“Goblet,” Rotrick corrected.
“Nah,” Two-finger grunted, “the only goblet I’ll chase is the one after a shot o’ whiskey.”
Sir Wallack puffed himself up. “Yes, uh, battles are one thing, but a knight’s duty is at court as much as in the saddle. Take you rangers—basically, you’re like knights.” He paused, thinking about his next words but not finding the right ones. “Without the etiquette, of course. Good in a fight, sure, but when it comes to affairs of state… Well, I’d much rather have a knight by my side. It’s why I’m here with you, I suspect.”
“I’m sure it is.” Coe side-eyed Rotrick and the dwarves.
Epik didn’t say a word. But Gerdy noticed he dropped his fork and picked up the greasy rabbit leg with his fingers in silent protest.
Later, Gerdy eased up from her turn at watch from the log beside the fire.
“Goodnight Gerdy,” Epik whispered.
She smiled to herself. Epik had made sure to say goodnight to her each and every night as they handed off watch duties. He was a friend, a true and dear friend. So, it pained her to see him struggle. You see, the halfling tried to please everyone. He had for as long as Gerdy had known him. First, it was her father at the Rotten Apple, and then Gabby, the wizard. He even tried to please Epiman and took the oath and became a knight.
But there was no pleasing Sir Wallack. He wasn’t even the type of knight Epik sought to be. He wasn’t heroic. The old man wasn’t worth Epik’s time.
She kicked the dust from her boots before she opened the carriage.
Myra was already sound asleep inside. Her legs dangled off the seat where she curled up by the window, with a blanket wound several times around her body, one foot exposed like a butterfly escaping the cocoon.
Gerdy smiled at this, too. She knew, and perhaps she was the only one, that Myra was a butterfly deep down beneath the airs she put on. She was delicate.
Myra needed love. The one thing she never got enough of from her father. And what was her father thinking sending her as a representative of the kingdom?
Gerdy loved Mye—there was no denying that. But she never could show it enough for Myra’s liking. That’s probably why Myra liked to make her jealous. She liked to see Gerdy turn it on like a switch.
Gerdy crawled to the opposite side of the carriage and leaned sideways against the edge of the bench seat. It was about as uncomfortable as uncomfortable gets. Especially when Sanchez got involved; he pounced across the expanse of the coach to Gerdy’s side and snuggled on her lap before she got the chance to adjust properly. She wished she could just sleep outside with the men, possibly save her back from permanent deformity. That was already on its way, she was a dwarf after all.
But for Myra sake, or rather just because she wanted to stay close to Myra, Gerdy slept inside the coach.
The trip was wearing on them. They couldn’t sleep when the coach was in motion. They couldn’t talk either, not without getting hoarse; the sound of the wheels tumbling across the road was deafening and monotonous. Gerdy couldn’t read either. With every jolt and bump, her eyes would lose their place and take several seconds to find it again—only to be thrown off course again a moment later.
She was positive this writer didn’t write the same paragraph twice.
She was positive this writer didn’t write the same paragraph twice.
So, Myra and Gerdy sat there looking at each another. By day two, Myra had probably found every flaw there was in Gerdy’s complexion. It had taken Gerdy years to discover them all, only able to steal brief glances in her mother’s mirror. This was because her mother’s mirror had the odd habit of talking to her.
“I never asked you who was the fairest of them all,” she’d say. But Snow’s mirror would go on talking, gabbing away like the fashion Watch.
Gerdy had never liked the reflection she saw in that mirror. The girl on the other side wasn’t the cute button of a girl Gerdy felt inside, but a lumpy nosed, hairy, and muscular half-dwarf.
Sanchez purred softly as Gerdy stroked his back.
“I know why you like me, but why does she?” Gerdy timed the rhythm of her breathing with Myra’s slack-jawed snores, and she scooted backward, adjusting her traveling cloak. Something poked her in the chest.
“What is that?” she asked aloud.
She reached inside and found the thin scroll of parchment.
“Oh, I forgot about you.”
