Dukes and Ladders: A LitRPG/Gamelit Adventure (The Good Guys Book 5)

by Eric Ugland

  “I hear you, my duke, but—”

  “No buts. I will fight you all. Just like I will lay down my life to protect you and yours, if someone begs me to help them, I will do it.”

  A silence hung over the area, the tension so thick it was suffocating.

  Wian drew his sword and leveled it at me.

  Without thinking, I grabbed the blade, and ripped it from his grip.

  He looked shocked.

  Blood poured down the sword.

  I snapped the blade over my knee and threw the ruined weapon back over the wall.

  “Anyone else?” I yelled.

  No one moved.

  “Clear a longhouse,” I said. “Find healers, bring food. I will stand guard outside the house as long as necessary for everyone to feel comfortable.”

  Still nothing.

  I just walked, assuming the Ursus would follow.

  Which they did.

  Nikolai fell in by my side.

  “You have made an interesting decision here,” he said softly.

  “Do you disagree?”

  “No. I am proud of you for your choice. It will not be the popular move, but I believe it is the right one.”

  “I figured the whole joy of having a feudal system is that I don’t need to care about being popular. People still have to do what I say.”

  “That is one way to think about it, my lord.”

  “Oh, it’s my lord now, is it?”

  “I wanted to push you, Montana of Coggeshall. You need to be a true leader sooner than later, I fear.”

  “I’m still hoping I can swing becoming a fisherman with a tiny cabin.”

  “That ship has long since sailed.”

  The last of the longhouses wasn’t occupied by many yet, so by the time we got the group of bear-people over there, it had been emptied out, and a few healers were there waiting.

  Rebecca and Isaac also stood there, Rebecca starting to look quite pregnant, holding a large basket full of steaming bread.

  The healers and Isaac did most of the work getting the 39 adults and 72 children into the long house.

  I pulled out the largest shield I had, plus the biggest sword, and I stood at the entrance to the place. Shield on my arm, blade down in the ground, my hand resting on the hilt. Ready for war.

  You have completed a quest.

  The Bear Necessities

  A tribe of The Ursus has requested sanctuary. They are being pursued by an evil, and are in danger of being eradicated. You have given them a home, and protected them from those who might harm them.

  Reward for success: Their Loyalty

  It’s always nice to be rewarded for doing what’s right, I thought, and readied myself to stand there for as long as needed.

  A second later, Tarryn was by my side.

  Then Ragnar and Skeld showed up.

  All armed. All standing at attention.

  To really round the party out, Fritz chose that moment to dig up from below, and laid down on the path, not even bothering to look any anyone, just resting malevolently.

  The Thingmen stared.

  So did the Legionnaires.

  But no one said a damn thing.

  Until a dwarf started laughing, and just like that the leader of the dwarves Harmut, stood in front of me.

  “Lad,” he said, “I think I am starting to like you.”

  He pulled out his big war pick, and took a place in the line. The rest of the dwarves followed, and we had two hundred plus people now standing guard. Then the battenti came. And all the non-humans in the Thingmen. And then all the Thingmen.

  For a moment, the 800 of us stood there.

  “Point made,” I said. “Pretty sure this is the bulk of the village, so we all agree that the Ursus are part of the family now. Right?”

  “Right!” came back the roar of the crowd.

  “Okay, so how about you all get back to work so when the bad guys chasing our family show up, there’s something to keep them out.”

  “Shall we start with repairing the door you broke?” Harmut asked.

  “Excellent idea,” I replied. “But make it stronger this time.”

  Slowly, the crowds parted, everyone going off to do their own thing. But I noticed that many of the Legion folk did not participate in our rousing cheer. They were neither happy nor swayed by anything I said. They felt I had taken in their enemy, and I had a very bad feeling the worst divisions in our community had yet to be felt.

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  After a few hours, one of the healers came out of the longhouse and gave me an update on the Ursus. Plenty of malnutrition, exhaustion, and dehydration, but overall, it looked like everyone would survive. At least, everyone who’d made it to our settlement. I had a bad feeling that there’d been more who’d started out with Borin.

  I stepped into the longhouse, and saw that most of the Ursus had fallen asleep already. The babies were snoring in piles of blankets arranged around a roaring fire. It looked like Borin was only upright out of sheer force of will. Maybe to make sure this wasn’t some sort of trick where his people would be slaughtered as soon as their guard was down.

  He gave me the bear equivalent to a smile, then gestured outside. I nodded, and we stepped back out.

  The honor guard was still there, to some extent. Roughly a hundred people standing around at attention with weapons.

  The two of us got some distance from the longhouse and the guards, moving over to a patch of open grass.

  “Your town is quite new,” Borin said, looking out over the settlement.

  “It is. Just a month or so,” I said.

  “I worry you are unprepared for winter.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “It is very hard here. The snows are very deep. Heavy. Perpetual. Very little sun. Many storms.”

