Critical Failures IV

by Robert Bevan

  “We should hide,” said Dave. “It might be Mordred.”

  Tony the Elf looked up at Stacy. “How many horses were pulling Mordred’s wagon?”

  “Just one.”

  “It’s not Mordred,” said Tony the Elf. “This wagon is being pulled by two horses.”

  Stacy nodded. “Impressive.”

  “I could have told you it wasn’t Mordred,” said Julian. “I still can’t feel Ravenus.”

  Tony the Elf stood up. “Whoever it is, they’re bound to know these roads far better than we do. We’ll ask where each road leads to, and use that information to make our best guess as to which way Mordred might have gone.”

  Everyone halfheartedly nodded their consent. The plan didn’t seem likely to yield much in the way of useful information, but hopefully it would be better than nothing.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder, (or, as in Dave and Julian’s case, shoulder to ass) so as to keep from being ignored. But they were ready to jump out of the way should the travelers speed up and threaten to run them over.

  The rumbling grew louder as the wagon drew closer. A cloud of dust rose from the bend in the road, and from it emerged two white horses. Behind them, seated at the front of a large sturdy wagon, were two uniformed Cardinian soldiers.

  The soldier on the left raised his right hand, and the soldier on the right pulled on the horse’s reins. The wagon slowed to a halt twenty feet in front of them.

  “What sad band of brigands are you who would impede the journey of the king’s own soldiers?” demanded the soldier on the left.

  “We’re very sorry,” said Julian. “We don’t want to take up too much of your time. We just need –”

  “Stand aside this instant before we throw you in with this lot!” The soldier cocked his head back. Julian took the gesture to mean that their wagon was full of prisoners.

  “Come on, man,” said Julian. “We just want to know where these roads lead.”

  The soldier leaned forward and spoke directly to Julian. “This is your final warning, elf.”

  “Let them go, Julian,” said Tony the Elf. “We’ll catch the next one.”

  Julian noticed then that he was the only one still standing in the wagon’s way. Tony the Elf and Stacy stood on the right side of the road, and Dave stood on the left. Reluctantly, Julian stepped back to join Dave and let the wagon pass. Who knew how long they’d have to hang around before another wagon came along?

  “Yah!” said the soldier with the reins, and the horses started moving.

  “Hey,” said Julian, determined to get something out of these pricks. “Can one of you at least tell me where you’re coming from?”

  “Ye mum’s house,” said a voice from inside the wagon. A black-skinned half-elf grinned down at Julian from above the paneling on the side of the wagon, which covered all but the very top and bottom of the iron bars. His hair was grey, but Julian suspected it might be white after a wash.“The line was pretty long, but she was servicing four at a time, so it moved quickly. Run along home and give her a kiss for me, hey?”

  That was completely uncalled for. Julian had half a mind to jab that stupid grin off his face with his quarterstaff, but didn’t imagine that would get him any closer to getting the information he needed, and might even get him thrown back there with him. “There’s really no need for –”

  “Gah!” cried Dave, jogging alongside the wagon as it turned onto the northbound main road. “He’s got my beard!” He was banging on the side panel as his beard was being pulled under it.

  “Stop the wagon!” cried Julian. “They’ve got my friend’s beard!”

  The soldier on the right turned around and laughed at Dave. “Such is the price of your friend’s stupidity.” Facing forward again, he addressed the driver. “Onward, Gareth.”

  “Oh my god!” cried Dave, picking up the pace as the wagon straightened out. “I think he’s eating it!”

  Those asshole soldiers weren’t going to stop, and Dave wasn’t going to be able to move much faster than he was now. It would only be a matter of seconds before he had his face ripped off while being crushed under a wagon wheel. Julian ran to offer whatever aid he could. He didn’t carry a blade on him to cut Dave’s beard, so hejabbed at the prisoners with his quarterstaff through the bars.

