Billy the Barbarian 1: The Heights of Dread: An Isekai Sword and Sorcery Harem Lit Adventure Fantasy!

by Virgil Knightley

  The grisly man grinned an ugly, wicked sort of grin, made worse for the missing teeth. He leaned in close as though he were about to whisper words of conspiracy to Billy. “There’s a tower in the woods out west. My pal told me strange things happen there every night—eerie lights goin’ off—so I sent a lad down to dig around and see what he could see.”

  “Nice. What’d he see?” The barbarian scooted his chair forward to match the surreptitious tone of the conversation. He’d humor the man if it’d separate him from his coin.

  “Never came back. So, I sent another lad, almost as big as you. Told him to be real careful-like, snoop around and return. Don’t attract any attention, I told him, just tell me what he could see.” The man was grinning from the retelling.

  “And?”

  “Never came back.” He sat up straight, wearing a smug expression. “You see where I’m headed with this?”

  Billy took a sip of mead. It was lukewarm and unpleasant, but far better than the filth they called water around here. “And now you want me to check it out?” he asked.

  “Right you are, lad. Go. Come back. Tell me what you see, and I’ll fill that pouch on your hip with silver.”

  “Sounds fun,” Billy said. “How about silver and a horse?”

  The man stroked his mustache. “A satchel of silver and a handshake. That’s what I can offer. Take it or leave it.”

  Billy was reluctant, but he smiled in agreement. He extended his hand, and the man took it. “Name’s Grint, by the way,” he said.

  “I’m Billy.”

  “Queer name. Never met an outlander like you before.” He studied the barbarian closely for a moment longer than Billy would have preferred.

  “I’m one of a kind,” Billy said, resting his feet on the table as he leaned back in his chair.

  Grint was more relaxed now that they had arrived at an agreement. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a parchment, slowly and carefully unfolding it. He looked back up at Billy, curious to ask a question. “Where are you from? I’ve never heard your accent before.”

  “Wisconsin,” Billy said. “It’s, like, really far. We’ve got tons of cheese.”

  “I happen to be a well-traveled man, warrior, and I’ve never heard of such a place. Never met anyone with a name like yours, either.” The man now eyed Billy with more than a hint of suspicion, but his roguish grin never wavered. Billy could only shrug, hesitant to reveal any more than he had to.

  “In any case, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Billy the Barbarian.” He laughed. “It has a ring to it, don’t it?”

  “Why does everyone call me a barbarian?” Billy asked with some irritation. The term kept coming up everywhere he went.

  “You’re from a land no one’s heard of, you dress in tattered cloth, you’re muscled beyond reason, and you speak with a strange accent and wear bizarre spectacles over your eyes,” he said, counting off the reasons on his fingers. “Not sure what else folks would call you.”

  Eventually, Grint finished with his point and relented his curiosity about Billy’s origins. He placed the unfolded parchment on the table. It was a map.

  He pointed at a location in the forest. “These are the Wolfshaws. Head out the gate beneath the arch along the Western Palisade. Follow the road to the first turn, and ignore the turn, continuing off the path due Northwest. From there, you’ll head into the woods and, provided you don’t alter your path, you will find your way to the tower.” He pointed out several relevant locations on the map, as well as a handful of landmarks Billy might recognize that could help him should he get lost.

  “I was a Boy Scout, dude, no need to worry,” Billy said with self-assured confidence.

  The man shot him a flummoxed look. “I don’t quite know what that is,” he said, “But I gather that it means you are a trained cartographer and survivalist, so I’ll put my mind at ease, lad.” He folded up the map and passed it to Billy with a hideous smirk.

  “I got my orienteering merit badge and everything, and we went on camping trips, like, twice a month,” Billy added with pride.

  “Great,” the man said. “Sure. Then I’ll rest easy tonight knowing the task is in your capable hands, outlander. When you finish, I’ll wait for you in a lodge on the opposite end of the forest, just off the road and across from the gates of Turik, the nearest city. It’s here.” Grint pulled a knife off his hip and pricked his finger, using the collected blood to mark a crude X on the map.

