Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian

by Elizabeth Gannon

  “A nice conversation about the thousands of people who want to kill us?” Kobb arched a questioning eyebrow.

  “Why do I have to have a nice conversation about people who aren’t nice?” Xiphos frowned petulantly. “That doesn’t make sense. I’d rather curse about them. And yell. Threaten their worthless lives and the virtue of their women. To me, that is what we should do. That is what we always do.”

  “I don’t care if she wants you to write love sonnets to them, you’re going to do it!” Tzadok snapped at him. “Shut up and talk nicely! Be civil, you ignorant fuck-head!”

  Tandrea sighed. “Look, it’s not that…” She trailed off, her head tilting to the side as she looked at Tzadok. “Wow.” She breathed. “You are a very pretty man when you’re angry.”

  “Oh, that’s just…” Xiphos looked at him for a moment as well. “Huh. You are pretty man, Tzadok. I never noticed.”

  “Shut up, Xiphos.” Tzadok bit out. “My Prize has forbidden me from killing you, but I can still make you long for the cold merciful arms of death to embrace you.”

  “You can’t hurt me.” Xiphos assured him. “Tandy had a talk with the other villagers today about non-violent conflict resolution.” He nodded. “It was very convincing. Life in the village has very much improved.”

  Tandrea beamed with pride.

  “Only eight people were stabbed today.” Xiphos finished, impressed with the low number. “And those incidents were mostly due to arguing about which tactic of non-violent resolution was the most effective.” His eyes narrowed. “They say it’s ‘recognizing impulsive behavior,’ but I say fuck them and fuck that! It’s ‘compromising.’ If you don’t think ‘compromise’ is the best tactic, then you’re simply wrong and possibly evil and can just fucking die screaming as far as I’m concerned.” His voice darkened dangerously. “It’s ‘compromise’ or you are my enemy.”

  Tandrea’s smile faded.

  “That number doesn’t count the scores of people brutalized by Kobb’s woman, I assume.” Tzadok predicted.

  “No.” Xiphos turned to look at Kobb. “Her fiendish reign of terror has no resolution other than the death of us all, it seems.”

  Kobb rolled his eyes. “We used to raid the other kingdoms. Proud warriors who feared nothing.” He gestured to Xiphos. “But now we’re afraid of a beautiful young woman who spends most of her day looking like a startled deer.” He opened his eyes wide and mimicked the quick head turns of a panicked animal sensing danger.

  “It could be worse.” Xiphos turned to look at Tzadok. “We could still be afraid of our own mother.”

  Tzadok sat up straighter. “I was not afraid of my mother.”

  “Why not?” Xiphos snorted. “Everyone else was.”

  “My sister had a very different attitude towards being The Lord of Salt.” Kobb informed Tandrea, explaining the argument. “More…”

  “Violent. Very, very violent. Like Tzadok.” Xiphos helpfully supplied. “But smarter and with less crying.”

  “Shut up, Xiphos!” Tzadok slapped him on the back of the head. “You want violent, I was born for violence!”

  Xiphos pointed at him and looked at Tandrea, seeking a ruling.

  “Please don’t hit your cousin, Tzadok.” Tandrea admonished. “It’s not polite.”

  Tzadok crossed his arms over his chest sulkily. “If My Prize wasn’t here, I’d…”

  “You’d what?” Xiphos challenged, cutting him off. “Cry? There’s a surprise.”

  “She died during the Battle of Princeps.” Kobb continued, ignoring the byplay. “She and her allies laid siege to that golden city for a year solid. She was determined to take it, no matter the cost. Then there was an outbreak of Thylatia in the camp.” He shook his head, looking haunted. “Horrible, horrible disease. That’s no way for a warrior to die. Most people succumb within three days. She took almost two weeks. She was too tough to die easy.” He cleared his throat. “I…I arrived at her war camp, after so many years away from the clan, and I went to see her immediately.” He turned towards Tzadok. “Your mother grabbed my hand, looked into my eyes and she told me something I’ll never forget. She said: ‘Once I get to the other side… I’m going to wreck your fucking life, Kobb.’ Then she died.” He was silent for a beat. “As last words go, those weren’t the most comforting.” He stared at nothing, lost in thought. “I don’t believe there’s been a day that’s gone by since when I haven’t thought about that…”

  Xiphos snorted. “Personally, it would have bothered me more if she’d said something which wasn’t a threat.” He turned to look at Tandrea. “The Butcher’s mother was not a soft woman. She baked me bread that had rocks in it once! She said the day I could chew it would be the day I’d become a real man, not a weak infant.”

