by Robert Bevan
“We didn’t mean you any harm,” said Julian. “Actually, Cooper here probably just saved your life.” He nodded at the water rushing out of the breach, then stared curiously at the woman. “What are you? Some kind of sea-elf?”
“I’m a nixie.”
“A nixie?”
“They’re like pixies,” Tim explained. “But without –”
“Kim Deal?”
“…wings.”
The nixie glared at Tim. “That may be the most insulting oversimplification of our kind that I’ve ever heard. Who are you people? What do you want? Why did you –” She backed into their bags and fishing rods. “You’re the fishermen from earlier this morning, aren’t you?” Her tone was accusatory.
So that was the reason they couldn’t catch anything. These people must have a special relationship with the fish in the lake. Dave whispered to Julian, “Surrender your fish.”
“Huh?” Julian looked down at the fish in his hands. “Oh, okay.” He knelt before the nixie and held up the squirming fish. “Please accept our humble apologies.”
“Very well,” she said, cautiously accepting Julian’s offering. Gripping the fish firmly by face and tail, she savagely bit into its side, tearing away a large chunk of flesh. Blood dripped from her mouth as she chewed.
Dave frowned. “You eat fish?”
The nixie stared quizzically at Dave while she chewed. After she swallowed she said, “We live in a lake. What do you expect us to eat?”
Dave felt blood rush to his face, both from the implied stupidity of his question, and from the fact that he’d just given away their only food for no reason.
Tim was glaring at him, and he could sense Cooper’s eyes burning a hole in his back as well.
“I just thought maybe the fish were your friends or something.”
The nixie held up her dead fish so that she was staring it in the face. “Hello, Mr. Fish. Tell me about yourself. Do you have a family?”
She pinched the sides of the fish’s mouth so that its lips moved, and spoke in a deeper voice. “Well, Lana. I don’t really know, on account of I’m a fish. I suppose if I did have a family, I’d probably try to eat them, because I’m a stupid fish.”
Dave folded his arms. “You’ve made your point.”
“Oh dear,” said the nixie, Lana, to her fish. “I don’t think I could be friends with someone who would eat their own children.”
“That’s okay, Lana,” she responded in her fish voice. “I don’t have the emotional capacity for friendship anyway, because I’m a godsdamned fish.”
Tim grinned. “I like her. She’s fun.”
Dave felt he’d suffered enough ridicule for one day. “So what have you got against fishermen?”
“Aside from the fact that they come here specifically to steal our food?” said Lana. “Well there’s also the matter of the garbage they dump in the lake.”
“That was you then!” said Tim. “You were the ones who put all those boots and helmets and shit on our hooks!”
Lana flashed him a quick grin before continuing. “And sometimes, just sometimes, a group of particularly witless bastards will up and try to destroy our home outright.” She was staring at the water rushing out of the breach.
“Ummm…” said Cooper. “Sorry about that.”
“That wasn’t our fault,” said Dave. “The nagas made us do it.”
Lana raised an eyebrow. “Sami and Trista? Why would they want you to do that?”
“They wanted us to dry up the stream running by their cave to keep travelers away from their children.”
Lana’s eyes lit up. “Trista had her babies? That’s wonderful! I’ll have to send her some fish.”
“You’re friends with nagas?” asked Cooper.
“Jesus, Cooper!” said Julian. “Can you hear yourself?”
“Not friends, exactly,” said Lana. “But we appreciate them keeping travelers away from our lake.”
Images of the dwarf leg in the naga cave flashed in Dave’s mind. “You are aware of how they do that, right?”
“Uh-oh,” said Lana, her eyes focused on something beyond Dave.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded a booming male voice from the direction Lana was looking.
Dave turned around. Trotting up the slope was a creature that Dave recognized from fantasy literature other than Caverns and Creatures. The creature’s lower half resembled the body of a horse, but it had the upper body of a muscular, hairy man. A centaur. In his hands he carried a large, wooden spear. The pristine steel tip glistened in the sunlight, but the wood just beneath it was stained brown, suggesting he was no stranger to its use.
