by Brad C Baker
Turning away, Amalae headed over to her father. “C’mon daddy, time to head home. You’ve done enough damage here today.” She smiled warmly to let him know that everything was all right.
Sniffing, then blowing a wad of snot onto the floor, Crallick said, “All right. Just let me piss first.”
“Eww. You go take care of that, then come get me. I’ll wait here with Alpar.” Amalae waved him off towards the door. She then sat and began to chat with the bouncer. “Thanks for watching out for him.”
“It’s my pleasure.” Alpar smiled, half in relief, and half with a fondness for the young woman who sat with him, “He’s lucky to have such an adoring and dutiful daughter. Most girls your age would be busying themselves with boys, dancing, and embroidery.” Alpar looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’m guessing, of course.”
Giving him a condescending look that only a girl in her mid-teens could inspire, Amalae chided, “Really Alpar, do I look like the kind of girl to embroider?”
The pair chuckled and began chatting about the farm and the bar.
***
When the doors swung open, Crallick’s impaired senses were assailed by the cacophony of horses and a pair of jailor wagons. Four warriors, one with some goblin blood in him, guarded the caravan’s belongings.
Staggering a bit, Crallick went around to the side of the stables. He never heard the commotion begin inside the bar.
Bekka had dropped the tray, and the lizardman had her by one arm, with her feet easily off the floor.
“She’s a virgin,” declared the Nekomin mage, “as is the girl over there.” She gestured to Amalae.
“Excellent,” came the quiet voice from under the hood. “Bring her as well.”
Amalae shot a quick glance at Alpar.
Alpar positioned himself between her and the marauders. “I’m afraid I can’t let you have her. I can’t let you have any of them.”
“By Chessintra’s black ass! Let go of my daughter!” Vlados growled. Then to Alpar, he called, “Catch!”
Alpar grabbed the tossed mattock. He easily hafted the twenty-pound weight. Vlados leveled a crossbow at the reptile holding his daughter. “Now you let her go.”
“This is boring me already,” said the cowled figure. “Take her!”
A group of six men approached Alpar. One lantern-jawed warrior ventured, “C’mon, why don’t you just give up the girl before someone gets hurt?”
“Honestly?” Alpar asked.
“Yeah.” Came the curt reply as the half-dozen men drew their weapons.
“Because her father scares me more than the lot of you.” Alpar began to spin the mattock back and forth in front of him. Amalae smiled in spite of herself.
The eruption of violence was terrible and sudden, and was over as quick as it had begun.
A crossbow bolt flew through the air. With serpentine reflexes, the Komodoman swatted the projectile from the air with his tail. His claws dug furrows into the wrist of the young dwarf. Bekka cried out as they headed for the door.
Six warriors dove in at once on Alpar. His mattock crushed one head, and stunned two more with one swipe. Three blades made it through his defense. Lung, kidney and thigh were all run through. He fell.
Amalae was grabbed, though not without her leaving red weeping furrows in her abductor’s cheeks and arms.
Vlados began reloading through salty tears.
The host withdrew out the door.
“All you had to do was let us take the virgins. We’d have paid you well for them. Instead, your foolishness causes us to leave you with our retribution,” the cowled figure chided.
Crallick finished shaking the urine off when he noticed the two unconscious men being tossed onto the backs of the horses. Two small figures now occupied one of the jailor wagons. A pricking sense of foreboding began to eat its way, rat-like, into his brain. Crallick began to take a step forward, “Wha…”
“Finish the judgment,” commanded the fur-bundled figure, leaping up into his saddle.
With a spin and flourish that caused the robes to swirl up around the Nekomin’s legs, revealing the black furred tail and haunches, she hissed out the spell, “Pyrreth Fortuna.” A bolt of blue-black fire launched from her fingers towards the open mouth of the inn.
The bolt passed the crossbow quarrel flying in the other direction.
“Shit,” said Vlados.
“Mrowr!!” cried the Nekomin in pain as the quarrel found its mark in her shoulder.
“What the fu…” began Crallick before the fireball overwhelmed him.
