by Elliot Burns
“I just need to show my face, speak to them, and try and get them on my side,” said Jack.
“I’d take gifts then if I were you,” said Mav. “Sweeten the deal. Your charm and beauty won’t be enough, because you don’t have any, and you look like my horse’s arse.”
Jack decided to ignore Mav’s barb. He whipped the reins of his horse. “Enough bullshitting. Get on your horses and let’s go.”
Elena walked over to her horse. She went to jump on it and somehow, she inexplicably misjudged it, and ending up leaping right over the horse and landing in the mud. As she dusted herself off, Mav laughed. Despite the look of fury on Elena’s face, Jack couldn’t help laughing too. He remembered the first time he’d met her, when she’d accidently splattered wolf blood over her face. It seemed that despite how she acted, Elena was a clutz.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “I studied horse riding for two weeks in the Tacher Halls.”
“Do they have stables there?” asked Mav.
“No.”
“Then what do you mean, you studied horse riding? You don’t study it, you practice it. Have you ever actually ridden a horse?”
Elena’s cheeks reddened. “It was all theory work.”
Mav scoffed. Jack gave him a glare, and Mav fixed a fake grin onto his face. He was trying to appear pleasant, but it looked awkward, like a man forced to smile for a family portrait.
“That’s your problem,” he said, in the nicest tone of voice he could manage. “All this time tending to the horses and you never bothered to ride one. There’s nothing like a bit of experience to show you how it’s done. You can’t learn to ride a horse by staring at a picture of its arse in a book.”
They rode out of the courtyard via a tunnel to the north. They headed for the peasant village in the distance. Elena guided them at the front, gripping her reins as though she were riding along a treacherous mountain pass. Mav held his loosely. Jack’s skill level was somewhere in-between. He was glad to realize that he’d remembered more of his riding lessons than he thought.
The landscape transfixed Jack as they travelled along the path. At first, he thought that he’d never seen anything like it. The vegetation and fauna in Royaume were at once familiar and strange. He saw what look like raspberry bushes, except the berries changed color every so often. Depending on what time of day they were picked, they could be either delicious or poisonous. He saw streams where the water looked clear but was actually toxic.
The further he went, the more the landscape seemed familiar to him, in a weird way. That was when he realized that he hadn’t seen it before, but he’d heard about it. This was Alfie’s creation, after all. Jack had spent hours in Royaume, when he’d laid on his bed with his eyes closed and listened to his uncle tell him stories. It was amazing actually seeing it for real.
A few miles further along, they saw a forest to the east. The trees reached up 20 feet where they became a bloom of red and yellow leaves. Their trunks were smothered in a shiny green growth. “That place is full of critters,” said Mav. “Nothing too scary, not unless you wander into the middle and get lost.”
Soon, Elena drew her horse to a stop and then pointed. “Here we are,” she said. “The bustling centre of your lands.”
Jack followed Elena’s outstretched finger and decided that the landscape ahead was anything but bustling. A ‘concentration’ was too generous a word for the collection of peasants houses ahead of them; there were more like glorified huts. They were built close enough together that one peasant could open his door and shout ‘good morning’ to the rest of his neighbors. Each house bore the signs of life. Hoes were propped against walls and wheelbarrows rested underneath the edges of thatched roofs.
“Where is everyone?” said Jack.
Elena tugged the reins of her horse and drew up beside him. Even underneath her riding gear, Jack could smell her perfume drifting out. It reminded him of elderberries. “Your population is small, and this is prime labor time. Look over there.”
Some of the peasants worked their fields. It looked like backache-inducing, brow-sweating work, even in the crisp almost-winter air. As they rode closer to the houses, some of the peasants stopped their field work. They looked at him briefly, but returned to their chores just seconds later. There was just one house which wasn’t a residence. This was made plain by the crudely-made sign out front which read ‘The Sickle Inn.’
“They brew their beer from leftover crops,” said Mav. “Drink in the Sickle and you never know what kind of beer you’re going to get, or how potent. I once drank a beer in there that knocked me off my feet.”
Elena gave a grim nod. “A passing merchant stopped here a few weeks ago. They said he managed half a beer before blacking out. They had to take all his wares inside so that animals didn’t get to them.”
“I’m surprised nobody stole his shit,” said Jack.
“I’ll give them one thing,” said Mav. “The peasants are unfailingly honest.”
They rode until they were in roughly the centre of the makeshift peasant village, with the crop fields ahead, and houses surrounding them. Two men stood outside the Sickle Inn and drank beer.
Jack waved at them. “Nice to meet you,” he shouted.
One of the men drank the rest of his ale and then walked back into the Inn. The other stared off into the distance as if Jack were a mirage.
“That’s not quite the welcome I expected.”
“Well, we’re here,” said Elena. “What now, Lord?”