  “Pens should be more widely available,” Billy noted with a sigh.

  Grint looked back up at the barbarian, wiping his fingertip with a cloth that emerged from the breast pocket of his ragged tunic. “Good fortune brought us together, barbarian,” he said. “May it cross our paths again at the successful conclusion of your task.” He slapped Billy on the shoulder and stood.

  “You already skedaddling?” Billy asked, somewhat relieved. He had many thoughts to process, and he preferred to do so alone.

  “I am taking my leave if that’s what you mean. I came here to find someone like you. I thought I’d be waiting hours,” he confessed, “but I had you pegged for my man the moment I saw you.” His malevolent grin cast down upon Billy again, and Billy couldn’t help but shrink slightly at the wicked force of it, despite the man’s smaller stature.

  “Catch ya later, then,” Billy said with a playful salute.

  The man tilted an eyebrow in amusement as he prepared to turn his back on the barbarian. “You sure are a queer one, Billy the Barbarian.”

  “Takes one to know one, I suppose,” Billy winked as he sipped his foul mead. The swig was too eager—he almost choked on it.

  “True enough, outlander,” the man said, his smile warming slightly. “True enough.” As he walked out the door, not a moment had passed before yet another distraction disturbed the young barbarian’s meal.

  “Keep your hand off of me, filthy vagrant, or you shall be relieved of its use!” a throaty, feminine voice rang out from the other side of the tavern. Billy watched; his legs kicked up on the table as his vision homed in on the scene with glowing interest. From the perspective of the others in the building, he was a gloomy pair of eyes in a dark corner and a muscular set of legs upon a table, the majority of his body obscured by shadows cast from various points of origin. It’s why he chose this seat—to be less noticeable—but Grint had noticed him anyway.

  The woman that he watched was a thing of beauty—and danger. Her flowing black tresses traced the curvature of her thin neck, ending halfway down her back, with a few locks dangling over the front of her shoulder as well. Her face was impossibly lovely, even from here—and even with the snarl that presently graced her lips. As for her lips, they were full and pink, a perfect hue against her fair skin that was somehow paler than most of the vagabonds in the tavern. Her eyes, filled with the flames of indignance and fury, were a misty, steely blue, the color of fog over a morning sea. And her buxom body was the very picture of feminine elegance, even while being dense with muscle.

  As with Billy, much of her body was on display, unobscured by the rags that people of this city called clothing. Instead, she wore a very ornate chainmail top that hugged tightly against her shapely breasts, covering the barest essentials but exposing her defined abdomen and much of her chest and shoulders, like a metal bikini top. Also, like Billy, she wore a loincloth, though hers was made of chainmail matching her mailed brassiere, and she appeared to wear a black thong beneath to cover her womanhood when the chainmail cloth flailed unfavorably, as it did now that she pivoted violently to spin herself to face her harassers. Billy gasped to see the perfectly shaped backside that found its way into his vision.

  A red handprint slowly began to settle into the exposed skin of her mostly nude behind, the valley between her cheeks covered by the opposite end of the chainmail loincloth and the strip of black fabric that ran beneath. So that’s what the fuss was about, the barbarian noted, growling in vexation. These men were perverted bastards. He stood up, en
raged by the crass display, and slowly made his way over to lend his support to the woman, should it be needed.

  One of the men, an ugly, wrinkled old fool with mottled skin and a balding head, cackled at the woman’s protests. From the look on the fighting woman’s face and the grace and poise with which she composed each slight movement, Billy knew he would soon regret his callousness.

  Another man, also smirking lecherously at the battle-ready beauty, decided to speak up. “Sorry, lady, we just thought that, with the outfit and all, you was—”

  “Let me stop you right there, you diseased vermin-fucker,” she said. It was the first F-Bomb Billy had heard since his arrival in this strange land. “This armor is a cultural heirloom, the battle costume of my people, not an invitation.”

  The two men looked at each other skeptically and guffawed. Billy curled his fists and took another step forward.

  “Lady,” said one of the lechers, “I’ll give you a silver right now if you allow me one more squeeze. How’s that?” he asked. “Then we can both leave happy.”