  “You paint a pretty clear picture.”

  “Do you have plans to provide food for your people this winter?”

  “We have a fair amount of food in stores,” I lied. I’d planned to winter with a small group of people, and I’d made my preparations with that in mind. My initial group was about a tenth the size of my current group, and I was getting very nervous about keeping all those bellies full. Especially with so many little ones now. Those were all mouths that couldn’t help feed others.

  He seemed placated, though, and nodded in thought.

  “I imagine you have questions,” he said.

  “I do, a few of them. You know these mountains?”

  “Very well. I have lived in these my entire life. My people have been here for generations. Back to the very edges of time.”

  “Does it bother you that the Empire claims them as their own?”

  He frowned, and picked at his teeth with a big claw. Once again I was stunned by the sheer mass of the bear-man. He was easily a foot and a half taller than me, and almost half-again as broad. His coarse fur was a brown so dark it might as well have been black.

  “The stronger tribe has always been the one who takes the territory. The Empire is just the strongest tribe.”

  It was certainly a way to look at things. And maybe that was the way that things worked here in Vuldranni. It seemed vaguely like colonialism, the way that the land was taken. And yet, this was a completely different world. Maybe, in this world, if you were strong enough to keep the monsters out of an area and make it safe, it made sense that you could say the land was yours.

  “What did you mean by corruption?” I asked. “What happened to your tribe?”

  “Not just my tribe — all the tribes. We are the last of the Ursus in these mountains.”

  “Fuck me,” I said softly. “How many, uh, how big are the tribes?”

  “My tribe was 80—”

  “Were you the head of the tribe?”

  He nodded. “But my tribe was small. As one, the mountain tribes were thousands.”

  “And this corruption?”

  “It is not something I understand. It is like a darkness wormed
into my brethren, and all the Ursus stood for was forgotten. There were sacrifices. Rituals. All designed to bring about our power. To return our strength so we might push back the invaders—”

  “The Empire.”

  “Here, yes. To the East, the Dark Queen. To the North, the Greenskins. And from the west, the Night Goblins.”

  “I think we call them Dark Goblins, but Night Goblins sounds a lot better.”

  “They are vicious creatures, ones I pitied. But now I fear my kind is worse than them. The Night Goblins do not torture and eat their young, and I do not fear the Night Goblins…”

  That stopped me. Hit me dead in my tracks. I couldn’t fathom such a pernicious evil.

  “Well, you are safe here,” I said.

  “I know you mean what you say, but I fear you know little of the dangers you face.”

  “Whatever they may be, I will face them with you.”

  He nodded, then knelt. “If you would have me, I would be your sworn follower.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I am. As are the others. When they wake, they will be prepared to swear to you as well.”

  “You have a traditional thing for, uh, the oath?”

  He nodded.

  “I offer to you my claws that they may serve you in battle, my fur that it may keep you warm in the winter, and my spirit that it may keep you aloft until you pass from this plane to the next.”

  As always in Vuldranni, it seemed like I just magically knew what to say next, “I accept your claws, your fur, and your spirit, and I swear to keep you and yours safe, fed, and warm until your Passage.”

  I helped the big dude up to his feet, then gave the big bear a hug, because, well, I’ve always wanted to hug a bear.

  “Welcome to the fold,” I said. “Now get some rest.”

  He patted my shoulder with his giant paw, then walked off to the long house.

  A young Thingman came running up to me.

  “Your presence is requested at the Southern Gate, my lord,” he said, snapping his fist to his chest in a salute.

  “Thank you,” I replied, and sprinted towards the tunnel gate.

  I saw that something had to be going on. There were men and women all over the walls, all armed, and all on high alert. I hadn’t heard the warning bell, which gave me a little pause.

  Wian stood at the base of the stairs, looking my way. As soon as our eyes met, he waved me over.

  “What’s going on here?” I asked.

  “They have arrived ahead of schedule,” Wian replied, barely above a whisper.

  “Please tell me it’s my bacon of the month club.”

  A wan smile at my terrible joke. “Valamir’s soldiers in the guise of another.”

  “And they want to talk to me, I assume?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is this, I mean, how should I play this? Are they here for conflict?”

  “They are here for the princess. And the Thingmen.”

  “Well, they can’t have any of them.”

  “Which I appreciate, my lord, and yet—”

  “They’re going to want to come in, so maybe those of you who are recognizable can slip out the back for a minute or two.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking, my lord. You play the nice host, and say that we did indeed come this way, but you sent us back down the tunnel. And we headed, wherever.”

  “Towards the WarWaters. There’s an empty castle in the middle of the lake, you were going there to be safe there.”

  “Sure, excellent deception, my lord. Just buy us enough time to get out of the northern gates.”

  “I’m excellent at stalling.”

  He saluted, and then I clasped his wrist. He ran off.

