Hero in a Halfling

by William Tyler Davis

  “Dad,” she said.

  “Now—“

  “Dad,” she said again. “It’s okay. We’re okay. It was a clean getaway.”

  “You say that now,” Jed sneered. “That’s what they always say that, don’t they? Then the Watch comes smashing in through some honest man’s door.”

  “And you’re the honest man in this scenario?” Gerdy punned.

  “And what if I am?”

  They both laughed then hugged.

  Jed sighed. “Come in, come in, damn you!” He waved Gabby into the bar.

  “Epik!” Gerdy ran around the bar and squeezed him in a hug that could’ve broken even a horse’s ribs. “Where’d you run off to? We thought you might have been… Attacked… By the troll.”

  “I was.”

  But they weren’t exactly listening to him. Gabby began to tell their own story. The wizard had managed to summon his hat. It hung on his head crookedly. “A gaggle of Watch came running toward us, wielding pikes and crossbows—“

  “Gab and I thought they were after us. He hurtled some fireballs toward ‘em before we realized. It was brilliant.”

  “Brilliant except for the minor fact that they weren’t after us at all.” Gabby put a hand down on the bar. It was black with soot. “I realized, a bit late, they were cursing about a troll. It’s okay though, none of them even tried to arrest me. Just kept running.”

  “We thought… we thought maybe the troll—the troll took you,” Gerdy said to Epik.

  “I know,” Epik nodded, “it did try.”

  “It did?”

  “Yeah. But it got Myra instead.”

  Gerdy’s face fell in horror.

  “It got me,” Charlie said. “It got me arm.”

  A bit of bone hung out below the boy’s shoulder. He slumped and fell. The troll swung the arm over the Wall, still running and swinging its arms wildly at the men.

  “It’s just a flesh wound,” Brendan said. He and Todder ran after the troll.

  “Nice one,” Todder said to him. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Dunno,” Brendan said. “Just sounded like the right thing to say.”

  “Tis but a scratch,” Todder said, encouragingly back to Charlie.

  Keeping pace with the troll was difficult. Brendan tried to drive his pike at its legs and side, but the troll was having none of it. After swiping viciously, it threw the men, ripping off Charlie’s arm in the process. The troll was done with fighting. It ran for the forest beyond the Wall.

  Todder was confident they could stop the troll. Adrenaline coursed through his veins. He hardly even felt that blister on his toe anymore.

  “We can’t let him go, not with that sack,” Todder said. They were losing ground. He had to do something.

  He took out his crossbow and fired one last shot.

  It missed.

  “Damn it,” Brendan said, still running. He jabbed his pike hard at the troll’s feet, only making glancing contact. The pike snapped in half as it became tangled between the troll’s legs. The beast barely stumbled. It galloped headlong into the woods, still clutching the sack.

  Brendan and Todder, both heaving for breath, stopped and watched the troll go. They walked back to Charlie, still struggling in the dirt. The boy stared at where his arm should be, in shock.

  “I’m really sorry about that, Charlie,” the sergeant said. “Let’s see about getting ya fixed up.”

  “It’s Chester,” Chester said, before passing out.

  Name tags, Todder thought. They needed name tags.

  “The filthy humans will pay,” Al said with menace, even more than usual.

  “So… all humans?” Kelly said.

  Despite the circumstances, they both laughed a little.

  Death, to a troll, wasn’t—pardon the word choice—rot with mysticism, the belief of another side, or even personifications of a Grim Stone Reaper. Trolls knew that their bodies would return to the earth. That in time, heat and pressure would change their form, and they’d become something new. This was what the trolls called the Great Metamorphosis, and eventually, it would come for them all.

  But the Great Metamorphosis wasn’t high on Al’s mind. Anger grew in his cavities, his caverns; it built in his chest. Death to all humans, death to all dwarves, he thought. Death to anything with their semblance of flesh.

  The ground swayed beneath them as Boulder came tumbling up the hill. Puss and blood scabbed on his gray, white face. He held his bag of humans triumphantly.

  “I got many!” he said triumphantly.

