Ronan the Barbarian

by Bibby, James

  Unwisely, Nekros went ahead with this plan and attacked Ronan yet again. Over the next few minutes he was to discover just how irritating Tarl's magic could be.

  Deciding that a lot of very quick and easy spells might be better than something overpowering (which would probably only come shooting straight back at him redoubled in force), Tarl turned to the Beginner's Section of the Book and went to work with a will. One moment Nekros was ferociously pressing home his attack, the next moment a bunch of flowers appeared from nowhere and hurtled into his face, and a large fish hit him on the back of the head. Then he discovered he suddenly had his own personal rain-cloud. After a few moments this disappeared and a very, very small forest fire started up in his beard, and then three large bright-red toadstools erupted out of his groin like volcanoes, exploding in a cloud of spores that started him sneezing helplessly. Next, a flock of tiny bright blue birds began orbiting his head, chirruping loudly, and then in the space of ten seconds he contracted mild forms of measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, and swine vesicular disease.

  Even though these distractions made it very difficult for him to concentrate on his swordplay, Ronan was by now exhausted, and Nekros twice got past his guard. Unfortunately, on the first occasion a coal scuttle materialised over his head, blinding him just as he was about to deliver the coup de grâce, and on the second his sword turned momentarily into a five foot loofah which smacked wetly but harmlessly against Ronan's neck.

  He did manage to fire off several spells in return, but although any one of them would have splattered Tarl into charred fragments had it connected, he was having one of his off-days and just couldn't quite get it right. For some reason, everything was going off at a ninety-degree angle to where he was aiming it.

  However, after several minutes it was becoming obvious that, annoying as they were, the two of them could do him no real damage. Nekros decided that it really was time to stop messing about. All he needed was to concentrate on one massive spell that would blow the little gimp apart. He paused, and runnels of black light began seeping out from his nostrils and mouth, gelling into an unedifying sphere of darkness that whirled about his head.

  Tarl stared, impressed despite himself. This was potent stuff! And then he suddenly realised that he had about a fifth of a second to find a defence against the black mage-spell that was about to be blasted at him. In one rapid movement he screamed, ducked, and fired off the only spell he could think of.

  Tyson and Puss watched anxiously as a massive black fireball exploded through the roof of the hut and rocketed up to the sky.

  "Right," said the donkey. "My turn."

  It trotted purposefully up to the doorway and peered through. The place looked as though it had been lived in for months by a family of varts. There were gaping holes in the roof, walls, and even the floor. Steaming yellow goo was plastered all over one wall. The floor was littered with strange items, including dead nettles, bunches of flowers, and several large fish. At one end of the hut icicles were hanging from the rafters, and at the other end a glowing orange ball of flame was bumbling aimlessly along the top of the wall.

  Beside one wall, Ronan was leaning on the Sword and panting as though he had just run thirty miles. He was soaked with sweat and streaked with dirt, and a wound in his right-hand side was bleeding badly. Next to him stood Tarl. He was panting as well, and his face wore the haunted wild-eyed look of someone who has reached the end of their tether. Opposite them stood the furious Nekros, who looked if anything even worse. His clothes were singed and burnt, his hair had turned a strange yellow colour, his face was covered in boils, and he had grown an outsize pair of female breasts.

  "You're taking your time," called the donkey to Ronan.

  "He's forgotten the klatting Word of Power!" yelled Tarl.

  "Good job I'm here, then," said the donkey, calmly. "It's Shikara, if that's of any help."

  Nekros threw it a look of horrified disbelief, but before he could fling himself back into the attack, Ronan had brandished the Sword aloft, gasping "Shikara! Shikara!"

  For a second, nothing happened, and then the Sword blazed as though it had turned to flame. It seemed to leap from Ronan's hand, burying itself point-first in the ground between the two warriors. For a moment it stood there quivering, and its keening wail turned into a triumphant chant of victory. And then it shimmered and seemed to swiftly expand, growing, widening, changing before their disbelieving eyes, until in its place there stood a woman, beautiful but terrible in her anger, with long cascades of auburn hair and eyes that flashed a furious fire. Ronan and Tarl stared at her, awe-struck, but Nekros was backing away from her with a look of abject terror on his face.

