The King's Blood

by S. E. Zbasnik

  They blew within sighting distance of the next town, some little place where the academics could refuel and refood. One of his mentors had picked over the map that covered most of the wall of Caravan two, pricked with flags of varying colors, detailing their plan of attack, but Aldrin hadn't paid him much attention. He could worry about the towns he did and didn't rule after the crown was on his head.

  His lessons had been going well, after they settled on starting with the Aravic alphabet and holding off on string theory until they could get their hands on some actual string. When they weren't drilling facts into his head, they slipped books into his hands. Simple things at first, little exercises in which a boy would stand or sit, what a girl spent her days doing (he was surprised there was very little mention of dagger waving based upon his recent experiences). His favorite, a book he hid under his bed sack when no one was looking, involved a small golden bird asking every animal it met if she were his mother. He'd read through that one five times already.

  Once Chance called out "Town ho!" Chase tossed the anchor, in that Chase tied himself to the mast and jumped out onto the road, trying to hold the caravan in place. While the boy was wearing himself out so he'd sleep well that night, Kaltar vanished down into the bottom of the ship and slipped on the breaks, slowing the turn of the back axle until stationary ground was reached.

  Every man emerged like a set of land sick travelers, pushing and shoving the caravans into a new clearing far enough away from the main road you'd have to be really paying attention to overhear secretive debates about the nature of the fork's creation. It wasn't until Chancellor Medwin paced once around the circle and declared they were in good shape, that the hungry men were released upon the unsuspecting world.

  Kaltar, Chance, Chase, and the associate professor whose name Aldrin never managed to catch,19 all broke away from the few left to guard the caravans and made for the town. Chance and Chase egged each other on with each step, daring who'd drink whom under the table and who'd bed whom under the whore. Kaltar and his unnamed associate tried to ignore the bawdy talk, still smarting from the vows of chastity that historians liked to claim they chose instead of the other way around. Instead, they debated the theories on the Minoans and if they really all descended from the blood of a bull or just liked wearing horns during, um, mating rituals.

  Aldrin's head was stuck firmly in a book, an old record of technology salvaged from dwarven mines that didn't entirely collapse when they vanished underground before the Great War. Most offered little more than a description of the metal and stone shrapnel, but a few risked an attempt at what the machine was used for. 'This small nodule, we suspect when collapsed, would send a small squirt of liquid, purified from the rocks and highly flammable, northward. At the same time, the striking of jagged metal upon metal would cause a spark which, when combined with the liquid would produce a seemingly endless flame. Most likely used in mating rituals."

  "Boy," Kaltar said in his booming eastern coastal voice, "put down your book. There's work to be done."

  While his mind was lost to dwarven miracles and ages past, his feet walked him into the middle of his first Empire town. It was nearly two decades hence when a swath of Northeastern Arda, in a bid for more attention, decided that perhaps hitching back up with the Empire was a pretty good idea. Plus, their ambassadors had been so friendly and the Empire makes this amazing cookie with egg whites that dissolved on the tongue.

  It wasn't long before thatched roofs got tiled with red clay, wooden walls became brick, and dotted all along the Serene River grew little homages to the Empire's Cold Seat. Alleyways twisted and wound through the backs of the twenty or so houses proudly claiming ownership to the most loyal citizens of the Empire. But as the brick alleys dilapidated to dirt roads, dark walks away from the center fountain, a few houses stubbornly remained thatched, a few garden boxes refused to house basil, and charming archways became stolen piles of bricks thrown through quaint windows when the owner wasn't home. Apparently the Empire Love wasn't as universal as the Emperor liked to claim.

  Kaltar pointed to the small stage set in front of the moderately impressive fountain. Just like the capital, every day between noon to the setting of the sun, the entertainment was encouraged to stand and rile the crowd with loving feelings for the ones who made it all possible. This was also the best time to get as much coin and grain as possible from a stable of bored farmers and pilgrims who'd never seen men in red robes before.

