by Ugland, Eric
“And you will surrender yourself to me?” Bottes asked.
“I surrender myself to you now, if you let them all out of the city as hale and hearty as they are now.”
Bottes looked over his shoulder, and seemed to be conversing with someone his bulk was hiding. He got an answer, and turned back around.
“Deal,” he said. “Half of you, escort that group from the stairs. They are to leave the city unmolested. Now, arrest the so-called duke, and take him to the wall for his public execution.”
Execution? I thought. Might have handled this one wrong...
A man approached me, young, dark hair, dark eyes, plump lips, shaking hands. He had a pair of iron manacles.
I smiled at him, turned around, and offered up my hands behind my back.
The iron was cold on my skin, and the manacles were exceedingly tight, barely fitting. Especially because I was flexing my arms as much as I could. He grabbed me by my elbow, and escorted me down the street to a waiting wagon that was all black with tiny barred windows. The back was opened into a ramp, and I was marched up and in.
A single man sat inside.
“Ah, Montana of Coggeshall,” he said, “how eager I have been to get a chance to drain you.”
Chapter Sixty-Two
The door closed behind me. I was alone in the wagon with the creepy drainer guy. He was exceedingly thin, and wore black robes with a weird hat and a plague doctor’s mask hanging off his chest. He had a strangely pert nose, and dark eyes with high cheeks that accentuated how gaunt he was.
“So,” I said, “you know me. Who are you?”
“Are names even important?” he asked.
His voice was high, and he spoke in a little sing-song way. I was immediately annoyed at every aspect of him.
“I mean, kind of,” I replied. “But, you know, if you prefer, I’ll just call you Asswipe Shitforbrains.”
The smarmy smile disappeared from his face.
“Crudeness does not become anyone.”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure that name fits you pretty well, Mr. Shitforbrains. Oh wait, unless, are you still single? Master Shitforbrains. That’s it. Or are we friends enough that I can just call you Asswipe?”
His lips went white as he clenched his teeth.
“I had thought to be merciful with you,” he said. “Perhaps leaving you with sufficient abilities to make some sort of life after I have finished with you. But now, I think it best to drain you so you crawl from this wagon to your death.”
“Thing is, Master Shitforbrains, I believe you know, and knew, I’m headed to an execution. You were always going to drain me—”
“Shut up,” he said. “You are annoying.”
“I’m annoying? You’re—”
He snapped his plague doctor’s mask on. I felt a hum of energy flowing from him.
I closed my eyes and prepared my one and only super-spell. If I was going to die, I might as well take this asshole with me.
He reached out for me as I reached in for my rather ridiculously large pool of mana.
But just as he touched me, and I prepared my spell, he screamed in rage, and ripped his plague mask off.
The power he’d pulled in came out in a weird flash of light and pressure. The wagon rocked on its wheels then quickly came to a stop. The ramp dropped down, and there were spears and arrows pointing at us.
Asswipe Shitforbrains stood up, pushed past me, and stomped through the guards to Bottes’ wagon.
“You said he was human,” Asswipe said.
“He is,” Bottes replied, confused.
“No way. If he was human, I wouldn’t be out here yelling at you. I would be in there draining him.”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters! This is one of the most complicated spells conceived of in the universe. Everything matters with this spell!”
“Well, unfortunately we need to take him to his execution—”
“I implore you to desist. To delay. We can ill-afford to lose what we can gain via—”
“Trust me, you do not want a man like this left alive for any longer than necessary. He must die today. I apologize that we were not able to use your full abilities, but—”
“Mister Bottes—”
“Mister Fossileez. This has already been decided by the council. It is out of my hands and yours.” He looked at Mister Fossileez — Shitforbrains fit him better — then nodded. “Onward!”
The ramp was closed. I was alone in the wagon.
Which is really never a great idea. Don’t leave a man like me alone. Certainly not when life is on the line. I’m not a huge fan of dying, so I was prepared to do anything I could to survive. Step the first: getting out of the cuffs, preferably in a way where it still seemed like I was in the cuffs, so I maintain an element of surprise.
Relaxing my arms bought me a little wiggle room with the cuffs. And because I’d kept up with my stretching, a little movement in the wagon got it so my hands were back in front of me. Sure, I had to dislocate my shoulder and tear a muscle or two in the process, but considering I wasn’t in combat, that all healed right back up. The manacles weren’t complicated, so I felt reasonably confident that if I had studied lock-picking at all, I’d already be out of them. However, that was not on my list of skills, in either of my two lifetimes.