  "Shikara!" he whispered.

  "Nekros," she purred. "How nice to see you again. After all this time!"

  "I... I can explain," he stammered, still backing away.

  "Oh, sure," she laughed, mirthlessly. "I bet! You betrayed me, Nekros. Used me, then played me false. I've spent five hundred years imprisoned in that sword. Five. Hundred. Years." Power seemed to emanate from every pore in her body and the air crackled with static. Her voice took on an evil, malignant tone. "Nekros," she hissed, "you... are... a... RAT!"

  And before their horrified eyes, Nekros dwindled and shrank. Sleek hairs sprouted from his skin and a naked, ugly tail emerged thrashing from the base of his spine. His deep-voiced pleading turned gradually shriller and shriller, until it was no more than a pitiful squeak, and then he was simply a small and insignificant brown rat grovelling at their feet.

  Shikara turned to Ronan. "Kill him!" she ordered. But as Ronan looked down at the sad creature that had been his mortal enemy and the slayer of his father, he felt only pity. He shook his head.

  And then the donkey came trotting across. Placing one hoof on the rat it reached down, and Ronan winced as its teeth nipped lethally together. Then it lifted its head and began slowly chewing.

  "Ugh!" said Tarl, with feeling. The donkey stopped chewing and looked at him. The rat's tail was hanging out of one side of its mouth like a piece of spaghetti.

  "Look," it said, "I'm starving! OK?" And chewing hard, it walked out of the hut door, looking for a bit of privacy.

  Shikara turned to Ronan. "Hey," she said, in a voice like honey dripping off toast, "I like your ass!"

  "He's called Puss," replied the warrior. "And he's not mine. He's a friend."

  "I'm not talking about the donkey," she said, and Ronan realised that she was staring at his rear with a predatory and hungry look. He stirred uneasily, and then winced as a shaft of pain shot through his side.

  Shikara noticed the blood seeping slowly from the wound, and stretched out one hand as if to touch it. "Poor boy!" she said, with a lazy smile. "Never mind, I can soon take your mind off that!"

  Ronan began to shake his head, but Shikara was not the sort of person who was prepared to have her first flirtation in five hundred years end in rejection. For a moment she scowled and then her eyes flashed light, and suddenly he was staring at her with a totally blank expression, his mouth hanging loosely open.

  "As I said, I've been stuck in that sword for five hundred years," she purred, "and that's a long time to go without love!" She began to stroke Ronan's chest with a proprietorial air. And that, of course, was the moment that Tyson chose to walk into the hut.

  In an expensively-furnished room in a southern city, the six smartly dressed men had been watching an image of the scenes in the hut. As Puss swallowed the last sad remnants of Nekros, five of the men began noisily arguing. The sixth stabbed out some numbers on the dial of the crystal ball that stood on the table in front of him, and then held up his hand for silence. Instantly, the others were quiet.

  "Acquisitions, please," he said to the female face that appeared in the crystal. Then he turned to the other five enquiringly. "Comments, anyone?" he asked.

  "Nekros is dead!" one of the others burst out. "And without him, our whole strategy is in ruins! There's no-one else who has his capabilitie
s!"

  "But there is," said the first man, before speaking into the crystal. "Acquisitions? I want Shikara. Priority one. What? No, she's re-emerged. And she is exactly what we need. Far more suitable than Nekros. Get her for me..."

  Tyson was staring at Shikara like an emperor staring at a courtier who he has just caught pissing behind the imperial throne.

  "Just what exactly do you think you are doing?" she asked, in a voice coated in permafrost.

  Shikara was still stroking Ronan's chest as he stared blankly ahead. "I'd hate to see a body like this wasted on someone who didn't appreciate it," she smiled.

  Tyson's knuckles whitened on the hilt of her sword, but Tarl laid a restraining hand on her arm. Now that he was going with the Power instead of resisting it he was getting quite receptive, and he could feel a massive magical force about this woman, much bigger than Nekros had possessed. He was well aware that she could blast them both apart with one hand tied behind her back if she chose.