  Chance and Chase dashed up to the stage, bowing and clapping, trying to get the handful of fruit peddlers and sausage grinders in on the audience. A few of the passing pilgrims wandered over, their hair dangling with knotted bread as they trekked to the great shrine ovens of the fire god, oddly placed nowhere near a volcano. Even gods like to take vacations. Red robes were a rare sight outside of the Emperor's guard and you only recognized them by the sword sticking out of your chest.

  Chase clapped his hands once or twice, bouncing up and down on his heels while his brother coughed dramatically into his fist and began to unravel a scroll from his pocket. "It was the year of the unraveling goat, and the people of the microscopic village of Hammerfeld faced one of the worst grasshopper invasions any could remember for almost a decade."

  "Why?"

  The heckle threw Chance off his place, his finger slipping down to the really fascinating bits about how the farmers spent most of the mild winter dining upon roasted grasshopper and, it was theorized, that the grasshopper pie was born. Though due to a waning source material, mint was substituted later. He shook off his shoulders and tried to begin again, "the village of Hammerfeld was facing one of the..."

  "What's so scary about a grasshopper?" the heckler was a purveyor of "okay" nets he wove together from finer nets. He spent most of his life wandering the brick alleys of this landlocked town critiquing anyone who dared entertain him, and occasionally sold a net.

  Chase reached into his back pocket and extracted his slingshot, but there weren't any stones on that little creaking stage. Instead, he swiped from his brother's pocket one of the old toffees of Pajamas that Chance always kept in case of emergencies. He lined up the shot at the net salesman draped in his finest like a crazy mermaid abandoned at the altar by her fisherman husband.

  "Grasshoppers make that crunch sound when you step on them," one of the Pilgrims said, a woman on the kinder side of fifty who didn't like to watch anyone fight.

  "So's all the people of Screwdriverfeld needed was a really big shoe," the heckler laughed uproariously at his own joke, the first sign of a diseased mind. But the seeds of discord had already been planted and fertilized with fresh bullshit. The narrow audience began to whisper amongst themselves; mostly preferred pest control methods and how stories were much better back in the day.

  Kaltar tried to not squirm, as the second hand embarrassment grew palpable off the Bothers. Chance was still clinging to his scroll as a life preserver in the middle of a desert, while Chase waved his slingshot around at anyone who was talking. Whatever was supposed to be happening seemed to be not happening correctly. Out of the corner of his eye, Aldrin caught a few other red robes, having exited the shops in time to bear witness to the utter meltdown, shuffle back in as if they had no idea who those two idiots breaking down on stage were. One was trying to wiggle out of his order's robe, forgetting he had nothing more than his ducky emblazoned underthings on beneath.

  "Wasn't the grasshoppers twenty feet tall?" this fresh voice prompted from the shade of a stubborn elm tree that refused to grow olives no matter how much the local populace threatened it.

  Chance drug his finger through the scroll, trying to find any mention of the size of the grasshoppers. There was one account from a man's great grandfather that lived through the grasshopper annoyance that some could grow to the size of your hand, but that was it. He looked up at Kaltar, confusion and fear radiating off him.

  "And the proud citizens of Hammerfeld knew they could not hope to defeat these giant monsters on their
own," the voice continued to prompt.

  "Um, probably," Chance shouted back, afraid to agree. Chase pointed his slingshot to the voice parting the audience as it moved closer to the stage.

  Kaltar was tearing through books he stored in his pockets in the case of an insect invasion encore, while his associate flipped through those same books but in their original elvish just in case some purists demanded that the flavor of the grasshopper soup got lost in translation. Aldrin tried to reach up over the two of them to see the voice's owner, a woman's tone, proud and forceful as always.

  "So, they called upon the one warrior they knew could save them and sent for Casamir," the voice said proudly. At the warrior's name drop, the crowd stopped mumbling about how they should probably be getting to their dirt farming and mud pies and started to whisper excitedly about this previously unknown tale in the life of Casamir the Dragon Slayer.