Blackness enveloped his world.
Alpar dove over the bar onto Vlados, driving him to the ground. At least he would meet his goddess on good terms.
The Nekomin leapt into her saddle and joined the retreating column as they headed westward into the dying sun.
Chapter Two
“Jyslin's face graced the eastern skies to bless the day.
Her sister's storm clouds swiftly moved in from the north.
Cradle Knight Crallick was the only one in their way.
Twenty thousand Bannathyrran troops sallied forth.”
-Verse 3: Ballad of Ser Crallick Carnage-born.
Crallick’s vision began to clear. At the very least, the blackness began to take on a reddening hue. ‘Wait, no, that can’t be good,’ he thought through the roaring, pounding, head-breaking hangover. No, he had opened his eyes; there were the stars creating a field of dewdrops upon a black tabard. The troubling thing was the reddish smear, like blood, flowing across that tabard. Was it a fellow warrior slain? Crallick’s addled mind panicked as he tried to recount the haze of the last twelve drunken hours. He heard cries of Vitani and humans alike. How the sounds reminded him of a battle. But he hadn’t been in one for so long now, had he? He was on his back. This realization pushed into his brain as he felt the pressures of dirt and gravel on his back. Dragging an elbow back under his shoulder, he lifted his head up delicately to survey the scene.
“Hey, there’s one over here!” came a call from Erathyr, one of his neighbours.
Along with long draughts of horror that threatened to drown him as assuredly as all the ale in Vlados’s Rest could, the sight that Crallick registered chilled him to the bone. Vlados’s Rest lay in rapidly charring timbers while flames roiled into the air. Gently reassuring hands held Crallick’s shoulders and helped him sit fully upright.
“Are you alright?” Erathyr asked.
“Vlados?” Crallick shuddered thinking about the last patrons of the bar. “Bekka?” Then the thought hit him, his daughter had been talking to Alpar. “My goddess! My daughter! Alpar!?”
“I don’t know.” Erathyr tried to be consolatory. “They’re trying to get the flames out and they’re looking for survivors in the meantime.”
Crallick felt a cool cloth touch the back of his head. Hauling himself up to his feet, Crallick ferally snarled, “There’s no time for nursing here. They may not have that luxury!”
“You can’t…” began Erathyr.
“Who’s going to stop me?” cut off Crallick. Then he began deliberately marching towards the blazing ruins.
Erathyr quickly ran towards some other rescuers, unsure of how to deal with the stubborn man.
Roast boar. Hunger panged at the pit of the dehydrated and calorie starved dwarf. It smelt like roast boar. There was a heavy weight and a persistent heat, like sitting too close to the damned cooking fire. Vlados opened his eyes to see eyes staring back at him, only fingers away from his face. The gold and now sightless eyes were Alpar’s. Vlados groaned and wept his dismay as he realized the roasting smell was his dear friend and bouncer, Alpar. Vlados looked to his left to see the guttering flames from the gutted tun of ale. To his right, bluer and hotter flames ran the length of the storage under his bar, where the stronger spirits had been kept until they had burst in their bottles from the heat. Vlados slid the cooking man over to his left. The main explosion had flash-cooked the entire back of the Ephemeron. “J
yslin keep you,” Vlados silently rasped. He closed Alpar’s eyelids as best he could.
Cautiously, Vlados rose to his knees over the other man’s chest. He sobbed, while wracking coughs assaulted his heat-seared lungs. He knew his bearings but with his daughter gone and so much destruction, he just couldn’t see any point to go on. No tears survived the heat to belie his feelings, but the gut-wrenching twisting of his mouth in agonized misery was unmistakable.
Crallick slid over the burning bar-top to land in a graceless crash beside Vlados. “Well, this is a shitty way to end the day!” he yelled over the crackling inferno.
They both involuntarily jumped when part of the second story fell to the timbers of the first-floor ceiling. The supports creaked ominously all around them.
“Where are the girls?!” Crallick was all sober business in an instant.
