Brothers

by Viktor Zólyomi

  My eyebrows ran up to the top of my forehead when he said that.

  `What? You? Win it? Are you kidding me? You? You of all people?'

  `Trust me, I'll win this shit! I've got a plan!' he said, smiling with a satisfied look on his face. I couldn't help but laugh... The guy didn't know how to properly hold a dagger, let alone throw it at a target...

  `Hey buddy, if you want to get embarrassed, go ahead, I'll wait right here...' I told him, after I managed to stop laughing. Then he simply shrugged his shoulders.

  `Alright... but you won't have a good view to my victory from here.' he said, and then he walked off, towards the knife throwers. I turned back to Lea.

  `Where were we, dearest Lea?'

  *

  We carried on our conversation, until a few minutes later we heard a loud roar of disapproval from the direction of the knife throwers. I thought it was Zack swearing about having lost, but then I realized that it wasn't his voice. I turned there, and I couldn't believe my eyes...

  People were whispering to each other, while one of the knife throwers was placing several coins into Zack's hand one by one, while Zack was widely smiling. It looked like he won...

  `What in the Hell...' I told myself. Then one of the others stood in front of him and they exchanged a few heated words. Zack nodded, and motioned the other guy to begin. The knife thrower took the dagger and tossed it towards the circles on the wall. It landed at the edge of the innermost circle. That circle was about two inches in diameter, and I couldn't imagine Zack being able to toss the dagger into it. They were standing thirty feet from the wall.

  The man gave him the dagger, and Zack stretched his arms. He took the dagger in his right hand and he tossed it towards the wall in the manner of a complete amateur. Then...

  Then my jaws dropped to the floor...

  Not only did he hit the innermost circle, he hit the very center of the innermost circle...

  `I don't believe that...' I told myself, while Zack just smiled widely.

  `I fucking rule, admit it, you losers!' he exclaimed, and demanded his prize. The other guy reluctantly paid him, but moments later another man stood up, wanting to face Zack in the contest. I turned back to Lea.

  `Your friend is doing very well...' she told me.

  `Yeah... I had no idea he was so good...' I told her, not voicing my doubts about what Zack was doing... I was dead certain that he was using his magic to send the dagger into the intended target. If so, and those people found out, they would tear him apart...

  But none of them looked like mages, so I was thinking there would be no problems.

  About ten more minutes passed and Zack robbed a couple of other tavern patrons with his trick. He was really enjoying himself. And I was having a very nice time, enjoying Lea's company at the table. That's when the trouble began...

  The door opened wide and a man stepped inside. He went to the bartender and asked something. I didn't really pay much attention to him, until he came to our table.

  `Lea!' he shouted. Poor girl was startled, and he looked up at the arriving man with scared eyes.

  `Oh... Hi Joe... I didn't know you'd come today...' she said.

  `I come when I want!' replied the man she addressed as Joe. His tone was rude, and he seemed angry. I took a better look at him. Fairly tall, masculine, with broad shoulders, a very short beard, and messed up hair. He could have been a mine or quarry worker, or perhaps a bandit, or something.

  `You shouldn't talk to a lady like that!' I told him, trying to defend Lea.

  `I talk to my girl any way I want!' he said, almost shouting. `Who the Hell are you anyway? What do you want from my girl?'

  `My name is Daniel.' I told him, and I slowly stood up. `And I don't like rude men like you.'

  He stepped closer and looked into my eyes fiercely.

  `Oh yeah? Well I don't like bigmouth strangers like you!'

  We stared into each other's eyes for a while, until I heard Zack's voice.

  `Hey, what's up, Danny Boy? Who's this? Your new girlfriend's brother?'

  The man called Joe turned towards Zack. Then he pointed towards Lea.

  `She is my girl! Mine!' he shouted. `And I'm gonna rip your pretty faced friend to pieces for trying to steal her from me!'

  `Joe, please...' pleaded Lea. But her boyfriend was not about to listen to her.

  `Shut up, bitch!' he shouted.

  `That's enough!' I told him, and grabbed his sleeve. He in turn grabbed my wrists, and I knew we were seconds away from fighting it out over Lea. But Zack interrupted us.

