The last bandit sat on a horse surveying the action, and of course, he was the one to notice me first. Great, not only was I bone-tired, but now I had to fight a fairy, and his horse, too. And the horse was looking like the bigger problem, what with all the hooves and teeth and everything. Then the fairy turned to me and started waving his hands in midair. A glowing ball of purple light materialized over his head, and he pushed his hands out at me like he was shoving me right in the chest.
The ball of purple energy flew toward me like a cannonball, and I revised my opinion about the horse being the bigger threat. I dove to the side of the road, rolling to one side and crashing into the trunk of a huge maple. I tried to stand, but my knee buckled, and I went right back down on my belly.
That probably saved my life. Another blast of energy, red this time, flew over my head and crashed into the tree. The maple tree, bigger around than my body, blew apart, showering me with splinters.
Now the other bandits were looking at me, and one of the sword-wielding ones started running my way. I fast-crawled forward, ducking behind another big tree as yet another blast of magic came my way. This one melted the tree like it was a candle in a forest fire.
“Okay, screw this shit,” I muttered, diving forward into a clumsy roll. I didn’t win any invites to American Ninja Warrior, but I also didn’t get blown to pieces by the bolt of lightning that struck the ground where I’d stood seconds before. I came up on one knee with Bertha in one hand and leveled the big pistol at the fairy. He started waving his hands again, and I lined up my sights carefully. I squeezed off one round, and it blew that spell-slinging sonofabitch out of the saddle and a couple feet to the other side of his horse.
The road fell silent as all eyes turned to me. The Desert Eagle is, as Ray Wylie Hubbard said, one bad-ass pistol. And it makes a big damn boom. And a big damn impact. Puck got the shit knocked out of him, and he was immune to the effects of a lead round. This guy wasn’t hurt by the bullet, either, on account of the first round being a lead “warning shot” of sorts. But he was lying on his back six feet away from the horse, and he was holding his chest like he had a couple broken ribs. Which he probably did, given the fact that I just hit him in the center mass with a sledgehammer, then he fell off his horse.
I had everybody’s undivided attention now for damn sure. I stood up, dusted myself off, and looked at the bandits and merchants. I held Bertha high where everybody could see her and started talking. “Now that I’ve got your attention, let me explain what just happened. This here’s Bertha.” I turned the gun from side to side, letting them see what they were dealing with.
“Bertha don’t like bandits. But Bertha also don’t like killing folks if she can help it. So I’m gonna make y’all an offer. You put everything back where you found it in those wagons, apologize to my friend Oakroot there, and promise to stop robbing folks. Then you ride on down the road, and we continue on our merry way toward the capitol. Sound good?”
“If we don’t agree?” The speaker was an older fairy, with a long, twisted scar running from his forehead down over one eye. I pegged him for the leader, on account of the scar. That and on account of the other robbers looking to him to do anything.
“Then I reckon we go back to fighting. I’ve only got five more bullets in Bertha, but every one of them is cold iron. Do you want to take the chance that I spend the first one on you?”
Chapter 8
We had us a regular standoff. The fairy bandits didn’t want to leave without Oakroot’s money, gear, and cart of beer. I had some strenuous objections to that, not the least of which was that not having that cart would make it a lot harder to get to the capitol and rescue Tamara Sanders. Then there was the thought of losing an entire cartload of beer, which hurt my very soul.
The wizard bandit got to his feet, slowly, and started waving his hands again. I pointed Bertha at him and shook my head. “No, no. We’re still talking. You so much as think about throwing a spell my way, I will put an end to your precious little fairytale life.”
He froze, but his cohorts didn’t. The other four fairies rushed me, covering the last ten yards between us in a blink. I still didn’t want to kill anybody, so I slammed Bertha’s butt into the nearest dude’s forehead. His eyes crossed, and he dropped like a stone. I holstered Bertha and put my hand on the sword Puck loaned me. I saw how close the fairies were and thought better of it.
