by Bill McCurry
The bug initiated a determined foray between my butt cheeks.
More coughing. “There ain’t nothing.”
“I heard something, you hacking rat’s dick!”
More swords swinging through the brush, now farther away from me. I wriggled my butt cheeks to discourage the creature, but that just seemed to make it more excited. I could have jumped up and killed those two fellows, but that would ruin any chance of surprising the camp later. Besides, Vintan might decide I was about to rescue the prince. He’d have to kill the boy to keep his bargain with Harik, and I was too far away to prevent it. Well, if the bug wanted to build a nest in my asshole, I’d deal with that later.
“I guess nothing’s here,” Snuffy said.
“Told you, brick-brain.”
“Leave off, you puling maggot!”
The sounds of footsteps and insults moved away. I waited several torturous minutes, silently apologizing to everyone I’d ever assaulted with insects. Then I crawled away until I was forty paces from camp, and I knelt. I crept another hundred paces until I figured it was safe to drop my trousers.
Grasshopper. At least it wasn’t a spider. I decided that when I got back, I’d limit my report to facts about the camp, and I wouldn’t reveal that five minutes of the Grasshopper Ass Torture had nearly broken me in ways that hot irons and pliers couldn’t. If anybody asked how the mission went, I’d just say, “Fine.”
Twenty-Two
Our rescue was not a catastrophe. People often call something a catastrophe when they they’re describing some lesser misfortune, like a disaster or a fiasco. In my view, a catastrophe causes significant damage to buildings and terrain, and it kills every person and animal present. By these standards, our rescue was merely a debacle, which is almost the same as a catastrophe except that some of the people and animals survive. I have learned to appreciate fine distinctions between many different kinds of ruinous events. It’s not a practical skill for most people, but it’s common among sorcerers.
During the first five minutes of the rescue, I crept among the trees near Vintan’s camp and killed three of his guards. Two dropped in silence, and the third merely squeaked as he died. Another guard or two was probably puttering around, but they were on the other side of the camp, so I didn’t care.
The main rescue would begin when I raised a blinding wind. I hoped that if I blinded Vintan, he would hesitate and not just go around disintegrating things at random. Ella, Ralt, and Stan would attack from the north, while I sneaked in from the south. I could see the boy sitting alone by a hut. I would rush to that place, snatch the prince, kill every Denzman within reach, and run like hell. As I ran away from the camp, I’d drop the wind.
Once the wind ceased, Ella and the soldiers would run off north, while Desh and Limnad would attack and knock down a wooden hut or two as a distraction. They’d retreat into the woods, and we’d all meet back north at the spot where we had listened to the Whore Song.
It wasn’t a jewel of a plan, but without much in the way of time or resources, I felt fairly cozy about it.
Using both hands, I pulled a white band out of nothing and spun it out to cover the whole camp. This act devoured most of my remaining power, but I held back a tenth of a square for emergencies. I let go of the band, and an immense wind rushed in from the west, picking up dirt, dry leaves, debris, and dead rodent husks. The wind dragged all this detritus into the camp and whirled it through the air to a height of thirty feet. It was near impossible to see anything through it.
As I sprinted through a gap in the trenches, I heard shouting and sword strikes from the north faint over the wind. Ralt bellowed, “Back off, you piddling coward!” I had marked where the prince had been sitting, so I raced toward that spot.
I realized we had real trouble when every bit of crap in the air disappeared at once. I had known Vintan might do this, but it should have been a tricky endeavor that required finesse and a lot more time. He had accomplished it with astounding speed. I arrived at the hut and found no prince sitting there. Kneeling by the wall, I scanned the camp.
A lot of things were happening out there, and none of them looked good. Half a dozen soldiers were charging Ella and the boys, while three ran toward me. Vintan stood between the two groups, holding the prince’s hand and looking right at me. He lifted his empty hand like he was about to throw a barrel of poison with scorpions tied to it. That was ridiculous, of course. He’d probably just disintegrate enough dirt beneath my feet to make a hundred-foot-deep pit.