  `Hey, hey! Stop it, you two! I have a better idea. Why don't we make a bet, you and I? If I win, you walk out of the tavern and don't come back for let's say... a week. How about that?'

  The man called Joe turned towards him.

  `I am not making bets over this...' he sneered.

  `Why not? Are you afraid of a little knife throwing contest?' asked Zack.

  `Knife throwing?' asked the man called Joe, with a strange gleam in his eye. The knife throwers in the back started laughing.

  `Yeah... Let's see which of us is better. If I win, you walk away nice and quiet.'

  `And if I win?'

  `If you win, my friend is going to get down on his knees, and kiss your ass.'

  `What?!' I asked, infuriated. `I am not going to...'

  `So, what do you say?' asked Zack, not letting me finish. `Trust me, if I lose, he will kiss your ass...'

  `Fine. You have a deal!' said the man called Joe, and he and Zack both walked to the knife throwers. Joe took the dagger, and threw it at the wall. He hit the very center of the innermost circle. The tavern patrons applauded him in satisfaction.

  `There! Beat that!' he said as he turned to Zack. I ran my fingers through my hair. I was starting to get nervous...

  `No problem!' said Zack. He retrieved the dagger, and then tossed it back at the target. Again, he hit the center of the innermost circle. This round was a draw.

  Joe's eyes went wide. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. His eyes were full of anger as he retrieved the dagger and tossed it again. He didn't miss. Once more, he hit the very center of the innermost circle.

  `Let's see you do it after me!' he sneered, but Zack just smiled. He took the dagger, and threw it again. Once more, his toss was flawless.

  The man called Joe glanced at the other knife throwers in anger.

  `He's really that good, Joe! He took all our money! But you can beat him! You're the best! Come on! Don't let us down!' they told him. Then he looked at Zack, measuring him. Then he retrieved the dagger, and prepared to toss it again. He stood in this pose for many seconds, and then he lowered the dagger, and turned to Zack.

  `You go first this time.' he told Zack.

  `Why the Hell not?' replied Zack, and he took the dagger and tossed it. He hit the center of the innermost circle, as before. He smiled widely. But the man called Joe smiled as well, as he slowly pulled a dagger from his belt.

  `You are a cheater!' he exclaimed. `This is the real dagger we've been using so far! The one you just tossed is a faulty unbalanced dagger! I exchanged them when you weren't looking! You never should have been able to hit the center with it...'

  `You gave me a faulty dagger, and you are calling me a cheater?!' asked Zack, sounding insulted.

  `You are a mage! You are using magic to guide the dagger to the target! You cheated all these people out of their money!' he screamed, pointing at the other knife throwers. The crowd started to roar in anger. They sounded like they wanted Zack's head on a plate...

  `Hey, you!' screamed one of the guests in the back in a white shirt towards Zack. `Give that money back! Right now!'

  A moment later, he tossed an egg towards Zack, but the egg missed and hit the wall. Zack just smiled.

  `Hey, it's not my fault that they were too stupid to realize who they were dealing with!' he said. The man called Joe raised his fist and he was about to punch him, but I quickly intervened. I grabbed his fist and turned
him to face me.

  `Don't even think about it!' I told him.

  `You mind your own...' he started, but he couldn't finish. Zack picked up an empty bottle from a nearby table and broke it on his head. Joe's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell like a bag of rocks.

  `Get them!' screamed one of the knife throwers. Then, all Hell broke loose...

  *

  We were quickly surrounded, but Zack somehow managed to slip out of the circle of angry tavern patrons, and grabbed a chair. One of the men charged towards him, but Zack broke his momentum. As well as the chair. On his head. He fell to the ground, unconscious, and Zack grabbed another chair and waited for another guy. I in the mean time was attacked by a tall man. He tried to punch me in the face, but I grabbed his fist with my left hand, and then punched towards him with my right. He spun around as my fist hit his chin, and then he fell. Two other men attacked me after that, and somehow I evaded one of them while I knocked out the other one.

