by Robert Bevan
Mordred exhaled. “Great,” he muttered. “Now I’ll have to roll up a character for her.”
He bent over to pick up the die, and the front door’s bell jingled again. His heart nearly exploded.
“Take it easy, princess,” said a man who must have outweighed Mordred by a good twenty pounds, but without an ounce of fat. The fluorescent lights shone off the top of his shaved head like it was made from metal. His black T-shirt didn't necessarily look like it had been painted on, but rather that it might have fit snugly when he started wearing it at the age of twelve, well before he had started working out. It looked less like something he wore to cover his torso, and more like something he wore to contain all of the boulders of which it was composed. Massive tattooed biceps ballooned out of the sleeves, leading down to forearms as thick as tree trunks, and the down to hands ending in fingers that looked like sausages carved out of wood. “Hey faggot, up here.”
Mordred, suddenly realizing his eyes were scanning down the length of a man's body, jerked his head up to meet a pair of eyes that seemed to have been chiseled from chunks of ice. “Um...” he said weakly.
“Where's Kat?” said the giant. “I thought I heard somebody shouting.”
“Um...” Mordred said again.
“Hey dipshit, speak up.”
“Here,” said Mordred, and tossed the black die to the animated pile of muscles in front of him. “Hold this.”
“What the fuck?” he responded, catching the die. He held it up to his face, and his expression changed from contempt to happy recognition. “Sweet!” he said, following a swiftly retreating Mordred back to the gaming table. “You guys playing C&C?” he asked, excitedly. “Fuckin A,” he said when he saw the setup on the table. He tossed the die down onto the table. “I used to play this shit when I was-”
Mordred rushed to the front door of the shop and locked it. He took in a deep breath, and the word “shit” escaped with his exhalation.
Chapter 10
“We'd better get some sleep,” said Tim.
“But it's still early afternoon,” Shorty protested.
“Do you know what time they're going to come get me in the morning?”
“Uh... no.”
“Well then we have two choices,” said Tim. “We can stay up all night, or we can get whatever sleep we can get now, and be ready for them when they get here.”
“Erm...” Greely interjected. “If ye meant fer us to go to sleep, then why did ye make us put those dead rats in our beds?”
“One less thing to do when we wake up,” said Tim. “It's not like that bed is really all that more comfortable than the floor, is it?”
“A man likes to sleep in his own bed.”
“Don't be such a baby,” said Tim. “If things go our way in the morning, you'll be kissing that bed goodbye for good.”
“The same likely holds true if things don't go our way,” said Shorty glumly.
“Good point. Now go to sleep.”
Tim had no trouble getting to sleep. The screeching of the rat with part of its body stuck between the lead weight and the stone wall had become nothing but background noise to him. After what they'd done to him, the sound of one of them in agony soothed him like a lullaby. He wouldn't have said that he trusted Greely or Shorty, but he wasn't going to let that stop him from getting his rest. If they were going to kill him, so be it. He would have to put his faith in them for now. The alternative was staying up through the night and trying to outwit and outrun his captors without having had any sleep.
Greely and Shorty shared Greely's cell. Shorty had a nice, comfortable bed that they both might have slept in, but Tim had insisted that nobody enter Shorty's magically soundproof room in case there was some sort of emergency in the night.
As far as Tim could tell when he woke up, the afternoon, evening, and early part of the night during which they slept were uneventful, with the one exception that the stuck rat finally gave up its screeching and died. No light shone through the tiny window at the top of his cell. He looked into the other cell. Greely and Shorty were still sleeping. He put the threadbare blanket over the dead rat in his bed.
He let himself out of his own cell and into Greely's.
“Wake up,” he whispered, nudging Greely with his foot.
Greely's eyes opened wide immediately. “Goddess of my heart’s desire! We dance as silhouettes against the autumn moon!” Tim cleared his throat. Greely shook the sleep out of his head and looked up at him. “Oh, it's ye. Time to wake up, is it?”
