by Robert Bevan
Tim remained silent. As long as he was doing so, he tried to make it look like he was being defiant. But the truth was that he was too scared to form coherent words, and that he had overlooked giving his own character a name in his haste and eagerness to get the game going.
“Diego!” Shouted the captain, not taking his eyes off Tim's.
“Sir!” the soldier behind him shouted in response.
Shit. Another guy with a name. He had to be at least level two.
“The little fellow seems to be at a loss for words. See if you can't jog his memory a bit.”
“Very good, sir,” said Diego, dismounting his horse.
“Diego,” the captain spoke more softly. Diego paused. “Jog it softly for now. We may need him alive.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Tim wanted nothing more than to give the men his name and avoid having the shit beaten out of him, but his mouth just refused to form the words.
Diego dropped to one knee, relieved Tim of the bow he had forgotten he was holding, and of his belt, which had a dagger sheathed in one side of it, and his rapier sheathed in the other side, and tossed the weapons aside. He put one hand on Tim's shoulder. “Come now, my boy,” he said gently. “You don't want to make this harder than it has to be, do you?”
Tim shook his head. The hand on his shoulder tightened around the back of his neck, and Diego's other hand punched him in the gut.
“Then answer the question!” shouted Diego.
Tim doubled over and tried to vomit, but his body was all out of fluids. Diego's hand loosened its grip, and Tim collapsed to the ground. He remained on his hands and knees, head slumped down between his shoulders. Diego kicked him in the ribs with the hard, cold steel of his boot, making the punch to the gut feel like a moderately heavy blow in a pillow fight. Tim rolled over on his back, still unable to make any articulate sounds, but he was able to raise one finger.
The finger he raised was not the one he wanted to, which would have all but guaranteed him getting kicked to death, but rather his forefinger, in a gesture that was meant to convey that if they stopped kicking him for a moment, he would give them the information they required. Diego motioned to give him one more kick just the same.
“Stop,” said the captain, without much enthusiasm, but with enough declaration in his voice to make it an order. Diego planted both feet on the ground. “I think the young halfling has finally found his tongue.”
Tim had indeed found his tongue. It turned out that getting the shit beaten out of you was a solid cure for being tongue-tied after all. “Tim,” he said. “My name is Tim.”
“I don't suppose, Mr. Tim,” said Captain Righteous in a calm voice, “that you would like to tell me the likely whereabouts of your associates, would you?”
“I don't know where they are,” said Tim weakly.
“I figured as much. Very well. Diego, he can ride with you.”
“And what of the others, sir?”
“They're long gone by now. We'll throw this one in a cell and let the lord decide what to do with him.”
Tim didn't know whether the captain was referring to 'the lord' as in the governing figure in the town of Algor, or as his personal lord and savior Jesus Christ, and wasn't sure which he would have preferred determining his fate.
Captain Righteous Justificus Blademaster smiled down at Tim. “I suspect that after a night in the dungeon, he'll be more than willing to give up the location of his friends.”
Diego kicked Tim in the face, and Tim obediently lost consciousness.
Chapter 5
Cooper trudged deeper into the forest. The trees grew closer together, and the undergrowth now came up past his knees. He had lost sight of his friends, and was only guessing at the direction they might have gone when he heard his name whispered.
“Cooper!” It was Julian. Cooper stopped and looked around.
“Over here!” Julian was peeking out from behind a tree, waving an arm. He was surprisingly difficult to spot. If they all had made it this far into the woods, they might have had a good chance at evading the soldiers. He lumbered through the brush, barely noticing the thorns trying to tear into his thick, gray skin.
“Where's Tim?” asked Julian.
“I don't know,” said Cooper between pants, dropping the corners of the wagon cover he had been dragging. The canvass had fared a little worse against the thorns than his skin had. “He hopped off. Said he needed to go back for something.”
“Shit,” said Dave, who was sitting on a rock, still catching his breath. Apparently, he hadn't beaten Cooper here by much. He looked at Cooper accusingly. “And you just let him go?”
“What was I going to do?” asked Cooper. “He told me to keep going, and that he would catch up.”
“What a fucking hero,” said Dave. He stood up as tall as he could and looked Cooper in the face. “You're the reason we're in this mess, and you leave him alone out there, trapped in the body of a little kid, and –“
“How is this my fault?” Cooper shouted.
“You had to go and chop that guy's head off.”
“Oh fuck off! You would’ve done the same thing if you could have. That was back when we were still playing a game, before Mordred... before Mordred did whatever the fuck he did.”
“Who provoked him? You couldn't just keep your big mouth shut, could you?”
“Fuck you, dude. You were laughing your balls off.”
Dave sat back down on his rock and sighed. “Fucking Mordred.”
“Guys, shut up!” said Julian excitedly.
“Fuck you,” said Cooper.
“Shut up,” Julian repeated insistently. “I think I hear something.”
Cooper tried to concentrate on whatever it was that Julian thought he heard. His patience, already thin at the best of times, was close to snapping.
“I don't hear anything,” he grumbled.
“Those guys reached the wagon,” said Julian. “You seriously can't hear them? They're practically shouting.”