  Someone grabbed the quarterstaff, and Julian immediately released his grip, not wanting to sacrifice his fingers to save a stick. Fortunately, the occupants of the wagon seemed to regard it a fair trade for what was left of Dave’s beard. Dave stood panting on the side of the road with a large jagged chunk of the right side of his beard missing.

  “Are you two okay?” asked Tony the Elf, running up to meet them.

  Dave wiped the spittle off the chewed-away section of his beard. “Define okay.”

  “What a couple of fucking assholes!” said Julian. He was madder than he could ever remember being.

  “What do you expect?” said Tony the Elf. “They’re criminals.”

  “I was talking about the soldiers.”

  Tony the Elf shrugged. “That’s just the way it is. They’ve got the uniforms. They can be as dickish as they want to be.”

  “You know what?” said Julian. “Screw that. I’ll be right back.”

  “What? Where are you going?”

  Julian turned around to face the wagon as it picked up speed.“Horse!”

  A sandy brown mare materialized next to him. He grabbed the saddle horn, slipped a foot into a stirrup, and hoisted himself up.

  “Just let it go, Julian,” said Tony the Elf. “They aren’t worth it.”

  Julian didn’t look back. “Ravenus is. Go, horse!”

  The wagon had picked up speed, but Julian’s horse quickly closed the gap between them, and was soon trotting off to the right of the soldier who had done most of the talking.

  Julian knew his Diplomacy skill would serve him better than magic in his current situation, but he couldn’t bring himself to sweet-talk these jerks. He’d go the other way with it. Reverse Diplomacy. He cleared his throat.

  The soldier looked at Julian, then down at his horse. “Well well. So the elf knows a little magic trick. Very impressive. Fuck off.”

  Julian smiled to himself. They wouldn’t last two minutes. He started to sing. “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.”

  The soldier gave him a scornful look. “What?”

  “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.” Julian didn’t know anymore lyrics to the song, or even if it had more lyrics. But annoyance was what he was going for, and repeating the same line over and over again would yield greater results anyway. “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care. Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.”

  “I don’t care either. Now fuck off!”

  It was working already. “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care. Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.”

  The prisoner who had claimed to have been serviced by Julian’s mother gaped at him as he continued to sing, then turned to his fellow prisoners. “The elf’s gone and lost his fool mind, he has.”

  Julian sang louder. “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care!Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care!”

  The soldier’s fists were shaking with rage. “Stop saying that!”

  The dark-skinned half-elf nodded slowly, appreciating the frustration of his captor. He sang along with Julian. “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care!Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care!”

  If this song could drive Pee-Wee Herman to jump from a moving train, it could make this bastard crack. “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care!JIMMY CRACK CORN, AND III! DOOOOON’T! CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA–”

  “ENOUGH!” said the soldier. “Gareth, stop the gods damned horses.” Once the wagon slowed to a stop, he looked at Julian, red-faced and breathing heavily. “What is it you want from me, elf?”

  “I just want to know where you’re coming from.”

  “Lighthouse Rock. We’re tr
ansporting a group of pirates and thieves from the Barrier Islands to Cardinia where they will be hanged. Are you satisfied now, or would you like to know what I had for breakfast this morning?”

  “And where does the westbound road lead?”

  “It leads west.”

  Julian cleared his throat. “Jimmy crack corn, and I–”

  “All right, all right! Enough! I’ve always known elves to be snobbish, but never flagrantly obnoxious.”

  “The westbound road?”

  “A string of unpronounceable elven villages. How is it you don’t know where your own people live?”

  Julian ignored the question. “And what’s to the south?”

  The soldier shrugged. “PortTown, of course.”

  Julian bit his lower lip. “That’s a pragmatic name. I take it that’s a sea port?”

  “Careful with this one, Sarge,” said the conspicuously jovial prisoner. “He’s a clever one, he is.”

  The soldier looked back at the wagon. “Keep running that mouth, Tanner. You’ve got less than a day before it stops running for good.” He turned to Julian. “Yes, it’s a sea port. Now are we done with the geography lesson?”

  “Yes,” said Julian. “Thank you.”

