by Matt Forbeck
Yumi’s hobby in the village, it turned out, was watching over the iron golems that protected the place. The Villagers were a peaceful people, so much so that they usually kept their hands hidden inside the sleeves of their clothes to indicate their lack of aggression. But the world wasn’t always as kind as they were, so they needed something to protect them from it. That’s where the golems came in.
Archie didn’t like to spend much time around the golems, as he worried that they would see him as a threat and attack him, but since he was living in Yumi’s home, he couldn’t entirely avoid them. Yumi soon showed him the error of his ways by introducing him to the village’s protectors. It turned out that the iron golems were entirely peaceful—at least until someone attacked one of the Villagers. Instead of preparing for a fight, they spent most of their time just strolling around the village and keeping an eye on it. Sometimes they stood staring at things for so long that they seemed like little more than metal statues.
One afternoon one of the golems—Yumi’s favorite, who spent lots of time near her home—approached Archie directly. The little Illager’s first instinct had been to scramble away from it and find someplace to hide. Yumi caught him, though, before he could slip into the house.
“Don’t be shy,” she told him with a laugh. “It has something for you.”
“What?” Archie said, surprised. He suspected that something involved causing him pain, and he steeled himself for whatever came next.
Yumi smiled at him. “Stick out your hand.”
In spite of his reservations, Archie decided to trust Yumi, who hadn’t steered him wrong so far, and he did as she said. In response, the iron golem held out its own hand, in which it held a pretty flower, which it presented to Archie.
“Go ahead,” Yumi said with a warm giggle. “Take it.”
Archie reached out and gingerly took the flower from the iron golem’s outstretched hand. Apparently satisfied, the creature turned around and went back to its duties. The Illager marveled at the beauty of its gift as it left.
The village, as Archie came to know it, had been built by the people who lived there—or at least the people who came before them—with their bare hands. They’d harvested and mined the resources they needed, and crafted them into the homes and buildings that dotted the area they’d carved out of the Squid Coast. People like them had originally settled far from one another, staking out their own separate portions of the land, but the ever-present threat of undead mobs and Illager raids had driven them to band together, for their own safety if nothing else.
“I’m sorry about that,” Archie told Yumi one night. “About the Illager raids, I mean.”
She snorted at him. “Did you ever take part in any of them?”
He lowered his eyes. “Only the ones I was forced to—but yes.”
“Did you ever hurt anyone?”
He hesitated before he answered. They’d been enjoying a quiet dinner, and he was loath to ruin it. “Not for lack of trying,” he finally said. “But I was fortunately awful at it.”
“That’s good,” she replied with a chuckle. “Good that you’re so awful at being bad.”
He nodded in agreement. “I’m trying hard to get better at being good instead.”
“Just keep practicing,” Yumi said as she started to clear the dishes. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
Soon, Archie didn’t feel like he was a guest in the village anymore. It became more of a home to him than any other place he’d known. He actually began to relax. Just a little. Enough that he wasn’t waking up in the middle of the night ready to scream at an insect scratching against the glass in the window in his bedroom.
Inevitably, something ruined it for him. If he’d had to guess beforehand, he would have bet that it would have been the fault of Salah, who sometimes was still rude and mean to him—although not every chance he got.
But Salah wasn’t the one who shattered Archie’s dreams of becoming a part of the village community. Of becoming at least an honorary Villager himself.
That was all due to the hero.
Well, heroes.
Archie was working in the garden in the center of the village when the heroes arrived. He’d already helped feed the cows and pigs that morning and had spent the afternoon assisting people who actually knew what they were doing when shearing the village’s pen full of sheep. He was looking forward to another peaceful dinner with Yumi when he heard the commotion at the edge of the village.
The sun was drawing lower in the sky when the heroes arrived. In contrast to the Villagers, the newcomers were loud and boisterous. As they chattered with one another, their voices carried throughout the entire place, almost like alarms set to let the Villagers know that they were coming.
The heroes spoke in some kind of odd language that Archie had never been able to understand. He’d only heard it before from the hero who had defeated his entire raiding party, and then he’d only been able to guess at the meaning from the tones of the hero’s exclamations. They’d mostly been expressions of surprise and triumph, sprinkled with cursing about the rare injury anyone had been able to inflict upon him.
Now, though, the tones had the rhythm of a pleasant conversation among people who were at least casual acquaintances, if not actual friends. Still, their words made no sense to Archie or, as far as he could tell, anyone around him.
As the voices grew closer, Yumi appeared at Archie’s side and put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “We should get you inside,” she said, her voice all hurried business.
Archie considered telling her that he wasn’t afraid of the heroes—but it turned out he was. He nodded at her and then followed her from the garden and headed toward her home.
“Can you understand them?” she asked him as they strode along at a brisk pace, fast enough to make progress but hopefully not enough to draw too much attention to themselves.
He shook his head. “I was hoping you might be able to.”