  I climbed the stairs to the top of the wall, and peered over.

  Our little open area was basically full of men and women in full plate armor sitting on armored horses. They all had green tabard on, and their shields were green with crossed swords under a pine tree in gold across the middle.

  A man with little armor looked up at me, and I almost wished I hadn’t taken the time to put on pants. I would have appreciated forcing him to view my undercarriage from below.

  “Is there any chance you might be this Duke of Coggeshall I am forced to wait upon?” He asked.

  He sounded bored, and as if all this was beneath him. He had a pinched face with a long nose and a massive swoop of hair. His helmet hung off his saddle horn, and by the look of his bejeweled swordhilt, he wasn’t exactly a front line combat soldier.

  “Yep,” I replied, leaning against the wall. I pulled an apple out of my bag and took a bite. “Duke of Coggeshall. You are?”

  “I am Lord Caticorix of Arverni, and—”

  “Hello!”

  He stumbled a bit, unused to being interrupted.

  “Yes, hello. I am here on behalf of—”

  “You’ve got quite the escort.”

  He looked up at me, then around at the knights surrounding him.

  “A man of my station requires adequate protection. I notice you have quite a few armed fellows about your person.”

  “True, but this is their town. Makes sense for them to be here. When I’m out, it’s usually just me.”

  “How lovely for you.”

  “I appreciate a quiet walk in the woods.”

  “I am sure it is the highlight of your day,” he said, his tone clearly indicating he thought I was a bumping backwoods hick.

  “Well, some days,” I said, leaning into the hickness, “other days I like to go fishing. Sometimes I do both. I go walking in the woods and then I go fishing.”

  The man sighed.

  “Are you sure you are a duke?”

  “It’s what the indicium implies.”

  “And you are surely a credit to the Empire.”

  “Hey man, thank you.”

  “Not a compliment.”

  “Well then, I guess, you know, fuck you.”

  I finished eating the apple, and walked back down the stairs.

  Silence from the other side of the wall, perhaps the group trying to figure out how to deal with such an imbecilic duke.

  Nikolai came walking up to me.

  “What is the situation?” He asked.

  “Valamir’s boys pretending to be someone else. Green tabard.”

  “Is there a symbol on it?”

  “Golden—”

  “Eastburn.”

  “The dude out there is Caticorix.”

  Nikolai sneered. “He is a bootlicker of the lowest order, and most assuredly in Valamir’s employ.”

  “Is he a duke?”

  “Nothing of the sort. He is a baron, but I imagine there have been plenty of titles dangled before him for this particular chase.”

  “He’s got a lot of knights out there.”

  “Caticorix has plenty of money at present. I would imagine those are all mercenaries.”

  “They looked like they all had the same armor.”

  “It is possible he has hired a whole company.”

  “Are there mercenary companies in the Empire? I thought anyone who wanted to fight professionally would be in the Legion.”

  “There are some. More are from other lands. The Icemen from the Frozen Wastes.”

  “Decent branding for a pretty unoriginal name.”

  “They need little from a name to kill.”

  “Got me there.”

  A loud knock at the door interrupted us.

  “Might the duke be so kind as to grace us with his presence once again?” Came a shout from the other side.

  I looked to Nikolai.

  “Wian is taking the princess and a few others out through the other gate. We’ll let these assholes in to look around, and—

  A bell sounded.

  This wasn’t the tunnel bell though. It was the newly installed bell at the northern watchtower.

  “That can’t be good,” I said.

  The bell rang again.

  “Emergency,” Ni
kolai said.

  I ran for the north wall.

  Most everyone ran, really.

  I was the first to make it up the rampart, and stood next to a young Dwarf who was very pale. Looking out across the open field, I could see why. I was starting to feel a little queasy myself.

  In the trees, as far as I could see from east to west, were the Ursus. But unlike Borin and his folk, these bears looked mean. They had glowing eyes. Some had glowing claws. They held huge weapons, some on fire, others letting off smoke. And there were thousands of them.

  They just stood there, glaring at us, and our walls.

  Nikolai appeared at my side.

  “Gods,” he said softly.

  “Might want to tell Wian to rethink the going outside the gates thing,” I said. “I think he might upset the teddy bear picnic.”

  Ready for Book 6?

  Order it now:

  SIEGE HOME SEIGE

  and continue Montana’s adventures!

  About the Author

  Eric Ugland ran away from Seattle to join the circus. And then he came to his senses, and moved to Manhattan. Now he's a novelist in Oregon, trapped by trees and snow and bears. Mostly bears.

  The Good Guys is a continuing LitRPG series I’m writing in the world of iNcarn8. Join my reader group and be the first to know when new books come out.

  Reviews help other readers find books. Please post a review on Amazon, even if it’s only a line or two. I appreciate all feedback, whether it’s positive or negative.

  Contents

  Also by Eric Ugland

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13