Why I Can't Have Nice Kings

by Matthew Helbig

  “That wasn’t what I meant,” I said.

  “You said The One wants the war to end,” the king said. “So, we’re going to end it with our blades.”

  “Your Majesty, I hate to interrupt, but my group has completed our mission to deliver the Holy Paddle,” Wolf said. “We would like to receive our payment and leave.”

  The king continued to stare at the paddle. “Why don’t you stay through the battle? The Holiest Speaker seems fond of you, and I would like a little extra protection. If you agree, I will pay triple the usual day’s fee. Do you accept?”

  “Of course!” Cat said. “I’ve always wanted to see a battle.”

  Wolf looked like he wanted to hit him, but he must have been too afraid to interrupt a king.

  The king finally pulled his gaze from the paddle, not that I could blame him; it was really shiny. “Verix, bring our guests to the command area. The army needs to see our new prophet. Holiest Speaker, if you could prepare something, I’m sure they could use the inspiration.”

  “I can think of a finger I want everyone to see.”

  Free Boob Jobs and Action Figures for All

  King Berin gathered all of his generals and advisors, as well as me and the Trio, on a large platform at the back of the assembled army. Marshal Scritz stared daggers at me. I knew that look; I must have ruined his childhood dream of becoming a prophet. I’d had the same look when they told me that no colleges offered a degree in ninja turtling. The Holy Archon was not present, as this war was technically a conflict of interest for him, being between two groups of followers of The One, though he clearly favored the Garandians.

  After he was sure everyone was settled, the king silenced the crowd with a gesture. It must be great to have the power and respect to accomplish that. The last time I had attempted it, the only thing it had accomplished was getting a lot of food thrown at me. The yogurt that rolled down my pants was surprisingly soothing.

  King Berin projected with the practiced voice of a master speaker. “It brings me great pride to see my loyal countrymen doing their duty to defend our honor in this war. I know that many of your friends and loyal companions have paid the ultimate price in protecting this land from the ungrateful and cowardly rebels. The cost has been high, and your hardships have not been forgotten by me or any of my retainers.”

  He went on, “I know that this army before me has everything it needs in the brave hearts of you men and women to drive the rebels into the grave so that we can all go home and enjoy the peace and prosperity that is the right of every man, woman, and child in the great Garandian Empire.”

  The king paused then, probably expecting a round of boisterous applause, but he found himself staring into the eyes of a bewildered and somewhat bored crowd. After a few confused looks at his advisors, he continued. “You’re probably all unsure of what may happen in the upcoming battle. You may even be convinced that only defeat lies ahead of you, but I have two things that will show you beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Almighty himself believes in victory for your Garandia.”

  That last part seemed to pique the interest of the crowd. Most of them were now actually looking up instead of at their feet.

  “My loyal subjects have uncovered two holy things that were thought lost, the first of which is the very paddle used to slay our Holy Lord by his wife, Jaenia, in her ultimate betrayal. We have in front of us the legendary Padalus Rexiconum!”

  The crowd gasped as one. If you’ve never heard an entire crowd gasp at the same time, it’s a thing of wonder After the initial shock had worn off, most of the crowd seemed to regrow their looks of defeat. The king was very confused by this reaction. He had clearly thought this revelation would immediately inspire his soldiers to charge ferociously into the Sculander army and drive it into the sea or to some final resting place. He probably hadn’t even expected to need me.

  Once his confusion had worn off, the king raised his hand, and again the crowd stared with rapt attention. I really wanted to learn how he did that. Think of the things you could do with a power like that. Actually, the only things I can think of are following the silence with a brief pause, staring seriously into the eyes of the crowd, and saying, “Underwear. That is all.” Thoughts like that are probably why I’ll never be able to get a crowd to listen to me.

  “With the Padalus Rexiconum to inspire us, our army can easily crush the pathetic rebel army before us. But that is not the only thing we have to show our enemy that The One favors us above all others. Just moments ago, the Holy Archon himself verified the discovery of a new holy prophet, and he serves not the rebels—not the Lithians—or even the holy people of Paruxia. He serves the Garandian Empire, your Ga-ran-di-an Empire!”

  The crowd seemed to perk up a bit, but no one seemed to be particularly inspired by that, except for a guy in front who was clapping like an idiot. Cat was behind me, so it wasn’t him. I squinted real hard, and I swear it was Chris, the same person I see at all my conventions, who is just a bit too eager to meet me. Verix pushed me forward to stand right next to the king.

  King Berin whispered, “I think I have them just about ready to charge fearlessly toward the rebels. All you have to do is say, ‘The One approves of our battle as righteous and holy’ and I’m sure they’ll attack immediately.”

  Then the king turned away from me and addressed the crowd again. “This man next to me is Harry Olson. He has been appointed by The One as his voice to us, his chosen people. And now, let us see what words of wisdom The One has for us. Harry?”

  I stuck my hand up exactly as the king had done as a request for silence, even though everyone was already pretty silent. As one, the crowd turned around and shambled toward the camp. In exasperation, the king stepped forward again and stuck his hand up. The entire crowd turned around and stared in perfect attention.