  Al looked the small troll over. There was no sign of anguish in his face.

  “Well,” Al started. “There’s no good way say this… It’s about Mom…”

  24

  The Fellowship

  “And we’re supposed to just take your word for it?” Coe asked.

  “What reason does the lad have to lie?” Gabby said. He put a glass of wine to his lips but didn’t drink.

  “I just need proof the girl is gone before I go out risking my neck,” the ranger said. “I know Epiman’s good for it. But how do I know the girl’s not cozied up in her bed, right now?” He thought a moment. “Or someone else’s.”

  “I’m telling the truth!”

  “Your version, maybe. You probably want to see me dead, go out on some troll chase. And you,” Coe pointed to Gabby. “I know you were helping him last night. Now you’re afraid for your life too—or should be.”

  “The king could pay you,” Jed said. “If you brought back the heads of those trolls.”

  “The king doesn’t know what’s going on out his bedroom walls.”

  The front door of the bar banged open.

  “There’s the damn Watch, I suspect,” Jed said to the wizard. “Speakin’ a heads, they’ll be wantin’ yers.” Gabby ducked behind the curtain, in the kitchen, as Jed went to the door. “Who is it? And what’d’ya want?”

  “It’s Todder!” Todder said. “We need some help.”

  “Told you it was the Watch.”

  Jed opened the door shakily. Brendan and the sergeant carried the injured Chester through the door. Blood pooled thickly on linen wrapped around the boy’s shoulder. Jed peered outside before shutting the door again and bolting it.

  “He’s lost his arm,” Todder said.

  “Well, I can see that.”

  Snow was quick to act. “Gertrude,” she said softly, “heat up a frying pan. We have to cauterize it.”

  They laid the boy out on the empty table.

  “Well,” Coe said, “is this what happened with the little troll? I hope it’s in a worse state. I heard, from a little bird, that he was already wounded.”

  “No, he got away, no thanks to you.” Todder wiped sweat from his brow. “He was hurt, mind. Somethin’ had took out his eye.” The sergeant turned to Jed. “Do ya mind if we get a pint?”

  Todder and Collus argued while Gerdy and Snow tended to the injured boy. Epik slipped back behind the bar to speak with Gabby. He found the wizard pacing back and forth beside the stove; his hands laced casually behind his back.

  “Well?” he said. “Are they here to arrest me?”

  “No, I don’t expect so,” Epik said.

  “Me either,” Gabby gave the halfling a halfhearted smile. “Not yet.”

  Epik’s mind reached back to earlier, in the park, to that familiar voice. He had a nagging suspicion he knew who it belonged to. But he couldn’t say why.

  “I didn’t say it before,” he told Gabby, “but someone saved me back there, in the park.”

  “Who?” Gabby looked at him earnestly.

  “My dad,” Epik said, struggling to say it. To think it. “He’s in the city. I know it.”

  “You’re sure?” Gabby said skeptically.

  “Yes… No.”

  “For now, let’s keep this between you and me.” Gabby went back to pacing.

  “What’s the plan then?”

  “The plan?” the wizard scoffed. “What I shoul
d do is turn tail and run—leave this city. But I imagine you have something else in mind: Recruit me to help save the girl? Yes? There are easier ways to find love, you know. Speed dating and the like.”

  “It’s not that,” Epik said. “I don’t even—Listen, I came to the city to learn magic. And I’m tired of this, this act. You can teach me something. Something more. I know it. I need it.“

  “Well,” the wizard said. “That’s a start. I’ve often found that it’s better to give people the things they need than the things they think they want. Maybe it is time you need magic.”

  The night waned, as it often does, with weary men and dwarves, women and one halfling, resting as best they could in a bar with only stools and tables. At least they were doing it with bellies full of food and ale. Gabby stayed hidden in the kitchen, unsure of what Todder or the rest of the guard might say.

  “You look tired,” Epik told Gerdy. “No, you look more than tired.”

  “I am,” she said, and she sniffled.

  “Myra said the kids in the park are sick.”

  “Sick?” Gerdy said. “How?”

