by Deck Davis
“What’s happened?”
“Well, me and the girl were solid for a while. Renny really took a liking to her. Then I caught her in bed with a bloody bard. Still haven’t told Renny that we’ve split up. He’d be devastated. I’ve been putting it off an’ putting it off, but I’m gonna have to tell him sooner or later.”
Jake find himself liking Eric. The man had a disarming manner about him, and Jake wondered if he’d been a bit hasty in judging him as a threat.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Me mam always said I was an open book,” said Eric, then added, “With half the pages torn out.”
“Are you half orc, or something?”
Eric gave him a searching look. It was hard to read his expression. Had he offended him?
“You from around here?” said Eric.
Jake cast his mind back to Thotl’s visit to the shack, and how Cason had deliberately chosen to lie about his origins.
“Born and bred,” said Jake.
“Then you must not get out of this shack much, fella. Look at my overbite – course I’m half orc!”
“Yeah, yeah. I just didn’t know humans and orcs could breed.”
“Get a mage involved, and anythin’ can breed with anythin else.”
Eric took a sip of nettle tea, then grimaced. He obviously didn’t like the taste, yet he made no move to surrender his cup. Maybe he just enjoyed being somewhere warm after weeks on the road. Still, he was taking way too long to drink his brew.
Jake glanced at the shack door. Where the hell was Cason? Surely he should have been back by now? Just as he went to turn his attention back to Eric, he noticed something.
Eric’s rucksack was beside the door. It was so rammed with things that the top of it wouldn’t close. There, sat at the mouth of the rucksack, was a small, black, mobile phone.
He must have been seeing things. It couldn’t be a phone.
But no, as he looked at it, he was certain that’s what it was.
“Somethin’ wrong?” said Eric.
Jake shook his head. “No. I’m just expecting the rest of the guys back here soon.”
“Who?”
Jake searched for names in his head. He needed ones that sounded tough, ones that might worry Eric. “Arnie, Bruce, Sylvester and Steve…Austin.”
Eric raised his eyebrow. “Are they warriors?”
“Barbarians. It’s their shack.”
“Don’t look big enough for four barbarians and you to live here. Must be a tight squeeze.”
The mobile phone burned in Jake’s peripheral vision. The desire to stare at it was so strong that it was hard to fight. He took a sip of nettle tea and tried to control himself. He couldn’t look at the bag. If he did, Eric would realize that something was up.
“So, what’s your plan?” Jake said.
“Well…”
This got Eric talking. While he did, Jake thought about the mobile phone. There were a few explanations, as he saw it.
One, Eric had found it somewhere. To him, it’d be a weird artifact. Maybe he even thought it was magical. Maybe he was planning on selling it.
Two, Eric was from earth, and he’d come here through a portal. Problem was, Eric didn’t sound like he was from back home. If he was lying about his past the way Jake was, then he was a great actor with a convincing backstory.
The third possibility, and the one that worried Jake most, was that Eric had come across someone from Earth who’d arrived here in a portal, and he’d killed them and taken their things.
It was difficult to know for sure. He needed Eric to leave the shack either way, but if he ordered him out, then he could turn hostile.
Eric rubbed his belly. “Been a while since I had something decent to eat,” he said. “Found a few mushrooms a while back, but they didn’t hit the spot. Still, there’s a tavern a day’s march away. Guess I can hold out until then, maybe.”
Jake glanced at the rucksack again. He knew what he had to do.
“Do me a favor, and I’ll rustle up some food for you.”
Eric gave a slight grin. “Oh yeah?”
Jake nodded. “One of the roof beams feels wonky, and I need someone to give me a second opinion. It’s on the outer edge. Mind taking a look before we spend gonils on a carpenter?”
“I’ll have a gander. I mean, I’m no expert, but I know my way around a little.”
“Great. It’s just outside on the west side of the shack, near the birds. If you have a look, I’d be grateful.”
“If it fills me belly, I’d kill a warlock’s pet dire bear for you.”
With that, Eric stood and walked out of the shed. He paused at the doorway, and looked like he was going to take his rucksack with him. Jake’s stomach sank. Then, Eric stretched his arms until they cracked, and walked out of the shack.
Jake bolted to his feet. He had a few minutes, tops. He marched over to the rucksack and grabbed the phone. It was a small model, a flip phone with a touch screen, which meant it had been made anytime within the last fifteen years. So…who had it belonged to?
He pressed the power button and waited, but nothing happened. He pressed it again, for longer this time, but the screen stayed blank. It must have been out of battery.
He needed to look through the rest of Eric’s stuff and see if there was something that could settle the matter in his mind. Just below the phone was a brown blanket made from a rough cut of wool. He was about to remove it, when he saw something move out of the corner of his eye.
