by Robert Bevan
“Okay okay!” shouted Dave. He waddled over to where Cooper's hand swam in Julian's blood. “Back off,” he said to Cooper. “I'll need some room.” He pulled on his beard with both hands. “God I hope this works. I don't know what to do.”
Cooper stood over him, more like a building than a man. “Whatever it is, just fucking do it.” His tone promised that there would be consequences for fucking it up.
“Dude!” shouted Tim. He had picked up Julian’s character sheet. “Whatever you're going to do, do it now! He's at negative nine! One more point, and he's—“
“I heal thee!” shouted Dave, slapping his hand down on Julian's chest. Blood splattered in every direction.
Cooper picked up Dave by his upper arms. “I heal thee?” he shouted into his face. “Is this some kind of fucking joke to you?”
“I didn't know what to do!” Dave protested. His eyes showed a combination of grief and terror, each fighting for dominance. “What to say! I was trying—“
“Guys!” Tim shouted. His voice was phlegmy and excited. Cooper and Dave looked down at him. “It worked! He...”
He couldn't say any more. The tears started going, and he let them go. He was panting between sobs, and it was all he could do to hold out Julian's character sheet for them to see.
Cooper dropped Dave and took the paper. The number in the box labeled Current Hit Points read -7. He stared at it for a few seconds, and it didn't appear to be changing at all. “So what does that mean? Is he okay?”
Tim knew he was going to have to collect himself and get the rest of the excitement out of his system the best way he knew how. He'd throw up.
Once he decided he was going to do it, his body took over. He dropped down to his knees, palms down on the ground, and let it out. His head hung down for a few seconds while his body sorted out whether or not it was going to make one more go. Once, however, seemed to be enough.
He closed his eyes and breathed deeply in and out. When he opened his eyes, he saw the puddle below his head. What had his character eaten that day before he took over? Shit. Thinking about that was a mistake. His guts turned inside him, and his body gave one more try, but all that came out this time were strings of spit and bile. He stood up and wiped his mouth with one sleeve and his eyes with the other. No point in trying to keep clean right now.
“You all right?” Dave asked.
“Yeah,” said Tim, looking down at Julian. “Better now. How's he?”
“I don't know.”
“Any change on the sheet?” Tim asked Cooper. Cooper shook his head.
Tim walked up to Julian, who continued to lie as still as he had since he fell there. He peeled up the bottom of Julian's shirt, and rivers of blood flowed down the sides. Underneath was just more blood. Tim ran a finger through it to reveal a line of pale white skin on Julian's belly, just to confirm that there was something under all that blood after all. He peeled back the shirt some more, all the way up past the wound. More blood ran down each side of Julian's neck.
Tim smeared a palm across the area where he guessed the wound to be. In the pink smear across Julian's chest was a small red circle, no bigger than the circumference of a pencil. He stared at it, waiting for more blood to pour out, but none did. To Tim, this meant one of two things. Either Dave had managed to stabilize him, or Julian had just simply run out of blood and was lying there dead in front of him.
Looking around at all of the blood – holy shit it was everywhere – either scenario was plausible. Tim put his ear to Julian's chest, hoping for just a hint of a heartbeat. Surely if Julian had any life left in him at all, it was going to be faint. But the sound that reached Tim's ear was that of a booming drum. He pressed his ear harder into Julian's chest, not bothered at all by the fact that half of his face was getting covered in blood. He relished the sound. He stayed that way for thirty seconds, before getting up and grinning from ear to ear.
Cooper was twice as tall as Dave was, but they were both built as wide as city buses. In spite of their size, they both took a step backward with a look of fear in their eyes.
“What?” asked Tim, and then realized how he must look with half of his face covered in blood. “He's going to make it.”
Dave and Cooper’s expressions relaxed, and they smiled back at Tim.
“You heard his heartbeat?” asked Dave.
“Heard it?” Tim shouted back ecstatically. “It nearly blew my fucking ears out!”
Dave's frowned. “Should it be beating that hard? Is that healthy?”
