“Um, how would you get out if you climbed to the top of the tower, well, actually, I suppose it’s a keep,” said Aargh. “It’s not like you can jump over to the curtain wall and then jump down.”
“Yeah, motherfucker. Have you got some wings or some shit hidden in your fat little back? Don’t you know how shit works, you stupid pink fuck-knuckle?”
“Maybe you two kabab skewers would like it back in those scabbards?” Bardulf asked. He waited a second. “I didn’t think so. If I could climb the tower, then I could climb the wall. Pretty simple.”
“Point of order, Bardulf. You’re a barbarian. It stands to reason you’re from the North or somewhere with mountains, so you should be able to climb pretty darn well.”
“Aargh makes a damn good point, big guy.”
“That’s a stereotype,” said the barbarian as he tapped his foot and looked around.
“Thing about stereotypes is they exist for a reason, motherfucker. They tend to be true,” replied the blue sword.
“Until they aren’t.”
“Well, big guy, does this mean you’re more of a beach barbarian? Mace has a point, well, obviously, but I mean isn’t climbing part of being a barbarian?”
“Not for me. I grew up in a city.”
“That means you’re a fighter, not a barbarian. It’s part of the way things are.”
“Motherfucker, you’re just fronting,” said Mace with contempt. “Barbarian, my ass. No such goddamn thing as a city barbarian.”
“I am. I trained with the best, in a forest.”
“Forests are for rangers, not barbarians.”
“There are lots of forests up north, so it’s the same thing.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind, fat boy! If you grew up in a city and learned to be a barbarian in a forest that means you learned in a motherfucking city park! Did they even have insects where you went to barbarian school?”
“Say, Mace," said Aargh. "Sounds to me like Bardulf might actually be a park ranger.”
“Shut up, both of you. I’ve gotta get us out of here.”
“Sure thing, boss.”
“Yeah. Throw that fucking ball like you’re back on the block, city boy.”
The barbarian grunted and threw the rock at the wall a couple more times until he had a hole he thought he could escape through. But, he thought, a couple more throws wouldn't hurt.
It would also give him something to do while he thought about what to do about two chatterbox swords.
Just as he was about to throw the ball again, Bardulf heard a screech coming from inside the castle’s keep. The black dragon must be awake. He ran to the hole in the wall and climbed through.
Mount Up
“Army’s marching our way, m’lord,” said Corporal Martin as he walked in to Baron Gill’s dining room. The room was also serving as a planning space and meeting room for Duke Farley. The baron was away, probably in the tavern seeking peace and quiet.
“WHAT?!” the Duke bellowed as he pushed his massive bulk up with his fists on the table. A large stack of papers slumped into a pile when he disturbed the table. “Blast it. What army? Where? Where is my army?”
“Oh, sorry, m’lord. I mean to say it’s the rest of the army is approaching. No idea why they think we need help with a dead dragon, though.” He turned to leave and turned back and walked toward Duke Farley. He held up an envelope. “They sent this along. The courier went to see Princess Natalie and asked me to deliver this to you.”
Martin placed the envelope in Duke Farley’s hands, gave a quick bow, and left the room as Princess Natalie stormed in from the drawing room. Her normally lovely face was a storm of anger.
She stared at her uncle, hoping the gaze would burn through him, up the family tree and back down to her father.
“My father has gone mad.”
“Oh, so you know.”
“Yes, I know. Of course, I know. The courier just gave me a note.”
“It seems rash.”
“Rash? It couldn’t be anything but rash. He’s my father and I love him. He’s the king and I will obey, but I’m not happy about it.”
“Really?” he asked. “I would have thought it would be right up your street.”
“Being sent home when I have a rare chance to learn what it takes to build a castle? How could I be happy about that?”
“Oh. We got different messages.” He handed her his letter as he continued. “Let’s trade.”
They read each other letters, looked up, and said, “Oh.”
