by Eric Ugland
It was time to go.
Nadya grabbed my arm, and Shae walked directly behind the two of us.
We walked out of the display room, and the guard hadn’t returned yet. Step one, done.
Down the steps, no one paid attention to us. There was a man with an armored soldier following him coming up the stairs as we were going down, and Nadya nodded to the man in greeting. The man nodded back.
And we were on the ground floor, heading for the exit.
Then the guard stepped in front of us.
“Lady Glaton,” he said, addressing Nadya, “it is night. Are you sure you wish to exit?”
“I have my protectors,” she said, gesturing over her head at her knight, and then at me.
“Uh,” the guard said, looking at me like I’d be lucky to kill a fly. “I urge you to reconsider.”
“Noted,” Nadya said with a smile, and then started walking.
The guard moved out of the way.
We made it to the driveway, and a little bit beyond when the shit hit the proverbial fan.
“Come to me, knave,” a voice called out.
I couldn’t help it, I knew I should have kept walking, but I glanced over my shoulder.
Nadya’s guy was standing there. The one who’d been trying so hard to make her laugh and she’d totally ditched for me. He’d come back. Like they always do.
“Keep going,” I whispered to Shae. “Get outside, wait there for me. I will find you.” I pushed the large purse of pilfered goods into her hands, and I turned around.
“Me?” I asked.
The guy came forward, his face a particularly impressive shade of scarlet.
“You are not even worthy of being here,” he said. “Scum, you are.”
“Sounds about right,” I replied. “Probably should be going.”
I turned, and I got a few more steps.
“Are you such a coward?” He called out.
“I suppose I am,” I replied with a smile. “Just, you know, heading out now.”
“I challenge you to a duel, you fop!”
You have been challenged to a DUEL by Reginald Lewiston (LVL 8 Noble). As you have been challenged, you are permitted to set the terms. What are the terms?
Shit, it was a real game-type thing.
“This is absurd, Reginald,” Nadya said.
I wanted to hiss at her, tell her to keep going. At least Shae had the sense to continue on, marching resolutely towards the gate like she was an automaton in armor. And, because of the stupid show Reginald and I were putting on, there wasn’t anyone noticing the magical plate armor heading down the driveway.
“He has tricked you,” Reginald said to Nadya. “You have been promised to—”
“I have been promised to no one, Reginald Lewiston. I am my own woman.”
“Your father and my father have been talking.”
“They talk every day, nothing has been decided. And let them talk. Unless I promise myself to you, I am promised to no one.”
“Then who is this useless meat sack you have ditched me to hang around this evening? Who is this yellow coward who you are going home with?”
A few people were moseying out of the main entrance, enjoying the excitement. As well as some coming from the side of the house. We were a show now. Well, more a soap opera.
“Just a friend,” I said, “escorting her home through the, uh, monster-infested darkness.”
“If it is monster-infested,” Reginald said, “she should stay here, where there are brave men to protect her.”
“Surely you can’t mean you,” I said.
His eyes fairly came out of his head as a new vein bulged from his temple.
“Don’t provoke him,” Nadya whispered. “He has quite the temper.”
“It’s my natural reaction, I have trouble not provoking assholes.”
“Will you accept the duel, elf?” Reginald called out.
“Duel!” Someone in the crowd shouted.
“He will kill you,” Nadya said. “All he does is duel. All any of his fool friends do is duel.”
“You honestly think he’s letting me get out of here?”
“Maybe.”
“I asked for honesty.”
“No. He has it in his head that I am his, and I suppose he sees what you don’t.”
“What?”
“Nothing. You need to move to his left, he is not good with that hand. And his footwork is sloppy, if you can push him into unfavorable terrain, you might trip him up. Don’t actually kill him, his family has plenty of ways to make it bad for you. Or my family if they decide to.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice your last name.”
“It’s common.”
“Sure.”
“We can talk about it if you survive.”
“If I don’t, you get her to safety.”
“I will.”
“Okay,” I said, taking the jacket off, and tossing it to the side in my best display of showmanship. “You want a duel, let’s have a duel.”
75
I quickly set terms of the duel. First blood. There would be nothing more than honor at stake.
“I reject your terms,” Reginald shouted to me, “Clyde.”
He said my name like a playground bully.
Reginald Lewiston has altered the duel. To incapacitation or death. You may decline the duel honorably as Lewiston has altered the terms. Should he lose the duel, he will lose significantly more honor.
I had no honor, and I bet, deep down, Reginald didn’t either, and I had the feeling that my rejection would just lead to him serving me another duel or stabbing me in the back.
So I pulled out my sword, let it glint in the light, and I swung it a time or two.
“Agreed,” I said.
And I accepted the duel, and immediately lunged at Reginald.