  How did he do that? The crowd hadn’t even been looking at us.

  “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” I waited for a reaction and got the usual look of confusion.

  “What’s a Roman?” a gap-toothed man with big ears asked.

  He had a good point. I needed to restart with something more relevant. “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.”

  “What can our country do for us?” a skinny, bespectacled fellow a few rows back asked.

  “I said, ask not what your country can do for you. Whatever. Forget it.”

  Okay, I needed to dumb this down a little more. Something straight to the point. I considered going back to my “end the war and peace” thing, but I figured the war would go on regardless of what I said. I decided to just ask them to attack and get this whole thing over with.

  “My fellow Garandians, The One has spoken to me and instructed me to tell you all that if you attack now with devotion in your hearts and fervor in your veins, you will crush the rebels and end this war today, or at least by the end of the week. Maybe a month, tops. And with the Sculander rebels crushed, you can all go home and make babies or do whatever it is you really want to do.”

  Give me a break. I’m not an expert public speaker. You try coming up with an inspirational speech with no time to prepare. Most politicians have a team of experts to write this stuff for them.

  “Did he just say we’re fighting babies?” a guy with his helmet on backwards asked.

  “No, I think he said they have rabies,” a portly woman next to him said.

  “Could you repeat that for us?” an Atlian in what looked like sunglasses asked. “There seems to be some confusion.”

  I don’t know who it was who said that it’s really easy to inspire an army of extras in a fantasy/reality show to attack another army of extras, but they were wrong. I probably should have said something about them all becoming famous if they attacked. I really didn’t want to repeat the whole thing again, mostly because I had no idea what it was I had just said.

  “Look, The One wants you all to attack that army over there.” I pointed behind them to
the Sculander army that was forming up.

  “But we haven’t been paid in over a month,” the gap-toothed man in the front said. There was a rumbling of agreement.

  “My family is starving, and they need money!” a Hulk Hogan look-alike in chain mail said.

  “And I have to pay for my breast job,” the guy with his helmet on backwards said.

  “The prophet Merfin once turned fishes into coins,” a guy in an eyepatch said. “Can you do that?” The crowd seemed really enthusiastic about that one.

  “Well, no. If I could do that, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be on a beach with a bunch of beautiful women, but I hear the Sculanders over there have a lot of really nice stuff. Why don’t you all go kill them and take it?”

  “What kind of stuff?” the guy with his helmet on backwards asked.

  “Big shiny stuff that’s worth a lot.”

  “What about trakons?” Sunglasses asked. “I need money to feed my family.”

  “Lots of trakons and jewels, but you have to kill them to get it. The One told me so.”

  “We all don’t really like killing people,” a skinny, bespectacled fellow in the middle said. An awful lot of the crowd seemed to agree with him.

  “But you’re in the army. Killing is your job.”

  “Didn’t The One tell the prophet Merfin that killing is wrong?” the bespectacled man asked.

  “No. He said drilling is wrong. The One likes it when you kill people, but he’s very anti-oil. He’s funny like that.” It’d be nice if these actors or the writers who had written their lines had actually read my books. The One is a real douche of a god. He’d be the perfect god for soldiers or anyone on a reality show, which I guessed now included me. “So, go get them.”

  The army, as one, took a step back.

  “Come on, guys. The One has told me, his prophet, that the Sculander rebels are wicked and that you should kill them all and take their stuff.”

  “Can we do it tomorrow?” a big barbarian asked. “We could use a day off. Don’t we get vacation days?” There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd.

  “You’ve all been sitting in camp for the last week!” Marshal Scritz exclaimed.

  “Most of us aren’t feeling very well,” a big barbarian said. “It’s right in the heart of allergy season.”

  “Look, I’ll give out a signed Dyfantus the Bold action figure to the first person who turns around and charges the enemy,” I said.

  “Is it the one with the purple saber or the black one?” the Hulk Hogan look-alike asked. “The purple one is very rare.” That was true; only forty of them were known to exist.

  “The purple one, of course.” I’d have to get mine from back home, but I hoped they wouldn’t hold me up to that. I could always claim I’d been acting.

  The Hulk Hogan lookalike actually appeared to be starting to turn, but by then, a great roar had erupted from the back. It appeared that my motivational techniques were working a lot better farther away. I wondered if it was because they couldn’t actually see me back there.

  When Crying Is a Good Thing

  While I was regaling the people near the stage with my witticisms, the battle started without them. The sounds of blades striking flesh and the screams of the pretend dying were all I could hear. Wolf yelled something in my ear, but the only way I could tell was by the movement of his lips.

  After a while, he grabbed me and dragged me to the back of the platform, where the king and other non-combatants were being led away. Though he wanted to watch this great victory, the generals had managed to talk the king into leaving. Arik took charge of the king’s guard and personally led Berin from the field. The king only agreed to leave if Verix stayed and protected me. He thought my presence would inspire the troops.

  Once they were safely out of view, Verix ran to the edge of the platform to take stock of the situation. It was clearly killing him not to be a part of this epic battle. He had, no doubt, lost out on a fantastic chance for greater glory and honor by being assigned to me.