  “Oh, she did not.” Tzadok rolled his eyes. “You’re such a liar.”

  “Yes, she did!” Xiphos insisted. “I broke three baby teeth! My mom was furious!”

  Tzadok opened his mouth to protest again, but then remembered that argument and his cousin’s dental problems that year.

  Shit.

  “The responsibilities of being Lord of Salt are great, and they harden even the most generous and caring of people.” Kobb explained, trying to let his dead sister off the hook. He pointed at Tzadok. “Which is why you need to be careful that your own heart does not darken, Nephew. Listen. Patience. Calm.”

  “I’m always perfectly fucking calm.” Tzadok protested. “I just want to stop this needless talking and go slaughter our enemies like the pigs they are.”

  “Umm…” Tandrea raised a hand. “I… I don’t think that sounds very calm.”

  “I thought it was ‘proper debate procedure’!?!” He pressed in triumph. “Huh!? Isn’t that what you said!?! I knew I was right!”

  “To be fair, I’ve seen Tzadok kill plenty of people over the years in a completely calm way.” Xiphos defended. “He can be gutting a dozen men but you’d have to shake him to make certain he’s even awake. His merciless bloodlust is very impressive. He can kill anyone, at any time. One minute he’s just sitting there talking to them… and the next?” He snapped his fingers. “Dead. Splattered all over the ground and the rest of us are left to wonder why. And how. And when he’ll do the same nightmarish thing to the rest of us.”

  “Thank you, Xiphos.” He got out through gritted teeth, then leaned closer to the man so that Tandrea didn’t hear. “I’m trying to convince her I’m not frightening!”

  “Why would she be frightened by that?” Xiphos sounded mystified. “I didn’t say you were going to gut her. She should celebrate your abilities as a warrior. They’re certainly more attractive than the many times you bawl like a small incontinent child.”

  “Just shut up.” Tzadok snapped. “You’re making it worse!”

  “I can’t be blamed because you’ve Chosen an irrationally delicate woman.” Xiphos gasped. “If you chose to humor her feminine oversensitivity, that’s on you. But I’m normal.” He pressed a hand to his own chest. “Dory respects my warrior status and celebrates my many successes in battle.”

  “I’d be shocked if ‘Dory’ has even known you long enough to pick you from a crowd, Cousin.”

  “At least my woman isn’t more interested in writing numbers on a page than she is in me.” Xiphos sniffed indignantly. “Not to mention the fact that Dory’s presence isn’t liable to get us all killed.”

  “Dory’s pirate friends killed four of us!” Tzadok cried in righteous fury, his eyes narrowing. “Are you forgetting that!?!”

  “Oh, you never liked Stricklyd and his goons anyway, so don’t act all sad that the pirate killed them.” Xiphos rolled his eyes. “The pirate and her man merely saved you the trouble.”

  Tzadok yelled right over him. “And to be frank, the idea of the Coastal People killing you is looking less and less like a tragedy.”

  Kobb cleared his throat reproachfully, stopping their argument. “Tandy is going to yell at you again if you keep behaving this way
. You’re disappointing her.” He shook his head. “You’re going to scare her off, I’m warning you…”

  All eyes turned to the woman in question, who appeared to be distracted by the furniture she was sitting on.

  She pursed her beautiful lips thoughtfully. “Would this be considered a ‘stool’ or a ‘chair’ in your language?”

  Everyone was quiet for a beat, processing how strange a question that was.

  “Chair.” Kobb and Tzadok informed her.

  “Stool.” Xiphos decided at the same moment.

  “Well, it… it could really be both, I…” Kobb began.

  “A stool!?!” Tzadok cried at Xiphos, pointing to the chair and cutting his uncle off. “There’s no fucking way anyone would call that a stool!”