The bastard had been expecting us, then. I didn’t have time to wonder how he’d known, because a Denzman ran out of the hut beside me and tried to cut off my head. I stabbed him under the breastbone just as two more Denzmen sprinted out of the same hut. Farther into the camp, three more huts were vomiting soldiers, and a few even rushed out of the stable.
I kicked the dying man into his two just-arriving friends and used the free moment to run away. I ran fifteen feet along the hut wall, and then two soldiers dashed around the corner toward me. I cut hard toward the trench, but two more Denzmen from the stable arrived to block me in. Three more had spilled out of the hut by then. I noticed all this while I blocked a thrust, stabbed a fellow in the neck, ducked, and spun to assess things.
A rending tumult erupted, and splintered timbers hurtled all across the camp as one of the far huts exploded. That would be Limnad and Desh. I had cut a Denzman deep through the thigh and stabbed his friend in the armpit, starting to clear a path I could escape through, when some of these soldiers ran off to see what was happening.
All the soldiers flinched, and one of them looked up at the flying planks. I killed him right away. But not a single one ran off. In fact, some of their buddies charged over to join in. Maybe Vintan had promised a prize to whomever killed me. By that time, I had no idea how many Denzmen were feinting and shuffling all around me. I ducked, grabbed a soldier, slit his throat as I threw him at his friend, and stabbed the stumbling friend in the groin as he went down. The man screamed like someone getting his balls cut in half, and all the Denzmen in front of me hesitated. A couple went pale and shuffled back a step.
This was the time to escape. I roared almost as loudly as the gelded soldier and jumped forward, killing the frightened men with two quick slashes. That left a gap, and I sprinted toward the woods like I could see through it. Then I was on my hands and knees.
Someone had whacked the back of my neck with a rowboat full of anvils, or something similarly weighty, and my sword hand now clutched nothing but damp grass. Blinking hard, I looked up at a Denzman too grim to have had any sex lately. He drew back his foot, and I remember hoping he wouldn’t break my jaw since it’s one of my best features.
I awoke lying faceup on coarse dirt. My neck and head and face hurt like hell, but the thing that really hurt was seeing Ella and Ralt standing near my feet, bound at the wrists and surrounded by four Denzmen.
I worked up enough spit to talk. “Desh?” I whispered.
Ella gave a tiny shrug but kept her face blank.
“Stan?”
She shrugged again.
I tested my body to see which parts still worked. A problem arose right away. My wrists and hands weren’t just tied—they were immobilized. I couldn’t twitch even the tiniest joint on my little finger.
“I’m pleased you can still speak,” Vintan said from behind me. “And the fact that you failed to steal Pres away… well, that makes me jolly.”
“Steal him? You talk like he’s something you bought at the chandler’s shop.”
“Let me help you. It’s awful speaking to you down there as if you were scrubbing my jakes.”
Vintan seized me under the arms from behind and helped me to my feet using considerable strength. I needed all of it to get upright. Once standing, I swayed a little and swallowed twice to keep from puking. I took a deep breath. “Vintan, I find I’m hungry all of a sudden. When’s lunch around here?”
He chuckled. “You do not fail your reputa
tion, Bib. But why should you think you haven’t already consumed the last meal of your life?”
I looked around for a moment. The boy stood a couple of steps left of Ella, still wearing the too-huge soldier’s clothes. He wore a knife on his belt, which I found unsettling.
I shrugged at Vintan. “If you wanted to kill me today, I would never have woken up.” I glanced at my hands, and then I took a hard look. Twine and leather laces covered each hand in a web of tight knots, so tight that they immobilized every finger and thumb, all of which had gone blue. I’d never seen anything like this, and I lifted my hands to show Vintan. “Pretty.”
“Endearingly so. I learned it from a Burner years ago. Once bound in this way, a sorcerer is prevented from manipulating magic. He is impotent.”
“I haven’t felt frolicsome since I woke up, so I guess you’re right.”
