by Ryan Drake
She started forward and I started to doubt my assessment of whether or not she would kill me. “What if I were to promise you a replacement crystal ball?” I said desperately.
“I’d think you were lying.”
“Why? Surely they’re not that hard to come by.”
“The one you broke had been in my family for generations. As you so callously pointed out, it was hardly the best crystal ball in existence. But it worked, and to get a replacement would cost me more than I could make in a decade. They’re quite rare. You can’t simply find them for sale for a few coins at a local market.
“But even if you were somehow able to find me a new one, how would that make up for my tavern?”
During her speech, I’d surreptitiously maneuvered my tail about so the serrated edge was against my bonds and had started to work my way through, but the last sentence she said caught me by surprise.
“Huh?” I said, displaying limitless intelligence. I tried again. “The tavern was yours?”
“Yes. And you burned it down. It was everything I’d worked for over my whole life, and now it’s nothing because of you. And for that, you’re going to die.”
“Sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t know.” Then I frowned. “But I didn’t burn it down. Everyone keeps saying I did, but I was getting the crap kicked out of me by the guardsmen. I don’t know how the fire started, but it wasn’t my fault.”
It didn’t have any impact. She continued to stand over me with grim intent in her eye and her dagger in her hand. Despite the threat she posed, I couldn’t help but be distracted by her curves and the way her insufficient clothing struggled to keep them hidden. Her skin definitely had a blueish tinge, I thought. Why hadn’t I noticed that in the tavern? I kept working on my bonds.
“Do you take me for a fool?” she demanded. “I saw it in my crystal before you … before it broke! And I talked to the survivors. Those that saw all describe the same thing: they saw you, breathing a stream of fire at the guardsmen.”
“Wha—?” I started, displaying just as much intelligence as I had a moment before. “But that’s crazy! I can’t … I don’t…. Look, if I could breathe fire, don’t you think I would have done so with the goblins?”
And yet, it somehow fit with what I remembered. That strange feeling in my chest and the taste of charcoal in my mouth that just wouldn’t go away. Was it possible?
Nah! It was crazy, as I’d said.
For the first time, Gabby’s eyes contained a glimmer of doubt. That’s when Max chimed in. “Tha’s what I saw, too. Don’t know how he done it, but he breathed fire!”
Thanks, Max.
Gabby’s resolve hardened. “You must be some kind of demon,” she said. Too quickly for my minuscule winged protector to intervene even if he wanted to, she lunged forward and swung her dagger at my face.
Fortunately, I’d managed to weaken my bonds just enough. They parted as soon as I started to move. I blocked Gabby’s slash and surged to my feet. “Now now,” I said, backing away. “Let’s be reasonable about this.”
Gabby’s idea of being reasonable appeared to be to snarl and swing wildly back and forth with her dagger. I skipped backwards once, twice, three times. Then I changed tack and blocked her, only to be rewarded with a lightning fast slash across my chest that really would have hurt if it hadn’t been for my armor.
“Look,” I said, trying once more. “I’m not a demon. I don’t know exactly what I am, but I bleed just like anyone else. Look, you can see where the goblins got through.”
It was true. I’d been bitten and cut in a wide variety of places, and while most of the resulting injuries were minor, several of them still leaked blood. Demons, as far as I knew, didn’t bleed.
It wasn’t as if I was looking for sympathy or anything, but she didn’t seem to care at all. She just kept attacking, and I kept backpedalling. At least until I tripped on a rock and fell backwards.
Sensing victory, she pounced like a hungry rat might pounce on a rock-lizard, her dagger coming at me with her full weight behind it.
I caught her hand and held her with the dagger inches from my face. She snarled again, leaning as hard as she could to drive the knife home. I couldn’t help but admire once more how she was made, but just at that moment there were other things to consider. Like surviving. She was remarkably strong. Much stronger than I would have guessed, looking at her. So I reached around her with my tail, unbalanced her and flipped her over.