What I did have, was a special set of skills I’d honed over a lifetime to be useful in this exact situation. I pulled.
Hard.
With all of my strength.
Which was actually a little bit more than I needed, because I wasn’t really at a hundred percent when one of the links gave out and shot around the inside of the wagon. It smacked me right in the forehead, drawing blood.
I rubbed at my new wound, which felt really odd, because it was closing while I was rubbing it. I had to crawl around the wagon to find the link, and then I had to do a little massaging so I could get it to hang in place to appear as I was still bound.
Now I just had to wait.
Chapter Sixty-Three
When we got to the wall, it was snowing. I smiled, thinking it was the world weeping for the injustice being perpetrated. But honestly, I knew it was just a normal weather pattern for this part of the world.
A guard frogmarched me up to the wall, up to where I had fought and bled for the city of Osterstadt, and where I was probably going to fight and bleed once more. But this time, for me.
The Legion Barracks were still held by the Legion — I could see several soldiers at the upper windows looking at me, and the Glatonese flag whipped in the wind above the building.
A ton of citizens stood around the wall, though the first row of people were all armed, and had the hard eyes of professional soldiers. Bottes, as well as a number of other wealthy-looking people clad in heavy, luxuriant furs, were gathered on a raised platform off to one side. In the relative middle of things was a shorter platform that had a large round of wood that looked like it had been well used in recent times. A basket of heads on one side of the platform and a stack of bodies in a wagon on the other confirmed this.
A large dude stood by the round. Like, bigger than me big. But where I was basically nothing but muscle, this guy looked a lot more like I had in the past life. Lots of muscle hidden under heavy layers of fat. Thinning hair, and even the hint of a beard under his executioner’s hood. He had a very large axe in one hand, and he leaned on it while smiling absentmindedly. The look of a man who loved his job.
My armed entourage walked me up to the execution station. Then one of them kicked the backs of my knees so I was forced to kneel in front of the round of wood. They took a few steps back.
Then, Bottes stood up and started a speech.
“Hey,” I said. “Nice axe.”
“Uh, thanks,” the executioner said.
“You, uh, good at this?”
“A bit,” he said. “New to it.”
“You weren’t the executioner before?”
“Dyed w
ool. Fabrics.”
“You used to dye, and now you make others die. Kinda neat, in a gruesome way.”
“I like that. Die and dye. Very, uh, yeah. Can I use that?”
“Sure. Be my guest.”
“Huh. Neat.”
“Montana,” I said.
“Is that your name?”
“It is. You?”
“Joe.”
“Joe the Dyer?”
“Joe the Executioner now. Maybe Joe the Blade. Joe the axe. Working on it.”
“Is this a move up in society?”
“Higher pay and less work,” he said. “So, a bit?”
“Good for you,” I said.
“Thanks for being, you know, personable. Most people are crying or—”
“Will you two shut up?” Bottes hissed at us from his podium.
“Sorry,” the executioner said.
“I’m not sorry,” I snapped. “You gonna kill me twice now?”
“If only we could,” Bottes replied. “Just kill him. I’ll speak after.”
“Okay,” Joe the Executioner said. He lifted up his huge axe.
As soon as I heard the whistle of the head through the air, I pulled my arms apart, and pushed myself back.
The blade thunked into the round, almost going halfway through the wood.
I hopped up to my feet, kicked poor Joe in the teeth, and ripped the axe out of his hands. The two nearest guards were pulling their swords from their scabbards, but I got the axe around faster. And because I’m a nice guy, I used the not cutting side of the axe to bash them off the platform and onto their backs.
“Hey Bottes!” I shouted out. “Ready for another deal?”
“That’s the Hero of Osterstadt!” someone in the crowd shouted.
“The Hero!” and similar cries echoed out from the mob.
“Looks like I’ve got a little more leverage here,” I said to Bottes.
He was not smiling.
Chapter Sixty-Four
I negotiated for another spate of safe passage. This time, I included myself. And all the Imperial citizens who wished to exit the city. Virtually any such person whose head wasn’t in the basket was inside the barracks already. Captain Czubakowski, still alive but quite wounded, was able to get his troops and all the other citizens moving within an hour. A rather tense hour, being that we were surrounded by men with weapons who kind of wanted us dead. The Osterstadt guards were making comments about us freezing to death in a matter of days once outside the gates. But the regular populace seemed to have a rather different opinion of me, and some of them were struggling to catch a view of me. I smiled and waved at anyone I saw.
