by Robert Bevan
Tim looked at Greely.
Greely shrugged. “He has been a loyal friend all these years.”
“A loyal friend?” asked Tim. “He's been your jailor.”
“But he's been pretty good about it, as jailors go. He's been the only consistent friend I've had to talk to for any significant length of time.”
“I can't believe I'm considering this,” said Tim.
Shorty looked at Tim without trying to hide the tears he was willing to well up in his eyes. “I've got sons out there, somewhere,” he said. “I'd like to see them again.”
“Oh for fuck's sake, all right.” He grabbed the key ring and inserted a key. “I'm warning you, though. If you betray us, I will fucking end you on the spot. I'll put that before defending my own life even. Do we understand each other?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“Just call me Tim.”
He started walking to the door.
“Would you mind, Mr. Tim,” asked Shorty as humbly as he could manage, “telling us the plan?” Greely stood next to Shorty in solidarity.
Tim's shoulders slumped down. “I don't actually have a plan. I figured we'd just do our best to be sneaky and try to find the quickest way out.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” said Shorty, “but that doesn't sound like much of a plan.”
Greely nodded in agreement, but tried to look apologetic about it.
“Well what the fuck do you expect from me?”
“You had a pretty good plan to catch me,” said Shorty. “I know Greely didn't come up with that.”
Greely nodded enthusiastically. “That's right. That was all him.”
“But there's only one of you, and you aren't any bigger than me,” said Tim. “And we outnumbered you two to one. If they come in back in here like they did when they brought me here, we'll be outnumbered, barely armed, tired, and underfed.”
“I've got some leftover rat in my room,” offered Shorty.
“No thank you.”
“I'm not saying we ought to use the same trick twice,” said Shorty. “But running out there without any sort of plan amounts to the same as suicide.”
Tim looked around. “Okay, I might have something.”
“See,” said Shorty. “That wasn't so hard.”
“I didn't say it was something good, and it depends on a lot of contingencies.”
“What's a contingency?” asked Greely.
“Shit that could go wrong.”
“Yer plan depends on a lot of shit going wrong?” asked Greely. “I like them odds.”
“I have something for you,” said Shorty, and ran off towards his room.
“But don't you want–” said Tim.
“It's for your leg,” the goblin shouted back excitedly.
Tim let him go. His leg felt better than before, but he really wouldn't mind having it sorted out completely if Shorty had something that could help.
Shorty came back with a stoppered vial of a dirty brownish yellow fluid. “Drink this.”
Tim looked at the vial doubtfully, took it and unstoppered it. His nose was immediately assaulted. “Blegh!” he said. “This smells like piss.”
“Some of it is,” said Shorty.
“I'm not drinking this.”
“It's a healing potion,” said Shorty. “It will heal your leg. There are more lives at stake than your own. Drink it.”
“Is urine really one of the components of a healing potion?”
“Not exactly. I have limited resources down here. Sometimes I just have to make due. Come on now. One gulp. Don't even think about it.”
Tim held his nose and downed the potion. It burned its way down his throat like a shot of cheap whiskey. It exploded into his stomach like a fireball. His face held a wince that he dared not let go of. He was resisting the urge to vomit, not because he had any suspicion that this toxic waste was going to do his body any good, but rather because he knew his esophagus wasn't going to be able to handle a second pass. When the urge subsided, he allowed his face to relax enough to wheeze in a drawn out lungful of air. “Oh my god!” he said as soon as he was able to speak. “It's worse than piss.”
He grabbed his right thigh with both hands as the sensation of burning hard liquor flowed from his stomach straight through to his leg. A tingling feeling, like the pins and needles one feels after the blood rushes back into a limb which had fallen asleep, coursed down the length of his leg. When the tingle reached the bite in his calf, the wound seared like it had been dunked in a vat of lemon juice, and Tim collapsed to the floor. Clutching his leg did him no good, and so he chose instead to writhe around on the floor, clenching his teeth and waiting in terrified anticipation for the effect to reach his foot.