“I don't think it's his heart,” said Tim. “I think it's my ears. I can hear like a motherfucker.” He pointed at a cluster of trees about fifty yards away from where they were standing. “I can hear exactly four squirrels running through the trees way the hell over there. I can hear a stream running about forty yards into the forest. I can hear...” He stopped. His eyes widened with fear.
“What?” asked Dave. “What is it?”
“I hear horses,” Tim said, turning his head back in the direction of Algor. He looked back at his friends. “Lots of them, and they're coming this way.”
“How long?” asked Cooper.
“I don't know,” said Tim, panicking. “I mean, the way it sounds to me, they should just be about fifty feet away, just about to trample over us. But I can't see them. Can you?”
Cooper craned his neck up and looked in the direction Tim had indicated. “No. Not yet.”
“Well we have to get out of here,” said Tim. “We should hide in the forest.”
“What about them?” asked Dave, pointing to the soldiers who were still lying on the ground. They might have still been unconscious. More likely they were faking it, so as to not be kicked in the head again.
“I'll tie them up,” said Tim. “You grab Julian and start heading into the forest. Cooper and I will catch up.”
“We should stay together,” Dave objected.
“You are slow as shit,” said Tim. “You have a Base Movement Speed of twenty.” He saw that Dave was not fully appreciating the unconventional nature of the argument. “Look at your stubby fucking legs!”
“Look at yours!” Dave shouted back at him, but he was already picking up Julian's limp body.
Tim grinned at him. “I don't plan on walking there. I've got a huge fucking moron to carry me.” He looked at Cooper, who grinned back at him with pointed, yellow teeth. Then back to Dave. “Go!”
Dave made his best attempt at a run, but it wasn't easy going with Julian slung over his shoulder. Julian's hands dragged on the ground behind him. The trees were too close together here for the horses to be comfortable pulling the cart any further, but it was a far cry from dense woodland. The ground was still thick with grass, and there wouldn't be anywhere to hide. A single horse with a rider would easily be able to maneuver through the trees until they got deeper in.
Tim grabbed Julian's rope and tied the hands and feet of the soldiers. If they were awake, they showed no signs of it. Being tied up would have to be better than being killed, especially when help was on the way. “Grab all the shit you can carry!” he shouted to Cooper.
Cooper tore the canvass roof the rest of the way off the wagon and started throwing stuff onto it. All their bags, all of the weapons that no one had thought to use during the fight, even the weapons the soldiers had carried.
Tim relieved the soldiers of their purses as he tied them up. The hoofbeats were getting closer.
“They’ll be coming over that ridge any second now,” said Tim.
“You ready?” asked Cooper. He was holding all four corners of the wagon's roof in one hand.
Tim looked ahead to see what progress Dave had made. It wasn't much. They were still only about thirty yards away, and he had stopped.
“What the hell does he think he's doing?” asked Tim.
Cooper looked over at Dave, who was putting Julian's body down on the ground. He huffed angrily, and a ball of snot shot out of his nose. He started to move in that direction.
> “There's no time,” said Tim. “We'll need some of this shit, and we've got to go now. We'll deal with Dave when we catch up to him. Let's go.” Tim hopped on top of the makeshift canvass sack and steadied himself. He slung a quiver of arrows over his shoulder and readied his shortbow in one hand. He sat facing backwards, ready to fire if it came to that.
Cooper started pulling, and Tim did his best to keep his balance. He sincerely hoped that he wouldn't need to fire any arrows while riding like this. It seemed a lot easier in his imagination. On the horizon, a cloud of dust rose into view over the ridge. It would soon be replaced by God knew how many men on horseback, armed to the teeth and thirsty for blood.
“Hurry up, Coop! They're coming!”
Cooper grunted and heaved. Tim peeked around Cooper’s flank and saw Dave kneeling down over Julian. He hoped he was mistaken, but Dave appeared to be beating on Julian's body and shouting at him.
“Dave!” Cooper roared. “What the hell are you doing?” He pushed forward.
