by Robert Bevan
“Where is it now?”
“Who knows. It was kind of annoying. I sent it off to scout the area.”
“What smells like troll shit?” asked a voice from behind Tim.
Butterbean got quickly to his feet and growled.
A small humanoid creature with red eyes and a batlike face walked up behind Tim. Katherine put an arm around Butterbean, but didn’t hold him down very securely.
“Hey hey!” said the creature, raising his arms. “Take it easy! I come in peace. I smell wine. I- Oooh, who’s the lovely lady?”
“Tim,” said Katherine, standing up, and still holding on to Butterbean very litghtly. “Who- What the fuck is that?”
“Shorty,” said Tim. “This is my sister, Katherine. Katherine, Shorty.”
“That’s your sister?” said Shorty. “You’ve got a messed up family tree.”
“It’s a long story,” said Tim.
“I’m keen to hear it.”
“Now isn’t the best time, Shorty.”
Katherine, unsure as to whether the little creature was ogling her or the wine she was drinking, took a step back from him and took another drink. She stoppered the bottle to show him, in no uncertain terms, that she had no intention of sharing it with him. She was emboldened by the presence of Butterbean, as Shorty didn’t appear to want to come anywhere close to him.
“You’ve got some nerve calling him Shorty,” she said to Tim. “He’s taller than you are. Not by much, but still.”
“That’s his name.”
“Actually, it’s not,” said Shorty. “My real name is Sh’urr Ghareth Marg Sh’urr. Pahalin’s guards just started calling me Shorty to make fun of me.”
“I’m not sure that’s the only reason,” said Tim.
“So how did you two meet?” asked Katherine.
“Shorty- Can I still call you Shorty?”
Shorty shrugged.
“Shorty and I met in prison. He was my jailor.”
“They’ve got some lax rules at that prison,” said Katherine. “So what’s this? A field trip?”
“We escaped together, with- Hey, where’s Greely?”
“Oh shit,” said Katherine. “What the fuck is Greely? Shorty’s pet bear?”
“No. He’s just some old dude. Another prisoner. Wait here. I’m going to go see what he’s up to.”
“Tim,” Katherine cried out, but Tim was gone. “Don’t leave me alone with-” She looked down at Shorty, who was looking up expectantly at her. “What?” she said.
“You were saying something?”
“Look, I’m sorry. Okay?” said Katherine. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a... whatever you are... before.”
“A jailor?” he suggested.
Katherine rolled her eyes. “No... You know...” She waved her hand vaguely in the air.
Shorty looked down at his clothes, and back up at her in alarm. “A vagabond? Because lady, I assure you. Once I find my clan and get cleaned up a bit, I-”
“No,” she nearly screamed. “Come on, dude. Don’t make me come out and say it.”
“Say what?”
“I’m not a bad person. This is all just very new to me.”
“My dear, I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Your species.”
“My what?”
“Your... you know. Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Mermaid, Fairy, Leprechaun-”
“Goblin?”
“Okay, sure. Goblin, Gremlin, whatever.”
“No,” said Shorty. “That’s my race. I’m a Goblin.”
Katherine lowered her head in shame. “I’m really sorry. I was just telling my boyfr- my er... friend over there how he shouldn’t be racist, and now I’m the one-”
“Hey,” said Shorty. “Don’t sweat it. We are a race who have grown quite accustomed to being despised by others.”
“Like Jews?”
“Whose?”
“Oh my God, why did I even say that? I’m just going to shut up now.”
“It’s all right, dear,” Shorty said to Katherine. “Nothing we can’t get over after sharing a drink or two together.” He licked his lips.
Katherine stopped feeling ashamed of herself, and started feeling disgusted with Shorty. And then she felt ashamed of herself again.
She felt the waterskin in her hand. It was still about three-quarters full. “Okay,” she said, and handed it to him.
The goblin accepted the bottle with trembling hands, as if he were forcing himself not to just rip it out of her grasp. He quaffed down wine with noisy slurps and gulps.