Yumi shook her head as she glanced back over her shoulder in the direction from which the loud, strange conversation rolled toward them. “We manage to barter with them, mostly by grunts and hand signals, but they’re not from around here. They don’t feel the need to learn our language or to teach any of us theirs. I don’t think anyone’s ever been able to have a proper, civilized chat with them, but it’s been that way forever.”
Archie glanced backward with her, hoping that he wouldn’t spy the heroes chasing after them. That’s how he didn’t see Salah stepping straight in front of them. Not until he slammed right into the Villager’s chest.
“Hey!” Yumi snapped at Salah. Her strides had sent her straight past him while he’d knocked down Archie, and she had to spin back around to return to them. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Salah asked, as if he didn’t already know exactly where they were headed.
He pointed down at the still-prone Archie. “We have new guests in the village. I thought our current guest might want to meet them.”
Yumi swung around Salah and helped Archie to his feet. “And why would he want that?”
Salah gave her an exaggerated shrug. “They have so much in common, don’t you think? For one thing, no one really wants any of them here. Not permanently.”
“And why is that?” Yumi jutted her chin out, defiant.
Salah stabbed a finger at the ground. “Because they don’t belong here.”
“That’s not really for you to say, is it?” Yumi took Archie by the hand and led him around Salah.
Salah matched her move, sidestepping in front of her and blocking her way. He replied to her loudly, “I suppose when someone brings an Illager into the village, it’s every good Villager’s concern.”
Yumi hissed at the man as if she might strike him down right there. “Get out of our way.”
> “It’s strange, isn’t it?” Salah’s voice rose with each word until he was actually shouting. “I mean, Villagers live in a village, right? But Illagers? THEY DON’T LIVE IN AN ILLAGE, DO THEY?”
Archie didn’t understand what Salah was doing. Not then anyhow. But when he heard the people chattering in their nonsense tongue behind him, he finally got it.
He turned around slowly, hoping not to find what he knew he was doomed to see.
The heroes had strolled up right behind him, and now they were staring straight down at him.
There were five of them. At first, that was all that Archie could take in.
He’d never seen more than one hero at a time before, and one of them had been enough to take on a whole raiding party and destroy it. That’s why the Illagers generally gave them a wide berth.
But here were five of them together. Archie couldn’t imagine what force could stand before them.
Not his Illager tribe. Certainly not the entirety of the Villagers. And definitely not Yumi and him.
The heroes gazed down at him with curious eyes, as if they’d never seen anything like him before. At least they haven’t attacked me, Archie thought. Yet.
Somewhere behind him, Salah started laughing. Archie wanted to turn around and kick him in the shins, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the heroes. He feared if he did so he’d wind up with a sword jabbed into his back.
The heroes looked so different from even the Villagers. There was something ephemeral about them that set them apart. They were stronger, faster, and just…sharper.
They each wore a suit of armor, although each suit was made out of different materials and fashioned in different colors. They each carried a sword in their hands, sharp and ready. Some of them carried shields too, while others bore mighty bows and quivers stuffed full of arrows instead. All of them simply gazed down at Archie as if he were a mystery waiting to be solved.
“That’s him!” Salah pointed at Archie as he walked out from behind him in a wide circle, making sure that Yumi couldn’t intervene. “That’s the one you’re looking for!”
“Shut up!” Yumi barked at Salah. “They couldn’t possibly be looking for him!”
Archie gasped and gaped at Salah. Had the Villager somehow managed to tell the heroes of his presence here? Had he figured out a way to communicate with them? Would they do his bidding?
And what would that be? Would they run him out of town? Or would they simply end him then and there?
Archie’s head swam from the horrible possibilities. He felt like passing out on the spot. At least that would put an end to all the speculation. He’d either wake up, or he wouldn’t—and it would all be outside of his control.
Yumi reached out and steadied him with a hand on his shoulder. “It’s all right,” she told him. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
Archie tried his best to believe her, but he just couldn’t manage it.
One of the heroes stepped forward and peered down at Archie. Curiosity narrowed his gaze. He seemed confused, as if Archie’s presence presented an unwelcome puzzle the hero needed to solve.
Archie tried to turn away, but the hero reached out and grabbed him by the chin and forced Archie to look into his eyes. It was then that Archie finally recognized him.
He was the hero who’d destroyed his raiding party.
CHAPTER SIX
Archie’s knees gave out, and his legs folded beneath him. The hero who was holding him up by the chin released him and watched him collapse into a boneless puddle on the ground.
Archie tried to will his legs to work, to stand him up and put one foot in front of the other as fast as they could, and to carry him far and fast away, but they felt like raw rubber. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get them to move. They just wobbled there beneath him, like his whole body, trembling in fear.
Yumi knelt down next to him and tried to rouse him. “Archie,” she said. “It’s okay. I’m here. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Archie believed her even less now than he had before. He’d watched that so-called hero defeat many of the most powerful Illagers he’d known. It was a miracle of sorts that he’d survived witnessing those acts, and now he knew in his heart that—given the slightest chance—the hero would finish the job.