When he was nearly on top of them, Tim heard something he didn't expect. Julian was screaming in terror, and it was the sweetest sound Tim had ever heard. Julian scrambled up onto his elbows. Dave silenced his screams with a slap in the face, and said something to him. Julian jumped to his feet and looked back toward Cooper and Tim. Cooper grinned and waved, still running. Julian smiled awkwardly, gave a small wave back at him, and then looked past him. The smile left his face immediately.
The cloud of dust was growing thicker on the horizon. Cooper kept running, and Julian soon got the hint that he should be doing the same. Julian didn't run like a man who had just lost most of his blood through a hole in his chest. He easily outran everyone, bolting deeper into the forest like a coked-up hooker fleeing a crime scene. The trees here grew more closely together. The grass gave way to dirt, and undergrowth was visible just up ahead.
The canvas sack left a trail of flattened grass behind them. Tim hoped to gain a little time when the oncoming army stopped to question the soldiers he had tied up. How much time that bought them would depend on whether or not they had been faking their unconsciousness. Either way, they wouldn't be able to count on much more of a head start than what they had now, and their trail would be easy to follow. He hoped they would at least have time to-
Something caught his eye. He hopped off the bag.
Cooper stopped. “Tim!” He tried to whisper, but that only brought his voice down to that of a normal person's.
“Keep going!” said Tim. “I saw something I think we might need.” Cooper looked at him doubtfully. “I'll catch up,” Tim reassured him. “I'm sneaky.”
Cooper kept going, and Tim crouched behind a tree. There were enough trees blocking his view so that he couldn't make out what the new group of soldiers were up to. That was good. His friends should be out of view by now.
From where he crouched, Tim couldn't make out any of the new set of riders, but he guessed by the slowing of the hoofbeats that they were now approaching their bound and sleeping comrades. He also guessed that he wouldn't have to climb far up the tree he was hiding behind before he'd get a good view of them, and they of him.
He hadn't come here to climb, though. His target was on the ground, about thirty feet away. If Tim didn't know any better, he would have thought it was staring back at him. No, he decided. He didn't know any better. How could he, after everything they had all just been through in the past half hour? In fact, that was the whole reason he was preparing himself to step out into danger to grab that stupid head. And now the fucker was smiling at him. Grinning even. He was sure of it. It was daring him to come out into the open and retrieve it. He gave it the finger, and while he couldn't see any perceptible movement, he had a strong feeling that its grin widened.
Tim closed his eyes and tried to take in his surroundings through his ears alone. The horses had stopped, and men were shouting at one another. He was close enough to have heard that much even through human ears. His own group had also stopped, which he hoped meant they had found a decent place to hide. That would be good.
“Look at the state of this place!” said one of the new riders as he dismounted his horse.
“By the Gods, man!” said another. “There are puddles of shit and vomit everywhere. What manner of... oh the smell!” He wretched, and then made his own contribution to the field where grass would never grow quite the same again. He wasn't alone. Tim heard at least three other men spill their breakfasts. He'd never have a better opportunity than he had right now.
“Sir,” called a third voice in a desperate plea. “They clubbed one of the horses in the face. The poor thing's lucky to be alive! What kind of barbarians would do such a thing?”
“Barbarians indeed,” replied the first voice, the voice of authority. He spoke softly, but his voice carried on the wind to Tim's sensitive halfling ears. “The evil kind,” he spoke more loudly in response to the question. “The mongrel orcish kind, as well as the band of freaks that travel with it. The kind we hunt!”
Tim took a deep breath. Four ranks in Move Silently, and a plus two bonus for being a halfling. He crept out from behind the tree, hunched over as low as he could while still remaining on two feet.
“You there!” shouted the voice that Tim had decided belonged to the leader.
Tim froze in his tracks. If he had had any piss left in his bladder, he surely wouldn't now. What had gone wrong? He hadn't taken but a single step away from the tree. Perfectly silent. His eyes were fixed straight ahead on his target. One of its eyes winked and then both of them moved twice in the direction the shout had come from, as if to gesture that Tim should do the same. Tim looked, and saw that the shout was not directed at him. It continued. “You four sorry sacks of dog shit! Wake up!”