He stood up, and Shorty turned over, pulling more of Greely's blanket onto himself. Tim shook Shorty’s shoulder.
Shorty's red eyes opened and he hissed. He bared his rotten teeth at Tim. It was more frightening than the rats had been. Tim jumped back and yelped, which startled Shorty in turn. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and remembered where he was.
“Sorry about that,” said Shorty. “I was having a dream.”
“What the fuck about?” said Tim, backed up against the wall and still panting.
Shorty frowned. “Dunno,” he said. “Don't remember. Ducks, maybe?”
Tim got his heart back under control and then positioned the rat on Greely's bed as best he could to resemble Greely. It wouldn't pass more than a rudimentary inspection, but if they were still there by the time inspections were taking place, then they would have already failed.
“This will have to do,” said Tim, after he finished covering the rat's face with the blanket. “Ready for some waiting?”
Greely and Shorty shrugged. Tim walked up to the stairs leading to the exit door. The doorway itself was about six feet up. The steps leading up to it were only as thick as the door, leaving a space on either side between themselves and the wall.
“Greely,” said Tim, “Come here.” Greely came forward, and Tim led him into the space on the right side of the steps. “Crouch down a little. Yes, like that. Very good.” He turned back to Shorty. “What do you think?”
“About what?” asked Shorty.
“Can you see him?”
“Of course I can see him,” said Shorty. “He's right there.”
“Oh,” said Tim. He bit his lower lip. “Try crouching down a bit more,” he ordered Greely.
“Like this?”
Tim turned to Shorty. “How about now?”
“What about now?”
Tim sighed. “Can you see Greely now?”
Shorty stared dumbly at Tim for a moment. He scratched his head until the light of recognition shone in his eyes. He gave an embarrassed cough. “Perhaps I should have mentioned my darkvision.”
“What?”
“I can see in the dark.”
Tim rolled his eyes. “Oh for fuck's sake,” he said. “Greely, come on out of there. Shorty, you go in there.”
Shorty stood in the shadowy space between the steps and the wall.
“What do you think, Greely?” asked Tim. “Can you see him?”
“Nar,” said Greely. “He's pretty well hidden in there, I'd say.”
Tim ran the plan through in his mind. “Okay, good.”
“So that's the plan, is it?” asked Shorty. “We just duck back in the shadows, hope they all walk in without seeing us, and then try to duck out while they're not looking?”
“Just about,” said Tim.
“Oh...” said Shorty. He swallowed. “Okay.”
Tim closed his eyes and offered a smug grin. “There is one more little thing I haven't mentioned yet.”
“What's that?” asked Shorty.
“It's nothing unless you've got some string,” said Tim.
“I think I can come up with something,” said Shorty. He scurried down the hall to his room and emerged a few minutes later with a spool of thread. “Will this do?”
“Perfect!” said Tim. He went back to his cell, found the bones he had used to pick the lock, and started working on the door of the cell where the giant rats were being raised.
“I've got a key, you
know,” said Shorty.
“Oh yeah,” said Tim. “Right. Good idea.” He unlocked the cell door, careful not to move it in or out, lest the rats know it was open. A couple of them snarled at him, but most of them barely noticed he was there. He carefully tied one end of thread around a bone, and wedged it into the lock.
“Hmmm...” said Tim, rubbing his chin. “Not bad.” He looked at Shorty. “I don't guess you have a paintbrush down here.”
“No.”
“Not a problem,” said Tim, walking back to his cell. He lay down on the floor and reached under the bed until he fished out what remained of the arm he had removed from the rat in his bed. He stood up, removed the blanket from the rat corpse, and stabbed a new hole in it with his dagger.
“I think he's dead,” offered Greely.
“Thanks,” said Tim. The blood was thick and dark, but still liquid. He cut an opening large enough to dip the severed limb into. Nice and sticky. He took it back to the rat cage, and pasted the thread along the cell's cross bar all the way back to the edge of the wall.