  The woman snarled. “Oh. You won’t be leaving. From her hips, she unsheathed a dagger and brought it down hard, impaling the hand of the older man and pinning it to the table. He cried out in anguish and surprise. Billy’s eyes widened as the woman smiled fiercely and, taking advantage of the surprise, punched the other man in the throat.

  The larger man doubled over, trying and failing to breathe. The warrior woman took the opportunity to knee the man in his face as hard as she could, grabbing him by the hair to force his head into her jagged kneecap all the rougher. With a satisfying crunch and a violent spray of red, it was clear that she had broken his nose. Billy noted she still had a sword attached to her waist, but she didn’t reach for it.

  Three other men stood up from tables at other sections of the tavern. They inched forward, and one of them managed to sneak up on the woman, grabbing her by her wrists from behind.

  This wasn’t right. Billy watched the other two, armed with a jagged knife and heavy club, lurch toward the embattled beauty. He stood between them, but they mistook him so far as a mere spectator, as by this time, he wasn’t the only onlooker standing and watching, but he was about to make the transition from viewer to avid participant.

  With a crash that echoed through the bar, Billy punched one of the approaching men in the face so hard that he flew backward, hitting a wooden pillar and cracking it. The woman looked up, shocked to see someone coming to her aid, and her steely blue eyes glowed with purpose as she kicked her heel back and collided forcefully against the groin of the man holding her. He relented his grip on her wrists as he reacted in anguish, and she pulled her knife back out of the hand of the man at the table and slit two throats—first the old man’s and then her grappler’s.

  Billy grinned to see her making quick work of the brutes, but there was still one more, and he was headed in the barbarian’s direction. At the swing of the club, Billy went into defensive mode, dodging with surprising agility. Ready to end this brawl, he pulled his hand ax from his hip buckle and effortlessly buried it in the face of his attacker. The floors were painted red with blood, and some of it sprayed its way onto Billy’s chest and face before the man, now merely a body, crashed to the floor. Billy tugged the ax free of the man’s face, with his foot on his poor victim’s shoulder for leverage. The room fell silent but for the breathing of Billy and the gorgeous warrior woman. All eyes were on them.

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” said a voice from behind the bar. To Billy’s surprise, the heavyset man seemed to smile, though the outlander couldn’t be sure. “Now, please.”

  Chapter 3

  ◆◆◆

  “You fight like a demon,” said the alluring warrior woman excitedly, her fists clenched and her sharp eyes glinting under the yellow moonlight. Her hair dripped and her skin glistened with sweat. She felt her cheeks burn red with passion as she eyed the barbarian unrelentingly as they dashed into the shadows outside the tavern.

  “Gee, thanks,” Billy said, sweating from the sudden attention of a pretty girl. “Gosh, that means a lot coming from you.” They hurried from the ally in back of the tavern, though where they were headed, he did not know—he only followed the lead of the beautiful female fighter.

  The woman’s face twisted in confusion. “From me? Whatever do you mean, outlander?”

  “Well,” the barbarian blushed brightly, visible to the curious warrior maiden even under the failing light of the yellow moon. “I dunno, it’s just that you’re super pretty, and I just...” His voice trailed off, and the woman didn’t reply except to smirk and cock an eyebrow in wonder.

  “Your charms addle me. I’m Audelia, battle maiden of the Zer-Kali,” she explained. She had stopped moving, grabbing him by the arm and leading him into an abandoned stable. “In here, brave warrior.”

  Billy continued to blush as he failed to look the beauty in the eyes. “Gosh, Audelia, you’re really cool.”

  “Who are you, outlander?” she asked, crossing her arms and leaning on one hip as she studied him from head to toe. He was quite the specimen, even by her standards. But there was something odd about him that she couldn’t place. The position of her arms forced her breasts tightly together, and she smugly took note as Billy tried desperately not to watch beads of her sweat trickle down the valley between her considerable bosom.