  "Now, you just hold on a minute!" he began, and then stopped as Shikara turned to stare at him. He had only seen a look like that on someone's face once in his whole life. It had been in Goblin City, when he had been playing cards with a group of Orcs. The stakes had got quite high during one hand, and there was a small fortune in the pot. Only he and a large mountain-orc were left in. The mountain-orc had triumphantly laid down his three aces, only for Tarl to cover them with his flush of hearts. As he had scooped up the money, happily burbling away about people who ought to learn to play the game, Tarl had looked up and seen this very same look in the orc's eyes. Then, as now, it meant "If you say one more word, my friend, even a tiny, harmless word like "but" or "oh", you will die immediately in a particularly horrible way. Comprenez?"

  Desperately, he tried to think of something clever and cunning to do, but then Shikara threw a condescendingly smug smile at Tyson.

  "I think this hunk deserves someone a bit more feminine for a change, don't you, darling!" she drawled, giving Ronan another caress.

  "Get your fat hands off him!" Tyson snarled, but before she could do anything there was a blinding flash, and both Shikara and Ronan had vanished.

  Tyson gaped uncomprehendingly as the air rushed in to fill the gap where they had been with a little "pop". Then her face set like stone. For a moment Tarl wasn't sure whether she was going to burst into tears or cut his head off. To his relief, she did neither, but just slumped to the floor with despair written in every line of her body.

  "The bastard!" she muttered.

  "It wasn't Ronan's fault," Tarl said, forcefully. "That bitch put a spell on him. I mean, you could see that! Honestly, the guy's crazy about you! But he was wounded. He just had no resistance left!"

  But he couldn't seem to get through to her. She just sat there, slumped dejectedly against the wall. If ever a sculptor had wanted to carve a statue called "Abject Misery", she would have made the perfect model.

  Tarl squatted down, grabbed her by her shoulders and shook her violently to and fro until her eyes at last focused on him, and he had her attention again.

  "Listen!" he yelled. "He loves you! But he's no match for some spell-casting vamp like her! He needs our help! If you want him back, then we've got to go and fight for him!"

  And so they did. But that's another story.

  APPENDIX 1 - GLOSSARY

  ALAXL - A large and very fierce semi-intelligent lizard that inhabits the forests of the more tropical regions of Midworld. They are savage killers, but as they have a brain the size of a walnut located halfway down their spine they are also remarkably stupid. If you tell an attacking Alaxl that you are not really a defenceless human but a thirty-foot dragon who could eat them for breakfast, it will be at least three hours before they realise that there is just a chance you might be lying.

  APATODONS - Massive elephant-like creatures found throughout Iduin. Their unusual behaviour is caused by three factors; their highly gregarious nature, their remarkable stupidity, and their appalling memory. Apatodons spend a vast amount of time wandering around looking for other Apatodons to be with, but they can never quite remember what kind of creature they actually are, or how they are supposed to behave. They have a habit of latching on to the first thing they come across and copying it, in the firm belief that this is probably what they should be doing, and this can make them very dangerous. Should you come across one in a forest standing stock still, convinced that it is a tree or a rock or something, there is of course little danger. However, many people have drowned after their boat has been capsized by the wash from an Apatodon that is vainly trying to follow its fellow salmon upstream, and in the mountainous regions of Southern Iduin the final sound heard by many an unfortunate traveller is the baffled trumpeting of a plummeting Apatodon that is desperately trying to work out why it isn't gliding gently away from the cliff with all the other eagles.

  BAR-BASTARD - A tavern game that rather resembles billiards for six people. The aim is to do horrible things to your opponents' balls and to generally humiliate and upset them. This is not a good game to play with friends if you want to keep them. It is definitely not a good game to play with enemies, unless you want your cue to be forcibly jammed into an unpleasant part of your anatomy. If you feel you must play, we recommend that you wear a full suit of armour and have an excellent lawyer with you at all times.

  BAQ D'ORIAN WIDOWMAKER, BLACK TEASER - see SPIDERS.