  Epik shrugged. “Do you think they can get medicine?”

  “Dunno,” Gerdy said. “It’s possible. They’re quite handy when they want to be.”

  “Or handsy?” Epik said.

  Gerdy chortled a little. “Yeah, that,” she said. There was something upsetting her. Epik couldn’t figure out what. But then, it was upsetting him too. What were the trolls doing with Myra?

  At that moment, Epiman stormed inside flanked by an odd looking elf. His mere presence roused both the rangers and watchmen. The thin man went straight to giving orders. “I need anyone here who’s able to be on the search for my daughter. I need those trolls found. And killed. Now!” he said demandingly.

  “You,” he pointed to Collus. “I need a word.”

  The two of them stepped outside.

  “I want to hear this,” Epik told Gerdy. She nodded, letting him go. He went through the kitchen, out the back entrance, noticing that Gabby had disappeared off somewhere too. Epik stepped out, taking a spot behind the waste bins and out of sight. Epiman and Collus stood there in the piss riddled alley, whispering. Epik pricked his ears and listened, but the men still sounded like a muffled adult to a child.

  Coe stared at a brick in the wall as Epiman spoke into his ear. Neither man noticed the halfling, stepping closer, softly through the damp muck and behind a wheelbarrow Jed used to carry in the kegs.

  “She may still be alive,” Coe said. “I’m not saying it’s likely… but it’s possible.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Epiman agreed, “but I was asking about the likelihood.”

  “I’m no statistician. I’m a ranger for god’s sake.” Coe thought a moment. “I’d say about three times out of ten they’ll leave the food to marinate during the day, usually in some mossy dung filled broth.”

  “If she is alive, I need you to give her this.” He handed the ranger a bottle.

  Collus grinned. “You know I’ve been making this stuff myself for years—bit of mold off an old loaf of bread and you’re in business.”

  “Ah,” Epiman grinned, “but can you make it taste like bubblegum?”

  “What’s—“

  “Never mind,” Epiman’s nasal draw came out as a hiss. “One more thing,” he said. “I’ve heard a rumor that a halfling is traveling with these trolls.”

  “Another halfling?”

  Epiman nodded slightly. “Listen to me. He deserves the same fate as the trolls—or worse. From what I understand, he’s the reason we’re in this mess. Keep this between us, and it’s probably best that this business be done… out of sight.”

  Collus began to speak, but Epiman stopped him. “Yes,” he sneered, “the usual fee. I understand. Plus, the dwarves. Just bring me back my daughter, and you’ll be richer than you’ve ever dreamed.”

  “I don’t know, my dreams are pretty lofty.”

  The men eased back into the bar. Collus took a quick look around the alleyway before heading back inside. Epik stayed there, crouched beneath the wheelbarrow, waiting. His mind began whirring faster than an insomniac’s at bedtime—Epiman and the Farmacies, the sick children, his father. His father, he thought again, not in the city—but with the trolls. Why would his father be with the trolls?

  Gertrude waited inside the bar. It had cleared out as Collus and his men left.

  “Where’s Gabby?”

  “Wanted to get a head start,” Gerdy said. “There’s a price on his head, you know.”

  Gerdy’s eyes and nose were red now. And she sniffled with every other word. “He says you should catch up to them.”

  “And you?”

  “Well, I’m to stay here, aren’t I?”

  “And you’re listening?”

  She shrugged. “Dad won’t let me leave. And I’m not feeling quite right. Do me a favor—”

  “Bring Myra back?”

  “No,” she said. “Well, yes. But don’t die. If those trolls harmed a hair on your head or hers…” she trailed off. “It’s just, no matter how much she got under my skin, she’s my friend, you know?”

  “I do,” Epik said. And he did understand. In the past few days, he’d made better friends than he’d ever had in his life.

  He made his way down the street, running to catch up. He could just make out the dwarves up ahead.

  Todder surveyed the band of misfits—more a scattering than a fellowship. Two rangers, he’d thought maybe they’d only need one. Three dwarves, and then there was K’nexes, the elf Epiman had scrounged up, one of those errand elves. The thin figure seemed as if he’d be more comfortable carrying a pillowcase than the bow over his shoulder.