Greely took a step toward him, but Shorty put up a hand to stop him.
“Ye didn't... er–” started Greely.
“He'll be fine,” Shorty assured him.
“Ahahaha!” Tim screamed as the potion found his foot. He started pounding on the stone floor with his fists.
“Grab his arm,” demanded Shorty, as he went to grab the other one. Greely hesitated, so Shorty continued. “His healthy foot isn't going to do us any good if he smashes his hands up!”
That made sense enough to Greely, who grabbed Tim's arm as tight as he could. Neither Shorty nor Greely was strong enough to keep Tim from flailing his arms any which way he liked, but they were providing enough resistance to keep him from hurting himself.
Tim's foot felt like it was roasting in a fire for a few seconds longer, and then the sensation left him altogether. His body went limp. Shorty and Greely relaxed their hold on him, and watched his chest heave up and down as he lay panting on the floor.
When he had enough breath in him to do so, he propped himself up on his elbows, raised his head, and looked down at his foot. It was still filthy with drying blood, but it was whole. He wiggled his toes. They seemed to be waving at him. He smiled at them. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked up at Shorty.
“It worked,” said Tim, smiling.
“Of course it worked,” said Shorty indignantly. “What kind of goblin do you take me for?”
“The kind that keeps an innocent man in prison awaiting his execution,” said Tim.
Shorty rolled his red eyes. “I suppose I'm never going to live that down, eh?”
Tim hopped up to his feet. He kicked one leg out, and then switched to the other. He stomped the bare soles of his feet on the cold stone floor.
“Erm...” Greely cautiously interjected. “Ye said ye had some kind of a plan, did ye?”
Chapter 8
Julian was still scratching multiplication tables into the dirt with a stick, which Cooper was still failing to comprehend at all, when Dave returned from his prayers.
“Um… guys?” said Dave, approaching cautiously with his hands behind his back.
“What’s wrong?” asked Cooper.
“Did you heal your arm?” asked Julian.
“Yeah,” said Dave tentatively.
“Well done,” said Cooper. “How many healing spells did you use up?”
“It just took one.”
“Nice roll.”
“Thanks.”
“What’s going on, Dave?” asked Julian. “What’s wrong?”
“I… um…”
“For fuck’s sake,” said Cooper. “Spit it out.”
Dave lowered his head and held out his right arm.
For a moment, the three of them stood there in silence. Then Cooper broke into laughter. He laughed so hard that he started coughing. He horked up a big gob of phlegm, spit it on the ground, and laughed some more.
Julian still didn’t see what the problem was. And then it hit him. “Holy shit,” he said, barely above a whisper.
The leopard skin armband that Cooper had stretched over Dave’s wounds wasn’t an armband anymore. It was now a part of Dave’s arm.
“How did…“ Julian said. “What did…“ He reached out to touch Dave’s fu
rry forearm.
“Hey,” said Dave, jerking his arm away. “Knock it off.”
“What happened?”
“My best guess is that the healing magic didn’t differentiate between my skin and the leopard skin. Like Cooper said, ‘It’s skin, ain’t it?’”
“How does it feel?” asked Julian.
“Furry.”
“That’s too fucking awesome,” said Cooper.
“But you’re okay?” asked Julian.
“I guess so. How's Tim?”
Cooper stopped laughing. “It's hard to tell. He was down quite a few hit points about half an hour ago.”
“You think the guards roughed him up again?”
“No. He lost real hit points this time.” A look of panic overtook Dave's face. Cooper raised a hand to calm him. “Don't worry. Whatever happened, he came through in the end. The little fucker leveled up.”
“Seriously?” Dave grinned.
“Yeah,” said Cooper. I figure he had a scrap with one of the other guys in the prison yard or something.”
“Prison yard?” said Dave. “Did you see the size of that town? I don't think he's in San Quentin.”
“Whatever,” said Cooper.