He barely got his sword out of his sheath before my sword was there, but a quick shift of his hips and my sword went through air.
“A silver blade?” He sneered at me. “You fancy yourself a hunter of monsters?”
“Maybe,” I said. “You just fancy yourself, I see.”
He let out a grunt, then came at me with his rapier. It was a very thin blade and interesting to see against my silver longsword.
I parried as best I could, but he was certainly significantly more skilled than me, and he scored two small slices on either of my arms in the pass before he backed off to reset. He was breathing a bit hard, though, and I really didn’t feel winded.
Carefully, though, I cycled my mana into my healing spell and took the slices down to barely past the skin. I didn’t want to heal all the way, didn’t want to give away the secret, just make it a little easier for me.
We were on the stone driveway, but it wasn’t far to the grass. Grass that was, by nature, soft, squishy, and uneven. I could force him over there, but that seemed like too much work, and more likely for me to get stabbed. So I just walked over to it.
Reginald was confused that I’d so easily walk away and set up our duel elsewhere.
“What are you doing, coward?” he snapped at me.
“Softer here,” I said.
“Get back on the stone.”
“Get over here and get me you bloated butthead.”
I think it was the alliteration that got him because he bellowed out and charged at me, really not getting that the rapier was a weapon of finesse and skill. He really just treated it like a club. Which it’s not. And not great at being.
However, that probably kept me alive, because it was pretty easy to defend against, although he did get one good slice across my hat, going right through to my scalp. I could feel the blood pouring out of the wound, but considering it was out of sight, I didn’t mind healing it up. I wasn’t exactly keen on the amount of mana I was burning through keeping my wounds minor, at least rate I wasn’t going to manage more than one or two more passes before I was tapped, and the wounds would be real.
I did have one idea, a
nd it was pretty sneaky and mean, but, well, it was a duel.
He took another few steps back to reset, and then I noticed this was all a game to him. He was just taking the measure of me. He wasn’t breathing hard anymore, and he was holding his rapier in a different manner, like he knew what he was doing. He was just about to kill me. He had a look in his eye.
I admit it, I was a little afraid. But that usually wound up making me a bit foolish, and willing to make snide comments.
“You know,” I said, “did your parents ask you to run away from home?”
That shook him just a little, and I think he came after me a little sooner than he thought.
But that was exactly what I needed.
I parried his first thrust and flicked a little spell over his right shoulder, minor illusion, in this particular case, a gargoyle’s claw.
Naturally, he looked, and I swung for the fences, and the flat of my sword connected with the side of his face.
There was a deep and satisfying, BONG, and he dropped like a sack of potatoes into the classic fencer position of being knocked the fuck out.
I saluted his unconscious form with the sword, looked around at the stunned crowd, and promptly left as quickly as I could.
76
Nadya and Shae were waiting across the street, outside the gate of the neighboring estate. Shae had removed her armor and had tucked it into a spare dress Nadya’d given her. The last of the ones we’d stolen from Cordia Tollendahl. I took the dress of armor and the stolen goods in the pouch and got them tied around my belt.
Behind us, there was definitely something happening at the entrance to the home, lots of yelling was going on.
“I have a carriage,” Nadya said, “but I can’t be seen taking either of you.”
“Go,” I said, and she waved to a blue carriage coming her way.
“Might want to be quick,” I said, and I took off sprinting.
Shae followed quickly behind.
I didn’t stop running until Shae begged me to stop. We’d gone several blocks, but not nearly far enough.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Feet,” she said, breathing hard.
Lifting up her dress a little, I realized we’d never given her shoes. She’d been going barefoot this whole time. Minus the short time of wearing the armor, but I had the feeling the metal boots weren’t exactly the height of comfort. Now, after running through the stone streets, there were definitely some unpleasant looking bruises. Already. Which meant that her feet probably hurt a ton.
I tried to figure out where we were. I knew that we needed to get to one of the major avenues if we were going to get a carriage out of the danger zone, and that meant going a few more blocks. So I picked Shae up and hoisted her over my shoulder, fireman style. I could watch my stamina drop as I ran. Well, running was a little generous. As I moved quickly with purpose. I cycled my stamina spell as much as I could, getting my green bar back higher at the expense of my blue mana bar. But eventually, even that ran out, and I had to slow down.
Maybe it was luck, maybe it was something else, but we were close enough that there was a carriage coming down the road towards us. A hirable one.
I reached my arm out, and I whistled.
It made a sharp cut, angled across the empty avenue, and came to a stop in front of me. I looked up at the driver and saw a familiar creepy face.
“Need a ride, moppet?” She said.
“I’ve got your gold, crone,” I said.
She cackled and pulled a lever the opened the door and dropped downstairs.
“Extra if you make sure we aren’t followed,” I said.
“Ain’t no one following us tonight, moppet,” she said. “Professional courtesy.”
