by Eric Ugland
“Who are you?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
“Avon calling?”
He didn’t get the joke.
I snapped my blade up and whacked the dagger out of his hand. It clattered into the wreckage off to my left.
He stood there. Quaking.
I had him dead to rights. I could stab him, filet him, flay him, do whatever. But for some reason, it seemed wrong. So I lowered my sword and gestured at the door to the ramparts.
“Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind,” I said.
He took off, and I started towards the the stairs leading down.
I got, maybe, two strides before there was a terrible pain in my back. I did my best to spin and look around, only to see Crossbow staring at me with his nasty face and yellowed teeth. He was hanging on my fucking back!
I grabbed him by his leg and ripped him off me, swinging him around. He screamed as he arced through the air until he crashed against the mantle over the fire, a sharp crack as his ear managed to touch his elbow for a moment.
Then it was quiet, save the crackling of the fire.
I hurt.
Not horribly. A quick check of the HP, and I saw that I had a ‘bleeding’ debuff, and my health had slowly dropped, but it was still well above half. The bolts came out pretty simply, but the dagger was a bigger problem. I couldn’t quite reach it.
After some finagling, I managed to hook the hand guard of the dagger into the decorative curl of a wall sconce and then just dropped to the ground. There was a sucking noise, and then, *pop.* Out came the dagger.
I looked over the disaster of the room, and through it pained me to do so, I slid a sword through the back of the unconscious woman’s neck. I didn’t want to chance her coming to and killing Nikolai whenever he showed up. Or, you know, sneaking along behind me and stabbing me in the fucking back. Lesson learned. Thank you, Crossbow Asshole.
Another lesson learned — I went through the notifications very quickly, dismissing all the death ones, feeling a little less than great about it all. Granted, according to the game, or the wolds or the gods, whatever, these were all bandits. Bandits who had an evil alignment. So I’d maybe done some good in the world.
My initial impulse was to loot. But, looking around, the bodies in the room didn’t seem like they’d account for the entirety of the castle. A quick count of the plates got to 10. I had 8 bodies. At least two missing.
There was a set of double doors at one end of the room, and they opened to reveal a landing. Stairs went up and down from there.
I wasn’t keen on either direction, figuring that it was easy to be backstabbed again, if I chose the wrong way.
A cry of pain echoed down the staircase. It looked like my decision had been made for me.
Chapter Forty
As I sprinted up the stairs, I heard someone beg for mercy, and another, gruffer voice say some truly horrific things. The stairs ended at a short landing and a large door, but I didn’t stop. I knew something terrible was about to happen inside, so I just barreled straight through the door.
Said door offered the minimum of resistance, and shot inward.
With barely a heartbeat to get my bearings, I scanned the room. It was something along the lines of Lord’s chamber, with a large four-poster bed on the far wall and a fireplace nearish. A desk sat underneath a window, a bookshelf spread across one wall, and a number of dressers, chests, and other storage devices made up the rest of the place. A plush rug was on the floor, and a faded tapestry hung behind the bed.
There were women — multiple — tied to the various posts on the bed, and a burly looking green-skinned man at the foot. He was naked, with a bladed whip in one hand. All the women were nude, and one was either unconscious or dead. The others did their best to shy away from their assailant.
He turned to face me as soon as he heard the door slam, confusion swimming over his expression.
Closing the distance to the bed quickly, I planted a foot and threw all my force behind a mighty swing of my axe.
He started to dodge back, but I’d considered that he only had one direction to go, so I’d purposefully aimed just behind the greenskin.
It was a pretty perfect strike, the edge hitting him mid-ribcage and cutting all the way through his torso. There was a slight hitch when axe met spine, but I guess I’d put enough oomph into the swing that the greenskin just didn’t have the backbone to stand up to me.
The top portion of his, well, of him slid off to the side in a truly revolting explosive arterial spray, and I managed to last a whole second before emptying my stomach on my wet bare feet. And my beard. Which made me throw up a little more at the vomit covering my face. This wasn’t going well.
It was quiet in the room, mostly. The women tied to the bed, the two that were conscious at least, tried to be quiet, but I think they had some, well, issues. Terror being a main one.
I wiped my mouth, trying to get the puke out of my beard. This was not my best look. Finally, I just grabbed a jug of wine off the nightstand and used it to wash my face.
“Uh, I guess I’m here to save you,” I said. “Are you from Saumiers?”
The least injured girl looked confused.
“You are not from Saumiers,” she said. “I would know.”
“I’m visiting, and, like, you know, helping out.”
The girls looked to each other — the two that were conscious at least — and seemed to decide going with me was the better of their options. They offered their hands to me, and I tried to untie them. I proved to be not the best with fine motor skills though, so after some fumbling, the blonde one pushed me away and they just undid them on their own.
I took the opportunity to search the room, making sure there wasn’t anyone hiding among the furniture or out on the balcony. I pushed open the heavy wooden shutter, and noticed that night had fallen. Also falling: the rain. Still in droves. The very definition of torrential downpour, and it had me wondering exactly how we were going to get back down the mountain.