“Huh?” Myra questioned in her sleep.
“Nothing, Mye. Go back to sleep.”
Myra groaned faintly.
Then Gerdy eased her eyes back open.
I wonder what this says? she thought.
She wasn’t supposed to open it, not yet. But what could it hurt? Really? She felt for the gas lamp above her head then twisted the knob at its bottom. A faint flicker of orange light glimmered, just enough to read by. She held the scroll up level to her nose and began to break the wax seal.
With her fingernail full of wax, Gerdy unfurled it enthusiastically, but in her haste, she knocked her elbow into the lamp and extinguished it once more. She sighed loudly, too loudly. Myra hiccupped a snore and turned fretfully over in her sleep.
If Gerdy didn’t know any better, she’d think this scroll didn’t want to be read.
Myra rolled over again. “Who’s there?” she asked groggily.
“Just me, Mye,” Gerdy said. Then she put the scroll back in her cloak and eased across next to Myra. And she drifted off to an uneasy sleep at the side of her love.
12
After Dark
If Epik had thought the first few days they camped were bad, the next were far worse. The road forked several times. The party took the leftmost path without exception, well, except for the exception when they took the right.
The ranger knew the way to King’s Way.
Somehow the Bludmud River found its way to snake a murky course beside them. A muddy brown river that flowed opposite their own direction, Epik had previously encountered it in the wood outside Dune All-En. He knew it to be polluted by dark magic. With the river at their side, the ground became soggy, and with that, the horses and the carriage especially, took far longer to make headway.
Epik was just happy they didn’t have to ford it, knowing at least one of them would surely die of dysentery for their effort.
Finally, the road opened to a prairie where grass, knee high to a man (shoulder height to Epik) spread out as far as the eye could see. After days of canopy, the grassland seemed infinite.
Epik didn’t have to be told to be on high alert for bandits. With the road open and the grass so high, the stagecoach would make for easy prey. Epik sat watch around midnight each night, just after Gerdy.
After two nights, it became routine.
“Goodnight Gerdy,” Epik whispered to the darkness.
He sat watching the stars and the moon whirl slowly across the sky. His back to the fire, the heat warmed only that side on this crisp fall night. He had wrapped a plush wool blanket around his shoulders—one his mother had made, doing all of the work from shearing the sheep to knitting the yarn and everything in-between.
In his stiff and cold fist, Epik held his wand tightly. This was his best defense but pitiful when compared to the sword of Coe or Two-finger’s axe or Gerdy’s strength.
There was nothing for him to see on the road or roadside save inky blackness and perhaps a Shadow skulking around the light of the fire. So Epik was surprised when he heard not a crunch of leaf or twig but a heavy breath from behind him.
“I need a word half-man… I mean, Epik,” Coe said grudgingly.
The ranger loomed behind him ominously. The two weren’t on the best of terms but time had done its magic, starting to heal the wound between them left by Epik’s father’s death. Still, it festered. And Epik stifled the urge to try and send the man who had killed his father to the utter depths of oblivion with the wand. Although he hadn’t mastered that spell just yet.
He had gotten lucky w
ith Nacer, the emotion of losing his father and Gabby so close at hand had powered the spell through.
Epik sighed, his breath a frosty cloud.
Then there was the hint of a thought in the back of Epik’s mind that quite possibly his father had deserved the bolt Coe had buried in his chest.
“Just one word?” Epik asked.
“Perhaps a few more.” Coe eased down on the log beside him. The ranger stared with him at the black nothingness of the land and the sky. Then after what seemed an incredibly long and awkward amount of time, he spoke. “I know things haven’t been the best, ya know, between us. For my behavior at the bar, I’m truly… well, not sorry. But I was an ass. I wish I acted a bit differently. And for the exchange with your father, well, that I won’t apologize for either. To say he had it coming is an understatement.”
“All right. So, you’re not here to apologize. Got it.”
