1
“I gotta say, I’m getting real damn tired of Fairyland dungeons,” I said, my butt going numb from the cold flagstones I sat on. I probably would have paced, but the damn cell was too short. I knew this because I’d seen this cell before, a few months back, the first time I was thrown in a dungeon in Fairyland.
“Well, there’s a pretty damn easy solution for that, Bubba,” Skeeter griped from the opposite wall. “Just quit pissing off faeries that can throw your ass in dungeons!”
“Easier said than done,” Amy chimed in. She was on a bunk, at least, if by “bunk” we mean a few four-by-four timbers holding up a woven net of rope with a pallet of straw on it. But it was better than the cold, stone floor. Well, maybe. She kept slapping at her legs like something was biting her. There weren’t any bedbugs on the floor, at least not that I could see. Or maybe they were just afraid of me.
“Look, y’all wanted to whoop that dude’s ass as much as I did. How was I supposed to know he was one of the damn Royal Guard?”
Three Days Earlier
After finding out that my kidnapped half-sister Nitalia wasn’t, in fact, being held in the palace of the Winter Court by my psychotic grandmother Mab, and after I fought a bunch of faerie knights, magical monsters, and one really hungry troll to make sure my Mama didn’t have to marry any of those people, we took some of Granny Mab’s best horses and struck out for the Summer Court. Mama knew the way, being brought up in Fairyland, and with borrowed clothes mostly hiding our outlander status, we headed down the road.
“You know this ain’t gonna work, right?” Skeeter said, pulling his horse alongside mine. It wasn’t hard, given that my poor horse was panting from hauling my big ass already, and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet. I was glad we brought extra mounts because it was starting to look like I’d only get about half a day out of each one. I reckon when you’re used to hauling around faerie knights, who probably weigh like a buck-sixty even all armored up, throwing a three-hundred-pound redneck on your back seems like punishment detail.
“What ain’t gonna work, Skeeter?” I asked. I looked around, but nobody else was close enough to hear what we said. Good thing, too. I didn’t want anybody having second thoughts about the plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was the closest thing to one we’d had since we struck out after Nitalia in the first place.
“This disguise. I look more like a damn Klingon than a faerie.”
“Well, then we better just hope we don’t run into any Roman faeries out here in the woods. Give it a chance, Skeeter. Mama says you look way different to somebody who doesn’t know it’s you. But since we know you, the glamour don’t work on us. I don’t know shit about magic, so I gotta trust her.”
“Just remember, I’ve seen enough horror movies to know what happens to the one black dude. If shit goes down, I am not sticking around to see if it’s true. I will be LL Cool J hiding in the oven with my damn parrot quicker than you can blink.”
I looked at him a little cockeyed. “Did you just make a Deep Blue Sea reference in the middle of an honest-to-god Fairyland quest?”
“Don’t judge me. That movie’s a classic. Besides, you can quote every line of Sharknado.”
“I gotta give you that one,” I agreed. “Just try to stay in the middle of the pack, and stay down if any shit starts flying.”
“Bubba, we been friends more than twenty years. Around you, shit always starts flying.” He dropped his horse back to ride alongside Father Joe, leaving me to my thoughts. I was in the lead, with Skeeter and Joe behind me, and Mama and Amy bringing up the rear. I didn’t think much about the two of them getting all buddy-buddy and sharing secrets, or worse, baby pictures of me, but I did like the idea of Amy covering our rear. She was the best shot amongst us, and I knew she still had her backup .380 in her boot, even if we packed away her service weapon when Mab made us promise not to ride through her realm with our “mortal weapons” visible. That meant Bertha was tucked into a saddlebag, but I made sure I could get to her quick if I needed to.
I rounded a bend in the road, and the dirt track opened up into a wide clearing in front of the gates of a small town. A pair of faerie guards stood at the gate, but their weapons were at rest. We looked like just normal travelers, even if I looked like a half-giant. Apparently, that was a thing that happened sometimes, like with the half-ogre guard I met last time I was in Fairyland. I pulled Blue, the name I’d given my overworked horse, off to the side of the road and waited for the others to catch up.