There were three still standing in a ring around me, plus Scar hanging back waiting to deliver the coup de grace. I grabbed the nearest fairy and slammed him into one of the others, sending them both to the ground in a tangled heap. The third fairy looked around, wide-eyed, suddenly on the wrong side of outnumbered against a man three times his size.
He started to draw his sword, but I grabbed his forearm and squeezed. He dropped to one knee as I heard things crack inside his wrist. I pulled him forward, lifting my knee into his jaw at the same time. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he went down like a sack of potatoes.
The other two had disentangled themselves from one another by that point, and they came at me, swords drawn. I drew my own and parried both attacks. I kept moving and pushing toward them on a diagonal, forcing them closer together and foiling their footwork. After a couple of feints and lunges, they got so tangled up that the farthest one fell down on his butt parrying one of my strikes, and the other one tripped over him.
One fairy was down on his butt, and the other was on his hands and knees. I looked from side to side, heard the roar of an imaginary crowd, and dropped a People’s Elbow on the back of the second dude’s head. He went from hands and knees to kissing dirt in half a second, and I hopped back up, dragging the last fairy with me. I picked him up, held his body over my head, and hurled him at Scar. The bandit leader ducked, and his minion crashed to the dirt.
“Not even going to try to help him out?” I asked. “Damn, that’s cold.”
“I have other things to deal with. One other thing, to be specific.” Scar drew his sword. Make that swords. Instead of one rapier like most of the fairies I’d encountered up to that point, he pulled a pair of short swords from his belt, wicked-looking little things with a curved blade that looked custom-made for opening guts like zippers.
Scar advanced on me, twirling his blades like a damn food processor. I looked at the blade in my hand, a slender longsword for a fairy, but barely more than a dagger for me. With a silent apology to Puck for mistreating his blade, I reared back and chunked the sword at Scar. He knocked it out of the air, but that moment’s pause was all I needed. I drew Bertha with my right hand and a spare magazine with my left, ejecting the cold iron rounds and slamming the magazine full of silver rounds home. I racked the slide and leveled the pistol at Scar, who was almost close enough to make me nervous about his blades now.
“Stop,” I said. “Or this is gonna hurt.”
He didn’t. I knew the silver wouldn’t kill him, but when I shot him in the knee, he went down just like a human. Or troll. Or sasquatch. Or vampire, zombie, rakshasa, ogre, leprechaun, or any damn thing else when you bash its kneecap to a hundred pieces with a fifty-caliber silver bullet. Both curved swords dropped to the dirt, followed by a scar-faced screaming fairy who rolled around with both hands on his left knee. I’m pretty sure some of the things he screamed at me were not only physically impossible, but in violation of about thirteen laws of nature and seven laws of physics.
“I told you to stop,” I said, not at all sympathetic. After all, I didn’t kill ‘em. The fairy that I dropped the elbow on got to his feet, looking a little wobbly. He took one step in my direction, then stopped when he saw all his buddies lying on the ground. He put his sword on the ground, then sat on the side of the road with his hand held high in the air.
“Good boy,” I said. “But you forgot to empty your pockets and your purse, and to take off any jewelry and put it in a pile right there.” I pointed to a spot a few feet from my foot. “Then take off your belt and sit on your hands.”
&n
bsp; He did as he was told, then I wrapped his belt around his chest and arms at the elbow and repeated the process with the other bandits. By the time I got to Scar, I had a nice little pile of swords and jewelry lying in the road, and a pile of dejected highwaymen sitting on the edge of the woods in fairyland.
I sent Oakroot ahead with the cart to get the fairy I left behind with broken ribs, and when everyone was sitting in a line looking glum, I stepped up in front of them.
“You guys are assholes, and you need to find another job,” I said, pacing back and forth in front of them. “Now I don’t have room in the cart to carry you along, so I’m going to have to leave you here while we travel to the capitol. As soon as we get there, we’ll be reporting this encounter to the first guard we see that we think might give a damn and send them back here to collect you. I think it’s important to make sure nobody wants to be a good Samaritan about you guys, so we’ll just do this—” I found a scrap of wood lying around, quickly carved “BANDITS” on it, and tore off a strip of one dude’s shirt and used it to hang the sign around his neck.
