by M. K. Gibson
“Complete patriarchal bullshit.”
“I know,” I said. “If I had it my way, at least half of them would be clumsy, ugly, and dumb and die like everyone else.”
If I had to guess, she was fresh out of some warrior sect, and once it was discovered she was female, they kicked her out of the boys’ club. No doubt she was a natural combatant. The best the trainer ever saw. Hell, the trainer probably knew she was a she to begin with.
I sipped my drink and rubbed my eyes. This was going to be a long night.
When I opened them again, I spotted someone.
Check that. I spotted The One.
“Oh, this is providence.”
“What, sir?”
“I just found our hero,” I said. Cliché or contrived, I didn’t care. I just loved abusing the fantasy rules.
Chapter Twelve
Where I Enlist My Team by Putting Innocents at Risk and Kick a Little Ass
“This is complete and utter horseshit, sir.”
“What?”
“Are you telling me that this is the same man you saw in the Corolan Inn back in Ashraven?”
“Yes.”
“The same man whom Courtney knocked out and stole the Amulet of the Ember Soul from?”
“It is indeed.”
“So he is the bastard son of Baron Viktor Grimskull? Last descendant of the Eld and Prince of the Elder Men?”
“The one and only.” I smiled.
“That’s it, I quit!” Sophia yelled. “What kind of backwards, fucked-up, hackneyed, fan-fic bullshit is this?”
I put my hand over my mouth to stifle the belly laugh growing inside me, threatening to burst. “It is all very simple,” I said. “If you understand the—”
“If you say ‘The Fantasy Rules,’ I am going to tear your foreskin off. Sir.”
Gods above and below, Sophia had a flair about her. Well, at least when she was threatening me, she remembered to do it formally.
“Are you done with your tantrum?” I asked.
“For now, sir. But you have to admit, this is contrived.”
“I never said it wasn’t. But this is how things are.”
“OK sir, so what’s your next step? Are you going to go talk to him and enlist his aid in defeating Grimskull?”
“Oh, heavens no,” I said.
“Then what?”
“Patience, Sophia,” I told her.
In all honesty, if someone just walked up to you, made small talk, informed you that you had a common enemy, and enlisted your aid, what would you do? I’ll answer it for you: Nothing. People don’t work like that. If you tell yourself any different, then you are a moron. Or an avid tabletop fantasy gamer, which is essentially the same thing.
People are dumb. People needed to be guided, to be led. And more importantly, people only truly come together for causes. They’re just the pack animals they claim not to be. So to bring people together, to make them a pack, you have to give them a cause. I could sit around and wait for one to occur, but I was on a timetable.
I reached through my magic and released the warding spell that kept me hidden. Then, I slowly but surely enhanced my magical aura. I would be seen as a challenge to any wizards who were scrying for me.
OK Chaud. Tell your master where I am.
I went ahead and ordered another drink, then sat back down and waited.
“Sir, what did you do? I felt a shift in your power.”
“I just made myself bait,” I told her.
“You did what?!”
“Trust me, I know what I am doing.”
Sophia stayed quiet, but I could sense her disapproval. Cards on the table. This was a very risky move. But in order to form a fellowship of idiots to do my bidding, I had to give them a common enemy.
Now to see if my instincts were correct.
A moment or two later, I had my answer. Outside the Crossroads Inn and Tavern, a brightness split the night. Reddish-tinged white light poured through the inn’s windows and the sky rumbled with thunder. The music stopped all at once and patrons ran to the windows to see what the source of the light was.
“It’s a legion of Grimskull’s men!” I heard someone shout.
“What do they want?”
“Fuck that; who do they want?”
I scanned the room and looked for the people who were not reacting. And if I hadn’t been in public, I would have patted myself on the back. The auburn-haired female warrior, the rough clergyman, and my wayward prince all remained in their seats and sighed.
Damn, I’m good.
“They’re coming in!”