“That was lucky,” said the severed head twenty feet in front of Tim.
“Shut the fuck up,” Tim said back in a harsh whisper. His tiny heart was beating hard enough to send the blood through Cooper's enormous body. He tentatively took a second step, and heard a sound that, to him, sounded like the trunk of a tall pine snapping in a hurricane. He looked down and saw a twig under his foot that he was sure hadn't been there a second ago. He whipped his head back up to look at the head on the ground.
The head made a mockingly apologetic face. “Sorry, dude. You rolled a 1 on your Move Silently check. Of all the times to roll a-”
“I am going to find you, Mordred,” Tim whispered, “and I'm going to murder the shit out of-”
“There's one of them!”
Tim turned his head, and for an instant his stunned eyes met the cool, satisfied gaze of the man who Tim assumed everyone was calling ‘sir’. He turned and ran as fast as his tiny legs would carry him. As it turned out, that wasn't very fast at all.
“Take him alive!” shouted the captain, and that offered little comfort to Tim.
As he ran, Tim kept his ears alert. Men shouting, boots climbing into stirrups, and horses stomping the ground excitedly, ready to be taken for another gallop.
When those hooves started to move, Tim knew he didn't have much time left. Why was he running? What did he hope to accomplish by it? There was no way he could outrun a horse, not even a one-legged horse pulling a wheel-less cart full of lead bricks. Running wasn't what he'd been made for. And when, after a full minute if he was lucky, they finally caught him, crying like a little girl, would he suffer the further indignity of being caught while trying to run away? Fuck no! He was a halfling, goddammit, and a rogue as well. When he was caught, it wouldn't be because he failed to outrun them. No. When he was caught, it would be because he failed to adequately hide from them.
Tim’s hiding options were limited to an open meadow sparsely dotted with trees. He made his best effort to disguise himself as a pile of leaves at the base of a tree, and was discovered immediately.
“Um, sir?” said a young soldier. Streaks of vomit stained the front of his leather armor. “I think I found him.” His eyes were locked with the one eye that
Tim hadn't the time nor the leaves to properly cover.
The captain trotted into Tim's field of vision, and Tim refocused his unobscured eye to meet his gaze. That gaze met him with a smile. It wasn't a warm let's-just-put-this-whole-mess-behind-us smile, either. It was more the sort of smile a man might have after trying unsuccessfully to swat a particularly elusive fly all day, and then later finding said fly having gotten itself caught between the window and the screen. It was a now-I've-got-you-and-there's-absolutely-no-possibility-of-you-getting-away smile.
“Are you attempting to hide?” asked the captain. “Or are you just very, very dirty?”
Tim was certain he'd been caught, as there was now a crowd of men staring right at him, one of whom was talking to him. But until he was threatened with violence or forcibly grabbed from his hiding place, he would maintain that he was hiding successfully and they were playing some mind game to lure him out.
“Stand up, boy,” said the captain. “If I have to have one of my men force you to obey, I promise it will be far more fun for him than it will be for you.”
Tim decided that this fell in line with his criteria for breaking his cover and complied.
“Well well,” said the captain. “It's not a boy after all. It's a halfling.” He looked genuinely impressed. “You're quite a long way from the Shire, aren't you lad?”
The Shire? Am I really from The Shire? Mordred, you unimaginative bag of come.
“My name is Righteous Justificus Blademaster, son of Eldor, Captain of the Guard, and Chief Peacekeeper for the city of Algor and the surrounding principality.”
Tim's mind raced, trying to milk all it could from the scant information it received. Subtlety, evidently, was not Mordred's strong suit. With a name and title that long and ridiculous, this guy was probably someone that Mordred wanted to keep around. Probably a third or fourth level fighter. Even if his friends were with him, this wouldn't be a group they could take down at level one. He was stuck.
“What is your name, runt?” All the pretense of good humor was gone from the Captain's voice.