“You’re not Harik’s favorite anymore, Bib. He wants me to defeat you. He told me you were coming, and when to bring my men back into this camp. In fact, he has informed me of your intentions ever since you crossed the Blue River.”
“So, you’re not that smart after all. You just rub yourself up and down against Harik’s leg for a while, and then he pats your tummy. He took most of my pride, but I never let him take all of it the way you have.”
Vintan laughed. “I truly am anguished over what to do with you. I should bring you back to my king. One or two of the things I’ve accomplished in his name might not entirely please him, and he does adore a sprightly gift.”
Ella said, “You needn’t bring him anywhere. Release him. I’ll make him swear to me that he will withdraw from the Denz Lands forever, if you set him free.”
“Why, Governess, I believe that verged on insolence.”
The soldier behind Ella raised his hand. The boy threw himself at the man, smashing his shoulder into the leather-armored belly. It forced the man to pause but couldn’t have hurt him more than throwing a pine cone from a thousand paces.
“Little shit.” The soldier almost sounded bored, as if he was only cursing the boy because it was expected in this type of situation. Then he stiffened and peered downward where the prince’s knife pressed snugly against his crotch.
“Ham, remember your manners,” Vintan said. “Also, remember what happened to poor Private Donny.”
Ham nodded and stepped back. The prince returned to his spot and sheathed the knife, although he kept his hand on it.
“That was a fascinating song and dance, everybody,” I said. “Thanks, Your Highness. You’re a good man.”
Vintan kicked me hard on the shin. I suppressed a few bad words, hoping to make it seem like it hadn’t hurt at all while my eyes watered.
“You are a dangerous man, Bib. You’re probably the most dangerous man I have ever met, and I have met some terrifying ones. It can be perilous even to talk to you, but of course magic and the sword are the real killers.”
“You’ve taken care of that, Vin. I couldn’t hurt you now if you stripped naked, bent over, and handed me a giant ax.”
I believed my hands were being near destroyed by Vintan’s brutal binding, but that didn’t overly worry me. Once I got free, if I could twitch a finger or two, I could heal them.
“I have witnessed many things, Bib.”
“No shit?”
“Truly I have. I’ve seen many fine, wise, brave men and women killed because they hesitated to obliterate a problem right away. They shied away from the overwhelming stroke. The definitive solution. Often, the most artistic solution. They adequately solved the problem, but such half-solutions eventually fail. Their problem invariably returned to fail their lords, and often to kill them.”
“Vintan, I have no speck of an idea what in the goat-smacking hell you’re blabbering about.”
Vintan nodded. “I’ll show you.” He walked off toward the stable. Two soldiers grabbed my arms and hustled me along after him. Somewhere behind me, Ella was chastising a soldier for his rudeness, so at least she was following along.
They brought me to a low bench on which an anvil had stood, the anvil now on the stable floor beside it. Vintan cut my wrists free, but not each individual hand. The soldiers dragged me to my knees while a third walked over from a pile of firewood holding an ax. They stretched my right arm on the bench and pinned it.
“Wait!” I said.
“No!” Ella said.
“Goddamn!” Ralt said.
Vintan nodded, and in a second, it was done. The ax chopped off my right hand just at the wrist. I didn’t feel any pain, but I felt plenty of shock and terror. And a tiny part of me was nodding because it was never surprised by any bad thing that happened.
After I drew a couple of breaths, I looked up. Ella had been screaming, but now she yelled at Vintan. “You nasty clot of nose filth! You cowardly, thwapping maggot! May knives of acid shred every vein in your body! May you eat your own privates for supper each day throughout eternity!”
I wondered how she was going to top that when Vintan cut off my other hand. The soldiers grabbed my left arm, and a few moments later, that hand was gone too.
Vintan raised my head by the hair and examined my face. “Now I can take you to my king, and you won’t present any sort of threat.” He let go of my hair and walked off.
I didn’t get to appreciate any more of Ella’s profanity, because I passed out right about then.
