“Hey, where are you going?” Farmer Grower called after him. “Come back, boy! They’ll hang you next!”
Alfred kept moving, swallowed by the cheering, sign-and-banner-waving mob as he headed toward the scaffold. Nobody seemed to notice him, but he really wouldn’t have cared if they had. His only thought was that these four dangling bodies had slain Gertrude before becoming dangling bodies, and that’s why they were now dangling bodies. It was a horrible, confusing thought, one that made him oblivious to his own welfare.
Finally, he broke through the crowd and stumbled into the middle of the square beneath four sets of swaying boot heels. He took a moment to catch his breath and held up his hands to hush the people. Only they didn’t need him to hush them. They had already fallen silent with their eyes fixed on him.
Without pause, Alfred shouted, “Where is Gertrude Grower?”
No response.
“Have any of you seen her?” he demanded.
Deaf and dumb, they stared back at him.
“Is she all right?”
“IT’S THE KNAVE!” They were deaf but not dumb, after all. “THE KNAVE HAS RETURNED!” they roared angrily.
One fellow held up a coil of rope and yelled, “HANG THE KNAVE!”
Already in something of a hang-happy mood, everybody agreed it was a great idea–everyone except for Alfred and, strangely enough, Farmer Grower. But they were outvoted. Before he knew what was happening, the infamous knave had been seized, fitted with a noose, and was about to be hanged by the neck until dead beside the hideous Sheriff Bile.
But then something strange happened.
“YAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” came a sudden shriek, and all eyes turned upward to see a cloaked, hooded, masked, gloved, and booted figure sailing through the air, riding a rope attached to something (it doesn’t really matter what) like a monkey on a vine. Swooping down with gleaming sword in hand, the figure slit the noose from the knave’s throat and leapt onto the top of the scaffold. “Shame on you, village people!” The figure’s green eyes glared at the cowering villagers. “I’m in the privy for just a minute, and look what you do. SHAAAME!”
They shrank back mutely and hung their heads. Only the fellow with the rope dared to speak. “But he’s the knave, Strange One. He stole Farmer Grower’s horse–”
“No, no he didn’t!” boomed a voice from the back of the mob. All eyes turned to see Farmer Grower hopping up and down aboard the horse in question and pointing down at the horse in question. “Here it is! See? It was all just a BIG misunderstanding!”
The masked figure nodded once, hands on his hips. “Satisfied?”
The fellow with the rope glowered, muttering to himself. Then he yelled, “What of the farmer’s daughter? It’s a known fact this knave put GOO-GOO EYES on her!” A gasp erupted amongst the crowd, and he seized Alfred by the arm, shaking him like a rag doll for a full minute. “This knave must be hung!”
“Hanged,” the crowd corrected him.
“Whatever!” His grip on Alfred inched toward his throat. “The knave must die!”
“Nope.” The masked figure shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” the savage fellow demanded.
“Because.” In a single move, both the mask and hood fell by the wayside to reveal the stunning beauty of none other than Gertrude Grower herself. “I should know if I’ve had GOO-GOO EYES put on me, now shouldn’t I?”
The crowd gasped, gaped, and gawked. The fellow with the rope made a quick exit because he felt stupid. Farmer Grower wept with joy. And Alfred fell to his knees.
“Oh, my love!” he cried, arms outstretched. “How I’ve missed you!”
“Aww.” She dropped her chin and blushed. “Thanks, Alfred.”
He stood and bowed slightly. “Thanks for saving my life.”
She smiled down at him. “Anytime.”
“Well–” He didn’t know what else to say. “Guess I’d better get back to the farm. Five days of chores are probably waiting for me.”
“Nope. Only one.” She shrugged. “I’ve been kinda keeping things going around the place in your absence. Today I slacked off a little, though.”
He shook his head in awe, unable to stop staring up at her. She was so…amazing. “Well, then I guess I’d better get that day’s work done.”
She nodded, still smiling. “Guess so.”
He smiled back. “See you later then.”
She watched him turn to go. “Oh–Alfred,” she halted him.
He whirled around. “Yeah?”
“You’ll need these.” She took a moment to pull off his work gloves and toss them down.
