Critical Failures VII

by Robert Bevan

  Fazul raised his bottle joyfully. “We are on Nazere!”

  All the gasps and glares suddenly directed at Fazul made it impossible to deny his claim.

  “Would you please shut the fuck up for five minutes?” Chaz whispered to him.

  Mordred chuckled weakly. “Nazere? That's impossible.” The scowl on his face as he looked around again suggested that he knew it was true. “Where's all the ice and snow? What happened to my Ice Queen?”

  “We sent that frosty bitch to warm herself up on Satan's cock,” said Denise.

  “You did what?” Mordred's confused expression turned to rage. He pointed a finger at Denise's feet, causing saplings to grow into green and purple vines that wrapped around her arms and legs. “I had plans for her!”

  While Mordred was distracted with Denise, Tony the Elf scooted close enough to Chaz and Julian to whisper.

  “If Mordred knocked Katherine out or tied her up or something, all this rain is going to drown her down there. I'm going to back away and try to sneak into the mine behind Mordred. I need you to keep him facing this way.”

  Chaz and Julian nodded, then Tony the Elf backed away and ducked down. Against his better instincts, Chaz couldn't resist glancing back. Tony the Elf had disappeared. That was some good rangering.

  “What are you doing, Mordred?” asked Frank in a tired tone. “That was a great trick with the vines, but we have you vastly outnumbered. Why not just give up quietly, and we'll try to make things more comfortable for you in the future.”

  Mordred grinned at him. “Your offer is most generous, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to pass.”

  Frank sighed. “What's the alternative? You can't possibly take us – NO!”

  Mordred turned around just in time to catch Tanner lunging at him from behind. Tanner's dagger, which would have skewered Mordred's left kidney, instead plunged into his belly. A painful wound to be sure, but not likely a fatal one.

  Grabbing Tanner by the throat with both hands, Mordred squeezed until Tanner's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head and he finally let go of the dagger. Tanner squirmed, kicked, and tried to pull Mordred's hands away, but Mordred was easily the more powerful of the two of them.

  “Be... still!” Mordred groaned as they struggled, and Tanner stopped moving. He released his hold on Tanner's throat, letting his limp body splat face-down in the mud, then winced as he yanked the dagger from his gut.

  “He was acting on his own,” said Frank. “The rest of us still want to resolve this peacefully.” He took a step forward and displayed his empty hands. “Isn't that right?” He got a few nods in response, but most of the crowd didn't even seem to be paying attention to him. Their faces were difficult to read. Some looked dumbfounded, like they couldn't believe they had gone so far just to surrender now. Others seemed more annoyed or frustrated, like they knew they could take this hairy bastard if they all went at him together, but they knew that trying to lead that kind of charge would only see them face-down in the mud next to Tanner.

  “My blood has been shed!” shouted Mordred, raising an open hand that dripped with blood from his belly wound. “The time for peaceful resolution has passed!” He planted a plump dwarven foot on Tanner's back, then pulled his head up by the hair.

  “Tanner!” cried Randy. He set Fatty on the ground, then ran at Mordred, drawing his sword.

  Mordred flicked Tanner's dagger at him, and swiftly growing vines grabbed Randy by the ankles and suspended him upside down. Randy tried to take a swing at them, but other vines caught hold of his wrists.

  Satisfied that Randy was secure, Mordred unceremoniously sliced Tanner's throat from one side to the other, dropped his face in the mud, and spat on his corpse as his blood pooled out to mingle with the rainwater.

  Several people in the Whore's Head crowd screamed, but not one of them besides Randy had done anything to stop him. Chaz hadn't either, of course. Tanner was a cool enough guy, but he was an NPC. Besides, everything had happened too quickly for him to have made any difference.

  “Jesus, Mordred!” cried Frank.

  Mordred caught his breath and grinned, in spite of the obvious pain of his dagger wound. “I appreciate the heads up, Frank.”