“You're an elf,” said Dave. “You've got super elf hearing or whatever. We already went through this with Tim while you were dying.”
“Sweet!” said Julian.
“Well, what are they saying?”
“I can't hear them perfectly, but I think they're complaining about all of the shit and puke on the ground.”
Cooper busied himself spreading out the remains of the makeshift canvass sack, exposing the party's inventory.
“Dude,” said Dave. “Keep it down. He's trying to listen.”
Cooper found and picked up his enormous axe. The blade was a massive chunk of iron, fanning out on each side like the wings of a huge, head-severing butterfly. The shaft was thick and wooden, twice the length of one of the blades. He swung it back and forth in his hands a couple of times to get a feel for the weight. Running his thumb along the edge of the blade, he understood how easily this could take a man’s head off.
“If we need to get out of here in a hurry, I'm not going to be able to drag this shit behind me anymore.”
“Fair enough,” said Dave, and grabbed his own pack. He picked up his mace and shield. The mace looked like a solid metal, thick stemmed rose in mid-bloom. Dave waved it around like he’d been doing it for years.
Julian stepped out from the cover of the tree, stopped abruptly, and ran back. He looked through wide eyes at Cooper and Dave, who had stopped waving their weapons around and were looking back at him for some kind of explanation. “You didn't hear that?”
They shook their heads.
“Someone just shouted 'There's one of them!'”
“Well they weren't talking about us,” said Dave. “That only leaves...”
“Tim,” Cooper grunted.
“What do we do?” asked Dave.
“We go get him,” said Cooper as if it was perfectly obvious.
“There's like half a dozen armed men!” said Dave.
“Actually,” said Julian, “It’s closer to a f
ull dozen.”
“They'll kill us!”
“And if we sit around here and do nothing, they'll kill him. Look, I took out those first five guys without any weapons. Look at this axe. Hell, look at that fucking mace you're holding. We can take these guys down with no problem. We'll get Tim back, run back here into the woods, and figure out a way to get out of here.”
Dave looked at Julian. Julian shrugged.
“Alright,” said Dave.
Cooper grabbed Julian's backpack and started to toss it to him.
“Stop!” said Julian. Cooper stopped, puzzled. “There are a bunch of oil flasks in there.”
“Oh, right,” said Cooper, and handed the bag to Julian as delicately as he could. “Do you want to bring your tent?” he asked, half mockingly.
“Nah,” said Julian. “If we end up having to sleep in the wilderness, here is as good a place as any.”
Each of them picked up a crossbow, and a handful of bolts for it. Cooper grabbed Tim's backpack, and an extra crossbow for him, in case he needed it. They were about to head in the direction they had come from, but Julian changed his course and walked as quickly as he could manage through the thick undergrowth. Dave and Cooper followed close behind him.
After less than a minute of walking, the sound of galloping trickled down to a trot, and then to nothing. Julian stopped and held up a hand behind him.
“Something's wrong,” Julian whispered. “They've stopped. If they found Tim, shouldn't they be shouting, or fighting, or something?”
“Maybe he got away,” said Dave doubtfully.
“Maybe you misheard them, or they made a mistake and didn't see him after all,” offered Cooper.
Julian strained his long, pointed ears, but then shook his head. Hesitantly, he began moving forward again. The moving was easier outside the thickest part of the forest.
“Then answer the question!” came a voice that Cooper had no trouble hearing, even without the aid of Julian’s freakishly big ears.
Cooper guessed that source of the voice was coming from just beyond the crest of the next hill they were facing. They all stopped and listened.
“They're interrogating him!” Dave whispered.
“If he's smart,” said Cooper, “he'll tell them just enough to keep them interested. If they think he's told them everything he knows, they're as likely to kill him as they would be if he didn't say anything at all.”
“How do you know?” asked Julian. “Is that actually in the rulebook?”
“No, but I watch a lot of TV, and I suspect Mordred does as well.”
“Is he smart?” asked Julian.
“Mordred? How the fuck should I know?”
“No, Tim.”
“I guess,” said Cooper. “He got better grades in high school than I did. But then, he put in considerably more effort than I did as well.”
“I mean, in the game. What's his Intelligence score?”
“Good question. I'll look.” Cooper opened Tim's bag, and pulled out the tube containing his character sheet. “He's got a 17.”
“That's pretty smart, right?”
“That's really fucking smart.”
Dave stood back while the other two looked over Tim's character sheet. “What's his Wisdom?”
“What difference does that make?” asked Cooper.
“This isn't a matter of what he does or doesn't know. This is a matter of how savvy he is in choosing what to reveal. I think that falls under Wisdom.”
“It's an 8.”
“8 is low?” asked Julian.
“A little below average,” Cooper said distractedly.
“Oh my God!” said Julian. “Look at his Hit Points! He's only got two left!”
“Keep it down,” Cooper growled. “That's nonlethal damage. They're probably just kicking the shit out of him. He'll get it back.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“If you want to hurt someone, but not actually kill them,” Dave explained, “say like in a bar fight back home.” He paused for a moment. “That is, a bar fight in which the parties involved don’t actually want to kill each other.”