“I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I need to meet people, I guess. I need to let them know that I’m here and that I have their backs.”
They trotted along the path and toward the first house. A woman sat on the front step, her skirt pulled up to her knees to show legs covered in dirt. Her face was sun-beaten, and her arms were twice the size of Jack’s. With her wrinkled face but athletic body, it was impossible to guess how old she was. Behind her, outside her house, were two chairs and some broken shovels, hoes, and scythes. A wooden crossbow and three bolts sat on the seat of one chair.
Jack directed his horse over to her until he was ten feet away. He didn’t want to start a conversation by towering over her, so he dismounted and approached her. The problem was that he hadn’t really thought about what he was going to say.
“Well met,” he said. Well met? He’d never used that phrase in his life. “I mean, how’s it going? I’m Jack Halberd.”
Behind him, Elena gave a pronounced cough.
“Lord Jack Halberd,” he corrected himself. “And it’s good to meet you. I’ll be the one getting everything sorted around here. You know, building stuff, kicking ass. Just general lord stuff.”
The woman ignored him. She lifted her hand to her lips and tore a chunk off a root of some kind and then chewed it. Jack couldn’t understand why she wasn’t saying anything. He looked at Mav, who made a strange face at him as if trying to tell him that the woman was mad.
This wasn’t what he’d expected at all. He didn’t think he’d be carried through the streets on the peasants’ shoulders, but a simple hello would have done. He decided he needed to carry on, and maybe he could thaw her up a little.
“The castle’s just over there…so you know where I am. It’s the big building with the turrets. If you ever need anything, just come and knock on the door.”
The woman put the root down. “Hrmph,” was all she said.
He needed to win her over somehow. Then, he remembered what Elena had told him; the peasants didn’t like having a lord around. He guessed that it was because the lord lived in a castle. He slept in a comfy bed and ate luxurious food. If Jack was going to get through to her, he needed to speak to her differently. He needed to speak plainly, from the heart.
“I know things are tough,” he said. “You work long hours, and it probably seems like you have nothing to show for it. I just wanted to say that things will be different from now on. While I’m here, I’ll do everything I can to make things
better for you.”
The woman looked at him. Jack expected another glare, or for her to ‘Hrmph’ at him again. Instead, she smiled.
“Nice to meet you, lord,” she said.
Then, after the woman’s reaction to him had changed, drifts of smoke-text appeared in front of him.
Skill gained: Truespeech
Level:0
[You have a way with words and have learned a skill to go with it. Words have power, and the correct use of them will make you stronger. Learn the Truewords of Royaume and use them to affect how people respond to you.]
Now, when he opened his character screen, he saw that his first skill wasn’t empty, and instead, Truespeech was listed there.
He rejoined Elena and Mav. “Hey, Elena, what’s Truespeech?” he asked.
“Words are important here,” she answered. “If you’ve learned the Truespeech skill, then you need to level it up. Once you do, you’ll learn Truewords, which you can use to change people’s moods, and stuff.”
It made sense to Jack that Alfie would have put a skill like this into the game. Words meant a lot to his uncle, as evidenced in the hundreds of thousands of words he’d written in his notebooks. He couldn’t wait to learn his first Trueword and see what it would do.
After that, he rode from house to house and field to field, and he greeted every peasant he could find. The peasants were easy to spot; most of them wore the same loose chemise shirts. It was cheap and practical clothing, the type you wouldn’t shed a tear over ripping. There was little variation from person to person, except for the condition and color of their garments. Every man, woman and child he saw bore the scars of arduous work. They had dirty faces, big muscles, and their hands were covered in scratches. Even the children were foreboding. Jack couldn’t help but respect them. Anyone who got up at dawn to work all day was someone to be admired.
He talked to as many peasants as he could, but not all of them responded to his charm. Some glared at him, while others ignored him and carried on with their work. One peasant, after listening to Jack’s friendly introduction, had simply spat on the floor. When he saw this, Mav flinched.
“Something wrong, fancy pants?” asked the peasant man, looking at Mav.
Mav, to give him credit, ignored the man. To Jack, the spit that was drying on the muddy floor was a symbol of how the peasants felt about him right now. He needed a way to get through to them, but how?
“This isn’t the welcome I expected, Elena. I know you said they wouldn’t exactly be my best friends, but this is worse than I imagined. What’s the real reason?”
“Check your stats, lord,” said Elena.
He brought up his character screen, and all was made clear. His population had a morale score of twenty-seven out of a hundred. That must have been the reason they were so non-plussed about him. He needed to do something to bring that up.
“What’s the deal with the morale being so low? Why do I feel like the most unpopular person at the party?”
“Sometimes,” said Elena, “when a lord-”
He sensed she was about to go into one of her long explanations, so he interrupted her. “Look, I’m giving you permission to be blunt with me. Don’t spare my feelings.”