  CAVE-TROLLS - Eight foot of rock-hard muscle, with brains to match, cave-trolls are horribly violent and bad-tempered creatures that get into fights at the drop of a hat. However, when extremely drunk they often end up staggering about being nice to people and hugging them. This is a great embarrassment to their friends. Should a drunken cave-troll ever kiss you, his companions will probably come across and apologise profusely for his behaviour before kicking the crap out of you.

  FESTA - A long, creeper-like vine that grows in forests, where it is found in large numbers hanging from trees like long green ropes. It is used as an aid to locomotion by many arboreal-dwelling creatures, especially monkeys. Unfortunately for these monkeys the Giant Monkey-Eating Spider has, over the years, evolved a tongue that is long, green, extremely sticky, and virtually indistinguishable from a festa vine. These loathsome arachnids tend to hang around in the treetops with open mouth and tongue hanging down to the forest floor, waiting for dinner to climb aboard. Anyone who is naive enough to think of Nature as being rather sweet and wonderful should try discussing this viewpoint with any of the squealing, terrified monkeys they see being hauled rapidly upwards past them through the branches towards the gaping maw of the spider above.

  FLAK - Minor Behanian deity, with the body of a man and the head of a wart hog. Unsurprisingly, he was a little pissed off about his looks, and spent the whole of his existence in a foul mood. Flak is the God of Temper Tantrums.

  KALADION - A musical instrument, rather like a cross between bagpipes and an accordion. It looks extremely difficult to play well, but this is misleading, as it is in fact impossible. The sound produced has been likened to a tomcat being put through a mincer. Good kaladion players are hard to find, as anyone attempting to play in public normally gets a sword through the chest from the nearest enraged music-lover.

  KAHEN THE SPOILT - An elven princess, Kahen once spent the entire Gross National Product of her father's kingdom on clothes and shoes in one afternoon during a state visit to Cydor. A month later, she persuaded her father to declare war on Cydor when a shop in Ilex refused to replace a pair of wiggat-skin high-heeled sling-backs after one of the heels had come off. The War of Kahen's Heel nearly bankrupted both countries and ended in the Shoe Riots of '74, when an irate populace burned down every shoe-shop and lynched every shoe-salesman that they could find. In some parts of Cydor it is still an indictable offence to be found in possession of a cobbler's last or of one of those sloping metal stools on which you rest your feet to try on shoes, and calling someone a "shoe-salesman" is asking for a punch in the face.

/>   KALAYA - A cage-bird popular throughout Midworld, and also known as the Brown-nosed Creeper. The kalaya is a small flightless bird normally found in urban gardens. As a defence against humans it has evolved a quite extraordinary birdsong that sounds remarkably like human speech and is most attractive to the sort of humans who might otherwise enjoy killing little birds. For example, its dawn song sounds exactly like "Hey, you're-an-incredibly-handsome-guy, you-know-that?", whilst its warning cry is "Gee, just-look-at-those-muscles, I-bet-all-the-girls just-eat-out-of-your-hand!" Its evening song is almost unprintable, but includes phrases such as "Wow, yeah, do-it-to-me big-boy!" The kalaya is an incredibly popular pet with the more macho (and lonely) sort of male.

  KATIMO - A large mammal native to Iduin, the Katimo has ugly wrinkled skin and sparse curly ginger hair, and looks like nothing so much as a giant scrotum on legs. The male of the species has an extremely small, almost non-existent, penis, and is a very shy animal, hiding in remote mountain areas where it is less likely to be laughed at. "Katimo" has become a word of derision used by the dark-skinned southern folk for those who they suspect may lack genitalia.

  KLAT - An extremely rude Orcish swearword that, on account of the current obscenity laws, we are not allowed to translate.

  LENKAT - A huge predatory mammal with sleek greasy hair and row upon row of gleaming, grinning teeth. It is often used as a particularly vicious form of game-show host.

  MAGE-DECK - A magical device of Orcish origin which can turn a drum kit or a double bass into a device which is capable of demolishing town walls by sound waves alone. Like most Orcish magic, mage-decks were developed as a way of spicing up their parties, and orcs reckon they haven't had a really good time unless at least one eardrum has been permanently damaged by the sound-system.