“Who’s that?” asked Julian as the centaur approached.
Tim rolled his eyes at having to explain yet another fantasy creature to Julian. “It’s a centaur. Half man, half horse.”
“How dare you, insolent halfling!” shouted the centaur, thrusting the end of his spear about a quarter inch from Tim’s nose. “Retract your words at once!”
Tim dropped to his knees. “I retract! I retract!”
The centaur likewise retracted his spear. “I am no part man, no part horse. I am all centaur. We are a proud and noble race, and I will not have our name besmirched by the likes of a sniveling halfling coward like yourself.”
“You should have heard what he had to say about nixies,” said Lana.
“For the record,” said Julian. “I know what a centaur is. I read Harry Potter.” He paused to raise his eyebrows smugly at Tim, still on his knees. “I asked who this was, not what.”
“Gentlemen,” said Lana. “This is Gallus. Gallus, I haven’t actually had the time to learn their names yet. I imagine you’re here about the breach in the wall.”
“My rutabagas are flooding! I demand an explanation!”
“You’ll probably want to talk to Finn. I’ll be right back. Talk amongst yourselves.”
“Huh?” said Dave. “Don’t leave us alone with…” When he turned to look at Lana, she had already disappeared into the lake. “Shit.”
The centaur, Gallus, eyed the four of them with obvious distaste. If normal centaurs were supposed to be comparable in size to their human and equine counterparts, he was a large specimen indeed. He stood a full head taller than Cooper even, and was nearly as broad across the shoulders. His chest was crisscrossed with scars, some of which were clearly earned in battle. But a row of smaller scars across the top right of his chest were too uniform to have not been put there intentionally. Dave guessed they were trophies he’d been awarded for some sort of tribal victories.
Julian bowed his head slightly. “I’m Julian. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Gallus stood tall and proud, his wild mane swaying in the breeze. He sniffed the air. “And the one who smells of fresh urine?”
Dave, Tim, and Cooper blurted out their own names simultaneously.
“Are you the ones responsible for the breech in our forefathers’ dam?”
In spite of his inexplicable knowledge of stonemasonry, Dave had assumed the wall keeping this lake in was a product of nature. He was impressed.
“You mean to tell me this was man made?”
Gallus’s spear point was suddenly in Dave’s face.
“Man had no part in its construction. We are centaurs, a fact I encourage you not to forget a third time. Now did you or did you not remove the crown stone from atop the dam?”
“Not me personally,” Dave whimpered.
“Who then?” demanded Gallus. “Who is responsible?”
“None of them are,” said a voice from behind the centaur. Almost as high in pitch as Lana’s, this voice sounded older and more wizened.
Gallus turned around. “Finnean.” He addressed the nixie accompanying Lana out of the lake with a respect that Dave guessed was formally expected, if not entirely sincere.
Lana escorted Finnean to a rock where he sat down. His skin was a paler shade of green than hers, and hung loosely on his old nixie bones.
His seaweed-like hair was long in the back, but absent on top of his head.
“Lana has told me the whole story, as it was related to her,” said the old nixie. “These young men cannot be held accountable for their actions. They were coerced by the nagas.”
“That is no excuse!” said Gallus. He turned his back to Finnean and faced Dave. “Your reasons are not important to me. You are responsible for your own actions, and must live with the consequences of those actions.”
It was beginning to feel like being back in middle school, getting a lecture from another kid’s dad, where you were only going to listen to a little more of it before you just gave him the finger and ran away laughing. It didn’t help that Lana was standing behind Finnean the whole time moving her dead fish’s mouth in time with Gallus’s words. Cooper and Tim were trying to maintain their serious faces, but neither of them were doing a very good job of it.
“Now I’m going to ask you one more time,” Gallus continued.
Lana shook the fish slightly to make its mouth tentacles jiggle when it talked. Cooper couldn’t contain it anymore. He snorted and farted at the same time.
Gallus looked back at Lana, who quickly put the fish behind her back and smiled innocently. He turned to face Cooper. “Who is responsible?”