Katherine watched in disgust. He seemed to be nothing more than a mass of teeth and lips and tongue attacking that poor goat’s stomach. She went to Chaz’s pack, opened it, and pulled out his waterskin... nice and full. Shorty stopped drinking and watched her. Seeing the second flask, he smiled and raised his own to her. She raised hers and smiled back, unstoppered it, took a drink, and spit it out.
“Blegh!” she said, trying to spit more out even though her mouth was empty. “What is this shit?”
Shorty raised his eyebrows and frowned curiously.
“This one’s got water in it!” she said. “Fuck!”
Shorty pulled his own flask close to his chest protectively.
“Where did they get this water?” Katherine continued raving. “In a sewer? Ew! I can still feel grit in my mouth! I’ll probably have tapeworms in me the size of dogs tomorrow!”
Shorty offered a nervous grin and held out the waterskin. Katherine grimaced and shivered. Then she reconsidered, walked over, and took it from him. She wiped the neck with her hand, and poured some wine into her mouth from several inches above it. She handed it back. “Where the fuck is Tim?”
“I’m here,” said Tim, walking out into the clearing and doing his best to support an old man who was twice his height and maybe equal his weight.
“Where did you dig up that corpse?” asked Katherine.
“Seriously, Katherine,” Tim scolded her. “Not cool.”
“How do you do, m’lady?” asked the old man.
“Um... hi.”
“My name is Greely,” he said, offering a hand to shake. The hand was spotted, misshapen, and ended in the longest and dirtiest fingernails Katherine had ever seen. She briefly touched one finger with the tips of her own index finger and thumb.
“I’m Katherine. Pleasure to meet you.”
“The pleasure is all mine.”
“You’re probably right there.”
“Katherine,” Tim hissed. “He was in prison with me. He’d been there for years. He’s practically been starved to death. Do you have any food here?”
“I think there’s a chunk of leopard meat on the ground here somewhere.”
“Ooh!” exclaimed Greely. “I haven’t eaten leopard in ages!” He fell to his knees and started scouring the ground with much more vitality than Katherine thought possible.
Katherine took the waterskin back from Shorty and had a drink.
“I’m pleased to see you two getting along so well,” said Tim.
Katherine looked at Shorty uncomfortably.
“Your fire’s dying,” said Shorty.
“That’s true,” said Tim. “We’ll want a big fire to ward off anything else that might consider attacking us in the night, and to burn away the rest of that troll. The three of us should be able to gather enough wood quickly enough.”
“Three of us?” asked Katherine, looking down at Greely.
“Give him a break, Kat. He’s had a hard time. Leave him to find his leopard meat.”
Tim, Katherine, and Shorty maintained a tight clockwise spiral around the campsite while gathering wood, and before long, the fire was tall, hot,and strong. The troll’s body proved more resistant to just burning into a pile of ash than Katherine had expected, but then she’d never had to dispose of a body before. Once the body had given up all of the liquid it was going to give, the stench cleared up pretty quickly, and the flesh burned
away to leave a freakish charred skeleton staring out through the embers at them.
Chapter 15
Dave watched nervously as Cooper paced in his cell. He looked bored. Cooper was known to do some pretty stupid and dangerous things when bored, even in the real world as a human being. The form he was in now was certainly stronger in the physical sense, and quite possibly less wise. The potential for disaster was akin to the potential for getting wet by jumping into a lake.
Julian sat alone in the cell across the hall. He was as still as a statue, his hands clasped together around the sombrero on his lap. He appeared to be asleep even though his eyes were open. Must be an elf thing. It would probably be best to let him rest. He needed it, and the sooner he could re-memorize his spells, the better. Dave looked over at the cell Captain Righteous was sitting in, and could see from the look on the captain’s face that he also saw trouble brewing within the bored half-orc. Dave’s eyes met the captain’s for an instant, and then they each went back to watching Cooper. Dave sauntered toward captain.
