The Adventures of Duncan & Mallory

by Robert Asprin

  “Good riddance!” the bartender yelled at him, shaking his fist in the air.

  Duncan realized it must not be good wishes at all. He started to get a knotted feeling in his belly and a tightness in his chest.

  They walked past the market place where he’d spent so much time as a boy. Happy times, running between the carts, occasionally pinching an apple. Several times he’d accidentally upset carts of food, sending fruit and vegetables cascading everywhere. Good times.

  The vendors must not have seen it that way. As he walked past they started throwing rotten food and yelling at him. They had good aim, too, because by the time he ran past them he was covered from head to toe in vegetable slime. The major hadn’t been so much as smudged.

  Wiping a rotten tomato off his face, Duncan walked past the town brothel. The girls standing out front laughed at him, but then they always did.

  Not a single person ran out to say goodbye, at least not anyone that didn’t seem to be glad that he was going. He’d never been an unpleasant fellow, had he? He’d never been malicious or hateful to anyone. Was there a single person who was sorry to see him leave?

  All Duncan’s life he’d lived in Spurna. He’d never been much more than a few feet beyond the town’s limits. Everyone knew him, and he knew them, but none of them were going to miss him when he was gone. Swallowing the lump in his throat he started to walk faster.

  Shaking off the self-pity that suddenly reached to fill him, he thought, So what if none of them will miss me. There’s not a one of them that I will miss either. I’m walking past everything I have ever known, most likely for the last time. The knot in his stomach seemed to tighten, so he quickly thought, Good riddance!

  Duncan worked at convincing himself that he couldn’t wait to shake the dust—and everything else—of Spurna off himself. He was ready to be done with the place.

  Still, he really thought the old man was bluffing. Fully expected the major to give him a brusque speech and then march him right back home.

  When Duncan turned to tell his father good bye the old man held up his hand to stop him.

  “This is no time for sentimental bull crap, boy. I’m done with you, Duncan. You are a disgrace to our family and to my name. Turn around and get going. All I want to see is you getting smaller and smaller as you walk away. If I ever see your worthless hide again, I’ll kick your butt back out of town again!”

  “Dad, surely….” The look on the Major’s face told Duncan he was wasting his breath but he had to try. “Don’t you have any parting words of wisdom for me?”

  His father almost laughed then. “Don’t take any wooden coins.”

  “Is that all you have to say to me? I’m your only living son.”

  “You want words of wisdom to leave with? How about these? I wouldn’t trade one of my dead sons for you.”

  His father might as well have slapped him across the face. He closed his eyes momentarily and swallowed hard then looked the major right in the eyes. “Lovely sentiment. Good bye, Dad.”

  His father grumbled, looking away, and pointed down the road. Duncan gave him the raspberry, swung around and took off at a quick pace. Part of him kept hoping his father would call out to him, beg him to come back, tell him it had all been a huge misunderstanding. At the very least say he was sorry for those final words.

  When the young outcast finally turned around to look behind him, the village was a distant haze of chimney smoke and his father was already gone.

  “I don’t care! I wanted to leave anyway,” he bellowed to the no one that was there to take offense. “You’re all idiots, the lot of you. I’d rather be anywhere than in Spurna! You hear me? ANYWHERE!” He started to feel a little ball of pain in the pit of his stomach, so he turned around and started walking again.

  He worked hard at talking himself out of being worried and scared. Of feeling unwanted, turned out into the world on his own, but it was hard since that was exactly what he was. So I’m leaving behind everything I’ve ever known. So what? It all sucks! There isn’t now, and never has been, anything for me in Spurna. I will miss my horse, and I’m sure the more I walk, the more I’ll miss him. But no one was sad to see me go. Everyone who ever cared about me is dead. My mother ran off with some sailor when I was just an infant. My father hates me. Surprisingly, that last one was the one that stung most. My father hates me.

  Well, that hurt more than he wanted to admit.

  His father was a cruel, heartless man who wasn’t interested in him or what he wanted from life.

  The local girls weren’t interested in any man who hadn’t killed half a dozen Centaurs and didn’t have at least three bad scars. He hadn’t killed anything bigger than a rabbit in his whole life, and the only scar he had was one he got falling off a bike when he was five and couldn’t really reach the pedals.

  As if he ever would have had the time to learn to ride a bike, much less anyone to teach him. The major made him spend all day, every day, training for the insane ritual of war with the Centaurs.

  He’d never understood it. As long as he could remember, it had seemed idiotic to him. The other kids had all been excited about growing up to be great warriors and go die in the war. But even as a child, Duncan had never been the least bit interested in war or weapons, much less dying.

  In Spurna a young man’s life was military drills. And so he’d had lessons on every weapon, on the use of shields; fighting on foot, on horseback, and in formation—and he’d never been really good at anything. Maybe if he had been, he would have wanted to go to war and die like everyone else. Maybe his father was right that he was just a coward, afraid he’d be mere cannon fodder.

  To fight with no skill, in a war he believed was pointless, would make him as mad as the rest of them. So not wanting to fight in that war must mean he was smarter than the rest of them.