“Like Mr. Finnean said,” Julian spoke up. “The nagas –”
“The nagas didn’t break our dam!” Gallus shouted. “Once I have dealt with you, I shall deal with the nagas. But until then, I must –”
“And just how do you sssuppose you’ll deal with the nagas?” Sami slithered up along the edge of the lake.
Dave could only think of one explanation to account for his timing. He’d noticed the reduction of water flowing in his stream, and that concluded the usefulness he had for the four of them. He’s here to hunt.
Sami grinned at Dave, sending a wave of shivers down his spine. Was the naga reading his mind?
Trying to remain casual and not move his lips, Dave spoke quietly enough so that hopefully only Julian would be able to hear him. “We have to get out of here. Summon some hor-”
A ray of darkness shot out of the nagas tail, hitting Julian squarely in the chest.
“Fuck!” shouted Cooper, grabbing his greataxe from off his back and stepping in front of Julian.
Dave supposed that confirmed the naga’s mind reading ability. “Are you okay?”
Julian patted his chest. He looked startled, but unhurt. “I don’t feel any different.”
“These are my prisoners, naga!” said Gallus. “And if their story is true, you have your own crimes to answer for.”
“Sssunflowers will bloom in the Abyss before I answer to a horse-man.”
Gallus brandished his spear at the naga. He was positively shaking with rage. “You take that back, by the gods, or I’ll –”
“You’ll what?” said Sami. “You whinny like a foal.”
“You filthy, stinking naga!”
“Whoahohohoho!” said Julian. “Come on, man. No need for that.”
Tim and Cooper glared at him.
Julian raised his hands apologetically. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. It just still sounds wrong to me. The seed was planted, and I… Carry on with what you were doing.”
Gallus stomped his hooves like he was warming up for a run. “I’ve sent greater foes than you to the Abyss, naga. Prepare yourself!”
Sami bared his teeth and flicked his tongue. His dark hood expanded. He pointed the tip of his tail at Gallus and fired a bolt of purple lightning.
Seemingly ready for just such an attack, Gallus deftly leaped out of the way. The lightning flew harmlessly past him and struck the dam next to the breach. Moss-covered stones exploded, revealing them for the façade they were. Dave took half a second to appreciate the exposed masonry.
Gallus, too, glanced back at the dam. “My wall!” he cried. “My rutabagas!” The ground shook as he charged at Sami.
Sami coiled up and sprang out of the way just in time to miss the full force of Gallus’s charge, but the spear sliced a six inch gash into his underbelly, spilling a trickle of black blood. He hissed in pain.
As Gallus slowed and turned around for a second charge, Sami turned tail and slithered hurriedly toward the wall. Was he retreating?
“Stand your ground and fight, craven naga!” Gallus shouted. “I can outrun you on two hooves!”
Having reached the edge of the lake next to the wall, Sami turned around and flashed a toothy grin at Gallus. His tail crackled with purple lightning.
“No!” cried Gallus, breaking into full gallop toward Sami.
Sami fired his lightning directly at the wall, widening the breach another four inches as the stonework exploded into coarse dust.
“Well that’s just mean,” said Julian. He was right. Sami was either trying to demonstrate how little a threat he took Gallus for, or he just cared more about being cruel than he did for his own survival. Either way, it was a dick move.
“What happened to the nixies?” asked Tim. Dave glanced at where he had last seen Lana and Finnean. Sure enough, they had disappeared. It was probably the wisest course of action.
Sami coiled up and grinned as Gallus approached, slowing down so as not to charge right over the edge of the dam. When Sami tried to spring over his head again, Gallus reared up on his hind legs and plunged the spear deep into the naga’s chest.
Sami screamed in pain, and probably no small amount of surprise. Gallus obviously had quite a few fighter levels on him.
“Vile beast!” Gallus shouted as he drove the impaled naga down into the water. “I damn you to the depths!”
Sami’s tail flailed about wildly as Gallus held his spear firm, pinning him under the water.
