The Berserker and the Pedant

by Josh Powell

  Contents

  The Berserker and the Pedant

  Dedication

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Acknowledgements

  Pilot - The Berserker and the Pedant

  Episode One - The Berserker and the Sweet Cake

  Episode Two - The Berserker and the Sleep Sack

  Episode Three - The Berserker and the Ant

  Episode Four - The Berserker and the Minotaur

  Episode Five - The Berserker and the Centaur

  Episode Six - The Berserker and the Patrol

  Episode Seven - The Berserker and the Elf

  Episode Eight - The Berserker and the Trolls

  Episode Nine - The Berserker and the Goblins

  Episode Ten - The Berserker and the Pedants

  Episode Eleven - The Berserker and the Rescue

  Episode Twelve - The Berserker and the Awakening

  Episode Thirteen - The Berserker and the Orb

  Episode Fourteen - The Berserker and the Cave

  Episode Fifteen - The Berserker and the Walnut

  Episode Sixteen - The Berserker and the Elves

  Episode Seventeen - The Berserker and the Pedant

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  About the Author

  THE BERSERKER

  AND

  THE PEDANT

  Josh Powell

  This book is dedicated to

  Liam and Chloe

  My berserker and little girl

  This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

  THE BERSERKER AND THE PEDANT

  Copyright © 2015 by Josh Powell

  Editor: Marta Tanrikulu

  Cover Art: James E. Grant

  Interior Art: Milan C.

  All rights reserved.

  340 S Lemon Ave #4745

  Walnut Ca 91789

  USA

  Reproduction in whole or part of this publication without express written consent is strictly prohibited. Thank you for reading, I really appreciate you choosing to spend your valuable time reading my work. Please think about leaving a review for THE BERSERKER AND THE PEDANT wherever you purchased the book, or tell your friends about it, and then drop me a line. Leaving a review will help me out more than anything else you can do. If you do leave a review, let me know and I'll either send you Season Two for free when it comes out or add you to my beta readers (whichever your prefer).

  Introduction

  The Berserker and the Pedant is an epic fantasy adventure filled with humor, twists and turns, and some very lovable characters. You'll laugh out loud, you'll cry, and you'll shout "How ridiculous!" only to chuckle and keep on reading.

  When you're left wanting more, meander over to http://www.pedantpublishing.com and subscribe to the mailing list, you'll immediately receive a short story that reveals some of the hidden secrets of the world, and is guaranteed to make you laugh.

  If you enjoy The Berserker and the Pedant, please leave a review. No, really. I need reviews. No reviews, no sales. No sales, no more books. Okay, fine, there will be more books because I love writing them. Please leave a review anyway.

  Thank you for reading. Let me know if you liked the book, contact me @seasoup on Twitter.

  Acknowledgements

  My biggest thanks to my wife, Marianne. Without her help I would never have had time to write a book. She also acted as a sounding board for discussing ideas, and as my first reader, and my best cheerleader.

  Special thanks to Ray Nicholson for doing a beta read and providing quality feedback before the book was finished. In particular, his guidance shaped the description of the word "pedant" in the first chapter, solving an ongoing issue readers were having.

  Pilot

  The Berserker and the Pedant

  Gurken Stonebiter gulped for air as he ran in hot pursuit of a temple thief. He was not about to stop before he apprehended the miscreant. The thief hurdled a barrel, slid through the legs of a horse, and leapt into a building, slamming the door. Gurken Stonebiter, dwarven templerager, and avatar of the great dwarven god of butchery and battle, Durstin Firebeard, was thwarted.

  Gurken thought about hacking down the door, and nearly did - nearly, but for the thought that breaking through such a thick door would cause a certain dullness to accumulate on the blade. Not wanting to endure the drudgery of honing his axe, Gurken sprinted around the building looking for another entrance. Finding none, he returned to stand watch at the door, axe ready to strike, waiting for the thief to exit.

  Some time later, a small girl wandered up to Gurken. She raised an eyebrow and smiled at him.