I didn’t ask. Just helped Shae aboard, and then closed the door after me.
I don’t remember much of the journey. I know I was mostly awake because I can remember looking out the windows and watching Shae sleep. But everything else is a blur. Next thing I do remember, I was standing outside the Biscuit’s Union, Shae holding my hand and leaning her head on my shoulder, and the crone holding out her hand.
She smiled at me, her teeth a heady mix of black and brilliant white in a way that wouldn’t naturally happen.
I pulled out five gold coins, and I put them in her hand.
“A generous moppet,” she said. “This one will remember.”
And then she whipped her mostly skeletal horses, and the carriage rumbled off.
“Where are we?” Shae sleepily asked.
“A pit stop.”
I led her to the door, expecting it to be locked. Instead, it moved under my knock. Inside were two old men and three old women. All quite advanced in age, all sitting around mugs of steaming liquid.
No one seemed surprised that I came in. One of the old women, one with a long mane of brilliant white hair, stood up and gently took Shae.
“Mind having a seat with an old woman?” She said.
“No, but—” Shae started.
“He’s got business to attend to,” the old woman interrupted Shae and guided her to a table, fixing her up with a steaming mug of something that smelled like chocolate and a small plate of cookies.
“Rowland’s waiting for you, lad,” one of the men said. “Up the stairs.”
He pointed behind me to a green door marked “employees only” in gold letters.
I pushed through, taking the steps slowly, feeling nervous. I was about to complete my mission, but why had he assigned something that wasn’t exactly accomplishable. It was a long walk up the stairs, but as soon as I got to the top, I saw Rowland sitting at a table, two mugs in front of him.
“Sit,” he said, pushing a chair out with his foot, and sliding the mug across with his hand.
I set the large pouch and the dress of armor down next to the chair, and then I sat in the chair.
“I take it you discovered the party was actually tonight,” Rowland said.
“I did,” I said, opening up the pouch.
“And?”
I took out the stone-carved hand wrapped in the silk handkerchief, and I set it on the table.
“What’s this?” Rowland asked.
“The orb,” I replied, untying the silk handkerchief ever so carefully before letting it fall off on its own. I wasn’t about to get my skin anywhere close to the orb itself.
“What do you mean? What orb?”
“The orb of leeching. The one you assigned me to get.”
He blinked, looked at the orb, then at me, then at the orb. I could feel him send a pulse of magic towards the orb, and I saw the orb light up just a teensy bit as the magic hit it.
“It is the orb,” he said softly. “How did you do this? You weren’t supposed to do this!”
“What?”
“This is not how the test goes.”
“Success?”
“Of course not! No one should have done what you did. You were supposed to come to me, say that you had looked things over discovered I got the night of the party wrong and tell me how impossible the ordeal was. I would then knock you down a level and give you something difficult but not impossible. Which you would come back to me to say it is too hard, and so on and so on until we find out that you are novice thief and that you need to learn from us otherwise there is little reason for us to invite you into our little guild because you are already too advanced, and yet, here it is. The actual Orb of Leeching.”
“Yeah, don’t touch it.”
“I know what it does. It belonged to my family. It was stolen from us by Tollendahl’s family. But I never expected to see it again.”
“Now, you have it.”
“What else did you take?”
I dumped the bag of rings and books on the table, then untied the dress and spread the armor out on the floor.
“Oh, what have you done?” he asked. “You have surely kicked the hornets' nest hard, boy.”
“Also,” I said, “not to detract from this, but t
he girl downstairs was kidnapped and being held for sex and killing by Tollendahl. So I took her.”
Rowland just started laughing.
I thought about telling him about the whole kill-the-emperor-plot, but I had the feeling he wasn’t really up for that at the moment. He seemed like he was losing it.
“You have certainly made life interesting again,” Rowland said. “Whichever of the hells we are about to go through because of you, I’m sure it will be the most entertaining end of days. Welcome to the Biscuit’s Union, as a full-fledged member.”
Ready for Book 2?
Order it now:
Second Story Man
And find out where the next heist will take place!
About the Author
Eric Ugland ran away from Seattle to join the circus. And then he came to his senses, and moved to Manhattan to be a playwright. Now he's a novelist in Oregon, trapped by trees and snow and bears. Mostly bears.
The Good Guys is a continuing LitRPG series I’m writing in the world of iNcarn8. Join my reader group and be the first to know when new books come out.
Reviews help other readers find books. Please post a review on Amazon, even if it’s only a line or two. I appreciate all feedback, whether it’s positive or negative.
If you want to chat with other readers about any part of Vuldranni, iNcarn8, the Good Guys, the Bad Guys, or just LitRPG in general, come and join my discord: The Good Guys.
Contents
Also by Eric Ugland
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