We made a trip down the large avenue, to the central gate, and we exited the city.
I waited until everyone was out before I left myself. As the huge gate closed, I flipped the bird to Bottes.
Funnily enough, my other people had ignored basically everything I’d said, choosing to wait by the tree for me to come out of Osterstadt. So when I showed up with two thousand Legion troops, and about a thousand other citizens of various stripes, there was also a large group of women, one lion man, a brownie, an Imperial Mancer, Eliza, Emeline, and Priscilla. And, most important of all, Fritz. Air Fritz, the best roc a guy could ask for.
It took a little more work, and a lot of convincing, but we got air Fritz flying back and forth with a very large hanging platform, and the entire group of people started to get ferried between Osterstadt and Coggeshall. It was going to be a long series of days for Fritz, but it meant shaving off weeks of dangerous travel in the winter snows. It worked for me. I’d buy Fritz a nice fruit basket.
Once home, I had to break the news about Léon to Nathalie.
She didn’t take it well, but who would? She swore vengeance of her brother on the city of Osterstadt. I thought that was a bit much, but, then again, what did I know? We held a ceremonial funeral with all the Imperial citizens. Since we didn’t have Léon’s body, we planted a tree in his name.
Finally, it was time.
Bed.
It had called to me, I had been desperate for it, and I longed for a moment to relax.
I took a hot shower, cleaned what seemed like an inch of dried grime and blood off my body, and walked out to dive into my bed.
But there, in the middle of the clean white sheets, sat a small package. Blue wrapping paper with a silver bow.
I picked the box up and took it over to my desk. I had to undo the ribbon to get the tag out.
* * *
Montana of Coggeshall
Perhaps it is for the holiday that you have done such a service for me as ridding Osterstadt of vampires. I abhor those vile creatures, those perversions of nature. They made things so very difficult for me and mine. I fear, as well, you did a good job with your disguise, of hiding your identity, for I did not even know you were in the city until that final morning. And what an exit you made, the Hero of Osterstadt, a duke of the Empire. Certainly not what this rebellious city council was imagining. What a time to be alive, eh? But I digress. As you did such a kindness for me, giving me an unparalleled holiday gift, I felt it only right I do the same for you.
Happy Solstice, and enjoy your Fiend Night,
The Master
* * *
“Fuck,” I said. “I killed the wrong master.”
Ready for Book 10?
ME TOO!
But there’s a bit of a wait.
Next up is more Bad Guys:
War of the Posers
But don’t you worry, Montana’s adventure is far from over:
Eat, Slay, Love
Coming out February 4, 2021!!
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Author’s Note
May 29, 2020
Friends and lovely readers:
I hope that this finds you all happy and healthy. It’s been a bit of a tumultuous ride, writing this book, just because the outside world has been so, well, bumpy. But I am so very lucky. Not only because I’ve got such great readers (you guys) who let me live out my dreams, but also because I have a whole other world to escape into any time I feel the need. Vuldranni is always there, and it’s quite big so there’s always something else for me to discover and play around with. I wish I could write faster, just to give y’all a place to escape more often. But, because I can’t quite yet, I’m going to try and get some other media out for y’all. Maps, pictures, there’s talk of a bestiary, and definitely paper copies of the books.
The next books coming out will be the next three Bad Guys books, and I’m so excited to get back to hanging out with Clyde in the city.
Now, I know some of you are only here for the game. And the game is fun, but it’s getting a bit wonky, so, here are the new rules: You have to be the first person to send me an email with the correct answer to the question: who is the Academy Award winner mentioned by name in the book? If you are the first, I’ll ask you to give me something to have Mister Paul give Montana in the next book.
If you want to chat or connect with me further, or talk to other readers about my books, I’ve got a very active discord: Come stay awhile, and listen. :)
Thank you, all of you, for letting me live my dream. Stay safe out there and play well together.
Smooches.
Eric
About the Author
Eric Ugland ran away from Seattle to join the circus. And then he came to his senses, and moved to Manhattan. Now he's a novelist in Oregon, trapped by trees and snow and bears. Mostly bears. SO MANY BEARS!
The Good Guys is a continuing LitRPG series I’m writing in the world of iNcarn8. Join my reader group and be the first to know when new books come out.
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Contents
Also by Eric Ugland
Chapter 1
Chapter
2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34