Now I was on top of her, holding both of her hands so she couldn’t hurt me.
It seemed to enrage her further. “Get off!” she yelled. “Get off! Get off! Get off!” She thrashed around wildly enough that once or twice I was almost unseated.
“Stop that,” I said.
Carefully, I wrapped my tail around the wrist of her hand that wasn’t holding the knife to free up my hand, and pried her knife away.
She stopped struggling. “Now,” I said. “Are you going to be reasonable?” She spat at my face, but I was ready for that. It’s what I would have done. I dodged easily enough. “Good,” I said, as if she’d agreed. “Here’s what’s going to happen. First, you’re going to stop trying to kill me. As I said, I didn’t break your crystal ball, and if I did have anything to do with the fire, then I’m sorry, but it wasn’t on purpose. Second, you’re going to tell me where I might find the Fracture. And third….” But I didn’t really have a third. It just flowed on so nicely from the first and second that it just came out.
So I hesitated. Then I thought, What the hell. I leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth.
Perhaps my timing wasn’t the best. After all, I’d just fought a horde of goblins and was still covered in gore. But I figured I might not get another chance anytime soon, so why not?
For a moment, Gabby was still. Then she struggled so furiously it was as if she’d only been pretending before, shrieking at me all the while. Great fun to begin with, but she didn’t stop and as I said, she was surprisingly strong. I quickly found myself losing my grip. She kneed me a glancing blow where a man shouldn’t be kneed and I reflexively winced.
It was all she needed. In moments our positions were reversed. Again. Now she was on top with me underneath. I panicked briefly, thinking this was the end, and wondered what had happened to her knife.
Then she kissed me back.
Surprised, I didn’t respond. She was looking at me with a mixture of hatred and uncertainty.
“I despise you,” she said, and kissed me again.
At that moment I felt I would never understand women as long as I lived. Things might have become even more interesting had Max (who hadn’t said one word all through our fight) not chosen that moment to speak.
“Much as I hate to interrupt, I think yehs both need to stop what yeh’re doin’ right about now.”
Gabby immediately stopped what she was doing. Thanks again, Max, I thought. You win today’s perfect timing award.
I lay where I was, suddenly conscious of all my various aches and minor hurts. In the last day I’d been badly beaten not once, but twice. Either time I could have been killed. And now, just when it looked like something positive was going to happen, it didn’t. Gabby climbed off me, leaving me exhausted and just a little aggrieved.
I closed my eyes, decided that the ground seemed surprisingly soft, and thought about sleep.
No such luck.
“Hey—sorry, I don’t even know your name.”
“Gordan,” I said. “Gordan of Riss.”
“Right, then. Gordan. Um, pleased to meet you. Sort of. Maximus is right. We’ve got to go.”
“Why?” I said, not moving. “Have the goblins come back?”
“No. Worse.”
Worse? Groaning, I opened my eyes and sat up. All I saw was Gabby, looking stunning despite being smudged with goblin gore, and Max hovering in the air. Neither of them looked panicked. But they weren’t entirely calm either.
“
What is it?” I asked.
“That,” Gabby replied, pointing.
I looked. “Oh. It’s coming this way, I gather?”
“Yeah.” This time it was Max. “Watched it long enough to be sure.”
“Right then,” I said. “What are we waiting for?” I hauled myself to my feet. “Any chance my poor pony survived the goblins?” I asked.
Max shook his head. “Yeh can check if yeh want. I think there’s some tufts of tail left, and maybe a bell. But that’s about it.”
Somehow I didn’t feel like checking. “So, Gabby, care to double?”
“Gabriella,” she said. She looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Don’t think I’ve forgiven you though, because I haven’t.”
“You’re not going to try to kill me again, are you?” I asked. “Either of you?”
“Not right now,” replied Max.
“Depends,” said Gabby.
It was good enough for me. “Let’s go, then.”
