“That’s a matter of opinion,” Matias muttered, clutching tightly onto the staff and feeling relieved he had some kind of weapon again—though he doubted it would be much use against Shunz if it came to a fight.
He’d also managed to keep his rucksack which was still strapped to his back, which he was pleased about, along with his sandals. The thick mud caked his feet and legs and most of his robe. It was drying now and starting to itch.
“You’re strange,” Jhondey said, after some brief reflection. “You wanna see a dead pixie?”
“No,” Matias said, taken aback.
“Oh go on,” Jhondey wheedled. “I have it in a jar of preserving fluid back home. It was being chewed up by a moss mubb when I was out hunting. I shot an arrow straight up that nasty mubb’s bunghole and it ran away faster than a jackalope,” Jhondey chortled at the reminiscence, and then his face fell. “But I was too late to save the little pixie fellow. He’s got a good resting place now, though, so the Great Spirits should be happy. Hey, you could perform the Ritual of Passing and make sure his soul goes back to the Golden Tree, that’s what druids do isn’t it? I never met a druid before, have you come to set up an enclave? Pa says druids don’t come here anymore ‘cause they’re scared of the Hateling. Are you scared of the Hateling, fella? Have you come to kill him? You’re not from these parts or you’d know all about the smother mud. Only a dumbnut walks straight into a smother mud pool. Did the King send you? I bet he did. Sent you to sort out the Hateling. Me and Shunz wanted to go kill that mean critter too, but pa told me I was forbidden from going into that part of the forest.” Jhondey grinned mischievously. “We still snuck out though, late at night, but that old snitch Krumer found out what we were going to do and pa and him were waiting downstairs. I got a good whipping for that, Shunz tried to stop them, Shunz is real protective of me you know, but I told him all stern-like not to butt in. I done wrong and I had to be punished. That’s only right. Is a druid like a monk? We had a monk come visit from Tear Spire once. He was selling healing potions blessed by the Mournful Saints themselves, but Yonti Leiper said it was just watered down troll pish, and I said it was a sin to say that and Yonti said I was stupid for believing all that rot so I punched him in the face for being sinful and knocked his tooth clean out and he cried like a little baby and I got a good whipping for that, but I didn’t care ‘cause I’ll go to the Sacred Fields when I die and he’ll have his nether parts eaten by Howl Demons for all time when he’s gone been dead and buried. That monk was real fat, not like you, and he drank two whole bottles of pa’s best sylph whiskey and ate a big venison shank before he started singing lots of rude songs and chasing Aunt Semmy round the kitchen. Do you know any rude songs?”
Jhondey said all this without pausing for breath, and Matias blinked at him. “I gotta go,” he said and turned away. Before stopping and shooting him and Shunz an uncertain look. “Thanks for helping me,” he said, almost having to force out the words. Matias wasn’t used to expressing gratitude.
“Wait, you can’t go yet,” Jhondey said, tugging at his sleeve. “I want to hear all your adventures. You’ve had lots of adventures right? I bet you have. You look the sort to have adventures. I never have adventures except when this one time I fell down into a slush worm’s burrow and—”
“I should be going,” Matias said, cutting him off. Any more of listening to this kid prattling on and he’d be throwing himself back into the smother mud. “Let go of me.”
The sharpness in his tone made Shunz jerk up his head and edge closer. Matias could feel the menace radiating out of the construct and he made ready to run for it. The machine was strong but seemed pretty slow, just like Sulky. Matias was confident he could outdistance the walking trashcan if he had to.
Crestfallen, Jhondey let go of Matias’ sleeve. “Sure,” he said, looking down at his feet. “I didn’t mean to be a pest.”
Matias thought this must be what it was like to kick a puppy in the face. “It’s okay,” he said, softening his tone. “I’m just having a real bad day.”
Still with his eyes on the ground, Jhondey nodded. The kid wasn’t making it any easier for him. Matias scratched at his mud stained leg.
“You, er, live close by?”
Without looking up, Jhondey pointed east. “A half-league away, in the village of Ironthorne.”