“As you wish. The people have no faith in you yet. Consequently, they will be harder to rule.”
“There must be something I can do.”
“Don’t take it personally, Jack,” said Mav. “People don’t like authority.”
“We have a guest,” said Elena, pointing ahead.
A dirt path ran along the outskirts of the field furthest away from them. A lonely horse wandered down it. It was saddled, but there was no rider to be seen. The more Jack looked, the stranger it seemed. The animal was walking funny, veering to the left and then to the right in jerky movements as if it was hurt. When it got closer, he saw that one of its sides was covered in brown moss.
“What the hell is that brown stuff?” said Jack. “And where’s the rider?”
Elena tugged sharply on the reins of her horse. A look of panic crossed her face. “We need to do something. Quickly, before the peasants see it.”
“What’s going on?”
It was too late. One of the peasants in the field spotted the horse. He threw his hoe to the ground and then ran toward the houses, shouting something and flailing his arms. He looked like he was running away from a herd of crazy bulls, not a single rider-less horse.
Jack directed his horse back to the centre of the village, where a crowd was gathering. “Calm down,” he told them all. “It’s just a horse.”
His words were lost in a hubbub of chatter. Two men grabbed shovels and held them above their heads as if they were axes. They ran toward outskirts of the field, brandishing their shovels at the horse whenever it veered too close to the crops. Another man followed them. He fled in such a panic that he tripped over and broke his nose on the ground. His concerned wife ran over to him. Rather than nurse him, she picked up the shovel and went over to the field where she joined the other two men and stood guard.
“Someone’s needs to tell me what’s going on,” said Jack.
Elena rubbed her head. She was sweating. “See the brown patch on its side? This horse is infected with molde.”
“Oh shit,” said Mav.
Elena nodded. “Molde can’t infect humans, but it jumps from animals to crops like a flea. This is serious, Jack.”
Jack agreed that it must be serious if she had called him Jack, instead of Lord. “Is it really that bad?”
“Molde can bring famines,” said Elena. “If that animal gets within an inch of the field it’ll infect the crops. Then, any insects near them will spread it to the others. Before we know it, the harvest will be ruined, and people will starve.”
Every man, woman and child around had run to their own fields to protect them. Some of the crop fields were unoccupied, and their owners were nowhere to be seen. These were the fields that were most at risk. Meanwhile, the horse moved in unpredictable directions, betraying no fear at the peasants and their weapons.
“Why isn’t anyone doing anything? Why are they just standing there?” asked Jack.
There was no time to wait for an answer. The peasants might have been content to just stand guard, but Jack was going to do something. He had to get to the horse before it infected a crop, but by the time he’d gotten there with his dagger, it would be too late.
He looked around for something else he could use, and then he saw it. A wooden crossbow was under a chair on the porch of the nearest peasant house. It was a crudely-made weapon that looked like it was used by farmers to kill crop-destroying animals like crows and foxes. Jack dismounted his horse, got the crossbow and then returned to where he had a clear sight on the infected horse.
“Do you even know how to use that thing?” said Mav.
He had no time to answer. He’d spent an afternoon at an activity centre once where he’d fired crossbows and bow and arrows. It didn’t make him an expert marksman, but he had to try. Despite his prior experience with such a weapon, he didn’t get a message telling him he’d earned a crossbow proficiency. It was even more evidence that, for whatever reason, Jack was a dagger guy.
The peasants gave warning shouts to the horse, but the animal either didn’t hear them, or it didn’t care. It trotted perilously close to a wheat field.
Jack lifted the crossbow. It was heavier than he expected, and it was much less sophisticated than the crossbow he’d used at the activity centre. Nevertheless, he loaded an arrow, cocked the bowstring and lined up his target.
“You’ve got three shots,” said Mav.
Despite the large target the beast presented, Jack wasn’t confident he’d hit it. He decided to aim for its body to give him the best possible chance. He lined it up, took a deep breath, and then fired. The string snapped forward and the arrow was loose. Jack had pulled it with enough power, but the arrow hit the ground a meter away from the horse.
“This time, try it w
ith your eyes open,” said Mav.
“This isn’t the time for jokes Mavelin,” said Elena.
He had two more arrows. He loaded one. His last shot had veered to the left, so he adjusted his aim to the right to compensate. He tried to relax, but his arms felt tense. Taking another lungful of air, he let loose.
The horse cried out as the arrow struck it just above its hind leg. It reared back, neighed in pain, and then plonked its feet back down on the ground. It looked to the right, where it saw the peasants waiting with their shovels. Rather than flee from them, it began to pick up speed and run in their direction.
“Now, Lord,” said Elena. “Before it gets to the field.”
He was down to his last arrow. His second shot had injured the horse but hadn’t stopped it, and there were just seconds until it reached the crops.