Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  Come on, axe. We've got to do this in one clean slice.

  A sudden snort in Cooper's snoring nearly caused Tim to drop the axe and piss himself, but he held it together.

  Holding the axe high over Cooper's right leg, he visualized its downward arc, exactly where the center of the blade would slice through the thinnest part of Cooper's shin just above the ankle.

  Grow a dick for one second, and it will all be over.

  Tim took a deep breath, then swung the axe down as hard as he could, straight down into the sand. It was the mother of all Natural 1s. The whiff of all whiffs. He'd missed so badly that Cooper didn't even fucking stir. Shaking his head and trembling, he picked up the axe again, thankful that no one had been around to see how badly he'd –

  What the fuck?

  Why was there blood on the axe. He looked down at Cooper's leg again. It was completely untouched. But that only left...

  “FUUUUUCK!” he tried to scream, but it came out as an incoherent rat noise. The front half of his own left foot, returning to its halfling form but still nestled snugly in the front half of his left Boot of Teleportation, sat about a quarter inch away from the rest of him. Small green vines snaked their way out of the blood pouring from his stump and twined up his right leg. He jerked himself free of them and fell back on his ass. Then he changed back into his halfling form so he could properly express his feelings. “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!”

  “Hey!” snarled Cooper. “I'm trying to fucking sleep. Show a little goddamn – Tim?”

  Tim took off the rest of the boot and tried to keep his bleeding stump out of the sand. He could feel it now. It was a dull throbbing pain. Not excruciating, but very much present. “Son of a... FUCK!”

  “Dude, are you okay?”

  “No, I'm not fucking okay!” Tim snapped back, hugging his thigh as hard as he could against his chest to try to limit the blood flow. “Do I fucking look okay?”

  “Well, no,” said Cooper a little impatiently. “That's why I asked.”

  “I chopped my goddamn foot off!”

  “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  “Will you stop asking me stupid questions and help me? Rip off my sleeve and tie a tourniquet around my ankle or something. Hurry up before I bleed to death!”

  Cooper yawned. “I've got a better idea.”

  “No you don't!” cried Tim. “You're a fucking moron!”

  “You're clearly in a lot of pain right now, so I'm going to let that slide.” Cooper picked up his axe where Tim had dropped it.

  “Jesus, Cooper! I'm sorry. I didn't mean it!”

  “Nabi,” said Cooper, clearly addressing his axe. “My friend had an accident. Can you heal him?”

  Tim started to ask Cooper what the fuck he was talking about, but Cooper held up a finger to shut him up.

  Cooper stared at the axe for a moment, then turned to Tim. “Nabi says she cut your foot off.”

  “What the fuck, man? Is this a guns don't kill people thing? Obviously I didn't fucking karate chop my own fucking foot off. I did it via the axe. Also, I wish you'd stop talking to that thing. You're starting to freak me the fuck out.”

  Cooper frowned. “She says you were trying to cut my foot off.”

  “Well then she's a fucking liar!” Tim didn't appreciate what kind of mind games Cooper was trying to pull on him, but he was way out of his league.

  “Nabi doesn't lie,” said Cooper. “She's a paladin.”

  “Good for her. Halle–fucking–lujah!” The pain in Tim's foot was growing more intense now. His initial shock was fading. “Now can you please tie off my leg? I can't hold on much longer, and this desert sand will suck me dry.”

  “Nabi says –”

  “COOPER!” cried Tim. “I don't give a fuck what Knobby says! I am BLEEDING. TO. DEATH!”

  Cooper stared down stoically at Tim for a moment, then cleared his throat and spat a brown glob of phlegm on the sand. “Nabi says she'll heal you if you tell the truth.”

  So that's the game he was playing at. The big dumb motherfucker was stonewalling him for a confession. Some best friend. That's fine. He'd get what was coming to him sooner or later, just like Dave. Some day, after he'd made examples out of enough backstabbing assholes, the consequences for fucking with Tim would be known far and wide enough to prevent this sort of thing. But until he had the right leverage, he would play Cooper's game.