It took just a couple of minutes for everybody to gather around, then I asked, “Do y’all want to go into town? We could eat lunch, water the horses, and take a break, then hit it hard in the afternoon.”
“My ass loves that idea,” Amy said, standing up in the saddle and rubbing her butt.
“I could do that for you,” I volunteered.
Mama reached out and slapped my shoulder. “Don’t be impertinent, Robbie.”
“I wasn’t being impertinent. I was trying to be helpful, just in case there was a spot she couldn’t reach,” I protested. “And y’all shut up.” I glared at Joe and Skeeter, who tried without success to hide grins behind their hands.
“We should go into town,” Mama said. “This is Wellspring, a town I remember. The inn here has always had a reputation for good food at fair prices, and the stable hands can check the horses and care for them while we eat.” She didn’t even wait for anybody else to say anything, just flicked her reins and started toward the gates.
I looked at her back for a few seconds, then turned to everybody else. “I reckon we’re going into town. Try not to start any fights you can’t finish.”
“Like we’re the ones that have been barred from every strip club in Tennessee, Arkansas, and West Virginia,” Skeeter said as he rode past me.
“West Virginia, Bubba?” Joe said. “That’s impressive.”
“It was mistaken identity,” I protested to Amy’s disapproving glare. “I ain’t never even been to a West Virginia strip club!” She ignored me, just rode on up to the gates.
An officious little faerie with a plume in his helmet stepped forward as we got to the entrance to town. “Halt!” he barked, even though we were already stopped. “Dismount and lead your horses over to the inspection area.” He waved his arm to a patch of grass off to the right where two more guards stood around looking bored. They looked a little less bored when we walked over, but it seemed to be a mix between staring at Amy, staring at me, and trying to figure out what Skeeter was. Maybe his disguise wasn’t holding up quite as good as we’d hoped.
Skeeter was right about one thing—though faeries came in all shapes, sizes, and colorations, none of them looked anything like an African-American human. And every human settlement I’d seen in my two trips to Fairyland looked whiter than a Ralph Lauren commercial, so he stuck out a little. To combat this, Mama had stuck fake pointy faerie ears on him, put a long white wig on his head, and cast a glamour to make him look like an old faerie wizard with bluish skin and white hair. She said this look was popular among the magic-wielding Fae, but I thought that sounded like just the best pile of crap she could come up with at the time.
“Open your packs for inspection and taxation,” the little dude with the feather announced, striding over to us.
“There are no local taxes in the Winter Court,” Mama said, looking down her nose at him. When we were back on Earth, she was my normal mama, but it seemed like the longer we traveled through Fairyland, the more she remembered that she was a princess of the Fae, and everything that meant.
“There are now,” Feather-Head said, putting his hand on his sword. “Or is that a problem?” The way he leaned on the word “problem” and the way the two guards around us suddenly turned into six told me that we were going to have a serious problem, and soon.
“Of course that is a problem, you thieving little bootlick,” Mama sneered at the man, whose head jerked back at the insult. “You dare attempt to extort money from a member
of the royal family as though I were a common traveler?” Completely ignoring the fact that we went to great lengths to look exactly like common travelers, Mama went full Mab’s daughter on the little guard, and I have to admit, I enjoyed watching his feather twitch in fear.
“Royal family?” one of the guards muttered to another. “Then what is she doing with a couple of humans and a Klingon wizard?”
“My dear lady,” Feather-Head said, his tone dripping sarcasm, “you are no more a royal than that hulking oaf with you is anything more than a drooling half-ogre half-wit. Now open your saddlebags or I will have you arrested!” He yelled that last bit loud enough that his heavily-waxed mustache quivered, and I couldn’t hold back a laugh.
“What is so funny, you giant moron?” Feather-Head asked me, his face stopping somewhere around the top of my belly.
“I’m sorry, I can’t hear you. Let me get closer.” I got down on my knees, which put us more or less face to face. “Now, what was that you were saying, little buddy?”