“Mind if I join you?” Dave asked.
“Don’t get too friendly,” said the captain. “The only reason you and your friends are still alive is that I refuse to be coerced into following orders by being locked up like a common criminal. That wasn’t part of the contract. That said, I don’t care where you sit.”
Dave’s short, stout legs weren’t going to enjoy sitting on the stone floor, and his heavy armor was going to make it difficult for him to stand up again, but he was tired. He sat down and leaned against the wall.
“You know,” said Dave, nodding in Cooper’s direction. “Cooper isn’t such a bad guy.”
Captain righteous looked in the direction Dave was nodding. “The half-orc’s name is Cooper?”
“Yeah, and I’m Dave.”
“I don’t care what your name is, dwarf. What kind of name is Cooper for a half-orc? Does he make barrels for a living?”
“Um... I don’t think so. Why do you ask?”
The captain closed his eyes.
“Listen,” said Dave. “Like I was saying, he’s not a bad guy. He’s-”
“He’s a cold-blooded murderer. You all are.”
“He’s really not though. He’s actually got a pretty big heart once you know him well enough to see through the rough exterior. He had kind of a hard time growing up. His parents split up when he was very young. But that’s not-”
“His parents?” Captain Righteous gave Dave his full attention for the first time. “Split up? Surely that abomination is the product of a vicious rape. Or do you mean to tell me that his orc father and his human mother were lovers once, who shared a quiet little cottage with a nice garden out front?”
“The truth is actually less believable than that.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Ha,” Dave smiled. “I see what you did there.”
Captain Righteous did not smile. “I don’t know why you bother trying to defend your beast friend over there. You’re in as much trouble as he is. The lot of you are going to hang.”
“Let’s put all that aside for now,” said Dave. “We have a more immediate concern on our hands.” He looked over at Cooper.
The captain followed Dave’s line of sight. “I’m listening.”
“Cooper has always been impetuous, short-tempered, and kind of... well, stupid isn’t exactly the right word... Never mind. You know what I’m getting at. But now he’s also immensely strong.”
The captain narrowed his eyes at Dave. “What do you mean by ‘But now’?”
“He’s getting restless. He’s bored, and he’s trapped, and I think he might pose a threat to the safety of himself and others if we don’t do something about it.”
The captain shrugged. “We’re all trapped. What do you propose I do about it? Tell him a bedtime story?”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind.”
“Well then?”
Dave leaned in and whispered. “I think we should try to lock him in his cell.”
The captain snorted contemptuously. “A truer friend there never was. Fine. It’s as good an idea as any.”
“Okay. Here’s what I was thinking. I’ll go to the next cell over and call him over to talk. While I’ve got him distracted, you pull the cell door closed.”
“All right. That sounds simple enough.”
Dave walked over to the corner cell adjacent to the one Cooper was pacing in. He pretended to be interested in the bodies of several dead rats, prodding one here and there with his mace. When he reached the corner, he called out in a loud whisper. “Cooper. Get over here. Check this out.”
Cooper, desperate for any kind of stimulus, took the bait without question. He walked over to the bars opposite of where Cooper was standing, and looked down at the section of floor Dave was looking at. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“You’ll see soon enough,” said Dave.
“I see a dead rat. What about it?” Cooper’s cell door slammed shut. “Huh?” Cooper turned around to face the door. Captain Righteous was holding it shut.
“Shit!” exclaimed the captain. “Where’s the damned key?” He was shouting at Dave.
Cooper turned around to look back at Dave, who offered an apologetic frown. Cooper’s face, on the other hand, wore the simple expression of ‘I’ll deal with you later.’ He turned his attention back to the captain and two of his men who had come to help hold the door shut. He took a step in their direction.
“I’ll only warn you once,” shouted the captain with more than a hint of desperation in his voice. “Just stay where you are. Do you hear me?” The three men continued to hold the door.