It was through the window on the wall to his left. The curtains were open, and Eric’s silhouette had just passed by it. Had he seen Jake looking through his stuff?
No. He’d have charged in here if he had.
He got up, walked to the window and silently drew the curtains. He only had a couple of minutes now. He went back over to the rucksack.
First, he removed the blanket and put it neatly on the floor. It was important that he remembered the order that he removed things in.
Below that, there were two leather bags. One had a bunch of dried apples, figs and pears in it, while the other was full of salted and smoked meat of some kind.
Been a while since you ate, my ass, thought Jake.
And then another thought occurred to him. Ate, my ass? Not the best way to phrase it, even in my own head.
Next he found a book. It was thick, the cover was torn and the edges of the pages were stained brown, but he could just about make out the title.
Holy shit.
It was a copy of Lord of the Rings, by J R Tolkien.
You could say that it was a slightly popular book, and that it had been distributed almost everywhere imaginable, but he doubted that the publishing company had a Sarametis office.
Something banged on the shack. Jake nearly jumped out of his skin. He grabbed the book and prepared to start putting stuff back, when he heard another series of bangs. Relax, he told himself. It’s Eric trying to reach the roof.
He had just a minute or so left, now.
Below the book were just some clothes. At the top of the pile was what looked to be a yellow shirt or tunic, nothing special. Certainly nothing that screamed ‘murder.’
Maybe he was just paranoid. Perhaps Eric had found the stuff. It wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility.
One last try.
He pinched the yellow shirt, unwilling to grab hold of a traveler’s dirty clothes, and pulled it out of the rucksack.
That was when the smell hit him. A sour, metallic smell. The iron aroma of dried blood.
He unfolded the yellow shirt and saw that it was a t-shirt with the periodic table printed on it. The front of it was absolutely covered in blood.
It had belonged to someone from Earth, no doubt about it. And the red stains all over the front weren’t just tomato sauce. Eric had found someone from Earth, and he’d killed them.
There were footsteps outside. Adrenaline hit Jake’s chest. Shit – better put everything back!
He carefully stuffed Eric’s things back in his bag the way he’d found them. Just as the footsteps reached the door he stepped back and edged away.
The shack door flew open.
“Roof seems fine, might have a bird-” began Eric, then stopped. “You alright, lad?”
“Fine, why?”
“You’ve gone red.”
“It gets a bit stuffy in here.”
“Dark, as well. Were the curtains drawn before?”
“It keeps the insects out,” said Jake.
Eric sat on a chair and stretched out his legs. He rubbed his belly. “Roof seems alright. Time for a bit of grub, if you please.”
Jake nodded, but he felt wary. He imagined that the second he turned his back on Eric, he’d feel a knife press into his back.
Relax. He doesn’t know you’re from earth, and he thinks you live here with four warriors.
Jake turned to the counter. Time to make Eric something to eat.
“You said you were born around here?” said Eric, behind him.
“Yep. Born and raised.”
Eric let out a long sigh. “Must have been hell living here when the rebellion was going on.”
Rebellion? This must have been a piece of Sarametis history that Jake didn’t know about. Did it mean a rebellion against the emperor? Yeah, that’s what it must mean.
“My family kept their head down. We got through it,” said Jake.
Eric didn’t say anything in response. Did that mean he’d bought Jake’s lie?
He turned around. He half expected Eric to be behind him and wielding a knife, but the traveler still had his legs stretched out.
Maybe he was just paranoid as hell. Maybe that was what Cason and Sarametis were doing to him.
Eric crossed his arms across his chest. As he did, his shirt sleeve moved just an inch up his arm, and Jake saw the flash of metal between his coat and his shirt. Eric pushed his sleeve back down in a slight movement, and Jake pretended he hadn’t seen.
“Let’s get some food made,” he said, and turned to the counter. He didn’t want to put his back to Eric, but he had to seem natural.
It was definitely a knife that he’d seen. No doubt about it. And it had probably been used to murder the poor chemistry-loving yellow t-shirt wearer from Earth.
Well, it wouldn’t happen to him. He wouldn’t let the bastard get away with it.
He took some food from Cason’s provisions and placed so roughly-torn pieces of bread on the counter.
Making sure that Eric couldn’t see him, he took a potion vial from his pocket. It held a purple liquid with little peppercorns in it. He poured drops of it all the way along the bread, and then covered the now-discolored loaf with cheese. He squashed the bread together and then turned and handed it to Eric.
“Bon Appetit,” he said.
“Bon ape tit?”
Oh yeah, there was no such thing as France here, so the two words of French that Jake knew were not only useless, but they would make him look suspicious. If he didn’t already think Eric had rumbled him, he would have been worried that he’d just outed himself as being from earth.