The little faerie’s face went all the way past red to purple, and he drew the rapier at his side, whipping it around to slash across my chest. Except I expected this from the moment Mama started acting all royal with him, so I blocked his slash with the caestus I had slipped onto my left hand. The thin blade of the rapier hit the steel-lined gauntlet with a tinny clink, and I reached around and clobbered him with my right hand. I didn’t have my caestus on that hand, so I didn’t kill him by burying the cold iron studs into his skull, but I did ring his bell pretty good.
He spun one full revolution around, and his plumed helmet went another half-lap around his head, so by the time he managed to focus his eyes on me again, I was standing, his sword lay in the grass a few feet away, and his helmet was on sideways. “You shall die for that, beast!” he shrieked, drawing a dagger and rushing me.
That ended about as well as you’d expect—with him flat on his back on the grass and my footprint in the center of his breastplate. “Now don’t get up, little fella, but let me be real clear. That woman over there, she’s my mama. And Queen Mab is her mama. So that makes me Queen Mab’s grandson. Now if you want to be the one to throw down with a couple of members of the royal family and their friends, that’s fine, but I want you to know exactly what you’re getting into before you do.”
Feather-Head smiled up at me, then slowly got to his feet. “I am so grateful to you for pointing out your relationship to the Winter Queen, Your Highness. It will help keep everything perfectly clear in the days to come. Now, there is one thing I feel that I should point out to you.”
“What’s that, little buddy?” I asked. I probably could have left off the “little” comment, but…nah, I really couldn’t.
“You left the lands of the Winter Court some hours back along the road. This town, Wellspring, has long been disputed territory between Mab and Titania, but finally a rotation of ownership was agreed upon some two decades ago. Mab agreed to ceded control of the town to Summer for a century, after which it would pass to Winter. Which means, of course…”
“That we ain’t in the Winter Court,” I said, a chill creeping into my bones despite the fact that we were in the Summerlands.
“That is correct, you great buffoon. You are in the lands of Titania and her Consort, Lord Oberon, and you have assaulted one of her Royal Guard in the course of his official duties. You shall hang for this, but not before I return you to Tisa’ron to collect my reward. Men, seize them all! And confiscate all their belongings for the glory of Her Majesty, Queen Titania of the Summer Court!”
And that’s how we ended up in a Fairyland dungeon. This time.
2
“It might have been the right thing to do, Bubba, but that don’t change the fact that we’re in another damn Fairyland dungeon,” Skeeter grumbled.
“I don’t know what you’re all complaining about,” Mama said from her bunk. “I find the novelty of this entire adventure quite thrilling.” She sat cross-legged on her bunk, a placid smile on her face and no evidence of creepy-crawlies or bitey little critters anywhere around her. I guess Summer Court bugs don’t like Winter Court flesh. Nah, that don’t hold water. Mama’s half Summer Fae.
“Mrs.—Sorry, Ygraine—I think you might be forgetting that when you were living in the lap of brainwashed luxury back at Mab’s palace, we were in the dungeon there, too.” Joe paced the front of our cell, occasionally shoving his face up against the bars to see where the guards were. “I think they’ve left us alone for the moment. What’s the plan, Bubba?” Joe turned back to me with a look of such hope on his face it was almost heartbreaking. I swear, he looked like a kid just getting out of bed on Christmas morning before he runs into the living room and sees that Santa Claus brought socks and underwear. Again.
“Plan?” I repeated. “Shit, Joe, I ain’t got a plan. My plan ran out of planning right about the time we got tossed into the damn dungeon. I mean, shit, I done broke out of this joint once, and the dungeon in the Winter Court, too. I figure that’s about two more dungeons than any one redneck oughta have to bust out of in a lifetime, so I am plumb out of ideas.”
Joe gaped at me for a full minute before he realized I was serious, then he slid down the bars to sit on the floor with me and Skeeter “Then what are we going to do?” he asked.
“Well, we got a couple of choices,” I said. “We can either try to come up with a way to bust out of here, which is gonna be tougher than usual on account of my already having done it once.”