“I can’t believe this, either,” she said, handing her uncle’s letter back. “I didn’t think that was something Father would ever do. We showed him we had an army, but we didn’t give him any details.”
“Children frequently misjudge their parents, forgetting what they did before they were born, niece. Your father tried to convince our father that there was something to an army of strictly professional soldiers.”
“I forget that,” she said, fury welling up in her. “Reminding me makes me wonder why he wants me to come back to Castle Fosdick.”
“Ransom, probably,” Duke Farley said as he tried to get his paper back in order, but in smaller piles this time. “He doesn’t want to risk you being kidnapped. You know how Kingdom Fosdick’s finances are. McTaggart all but beggared us.”
“I expect you’re right,” she said. “I’d find a way out, but I suspect he really does need me, what with mother being kidnapped an all.”
“You’re being far too reasonable about this. Are you sure you’re feeling well?”
“It doesn’t seem like me to just go along with something like this, but I feel like, well,” the princess looked up as she searched for the words. “I feel like it’s something I must do, like it’s already been Written. I’ve never been much for religion or spirituality, but that’s just how I feel. I need to go back. There’s a purpose in it.”
She avoided further explanation when Corporal Martin came in and announced Lord Rumsfeld, Bishop Monk, and Sir Gerund. Greetings were exchanged and they got down to business.
“How does King Fosdick expect this will work, invading Fangnar?” asked Duke Farley. “Armies can’t march on nothing, you know and the kingdom is broke.”
“That has all been sorted out. To be brief, McTaggart kept his plunder in the treasury, so we’ve got that. Plus, the church will help with any additional costs,” said Rumsfeld. “The real question is how will we deal with Fangnar? Our spies say his spies have already reported on our movement and he is holed up in his castle.”
“A siege, then,” Farley grumbled. “Nasty business.”
“Excuse me,” said a plume of smoke on the far side of the room. There were a few grunts and soon Sir Gerund was standing on his chair. “What happened with the dragon? They’re difficult to kill and it’s obviously dead. Did someone poison it? I’ve always wondered if you could poison a dragon.”
Natalie looked at him and spoke before her uncle could. It was something she’d have to become accustomed to, taking over conversations where male egos were involved. It was a skill unique to female rulers.
“A local scholar had been designing a folding catapult,” Princess Natalie said. “She and the villagers came up with a scheme that allowed them to put it by the dragon. They used it to smash the beast’s head in as it slept. Not dramatic, but effective.”
Gerund’s mouth fell open, then he shut it again. His eyes bugged out a bit and Natalie wondered if the little man was having a seizure. Then he burst into laughter.
“That’s, that’s,” he said as he got control of himself. “That’s genius. I’m in awe.”
“Yes, but we can’t do that to Fangnar,” she said.
“Maybe we can,” replied Gerund. “Would someone go fetch that scholar for me? We will need original thinking.”
“I thought that was your department, Sir Gerund,” she returned.
“Not at all, Highness. You’re too kind. I simply took an existing idea, moved it t
o a larger scale and sorted out the implementation. His Majesty did some pioneering work on the subject. I stand on the shoulders of giants. Fortunately, I’m small so it doesn’t bother them.”
Gerund took in a mouthful of cigar smoke, blew it out his nose onto the table top where it hung like a skanky fog.
“I bet they aren’t too keen when you blow smoke on them, Sir Gerund,” rumbled Duke Farley.
Before he could answer, Isabelle stepped through the doors. She was covered in some kind of red-green goop and smelled awful.
“Yes, your Ladyship, your… Princess? You sent for me?”
“We did,” Farley stood up. “We need to come up with a way to avoid a siege. They go on for a long time. The last original solution involved a large wooden—”
“That didn’t turn out so well,” continued Natalie. “Why are you covered in gore, Isabelle?”
“Dragon guts, Your Highness. We’re skinning the beast so we can remove the carcass. It’s fascinating. We’ve got artists making drawings and—”
“We have a dragon skin?” asked Sir Gerund. “It’s intact?”
“Yes, m’lord.”