  “Fine,” he said. “I was trying to cut your foot off. Is that what you want to hear? Can you tie a goddamn tourniquet now?”

  Cooper nodded to his axe, then placed the pointed tip of it against Tim's chest, which made Tim question the wisdom of the insincere passive-aggressive nature of his confession. Damn his short temper. It would have been far more satisfying to feign sincerity now, apologize, then fuck him over good when he was least – “FUUUUCK!”

  Tim's foot wound sizzled, bubbled, and foamed. The pain now was so intense that it made the pain of cutting it off feel like an erotic foot massage from the smoking hot Indian girl who worked at the Taco Bell on Highway 90. It was like the wound was being cauterized in battery acid.

  Finally, it ended. Tim was still alive, and his foot stump was covered in fresh hairless skin.

  “What... the fuck... was that?” panted Tim, barely managing to keep himself from passing out.

  Cooper removed his axe from Tim's chest. “Nabi says healing evil creatures doesn't go as smoothly as healing good ones. It was her first time trying.” He looked at Tim's stump. “Looks like it worked, though.”

  “She's real?” said Tim, his eyelids getting heavy. “Nabi?”

  Cooper nodded. “Why did you try to cut my foot off?”

  Tim closed his eyes, welcoming the total darkness. “I didn't want you to leave me.” He gave in to his exhaustion, letting himself fall into a much-needed sleep and half-hoping that Cooper and Nabi would put a quick and painless end to his miserable life. It was more than he deserved.

  Chapter 41

  On the way back to the beach, Tony the Elf walked ahead with Butterbean and Dave, while Katherine hung back with Tanner as he stepped carefully around the sprouts.

  A question weighed heavy on Katherine's mind, which she'd hoped to ask Tanner in the mine while the fire burned slowly above them. She hadn't expected Tony the Elf to douse the logs in enough lamp oil to bathe an elephant in.

  “Why did you stay with us?” she blurted out.

  “You saved my life,” said Tanner. “I owe you.”

  Katherine was annoyed by the way he chose to dodge the question. “You don't owe me shit. I'm part of the reason you got killed in the first place, and you and I both know I thought I was rescuing my brother. Besides, I was talking about before that. Back at the Whore's Head Inn, when they kicked out Tim. I could understand why you wouldn't want to hang out there, but why stick with us? Surely you had your own reasons for being in Cardinia.”

  “I was there to be executed.”

  Katherine hadn't expected that. “Okay, well I can see how you might have wanted to bail on that plan. But you must have had better things to do with your life than hang out with me and Tim while we worked a shitty tavern job.”

  “I find you fascinating.”

  Katherine hadn't expected that either, though she'd kind of been hoping for something along those lines.

  “Oh?”

  “Not you specifically,” said Tanner, then followed it up before Katherine had time to get annoyed again. “I mean not just you specifically. Certainly I find you fascinating. But I am also fascinated by the dynamic you share with the rest of these people who claim to come from your strange world.”

  “It's not just a claim.”

  “I believe you. Your mannerisms, your peculiar turns of phrase, your creative uses of the word fuck. I have wandered about this world quite a bit, and I can truly say I've never been to a place where you would be viewed as normal.”

  Katherine wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a compliment. “Thank you?”

&
nbsp; “That is what fascinates me about you. I, too, am viewed as an outcast wherever I go. I long to hear more about where you come from. If possible, I would perhaps even like to visit there some day.”

  “Where I come from isn't as fascinating as you might think,” said Katherine, wondering where she'd take him if they ever visited Mississippi again. Would he be into bowling?

  The beach they returned to was spectacularly different from the beach they'd left that morning. It looked like the beginning of a functional village. Fritz had a long trench full of fire, topped with woven wood grills. He was also overseeing several men as they dug a trench from the sea to a car-sized pit in the sand at the far end of the beach. In spite of Katherine's use of the Purify Food and Water spell, he had apparently not given up on his plan to trap live fish. Good on him.