Now, you may be wondering what had so motivated us to leave. Simply this: the Demesne, that floating mountain-palace of the Shadow, was drifting towards us. This wasn’t an unheard of event, but the folk around here had all learned not ever to be caught beneath it, if it could be helped.
Partly, this was due to the cold, miserable shadow it cast. It turned daylight into darkness, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Water dripped from it in large, cold, wet drops like you get on the inside of a cave.
All by itself, this would have motivated most travelers to move out of its way. But in addition to this, it wasn’t unheard of for bits to fall off. Small rocks for the most part, but even they could do damage if they landed in the wrong place. Like on top of your head, for example, or through the roof of your house. And some of the bits that fell off weren’t small at all.
Even this danger wasn’t the worst. I mean, the rocks would just kill you. It would be sudden and quick.
But I’ve mentioned before that the Demesne is home to various servants as well as the Shadow. And more than a hundred thousand orcs. Now, I don’t fully understand the mechanics of it all, but you can’t just dig a latrine for so many on a floating piece of rock. You have to use some form of plumbing.
The result of this is that the Demesne has storage tanks that hold the waste of all those living on top. And every now and then, those storage tanks are emptied over whatever happens to be underneath at the time.
Ever wonder what it’s like to drown in orc excrement? There are those who could tell you.
For my money, that was the best reason ever for being somewhere else when the Demesne sails by.
11
Convergence
We didn’t know it at the time, but the Demesne wasn’t the only thing heading our way. An army of orcs approached us from one side and much of the Ulm city guard were closing in from the other. The guards were led by the Immaculate Captain and goaded onward by none other than Thork Yurger.
Watching it all from his mountainside palace was Pingo T’Ong. I couldn’t possibly know what he was thinking at that moment, but I imagine he was watching with avid anticipation, if not out-and-out glee.
12
The Things Gabby Knew
Gabby’s horse was as fine an example of the species as my poor pony was not. It was tall, powerful, and more than capable of carrying Gabby, Max and me as far as we wanted to go. But it was also snooty and stubborn, and took to me like a pixie to a family of goblins. Which is to say, not well at all.
Gabby flowed smoothly into the saddle like she was born to it. But when I approached, the horse looked me over, shook its head with a whinny, and stepped sideways to keep me away.
I tried again. Same result. Perhaps it was the stink of goblin gore I still carried.
“Your horse doesn’t like me,” I said, still trying to get close. We were doing a peculiar dance, with the horse keeping two steps away no matter what I tried.
“He’s got good taste,” she returned.
“Get on with it!” said Max. He was still watching the floating mountain approach. I’d never met a more nervous pixie. If it wasn’t goblins he was worried about, it was something else. But he did have a point. The Demesne was large enough that it would take some time to ride out of its way.
Gabby reached down and patted the horse affectionately on the neck. “Easy boy. We may not like him, but he’s coming with us. Let him on.”
It did the trick. The horse stamped its feet and eyed me with distrust. But it stood in one place long enough for me to grab the back of the saddle and haul myself awkwardly up. I sat bareback, behind Gabby.
I placed my hands on her hips and she turned around with a glare. “Don’t get any ideas,” she said.
Even though my cheeks hurt as much as everything else, I grinned my usual grin. “What? You don’t want me to fall off, do you?” I didn’t move my hands.
“Maybe I do,” she replied.
“Come on,” said Max as he landed on my shoulder. “Time to go!”
“Which way?”
“I jus’ wanna get back to Ulm,” Max said.
“We can’t,” I said reasonably. “Not with the Demesne coming from that way. And anyway, what’s left for you there?” Then I added brightly, “I know! Gabby, where did you say the Fracture was?”
“I didn’t.” She nudged the horse into a canter and I nearly lost my balance.
She failed to clarify if we were heading towards the Fracture or not, and we rode until we were safe from any possible Demesne-related incident.