  “I’d call it a stool!” Xiphos defended passionately, as if the honor of the clan depended on that answer.

  “Then you’re an idiot!” Tzadok shot back. “No surprise!”

  Kobb’s forehead furrowed as he looked at the chair. “I suppose… I suppose it’s really more of a ‘pew’ or perhaps ‘bench,’ isn’t it?”

  Tzadok and Xiphos both turned in unison to look at him incredulously.

  Tandrea quickly stopped the argument before it could spiral out of control. “You know what? I think I’ll avoid that whole issue and just call it a ‘seat,’ how about that? Good? Excellent.” She folded her hands on her lap, in a prim little fashion which Tzadok found surprisingly erotic. There weren’t too many delicate things in his life. He found watching her very pleasurable. And he liked listening to her even more. “We’re really learning a lot about the language today, aren’t we? Hurray for us.”

  Tzadok couldn’t help but be utterly charmed by that. The woman had the most appealing little smile when she was discussing languages. And her folded hands were adorable.

  Such an utterly astonishing woman. He’d never seen anything like her before.

  She was special. So, so special.

  And she was here with him.

  She was scared of him, true, but Tzadok could convince her that he wasn’t a danger to her. He wasn’t entirely sure just how he’d do that, but it was now his one goal in life.

  He needed that woman.

  His uncle seemed to recognize his thoughts, and leaned closer to him so that Tandrea didn’t overhear. “Nephew, I’m going to tell you something important and I want you to remember it in all of your dealings with that girl.” He met his eyes. “You need her more than she needs you.” He swallowed. “When… when I was young, I didn’t think about living well. I wish I had found the things I needed to be happy. I wish I had been a good man. But I wasn’t. And now that I am old, I just want to die well. That is the limit of my dreams now.” He shook his head. “But you still have the chance to be happy. You can live well. In honor and happiness. With a good woman.” He poked him in the chest. “If you screw this up for yourself, I will never forgive you.”

  “Now then,” Tandrea declared, taking charge of the meeting like it was her natural role, “to get us back on track: the Coastal People are trying to turn our allies against us. We can either assume that we will lose the debate and prepare to fight a war you say you can’t possibly win, or we can confront them head-on, trusting in the truth of our position, but putting ourselves at a greater disadvantage should fighting erupt.”

  Xiphos leaned closer to Tzadok as well, his voice a conspiratorial whisper. “Is… is your prize our leader now? Because I like her more than you. Sorry.”

  Kobb ignored that, his face appearing tired as he continued to look at Tzadok. “This is your call, Nephew.” He met his eyes. “What do you want to do?”

  Chapter Nine:

  This Grim Naked Land

  The trip to the meeting had thus far been uneventful. They’d been traveling almost two weeks, and aside from Tzadok’s unmerited complaints, it was a very pleasant journey.

  As if to prove her point, the man once again decided to harp on his new favorite topic of conversation. “I still think you should have stayed at the camp.” He repeated, in case she’d somehow forgotten since he’d last told her that, ten minutes before. “This seems unwise.”

  At the moment, they appeared to be passing through the remains of some ancient ruined city in the middle of The Great Nothing. There were raised platforms, crumbled walls, and broken statues scattered everywhere.

  She absently turned to look at an ancient column which was sticking up out of the salt, like the bones of some long-dead animal. Its surface was worn down to an extent that she couldn’t even tell if there had once been writing on it or not. “You need me to translate.” She informed him. Again. “Besides… I don’t think the village likes me.”

  The Great Nothing wasn’t the most terribly exciting place she’d ever seen. At least in the sense of visuals. She would have sworn she’d been looking at the same endless stretch of salt flats for the last week, and the view had long since stopped impressing her. She trusted Kobb to know the way, but to her, it was just blank sand, thin air, and wide blue sky. The hot sun burned them and the cold wind chilled them.

  From a point of study however, The Great Nothing was a bit of a mystery. How had it formed? How old was it?

  No one really knew. It appeared to have begun as a vast inland sea, which dried up over the eons, becoming a desert. The desert somehow grew hospitable, creating grasslands. Those prairies became settled, turned into farmland, but then the soil was over-utilized and blew away, causing the land to fall back into desert, which was now filled with the limitless salt created when the ancient ocean evaporated.

