are you distracting my men!?! Why are you trying to rob me of my victory!?!”

  Ryle made a frantic slashing motion with his hands. “Quiet! Shhh.”

  “Don’t you ‘shhh’ me!!!” He picked Ryle up by the front of his uniform. “I’ll have you executed right now for desertion!” He gestured with his head towards Taylor. “You always were a terrible influence on her. Dragging her away from her true use and the things that…”

  Ryle pointed towards the shore. “They’ll hear you!”

  Buggane considered that for a moment, then lowered him to the ground. “I have decided to delay your execution until after I have routed my enemy.”

  “That’s big of you, man.” Ryle nodded. “Thanks.”

  Buggane turned to address his men, the last survivors of the wall. Ryle was right; the diversion was entirely unneeded. There were only a couple dozen men and women left in this entire division of the Cormoranian army, most of whom looked too weak to stand on their feet for more than a few minutes, let alone fight a highly trained army. The Baselanders could have easily wiped them out if they had committed more troops to the effort.

  Taylor wasn’t entirely sure why they did that. Something else was going on. It was almost like they just didn’t even care enough about them to put the Cormoranians out of their misery.

  “The cowards have tried to hide from our wrath,” Buggane informed his remaining guards, “but I have found them anyway.”

  “Good job with that.” Ryle flashed him a friendly smile. “We would have been lost without your leadership.”

  “Shut up, idiot.” Buggane snapped. “I’m still executing you.”

  Ryle’s smile faded.

  “We will move against our foe and crush them!” Buggane pointed towards the soldiers. “We will annihilate them all!”

  Taylor shook her head. “No, they outnumber us and have their defenses in place. We wouldn’t stand a chance. We should wait here until we figure out what they’re up to, and then…”

  “CHARGE!” Buggane leapt forward over the small wall, and barreled down on their enemies. His men shambled after him, looking far less enthusiastic about the idea.

  Taylor swore under her breath. “Wait!” She called. “There’s something wrong here!”

  But it was too late to stop them.

  This was going to be bad.

  They were committed now however, so she had little choice but to follow along with their glorious leader. She ran down the street, pointing towards the ferry and the soldiers which packed its deck. “Ryle!”

  “What?” He answered in confusion.

  “Give me the…” She stopped, realizing it would take too long to explain and instead simply grabbed the weapon from his hand.

  “Hey!” He pointed at it. “I’ll need that in a minute!”

  She ignored his protests, tested the wind a moment, said a silent prayer, then hurled the spear through the air as hard as she could. You could say a lot of terrible and accurate things about her skills as a soldier, but she knew how to throw a spear. The
blade cut through the rope the ferryman was holding, causing it to immediately go slack and fall free. With no rope to hold onto to pull the ferry across, the current of the river gradually carried the rest of the soldiers and cargo downstream, where the ferry crashed into the burning remains of the village on the opposite bank, flipped over and sank beneath the water.

  Ryle put his hands over his head in astonished amazement. “That was awesome!” He pointed at the dock. “Seven! Seven men; one spear.” He gave her a thumbs up. “Good job. Dad would be proud.” He backed away, pointing over his shoulder. “Now let’s get the hell out of here while our fearless leader is distracted.”

  Taylor turned to follow him, then stopped. The strange feeling hadn’t gone away yet. It was in her head, telling her that something was going on here that she needed to be a part of. Something was deeply wrong. Something needed her.

  She could feel it.

  She brushed at her arms, again feeling like unseen embers were landing on her skin or something.

  “Taylor?” Her brother called again. “We going or what? Because you’re still crazy, even if you were technically right. But either way, you’re not going to die tonight over some stupid dock and a city of corpses.”

  She waved him off. “Hold on, hold on.” Her eyes scanned the area, looking for the source of the mysterious feeling calling to her.

  There didn’t appear to be anything out of the ordinary though, other than the two dozen soldiers on the dock to contend with. The Baseland soldiers looked important; their uniforms shiny and new.

  Why would they send the VIPs and some random crates across before the troops? It made no sense. You sent the troops first, since they could secure the dock and protect the supplies. But the Baselanders had sent the supplies and commanders first, and there was little to protect them.

  Why would they feel safe?

  Buggane’s men were within twenty yards of the dock now, swords raised high.

  A Baseland officer with white hair turned to his companion and said something. The second man saluted sharply and raced to grab hold of a tarp which covered the largest crate on the dock. Several other soldiers joined in the effort and yanked the fabric free, exposing an enormous iron cage.