  Frank wiped the rainwater from his face and frowned, no doubt feeling the burn from more than one pair of eyes judging him for throwing Tanner under the bus. “You know we need you alive.” That was clearly meant for anyone who was judging him as much as it was for Mordred. “No more killing.” He took a tentative step forward, glancing side to side to see if others were following him. A few were. “It's over, Mordred.”

  “Oh Frank,” said Mordred with mock sympathy. “I don't believe you understand how powerful I've become. This is far from over. We're only beginning.” He cocked his arm back like he was about to cast a spell at them, but Fazul interrupted with a shriek.

  “Look!” He was pointing at Tony the Elf, approaching the hole behind Mordred. “Another one!”

  Goddammit, Fazul.

  “Horse!” Julian whispered, and a large white horse appeared behind Mordred, blocking his line of sight to Tony the Elf. “That's right, Fazul,” he said loud enough for Mordred to hear. “Another horse.” He chuckled to himself. “This guy sure does love horses.”

  Fazul gawked at Julian like he was the drunk one. “No. I was talking about the approaching elf.”

  Mordred rolled his eyes and sighed at Julian, then plunged Tanner's dagger into the horse's throat. It sprayed pink mist on Mordred, which coalesced into a coating of red blood on Mordred's pale face, chest, and arm. That lasted only a few seconds, then the horse winked out of existence as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving Tony the Elf exposed on the other side of the hole.

  “Goddammit, Fazul!” said Chaz and Julian.

  “What?” said Fazul. “I thought we were trying to save the naked dwarf.”

  Mordred cocked back his arm to cast a spell at Tony the Elf but took four arrows and a Magic Missile in the back before he could get it off.

  The elves who'd been ready to fire on Chaz and Julian when they stepped out of the woods, nocked second arrows, and took aim at Mordred, who was on his knees, howling in pain. Rhonda likewise had another Magic Missile hovering beside her, ready to blast him. Chaz had to hand it to them, the Whore's Head crowd looked after their own.

  “Hold your fire!” said Frank. “Come on, Mordred! Don't make us finish the job. Put down the dagger and surrender, and we'll heal you. Nobody wants to hurt anybody. We all just want to go home.”

  Mordred dropped the dagger, and Frank breathed a sigh of relief. But Chaz had an uneasy feeling as Mordred's howls of pain slowly morphed into maniacal laughter.

  Mordred turned around and thrust both hands at his attackers. Frank, Rhonda, all four elven archers, and five or six other people in their vicinity were constrained in vines before anyone could fire a shot. Rhonda, at least, was able to release her Magic Missile, which caught Mordred in the chest.

  It left a lemon-sized scorch on his horse-blood-slathered skin but didn't put him down.

  Tony the Elf made a break for the hole, but Mordred had apparently been anticipating that. A single vine reached out, grabbed him around one ankle, and hoisted him into the air.

  “Come on, Mordred!” said Tony the Elf. “I wasn't even going after you. Katherine's going to drown down there if I don't rescue her!”

  “Good!” Mordred snapped back. “I look forward to seeing her brother's face when he finds out.” He winced as he got to his feet. “Let that be a lesson to the rest of you. You are alive right now because I allow you to live. But a man only has so much patience. He can only take but so much abuse before someone needs to be made an example of. You can think of Katherine's death as a sacrifice if you like. If it keeps you from trying anything stupid, it might very well save your life.”

  “Bullshit!” Chaz shouted before he could stop himself. Oh well, no point in stopping there. “What kind of example is that? All you're showing us is th
at you don't have the balls to kill anyone directly.”

  Mordred laughed and gestured down at Tanner's dead body. “What do you call that?”

  “He's an NPC, a toy in your sandbox. And letting Katherine drown where you can't see her is about as ruthless as changing the channel when ads for those starving kids in Africa comes on. Sure, people might die because you don't give a shit, but it's hardly a measure of the stones in your sack.”

  “So you're saying you'd be more impressed if I took a more proactive role in her demise,” said Mordred.

  “That's right. Otherwise, we see you for what you are. A fat, sniveling coward.”

  “How is this helping?” Julian whispered.