“Hey guys,” said Julian excitedly. Dave and Cooper turned around to look at him. He was holding a character sheet. “Tim's back up to a full fifteen hit points.”
“What the hell is he doing in there?” asked Dave.
“Maybe his cellmate is a Cleric,” offered Cooper, “and Tim's been doing him favors.” In case anyone missed the implication, he rolled his fingers into a tube and made an in-and-out gesture near his mouth.
Dave and Julian looked at him disapprovingly.
“We'd better get going,” said Dave. “It's still early enough so that there shouldn't be too much traffic on the road. We might get lucky and find an isolated wagon. Is everybody still cool with that plan?”
“It's the only reasonable one that's been proposed,” said Julian. They both looked at Cooper.
“I'm still convinced there's a solid strategy to be made involving burning the shit out of the town, but as I currently lack the mental resources to formulate such a plan, I will accept yours as a lesser alternative.”
“That's very big of you,” said Dave.
Julian let out a loud whistle and shouted “Ravenus!”
“Oh,” moaned Cooper. “Don't call that thing back here.”
“I'm going to send him out to scout for a good target.”
Cooper grimaced, but Dave nodded approvingly. “Good idea,” he said.
After only a few seconds, Ravenus flapped through the trees and onto Julian's shoulder.
“You called, sir?”
Julian removed the bird from his shoulder and set him down on a low hanging branch of a nearby tree. “Anything to report?”
“There's a troll about a hundred yards that way,” he jerked his head to the side to indicate a direction deeper into the forest. “Shouldn't be much bother to you guys if you don't go near him. He's eating a deer.”
“What's your new friend saying?” asked Cooper in a mocking tone.
“There's a troll a hundred yards that way eating a deer.”
“I wish we had encountered the deer rather than the leopard,” said Dave.
“At least we didn't encounter the troll,” said Cooper.
“Maybe we should,” said Julian.
“Why would we want to do that?” asked Cooper. “A troll would rip us to pieces.”
“What if we took it by surprise,” pressed Julian. “We would probably all be better off at level two when we try to rescue Tim. It's just one little troll against the three of us.”
Cooper looked at Julian with a puzzled expression. “What, exactly, do you think a troll is?”
“I don't know,” Julian admitted. “I mean, I guess it's not like one of those toys you put on the back of your pencil. You know the ones, with the crazy colorful hair?”
“Yeah,” said Cooper. “I know the ones. And yeah, they aren't anything like that.”
“What about the one in 'Three Billy Goats Gruff?'”
“The one that got killed by a goat?”
“That's the one!”
“No,” said Cooper. “The thing over there would have nothing to fear from a goat.”
“But if-”
“Not even a really big one.”
“Oh.”
“It's bigger than any of us, it could rip us limb from fucking limb, and it will regenerate hit points faster than we can dish them out.”
“It must have some kind of weakness,” said Julian.
“Fire,” said Cooper. “Maybe electricity. I don't remember. Listen, I'll be happy to discuss all the reasons why we should leave here right now while we are leaving.”
“Fine,” said Julian. He turned to his familiar. “Ravenus. See if you can spot a good target for ambush on the road.”
“Um...” said Ravenus, lowering his head.
Julian sensed the moral quandary in his friend's voice. “We're not going to hurt anyone,” he said. “We just need a means of transportation through the city gates without being seen.”
Ravenus’s beady black eyes lit up. “Ah,” he said with an air of relief. “In that case, I’ll get right on it.”
“Should we leave our camp set up here?” Julian asked Cooper.
“Not if you want to keep any of it,” said Cooper, already taking down his poor excuse for a shelter. “If there are trolls around here, they’ll rip all of this to pieces.”
As they were finishing up the last of their packing, Ravenus flew down into the camp. “I’ve spotted a worthy target, master Julian, but you’ll have to hurry. He’s coming just up the bend now.”
“Ravenus says there’s a wagon coming, but we’ll have to hurry to catch it.”