Twenty-Three
I never expected that such an enormous number of things would become laborious or even impossible once my hands got chopped off. I couldn’t hold a spoon or a knife or even a bowl, so eating was a chancy proposition. Dressing became a chore. The first time I wanted to pull off my boots, I just stood there and stared at them for about five minutes. I could carry something if I could get it into my arms, but if I dropped it, I’d have to leave it on the ground, or else kick it along to wherever I was going.
Perhaps Harik had let me keep a bit of dignity, but I lost it all the first time I had to take a shit. None of the soldiers even pretended they might help me. Ralt had disappeared, as if carried away by sparrows. He’d been around a lot of maimed men, so he must have known what was coming. The boy wound up volunteering, not because he liked me at all, but so Ella wouldn’t have to do it. I squatted there pretending he didn’t exist, and he pretended I didn’t exist until the ordeal had finished.
However, in the future, I would be able to say that my ass had been wiped by royalty.
I’ve suffered worse pain, but the throbbing in hands that no longer existed was mighty disconcerting, and I was moved toward self-pity. Self-pity is unproductive, annoying to others, and unbecoming in a sorcerer. I therefore engaged in a lot of it those first two days. I moped partly because so many effortless tasks had become arduous. But mainly I sulked because I had never suffered insults from anyone, even gods, and now a raccoon could hold up a minnow and mock me with impunity, if it felt I was worth the effort.
I didn’t pity myself all the time. Sometimes I snarled at people trying to help me. Occasionally I cursed Vintan, his men, the entire Denz people, each god by name, and myself, plus the ancestries and anatomies of us all.
On one occasion, two days after my dismemberment, I said, “Cassarak’s tits and eyeballs!” as a sliver of overcooked rabbit fell out of my mouth. It slid off my crossed leg and landed in the scraggly grass.
“I would apologize, but this morning you bit me,” Ella said. “Were I your mother, I might simply allow you to sit on the ground and starve.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I really was. I peered into the grass, but we’d never find the shred of meat by the campfire’s light alone.
“Open.” She placed another rabbit sliver between my lips, and I pulled it in. “You are more difficult than any of the toddlers for which I have cared. More than all of them en masse. Drink?”
“Is it beer?”
“No.”
“Screw it.”
She pressed the mug to my lips. I drank water and despaired.
/> His Highness Crown Prince Prestwick appeared from behind me, carrying a heel of black bread. He handed it to Ella. “This is for you. Not him.”
I said, “Son, why all the sharp comments? What have I done to you? Hell, I went to a boatload of trouble trying to rescue you.”
“You can call me, ‘Your Highness.’” The little fart stuck out his pointed chin and looked down his squatty nose at me. Nobody in Glass must have cared whether their monarchs looked handsome. He seemed undergrown for his age, which Ella had put at ten years, and his brown hair had been shaved close, like Vintan’s. I saw that rodent-adoring turd of a sorcerer standing beside a fire thirty paces off.
“Yes, Your Highness. What in the name of Lutigan’s left nut have I done to you? I chased you across hundreds of miles, barren of even one crappy little place that sells liquor, slew dozens of men who probably had wives and children back home, let myself get nearly smashed to death, and got my goddamn hands whacked off trying to rescue you!”
“And here I am, not one bit rescued. You’re not very good at what you do, are you?”
I couldn’t help smiling a little. “You’re right. Rescuing isn’t my regular line of work. I’m sorry if my failings have distressed you. Your Highness.”
“Vintan will bring us to his king within two weeks. I never required rescue.”
“Tell that to your father and mother, and the fifty men who died chasing you. Your Shitty Little Highness.”
“Bib!” Ella said.
I sneered, “Oh, yes, and tell it to your governess, who came near dying several times. My company was all that sustained her.”
Pres threw a soft glance at Ella, and then he glared at me, stepping right between us. “None of you should have followed me! Fifty men need not have died!” He sounded like he was holding back some noble, spoon-fed, self-centered tears. “I came here to stop the war.”