  Gurken was a towering figure - for a dwarf, as such, he was barely taller than the young girl. Built like a rhinoceros, his muscles rippled over his body. His neck was solid as a granite statue. Despite his great height, he was overly wide due first to his massive torso and second to his chainmail armor and layers of padding. He wore a dented metal cap covering his bald head. His earthy red beard was caked with an ornamental red clay, and the many small scars on his face displayed his affection for combat. He looked quite formidable, unapproachable, and capable of unnerving even the bravest of soldiers.

  "What are you doing?" the girl inquired. If she was unnerved in any way, she hid it quite well.

  Gurken lowered his head and peered at the girl. "I await the thief within this building, boy."

  "I'm not a boy! I'm a girl. Why don't you go inside?"

  Gurken's brow furled. "Look here, boy…"

  "I'm not a-" she interrupted.

  "Never interrupt a berserker, boy," said Gurken, lowering his axe, "I'm Gurken Stonebiter and I'm about the business of the temple of Durstin Firebeard. I'm pursuing the vilest kind of villain - a thief that has stolen temple property. He fled into this building, and so I'm waiting for him to come out in order to make an arrest. If I must, I shall wait until…"

  She hadn't intended to interrupt again, but it seemed as if Gurken was going to continue for quite some time.

  "Pleasure to meet you, Gurken, I'm Pellonia. Why don't you go inside?"

  Gurken almost noticed that she interrupted him again, but missed it because of the abrupt change in topic. "I was just getting to that. Ordinarily, I would go inside and apprehend the criminal, but just now, I am stymied."

  "Stymied, you say?"

  "Yes, stymied," he agreed, nodding.

  "Thwarted even?"

  "Why, yes, that is just so. I'm thwarted," said Gurken, pleased with the unusual feeling of being understood.

  "I can see why being thwarted would stop you from going inside. But, that begs the question, what's thwarting you?"

  "A fair question, boy." It had been some time since anyone had taken such an active interest in him.

  She sighed. "I had thought it fair."

  "And it was, I insist on it." Gurken thought that he should be pleasant in return.

  "Well, please answer, what thwarts you from going inside?"

  "Ah. That. Well, it is locked. I have no key, nor wish to dull my axe which would require some amount of time sharpening to restore its keen edge. So I wait."

  "Well, I have an answer for you. Watch this."

  She turned the knob, and the door opened. Gurken was astonished!

  "You're a master lock pick!"

  "A what? Master loc - no I'm not." She raised her hands defensively in front of her.

  "Come to think of it, a master of locks is also a master of disguise," he said. The feeling of understanding gave way to that of betrayal, having been deceived by a promising new friend.

  "Um, what
? No, no no. It wasn't locked."

  Gurken, though having many admirable qualities, seemed unable or unwilling to hear something contrary to the way he thought things were.

  "You almost fooled me, master thief, but you weren't quite good enough to fool Gurken Stonebiter! You should surrender now, for you won't like what I will have to do if I were forced to apprehend you."

  "I'm not a thief! I'm a little girl!"

  "Please come this way, or you shall make me wroth. You won't like it when I'm wroth, for there is much bloodshed, butchery, and death." He paused a moment, putting a finger on his lip, then continued, "and not my death, I assure you. Other persons's deaths." A small crowd had gathered, watching the interaction between the unusual looking dwarf and the small girl. The crowd began to look a bit nervous.

  "My death?" She gulped.

  "Other people's." He shrugged. "Perhaps yours. You see I tend not to be particular."

  Her eyes widened and she put her hands up. "I surrender!" She didn't seem to want the death of others on her conscience.

  "Pardon me sir," came a voice from behind. "If I might interject."

  Gurken turned and looked into the midriff of a stranger, dressed in a fine sapphire blue silken robe, embroidered with numerous symbols along the hem. He smelled of books and ink. This was not going to go well.

  Gurken shook his head from side to side, then he casually inclined his head to look up at the man.

  "You sir, are interjecting my arrest."

  The man wrinkled his brow. "Perhaps I'm being a pedant, but…"

  "I'm sorry," said Gurken. "But, did you call yourself a pendant?"