“Thanks.” He grinned as he caught them.
“And these, too.” She dropped her rear end onto the scaffold with a thump that sent the dangling bodies a-wobbling. “Your boots.” She grunted as she pried them off and dropped one at a time.
“Thanks again.” Boots under one arm and gloves in one hand, he waved up at her and grinned, then dashed away.
As a cool breeze caught her flaxen locks and played with them, she watched him go from atop the scaffold and turned away with a radiant expression only when he had reached the barnyard of her father’s distant farm.
She was just a wee bit far-sighted, after all.
That night, Farmer Grower, Gertrude, and Alfred sat around their oak table and laughed, talked, and slurped their gruel without the use of utensils. It was a good time had by all, a happy time, a joyous time. A messy time.
“Ha-HA!” Gertrude bellowed, forehead to chin covered in great gooey gruel globs.
“Ho-ho!” Farmer Grower echoed, pointing at his beloved daughter. “A new addition for your Strange One character!”
Alfred chuckled along for a while, then grew serious as he asked her, “My love…”
A sudden blow sent him to the floor. The laugher stopped.
“Listen, boy,” Gertrude’s father hissed at him under the table, “The deal was you go on living and working here if you put the love stuff on hold for a while. A nice, loooong while. You address my daughter as Miss Gertrude and nothing else, you got that?”
“Got it,” Alfred groaned, struggling to regain his seat.
“I don’t want to go back to threatening your life every other day.” Clearing his throat, Farmer Grower returned to his gruel.
Gertrude watched Alfred. “Did you want to ask me something?”
“Uh–yeah. Yes, Miss Gertrude.” He swallowed and glanced over at her father who nodded approvingly. “How did you manage to hang those four villainous rogues? I mean, how did you go about incapacitating them?”
She smiled at him. Then she shrugged. “A blow to the groin works wonders.” She laughed at his startled expression. “Yeah, I just kicked ‘em where it hurts, one by one, and they weren’t really any trouble after that. Nobody in the village liked them anyway, so it didn’t take much convincing to get them strung up.”
“But–” He frowned. “Didn’t anybody recognize you? Didn’t anybody see you?”
“Bile did. He pulled off my mask and was so dumbfounded–they all were. Well, that’s the moment I went into action. And once I had Pa’s sword again, there was really nothing they could do to stop me.”
Farmer Grower beamed with pride.
Alfred could only shake his head in awe. “You’re amazing, Miss Gertrude.”
She giggled. “I know.”
“So what about this alter ego of yours, Daughter?” her father interjected. “Do you plan to use him again to right the wrongs of the land?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she sighed. “It was fun, but I can tell it would take a lot out of me if I did it every day.” She shrugged. “Maybe just now and then. You know, when the need arises.”
Her father nodded solemnly. “A noble daughter, Thought–Er-I mean, a very noble thought, Daughter. Yes indeed.”
Alfred gazed into her eyes. “And if you ever need a sidekick…” he proposed.
She winked at him. “I’ll know whe
re to find you.”
“That’s right. Because I have returned, and I will never leave you again.”
Farmer Grower cleared his throat and gave Alfred a steely-eyed look.
“That is, as long as I do my chores and address you as Miss Gertrude and speak to you only at mealtimes and treat you with all the honor, dignity, and respect that you deserve.” He came up for air.
Gertrude’s father whacked him on the head. “There may be hope for you yet, knave!”
Gertrude smiled happily and a glob of gruel hit the table with a loud splat. Then her entire face-full of gruel plopped onto the table. She started to laugh, hysterically, screeching, head thrown back with mouth gaping wide, her limbs flailing as she hooted like a maniac.
Alfred could only stare in wonder, his heart in his throat. She was so…amazing.
Meet Mikhaila, a young warrior girl in a world where magic can save you, if your heart is true and you have the training…
FIRST MISSION
Jack Mulcahy
Mikhaila felt as if her arms would break if she had to keep the sword in the ready position any longer. How had she got herself into so much trouble so fast? Her second day? Only yesterday Sergeant Hamish had welcomed the sixteen-year-old recruit to Company E and complimented her on her commendable record. Now she was “Blockhead,” the recruit whose actions might have cost her comrade his life.