The patrons all moved back from the door. Some reached for their weapons, half drawing them, unsure of what to do. Other folk hid under tables or looked for a back door. Some poor bastards just got out their coin purses, hoping to bribe their way out.
Myself? I started rehearsing my lines. In between conquering worlds for fun, I take acting classes. I really like improv, but I’ve learned it’s always good to have a well-scripted line or two ready when the situation calls for it. Best way to be an effective liar is to lace in just enough truth that whatever you say comes off as believable.
The door to the inn was kicked open and armed guards poured in. Each of the armored men was dressed in the livery colors of Baron Grimskull. I pushed my way past the people who were cowering, intentionally pushing hard against the young warrior who was still sitting at the bar so he would notice me moving towards the front of the crowd. Once I had enough of an opening, I used my best stage voice.
“Stop! They are here for me. If Grimskull wants me dead, then so be it. But no one else has to suffer!”
That was me placing the explosives. Now, I needed a spark to set off the fireworks.
“Are you Shadow Jack?” the lead guardsman asked.
“I am. Please, just take me and spare these people.”
There are a few certainties in the world. Water is wet. Fire burns. And if you ask an evil henchmen to spare others for your act of nobility, they won’t. So with my words still echoing in the ears of the inn’s patrons, all the guardsmen immediately began drawing their weapons.
Heh heh heh. I even threw up my hands, protesting for dramatic effect. “No no no! Please, they’re innocent!”
“Kill them all . . . ACK!” The guardsman was swiftly knocked flat on his back as the young warrior came to my rescue by leaping forward and planting a kick in his chest.
“No minion of Grimskull will harm anyone this night,” the young man said as he drew his bastard sword.
Oh lord. A hand-and-a-half sword? Really? Besides their complete uselessness in an enclosed space, they were just too long and unwieldy in general. But when in Rome and whatnot. I drew my two short swords from my back and eased into an en garde position.
“Kill them!” the guardsman from the floor yelled the moment he had enough air back into his lungs.
As a visiting deity, I was not allowed to go around murdering my host realm’s people. It is just bad form, not to mention illegal. But the workaround was simple. If a realm’s citizen tried to inflict deadly harm on myself or a companion, I was allowed to respond in kind. The young man just came to my aid as we were about to be attacked, so this constituted a stand-your-ground rule. Even if I did pick the fight.
Hey, I didn’t write the laws. I just abuse them.
The warrior and I fought well together. We fended off the first wave of the guardsmen’s attacks with the clash of steel on steel, covering one another. The young warrior would turn in large, slashing arcs. If his target leaped back or ducked, then I followed up his attack with a one-two slash and lunge with my short swords, finishing them off.
“Not bad, old man,” the warrior said as he came over my shoulder in an overhand chop, burying his sword in the neck and shoulder of the next of Grimskull’s men who advanced. The guard’s lifeblood sprayed everywhere, covering us and the inn’s floor.
Old man? While I was firmly in my mid-forties, my body was barely t
hirty. I always kept myself in peak physical shape through rigorous Krav Maga and armed combat training. Plus, it helped that I cheated Father Time and refused to age myself while I was in my dimension. But leave it to youth to see anything past twenty-five as old.
“Better than you, boy,” I said, thrusting my blade a scant inch from his head and into the open mouth of the attacking guardsman who’d gotten the jump on the kid’s blind side.
“The name is Hawker. Kyle Hawker,” the warrior said, deflecting an oncoming attack.
“I prefer ‘Boy,’” I said to Hawker as I punched out with the pommel of my sword, catching a guard in the throat.
“Both of you talk too much,” the large priest said as he joined our side. The big man picked up the nearest of the guardsmen and tossed him back into his comrades. “Damn you Vammar, damn you.”
Vammar was the one of the gods of this realm. The god of duality. His iconography often depicted him as a burly male figure with a hammer in one hand and an olive branch in the other. People didn’t actually worship him, so much as he conscripted people who amused him into his service.