  "Did he have his trusty sidekick with him?" the silversmith and part-time birthday clown asked.

  "Yes, of course. Casamir couldn't risk his own life battling thirty foot tall grasshoppers that would scissor a man in half with their jaws, without Humphrey tottering along beside him."

  Chance looked out again at Kaltar, who paused in his research, watching the crowds turn in their favor. The boy mouthed "HELP ME," but the professor was fascinated with this turn of events.

  "So, what happened?" the pilgrim asked, trying to shoo off a pigeon gnawing away at her holy hairpiece.

  "Um," Chance again ran through his lines, trying to find any mention of this. Chase peered over his shoulder as well.

  "For the love of..." the narrator's voice mumbled before grabbing a hold of the stage's floor and hauling herself up. Aldrin smiled as Ciara scrambled up, her tortured dress snagging on the unfinished wood. It had been nearly two weeks since she last cursed him out and he managed to keep her from seeing him that entire time. To accomplish that he had to be hyper aware of where she was at all times, which kept her on his mind more than was probably healthy.

  The crowd gasped and grew even more curious at the sand worm standing before them singing the lost verse of their beloved hero. Unknown to them, Dunlaw itself also had tales of a warrior named Cass and his assistance with one of the mothers of the Triad. But they wouldn't have recognized the homage due to much less belching and farting in their tales.

  Her dark skin and exotic hair caught the imaginations of even more townsfolk hovering on the edges of the square disturbance, pulling them in. Ciara clapped Chance hard on the shoulder, "Well, tell them."

  "Tell them what?" he tried to whisper to her, forgetting in his near death state of embarrassment to lower his voice.

  "About how Casamir..."

  "And Humphrey!" the pilgrim added, who had a small ink drawing of the sidekick on her wall growing up.

  "And Humphrey," continued Ciara, still looking at Chance while projecting to the audience, "rode into town...on two pure white stallions...with rubies in their manes, and the town's vassal dropped down upon his knees crying tears that his daughter had been taken by those murderous beasts."

  Chance's eyes, a deep pool of gray fear, wobbled a bit as Ciara tried to shake a word out of him. All he did was meep and continue to stare. He'd been training for this story for almost the entire trip and there'd been no mention of murderous kidnapping grasshoppers anywhere.

  But Chase had heard this tale before, albeit with a cabal of goblins taking the place of the grasshoppers and the horses being played by a set of giant gila monsters Casamir raised and trained from hatchlings. Still keeping his slingshot out, he picked up the tale, "And Casamir said, 'If'n you want me to bring her back alive that's another coin extra.' Then Humphrey added, 'And if'n you want him to marry her that's a whole sack of gold extra,' and he laughed so hard at his joke his pants fell down."

  Ciara smiled at the other brother, whose eyes seemed to be focused about ten miles away, "Of course the Vassal gladly took the deal, hoping that the heroes would never discover his great secret. And Casamir rode off deep into grasshopper territory, with Humphrey braying at his side," the crowd was silent, hanging upon her dangling words. "And then he farted," she added to thunderous applause.

  Kaltar turned his unnamed associate around and, on his back, jotted down upon vellum everything Ciara said, and a few [additions] from Chase. At one point he ran out of paper and took to inking the tale all over the man's robes, only pausing when he ran into a seam.

  Casamir, bolstered by the trusty human pachyderm at his side, stumbled upon a cave [no, a cavern with giant flying gnomes inside it!] Yes, you've never heard of flying gnomes because Casamir slaughtered them all, one by one, picking them off with an arrow [that he set on fire!] As the lumps of charred corpses lay smoldering on the ground, Humphrey leaned over and picked one up, chewing on the wings. "Just like me mother used to make," he'd say, digging a bone out of his teeth.

  With a still alight gnome as a torch, the two made their way treacherously deeper into the cavern, [the scattering sound of many legs trampling on the rocks all around them.] As they approached the heart of the cavern the light lifted and [a dragon came swooping down out of the mountain!]