“Now hopefully no one will be inclined to help you idiots out. I’ll also be taking all your money and gear, and your boots.” I motioned at Redfern, who started de-shoeing the would-be robbers. “Now if you manage to get loose before the bears or guards get here, I’d suggest you find a better line of work. Because obviously the whole King of Thieves thing isn’t working out for you.”
I started sorting through all their shit, but finally just motioned for Redfern to toss it all in Oakroot’s Sack of Stashing Stuff, and headed toward Oakroot and the cart. I’d put my foot on the first step when Scar spoke.
“You know we’ll be free in minutes and come after you. You’d better not sleep, human. We live forever, and we don’t forget an insult.”
I put my foot down and walked back to where Scar and the rest of his scowling bunch sat on the dirt. He glared up at me, hate in his eyes. I bent down and grabbed the belt holding his arms tight to his chest with one hand. Then I stood up, lifting him high enough to look into my eyes. His feet dangled a good foot off the ground, but we were eye to eye.
“Look here, you little pissant. I’ve got enough ammunition to shoot you in the knee every day for a month and not even get tired,” I lied. I had three magazines with ten rounds each, and I’d used some ammo already. I had enough bullets to shoot him in the knee every day for three weeks with a couple left over, but I counted on him not figuring that out, and me not being in Fairyland for a month. “And if you really start to be a pain in my ass, I’ve got cold iron bullets that will put a hole in your chest big enough for me to put my fist through. So you put any ideas of revenge out of your head, or you won’t see another sunrise. Remember, shithead, being immortal means that you won’t ever die, but it doesn’t mean that nothing can ever kill you.”
I dropped him to his feet, then gave him a little shove to send him sprawling onto his crew. He spluttered at me, but I turned my attention to the wizard. Bertha was already in my hand by the time I fully locked my gaze on his, and I lined up the barrel with the center of his face. His eyes got big, and his lips stopped moving.
“Am I going to have to shoot you in your damn head? You’ve already been shot once; you know how bad it hurts. Now imagine if I pull this trigger right now.” I saw him thinking about how much damage the force of the bullet would hit him with, then he pressed his lips tightly closed.
“Good boy,” I said. “Now I don’t have to kill you. Look, I expect you idiots to try to escape. But I also expect you to run like hell in the opposite direction from where we’re going, and I expect never to see any of you again. And if I do, I won’t be shooting to wound, or screwing around with y’all. If I ever see any of you again, I’ll kill your sorry ass and apologize to your mamas afterward. You got me?”
Wizard-boy nodded. I look at Scar, who nodded. Once Scar nodded, the rest of them looked like a collection of bobblehead dolls on a dashboard. I nodded once, stopped myself, and went over and climbed up into the cart.
Redfern mounted his pony and drew up alongside the front of the wagon. I leaned over and grabbed the pony’s bridle, pulling Redfern right up beside me. “Let me be clear, you officious little prick,” I said to him, my voice low. “We are going to have a pleasant, or at the very damn least, silent, ride to Tisa’ron. If you cannot be nice to Oakroot, or at least keep your damn mouth shut, I swear by all I hold holy, I will smack you in the mouth so hard your children will lisp. Do you understand me?”
He opened his mouth, eyes blazing, but I raised my hand. “Think hard before you speak to me in anger, Redfern. It’s been a long morning.”
He looked me in the eyes for a long moment, then finally decided better of whatever he was going to say, and just said, “I understand.”
“Good. Oakroot, let’s roll. I told Redfern if he can’t keep a civil tongue in his head, that I would slap the taste out of his mouth. But that kinda depends on you not provoking him, no matter what level asshat he is. Does that work for you?”
Oakroot looked at the red-faced Redfern and smiled. “I think I can manage that.” He shook the reins, and we were off for the castle. Again.