“When it comes to defeating a castle, a fake dragon would be a lot better than a large wooden rabbit.”
“Gerund, I’m not putting soldiers in a fake dragon!” growled Farley. “I won’t put my men and the kingdom at risk because of some insane idea. You come up with good ideas, but you’re also the fellow who thought it would be a good idea to launch soldiers behind enemy lines with a catapult!”
“It would work, if we could only get the angle and the wingspans right.”
“You also said you’d come up with a way to have ships float underwater and sink enemy ships from below!”
“What was wrong with that idea?”
“We have no need for any of that!”
Natalie felt her head throbbing, the way it always did when she wanted to stop a conversation and beat something.
“Still, Your Grace, it would work and you know it would.”
“If people were supposed to be under water, we’d have gills!”
“It’s not that easy, Duke,” said Isabelle. “You’d also need the ability to stand the pressure and the cold you get from being in—”
She stopped speaking when Princess Natalie abruptly stood.
“I’ve got to get ready to go back to my father. Please remember that there is a siege or something to plan. Stay focused.” She turned and left the room. The only sound were her boots clicking on the floor as she walked, followed by a click when she shut the door behind her.
Natalie smiled faintly as her head started to clear.
Lilly Pads
Bardulf cleared the hole in the wall, rolled to his feet, and stood on a slip of ground outside the black castle. Water and lily pads now surrounded the castle. There was a small sign in the water that read 'Welcome to the Boggy Swamp.'
He heard the sound of stone-on-stone and turned around to see that the blocks he had knocked out were re-appearing on the wall. Then he turned back to the swamp. Drusilla standing in front of him on a lily pad.
"What's cooking, toots?" Bardulf asked with a smile. He looked up, expecting to see the black dragon again, but it wasn’t there. Magic probably kept it in the castle now, or something.
Drusilla shimmied her shoulders, giggled, and strutted from one lily pad to the next on her way to Bardulf. She got close to him, got on her toes and put her arms around here his neck. She nuzzled her face close to his ear and said, "You are, baby."
Bardulf moved to draw her into his arms as she spun away, laughing.
"You're making good time, but you have to keep it up." She smiled and continued. "And I know you will."
Bardulf took a step toward her, and Drusilla got a blank smile on her face.
“To make it back to the blue castle, you will need to jump across these lily pads and joust your way there."
“Huh?" he asked. “How am I supposed to do that? I’d break those pads, baby. I’m a huge guy!”
“Yes, you are!” Drusilla said, her face returning to normal. “They’ll hold you.”
"It's easy! Just follow me!" Drusilla laughed and jumped onto the nearest lily pad. She turned her head back to face Bardulf, giggled and jumped onto the next one. "Come on, silly!"
Bardulf laughed and jumped onto the lily pads Drusilla had just left. She jumped again and as Bardulf followed her, a tremendous roar came from the castle. Bardulf turned to look back at the castle. The hole was closed up.
"Shit," he said. "That sounds like that goddamn buzzard."
“It is and we don’t want to go back there, big guy!”
“No, we sure as fuck don’t!”
“We’ve got to get somewhere safe, Bardulf!”
“I know,” he replied. “Now, be quiet, I have to concentrate here.”
He turned around and Drusilla had disappeared.
Bardulf looked in the distance and could see Blue Castle. He jumped to the next lily pad, and then to the next. He didn't want the black dragon to catch him out here, so he kept leaping. After leaping on a few lily pads, Bardulf came to an area with no lily pads. In front of the barbarian, snakes, alligators, and logs drifted by, some coming from his right, some coming from his left.
After watching for a moment, the barbarian leapt from his lily pad to a log, then a on to a giant turtle. He kept leaping until he came to the end of the river and back a cluster of lily pads.
A screech above him caught his attention. The black dragon circled above, looking for an opportunity to strike. Bardulf knew he didn't have much time, so he cleared the last two lily pads and landed on the opposite shore from where he started. He looked up in time to glimpse the black dragon swooping down at him and, at the last second, threw himself out of the way of its giant claws, careful to keep the swords away from the damn thing.