After a while, tussocks were replaced by greener grasses and the thorny shrubs gave way to larger bushes. Eventually we found ourselves in a pleasant area with a few larger trees and a small stream babbling beside us.
Gabby reined in. “We’ll stop here for the night. Unless anyone objects?”
I thought I heard Max mutter something about needing a drink, but he didn’t say anything loud enough for me or Gabby to consider it an objection. As for me, I’d spent the past couple of days getting beaten up and I’d been exhausted since before our little adventure with the goblins. Now I was totally spent. I barely had the energy to slide from the horse.
“This isn’t still goblin country, is it?” I asked Max.
Startled, the pixie looked hastily about. “Don’t think so,” he said. He relaxed somewhat. “Can’t really tell, though. Nasty buggers. Likely to pop up anywhere.”
Good enough, I thought. I helped Gabby gather wood for a fire and then hauled myself over to the stream, stripped off my tunic, trousers and armor, and did my best to wash as much of the grime and gore away as I could.
It was interesting to note that my torso and legs weren’t so much covered by bruises as they were covered by a single bruise that extended all over, varying only in the specific hue. Here and there, that bruise was broken by a graze or cut, but most of them were minor and had already scabbed over.
I’d been lucky, I thought. It could have been considerably worse.
My tunic and trousers hadn’t fared so well. Both were dirty, singed, cut, and covered in so much goblin blood that it was hard to tell what color they had been. But I didn’t have anything else, so I washed them as best as I could, then turned to my armor.
A few of the scales were out of place and one or two had been dented, but it was the best armor I’d ever owned. It had survived the day’s adventures as well as I had. I scrubbed it with a handful of dry grass to get rid of the blood and put everything back on, still wet, before rejoining the others.
Gabby’s horse was unsaddled and tethered close enough to the stream so that it could drink if it wanted. It was contentedly pulling up big mouthfuls of grass and eyeing me carefully as I wandered by. Max had perched himself on its back and Gabby had got the fire going and was roasting a portion of meat on a stick.
“There’s bread if you want it,” she said without looking my way. She must have brought it and the meat along, tucked in her saddlebag
s.
I gratefully ripped off a chunk and sat with my back against the stump of a tree to eat.
For a while I said nothing. I just watched the Demesne as it floated not far from where we were and directly above where we had been. From that angle, with the fading sun reflecting off the golden towers, it looked as majestic as I’d ever thought it had been when I was younger. It looked like it had stopped, I thought.
It had been known to do so every now and then, though why, nobody I’d ever met could guess. Perhaps the Shadow was enjoying the view. Perhaps he was looking for something. Or perhaps something had gone wrong with the machinery or magics that kept it on the move, and it would remain stopped until it could be fixed.
I wondered briefly what it would be like to look at the world from such lofty heights, then put the thought out of my mind. I’d never know, I thought, and transferred my gaze to Gabby, only to find her looking right back at me.
For a moment, we just looked at each other. Then she lowered her eyes and stared into the fire, acting as if I didn’t exist and that she’d never so much as glanced in my direction.
I couldn’t figure her out. I understood that she blamed me for the loss of her crystal ball and the tavern, but surely she understood that it wasn’t my fault. Or at least that I didn’t do it on purpose. And was she attracted to me or not? Sometimes it seemed she was, and sometimes it seemed that she loathed me more than anything else in the world. And sometimes it seemed both were true at once.
As for me, there was no doubt. I found her powerfully attractive. But then, with the way she looked and held herself, I suspected everything in all the land that was vaguely male (and in a lot of cases even if not) would have been attracted to her. I was just fortunate enough to be the only one close enough to do anything about it.
Not counting Max, of course. Human-pixie relationships were not entirely unheard of, but they could be, um, logistically difficult. You know, because of the size difference and all. If you get my meaning. Oh, and there was the horse as well, but let’s face it: a horse is a horse, and therefore not much competition.