  The entire cycle had taken untold millennia.

  There were ancient unknown civilizations here, piled one on top of the other, each adapted to whichever environ The Wasteland happened to be at the time.

  It was fascinating.

  Tandy considered it a great honor to be traveling through it with native guides, since so few explorers had such an incredible opportunity. Granted, it didn’t make the journey any less uncomfortable, but it was still an honor.

  Or it had been, anyway. Twelve days ago. Now she was sore, and cold, and sunburned. She had blisters from her horse in places she didn’t even know could get blisters, and her head hurt from squinting in the sun as it reflected off of the white ground.

  Sometimes scholarship was a mixed blessing.

  Tzadok was used to his homeland and didn’t appear bothered by the trip or environment at all. “Really? That’s surprising. According to my cousin, you’re the most popular person in The Wasteland. Solving all of their problems, one crazy idea at a time.”

  She made a face, trying to slow her horse so that she could get a better look at some pottery shards exposed by the wind. She would very much have liked to grab them, but Tzadok got annoyed every time she spent a day pot hunting. Which was ridiculous. She’d only done it twice. Two days lost in two weeks! That wasn’t unreasonable. He was just being stubborn. “Not anymore, sadly.”

  Tzadok rolled his eyes. “Not to question your work, but it probably has something to do with all of the intimate questions you keep asking my people.”

  “It’s very important research!” She defended, taking a swallow of water from her canteen.

  “It’s disturbing.” He corrected. “How often they make love and where, for example? It’s… it’s…” He shook his head. “Well, let’s just say that half the Saltmen think you’re some kind of witch and the other half think you’re a pervert.”

  She scoffed at that idea, pointing at him. “The Galland League of Diplomacy and Interpretation says that I shouldn’t let setbacks keep me from achieving my linguistic goals.”

  “Oh, fuck the ‘Galland League of Diplomacy and Interpretation’.” Tzadok snapped.

  Tandy gasped in horror.

  “They do good works, Nephew.” Kobb called to them from the lead.

  “Shut up, old man!” Tzadok shouted up to him. “No one asked you!” He refocused on Tandy. “I just think that instead o
f pestering the clan with your strange Galland questions, perhaps you should focus on our current troubles.”

  “I’m trying to, but you won’t let me take any more pots.” She pointed at the handle of one sticking out of the ground. “And that looks like a really interesting example too!”

  Tzadok heaved a long-suffering sigh, slid over in his saddle to reach down and grab the vessel as his horse walked by it. He stuffed it into one of the satchels which contained her other treasures. “No, I didn’t mean your broken trash. Try again.”

  “You mean my kidnapping?” She guessed.

  “You haven’t been kidnapped; you’ve been Chosen.” He corrected.

  “Is there a difference?”

  “Of course there is. Don’t spout madness.”

  “Seems like they’re kinda the same to me, honestly.”

  He was silent for a moment, thinking about something. “Do you… do you want to leave?”

  “No, we made a deal. I will stay here and do my duty, just so long as you get me my books.”

  “’Do your duty’?” He sounded horrified. “What kind of person refers to their (weird word) as ‘doing their duty’?”

  “An employed one.”

  “You are not a professional (weird word),” he announced, “I’m quite certain of that.”

  “I’m very professional.” She defended, then raised her voice so that the man’s uncle could weigh in on this. “Kobb, aren’t I professional?”

  “I’m constantly struck by your effectiveness, yes.” Kobb agreed, turning his horse at what looked to Tandy like an arbitrary point and heading in a slightly different direction towards the distant edge of the northern plateau.

  “She’s saying she’s a professional (weird word), Uncle.” Tzadok informed the man. “That she’s paid.”

  “Oh.” Kobb paused for a beat. “Well, I’d be lying if I tried to claim that I’d never enjoyed that kind of female professionalism in my life.” He squinted slightly, evidently trying to reconcile something in his own mind. “I do find this revelation… surprising though, to say the least.” He shrugged. “But it’s ultimately immaterial.”