Vlados didn’t know what to do or say. Now was not exactly the time to broach the sensitive subject of, ‘Our daughters have been kidnapped’. But he had to tell Crallick something. “They’re out!” he settled on.
“Best news I’ve heard all night,” Crallick returned. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Defeated, Vlados simply nodded.
Crallick slid his arm under the armpits of Vlados, hoisting him up. Then, with more alertness than Vlados could ever remember the drunk farmer having had, he was propelled towards the exit.
There was a sundering roar as the upper story caved in in front of them. Pausing only for a heartbeat, Crallick shifted his pell-mell run thirty degrees to the right and began to pick up speed. He headed not for the blocked front door, but instead for the stone-glass window to the left of the door that let in natural light during the day.
“Wha, wha, what... cough… do you think…”
In answer to Vlados’s unfinished question, Crallick bundled his red cloak around them and leapt at the window. There was a shudder, then a crash, but mostly a lot of screams from the two of them riding out the broken and glowing wrought iron frame from the sill of the window.
The horrified crowd gasped, then themselves screamed as the porch roof stove in upon the pair.
Crallick and Vlados stared at each other in the heated cocoon. “Why aren’t we ashes yet?” began Vlados.
“I told you my cloak was a bit of wing from a dragon,” Crallick said matter-of-factly. “Why didn’t I see the girls? Outside I mean.”
“Umm…” Vlados could tell that this wouldn’t be avoided. “They were taken.”
“What!?” came the explosive retort. It was accompanied by the stench of booze and accusatory glaring that would allow for no quarter. “How!?”
“The score of patrons that came in before you were to leave took them. They did all this…” Vlados began.
There was a sudden lightening of weight around their lower bodies. Erathyr had organized some brave volunteers to approach the blaze to try to dig the two of them out.
“Why didn’t you stop them?” Crallick accused.
“Why didn’t you!?” Vlados countered.
What followed was poignant and sobering to the dwarf. “Because I’m just a useless, drunk farmer now.”
The two felt the sudden sensation of being dragged in their cocoon; they then cooled and quickly rolled apart, gasping in fresher air. They both staggered to their feet and helped each other away from the fire. Others offered cool water, salves, and herbs. All were accepted gratefully.
Vlados then took three deliberate steps to Crallick and punched him off of his feet.
“You aren’t useless, you self-centered, miserable excuse for a ranger. You can go hold whatever pity is fashionable for yourself after our daughters are rescued. Are we clear?” Vlados shook out his charred fingers that wept at the force of the blow.
Crallick looked up from his back. He nodded slowly. ”Agreed,” he quietly said.
Farmers and villagers slaved fruitlessly to save the inn. They at least prevented the surrounding forest from catching alight. The two friends watched the cremation of Vlados’s Rest well until the break of dawn. As light crested the eastern treeline, the friends got their first good look at each other.
Vlados’s strawberry blond beard had been severely burned. So much so that he had to hack it off short. Tufts of hair burnt out of his head left visible bald patches. There was soot caking the Dwarf’s careworn face.
Crallick was relatively unscathed. Caked in soot, sure, but nothing more than a serious sunburn over his arms and legs. The greatest injury to Crallick was a pair of goose-eggs that adorned the back of his head. Scrapes and cuts latticed his forearms and face.
The pair looked on at the inn’s remains. After they had received treatments from the village healer and the well-meaning neighbours, Vlados found that tears could finally come to his eyes and grief shook his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, my friend,” Crallick’s soft, rough voice cut the dawn’s silence. Crallick had been watching the innocent travellers’ corpses being collected to a wagon for burial.
“Yeah? For what exactly?” came Vlados’s choked reply.
“Hunh,” Crallick grunted. “I suppose I deserved that… for my not being able to prevent this. For them.” He gestured at two blackened and twisted figures that couldn’t have been more than two feet in height each. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to keep our daughters and your livelihood from harm. I’m sorry I wasn’t twelve years younger.”
“Hah, you may as well apologize for not being a hot female dwarf while yer at it,” Vlados mirthlessly offered. Then after an awkward silence, “So what are ye going to do about it?”