Cooper didn’t halt his advance. When he arrived at the door, he looked down at his arms, and then at the cell door. He gripped the door with both hands by the bar closest to the hinges. His arms, legs, and back muscles all flexed simultaneously, and after a series of metallic pops, the captain and his men found themselves holding a cell door which was no longer connected to a cell. Cooper, without a word to anyone, lay down on the cot and closed his eyes.
Captain Righteous and his men carried the broken door away and leaned it against a wall.
Dave bent down on one knee and whispered to Cooper through the bars of the adjacent cell. “Hey, Coop?”
Cooper opened one eye, which Dave mistook for him being willing to listen. Dave smiled. Cooper sent a fist through the bars right into Dave’s nose. Pain exploded into Dave’s face as if Cooper’s fist had gone straight through it. He heard his nasal bones crunch from the inside of his head. Liquid salty warmth ran from his nose to his lips, thickening in his moustache and beard. He fell over backwards, and landed on the body of a dead rat. He shrieked and rolled off of it, trying to hop to his feet as quickly as he could. He slipped in a puddle of congealing rat blood, his feet went up in the air, and he landed backwards, almost entirely on his head. His helmet made the difference between a mere concussion and a severe skull fracture.
Cooper closed his eyes.
The guards laughed. Even Captain Righteous let slip a small grin as he closed his eyes and lowered his head. Through all of it, Julian didn’t even stir. He just continued staring out at nothing.
Not ready to attempt standing again just yet, Dave scurried back over towards Cooper on his hands and knees, just beyond what he judged to be the range of Cooper’s fist. “Okay,” he said. “I deserved that. I just saw that you were bored, and I wanted to keep you from starting any shit and getting us all killed.”
Cooper didn’t respond. He didn’t even open an eye.
“Fine,” Dave went on. “Sit there and sulk. But I mean really, dude. You’re massively strong now. Think about some of the stupid shit you’ve done when you were bored before, and think about if you did something similar now. You would totally be throwing cars around, and people would totally be getting hurt. Just look at what you did to that door, and you were barely-” He paused, and leaned in close enough to risk anoth
er punch in the face. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Hey, if you could break open that cell door so easily, who’s to say you couldn’t just smash your way through the main door up there?”
Cooper opened an eye. “It’s worth a shot,” he said, and started to get up.
“No,” said Dave, his whisper loud and urgent. He looked up to see if anyone was paying attention. Julian was still deep in some glassy-eyed coma. Captain Righteous supervised his men in the task of moving rat corpses and wiping up blood. The guard called Darren rested in a bed with his leg propped up. Dave’s spell had stabilized his wounds, but came one or two hit points short of healing him entirely.
Dave softened his whisper as Cooper lay back down. “If we succeed, those guards are going to turn on us. We’re only going to get one shot at it. The three of us need to be ready to haul ass out of this place as soon as the door falls. And it would probably be wise to wait until you can do your rage thing again to heighten the odds of success. Get some rest.”
“No,” said Cooper.
Dave was sure that this was the best plan, and Cooper was going to fuck it all up. “Listen,” he pleaded, but Cooper cut him off.
“You get some rest,” said Cooper. “We’ll need your healing. I”ll keep watch.”
“But your rage,” objected Dave.
“You need rest to replenish your spells,” said Cooper. “The book doesn’t say anything about me needing rest to replenish my rage. It’s just a straight up once per day thing.”
“No,” said Dave. “Wizards need rest. I just need to wait until dawn.”
“Oh right,” said Cooper. “Then fuck you. I’m going to sleep.”
A few minutes later, Cooper was snoring. Dave started to feel sleepy as well. He looked around for something to keep his mind off of sleep. Julian was no help, still in his trance. He didn’t reckon he’d get much conversation out of Captain Righteous or any of his men. His eyes were heavy. It wouldn’t hurt to just rest them a bit. Just a bit.
He came to with a start. One of the soldiers was standing over him.