  That’s what Duncan thought, anyway, and now that he was on his own, what other people thought didn’t really matter.

  Thinking about everything he’d just left behind, wondering where he was going and how he was going to get there, he didn’t notice the sun setting. It was almost too dark to make camp before he started looking for a suitable place.

  A small clearing just off the road seemed as good a place as any. Duncan quickly found wood and built a fire using the flint and steel that rattled in his pouch—along with a small piece of twine, five spent rivets—and two coins. He’d have to make do with that.

  As if he didn’t already know he was unprepared for a journey, he realized as he brought up an armload of wood that his father had sent him off with no food. Not even a stale loaf of bread.

  His stomach twisted and grumbled its disapproval. He tried drinking some water. When he got desperate, he took his tabard off and tried sucking at a dried stain where a rotten vegetable had landed. It not only tasted bad; he felt pathetic.

  Being kicked out of his home really started to sink in. He was alone in a world he didn’t know, and he had next to nothing.

  Duncan grabbed his canteen again and started to take another drink, but it was only about half full. That wasn’t a real problem because he could hear the river in the distance. He’d walk down first thing in the morning and fill his canteen. So he took another drink to try to fool his stomach into thinking it was full.

  No food was a going to be a huge problem; his stomach already felt like his throat had been cut.

  Duncan put the wood down and went to check his pack. Some pack. It was nothing but an old blanket stuffed with what his father had let him take. He’d rolled it up and tied it with rope on both ends to make a shoulder strap. He had some trouble untying his own knots, but he knew what he was going to find, so he shouldn’t have been quite as surprised as he was.

  The pack held a change of clothes and a cloak that was really too small for him. It held a small whet tone, a large knife, a ball peen hammer, a small pair of blacksmith tongs, and a tin cup. He had the clothes and armor he was wearing, and his sword hung in a tattered sheat
h on his back. That was it. His belly was empty except for water and whatever he’d licked off his shirt, and it was getting dark.

  Suddenly any joy he had felt about leaving Spurna left him.

  The small pile of items in front of him was all he had to show for his life. His father hadn’t let him take any of the things he’d made—not even his pudding-filling pastry machine. Then his stomach rumbled, and he got incredibly depressed.

  He kept poking at the items on his blanket as if they might magically turn into food. Or at the very least something that would give the last twenty-five years of his life some meaning. Even a spoon might be nice, something that at least had touched food.

  I could beg, I guess…That is, if I knew how to beg. He threw another piece of wood on the fire and sat down on the corner of the blanket to take his leggings off. His belly grumbled again. By now it was pitch black except for the area right around the fire, and it was getting cold fast. Summer was just over, and fall was quickly bringing cold weather.

  He took off his sword and chain mail, grabbed his cloak and wrapped it around him. He stacked the rest of his belongings on his chain and leggings. Then he brought his sword close to him and rolled himself in the blanket and sat watching the fire and thinking how eerily quiet it was.

  Alone, miles from home and as far as he knew miles from any human or not-so-human being; he’d never been truly alone before. He certainly had never spent a night alone in the woods. In the silence that surrounded him he could hear small things moving about in the leaves under and around him.

  Suddenly the woods weren’t quiet at all. Things he couldn’t see now seemed to go out of their way to make spooky noises.

  Duncan decided he didn’t want any of the things crawling in the leaves to be near him. He got up quickly and scuffed all the leaves in the area to the edge of his fire.

  Wrapping himself in the blanket better and moving closer to the fire Duncan tried hard to think about pleasant things. He was afraid that something was going to sneak up on him from the dark. He put more wood on the fire, making the flames dance high into the air and sending embers flying. Duncan didn’t give it too much thought. In fact, he didn’t give it any thought at all.

  He put his mail shirt back on—just in case something did come up behind him in the night. It wasn’t like he hadn’t slept in it before. The night was cold so he put all the wood he’d gathered on the fire, rolled up in his blanket, and tried to get comfortable. He tried hard not to be afraid because then…. Well, that went back to his father’s accusation of being a coward, didn’t it?

  Duncan fell into a fitful sleep dreaming first that he was sleeping naked in a snow bank. Then the snow all melted and he was way too hot. Then he was just right, and so he slept peacefully the rest of the night.

  He woke up the next morning to the smell of smoke. He opened one eye carefully and peered at the fire which looked to be nothing but dead coals.

  “Hum.” Duncan mumbled and started to go back to sleep but then his stomach started rumbling again and the hunger wouldn’t let him go back to sleep. Sitting up he stretched, and that was when he noticed the clouds of smoke above him. Looking around quickly he found that the woods around him had burned during the night. Oh, large trees were all right since there had been a good share of rain lately. But small trees, brush, and all the deadfall had burned to ash—except what was still on fire.

  Duncan was puzzled. He looked around him. What is this? Some spell gone wrong? A lightning strike without rain? Then he looked around at his small camp. He looked at his fire and cringed. He remembered kicking the leaves out of his camp into a ring all around the fire.

  “Oops,” he said out loud. It was obvious what had happened. His too-big fire had ignited the ring of leaves he’d raked up. The entire countryside had caught fire while he’d been asleep. He had been lying on the ground so the smoke hadn’t reached him and…well, he was damn lucky to be alive.