A village meant food, Matias realised, and maybe a bath and a place to sleep. It was late afternoon now, and he didn’t relish trudging back to the Healer’s Hovel and spending the night in the forest all alone and hungry. Despite Jhondey’s incessant babbling, he was friendly enough, and the people he lived with might not be so bad either. If he was lucky, he could exploit them in some way. If not, they might have something of value he could steal. He just hoped that the kid didn’t get Shunz to turn him into crab paste if things went wrong.
He forced a smile onto his face. “You wanna take me there? You could get me some food and sort out someplace for me to get cleaned up and rest for the night?”
Jhondey shrugged but said nothing.
“I can tell you all about my adventures too,” Matias added, baiting the trap.
Jhondey’s head snapped up and the inane grin and wild stare were back. “Sure, come on,” he said eagerly, pulling at Matias’ sleeve again like an overexcited child. “You’ll love Ironthorne, well not love it, ‘cause it’s pretty boring, but that doesn’t matter ‘cause everyone’s real friendly . . . except pa and Krumer, but you’ll get used to them, kind of, and Yonti’s a little baby whose going get his rude bits eaten by Howl Demons, you can punch him if you want. I can show you my collection of weird stuff I’ve found in the forest and the dried droppings of all the animals I’ve hunted. Come on Shunz, we’re going home. No, Shunz, Matias is our friend. Stop! Don’t put him back in the mud again. Sorry about that, no don’t run away! Shunz didn’t mean it. That’s better. Shunz will walk behind us so nothing can sneak up and attack. We’re going to have so much fun now. Did I tell you about the time I fell into a slush worm’s burrow? No? I got a good whipping for that, this is what happened see…”
Chapter VII: The Welcoming Committee
“. . . and then the branch broke and I fell straight into the jooper nest. Those jooper chicks were real mad at me. They started squawking and pecking at my eyes but I managed to swat them away, but then their ma came and thought I was one of her yung ‘uns and fed me worms and picked the lice out of my hair. It was kinda nice, and this other time I chased a skunk lizard and it sprayed me with its gunk and I stunk so bad Aunt Semmy made me sleep outside on the porch for a week, and I had to take a bath every day too! That was real bad. The bath I mean not the skunk lizard. How many animals have you chased? Are druids allowed to chase beasts? Baths are the worse. Do druids have to have baths too, after they’ve chased stuff? Oh, here we are.”
Matias snapped his head up, finally taking notice of Jhondey’s never ending chatter. They had been walking for almost over an hour, by Matias’ reckoning, and the kid hadn’t once taken a break to rest his jaw. “What? We’re at Ironthorne?” Matias didn’t think he’d be so relieved to reach anywhere in his life.
“Sure, come on,” Jhondey said, climbing over a hump in the ground and disappearing into a thick cluster of trees.
Matias followed the boy, with Shunz clunking behind him. Matias emerged from the other side onto a wide road of sandy dirt, made flat and compact by the constant flow of traffic. Jhondey was standing in the middle of the road waiting for him.
“Here we are,” he said, pointing east.
Matias came to join him, and looked in the direction he was indicating. The road sloped gently upwards along a broad hill before terminating at a sturdy palisade wall. Two thick wooden gates stood open in the centre of the wall.
“There’s Ironthorne,” Jhondey said. “It’s a real dump. Nothing ever happens there. Hey, shall we go do some more exploring in the forest instead of going there? I can show you where the skunk lizards have
their barrow.”
“That’s real tempting Jhondey but, if it’s all the same to you, I’d sure like something to eat and a rest,” Matias said. “You did promise I’d get looked after when we got to the village. You’re really important here, aren’t you? That’s what you keep telling me anyway.”
“Sure I am,” Jhondey said, puffing out his chest. “My pa’s the headman of Ironthorne, and everyone minds their manners around me.”
“Jhondey! You gormless streak of goat pish! Where you been?” a man’s rough voice suddenly called out.
Both Matias and Jhondey turned to the sound of the voice and saw three men coming towards them from the direction of the palisade gate. They were rough looking and mean faced, wearing ragged tunics and homespun woollen trousers. Each of them was armed with a rusty spear which they pointed toward Matias.