“Okay.”
“You can choose to do nonlethal damage. It will hurt, but the worst it’s going to do is knock you unconscious. You won’t die from it, and you’ll get it all back after a few hours.”
“Still, we should go and get him. We can't just stand here and let them kick the shit out of him.”
“No,” said Dave. “If they're only doing nonlethal damage to him, that means they probably want to keep him alive. That's good news. We can creep up a little closer, and attack if we see an opportunity, though it's probably best if we don't.”
“Why not?” asked Cooper.
“Because none of us have killed anyone before. We can argue all we like about whether it's justified or not, but when it comes down to it, are any of us actually prepared to do it? What if we freeze up? You think these guys are going to hesitate for one second before opening fire on us?”
Julian, Cooper, and Dave crept closer toward the party of soldiers, hiding behind trees as well as they were able to, until Julian signaled he was close enough to hear the conversation.
“They’re asking him about us,” said Julian.
“What’s he saying?” asked Dave.
Julian listened. “He said he doesn’t know where we are.”
“Fuck this,” said Cooper. “If they don’t think he has any information to give them, they might just kill him.” He gripped the handle of his greataxe and stood up.
“They aren’t going to kill him,” said Dave. “Those are soldiers. They aren’t thugs or gangsters.”
“What the fuck do you know about who these guys are?”
“You two shut up,” Julian hissed. “Let me listen.” He glared up at Dave and Cooper.
“Well what did they say?” asked Cooper.
“I couldn’t catch it all,” said Julian. “Something about a dungeon, I think.” He ducked suddenly. “Get down!”
Julian, Dave, and Cooper hid behind trees and listened to the fading sounds of horses galloping back to the city.
Chapter 6
Julian sat on a rock, reorganizing the items in his bag to keep his mind off of Tim. It wasn’t working. He walked over to where Cooper and Dave were talking.
“So now what do we do?” Cooper asked Dave, his face and voice carrying the unspoken message that he had damn well better have a plan in mind.
“You heard Julian,” Dave said without much confidence. “They have no intention of killing him. They're keeping him alive for information on us.”
“And what if he gives it to them, then what? Tim's a good friend, but he's never spent a night in a dungeon before.”
“What's he going to tell them?” Dave asked. “Where we are? What our plans are? They are working under the assumption that we have a plan and a secret base of operations or something. We have the advantage of having no idea where we are or what we're doing.”
Julian struggled to find any advantage in what Dave had said. He spoke up. “So what do you propose we do?”
“We'll sneak into town and bust him out of there. Classic C&C adventure.”
Cooper held out his hands, palms up. “All right then, let's go.”
“We can't go right now,” said Dave.
Cooper put a finger over one nostril and blew a wad of dull brown snot from the other. Dave gagged at the squishy smack it made when it hit a nearby tree. “Why not?” Cooper asked.
“He'll have to tough it out in there for one night. We need to rest.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said Cooper. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll run off and find a goose. We can make you a nice pillow. Tim can wait in his little dungeon until after you’ve had your beauty sleep.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said Dave. “Look, we've got to make use of every advantage we have. You’re injured. I’m out of healing spells, and Julian hasn’t memorized any of his spells. He’s next to
useless if we get into a scrap. All he has to defend himself is a stick, and a crossbow that he doesn't know how to use.”
“I can use a bow,” said Julian. “We went through this. Elves can use bows.”
“Not crossbows.”
“How hard could it be?” asked Julian. “You just point it at something and pull the trigger, right?”
“Fine,” he said. “If it's so easy, see if you can shoot that tree from here.”
“That little one, way over there?”
“If that was a guy running at you with a sword, he'd be a lot smaller and harder to hit,” said Dave, “And you'd want to hit him while he was much farther away than that.”
Julian raised his crossbow with both hands, peered down the length of the shaft, and lined up his target tree. Dave started to say something, but Cooper put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Julian cleared his mind. Just him and the tree. One, two, three. He pulled the trigger. A flash of white and a stab of pain shot through his face, radiating from a point just below his right eye. The world spun around once, and lights danced in his periphery. He staggered around and dropped to one knee. Through a haze of pain, he could hear Cooper and Dave laughing. He let the crossbow drop from his hand. A smudge of red darkened the butt.
“Fuck you guys,” said Julian. “That hurt.” He ran a finger over the spot where he'd hit himself, and looked at his fingertip. “Look!” he shouted, holding up his finger for the others to see. “I'm bleeding!”
“Grow a dick,” said Cooper. “You're covered in blood anyway. I don't think that little scratch is going to amount to any hit point loss.
”Where’s my bolt?”
“You know that tree you were aiming at?” asked Cooper.
“Yeah.”
“Well it’s nowhere fucking near there.”
Julian gave him the finger.
“I think it landed in the grass over there,” said Dave.
“Well I’m going to go get it,” said Julian. “We only have a couple dozen of these.”
“Good idea,” said Cooper.
He ran toward the bolt, but something he saw on the ground made him stop. “Hey guys!” Julian shouted. “Get over here!”