“Sure he does,” said Cooper.
“What if it’s true?” asked Julian. “Will you believe me if there really is a wagon out there?”
Dave laughed. “That’s supposed to be proof enough for us to believe your stupid bird can talk to you? He successfully predicted that we would find a wagon traveling on a road?”
“Screw you guys,” Julian said, and then stomped off after Ravenus.
“When are you going to tell him that you believe him?” Dave asked Cooper.
“Give it some time,” Cooper said. “This is more fun.”
“Why can’t we understand him?”
“Dunno. Maybe only a wizard can understand his familiar.”
“I can totally hear you guys,” Julian called back at them.
“Shit!” said Dave.
“Goddamn elf ears,” said Cooper.
Ravenus led the party to a part of the forest that nearly reached the road. A small, four-wheeled cart trudged up the road toward Algor, led by a mule. Whatever cargo it carried was concealed by a dirty, ragged cloth. The driver was a stout man wearing a sombrero. He stared blankly at the road ahead, letting puffs of white smoke trail behind him, like the world’s smallest steam engine.
“Check it out,” Cooper whispered from his hiding place, crouched behind a tree.
“He's smoking.”
“So what?” asked Dave.
“So that means that cigarettes are available somewhere around here.”
“Oh, right.”
Julian scratched his head. “He doesn't look too worried about the fact that he's traveling alone.”
“So?” asked Dave again.
“So why is that? Is it because he's so much of a badass that he's confident that he can handle any threat that comes his way?”
“Good point,” said Dave. “He doesn't look like much of a badass.”
“Fuck it,” said Cooper. “I'll go ask him.” He jumped up out of his hiding place, roared a battle roar, and brandished his greataxe above his head.
“Shit,” said Dave. He and Julian looked at one another, shrugged, and ran out after Cooper, roaring significantly weaker battle cries.
“Holy fucking shit!” said the cart's driver. He fumbled around in his belt until he found a small bag. He hurriedly tossed it at Cooper, hitting him in the face.
Cooper screamed. His eyes boiled with fury as he swung his axe around his head, preparing to bring it down and add another head to his collection.
“Cooper! Stop!” Julian and Dave were both shouting.
“Huh?” said Cooper. He lowered his axe. The driver swallowed hard.
“What are you thinking? We aren't supposed to kill the driver.”
“He attacked me.”
Dave picked up the bag that had hit Cooper in the face. Inside, he found about three dozen copper coins. “He attacked you?”
“Why don't I throw a sack of coins at your face and see if it hurts?”
“Don't be such a baby.”
“Fuck you.”
Dave looked at Julian and jerked his head back towards the driver. “You're on, dude.”
The driver was petrified with fear, but still looked happy to be alive. He continued to stare in terror when Julian flashed a smile at him.
“We're really very sorry,” said Julian. He took the money pouch out of Dave's hand, and held it up to the driver. “I think you dropped this.”
Slowly, he reached out his hand to accept what was being handed to him. “If you don't want my money,” he said shakily, “and you don't want to kill me, then why do you attack me?”
Julian held up an arm and Ravenus flew down to rest on it. The driver looked mildly impressed. More importantly, he looked a little calmer. Julian was finding he really had a knack for this diplomacy thing. “It's neither you nor your money we're after,” he said. “We need to borrow your cart.”
“Why do you want to borrow my cart?” asked the driver. His voice was steady and curious. “It is a piece of shit.”
“What is the cargo that you seek to bring into Algor?”
“More shit,” said the driver simply.
“I'm sorry?”
“See for yourself.” The driver pulled back the cloth and revealed the cart to be full of manure, right up to the top.
Dave, Cooper, and Julian looked back and forth at one another, each waiting for the others to come up with a reasonable alternative to burying themselves in shit. Julian spoke first. “You'll probably want to grab some of that bamboo,” he said, pointing over to a patch of bamboo growing nearby, “if you want to breathe.”