  A dragon? A d...ragon, yes of course, dribbling fire out of its roaring mouth over the gigantic grasshoppers. For the two were mortal enemies because of, um, the dragon called the grasshopper's mother a wench once. And Casamir, the mighty dragon slayer, knew then how he could defeat the grasshoppers and save the Vassal's daughter [the princess!] How can she be a princess, she's not even nobility and, uh, yes the Princess! Because the Vassal had been charged with keeping her safe as a baby after her father was killed by the Dragon that wanted his land.

  So, Casamir climbed to the highest rock cliff while Humphrey coated his stripped skin in butter. At a low whistle, the loyal companion began to jump up and down, waving his mighty stomach towards the dragon and shaking his ham hocks and everything else his mother would never admit she gave him.

  "Canne ya na see the big juicy dinner right in front of ya, ya big flyin' salamander? Ding Ding Ding," Humphrey taunted, his voice growing higher with each sentence, "I'm a poor defenseless maiden who's never even touched herself, please come eat me."

  The dragon broke off from his grasshopper attack, and swooped towards the side of bacon ready to be fried up. As Humphrey swung his hips back and forth like the women that worked the night shift, the dragon swooped close into the cliffs.

  At that moment Casamir jumped, his arms stretched out wide while the winds whipped his cloak around him very dramatically. One hand stretched out and, in a miracle, grasped a hold of one of the dragon's forehead horns. But the rest of his body slipped, and he dangled helplessly by a single grip.

  The Dragon roared, spinning in a rage trying to snap at the human wafting like a torn flag off its head. When that didn't work, he flew straight at the rocky cliffs, attempting to scrape Casamir like sheep shit off a boot. But Casamir was too smart for the dragon, and as soon as his boots found purchase amongst the crags he swung himself up onto the monster's neck and grabbed onto the reins.

  Riding the Dragon like a bull, he pulled and shoved the head down, spraying flame all across the grasshoppers that had been uh standing there the entire time watching to see what was going to happen. For some reason. Meanwhile Humphrey, his body still glistening from the buttering, charged in, chopping away at thoraxes and wings, and creepy little spindly legs.

  As the last giant grasshopper lay twitching, Casamir [drove his sword through the dragon's neck, severing the spine.] Uh, yes, and the evil dragon, who no one liked at all, crumpled to the ground, sending Casamir rolling.

  The man popped up, grinning wildly as the princess' bonds finally snapped free and she ran into his arms [crying, "My hero!"]

  An' then Humphrey farted.

  It was a kind of magic the historians had never seen before. While the girl spun this fantastical yarn about nothing at all important droves of people poured into the street each absently dumping coins, food, gl
oves, and room keys into the hat that one of the fruit peddlers started passing around. By the time it got to Kaltar, there was over three weeks worth of work inside.

  Already the crowd was howling for more, some running off to get their friends saying, "A teller of them true lies is here!" The other historians had wandered out of their hidden exile and were clapping along just as enthusiastically.

  Ciara smiled, soaking up her first taste of undivided attention, "All right. One more," she looked to her partner in entertaining lying and asked, "What will it be?"

  "Casamir versus..." But after the dragon, Chase was all out of ideas. The pause was becoming dangerously palpable; as the crowd began to shift, afraid that their own minds were about to start thinking again. Chance, his fingers still wrapped around his scroll, flipped it over to the B-side and read, "the black death, a pestilence upon the people who bathed in rat droppings."

  Ciara blinked once at him before smiling wide at the crowd and announcing, "Casamir versus Death!"

  The clapping was more deafening than a thunderstorm. In the unbridled enthusiasm, a few loincloths were tossed on stage.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  "Enter," the voice was distracted, papers collapsing over the side of the desk.

  Ciara cracked the door carefully, a plate balanced in her hand. Chancellor Medwin had his head buried down as if he were smelling the pages of the torn manuscript on his workspace. "I noticed you weren't at dinner, so I saved you the last piece of pie."