“All right,” said Shorty. “Kind of gross, but it should get the job done.”
Tim nodded, satisfied with his work.
“One question though,” Shorty continued. “Why wasn't this part of yesterday's preparatory work?”
“Because I only thought of it just now,” answered Tim.
“So,” Shorty paused and scratched his head. “When I asked you before if your entire plan consisted of us hiding out in the shadows and hoping all the guards would walk by without noticing us?”
“Yeah?”
“Up until a few minutes ago, that was your entire plan?”
“That's right.”
“And you thought that was a good enough plan to gamble all our lives on, did you?”
“Is being dead any worse than being stuck in here?”
“I've only ever explored one of those two options,” said Shorty, “and I'm not in any hurry to explore the other one.”
“I think we've got a good shot at this. If we all do-”
Tim was interrupted by the sound of voices on the other side of the door, and then what he guessed was the sound of the crossbar being lifted out of the way.
“Shit,” he whispered. “They're coming. Greely! Get over here. Shorty, go to the other side.” Each of them did what they were instructed to do without hesitation.
Tim and Greely crouched back into the darkness as deeply as he could. Tim ran his thumb and forefinger together to confirm the feel of the thread between them. The door creaked open.
“Prisoners! Stand and be counted!” shouted Captain Righteous. Having received no response at all, the captain stomped down the stairs. Two of his subordinates followed him halfway down.
“Shorty!” he bellowed.
Shorty cowered even deeper into the shadows but made no sound.
“Damn him and his stupid soundproof room,” muttered the captain as he stomped toward the other end of the hall, six of his men following behind. Tim recognized one of them as Diego. The other five were all likely named Level One Guard.
Greely looked down at Tim. Tim shook his head. Not yet.
“If he wants to be deaf, I'll rip those giant ears off his ugly head.” The captain marched swiftly down the corridor without so much as a glance into any of the cells.
Diego followed behind more slowly, raking a small metal club across the bars of the cells. “Wake up, you lazy little shits. Don't want to sleep through your last couple of hours in this world, do you?”
By the time Captain Righteous had made it into Shorty's room, the rest of his men had come to the prisoners' cells.
“Has Greely put on weight?” one of them asked.
“What's that sticking out of the little guy's bed?” asked another. “It looks like a tail.”
“-round, you fools! They're getting away!”
The soldiers all turned toward Shorty's room. Their captain was just coming out of it, shouting and looking past them.
“Turn around, you fools!” he repeated. The men turned back toward Tim. Greely and Shory hurried up the stairs. Tim paused just long enough to give them the finger.
“What do you suppose that means?” The rearmost guard asked.
The others didn't bother to contemplate Tim's gesture. They drew weapons and charged, but were intercepted by a horde of dire rats swarming out of their cage.
Tim bolted up the stairs as fast as he could. Greely and Shorty closed the massive wooden door behind him. It took the combined strength of the three of them to lift the crossbar back into place, blocking the door shut. There was a brass plaque on the front of the crossbar. It read “Dungeon. Authorized Personnel Only.”
“Now what do we do?” asked Greely.
Tim looked around. There was only one way to go, and that was up a full flight of stairs, ending at another wooden door. He raced to the top of the stairs, hoping that the door wouldn’t be locked. To his amazement, it wasn’t.
He had expected giant stone walls hung with tapestries, and suits of armor standing decoratively at the entrances to corridors. Instead, this place kind of reminded him of his grandmother's house. He was in a small room with white painted walls. There was a rocking chair in the corner, and a table with an oil lamp.
Oil lamp.
“We could burn the place down,” suggested Tim.
Greely and Shorty looked at one another, and then back at Tim.
“What for?” asked Shorty.
Tim thought. “I don't know,” he admitted. “That's just something we could do if we were so inclined.”
“Maybe we should focus on getting out of here,” suggested Shorty.
“Good idea,” said Tim. “Let's go.”