  As the wagon pulled away, Julian sat atop his horse and thought about his options. The elven villages didn’t seem very promising. He couldn’t see Mordred recruiting an army of elves, if building an army was even what he had in mind. Elves, to Julian’s limited knowledge, were mostly peaceful people who typically liked to keep to themselves.

  Lighthouse Rock and the Barrier Islands sounded like a better place to recruit a bunch of lowlifes for Mordred’s hypothetical terror army, but even that sounded too small-time.

  PortTown made the most sense. If Mordred did mean to take a boat to a different continent, the haystack he was hiding in would grow exponentially larger. And unless he was planning to steal a boat, they probably ran on some kind of schedule. There was a chance, then, that they might be able to catch up with him. He quickly conjured up three more horses. It was time to ride to PortTown.

  Behind him, from the back of the prison wagon headed to Cardinia, Julian heard the black elf continue singing.

  “Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care. Jimmy crack corn, and I don’t care.”

  Chapter 21

  It was mid-morning when Randy and Denise finally arrived back at the Whore’s Head Inn, and Randy was exhausted. He wanted nothing more than to hand over this halfling, who seemed to have increased in weight to that of a hippo in his fatigued arms, instruct the others not to harm him, and fall into a nice deep coma.

  To avoid needlessly waking anyone up, Randy decided to enter through the gap in the back wall rather than knock on the door. The precaution proved unnecessary. As soon as he entered, he had three sets of red, sleep-starved eyes glaring at him.

  “Mornin’,” said Randy.

  “Don’t you mornin’ us,” said Frank. “Where the hell have you two been all night?”

  “We was in the woods. Y’all ain’t had to wait up for us.”

  “What is this place?” said Denise. “A fucking boarding school? It’s nice that y’all care so much about us, but we can take care of ourselves.”

  “No,” said Frank. “We don’t, and you can’t.” His passed to the halfling in Randy's arms. “Who’s the little girl?”

  Randy laid the body down on an empty table and shook some blood into his arms. “He’s a boy. Well, a man really. He’s one of them little fellers. Not like you, but the other kind. You know, like Tim.”

  Frank nodded. “A halfling. But who is he?”

  “Well he says his name is Wis–”

  “I’ll tell you who the fuck he is,” said Denise. She pointed a fat little finger at the halfling on the table. “That right there is fucking Mordred. Signed. Sealed. Delivered. You’re welcome.”

  Everyone at Frank’s table suddenly seemed a bit more awake. Everyone except for Frank, anyway, who just looked a little more tired and annoyed.

  “Forgive me for being cranky and skeptical. I didn’t get much sleep last night. Do you have any evidence at all to support this theory of yours?”

  “Go on,” said Denise. “Tell him about the Red Robes of Nu... Neutrinos? Nutrition?”

  “Neutrality,” said the bald man to Frank’s right. Randy hadn’t introduced himself to him the night before, on account of him seeming moody and standoffish. But now he looked to be wide awake and open to engagement. “Did he claim to be wearing the Red Robes of Neutrality?”

  “You bet your shiny bald ass he did,” said Denise.

  Frank stifled a yawn. “I’m running on two hours of sleep here, Stuart. You wanna clue me in? What the hell are the Red Robes of Neutrality?”

  “It’s from the Dragonlance novels I read when I was a kid,” said the bald man, Stuart. “In the world of those books, wizards wore different colored clothes to match their alignment. Good wizards wore white, evil wizards wore black, and neutral wizards wore the Red Robes of Neutrality.”

  “Why?” asked Denise.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did they wear colors to match their alignment?”

  “I don’t know,” said Stuart. “Think of it like a uniform, I guess.”

  Denise’s face betrayed no sudden clarity. “What if they was an evil wizard, but they didn’t want nobody to know they was evil, on account of they wanted to earn somebody’s trust in order to betray them later? Could they wear a white robe then?”

  “What? Maybe. I don’t know. Who gives a shit? The point is that he blew his cover by making a reference to books that don’t exist here.”

