by M. K. Gibson
The melodrama of a hero’s tale of woe was like a bedtime story for me. I was asleep in seconds.
Chapter Seventeen
Where I Prove Discretion in the Better Part of Valor and Enjoy a Final Show
My eyes snapped open.
Something wasn’t right.
In the movies and television, when people wake up to something wrong, they sit bolt upright and pant. That is horseshit. When a person wakes up under distress, their primordial lizard brain kicks in. Immediately they freeze and listen, sensing and assessing the area for danger.
I did my best not to move and let my natural senses do their job.
It was getting dark. Long shadows played as the sun was starting to set. That was bad. We were not supposed to sleep the day away. We were only supposed to sleep a few hours and then get back on the trail of the Forgotten Bastards.
And it was quiet. I didn’t hear anything.
Nothing.
Not snoring, not breathing, not the horses, not the ambient sounds of nature.
I repeat: Nothing. Not even my own breathing.
Something was blocking all sound. Which meant we were either under attack—or soon would be—by something magical.
Staying motionless, I darted my eyes around, taking in everything I could, which wasn’t much. Hawker was appeared to be asleep, but I could not see the slow rise and fall of his chest. Was he dead? That would be bad for me. And I suppose it would be bad for him as well.
I dared to shift my head slightly, feigning natural sleeping readjustment. Wren and Cairn were sleeping. That was bad. Especially considering that they looked like they were sleeping in collapsed heaps as opposed to warm and snuggly in their bedrolls. Something had knocked them out.
Now, the question was, why was I awake?
“You are awake because we allow it to be,” I head Valliar say, his voice breaking the stillness.
Valliar and Khasil popped into existence before me, sitting on logs by the extinguished campfire. The light rain had stopped and the two of them looked like they were enjoying a nice camping trip together.
“You’ve been warned a final time,” Khasil said to me from her seated position.
I got out of my bedroll and looked around. Nothing was moving. The trees weren’t swaying, and the reason the drizzly rain wasn’t coming down was because it was frozen in the sky. Now that I had a clearer view, I saw some type of yellowish dust suspended in the air. The source seemed to be a couple of arrows sticking in the ground.
“You’ve paused time,” I said. I did something similar in my own dimension so that I stopped aging while there. “Why?”
“Khasil is correct,” Valliar said. “This will be your final warning.” The god’s voice boomed a rumbling basso. His mortal guise shimmered slightly for emphasis.
“So, those guys in the privy, yours?” I asked Khasil. The goddess only sneered and hissed her forked tongue. “I’ll take that as a yes. Nice move using your people to try and kill me without doing it yourself.”
And I meant that sincerely. Since the gods could not take open, direct action against one another, to include minor piss-ant gods like me, Khasil had her cultists from the Forgotten Bastards ready to go. They were prepared to rob me of my magic source and try and kill me. My guess was that Valliar only allowed it because I had Wren in my group, knowing the ammalar could heal me.
A godly warning indeed.
“Let me guess. Valliar’s protection will be off once this moment is returned into time. Considering that Wren and Cairn are collapsed, it means we are under attack.”
“Yes,” Valliar confirmed.
“And what are my options?” I asked.
“Run,” Khasil hissed. “That way. Run until your feet blister and your heart nearly explodes. Run in fear and hide the remainder of your days. Do that, and perhaps I will let you live in relative peace.”
“So, my options are stay here and die with my companions, or run away? I assume I would forever remain in this realm as long as I didn’t start any more trouble? And if I did begin my affairs, a swift end would come to the Shadow Master?”
“Yes,” Valliar said, resolute. “But we all know these are not your companions. They are pawns to you.”
“I don’t know,” I countered. “They are growing on me.”
“They are not yours to use, interloper,” Khasil said.
I arched an eyebrow. Hmm, I had touched a nerve there. By enacting the sacred rite of the summoning of the heroes, I had pulled these people onto a path that was breaking the gods’ game plan. That meant the rules that governed this world would be askew.
And no villain worth a damn can resist the occasional bout of mayhem.
I know, I know, it contradicts my cold and calculating nature. But mayhem to the detriment of a rival is like catnip to us villains.
They were afraid of an imbalance. A shift in their power. My being here, in direct contact, was altering their grand plans.
But I had a theory. If I was right, then I knew what I had to do.
And it was delicious.
“Thanks, but no thanks. If running and living like a peasant or dealing with whatever you have planned are my options, then I’ll take my chances.”
“I strongly urge you to reconsider,” Valliar said with absolutely no warmth or benevolence.
I took a seat on the log nearest my bedroll. I deliberately placed my hands under my chin with my elbows on my knees. I addressed Khasil and Valliar as if they were clients in my office.
“Do your worst.”
“Fool!” Khasil screamed. She tried to rise, but Valliar placed a firm hand on her shoulder. The Queen of Darkness shrugged off her twin’s hand and took a step towards me.
I did not move. Not out of bravery, but because I was petrified. I mean, she was the freaking embodiment of chaos and evil in this realm. But I had to hold on to my composure. You think showing fear to a dog is bad? Imagine doing it to a being of suffering and torment.