The naga’s panic eventually ceded way to reason, and his tail coiled around Gallus’s humanlike torso and horselike abdomen. Gallus grunted as Sami squeezed him, but he continued to hold his ground. The battle appeared to be at its unlikely conclusion when Sami pulled out one last surprise.
An inky black stinger emerged from the end of the naga’s tail, and he plunged it into Gallus’s rear. Gallus howled in pain, losing his grip on the spear. Sami’s head emerged from the water. His gasps for air were interrupted by Gallus repeatedly punching him in the face.
Sami pulled his stinger out of Gallus’s side and relinquished his hold on the centaur. Gallus hobbled backward on shaky horse legs while Sami stayed in the lake to catch his breath, black blood still leaking from his chest wound. The flowing water posed little danger to him, as he was too large to fit through the breach. The combatants stood panting, facing each other. Tired, haggard, and bleeding as they were, both appeared ready to react if the other should strike, but neither of them seemed to be in any great hurry to make the first move.
“Should we, um… help?” asked Julian.
“Which one?” said Tim. “I’m pretty sure they both want to kill us.”
“We should get out of here while we have the chance,” said Dave. “Julian?”
“Right,” said Julian. “I’m on it.” He pointed at the ground in front of him. “Horse!” A small squirt of glowing sparkles spat out of his finger, but no horse appeared.
“I warned you, elf!” shouted Gallus, turning around to face Julian.
Dave tried to stay focused on the problem at hand. Why didn’t Julian’s spell work? Sami must have cast some magic-nullifying spell on him.
“I will not be mocked!” Gallus continued shouting at Julian. “My people are an ancient and proud race! We have dwelled in this forest for countless gener—”
“Holy fucking shit!” said Cooper.
Dave looked up. Sami stood triumphant over Gallus, whose head was conspicuously absent from atop his neck.
Crimson blood gurgled out of the centaur’s neck like a science fair volcano. His wobbly horse legs buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, spilling blood into the lake.
“Damn,” said Cooper, shaking his head. “That’s the wrong naga to fuck with
.”
Julian jabbed Cooper in the side with his quarterstaff. “Don’t even try to tell me that one wasn’t on purpose.”
Sami spit Gallus’s head out next to his body. “Thank you, elf.” He smiled, showing off his blood-soaked teeth. “Who’s next?”
“What should we do?” asked Julian.
“We could ask him to go halfsies on the centaur,” suggested Cooper. “Would it be weird if we ate the horse half?”
“Dude,” said Tim. “He’s going to kill us. We need to run.”
“No,” Dave said flatly. That naga could outpace any of them. He wanted them to run, just for the thrill of the chase. Dave’s stubby dwarf legs didn’t have much of a chase to offer. He repeated the phrase ‘Kill naga’ in his mind to block the telepathic transmission of the last ditch idea that had just occurred to him. “Stay here. I’ve got this.” Holding his mace firmly with both hands, he charged toward the naga.
“Dave!” Cooper called after him. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“BWAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga.
Sami looked genuinely perplexed as Dave waddled huriedly toward him.
“BWAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga.
Sami’s malicious grin faltered as he broke into a yawn.
He was almost there. Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga. Sami backed up a couple of feet; a nice extra bit of cruelty. He didn’t want to tear Dave’s head off right away. It would be more fun to watch him sink and drown in his armor. Kill naga. Kill naga. Kill naga. Just keep it going a little… bit… longer… “BWAAAAAAHHHHHH!” Kill naga. Kill naga. Destroy wall.
“Huh?” said Sami as Dave changed his course.
Just as Dave had expected, the naga’s lightning bolts had severely weakened the mortar of the ancient masonry. The top of the dam was days, if not hours, away from crumbling apart. He’d just give it a little help.
“No!” cried Sami. He tried to coil, but he was a lot less bouncy in the water.
Dave’s dwarven knowledge of masonry, which he was only now discovering he had, allowed him to judge where the most stable part of the wall was for him to stand on, and which part of the wall was best to strike in order to help the water destroy the largest part of it. Gripping his mace firmly with both hands, he struck a particular block of exposed stone that he was certain none of his friends would have seen any special structural importance in.