“Or?” Amy asked, slapping her leg and muttering something under her breath about letting bugs run around in a castle.
“I haven’t quite figured out what the other option is yet,” I admitted after a pause.
“Perhaps I could be of assistance, then,” Mama said, standing up from her bunk and walking over to the door. She grabbed hold of the bars and gave them a good tug. She wasn’t screaming, and it didn’t look like her hands were on fire, so I reckoned the bars weren’t made of iron. She leaned into it, and I saw her shoulders tense up, and after a few seconds, her face turned red, and the veins started to pop out on her forehead. She looked about like she was going to blow a gasket, then she relaxed and slumped forward. “Perhaps I am not as strong as I once was,” she said, panting a little as she leaned against the bars. “In my youth, these would have proven no challenge at all to a royal daughter of the Sidhe. Of course, in my youth, I wasn’t wearing this, either.” She held up her right arm to show a band of metal encircling her bicep. The iron cuff was lined with silk to keep it from burning her skin, but it looked like it sapped her strength something fierce.
“That thing’s why you can’t just wiggle your fingers and magic us out of here, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yes, Robbie, the iron blocks my magic, so while I can wiggle my fingers to my heart’s content, it accomplishes nothing.” She walked back over to the bunk, her shoulders slumped.
“Well, maybe I can yank it off of you,” I said, standing up. Well, mostly standing up, anyway. The ceilings in the dungeon were high enough, but the cells were cut a little short for my size. I crouch-walked over to where Mama sat on the bed and looked at the cuff the soldiers put on her arm when we were arrested.
“Huh,” I said. “That don’t look good.” Whoever made this thing knew what they were doing. A set of small spikes pointed in and down along the bottom of the cuff. As long as Mama didn’t try to wiggle out of it, she wouldn’t have any problems. But if she pulled the cuff down on her arm, a pretty serious chunk of her skin and muscle was liable to come with it. “Well, shit. I’m sorry, Mama. I can’t get that thing off you. It’s gonna take a key.”
“It’s okay, Robbie. You tried.” She patted me on the head like she used to when I was little and she wanted to let me know I was still her favorite, even now that Jason was around. Looking at how things turned out, I reckon she had pretty good taste in that regard.
I turned to the rest of the team, putting on my best “we’re down two scores at h
alftime against a team that we should be wiping the floor with” coaching vibe. I clapped my hands and said, “Alright, let’s all put our heads together and make a plan.” Then I stood up straight and promptly almost gave myself a concussion smacking my melon into the ceiling. I sat all the way down on my ass on the cold, and very hard, stone floor and let out a grunt.
“I don’t think that went quite to plan,” Joe said, never moving to even see if I was okay.
“But the sentiment was right,” Amy said, standing and walking over to me. “You okay?”
It was good to know somebody gave a shit. “Yeah, I’m fine. Ain’t like it’s the first time I’ve been conked in the noggin.”
“Or likely to be the last,” Mama said from beside Amy. “But you’re both right. We cannot find Nitalia while trapped here, and we don’t yet know if she is even in the Summer Court. So, we must escape our confinement, post-haste.”
“I should have known you weren’t from Georgia,” Skeeter said. “Ain’t nobody anywhere near where me and Bubba grew up ever used the term ‘post-haste’ in a sentence correctly. Okay, how we getting out of here?”
“Well, we can’t exactly use the same ruse I used last time,” I said. “Because that time I just broke in dressed as a guard and whooped everybody’s ass on my way out. It’s a lot harder starting behind a locked door.”
“What about luring a guard in and overpowering him, like we did in Mab’s dungeon?” Joe asked.
“They were pretty good about putting enough guards on us to keep us in line when they dumped us in here,” I said, not really thinking much of that idea.
“That’s it!” Skeeter jumped to his feet. I was really starting to envy all my under-six-foot friends. They could stand up straight even in the cell.
“What’s it, Skeet?” I asked, shoving my jealousy aside for a moment.
“Poop.”
“Huh? What’s wrong? You just said it was a good idea, now it’s poop?”
Monsters, Magic, & Mayhem: Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 4 Page 20