  There was another pit not very far from it which Katherine couldn't immediately guess any function for. Five men were jumping up and down in it, though none of them seemed to be enjoying themselves in the least little bit.

  But perhaps the most impressive project under construction was the framework for a long building. Stuart, the monk who had accompanied Tim and the others when they came to “rescue” Katherine by murdering the man who'd been providing for her, was directing Rhonda and a group of her fellow wizards as they collectively lifted a beam via shared Telekinesis while two halflings waited to tie it into place.

  “What do you think?” said Frank, beaming at Katherine from under the brim of her captain's hat as she approached.

  “How did you...” It suddenly occurred to Katherine that the ends of the beams on the building under construction were sawed off at the ends. Had the trench diggers been using shovels? She turned back to them to confirm that they were. “Where the fuck did you get all these tools?”

  “Fritz gets the credit for that. He figured that it made sense for a ship to have a supply of tools on board, in case they suffered damage at sea and needed to make some on-the-fly repairs until they reached a port. He rowed back to the ship and found a supply closet below deck.”

  “I really should have done a more thorough inspection once I became captain. Did he find anything else?”

  Frank shrugged. “Not much. A few dead rats. A couple of live ones.”

  Katherine considered setting the live rats loose on the island to help restore the lost fauna, then decided an unchecked population of inbred rats might not be the best way to kick things off. She pointed to the building. “What's that supposed to be? A town hall?”

  “It's going to be a shelter we can all sleep under.” Frank grinned. “And, if need be, we can set it on fire to signal a passing ship.”

  Tony the Elf laughed. “I know I'll sleep better knowing I'm in a building that was designed to burst into flames at a moment's notice.”

  “What are you planning to use for a roof?” asked Katherine. There weren't any usable leaves on the island. And even with a hand saw or two, cutting these logs into planks would be a huge pain in the ass.

  Frank frowned. “Take a walk with me, Katherine.”

  Katherine nodded to Tanner and Tony the Elf, who politely feigned interest in Fritz's ditch-digging progress while she joined Frank for a stroll on the beach.

  “What's up?”

  “I wonder if you'd take some leadership advice from a little old gnome who's not always been able to rise to the challenge.”

  Katherine laughed. “Are you fucking kidding me? I'll take any advice I can get.”

  “As a child, did you ever have a substitute teacher who just handed out pointless worksheets to keep you busy until the bell rang?”

  “I went to school in Mississippi. A number of my regular teachers did that.”

  Frank smiled sadly as he stared down at the wet sand. “Sometimes, that's what being in a position of responsibility for others feels like. However earnestly you go into it wanting to see them thrive, wanting to feel like you've made a significant difference in their lives, reality has a way of wearing you down over time. Eventually, you start handing out word search puzzles and pat yourself on the back for making it through another day without anyone dying.”

  They continued to walk in silence for a moment while Katherine thought about Frank's words. His resigned tone didn't match the prideful look on his face a few minutes ago when he was showing off all they'd accomplished. It was like he saw that she finally recognized him as a fraud, except she hadn't. At least, not yet. At the risk of highlighting her own ignorance, she pressed him to continue.

  “Is this related to the roof on the shelter you're building?”

  Frank let out a shallow laugh. “The shelter is the word search puzzle. If they figure out a way to make a roof, great. If not, who cares? It's not like we're going to die of exposure out here. The same goes for Fritz's fish farm. You've already demonstrated that you can feed us indefinitely with all these dead fish on the beach. But if digging trenches keeps their minds distracted from the likelihood that nobody is ever going to show up on this island with one of those dice, I'm more than happy to let them dig.”

  Katherine tried to lighten Frank's mood with a tangentially related question. “What was going on in that other pit? The one people were jumping up and down in.”

  “That was Rhonda's idea. They're mushing up dead fish for you to use as fertilizer.”

  Katherine grinned. “That's really thoughtful.”