  "A pedant - one who may, on occasion, have a tendency to overemphasize the rules of grammar and/or logic, that is, to be pedantic."

  Gurken just glared at him.

  "As I was saying, perhaps I'm being a pedant, but you didn't use the word 'interjecting' properly. However, I understand your meaning, and you are correct, I am interrupting you, but with good reason. You see, that girl is not guilty of the crime of which you accuse her. My name is Arthur Gimble. I'm a wizard of the tenth rank. I've been practicing the art of perception for a decade, so I'm well equipped to perceive your mistake."

  Gurken's eyebrows furrowed. He was perturbed, though not yet wroth.

  "Pendant wizard, I'm Gurken Stonebiter, of the dwarfen clan Stonebiter…"

  "Dwarven," said Arthur Gimble, sighing. "It's 'dwarven' clan."

  Though Gurken was practically unable or unwilling to hear things that conflicted with his viewpoint, Arthur Gimble managed to wedge a toe in the door to comprehension.

  "What exactly do you mean?"

  "The proper grammatical structure when using 'dwarf' as a proper descriptive adjective is to use the word 'dwarven'. Not 'dwarfen'."

  Upon hearing this, Gurken's face flushed with heat, a ringing echoed in his ears, the hair on the back of his neck stood erect, and his eyes engorged with blood, imparting a crimson haze to the world. Hagalaz, the dwarfen rune of catastrophe and short-term disappointment, glowed scarlet on the head of his axe.

  Gurken snarled, "I'm afraid I don't understand. Won't you please spell it out for me?"

  Arthur spoke obliviously, quite obliviously, with the regrettable ignorance of one having never been in a fight and unable to sense one approaching. Arthur Gimble, wizard of the tenth rank, took the dwarf quite literally and said, "Dwarven. D. W. A. R. V. Hgurk!"

  This last sound was not the wizard explaining how to spell 'dwarven', so much as a reaction to the axe, implanted between his toes and foot.

  "Hgaaack!" Being a wizard, one can only imagine that Arthur's first response to being assaulted would be the casting of a devastating spell, meant to cripple, maim, or at least render his foe incapacitated. Arthur found casting a spell, however, to be quite difficult with the flat of an axe slamming into the bottom of his chin, shattering his teeth, mandible, and the rest of his head below the nose.

  "Hmmmph." One can hardly blame poor Arthur for continuing to fail to unleash dreaded wizarding power, what with the butt of an axe shoving the wind out of him by being rudely thrust into his gut.

  "Roooaaarggghhh!" This was not a sound uttered by the wizard, but let us not think poorly of him for this. He found himself unable to speak, as he was somewhat hindered by the axe etching a deep red gash from his right shoulder through his left hip. No, this was the sound Gurken made as he plunged into his full berserker fury.

  If you've never borne witness to a dwarve... dwarfen templerager in the midst of a berserk fury… well, of course you haven't, you're reading this. They strike with complete abandon, making no attempt to defend while they hack and hew through friend and foe alike. They don't feel any pain, nor suffer from anything like judgment, morality, or sense of propriety until they calm down.

  When people tell of the carnage found the next day, they don't speak of a small dwarf and his young prisoner, but of a savage demon. No mortal could have left behind such a slaughter; so many hacked off limbs, disemboweled corpses, and decapitated bodies. The lone known survivor was a wizard of the tenth rank. He could hardly utter a coherent thought except "blood... pain... blood... so much... death. It's dwarfen, dear gods... mercy... it's dwarfen."

  And he died.

  Hours later, but before anyone had come to move the bodies, the little girl walked up to the gruesome scene. Alone. After a brief survey of the carnage, she walked over to Arthur's body.

  "Well, Arthur," said the little girl, looking wistfully into her coin pouch. "Having you mended is going to be costly."

  Episode One

  The Berserker and the Sweet Cake

  "Most likely, I'll find you dead in the morning," Gurken Stonebiter grinned at the thought. He spoke with the deep grumbling of a dwarf lost in pleasant thought. "Bones picked clean by the rats and small bitey insects."

  "Like ants?" asked Pellonia, smiling with the easy charm of a young girl.