  I heard Zack breaking another chair on someone's head as I punched another guy in the gut. A moment later, a glass came flying towards my head. I was barely able to evade it, and then I turned towards the direction from whence it came. I saw a guy in the distance with another bottle in his hand, ready to throw it towards me.

  `I'm going to stick that bottle down your throat!' I shouted towards him, and then I charged him. He tossed the bottle towards me, and it got me in the chest. It shattered on my armor, and I didn't even feel the impact. Two other men ran after me and tried to grab me, but I got to the glassthrower first. I grabbed him, and headbutted him. His body went limp, and as I released him he fell to the ground.

  I turned around and faced the two that were chasing me. They charged me, grabbed my arms, and tried to force me to the ground. But I was stronger than they were, and I was able to shake them off me. I punched one of them in the nose, and kicked the other guy in the gut. They both fell.

  Just as I was about to find another opponent, I felt a powerful impact on my back, and splintered wood fell to the ground beside me. Someone broke a chair on my back.

  I turned around and saw a man with the remains of a broken chair in his hands. He dropped it and looked at me, smiling apologetically. I smiled back at him, and then grabbed him, and tossed him towards the nearby window. He screamed out loud as he flew through the glass and landed outside.

  `And don't come back!' I shouted after him. He didn't. He was smart.

  I turned away from the window and looked for Zack. He had his own problems, pretty much cornered with only a chair as his weapon. He was doing a decent job keeping the angry tavern patrons away from him, but I knew he wouldn't last long.

  I forced my way through the angry mob, punching as many of them in the face as I could. Finally I found myself standing beside Zack, and we were surrounded by the angry tavern patrons. A little over a dozen people.

  `Hey Zack...' I told him, as loud as possible. `Why don't you use your all powerful magic against these pathetic fools?'

  His reply came in the form of whispers.

  `Because I used up almost all of my remaining magical energy in the knife throwing contest...'

  `You what?!'

  `Why the fuck do you think I am armed with a fucking chair?!'

  Suddenly, another man came through the crowd. It was the man called Joe. He looked a bit dizzy, but he was standing.

  `Stand aside! Do not hurt them!' he shouted. `I want to break their bones myself...'

  He approached us slowly, and he pointed at me.

  `You... Pretty boy... Come here so I can rearrange your face!'

  I did as he wished and stepped closer. He punched towards me as soon as I was in range, but he was indeed dizzy, and he largely missed me. I raised my right fist and punched him in the nose.

  He recoiled, slowly moved his head around his neck in a circle, then his eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fell like a bag of rocks.

  `Sweet dreams, lover boy!' I told him, and prepared for the onslaught of his angry buddies.

  In a matter of moments, they came. I punched one of them in the gut, and then headbutted another one. A third guy came at me from behind. It was the white shirted man who tossed an egg towards Zack earlier. I only noticed him when I heard a loud, unmistakable sound. The sound of a fart.

  I turned around and saw that his face was red, and he was holding his ass with both hands. Then I heard him fart again. He cringed, and I took advantage and punched him in the face. He fell back and turned, then fell forward onto a table. Then I noticed that his pants were brown... Like he shitted himself, with some very serious case of diarrhea...

  `What the...'

  Then I noticed Zack not far away, smiling.

  `Did you do that?' I asked. He smiled.

  `I still have some magical energy...' he said. Then, another guy charged me, and I was just barely able to duck from his punch. I kicked him in the gut in retaliation, and then punched him in the nose with an uppercut. He fell flat on his back.

  Another guy approached me, but he started coughing before he could have attacked me, and moments later he started vomiting. He produced quite a big puddle of vomit onto the floor. With a sudden thought, I stepped beside him, bulled him back a bit, and then tripped him. He fell face first into his own vomit.

  `Ah... You slipped...' I told him. Then I spotted Zack a bit further away He was smiling again. Of course it was his doing...

  But I must admit, I was starting to appreciate his sense of humor. I smiled back at him, and looked around. Some tavern patrons were still standing, but they looked to be rather uncertain whether they wanted to mess with us after Zack's dirty tricks and my hard punches. The man called Joe was still on the ground, unconscious. Lea was nowhere in sight. I guessed she had retreated to the kitchen when the tavern brawl started. The bartender had also vanished.