Trust me, I know.
Not that I’m a follower or anything. Vammar comes to the celestial meetings sometimes. Kind of an asshole, really. Neither good nor bad. He just likes to expose the dual nature of man as both warrior and peacemaker.
The holy man had no weapons to speak of. Under his robes he wore heavy plate armor and on his fists were clam-shell gauntlets. All the armor was inscribed with the teachings of Vammar. The armor gave off both red and blue ethereal light.
With each thundering strike of his fists, a combined purple lightning flared, knocking the intended target back, then simultaneously healing them.
“Gods damn you, Vammar,” the priest grumbled beneath his breath.
“Leave it to a warpriest of Vammar to be a blundering idiot,” said the red-haired, bearded female pretending to be male. She was lean, yet strong and well-muscled, and wielded two wooden batons with steel caps on them. She whirled them and the air whistled with her movements. As if alone in her own world, she danced among Grimskull’s men, snapping bones and knocking men on their asses.
I swear there was a moment when the four of us practically posed for an action shot.
“It looks like you found your team, sir,” Sophia said in my ear.
I grinned wide and with delicious malice. “Was there ever a doubt?”
Chapter Thirteen
Where I Weave a Web of Lies into Half-Truths and Ensnare a Few Heroes
Before we get back to the story, I want to take a moment to recognize all the fallen henchmen across the realms.
Guards, militia, generic soldiers, and their ilk are basically fodder in moments like these. They never win or live unless they are named and have a backstory, or are part of an elite force— and if we’re being honest, not even then. They are just there to show how awesome the heroes of the tale are.
Rest in peace, you dead bastards.
But do not weep too deeply for them. They are not really people. They are human window dressings who are dead inside and live to serve our amusements. Like strippers.
And authors.
OK, back to the show.
********
I sat down to the private table in the back of the inn with a tray of ale, cups, and food. “This small measure does not come close to how much I wish to thank you all for coming to my aid.”
“You fight well,” Hawker said. “All of you.”
“The three of you are too slow,” Cairn Hunter said. Cairn was playful and competitive, turning every opportunity into a chance to prove she (or he) was better than everyone.
She clearly suffered from a superiority complex. Someone’s parents had told her she was the best at everything. Or she was just a middle child. A super-macho, arrogant act to fool people. At least I hoped it was. Otherwise, she was just an asshole.
Seriously, how had no one noticed he was a she? It looked like she had glued on patchy red pubes to her face. I imagined a ginger-haired dog with a bare ass out there somewhere.
“Our skills and speeds aside,” I said, looking at Cairn with a sideways glance, “we will be hunted now. Grimskull’s forces will come for us. By helping me, you have put yourselves in danger.”
“Where Grimskull’s concerned, we are all in danger,” Hawker said with the resolute tone of someone barely old enough to shave every day. “His existence is a blight on this world. One that must be eliminated.”
“Mmm,” Wren grunted in agreement. “That, I understand.” Up close the burly man was pleasantly ugly. He had a shaved head and a mustache that went down his jawline and terminated in his sideburns. His nose was permanently crooked from being broken on multiple occasions. His bright blue eyes were angry and piercing. Despite his monastic robes, and even without the armor, everything about the man screamed fighter.
“What about you, big man?” I asked. “What’s your story?”
It is a time-honored tradition within these realms to share your backstory with your new traveling companions. It seems stupid, doesn’t it? I mean, who does that? In the real world if you tell someone your tragic tale of woe after first meeting them, they are more than likely going to excuse themselves and not look back. Unless you were growing up in the 90s, and then it was a form of polite greeting. All of grunge rock was an excuse to complain about how rough you thought you had it.
“Me? Not much to say,” Wren grumbled.
“Of course a follower of Vammar would be so dour,” Cairn chided.
Wren cast him a sidelong glance and scowled. “Fine. Before I was an ammalar of Vammar, I was a simple mercenary in the Free Lands,” Wren said, spinning his story.