  The sergeant had left Brendan there to guard the Wall. He’d probably be named full Corporal by the time they got back—if they came back. Why he had joined this party, even he wasn’t sure. Maybe because there was no hint that death was truly on the line. They just had to find the trolls, in stone form, and demolish them. It seemed easy enough.

  Coe turned, looking back at the Wall, then scowled.

  “And who invited you?” he asked, as Epik ran up beside them.

  “I did,” Epik said.

  “Good enough fer me,” Two-finger said, laughing and taking a jug of ale Epik had run up sloshing amongst waterskins and a pack he carried on his back.

  Collus shook his head. “No, he’ll just get in the way.”

  “I can do magic,” Epik said with a side eyed glance to the forest. “And Gabby, he’s meeting us out there.”

  “You can?” Coe eyed him suspiciously. “Do magic? Really?”

  “Yes.” Epik nodded, sheepish.

  Coe turned, and the party headed past the crumpled expanse of the Wall without saying another word.

  They followed a narrow path up to the wood. From there, Collus and Rotrick argued from point to point—which tracks were a troll, bear, or mountain cat—which hole in the ground had been there a day, a week, a century. They both had their opinions, and they both were set on them. But the group heeded Coe’s opinion nine times out of ten. Heading west, they found a mighty river and followed it well into midday, until the sun brutally shined over their heads and reflected on the murky water.

  Todder looked at it, wishing he could put in a toe. He was aching and sweaty.

  Epik went to fill his waterskin, but Collus pulled him back by the satchel.

  “If you want to die today, be my guest.”

  “It’s just a river,” Epik said. “I’ve been drinking river water all my life.”

  “This river happens to be where the sewer runoff of King’s Way bleeds in. There’s even more dark magic than feces in there. If you’d been to King’s Way, you’d know what I mean.”

  “Oh,” Epik said. He remembered one of Gabby’s big tomes had the lineage of every king who’d ever lay claim to the throne in King’s Way. “There’s dark magic there?”

  Coe nodded. “It’s that parti
cular monarchy’s specialty.”

  25

  Dream Country

  They stopped and found some shade under a clump of Willoak8 trees whose branches and leaves served as a canopy, blocking out most of the sun’s rays. A sporadic old father oak nestled between the others, covered in moss with ivy spiraling up their trunks. To Epik, it felt like home, the surroundings similar to the Bog. He had worked so hard to get out of there. To get the swamp and moss and peat out from under his toes. And he’d worked even harder, for years, to repress the memory of his father.

  But this particular memory was strange, like it had never been there before. It hovered on the periphery, the boundary of his mind, there even when he thought of magic. But it was there.

  The last time he had seen his father was in the swamp. The day with the plant man, when what he’d always thought was an accident, wasn’t.

  Epik settled unsettlingly for a nap as the other’s laid down for a bit of rest.

  Epik was just toddling around, barely able to walk, to stand. His father was there.

  And in the dream, Epik couldn’t quite make out his face. It was all blurred and fuzzy—the way dreams do to important people, you know who they are even if their features are all wrong.

  His father scooped him up, not saying a word as they headed out of the house. Down the road, they headed toward the river. Epik smiled up at his father. He felt warm and safe, as children often do, wrapped his father’s arms. He had nothing to fear.

  But being a dream, there was a shadow of doubt placed there in Epik’s mind—not really there in the memory, but there because it was a dream and all dreams are suspect.

  Onward, his father carried, to where the river twisted and narrowed. His father, unspeaking. Until…

  “This may seem strange,” his father said. “But I’m going to put down, here, in the water. Let you float for a little while… This is a test.” He said it almost to himself.

  The water was cool on Epik’s back. He didn’t know how to swim yet; he struggled for a moment, flailing before an invisible force set him right, floating on his back once more. He breathed easy a moment, looking up at the sky, at the wispy white clouds. He watched the outline of his father fade distantly on the shore.