Then what does he want? Epik had already done him a favor, several really. And what had Coe done for him in return? Nothing aside from help save his life on occasion. Okay, well, when he thought of it like that.
Coe smirked. “You’re a bit of an ass yourself, ya know? When you want to be.”
“It’s not as often as you,” Epik said absentmindedly.
“No… No, it’s not.” Coe sighed. “Remember when you helped me back in the city?” Epik nodded, though Coe went on regardless. “I need that same sort of help again. I probably don’t deserve it, but I’ve been thinking I could pay you for your service.”
“Pay me? I don’t need your gold.”
“I wouldn’t pay you in gold.” It looked to pain Collus to say the next part. “Listen, I’ve seen Sir Wallack’s tutelage. Or lack thereof. I can help you learn to fight.”
Of everything that had happened in the past few months, the trolls, the magic—this seemed the strangest by far.
Epik bit his lip, reluctant though this was a good offer. Truly, he didn’t have to think at all. Epik was tired of Sir Wallack. He wanted to be a real knight or the closest thing a halfling could be to one. Finally, he nodded in reply.
“Tomorrow night then,” Coe said and sprang up. He left Epik there, alone in the darkness. For the first time on this journey Epik had something to look forward to that wasn’t an unknown land ruled by an unknown dark wizard.
“Why do we have to go so far?” Epik followed Coe through a thicket of brush and out to a clearing.
“Because I don’t want to wake the others.”
“But shouldn’t someone be on the lookout? You said there were bandits and whatnot in the area. You said these are dangerous parts.”
“Do you think I don’t know what I said? Listen, as we get closer to the kingdom, yes. But here, in the exact middle of nowhere, I think they’ll be okay for a couple of hours.”
“A couple of hours?” Epik moaned. He was already tired and ready to sleep. “How much training are we going to do?”
“A couple of hours’ worth.”
It wasn’t lost on Epik that maybe the ranger wasn’t helping him at all, but instead, leading him to a swift and certain demise. But that was his mother in him, the halfling inside him—always worried about death.
The ranger had already had countless opportunities to end Epik’s life and never been less than chivalrous. Something that Epik couldn’t say for himself. He remembered back to his own skulking behind that general at the Wall.
“Maybe you just don’t want anyone to know that you’re helping me.”
“Right. That, too.” Epik imagined he could hear Coe’s dimples forming. The ranger was smiling.
“Do you know what awaits us in King’s Way? Meetings? Dinners? I’ve never negotiated a treaty before. Have you?”
Coe pulled his belt and scabbard off. They slid to the ground as he unsheathed his sword. “No, I haven’t. Dinners and things are what await Myra. For you,” Coe hesitated, “well, I’m not sure. Listen,” Coe swung the sword; it swooshed through the air, “it’s not like you could take on a whole kingdom if it came to that. But calling yourself a knight and being one are two different things.”
The blade glinted in the moonlight. Coe went on, “A bit of fighting and that bit of magic you already possess, well, it can more than make up for your height disadvantage—help make you a well-rounded knight.”
Coe glanced at Epik speculatively. Even though the moon was bright and full, they were still both cloaked in shadow. Shadows, Epik thought as one such Shadow seemed to move just behind him. He turned quickly, but nothing was there.
Now that he realized what he was getting himself into, Epik wasn’t so sure he wanted this anymore. Learning the sword with Coe would not be like fighting against Amber in the streets. And it would require more effort than holding a stack of books on his head.
Epik wished the experience could pass quickly with maybe a nice rocking beat behind it. Briefly, a few small scenes where he went from novice to master flashed before his mind’s eyes.
“Are you still there?” Coe asked.
“Yeah, sorry,” Epik said.
“All right. You went a bit funny there for a second.” Coe brought the mighty broadsword up in front of his chest. “We’ll start with the basics. Hold your dagger like you’re about to attack me.”
Epik did.
“No, like you’re going to attack.”
Epik had thought he had. He tried again.
“No. Here. Let me show you.”
Coe put his sword in the ground. He twisted the halfling’s fingers around the handle of the blade. “Like that.”