  Chaz didn't have an answer for that. If Mordred went down into the mine to bring Katherine back up, the rest of them might have time to... That's as far ahead as he was currently able to think. He was counting on other people to pick up some of the slack.

  “I suppose I can't have my subjects think me a coward,” said Mordred. “How's this for proactive?” He stomped hard on the ground with his left foot, causing the muddy earth to split open, forming a small crevasse that stretched from the hole he was standing at the edge of past Chaz and Julian and into the woods behind them. It was a powerful a display of his control over nature, but Chaz wasn't sure what it was meant to accomplish... until he heard the rush of water approaching from behind him.

  If Chaz's goal was to buy Katherine more time, he'd just fucked it up severely. He had a pretty good idea of how Frank must have felt a few minutes ago with all those stares burning into him. There was only one thing left to do. Double down on black and give the wheel one more spin.

  “That's not proactive at all,” he said to Mordred. “It's just more efficient cowardice. It's ripping the Band-Aid off so you don't have to stomach the pain for as long. Somehow, you've managed to make yourself look like even more of a pussy.”

  “Dude,” whispered Julian more intensely. “I'm not sure what you're going for here, but –”

  “If you want to set an example,” Chaz continued, “you bring her up here and do her like you did Tanner.”

  “CHAZ!” Julian was no longer whispering.

  Mordred smiled at Chaz. “How about I meet you in the middle. We'll keep Katherine where she is, but if no one tells me where my dice are in the next five minutes, I'll do you like I did Tanner. Will that sufficiently demonstrate the stones in my sack?”

  Shit.

  That was a curve ball that Chaz hadn't been expecting. “Not really. I'm just a bard. Katherine's a lot tougher than me.” The words pouring out of his mouth were like diarrhea of lameness.

  “Everyone calm yourselves!” Fazul slurred. “Cease this senseless bickering at once. The solution here is an obvious one!”

  All eyes turned to him. Even Mordred was curious enough to entertain a listen.

  A horrifying thought suddenly occurred to Chaz, but before he could do anything, Fazul continued.

  “Julian has your die in his pants.”

  “GODDAMMIT, FAZUL!” said Chaz and Julian.

  “Stop yelling at me!” Fazul shouted at Chaz. “He was going to kill you. I have an investment to protect!”

  “Is it true?” asked Mordred, staring at Julian with hungry eyes. “Do you have my dice?”

  “No,” Julian said unconvincingly. “Of course not.”

  “Don't lie to your old friend, Mordred.” He waved his hands at Julian. “Show me.”

  Julian's head wobbled like he'd just woken up from a dream, then he reached into his pants. “Okay.” He pulled out the shiny black die.

  There was another wave of gasps from the crowd. Several people were shouting for Julian to run. Others, who recognized that Julian must be under some kind of spell, shouted for Chaz to tackle him.

  Chaz tried to grab Julian's wrist, but he was yanked off his feet by a vine. Like Tony the Elf, he was now suspended upside-down by one foot.

  “Bring it to me, friend,” said Mordred. “It's mine, after all.”

  Julian nodded. “That's true.” He looked up at Chaz. “I'm sorry, but this doesn't belong to us. We were wrong to take it.”

  “Are you fucking crazy?” Chaz shouted back at him. He knew Julian wasn't crazy. He was under a mind-control spell. But he couldn't be completely under it. As shitty as his argument was for returning the die to Mordred, he was at least trying to rationalize it. Maybe a strong enough counter-argument could make him – No, fuck that. A counter-spell!

  His hands were still free, and he was still holding on to his lute. He'd never played while upside-down before, but he'd played while drunk quite a number of times. How different could it be?

  While trying to think up some appropriate lyrics, he strummed his lute strings until he found a tune he liked.

  I hate to alarm you,

  But Mordred has charmed you.

  Julian stopped walking toward Mordred and turned back to Chaz. “No. Mordred's my friend. He wouldn't do that.”

  “That's right, Julian,” said Mordred. “I've always liked you best. Remember how I coached you along when you first got here?”

  Julian nodded. “I remember that. He was kind to me, even after we all treated him like crap. And then I had the nerve to steal his dice. What was I thinking?”