“Who’s this?” the man in the middle demanded. He was the largest of the three with small piggy eyes and a thick bushy beard. His voice gave him away as the one who had bellowed the insult at Jhondey. “Oh, you little flange eater, you’re in big trouble now! What did your pa say about going wandering off when you had chores to do? Semmy’s been hollering like a mouldy arsed banshee all morning, and what were you told about bringing more strays home too? You’re gonna get a good whipping for this, my lad. Get back to the village now!”
“Frekk off Mardon!” Jhondey snapped. “You ain’t the boss o’ me!”
“I’m head of the Watch, so that makes me boss of everyone,” Mardon retorted with an exaggerated air of self-importance. “No one gets permission to enter or leave without my say so. You know how dangerous it is with the Hateling’s servants pushing deeper into our territory. You wanna get your guts ripped out and your brains pulled down through your nose?”
“He ain’t got no brains,” piped up the bald, broken toothed man on the left. “They all went to his pa and his brother, Grad. Nothing left to go in his head but rotting straw and sawdust.”
The three men laughed nastily at the jest and Jhondey’s face went red. “I got brains too, Opon, more than you can count and that ain’t much! I ain’t afraid of the Hateling either! Me and Shunz are gonna kill that raggedy old monster and my friend Matias is gonna help!”
Matias tensed up as the three men remembered him again. They fixed him with hard looks, and Mardon stepped forward. “Who are you, stranger? What are you doing in the forest?”
“I just told you he’s my friend, plop breath!” snapped Jhondey impatiently.
“Quiet, runt!” Mardon growled.
“I’m just passing through,” Matias said, holding his staff in both hands. He’d been around enough criminals to know Mardon and his two goons were men capable of serious violence. It was strange that they would be the sort of trash Jhondey lived with.
“That so, druid?” Mardon retorted, looking him up and down. “You had a little mishap?” he added, nodding to the dried mud on Matias’ robe.
“Jhondey helped me out of a scrape back there. He said I’d get a meal and a bed for the night in Ironthorne.”
“Jhondey talks dung balls!” the man called Opon sneered. “There’s nothing for you here!”
Mardon pointed the tip of his rusty spear at Matias’ chest. “He’s right. Be on your way.”
“That’s not fair!” Jhondey yelled, getting worked up. “Matias is my friend. He can come home with me! Shunz do something!”
The gnome construct remained motionless, and the three men sniggered. “Your toy don’t want to help ya, Jhon,” Mardon said. “He’s got more sense than you, this one is trouble.”
Matias started to turn away. “Okay, I’m going,” he said. He was too tired and hungry to argue with these losers. It looked like he would be spending a cheerless night in the Healer’s Hovel after all.
“Not just yet,” the third man spoke up for the first time. He was shorter than the others but thickly muscled with a pock-marked face. “He’s got to pay the toll.”
“No Trub, you can’t do that!” Jhondey moaned. “Pa said you weren’t supposed to do that to travellers no more! I’ll tell!”
“You’ll be too busy getting whipped to tell him anything,” Mardon quipped. He reached out and grabbed Matias by the shoulder. “Trub’s right. You got to pay a toll before you leave.”
Anger slithered like a serpent in the pit of Matias’ stomach, but he kept his cool. “I ain’t got nothing to pay with. I only just arrived,” he said in a low voice.
The three men exchanged bemused looks. “Open your rucksack,” Trub said. “We’ll take what’s inside.”
“We’ll take the rucksack too,” Opon added, flashing his nasty teeth.
Though Matias didn’t really care about his journal or the tin of healing seeds that was inside the rucksack, or even the rucksack itself, there was no way he was going to just give them away to any smelly thug that took a fancy to his stuff. He looked at Mardon’s callused hand on his shoulder and then back at him. “You’re not taking my stuff,” he said flatly. “Get your hand off me too. You’re dirtying my robe.”
Mardon grinned and the steel look in his eyes told Matias he was used to killing. “Like that is it, druid?” he said cheerfully. “I like it when they show a bit of spark.”