“Enjoy your sandwich,” he said.
A small part of him felt bad. It was his conscience poking at him, telling him that it was wrong to poison someone’s sandwich. And ninety-nine times out of a hundred he’d have agreed. To ease his guilt, all he had to do was imagine the poor SOB with the periodic table t-shirt stumbling into Sarametis, only to be murdered by a rogue like Eric Cratter.
Happy eating, he thought.
Eric took a bite of the sandwich. He chewed it, then gave Jake the thumbs up.
“This cheese is amazing. Where’d you get it?”
“It’s from a dairy farm down south. The cheese is called Any Last Requests?”
“Strange name for a cheese.”
Eric tore off another chunk of sandwich, and then another. Jake was staring unashamedly now, just waiting for the potion to take effect. How long did it take to work? Had he used enough? Maybe all he’d do was give Eric a bad belly.
He was about to turn away and reconsider his plan, when Eric put his hand to his throat. He made a choking sound. He scratched his neck as if he could scrape away whatever was burning him.
He stood up. The sandwich fell apart and then fell to the floor. His chair toppled backwards, lost balance and tipped over with a thud.
Eric pointed a long, dirty-nailed finger at him.
“You pois-”
He scratched at his neck again. The pain must have been immense; Jake had layered his sandwich with potion of dissolve, and it seemed that even the minute quantities he used were enough.
Eric stumbled forward toward Jake. Jake moved away, and Eric hit the counter. He coughed, and dark red flecks of blood stained his lips and chin. He somehow kept his balance.
Jake backed away. Eric raised his left arm, flicked his wrist, and the dagger shot out of his sleeve and into his hand. It must have worked on some kind of spring mechanism.
“Bastar-” choked Eric. He raised his dagger hand. He fixed Jake with a look of hate.
Then he charged forward. He lurched across the shack and toward Jake. At the last minute, Jake dodged out of the way, reached to the counter and grabbed the heaviest vial he could reach. He smashed it over Eric’s head.
He collapsed on the floor. He coughed again, spraying more of his blood out. He made gurgling sounds that, when mixed with cries of agony, were horrible to listen to.
Jake wanted to turn away. He didn’t want to watch, but he forced himself to. If he was going to kill the man, then the least he could do was watch him die.
Or was it the least he could do? Maybe there was something else. Eric was done for. The dissolve potion was burning away his throat and it would eventually kill him, but it seemed like it was taking him way too long to die. Sure, he’d acted in self-defense, but he still had honor.
Jake kneeled by Eric and wrenched the dagger from his hand. Eric gurgled again. His lips were a deep, dark red now. Jake pinched the collar of Eric’s shirt and pulled it back so he could see his neck.
One quick slice and it would be done.
He paused. If only it was so easy to snuff out a life. He’d never killed anyone before, and he doubted banshees counted as human. Somehow, doing it by potion was a thousand times easier than ending a man’s life with a knife.
Eric groaned again. He tried to clutch his throat, but he didn’t have the energy.
He had to do it.
He gripped the dagger, pressed it against Eric’s neck and prepared to slice across his skin.
And then Eric moved. Summoning a last burst of energy, he pushed down on the floor and got to his feet. Blood and foam spewed from his lips. He turned his back to Jake and charged into the shack door, hitting it with such force that it flew open, busting one of the hinges.
Cason’s gonna lose his mind, thought Jake. Now we actually do need a carpenter.
Jake followed Eric outside, only to see that he was already down half way down the hill, sprinting with a speed that only a last burst of adrenaline could give a man. He didn’t know what Eric was thinking, or if thoughts were even crossing through his brain anymore. He was probably driven by pure instinct now.
When he was at the bottom of the hill and had run onto the plains, Eric’s resolve left him. He fell face-first onto the ground. After that, he was still.
Just a few seconds later, Jake saw shapes emerge in the tall grass either side of Eric. They were four cock imps looking for a meal. They walked toward Eric, hunched over as if they were sneaking, not realizing that their prey was already dead.
Jake shook his head, but he refused to turn away. He owed the man that much. His stomach turned as the cock imps started cutting chunks of flesh from Eric.
Enjoy it. It’ll be the last meal you ever get.
Chapter Eighteen
He grabbed the rest of Eric’s sandwich from the floor and then walked out of the shack. At the top of the
hill, he tensed his pitching arm and threw the sandwich down to the imps.
“Bon ape tit!” he shouted, as it arced in the air, before landing a few feet away from Eric’s now-mutilated body.
The imps flocked over the bread like pigeons in a plaza, pushing and shoving each other to get as big a share as they could. Soon, all four of them had eaten some. It wasn’t long before they died, one by one, clutching their throats and gasping for breath.