  “He hasn’t blown shit,” said Frank.

  “What are you talking about?” said Stuart. “The Red Robes of Neutrality are clearly a reference to Dragonlance. What are the odds that some random halfling wizard would come up with that exact turn of phrase to describe his clothes?”

  Frank yawned. “Not too long if the person who created him was a fantasy nerd.” He looked around the room at all the sleeping bodies littering the floor. “Ask any of the halflings here, for instance, where their characters are from, and chances are they’ll say The Shire. Mordred cut some corners when he made this world. Did you know there’s a tavern in the Shallow Grave district called Mos Eisley?”

  Stuart lowered his head. “I’ve heard rumors.”

  Randy frowned. “So this ain’t Mordred?”

  “The fuck he ain’t!” shouted Denise.

  “Shh!” said the heavyset woman on Frank’s left. “Keep your voice down. People are trying to sleep in here.”

  “Don’t you shush me, Mama Cass. I got a nice big chicken bone you can choke on.”

  While the big girl was clearly enraged at being likened to Mama Cass (though now that Denise mentioned it, the resemblance was uncanny), the others at the table appeared more confused, as if wondering what big chicken bone Denise had been referring to. Randy would have enjoyed watching her try to squirm her way through an explanation, but she was already near her breaking point, and he still had one last bit of evidence to present.

  “There was also the matter of Little Red Riding Hood,”said Randy.

  Frank turned his attention from Denise to Randy. “What’s that?”

  “Well,” said Randy. “It’s a story about this little girl who’s takin’ this basket of goodies to her grandma’s house, when she gets approached by this smooth-talkin’ wolf, and –”

  Frank stopped him with raised hands. “We are familiar with the story. What does it have to do with the unconscious halfling on the table?”

  “When we first happened upon him, he was way up in a tree. Dressed as he was, Little Red Riding Hood was the first thing to pop into my head.”

  “That’s completely meaningless,” said Frank. “You’ve already established that his clothing is an allusion to a completely different fictional character.”

  “You ain’t let me finish yet,” said Randy. “The whole reaso
n he was up in the tree to begin with was on account of there was this wolf barkin’ up at him.”

  Frank sighed. “The Big Bad Wolf. I get it.”

  “Man, you don’t even know!” said Denise. “This was the biggest, baddest goddamn wolf you ever seen. I’m tellin’ you, that thing was bigger than a horse!”

  Stuart shrugged. “Sounds like a dire wolf. Some animals in this world are bigger versions of their mundane, real-world counterparts. You get used to it.”

  “This weren’t just no big wolf,” Denise insisted. “It was blacker than Satan’s asshole, and had glowing red eyes.”

  The big girl raised her eyebrows. “A fiendish dire wolf. That is pretty unusual. So how did you two heroes manage to escape a fiendish dire wolf?”

  Randy and Denise looked at each other, then Randy looked back up at the big girl. “I just poked him with my sword and he ran off.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Denise pointed at the big girl. “Are you callin’ my friend a liar, Large Marge?”

  “My name is Rhonda, Pissbeard the Pirate.”

  “I believe him,” said Stuart. “A paladin wouldn’t lie.”

  “Randy may be queerer than a barrel of faggots,” said Denise, “but he ain’t no liar.”

  “Denise!” said Randy.

  Denise shrunk back under the weight of all awake eyes in the room focused on her. “Forget I said that last part.”

  Randy’s heart burned as everyone shifted their attention to him. It was like all of their eyes were magnifying glasses concentrating the sun’s light on him at the same time.

  “Is this really true?” asked Frank.

  Randy lowered his head, then lifted it again to look Frank straight in the eye. “I don’t rightly know what a barrel of faggots even means. But yes, I am a homosexual.”

  Frank rolled his eyes and even cracked a little smile. “I can assure you that no one here gives even the tiniest hint of a fuck about that. I was talking about the wolf story. You just poked it with your sword?”