Shoulders rounded with the weight of resolve, Crallick slowly straightened his hunched back, then rose to his feet. “I’m going to go home, eat breakfast, rest for a bit, return here, then get them back,” he defiantly declared.
“Horse shit,” Vlados stated.
“What?” Crallick shot back.
“Horse shit. You can’t cook.” He grinned wanly, “We’ll go back to your place, I’ll make us breakfast, we’ll rest, then return here and get the girls back.”
Crallick smiled. It wasn’t a particularly nice smile but it seemed to fit him better than the dour, crunk countenance that Vlados had come to know over the course of many years.
There was a fifteen minute trek to Crallick’s failing farm; the closest farm to the road and the inn felt much longer as the adrenaline wore off from their harrowing evening. They lumbered up the weed-choked lane to the ramshackle hovel-house, which was too good a word to describe the domicile. Cottage was too quaint, and cabin was too sturdy. Crallick glumly thought hovel was the only word to describe this building.
The front door slewed open with a groan of protest from the half rusted iron hinges that did more to hold the door closed than they did to facilitate its opening. They cleared the threshold to a remarkably undusty living room. A testament to Amalae’s housekeeping, not Crallick’s. Noticing how Amalae had managed to balance all of their eating and cooking utensils on a seriously sloped shelf, Vlados couldn’t help but wonder why she had never come to work for him. He busied himself with the kitchen area by the fireplace while Crallick wandered into a back room.
“Well, I never thought I’d ever be doing this again,” Crallick whispered to no one in particular. He easily lifted the heavy timbered bedframe, mattress and all, and cast it aside. He pried up two loose boards, which ironically fit in with all the other loose boards of the house. ‘No,’ Crallick thought grimly, ‘with the amount of wealth in this home, manor is more fitting a word.’ With a grunt, Crallick hoisted out a long trunk; rectangular, and jointed, with rough iron-mongered edges. He slid it to the side.
“Under the bed? Really? Couldn’t you find a better spot to hide your money?” laughed Vlados from the doorway.
“I did,” Crallick nodded back the way Vlados had come in. “That’s in the whiskey still out back. This is my adventuring gear.”
“The still?” Vlados hung his mouth. “You mean you don’t actually make
your own?”
“No, you and everyone else should know by now that I’m useless at cooking,” Crallick grinned, “but no one would think that a drunk farmer would use a still for anything other than whiskey.”
Vlados shook his head with amazement, “You, my friend, are way too good at this sort of thing to be wasting that talent on whatever it is you do here.”
“Farming,” Crallick volunteered.
Scoffing, Vlados said, “Whatever, supper is ready.”
They sat down to a welcome meal of bacon, eggs, and spiced potatoes. There was a wedge of cheese and a loaf of half stale bread between them as well. Two mugs of water completed their fare. After the meal, Crallick nodded towards the other door, “You can crash on Amalae’s bed.”
They each parted into their respective rooms.
As Crallick made ready to drop into his akimbo bedframe, he heard sobs raggedly leaking between the doorframes. Crallick started to rise to go and comfort his friend as a lump jammed his heart into his throat. His memory took him to a mourning child of seven, sobbing from that very room over the loss of her mother two years ealier. His warrior’s hardening failed to console her. Crallick gritted his teeth. For his friend’s sake, now was not the time to succeed. They would face far harder trials in the time ahead. If their daughters were to hold to any chance, Vlados would have to toughen up and Crallick would have to refine his temper. With a final shuddering breath of his own, Crallick went back to his own bed. Sleep overtook him before he could reach for his bottle of mash.
They slept.
***
Several hours later, Vlados awoke to the sound of crashing in the other room. Leaping to his feet, he grabbed a broom and rushed to see the source of the commotion. A belly laugh overtook him as he surveyed the scene. Half-naked, Crallick was reeling around the living room, his head stuck in the sleeve of a ring mail shirt, while an arm poked out of an offending head opening. The disfigured abomination stopped and oriented itself to his laughter. “Thanks for this,” Vlados sobbed between guffaws. “I needed that more than I realized.”