A moment later, there was a light cough behind me. The three girls had covered themselves with bits of clothing that hadn’t been torn to pieces, as well as some larger non-blood stained sheets from the bed. The two awake ones supported the one who was unconscious between them.
“Let me,” I said, reaching for the girl.
They shrank back ever so slightly, but I just grabbed her, and fireman-hoisted her over my shoulder.
I carried my axe in the other hand, just in case, and we headed down the stairs and to the dining room. It maybe wasn’t the best of choices on my part, considering it held the slaughtered remains of eight people, but it was reasonably safe and had two exits. I laid the girl down near the fire, and looked over the two girls who’d followed me. They were looking just horrified at the state of things.
One was blonde and one was brunette. They had very similar features — not quite twins, but definitely sisters.
“Stay here,” I said.
“Where are you going?” Blonde asked.
“How many of them were there?”
“Bandits? I apologize, I did not get a good count.”
“Eleven,” Brunette interjected. “There are two more somewhere. I believe downstairs. Yunkathu said we were lucky, that he saved us by taking us to his room and not the dungeon.”
“How many of you, uh, I mean, like prisoners, how many of you are there?
“Of us? Three.”
“So who’s down—”
“There are others they have taken,” Blonde said. “Yunkathu said—”
I held up a hand, and asked, “Who’s Yunkathu?”
“The orc you slew,” she replied.
“Oh duh, thank you. You were saying?”
“He said they needed to make a change soon. That the prisoners in the basement were not working hard enough, and they were eating too much. Yunkathu ordered Grug and Dagobert to fix things by morning.”
“Shit,” I said, “so there�
�s more prisoners and they’re probably going to be dead by morning?
“No idea,” Brunette replied.
I took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to get my brain in gear.
“Okay,” I said, “Two bandits. Downstairs. Grug and?”
“Dagobert.”
“And they’re downstairs somewhere. Got it. You three wait here. I’ll be back in a bit.”
“What if they kill you?”
“Then you might need to wait a little longer.”
They didn’t find that amusing.
“Okay,” I said, “keep the door closed. Don’t let anyone in and, I guess, wait for the Saumiers guard to come up and rescue you. Or something like that. There is a friend with me, and he’s, like, much better at this than me, okay? So we’re fine. If someone comes, ask him who our boss is. The answer is Cleeve Dye. Or Cleeve. Or Dye. Any variation on that. If he answers correctly, you let him in. He’ll take you back to town. You know, if I die.”
I had the feeling they’d keep talking if I waited any longer, and I was worried if I didn’t get down stairs, I’d walk in on a massacre. So, I just walked out of the room and closed the door to the stairwell behind me. I waited until I heard them lock the door, and then I started down the steps, wishing I’d been smart enough to put my boots on before heading down. Or even brought them in out of the rain. Lessons learned…
Chapter Forty-One
The one advantage to going barefoot was being quiet. The stairs went down to the ground level, where there was a large open space. Something along the lines of a throne room or a meeting hall. But, like everything else in the ruined castle, it was falling apart. At the far end, the ceiling was coming in, and rain poured through.
The bandits had transformed the room into a sorting facility. There were large piles of cargo along one wall, and a bunch of bags sat on the biggest table. I assumed coins, or something else equally portable and valuable.
I walked into the middle of the room, axe at the ready, but there was no one around. A huge set of decaying double doors was in the far wall, and I could see the dark courtyard beyond. The archway behind me led to the stairwell and the tower. I only saw one other door in the room, and it was ajar. Not a whole lot, but the door had warped at some point, and it didn’t seem possible for it to ever fully close. I walked over and pushed it all the way open, ready for anything.
Nothing.
Just a small hallway with more doors. Two led off to either side, and straight ahead, through an arch, I could see a stairway heading down. Bingo.
Sounds came up from below — two people arguing mixed in with the grunts and groans of physical exertion.
The walls in the stairwell were dark and damp, and by the time I’d gone down two flights, I noticed there was torchlight coming from somewhere below.
At the bottom, I hit a landing that led to a hallway, the door at the other end was open, half-hanging off the hinges. It led into a large room that had a big table in the center, a set of double doors along one wall, a series of jail cells opposite, and a dark arch on the wall across from me.
Two men sat at the table, both leaning back with their feet up, both drinking out of steins. One had green skin and tusks pointing out from his bottom jaw. The other had a trim beard and a big nose. Unlike everyone else I’d encountered in the castle, these two mooks had armor on. It looked like a darker version of my old studded leather stuff. Black armor covered with dark metal studs. No helms or gauntlets though, and as I watched them, I noticed that their armor wasn’t tightened as much as it should be. They were definitely in relaxation mode.
The jail cell held mostly women and children, all disheveled and in various states of despair. They all huddled at the back, as far away from the bars as possible, clearly doing their best to keep out of sight and mind of the two thugs at the table.
The grunting and groaning came from the darkened arch across the room. Mixed in was the sound of people hitting rocks with metal, probably digging with pickaxes.
“Tis possible the man does not know what he says he knows,” the orc, Grug, said.