“Come at me,” I said, using my elbows to brace my legs, keeping my knees from knocking. “Bring everything you have. Both of you. Bring your legion of undead, Khasil. You know I have allies in the Never Realm. Bring your elves and I will ruin them. Bring your holy masonic knights and I’ll make sure a horde of whores descends upon your pious virgins with such temptations it will turn their gleaming white purity a nice shade of filth. You know, the butt-stuff kind.”
“I will not miss you,” Valliar said honestly.
“Mutual,” I retorted.
“Goodbye, Shadow Master,” Valliar said.
“Your suffering will never end,” Khasil said. “Once you are dead, I will claim your soul as my own to play with until the stars burn out. You are nothing.”
“Bitch, please. You’ve never seen a mortal like me. When I beat Grimskull and get back to my realm, know that I am coming for you both. Now get the fuck out of here.”
As both gods blinked out of existence, I dove back for my bedroll as time restarted. I heard men coming, running towards the camp. The horses were whinnying and the rain was once again falling.
I did the bravest thing I could think of.
I pretended to asleep.
Don’t knock it. You can learn a lot about people when they think you are asleep. Try it sometime. See if that conversation your boyfriend or girlfriend is having on the phone is in fact with “just a friend.” I’ll save you the time—it isn’t. They’re cheating on you or soon will be. If you have to ask, you already know the answer. Trust me, I’m usually the one on the other end of that phone call.
Now before you get all judgmental on me, I have to admit, while I am a decent fighter, I augment my skill and speed with my magic. Without it, I’d rather not take on however many people were coming.
Besides, Khasil had clued me in to what was going to happen next. Not on purpose, mind you. She said my soul would be hers. As a being from another plane of existence, she would have no claim on it—unless I was sacrificed in her name ato
p a place of power. Since the Forgotten Bastards were her cult, then I had a pretty good guess as to what was going to happen.
One of the Bastards confirmed it. “They’re out cold. Get them on the litter,” I heard one of the men say.
“Do it yourself,” another responded.
There was a quick scuffle and the unmistakable sound of a foot kicking a crotch, and the second man hit the ground.
“Do it, or you’ll be added to the sacrifice to Khasil, praise her dark name.”
I only hoped that my plan worked. Otherwise, I surely would end up her toy for the rest of existence.
Rough hands picked me up and slung me over a shoulder. I dared to peek for a moment to see several men in leathers and furs looting our fire circle and moving my allies onto a makeshift litter.
I was dumped unceremoniously onto my sleeping friends, victims of the Bastards’ knockout toxin. The Bastards took Wren’s horse, the largest of them, and tied him to the litter, forcing him to drag us along to their lair.
The rest of the horses were slaughtered right there. Their blood was used to draw symbols into the ground as a warning to anyone who came too close to the area that this was the land of the Forgotten Bastards.
As we were carried away to be prepared for a ritual sacrifice, I watched as one of the cultists took a sword to Glue’s neck. The horse tried to save himself, but he was tied to a tree branch and could not get away. The sword came down in a spray of hot blood. There was a singular moment when Glue saw me. He saw me watching him through my peeking eyes. I felt his sadness and fear. We were connected in that fleeting moment. I watched the life drain from his eyes.
So, all things considered, it wasn’t that bad.
Chapter Seventeen-and-a-Half
Where I Don’t Feel I Need to Explain Myself to You
Yeah, I enjoyed watching the horse die.
Villain.
Duh.
...That horse was an asshole.
Chapter Eighteen
Where I Point Out the Obvious and Plan an Escape
I slapped Ammalar Wren in the face so hard, I felt the bones in my hand rattle.
“What the damned bloody hell?!” Wren yelled as he sat up.
“You need to heal the rest of them,” I said, shaking my hand and nodding towards Hawker and Cairn. The block of a man had one hell of a dense bone structure along his wide jaw. “They are not reacting well to the sleeping poison. I figured you were the best shot we had to wake them up.”
“Why did you slap me in the face?”
I rubbed my nose.
“Oh, yeah. Right. Fair enough.”
While Wren began inspecting his patients, I examined our cell. As cells went, I’d seen, and been in, worse. It was a simple room carved from the mountain stone. While Grimskull’s cells were all black, jagged rock and perpetually wet, the cells the Bastards were using were smooth and tan with heavy wooden doors on hinges. Fresh straw was on the floor.
If I had to guess, these were once old military quarters. There was an oil lamp above us, suspended by a chain that led into the ceiling, giving off light. In the corner of the fifteen-by-fifteen room there was a singular small hole covered by a wire mesh grate. The hole led to a small underground stream. Back when this place was part of the mountain fortress, this was what people used for a toilet.
Great. In essence, I was once again in a privy. The gods hate me.
“Where are we?” Wren asked.
“The mountain fortress the Bastards use for a home base,” I said, rubbing my hands against the wall and looking for cracks or any potential secret passages.
“How did we get here?”
“Maybe you should wake up the rest of our little group. I prefer not covering all of this multiple times,” I said without looking at Wren. I continued my inspection of the room and turned up nothing. This was my second dungeon in so many days, and I was going to be very upset if I did not discover a secret passage.