  He took off his chain mail and rolled it and everything else he owned up in his blanket, then tied it into a pack again. Slinging his sword and his pack over his shoulder he hurried back to the road. On one side of the road everything on the ground was burned and the trees charred, on the other was a normal forest.

  “At least it didn’t cross the road. That’s worth something, right?” he mumbled, trying to make himself feel better as he started walking.

  He wanted to put some space between himself and his camp. It couldn’t be good to be start a forest fire, especially if it had burned someone’s house or crop or worse.

  Duncan’s shoulders slumped and he tried to console himself. “It probably just burned some leaves and a few scrub trees. Probably did more good than harm really. Killed a bunch of ticks and fertilized the earth and such and…”

  That was when he smelled it. He sniffed the air again to make sure and then he found himself walking towards the smell, unable to stop.

  His nose and the stomach it was attached to brought him to a still-burning hollow tree lying on the ground and in the hollow what was left of the groundhog that had been living inside it. Duncan drew his sword and pulled the animal from the fire. He felt bad about the groundhog for only a second, and then he gutted it, skinned it, and held it over the still-burning log to finish cooking.

  Sitting on a soot-covered rock Duncan ate the whole thing till he was sucking the bones. Then he started looking around for more unfortunate animals his fire might have killed and mostly cooked for him. He found three rabbits and a squirrel. He skinned and gutted them, wrapped them in his fighting tabard, and stuck them in his pack for later.

  He’d been happily checking for other edible things when he realized he was lost in the forest with no idea where the road was.

  Also…he’d forgotten to fill his canteen and it was almost empty.

  The young arsonist was working very hard at not panicking, when he finally came across a road again. Looking up and down it he had to admit he had no idea whether it was the road he’d been on before, much less which way to go. He looked to his right and to his left and decided it was easier to walk downhill than up. So that was the way he went. When he reached a spot where the forest was burned on one side of the road but not the other, he turned around and went back uphill—which was really was as tiring as he’d thought it would be.

  He didn’t see another living soul most of the day. That made sense because his village was in a very sparsely-populated part of the world. That was one of the reasons for walking with the flow of the river instead of against it. Up river there was less and less civilization, down river more and more.

  As he drank the last drops of water from his canteen he listened. He could hear the river, so he walked toward the sound till he came to the bank of the Sliding. Filling his canteen he thought about camping along the river. If he waited for a boat, he might get a ride. But the river seemed almost as untraveled as the road, and he decided it was best to keep walking on the road where he didn’t have to fight the underbrush for passage.

  As he got back to the road, it was getting late, and he knew he should pick a place to camp for the night, but he thought he’d walk just a little further. Still, he was hungry, so he decided to take a break and eat. He sat down by the side of the road and opened his pack, making a face as he unrolled his tabard. The oils from the animals along with the smoke made it look and smell like…well, like burned, dead animals. The animals didn’t look nearly as appetizing as they had when he packed them. Still, beggars couldn’t be choosers, so he took his knife and scraped the fur off the meat and started eating. It wasn’t much to look at but as his father had always told his picky younger brother Edger, “Food isn’t for looking at. It’s for eating.”

  Poor Edger. He’d been run through with a sharp stick during a drill.

  Duncan became thoughtful. How great a fighting tradition could his family claim? All but his father seemed to have died without fighting many battles. Some, like Edger, had died without even getting to the battlefield. Maybe
he wasn’t any worse a fighter than any other member of his family. Maybe he was just the only one smart enough to admit he couldn’t fight.

  He was about to eat his last rabbit when he heard the familiar sound of a horse-drawn wagon heading his way.

  He put the rabbit down on his tabard and stood to get a better look. Pretty soon it came into view, two men driving a wagon full of hay bales pulled by two horses.

  “Hey!” Duncan started jumping up and down waving his hands in the air. “Hey you there, stop!”

  “Whoa, there! Whoa,” the thin man driving the wagon said, pulling back on his reins. He stopped his team then looked down at Duncan. “Why?”

  “What?” Duncan asked confused.

  “Why stop?”

  “I ah…I need a ride and…

  “We’ll give you a lift for that rabbit there. Looks like it’s done just the way I like it. Right, Zeb?”

  “Done just the way you like it, Roland,” the other guy said with a grin, looking about as hungry as Duncan had been when he’d found the groundhog that morning.

  “Sounds fair.” Duncan handed the man the rabbit. “Where are you fellows headed?” he asked.

  “Triad. The stables there pay the best price for hay,” Roland said.

  “Best price yep,” Zeb said. He was a big man with a quick smile.

  “Good thing, too. Damn fire burned up everything was left in the field while we were sleeping last night,” Roland said, scratching his head.

  “Burned up while we were sleeping, yep,” Zeb said, throwing his hands in the air in a dramatic gesture that didn’t match what he’d said.

  “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that would you?” Roland asked Duncan.

  “Would ya?” Zeb added.

  Duncan looked at his feet. “No.” He shrugged. “I didn’t see any fire. Sorry. Maybe freak lightning or something.”