Looking toward Blue Castle, he could make out shapes flying around it. There seemed to be several attackers and one lone defender. Bardulf knew he had to do something. It wasn’t as if he gave a damn about the blue castle, but there was something pulling him, urging him on. He dismissed the suspicion that it was magic, knowing this was somehow a part of the Adventure he had to complete.
The black dragon, which he now identified as a black ostrich, came around and to attack him again. This time, instead of rolling out of the way, Bardulf squatted and made a powerful leap into the air. He grabbed the creature’s neck, spun around it, and landed on the creature’s back.
The great beast let out a yell that sounded like a rolling earthquake.
"You took long enough," came a voice into his mind. "Yes, I'm talking to you. I'm using my brain, because my mouth doesn't work very well. You humans usually do it the other way around."
"What the fuck?” he asked yelling to the air and feeling something created magic just to make him look stupid.
"We've got to go help Baels the Blue,” it replied, turning in circles and flapping, the ostrich gained altitude and headed toward the besieged Blue Castle. “He's under attack from the buzzards."
"What am I supposed to do about it? I can't fight from your back."
"That's what we're here for, motherfucker," yelled Mace.
"That's right. Did you think we just kill dragons? We have a real purpose, several actually. You see, we’re part of a complicated system of—”
“How about a complicated system of you need to shut the fuck up, Windy,” said Mace.
“Wendy? My name isn’t Wendy!”
“It’s windy when you do nothing but move air around and make noise, motherfucker.”
“You know that isn’t how our speech works, Mace.”
“Both of you shut up,” yelled Bardulf. “Let the ostrich talk.”
“My name is Alfred. I’m your steed for the battle,” the ostrich said, as he banked toward Blue Castle. “You and Baels will be fighting monsters riding buzzards for the sky above the castle. If he loses the sky, then monsters will destroy the cas
tle and the people.”
Joust
"Okay, so the first thing that needs to happen is you need to put us together, at the hilts," said Aargh. Bardulf did that, somehow maintaining his balance on the back of the black ostrich with its huge flapping wings. "Then you need to push me forward very slowly. Good stop right there."
"Aargh, you stupid motherfucker, you left out an important step. Bardulf, move him back and grab both the pommels before you push anything forward."
Bardulf did what they said and the swords turned into a lance swirling with blue and red, like a strange candy cane of death.
In the short time the Ramekin messed with the swords, the ostrich carried them so close the barbarian could clearly see Baels and his opponents. The blue dragon was sitting on the back of a red stork, fighting demonic looking creatures mounted on buzzards.
Bardulf was below Baels and the creatures he was fighting. He saw the blue dragon was fighting as if he was a knight on horseback, knocking the demons off their mounts with his lance.
Baels guided his stork just above his opponent and used the stork's talons to knock the rider off his mount. As the rider fell off the buzzard, he turned into a little white ball. Wheeling his mount, he caught the ball. Bardulf watched as the blue dragon spun his stork around and landed in the courtyard of the blue castle. Bardulf adjusted Alfred’s course and landed close to Baels.
"Hail and well met, Bardulf the Ramekin!" Baels saluted the barbarian with his lance. He had a strange blank look on his face, much like Drusilla got when the demons of stupidity took her. Bardulf knew that he was about to get important information.
"You will fight alongside me today. We will joust with demons mounted on black buzzards. You must use your lance or the talons of your faithful steed to dismount them. They will fall as balls of energy, which you must gather to prevent them from returning.
"There is more to this fight than you know, for if you are to defeat complete your Adventure, you must best me in this contest by capturing more energy orbs. I cannot hurt you and you cannot hurt me, but we must kick some serious demon ass. Everything depends on this. Are you ready to begin?"
Fat Barbarian: A Humorous Fantasy Adventure (Fat Barbarian Saga Book 1) Page 11