To ease the tension, she focused on the sword, instead of on her anger at Corporal Beorn, who’d sent her and Kester, her recruit partner, on the practice exercise to get a message through a thirty-five-mile stretch of mountainous, wooded terrain undetected, each carrying a fifty-pound pack. The route was full of dried leaves and dead branches, hidden roots to trip them and brambles that scratched and clawed at them. “Your worthless lives depend on absolute silence,” Beorn had told them. “In combat, the slightest noise could mean death or capture.”
Mikhaila had grown up in the woods of Auriga, so moving silently through such terrain was not difficult for her, despite her being taller than most boys her age and even some men. She and Kester had both traveled most of the course when Beorn sprang his trap. Her legs by this time lacked most of their springiness, and her lungs burned, yet still she managed to keep silent, not even allowing her panting to escape into the air. She could see the camp through the thinning trees; perhaps she’d begun to slow down, anticipating the sweet feeling of collapsing into her bunk. Just when she could imagine the end of the long journey, four masked figures ambushed her, provoking an involuntary cry.
That had brought Beorn out, yelling and cursing, as her assailants removed their and masks to stand revealed as four fellow recruits. “Blockhead!” Beorn had screamed. “You just got yourself captured and your partner killed! Stupid, careless blockhead!”
“Blockhead! Blockhead! Blockhead!” the other recruits had chanted in unison.
Bastards! she thought now. Lucky for them I didn’t use my Magic and transform them into spears or something!
So now she was “Blockhead,” forced to stand this unending guard duty holding the sword that clearly weighed less than an oak tree, though not much. Worst of all, he was right, I did fail the mission, she thought for the thousandth time. If it had been real combat, Kester would be dead and I’d be on my way to Rahesh as a damned slave! What kind of soldier does that make me?
“Everybody makes mistakes, Mikhaila. Don’t let it get to you.” The whisper was Kester’s. He stepped from the shadows into the faint light of the torches. Kester was short, with a feline face and hair almost as golden as Mikhaila’s. “If we didn’t fail, how’d we ever learn and improve? That’s what me da’ always said.”
“Get out of here!” Mikhaila hissed. “If Corporal Beorn or Sergeant Hamish find you here…”
“Relax. You worry too much. They won’t find me. Remember, the Corporal didn’t catch me this afternoon, he caught you.”
“And now the Sergeant’s caught you, recruit!” Sergeant Hamish appeared suddenly out of the darkness, a tall, ruddy-featured man with a shock of red hair that stood up like a hedge. He wore a long mustache that covered his lips and curled on the ends. Mikhaila, seeing him for the first time yesterday, had wondered how he managed to eat without getting a mouthful of mustache.
The Sergeant’s blue eyes gleamed like twin stars in the dim light. “You thought your Sergeant forgot how to move quietly, eh?” he asked.
Kester had come stiffly to attention. “N-no, sir. I mean, Sergeant…I mean…”
“As you were,” Hamish sighed. “Now, make yourself scarce, recruit.” Over his shoulder, he added, “And when I say scarce, that’s just what I mean. I don’t want to see so much as your shadow within a hundred feet of here by the time I turn back around.”
Kester disappeared into the shadows. Sergeant Hamish walked around Mikhaila, who kept her eyes fixed at a point in the middle distance, though she yearned to follow his movements. But that’s part of his test, to see how disciplined I am, ‘specially after my failure today. I’ll show him!
“Sword gets heavy after the first hour or so, doesn’t it, recruit?” Hamish said, his voice unreadable.
Mikhaila settled for the safe answer. “I’ll manage, Sergeant,” she said, despite the fires of pain in her right arm.
Hamish came around to face her. “Put it down,” he said. “With that answer, you might as well have hung a sign around your neck that said, ‘I’m feeding you wolfshit.’” He watched her ease the sword down. She made sure to perform the task exactly as she’d been taught, until the blade slid into its scabbard with a satisfying breath of steel on felt. Then she came to attention, trying to ignore the pins and needles that washed over her right arm and shoulder.