With brutal speed, he lunged forward with his spear, meaning to take Matias in the chest. Matias was faster though, and twisted out of the way. He brought the end of his staff up and rammed it into Mardon’s jaw. The man grunted and, as he staggered back, Matias brought the staff down across the side of his head.
One down, two to go.
Holding the staff sideways, Matias dodged as Trub and Opon rushed in to finish the job with their clumsy spear thrusts. He lashed out with his weapon, hitting Opon on the nose and making him drop his spear. Matias whacked him again across his ribcage and followed it up with a couple of gut punches that sent the bald man sprawling into the dust.
“Behind you!” Jhondey called out.
Matias turned just as Trub tried to skewer him through the back. Matias dodged. However, Trub scored a hit to Matias’ right side and the druid gritted his teeth against the pain as the spear sliced open his flesh. Surrendering to his anger, Matias hit Trub across the back with his staff and aimed a vicious thump to his skull. Trub moaned and went down, turning onto his back and putting his arms up over his face as Matias rained down blows on him.
He saw movement in the corner of his eye and left off Trub as Mardon got back on his feet. Blood was running down the big man’s face and fury blazed in his eyes. Matias backed away, holding his staff defensively as Mardon edged toward him with his spear aimed at him. Matias checked on Trub and Opon, but neither of them was getting back up any time soon, so Mardon was the only threat left.
They circled each other like wolves, before Matias broke the deadlock. He rushed forward before Mardon could defend himself and rammed his staff hard into the big man’s solar plexus. Mardon doubled forward and Matias delivered a swift strike across his leg and then brought the staff up and smashed it against Mardon’s fat neck.
The thrill of violence engulfed Matias and provided him with a wild, invigorating strength. He hit Mardon again, this time with enough force to take the thug off his feet. Matias brought the staff down on Mardon’s back with all his strength, before delivering a savage kick to the face. Mardon groaned as he spat out a tooth from his bleeding mouth.
“Think you’re a big tough guy?” Matias crowed. He hit him again with the staff and Mardon’s meaty frame shuddered under the blow. “I’ll show you who’s tough!” he screamed, a red rage filling every fibre of his being.
Raising the staff like a club, he grinned with feral lust, meaning to bring it down and bludgeon Mardon to death.
A message in red copperplate gothic suddenly appeared in his field of vision:
Wanton violence is not the way of the Alder Druids! Lust for killing incurs the wrath of the Lady Alder!
A shooting pain went through Matias’
legs and he let out a strangled gasp. The pain drove up into his stomach and it felt like barbed wire was tightening around his insides. He dropped the staff and lurched forward. The pain hit him again, even harder than the first time.
He screamed out, his voice ragged and pitiful, and he collapsed to the ground. Tears filled his eyes and a cloud of black smoke rose up from the dust, growing taller and slowly shifting and transforming until it came to resemble his father. The big slob stood over him in cruel triumph, a bloodied baseball bat hanging loosely from his chubby fingers.
“Your mom was a dirty whore,” his dad said in a voice of twisting malice. “She won’t be cheating on me ever again.”
“Mom,” Matias murmured, and he let out a broken sob.
“Matias!” Jhondey’s anxious voice came to him, small and distant, like he was calling out from a distant shore. “Matias, are you all right? Say something?”
Matias tried to speak, but no words came out. His father melted away becoming black smoke again. It reached out to envelop Matias, wrapping him in sinuous tendrils that were icy to the touch. The smoke rippled and he glimpsed another image in its depths, a vast cavern of ice and a gaping pit of endless darkness. Something watched him from the depths of the pit, something cold and monstrous.
Matias screamed.
Chapter VIII: Settling In
Matias awoke to find several messages floating in front of his vision. He stared at them blankly, as his numb mind stirred back into life, before he was able to read and understand them properly:
New Ability Learnt: Use of blunt weapons
Ability increased: Hand-to-hand combat
Experience points gained: 5
Experience points needed for next level: 185
Wrath of Lady Alder invoked for violating the Alder Druid Code. Luck and Charisma reduced by five points!
The Alchemy Worlds: Enter T(he)rap(y): A LitRPG Adventure Page 5