  “Who knows?” said Frank. “Maybe we'll still be here when those sprouts grow into trees, and we can use the leaves to finish our roof.”

  “You're really bringing me down, Frank. What's got you all down in the dumps?”

  “I've seen too many failures. Every time I let myself believe that we might be able to pull ahead, we get dragged back even further. Your brother went off the rails, Dave tried to kill me, and now we've got five Mordreds out there growing more and more powerful every day.” Frank bent over and scooped up a handful of sand. “Look at this. Every single grain of this sand was made by wave after wave pulverizing rocks and shells over time. That's reality.” He tossed the sand back on the ground and wiped what was left onto his pants.

  “Oh please,” said Katherine. “Spare me your melancholy Mr. Miagi bullshit. First of all, we don't have five Mordreds getting more and more powerful every day. At worst, we have four, because number five is in our custody, tied to a goddamn chair two hundred yards away with a bag of shit on his head. Secondly, we have good people out there hunting down those dice. Cooper's loyal and fearless. Stacy may be a big bitch, but she's proven herself capable. Julian has proven himself to be resourceful. Chaz is... with Julian. And we've all gotten to where we are because we didn't sit on our asses and feel sorry for ourselves.” She pointed to the crew on the beach. “Think about what they might have accomplished by now if you hadn't been handing out fucking word search puzzles at the Whore's Head.”

  Frank glared at her. “I was keeping them alive!”

  “For what?” Katherine regretted saying that as soon as the words left her lips. “I'm sorry, Frank. I didn't mean that. I know you did what you felt was best for your people. And maybe it was the right decision under the circumstances. But it's so frustrating to hear you blathering all this gloom and doom when we're as close to winning as we've ever been.”

  Frank opened his mouth to speak, but Katherine cut him off.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Except for the time when Tim slit Mordred's throat. Let's move on, shall we?”

  Frank nodded.

  “You're acting like we're forty-seven points down at the end of the fourth quarter,” Katherine continued. “But that's not how I see it.”

  Frank looked up at her. “How do you see it?”

  “We're only at halftime, and it's still anybody's game.”

  “Maybe you're right,” said Frank. He took off Katherine's captain hat and held it up to her. “You wear this. It fits you better.”

  Chapter 42

  “Who's that fine hunk of man meat?” asked Denise, who had joined
Jay on the platform below. She was gazing thirstily at the dwarf standing at the head of the approaching longship. With his Viking-esque crown, his determined expression, and his unconventional style of dwarven facial hair, he was an imposing figure. A boatload of people like him might have been cause for concern. His crew, however, were distinctly less impressive. Mostly humans, goblins, and half-elves, they looked ill-suited to the rigors of sea life. Some of their arms were as thin as the oars they rowed with, while others were plump enough to suggest they weren't accustomed to this much exercise.

  Captain Longfellow grimaced down at Denise, then cleared his throat to address his approaching counterpart.

  “Salty winds, foes or friends?”

  Randy supposed that was a standard nautical greeting in this world.

  The dwarf squinted through the rain at Captain Longfellow, then raised his left hand. “HO!”

  Randy didn't know what to make of that, but it didn't seem like a very polite response.

  The rowers pulled their oars out of the water and held them straight up.

  “I be Longfellow of the Maiden's Voyage,” said Captain Longfellow.

  “I am Rothgar, son of Rothgar,” said the dwarf on the other boat. “Emissary of the Illustrious Jordan Knight, Liberator of Slaves, Bringer of Peace, Father of Freedom, finest bard ever to grace this unworthy world with his song.”

  “'Twould appear that ye have lost yer way.”

  “We travel where our master instructs us. We act as his eyes and ears.” The dwarf narrowed his eyes at Captain Longfellow. “And if need be, his fist.”

  “That vessel be not intended for the high seas, cursed fool! It be a miracle ye made it this far. One wave of a respectable size is like to capsize that little horse trough ye be paddling in. Take a rope and let us tow ye back to the mainland.”