  Well, we did what we had to do. We beat them down. Zack resorted to some more dirty tricks. For starters, he somehow conjured a banana peel right in front of one of the approaching men. Needless to say the guy stepped on it and slipped. He fell flat on his back, and he was gasping for air. Zack also picked up a half empty plate full of beans and tossed it right into the face of another guy. I in the mean time tried to knock out as many of them as possible. They didn't take my punches too well. One or two well placed punches and they didn't stand up again. One of them fell on a table with such impact that the table broke in half under him. Finally, there was only one guy left. But this one was big and strong.

  I punched him in the nose thrice and he didn't fall. Then I punched him in the gut. Nothing. Then, I headbutted him in the nose. That finally made him recoil, but he shook his head and just kept coming. I glanced at Zack, and he motioned me to step back to where he was standing. I did, and he motioned me to pick the table up.

  I held the left, he held the right side of the table, and we raised it high. But we couldn't exactly break it on that big guy due to how tall he was. That is, until Zack resorted to his dirty tricks again. With some magic trick, he forced the guy to sneeze. Violently. Twice. After the second sneeze, the guy cringed so much that his head was more than sufficiently lowered for us. We moved in and slammed the table over his head. The table broke in half and the big guy fell. We dropped the remnants of the table on him, and sighed in satisfaction.

  Just when we thought we were finished, we heard a voice from behind.

  `You two... You will... pay...'

  We turned around. It was the man called Joe, back on his feet. Looking dizzy, but determined to take the fight to us.

  `Why don't you give up?' asked Zack. `We already knocked you out. Twice.'

  `Do you know... who I am...? I am... Brass Balls Joe... And I... never... quit...'

  `Brass Balls Joe?' we asked in unison, and looked at each other. Then we looked at Joe, swiftly moved towards him, and simultaneously kicked him in the balls, me with my left foot, Zack with his right. Joe's eyes went wide and he fell to his knees, and started
coughing.

  `That doesn't sound like brass balls to us!' Zack and I told him in unison. Then we spotted the guy who shitted himself, he was still laying face first on a nearby table. We glanced at each other, and then we grabbed Joe by the arms. We picked him up, we dragged him to the table, stood him in front of the guy with the diarrhea soaked pants, and we stuck Joe's face right into the guy's backside. Deep. He let out a pretty strange noise, but he didn't have strength to struggle. Finally, we let him go, and he fell to the ground, seemingly unconscious.

  `I bet you didn't imagine the night like this...' I told him, but he didn't react. He must have passed out from the stench...

  Zack and I looked around. No-one was standing any more. Several chairs and tables were broken in half, several windows were broken, and there were over two dozen people laying all over the ground, beaten up pretty bad. I looked for Lea, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  We stood there silently for a while, until Zack broke the silence.

  `Hey, Danny Boy...' he said.

  `Yeah?'

  `Do you think... Do you think they'll let us stay the night after this?'

  I looked around once again, observing the carnage. The broken glass, the broken chairs, the broken tables, the broken windows, and the pile of beaten up people on the floor...

  `Well... I'm not sure...' I told him. Then we both shook our heads, sighed in unison, and walked out the door.

  The culprits always return to the scene of the crime

  At the northern edge of the forest of Enyth, around three hundred years ago

  Needless to say, we didn't stay in the town. We, ah, borrowed two horses from the stable and rode back to the castle. Well, that was pretty much the absolutely most memorable experience we had in Kh'Tal during the first five years of Zack's apprenticeship under Aurach.

  But as I said, we had many great adventures, and all of them are a fond memory to me. I was enjoying my stay in Kh'Tal. But after those five years there, I was getting kind of homesick. I wanted to see Ess'yer again. I wanted to see the green forests of Ashkel again. Aurach said that we could leave any time we wanted. By then, Zack had learnt how to open a Portal between Arghard and Kh'Tal effortlessly and without needing to use various magical trinkets to aid the process. So once I managed to talk Zack into taking a trip back, we did.