  “I’m Billy,” he said. “I’m from, uh—” he hesitated. “I’m from really far away,” he offered weakly. “I don’t know how else to explain it, sorry.”

  She squinted at him skeptically but seemed to accept the response. “Very well. Why did you provide aid to me back there?”

  He shrugged. “I just hate guys like that,” he said. “They’re the fucking worst.”

  She laughed. “They are, aren’t they?” They stared into one another’s eyes for a long moment, causing both their hearts to accelerate their pounding. She eyed him with a combination of curiosity and lust, and he eyed her with mostly the latter.

  “What now?” he said. “I mean, what are you going to do next?”

  “I’m going to sleep, warrior Billy,” she said with a narrowed gaze and a wry smile. “And you?”

  “Well, I have a job to do in the morning or whatever, so I probably should hit the hay as well,” he looked over to the bushels of rotted straw on the ground around them. “Literally, I guess.”

  Billy noticed Audelia looked a little disappointed when he tried to settle in on a pile of rough straw. “Oh, did you want this pile?” he asked.

  She grinned. “Oh, I did desire it, actually. Must we compromise and share?”

  Billy shrugged. “Seems like that might get a little crowded, though. I’ll just find another bushel. No big deal.” He stood up and crossed to the other side of the stable, finding another place to rest. “Ah, here we go!”

  Audelia was left speechless at the apparent rejection of her advances. However, as she continued to watch him and notice him stealing hungry glances back at her, she realized the depth and scope of the barbarian’s cluelessness. Most men would have jumped at the chance to sleep beside her, even if they hadn’t picked up on her intentions, but this man, this Billy, he was shy—even nervous. It was peculiar to her. How could such a large, powerful man as handsome and virtuous as this outlander lack any skill with women? Surely, he must have every barmaid and damsel from Imathia to Zul throwing themselves at him wherever he went.

  No matter. She would need to be bolder to penetrate this barbarian’s improbable naiveté. It wasn’t often that she had found a man who could match her in combat prowess, who she actually desired, and who was genuinely decent—against all odds, no less. How a formidable beast like him could be so clearly well-intentioned even now left her frazzled and flustered.

  She was resolved—this man would not escape her grasp. She felt confident his equal would not be met in this life or the next. She would be bolder. She had to be. There was no recourse.

  ◆◆◆
>
  “Billy Arnold Meier,” a deep voice spoke as the Barbarian’s mind swirled and tussled through the world of sleep, struggling into a state of awareness. “You have done well so far.”

  Billy was conscious now—in a manner of speaking. He seemed awake and aware, but he was no longer in the stables with the beautiful Audelia. Instead, he found himself standing upon an invisible surface in a black abyss that sprawled out all around him as far as his vision reached. Before him a white light blazed brilliantly, beckoning him with a psychic impression he couldn’t ignore.

  Billy took a step forward. In here, he was as he still saw himself—gangly and thin, with skin rife with imperfections and the pockmarked scars of recent adolescence.

  “Do you... remember me, Billy Arnold Meier?” the voice bellowed.

  Billy moved to shake his head, completing half of a single turn of his neck before memories exploded into his mind. Death. Rebirth. A second chance. Words he remembered this voice saying. He nodded cautiously. “A little.”

  “Good. You have done well, Billy Arnold Meier.” The disembodied voice spoke with satisfaction in an ethereal tone.

  He scratched his head. “Billy is fine, thanks. And what have I done well at?”

  “At building a new life in Erotar.”

  Billy straightened up his posture. This was the perfect gateway to the topic he desperately wanted to broach. “Erotar? Is that the world I’m in? Am I supposed to, like, do anything specific?”

  If the burning light could smile, Billy sensed that would be what it was doing as it replied, “Worry not, Billy. You will do as you are meant to with or without my instruction.”

  “I’m a very goal-oriented person, so I’d certainly appreciate some direction.” He shuffled his feet nervously as he tried to press for more information, but he sensed that whatever this thing was, it wasn’t about to spill all the beans for him.

  “I would rather you discover your destiny on your own. Follow your instincts. Survive. Fight. And never stop fighting. In this, you shall find your purpose.”