He looked up past Yumi’s shoulder and saw the hero staring down at him. In fact, all of the heroes were staring at him. Salah was too, with a vicious sneer on his lips.
Despite that, the heroes seemed not just mystified but perhaps actually concerned for Archie’s welfare. None of them had reached for their swords yet. In fact, one of them had actually pulled a glass bottle filled with a glowing pink fluid from her backpack and was holding it out to Archie for him to take.
The Illagers had never been able to fashion healing potions of their own, but they’d occasionally find or steal one from someone else or barter with a witch for one. Walda had always kept them in her tent, ready to be dispensed only in case of emergency. Archie had never needed one. In fact, he’d rarely ever seen one.
But this bottle, he knew, contained a magic healing potion of the greatest potency.
He didn’t know if it would do anything for him. Although he’d fallen, he wasn’t physically hurt, so there wasn’t anything about him that needed healing. But he didn’t know enough about magic to argue with the hero, so he reached up to accept the bottle being offered to him.
Before he could lay a finger on it, though, the first hero shoved his hand right between Archie and the other hero. His open palm faced out, right toward the other hero, and he said something Archie could only interpret as, “Stop!”
Archie cringed back, a little yelp of terror escaping from between his lips.
The other heroes seemed surprised and began to argue with the angry hero, who Archie began to think of as Smacker. He was the one, after all, who’d smacked Archie into unconsciousness on the field of battle, and here he was, smacking a healing potion away from him. It was at least, Archie thought, a kinder name than Ender of Illagers.
Archie couldn’t really tell the difference between the other heroes. He hadn’t had a traumatic experience with any of them, and they all were just so dazzlingly superior that they seemed to blend together in their awesomeness, like looking at the brightest stars sparkling in a clear night sky. Even among them, though, Smacker stood out.
It wasn’t that he was stronger, smarter, or better than any of them. It was more that he was louder and meaner. That and the fact that he usually reached for a blade to solve any problem he faced set him apart.
Smacker stood between Archie and the others and began shouting at him. Archie couldn’t understand the words, but he got the gist of it. The hero had recognized him as an Illager. Maybe he even knew him from the fight in which he’d destroyed Archie’s raiding party.
That detail didn’t matter, Archie knew. Smacker was bound to hate him either way. And he wasn’t alone in that.
“I knew it!” Salah flung an accusatory index finger at Archie. “You brought nothing but trouble to our village. That’s the only thing an Illager can ever bring!”
“Shut up, and stay out of this,” Yumi snapped at Salah, so hard that the Villager flinched. “You’ve caused enough trouble already.”
Smacker began to snicker at the trouble he was causing between the two Villagers. He couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, of course, but the fact that they were bickering at all seemed to cause him no end of delight. He pointed at the two of them and laughed out loud to the other heroes.
Yumi ignored Smacker’s antics and snarled at Salah. “I’ve put up with you picking on Archie and causing him trouble and generally being a jerk, but that ends now. It’s one thing to give the little guy a hard time. It’s another to put his life in danger.”
Salah didn’t back down an inch. “I’m the one putting his
life in danger? He’s an Illager. His people regularly try to hurt us. And I don’t care how pretty you dress him up, he’s still always going to be one of them!”
Yumi stepped right up into Salah’s face and pointed her finger so close between his eyes that he had to cross them to be able to see it. “You think he’s the biggest threat around here? He hasn’t even said a cross word to you or anyone else the entire time he’s been here. Me, though, I’m sick and tired of the grief you’re causing us all.”
The words might have been harsh, but Yumi spoke in an even tone, so nonchalant that she could have just been discussing the weather or the state of the sheep in the village’s central pen. The heroes who were watching the entire conversation seemed confused about why Salah was so clearly frightened of Yumi. When he looked to them for some kind of support, they shrugged at him, unsure what he could possibly need help with when the lady chatting with him was being so kind.
It seemed to Archie, though, that Smacker could tell what was going on, but he didn’t clue the others in. Instead, he just laughed out loud once again, his unrestrained mirth growing to knee-slapping guffaws.
Salah’s face grew redder every second Smacker kept laughing. Soon he was as ruddy as a pig and as angry as a next-door creeper. He clenched his jaw so tight it seemed like it might crack, but only Archie seemed to notice.
No one else seemed to recognize the threat. Not even Yumi, who was still too focused on Salah’s face to pay attention to what he was doing with his hands.
The moment Salah opened his mouth to snarl at Yumi, though, Archie couldn’t stand there and watch any longer. He launched himself straight at the Villager and punched him in the crotch.
Salah folded over like he’d been cut in half. He fell to his knees, groaning in pain.
Proud of himself for defending Yumi, Archie gave Salah a solid kick for good measure. As he did, the people all around him gasped in horror.