The ammalar grumbled in his own way, not happy with my direction and curt way of speaking to him. Rather than doing as instructed, he watched me. Saddened by not finding a secret passage, I put my arms behind my back and took a deep breath. This was the price of dealing with people who officially did not work for you.
I turned my head just enough to see Wren out of the corner of my eye. “Do as I say. Or I will tell Hawker the truth about the night his village burned.”
I made sure to hold eye contact with the reformed soldier until he turned away first.
“Fine,” he conceded.
“Excellent.”
Wren knelt beside both Hawker and Cairn and summoned his deity’s power. The ammalar brought down the bear paws he calls hands in a mighty slap across the chests of his patients.
The energy provided to him by his conscripted faith woke them both instantly.
“Alianna!” Hawker cried out.
“I’m sorry!” Cairn yelled, his/her voice cracking.
Interesting.
I was fairly sure I’d finally figured out Cairn’s real story as I had Wren’s. A little more prying and I would have leverage over him/her as well.
“Good, you are all awake. Here is the situation,” I said, preparing my address.
“Where are we?” Hawker asked.
“Where is my armor?” Cairn asked, and he/she did his/her best to loosen his/her clothing, hiding her true . . . assets.
“We were drugged by a sleeping mist back at the campsite and we have been captured by the Forgotten Bastards. We are in some sort of ancient mountain fortress, as Wren predicted. Our weapons and armor have been taken and they are preparing to sacrifice us to Khasil. Our souls will be removed from our bodies and given to the Queen of the Dark for all eternity. I counted over four hundred of the Bastards. Which means there should be at least the same number serving in some form of supporting role in the fortress. Probably the families and those who are not up for stealing, combat, and assassinations. Even still, this shouldn’t be a problem.”
I realized I was staring off and narrating. I turned to my group in case I had been doing it all in my head again. The three of them stared at me with their mouths open.
“How could you be so calm?” Cairn asked.
“Bugger that,” Wren said. “How were you not affected by the sleeping mist?”
“Both of you be quiet,” Hawker said with a stern glare. “It’s obvious that he faked being asleep to gather intelligence.”
Well, I’ll be. A thinker in a world of idiots.
I nodded to Hawker. “Yes. From where the arrows hit, I was not affected by the mist,” I lied. “But when the horses began making noise, I opened my eyes to see Wren and Cairn down. So I simply faked being drugged to learn what I could. Does anyone have an issue with this?” I asked.
Wren opened his mouth and I glared at him. He promptly shut it and shook his head. “Nope. Smart thinking.”
“Well, Shadow Jack, we seem to be walking in a darker place. What’s our next step?” Hawker asked.
“Simple. We have to stall for as long as possible. But not here.”
“Why?” Cairn asked. “We need to get out of here as fast as possible before these cultists kill us.”
I shook my head. “No. We need to stall.”
“This room is a tactical advantage,” Cairn countered. “Look,” he/she gestured. “A singular entrance and no other way in or out. We could create a choke point by the door and when they come for us, we could take the first few. Steal their weapons and deal with those that follow.”
Lord, was I the only one who paid attention?
I pointed up at the suspended oil lamp dangling by the chain that led out of the room.
Then I pointed down, at the dry straw that lined the cell. The highly flammable straw.
“Any other questions or dumb ideas?”
“What are we stalling for?” Hawker asked.
The young man continued to impress me. Perhaps this young hero could be turned to a darker path? An image
of Emperor Palpatine came to my mind and it was all I could do to stop from wringing my hands together and saying “Good . . . good.”
“We are waiting for our time to escape,” I said. “Which will occur, most likely, right when they are about to ritually murder us. Until that time, we must do everything in our power to delay them. Make no mistake—if we resist, they will kill us. If we fight back, we will die. They have superior numbers and we are in their lair. So, the terrain is our enemy as well as the Bastards.”
“How can you be sure a chance to escape will happen during the ritual?” Wren asked.
I could see his mind trying to form a coherent battle strategy. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that his world, like so many, was prone to clichéd and contrived moments like rescues at the last second. So instead, I did something out of character for me.
I told the truth.
The Eight Rule of Villainy
A villain will plan for any contingency.
Should that plan fail, a true villain will not only improvise, but they will also claim any success as a well-constructed backup plan.
Chapter Nineteen
Where I Discover Horrible Smells and Use the C-Word (If you find this offensive, imagine it said by a British comedian)
As cults went, The Forgotten Bastards were fairly blasé about their religious practice. Like snarky white people who say “I’m not really religious, but I’m spiritual.” But the crossbows aimed at our backs as they escorted us into the mountain fortress’s interior were deadly legitimate.
Throughout the mountain fortress, carvings and statues depicted Khasil in all her beautiful and terrible forms. The Seductress. The Queen of Torment. The Viper Beast (that last one was a complete rip-off of Tiamat, but thank goodness Babylonians weren’t litigious). Each of the statues had small offering bowls with coagulated blood in them. There wasn’t anything fresh in there, so Khasil hadn’t received any real worship in some time from these folks.