“Hurts, I know,” Hamish said. “And had I been here, Beorn would not have been allowed to inflict it on you. Still, despite what I’m sure are your angry thoughts on how unfair it all was, Beorn’s test was fair. There are no rules in war, Mikhaila. The Raheshis won’t allow for your being tired. That’s when you’re the most vulnerable, and you’ve just learnt a valuable lesson. I hope. The shame should have been enough. Beorn went farther than necessary. You may consider yourself confined to quarters until dawn. Dismissed.”
Mikhaila found the strength to salute. “Yes, Sergeant. Thank you, Sergeant.”
Three days after her test, Mikhaila was part of a ten-member team that had crossed into Rahesh through the mysterious Forest of Hærne, on a mission to observe and report enemy activity. Some said Hærne was haunted, home to all manner of mysterious spirits and creatures, most of which slept during the day. So Mikhaila hoped. After they’d entered, the Forest had closed quickly behind them, as if to hem them in and prevent their escape. Overhead, a few stray sunbeams struggled to penetrate the leafy roof, but it was mostly dank and dark. Plants with huge multihued leaves lashed at them. Networks of vines sought to trip them up. Even the trees seemed aware of them. None too pleased with us, either, she thought. As if the Forest had allied with their Raheshi enemies. The forests back home always seemed alive too, but clean and fresh with the scent of pine and bay and spruce. Here lurked the stench of rotting leaves, swamp gas and death. All forests were alive in some way, she had always thought. This forest was alive, too, but malevolent.
Foolish girl, she scolded herself, stop thinking such nonsense! Focus on the mission! Step after excruciating step she followed her comrades, careful not to place her foot on a branch or twig, keeping clear of roots that could trip and broken twigs that could snap and betray her.
When Beorn gave the signal the entire group dropped to a crouch into the brush. “Blockhead!” Beorn’s whisper seemed as loud as a shout, though only three recruits separated them. He’d stopped under the branches of a huge oak tree. When she nodded, he continued, “Crawl through those brambles and see what’s up there on the road. Do it without giving us all away, Blockhead.”
Mikhaila flushed but did as the Corporal ordered, silent as a grave. Bad enough he called me that, but now the w
hole squad calls me it now, even the other recruits. Rapier strapped tight across her back and spear tucked under her right arm, she squirmed noiselessly through the thorns until she reached a point beside the road. What now? She glanced back, saw Beorn’s signal to stay in position, and nodded acknowledgement.
Time crawled. She became aware of every drop of sweat, every itch, every scratch of the wool tunic. Nothing moved up or down the road, as far as she could see. But when she glanced back again for Corporal Beorn, not only could she not see him, but the very section of forest where he and the others had hidden seemed different. There was no huge oak tree, no waist-high thicket of weeds and brush. The area now seemed dominated by white-clad beeches, mingled here and there with willow and bay.
Worst yet was the troll who marched up the road in the peculiar bow-legged gait common to his race. He was larger than a man, and broader across the shoulders and midsection, though his arms and bowed legs appeared stunted in proportion. Over his hairless chest he wore a leather vest, and trews of the same material covered his legs. His head was pumpkin-shaped, with gray, wispy hair that fluttered in the breeze like gossamer. He had pointed ears that stuck out and bristled with hair, tiny, malicious eyes, a beaklike, predatory nose, and a mouth that was a narrow slash across his clay-colored face. A curved sword hung from a belt around his waist, and he wore heavy leather boots with pointed tips that looked like steel. When he aimed his vicious face in Mikhaila’s direction, the Aurigan recruit froze, thinking surely he would see her, but he did not seem to. Trolls hate daylight, she thought. What’s this one doing out now? Maybe they don’t see well in the daytime. I hope.
Then the troll froze, and she saw its nostrils flare, heard it sniffing. Goddess Fehtan, which way is the wind blowing? Am I upwind or down? Dare I draw my sword, and hope he doesn’t see or hear the movement?
The troll growled, “Gjanna nog akœf!” and charged at her, its sword pointed straight out. Mikhaila gave it no chance to reach her, springing to her feet and seizing her own weapon in a single, fluid movement. Then it was all as the drillmasters had taught her: Strike, parry, thrust. The troll would try not to kill her; not with the gold she would bring as a slave. That gave her an advantage, she hoped.
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