The Free Lands was the middle kingdom between the Western and Eastern Empires. A place where they lived under the false delusion of democracy. A perfect place to eventually corrupt and exploit.
“I was serving with one of the militia groups, fighting back against the Grimskull’s eastern purges. One night, we were camped close to the borders and were attacked by General Anders herself. Her forces came down on us out of nowhere. While the big bitch cut my men down with her giant mace, Coldfyr, the rest of her elite troops marched through us like we were rank amateurs. I was knocked out cold by Anders herself. The only thing that saved me was my armor and her lack of caring whether her victims were alive or dead. When I came to, her forces were gone. My training took over and I began tending to as many of my wounded men as possible. And that was when . . .”
“When what?” I asked, intrigued.
“When I found one of Grimskull’s boneheads hurt badly, but alive. I should have let him die. Hell, I wish I had. But at that moment, I didn’t see an enemy. Only someone who needed saving. Some scared kid. So I started patching him up. And that was when Vammar himself appeared,” Wren said as he took a drink from his ale. “Damn god just appeared in a small thunderclap and a spray of earth and dirt. He points to me and says, ‘You have proven yourself a man of true duality. A killer and a healer. You are now my disciple. My newest ammalar.’ After that, I could no longer pick up an edged weapon. Only instruments that could hurt or heal. And when my emotions get the best of me, my attempts to help people end up hurting them. My attempts to hurt people heal them. A lesson I must learn one day about who I really am. Damn Vammar and the rest of his kin to the Never Realms.”
“And you, what is your tale?” I asked Cairn. It was very important to know these things. You never know how you might use it against them at a later time.
“Unlike our ugly friend here, my tale is actually a tragedy,” Cairn said, then looked at the rest of us at the table and said arrogantly, “What? He is. I am sorry, friend, you are far from comely. Rugged, yes, but fair you are not.”
“Been called worse by better looking than you, ya ginger bastard,” Wren said, taking another drink. By his tone, he was not grandstanding. Her insult had washed off him without the slightest care.
As it turned out
, Cairn was from the Twilight Guard, a quasi-militant group from the Skyborn Forest north of the Free Lands who were bent on bringing order to chaos. The group comprised a mixed company who followed the beliefs of the elves while trying to serve justice above all. Unless you were a woman, apparently.
Oh, Cairn spun a tale about how he/she was too good for them and they sent him/her on a suicide run against Grimskull’s men where he/she was wounded and left for dead. My guess was they discovered she was a female and left her behind. Since then, she’s been on her own.
“Your turn. Who are you, stranger?” the big priest asked.
“And why do Grimskull’s men want you?” asked Cairn.
“Why do you not speak?” asked Hawker.
Because I was preparing my dramatic moment. OK, remember, dramatic but honest. Give enough to hook them, but hold back enough to keep them coming back.
“I . . . gods, I’m not sure how to begin. My name, I guess, is the best place to start. I’m Jackson. Jackson Blackwell.”
“One of the men called you ‘Shadow Jack,’” Cairn said.
“Yes, that is one of my names. To be honest with you, I’ve not always been a . . . reputable person. I’m a merchant by trade, dealing in whatever people want or need. And oftentimes that brings me close to bad people. And in my adventures, I have come very, very close to that invisible line between right and wrong.”
“That doesn’t explain why were they after you,” Cairn said.
Bless Cairn. She kept setting me up so I could knock them down. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes,” they all said, nodding.
“Very well. I escaped his dungeon. He didn’t like that,” I said while I smiled.
“You escaped his prison?” Hawker asked with a tone of skepticism. “How?”
I used a fraction of my power and made a small crackle of golden energy appear between my fingertips. “Magic is one of my many skills. I was captured by his forces when I was discovered as part of plot against him. I had spies inside his fortress feeding me information. My spies turned out to be traitors, and I was captured. But very few prisons can hold me.”