  After a few minutes, he ran back. “We’re losing! The rebels were the ones to attack us, not the other way around.”

  “Well, do something,” I said. “You’re the hero. Why don’t you go turn this whole thing around?”

  “You’re right, Harry,” Verix said, “but the king insisted that I stay and protect you.”

  “You have my permission.”

  I should have felt bad about this, but I really wanted him and the others to leave so I could escape. Plus, he was a fantastic fighter, and if the Garandians lost this war, I wasn’t sure what I’d do with my books after this; the Sculander-Garandian War was the entire basis of my book series, after all.

  Being the brave and loyal knight he was, Verix charged head-first into the sea of soldiers.

  “We should join him,” Cat said. “Think of how famous we’d be if we helped them win.”

  “Cat, I’ve been in nineteen major battles,” Wolf said, “and trust me, this battle is already over. The Garandian army will be lucky to have enough men to garrison the city after this.”

  “You should join in, Cat,” Jackal said. “Go. We’ll be right behind you.”

  “Thanks, Jackal,” Cat said. He charged straight ahead without looking back.

  “So, so dumb,” Jackal said. “I’m going to miss him. Well, not really, but it was fun messing with him one last time.”

  Wolf stared seriously into her eyes. “Jackal, you can’t just let him die. Sure, he’s an idiot, but he’s our idiot. We’re responsible for him.”

  “Fine, have a conscience. You know we’d be better off with literally anyone else.”

  “Come on, let’s go. We have to get him. You know we do.”

  “Oh, all right.”

  They reluctantly charged into the melee after him. Fortunately, Cat was pretty easy to find, thanks to the trail of bodies behind him. Unfortunately, he had charged straight into the rear of the battle, so all of those bodies belonged to Garandians.

  As much as I would have liked to see Cat in action, I really didn’t want to be involved in that battle, or any battle, for that matter. It was too dangerous and unpredictable, even if it was fake—though it did look pretty real, what with all the blood and the unattached limbs lying around.

  This was a pretty anticlimactic way to part with the Fanged Trio, but that’s how it is sometimes. As I walked out of camp hoping to find an escape from this travesty, it dawned on me that this was the first time I had been alone in over a week. I felt so free that I strongly considered running around naked in celebration. After much debate, I decided it wouldn’t be a good idea to get caught on tape running around naked again.

  After about thirty minutes of wandering through the deserted camp, I realized I was not going to find anything useful other than spare weapons or some slightly used food. There were no abandoned vehicles or other methods of transportation in sight.

  Judging by the sounds, the battle was dying down, and I figured I should probably get to safety before I got involved in the after-battle festivities—like everyone’s favorite party game, “stab the guy who’s running away.” The city was probably the safest place to be, so I ran as quickly as my out-of-shape legs would take me, between “stop and pant really hard” breaks.

  Fortunately, the gate to the city was still open. As I approached, one of the guards stopped me. “Halt! Which army are you from?”

  It took a few moments before my mouth would allow me to speak. “The Kiss Army.”

  The guard looked to his companion. “Did we change the name of our army again?”

  “It was called the Army of the Humble Cockroaches last week, wasn’t it?”

  “No, it was Grass Clippings of the Apocalypse. But what is it this week?”

  “Something like Armpit Noises of Doom. Definitely not the Kiss Army.”

  The guard scratched his forehead. “Was it ever the Kiss Army?”

  “Don’t think so. It might have been called the Heavy Petting
Army last month, though.”

  I growled. “Look, guys, I was just joking. I’ve come from the Garandian army.”

  “I didn’t think Granada had an army anymore. Did you, Curtos?”

  Curtos shook his head. “Granada doesn’t exist anymore. Spain conquered them a while ago.”

  No, there was no Spain or Granada in this world. These guys were morons, which meant they fit in with everyone else in this story. “I said Ga-ran-di-an. Garandian. You know, the country you’re wearing the uniform of.”

  “Oh. Garandian. My mistake. Then, sorry, we can’t let you in.” He nodded confidently.

  “And why not?”

  “Because we were ordered to not let anyone in unless they were in the Garandian army.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I . . . am . . . in . . . the . . . Garandian army.”

  “Oh, you’re in the Garandian army. Why didn’t you say so? What’s your business here?”

  “I want to get in.”

  “Oh. Sorry, then, sir. We can’t let anyone in.”

  “You just said you’d let me in if I’m in the Garandian army, and I’m in the Garandian army.” I stomped my foot in frustration and didn’t look at all like an angry toddler.

  “We would, but the gate is closed up tight.”

  I turned my head slightly to double-check that the gate was open. “The gate is open!”

  “Yes, it is, sir. Would you like to go in?”

  “Yes!”

  “And which army are you a part of?”

  After I’d smacked my palm to my face and wept for a few minutes, I decided that arguing with this guard was about as pointless as arguing with a computer. I pointed to the left, and when the guards looked that way, I ran past them.

  “Hey! Where do you think you’re going? Stop!”

  Fortunately, the guards didn’t chase me.

  “Did you hear which army he was from?” the first guard yelled.