“You want to tell him you think he’s wrong?” Dagobert replied.
“Oh ho, did I say that? Did I say he was wrong? I just think—”
“Either he is right and we are going in the right direction, or he is wrong and we are going in the wrong direction. No other way. Binary choice, Grug.”
“Binary?”
“Just two choices.”
Grug seemed to muse over that for a second, then nodded. He took a drink from his stein. Empty. Grug upended it over the floor, and a few drops fell.
“You need more?” Grug asked.
Dagobert held up a finger, drained his own stein, and then tossed it across the table at Grug.
Grug snatched it out of the air. He got to his feet with a groan. He stretched, cracking his neck while trudging over to a cask of ale.
Dagobert slid his feet off the table and got up, all in one move. He moved well, smooth. I started to worry about my chances taking the two of them on. There had to be a way for me to even the odds. Or a way to tip them deeply in my favor.
Dagobert was already across the room, and leaning his head through the dark arch.
“Faster, you feckless dung heaps!” he screamed. “Faster or I start raping your children and you can dig to the tune of your spawn’s screams.”
Grug chuckled over at the ale cask, carefully pouring the ale as his literal partner in crime made horrific threats.
The rage in me boiled, and I felt the sheer cold of true wrath.
I stood, walked calmly towards Grug, axe held at the ready. As soon as I was in range, I swung at full strength, slicing across the air.
The axe hit Grug’s back with a meaty thwock, and the blade bit deep. It went straight through the orc, hit the barrel, and stuck there.
Grug’s legs dropped out from underneath him, but the upper portion of the body sat on the axe. I watched him try to turn around, try to scream, but he had nothing left in his lungs. Or really, of his lungs.
It’s entirely possible I’d have gotten away with being sneaky if not for Grug dropping the steins, which caused a stunning ceramic and mead explosion.
“Grug,” came Dagobert’s admonishment from the other side of the room, right before he turned, “what the fuck did you—” he stopped speaking as he saw me, and scrambled to grab his sword.
I didn’t wait for him to arm himself. I ripped the axe out of the barrel, causing Grog’s top to join his bottom on the ground. I hauled the axe up, prepping to throw it across the room. The axe, perhaps tired of flight, slammed into a beam, and stuck there.
“Typical,” Dagobert said, his sword held almost languidly now. He lazily moved towards me. “Feel free to run if you like. My brethren upstairs would surely appreciate a little leveling. Tell them you are my XP gift to them.”
“You know,” I replied, feeling along my belt for the sword I was totally sure I’d stuck there, “I tried talking to them, but they all up and died already. Maybe it’s something I said.”
Dagobert’s eyes shot to the doorway behind me.
“I do not believe you,” he said. “And I abhor liars. I suppose I will have to kill you myself.”
“Lying bothers you, but raping kids is okay?”
“How about we save the semantics for when I pull my sword from your gullet and you would prefer I said blade. Okay?”
He lunged, his sword coming at me unbelievably fast.
But I’d been training with Cleeve, and fast was Cleeve’s primary trick in fighting. I jumped back and grabbed a wooden chair.
Dagobert swung hard, and large chunks of my chair were sent flying.
Frantically, I searched the room while holding the chair between us, trying to find some sort of weapon that wasn’t the battleaxe hanging from a beam.
We did have something of an audience — those in the jail cells had stood up and taken notice of what was happening. Well, the adults. The women
were at the bars, but the children were still hiding amongst the elderly at the back of the cell.
A slice of an idea entered my head.
I made an overly large lunge at Dagobert. He almost laughed slicing it down with his sword, taking most of the support out of the chair, which promptly fell apart in my hands. Then I slid across the table, knocking a bunch of stuff off in the process, but grabbing a heavy metal candle stick.
Dagobert bit, and ran around the table. As he did, I swung the candle stick, hard. Well, making it look like I was swinging it hard. You know, for the fences.
My opponent dodged back, and came right up against the bars of the cell.
Immediately, all the women grabbed Dagobert, their hands snatching at every bit of his clothing and armor. He was completely immobilized.
He struggled against them, uttering curses and shouting about how he was going to kill everyone who touched him and rape their children.
I didn’t particularly want to hear any more of that nonsense, so I just brought my fist around, and slammed it into Dagobert’s face.
His cheek caved in, the bones in his face breaking. His body went limp, and he dropped his sword. I snatched the blade quickly, and sliced the man’s throat wide open.
Blood poured down the front of Dagobert, and the women let go. The man crumpled to the ground.
“Thank you,” I said to the prisoners. They didn’t make any eye contact or say anything in response.
I patted the corpse down, and found a keyring. It took a few minutes to unlock the door and get everyone out. No one could move well, and there were a few injuries in the group. Nothing life-threatening, but we definitely weren’t going to get back to town quickly. Maybe that didn’t matter.
A young woman with dark brown hair and very intense eyes stepped forward, moving between me and the rest of the group.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m not sure this is the best time for introductions,” I replied. “There’s, I mean — how about we go back to Saumiers and then you can grill me all you want?”