  Ravenus peeked out from under Julian's clothes. “Are you quite sure, sir? I don't pretend to understand the nature of these dice, but we've invested a significant amount of energy thus far to prevent this from happening.”

  “Listen to Ravenus!” shouted Frank. “Ravenus, stop him! He's acting under Mordred's control!”

  Julian shook his head like he was trying to get the first bit of ketchup out of it. “NO!” He frowned down at Ravenus. “What we did was wrong. Mordred's a good guy. We were jerks to him.” He turned back to Mordred and started walking again.

  Chaz had planted a small seed of doubt in his mind. He needed to continue the song.

  You're under his spell.

  He cast and you fell

  Short of what you needed to roll in order to keep him from being able to harm you.

  Fuck, that was terrible.

  Julian turned around again, but this time meeting Chaz's gaze with a harsh glare. “You're the one trying to cast a spell on me! You and your bard magic. I've had this sort of magic cast on me before. I almost lapped up a lion-man's jizz, so I know what it feels like.” He scowled hard at Chaz. “You might have had me if not for that last horrible lyric.” After giving Chaz the finger, he started closing the distance between himself and a very smug-looking Mordred.

  Last chance. Come on, Chaz. Make this one count.

  I'm trying to warn you.

  He's mentally disarmed you.

  Can't you see that he's pissed?

  If you fail to resist,

  We'll all buy the farm, Ju.

  “Jesus Christ!” said Denise. “What the fuck was that, you antisemitic prick?”

  “What?” Chaz replayed that last line in his head. “No! That was supposed to be short for Julian. I needed a rhyme!”

  Julian didn't bother turning around this time as he gave Chaz the finger again and continued walking toward Mordred.

  “That's it, dear Julian,” said Mordred, beckoning him closer. “Hand over the die, and I'll remember this when I return to my – AAAAAHHHHHH!” He bent backward in pain as a crossbow bolt appeared suddenly in his belly. He glared at Chaz, as that's the direction the bolt had come from, but Chaz was still holding his lute. All he could offer by way of explanation was a shrug.

  A few more bolts and arrows flew out of the woods, three of which hit Julian, dropping him about ten feet away from Mordred.

  “Master!” Ravenus cried. “Someone help him!”

  Wild barbaric shouting rang out from behind Chaz, the same direction the arrows had just come from. When he managed to turn around a little, he saw a band of screaming, tattooed, half-naked men brandishing short swords, scimitars, rapiers, and hand axes and running his way.<
br />
  “Who the hell are these people?” demanded Mordred, scowling and sounding more annoyed than frightened.

  They might have had more luck if they'd stayed hidden and fired from behind the trees; Mordred had them all tangled in vines with a few waves of his hands.

  “That's the crew from the ship that attacked us last night,” said Randy.

  Fritz gasped. “That means the elemental won't be far behind.”

  “Their captain wants his sword,” said Tony the Elf, trying to reason with Mordred. “If you go down and get her, he'll probably let you live.”

  Mordred laughed. “What need have I to fear some soggy old ship's captain? I created him. It is he who should fear – Holy shit!” He gawked at something Chaz couldn't see.

  Before Chaz could muster the energy to swing himself around again, he noticed a puddle of water spreading directly below him, headed for the clearing. It was as if the very earth had pissed itself in fear of whatever Mordred was staring at.

  Fazul stared down at the water rushing past his feet, then up at whatever was causing it, and finally at Chaz. “Good luck, friend.” He muttered an incantation and disappeared.

  “Goddammit,” said Chaz. He wriggled violently and swung himself around to find a gargantuan mass of water flowing toward him. It was like a sentient tidal wave... with arms... and kind of a face... and a little guy riding on its shoulder? “What the fuck is that?”

  The vine holding him up wouldn't allow him to remain facing the wave for more than a second. Swinging back around, he saw Mordred frantically searching Julian's dead or unconscious body.

  “Where is it?” he cried. He clawed his fingers through the mud near Julian's hand that had been holding the die but didn't turn anything up.