There was only one door out of the room, and it opened into a short hallway. Opposite the door was a bedroom, and just down the hall there looked to be a- Tim stopped, sniffed the air, and turned around. “Kitchen,” he said.
“Huh?” said Greely.
“I'm fucking starving,” said Tim. He tiptoed down the hall, following his nose to what smelled like freshly baked bread. He drew his sword silently from its scabbard and peeked around the corner. A man in a robe was standing at the counter, looking out the window and drinking a cup of coffee. The first thing Tim noticed about the man was his long, shiny clean hair. It looked like it should be the star of a woman's shampoo commercial. His neatly trimmed beard was also shiny clean, complete with a thick mustache, waxed to points sticking out at each end. He didn't seem to notice Tim.
“Ahem,” said Tim.
“Ahooo!” screamed the man with the shiny long hair. He jumped, and a great deal of coffee sloshed over the sides of his cup.
“Shut your mouth or I'll cut your dick off,” said Tim, pointing his sword. He was just the right size for a fully grown human man to take such a threat very seriously. “Who are you?”
The man looked bewildered at the question. “Why I am Pahalin, Lord of this manor!” he said. “And you, you must be the butcher I was told about who sliced the head off of one of my men.”
“Yes,” Tim sighed. “I cut your man's head off. He was kind enough to let me climb up his body, and then stand there patiently while I worked away at his neck with a hand saw.”
“I... you... never mind that,” said Lord Pahalin. “How did you escape my dungeon?”
Tim looked around the corner where he had emerged into the kitchen from. Greely and Shorty both looked hesitant to show themselves. Tim raised his eyebrows inquisitively at them. They looked at each other, shrugged, and stepped out into the open.
“Wretched traitors!” Pahalin hissed at them.
“How can they be traitors?” asked Tim. “Weren't they prisoners?”
Pahalin stopped to consider this. “Well they've been with us for so long,” he said. “They felt like family almost.”
“Well,” said Tim. “As long as we're on the lam, we're going to steal a bunch of your shit.” He brandished his sword at Pahalin, an
d without taking his eyes off him, groped around on a nearby table until his hand found an apple. He bit off a huge chunk of it, chewed it up, and savored the feeling of it going down to his eager stomach. “Greely! Shorty! Take whatever you can find. Food, weapons, money, whatever. Hurry up!”
Greely and Shorty collected a few loaves of bread, some dried meat, a basket full of apples, and a large bread knife.
“Let's go,” said Shorty, waving the bread knife toward the door.
“Shouldn't we tie him up first?” asked Tim.
“With what?”
“Oh... yeah, all right.” Tim followed Shorty and Greely out of the kitchen door and into the morning air outside.
Chapter 11
Julian looked up at the white moon – just the one – fading into the lavender sky. “The sun will be coming up soon,” he said to whoever was listening.
“You'd better run along now,” Dave said to Miguel. “It's probably best that you leave town altogether, and try to sell your shit somewhere else.”
“Right,” said Miguel. “Good luck with...” he stopped to think. “Well, with whatever it is that you're doing.” He climbed up to his place at the head of his cart and took hold of the reins. Dave, Julian, and Cooper offered a friendly wave as he rode out of sight around the corner of the saloon.
“Should we have just let him go like that?” asked Julian.
“What difference does it make?” asked Cooper.
“He could tell the guards about us or something.”
“They're about to find out about us anyway.”
“That’s true,” said Julian. He tipped up the wide brim of his new hat. “As far as I could see when we came in, there was only one guard at the entrance to the Lord's manor.” He risked a peek around the corner, just in time to see the guard in question suddenly jerk his head up in attention, and run back toward the front door of the house. “He's going inside,” he said. “Now's our best chance.”
The three of them ran as quietly as they could, which wasn't very, toward the entrance of the big house. Inside they could hear shouting.
“Best to rush in there while their guard is down,” suggested Cooper.