Chapter 9
The sun was low the next day when we finally made it to the gates of Tisa’ron. The green and yellow spires were visible in the distance, slowly shifting to orange and purple as the light changed and the sunset painted the sky in brilliant colors. As we drew closer, I saw that a high wall ringed the entire city, with guards atop the stop battlements. At least half a dozen archers and crossbowmen clustered over the main gates, with a few others walking patrol atop the rest of the visible section of wall.
A cluster of eight guards stood on either side of the gate, leaning against the walls casually, but with their swords loose in the sheaths and a pike or halberd leaning beside each man. A pair of older guards without polearms stood just in front of the portcullis, speaking to everyone who passed into the city and inspecting every cart and horse.
“Do you have money to pay the bribes?” Oakroot asked me when we were within a few carts of the front of the line. The look on my face must have been classic because the fat little fairy almost fell out of the cart laughing.
“Don’t worry, lad, I be pullin’ your leg. While there are indeed cities and towns with guards on the take, this lot be as honest as the summer is long. And we be in the land of the Summer Queen, so that be long indeed.”
I relaxed a little, but still kept my purse close at hand. It was full of coin from the bandits, since we’d split up their haul when we made camp the night before. Redfern tried to play the moral outrage card and shame us for dividing up stolen goods, but when he saw exactly how much the highwaymen had on their persons, he was happy enough to take a one-third share.
We moved to the front of the line. Redfern, as a lone man on a single horse, peeled off to the right for a more cursory inspection and passage through a smaller gate. I clucked the horses to a stop and prepared myself for the questions and searching.
“Business in Tisa’ron?” The guard looked up at our cart with sleepy eyes. Other than having a human driving, our cart was just like every other one in line. And it wasn’t that uncommon to have a human at the reins. We’d met a caravan on the road, and several of the wagons were driven by humans. None of them were wearing a tattered dress shirt and Levi’s, but they were still human.
“Deliveries, Sergeant,” Oakroot replied. “I have wine for The King’s Table and beer for The Thirsty Dryad, The Weeping Niskie, and Bert’s Place.”
The guard nodded and walked around the wagon, peering under it and looking under the small tarp thrown across Oakroot’s bedroll and cooking utensils.
“Bert’s Place?” I whispered. “What a boring name. What’s the owner, a fairy accountant?”
“A dragon,” Oakroot said softly. “His real name is something like Bertorinix-something-something-something, a string of completely incomprehensible syllables that no human or fairy c
ould every remember. So when dealing with lesser species, he answers to Bert.”
“Lesser species?”
“His words, not mine.”
“Is that polite?” I asked.
“He’s a dragon. He gives not a single shit if he’s polite or not, lad. Nor does he need to.”
The guard meandered back to the front of the wagon and handed Oakroot a pair of shiny badges on leather thongs. “Wear these at all times when you’re inside the gates, except in your rooms at whatever inn you choose for lodging. If the badges get hot, then we need to speak with you and you should find the nearest guard. Return them when you leave. If you try to take them more than a mile from the city walls, the magic will combust, burning anything touching it to a crisp. So don’t forget.”
Oakroot put his badge around his neck and dropped it down inside his shirt. I did the same, albeit with some concern. I don’t like putting things that might catch fire or even just heat up that close to my nipples. It brings back bad memories of a night with three strippers, a veterinarian, the road crew for The Spin Doctors, and three dozen flaming shots called Bailey’s Comet. It took almost a year for my chest hair to grow back after that one. I know most people don’t have flashbacks to nights of partying, but most people have never run up a thousand-dollar bar tab drinking Mind Erasers in Birmingham, Alabama.
We had almost made it through the gate when a skinny guard ran over from the sally port that I saw Redfern enter. The little dude planted himself right in front of us, his pike leveled at me and a scowl on his face.
I reined in the horses and looked down at the man. He was big for a fairy, which made him about five-eight and maybe a hundred-fifty pounds. So less than half my size. And while he was holding a pike, it was still only about seven feet long, so it was barely long enough to reach me on the seat of the cart. He stepped forward, and the tip of the pike came a little closer to my belly than I liked, so I reached out with one hand and pushed it aside. I was even almost gentle about it.
Midsummer - A Bubba the Monster Hunter Novella Page 6