  "Yes," Gurken replied, glowering at her. "Now be quiet. If you in somehow manage to cheat death, we'll set off for the Mines of Moog at first light. If you insist upon trying to escape, I shall become wroth. Remember, I've got an axe." He held his axe in one hand and pointed at it with the other, scowling.

  Pellonia couldn't help but smile. Gurken stowed the axe on his back, clamped shut the irons on her leg and stomped out of the dungeon in a huff.

  "I think I like him," Pellonia said. She was tall for a girl of twelve, though one wouldn't know it because she was sitting on the floor.

  "He's hardly the sympathetic sort," Arthur sniffed.

  "You don't like him?"

  "I tend not to like people that kill me. Mind you, I didn't know that until today, seeing as today was my first experience with dying and returning to life. I believe the priests called it resurrection. I didn't enjoy the experience and hope I never need to repeat it. No, I don't like him."

  "You do hold a grudge."

  Arthur's mouth hung open.

  "Well, Arthur," she said, changing the subject. "It's a fine bit of trouble you've gotten us into." She yanked on the chain to see if she could pull it from the wall.

  "Me? I was dead! You're the one that chose to go back to the temple of Durstin." Arthur reconsidered his logic. "Thank you for that, by the way. I'm very much obliged."

  "It's Dwarven, not Dwarfen," Pellonia sing songed in her best Arthur Gimble, wizard of the tenth rank impression. It wasn't very good but what it lacked in accuracy it made up for in bass and mockery. "D. W. A. R. Hgurk!" She struck at her head with one hand, as if swinging an axe, then put both of her hands around her neck, pretending to choke herself, and fell over, legs jutting up in the air. She twitched a few times for effect.

  "Yes. Well. Fine, quite right then," Arthur somehow managed to look dignified, even though he was suspended upside down against the wall, manacles hanging him up by his ankles.

  "A geas," Pellonia said, changing the subject yet again. She climbed to her feet and fiddled with the manacles. "I can't be
lieve they placed us under a geas.

  "Under a what?" Arthur asked, looking up but seeing no sign of water fowl.

  "A geese," Pellonia continued. "It just doesn't seem right. Why 'mystically compel' us to complete their dumb quest? I returned their stupid holy artifact." Pellonia grumbled, "It's not fair, they just assumed we stole it."

  "Ah, it's pronounced geas. And you did steal it," said Arthur, waving a hand towards her. "Hence, geas. Why did you return it, anyway?"

  She muttered under her breath.

  "Pardon?" said Arthur, "but I couldn't hear you."

  "I saaaiiid, 'They said they needed it to mend you. They said couldn't mend anyone without it.'"

  "I'm really quite flabbergasted; that's rather companionable of you."

  "Stuff it, Arthur."

  Gurken arrived the next morning, humming a light-hearted dwarfen tune. He walked up to the dungeon; it was a small building hewn from large rocks, and had a rather rough finish. Inside was but the one room, which at various times held gardening tools, mundane temple supplies such as paper and spare vestments, or, as it does presently, prisoners. It was the contents, then, not the configuration of the structure that determined its classification. And so, the building was, in turn, a gardening shed, a storage room, and, just now, a dungeon.

  Gurken left his chainmail armor behind, in favor of a somewhat less cumbersome, though to be sure, more uncomfortable and prone to chaff, oiled leather armor he favored for travel. He still wore his dented metal cap and his beard was still caked with an earthy red clay. He carried a traveling pack, within which were heavily salted fish, a shovel, and three sleep sacks. The shopkeeper from which he had purchased the sleep sacks had assured him that they would provide his questing party some layer of protection from rain, uncomfortable rocks, and insects which had a propensity to bite in places that one ought not be bit.

  Gurken walked towards the dungeon's entrance and, rather pleased at the prospect of adventure, began to narrate the start of the quest. He had practiced many times since the priests of Durstin told him take the treacherous temple thieves and fetch the Orb of Seeza… The Orb of Sizank… Such and such, doesn't matter. The point was it had fallen into the hands of evildoers and that the three of them were to reclaim the orb.