The night wore on as Coe went over maneuvers and all manner of fighting techniques. Things like what to do if outnumbered ten to one, or if the opponent was on horseback. Coe told Epik what he would do if he had a bit of Epik’s magic at his disposal. And how Epik could use his own small stature to his advantage.
“This is all well and good,” Epik said at the end of the night. “But don’t knights usually fight on horseback?”
“That age is coming to an end,” Coe said. “Not that it ever was a great idea. Horses are fine animals, but in a battle, you’re talking about leading two minds into the fray—not one. I wouldn’t trust a horse that would go so willingly toward a threat. And a man with a spear in his hand is just that.”
“Is that what happened to the other knights? Before I got there?”
“Yes, that’s what happened,” Coe said mournfully.
Epik slept hard that night and every night thereafter. His muscles ached with every movement made and every bump of the road as Buster worked to keep up with the coach and the other horses.
But there was confidence building inside the halfling. He was getting better. And weirdly, he was starting to like Coe.
After another week of travel, the telltale signs of a kingdom began to sprout, literally, with farms and small villages dotting the road. The air grew dense with an odd weight that made it difficult to breathe. Off in the distance, Epik could just make out a castle against the gloom on the horizon.
They made camp one last night. At dinner, Coe mentioned they must be even more vigilant than before. He said that gangs of bandits loitered outside King’s Way, ready to plunder any traveling company that passed.
The twinkling lights of the city were dim on the horizon and Epik expected one last lesson. He waited by the fire for Coe to retrieve him. Epik was becoming a knight in the dead of night.
He became antsy when Coe didn’t show after the first hour of his watch duty, half thinking he should rouse the ranger from sleep. Epik thought better of it; he stayed with his back to the fire, briefly reminded of how the brick oven of the Rotten Apple had heated his backside the same way, while Gerdy chatted him up. They’d became fast friends, but they had barely spoken since leaving Dune All-En.
These lessons with Coe were the closest thing to friendship Epik had experienced in the past two weeks—this with the ranger hacking at him with a sword most the time.
Another few minutes passed.
Then finally, he felt the ranger’s presence even before he heard his breathing. Like Epik, the ranger was as silent as a ghost unless he wanted to be heard.
Epik stood quickly, ready to find a spot to practice one last time.
“No, sit.” The tone of Coe’s voice was different from any other time Epik had heard it. There was no sneer.
Epik sat again.
“Tomorrow, you’ll make it to King’s Way.”
You? Epik thought. But he had his answer soon enough.
“We’ll be splitting companies before then.”
“You’re leaving us?”
“My kind aren’t welcome in King’s Way. And I have business elsewhere. Rotrick and the dwarves are coming with me.”
“But—”
“Remember, I said I’d help you if you helped me.”
“But we haven’t finished my training.”
Coe chuckled. “You’re as good as I’m going to get you in two weeks. Which is pretty decent, I might add.”
Epik smiled despite himself, coming from Coe that was a full-on compliment.
“Do you want me to take over the watch?” Coe asked.
“No,” Epik said. “I’ve got it.”
If he wasn’t going to train that night then Epik wanted a few more hours alone with his thoughts. He heard nothing when the ranger slipped away again.
For the hundredth time this journey, Epik thought about Epiman and King Tenebris, and how everything pieced together. Most of all, he wondered what his part in all of this was.
He studied the distant lights. What was in store in the coming days? He wondered what Epiman’s dark wizard of a father was like, Tenebris, the Grand Sovereign.
Eventually, Epik drifted to an uneasy sleep, still sitting upright by the fire.
He woke to voices and stale gray morning light. There was a haze about the camp like something, everything, had been smoldering through the night. Cursing, thinking bandits had attacked, Epik fished for the now wand tangled in the blanket wrapped around his shoulders. But when Epik spun to meet the voices, he found Coe, Rotrick, and the two dwarves.
Knowing is Halfling the Battle_An Arthurian Fantasy Romp Page 6