Knowing is Halfling the Battle_An Arthurian Fantasy Romp Page 5

  “All right, then speak. Tell me your orders.”

  “No,” the general said. “He wants to speak formally, Sire. To you”

  “Formally? Really?”

  This time it sounded like a question. It was a question. But then, it wasn’t. Gerdy was catching on to the way Epiman seemed to know things before they happened, as if he had a crystal ball. Or, at the very least, he was running through some sort of playbook. Epiman knew what the general was going to say. In fact, he kind of steered the general toward it.

  “Yes, formally,” the general said.

  The room was full of quizzical faces.

  “Formal!” one of the commoners cried out. “I went to one once where the girls got to ask the boys. Had to go stag though.”

  “I’ll have to go shopping,” Myra was nothing if not herself.

  Jed, Gerdy’s father, cleared his throat. “Is this one o’ those steak dinner type things? I can cater. Give ya a fair price.”

  “Dad, I think you mean state dinners,” Gerdy heard herself say. It was a habit to correct her father’s every word.

  “Right,” the dwarf said. “If it’s formal we serve steak.”

  Epiman sighed. “For as much as you lot deal with monarchies, I’d think you would know more about them.”

  “Never put much weight in ‘em, meself,” Todder offered, quite out of turn.

  “I didn’t even know we had a new king,” one of other troops said then shrank away from Epiman’s glare.

  “Yes, thank you.” Epiman unclasped his hands. He moved them from the desk and folded them again in his lap. “Well, as king, it’s difficult to leave my post—my kingdom. What my father asks is that I send a delegation to his kingdom where I imagine they would discuss terms of a treaty and come to some sort of arrangement between our two cities. This formal delegation would require the authority to make decisions in my stead. They would have to decide what is best for our kingdom in the long run. I hope that makes it clearer to everyone.”

  There were a few nods. But only a few.

  “Clear as mud,” Jed answered for the rest.

  “All right, well, good enough. Listen, I think I can drum up such a delegation, should I have the time to consider.”

  The general cleared his throat. “My commanders have orders to rejoin the siege if I’m not back within the next hour.”

  “Ah,” Epiman nodded. “Well, that’s more than ample time.”

  The king took a quill and several sheets of parchment from a drawer in his desk. Epiman scratched out words unknown, rolling each piece up as he finished. No one dared speak, not even the general who was as antsy as a halfling hosting a dwarven dinner party.

  When nothing was said but all was done, there were four scrolls stacked neatly on the desk.

  “I’ve authorized the necessary delegates,” Epiman said smoothly. “Myra would you please come forward?”

  She curtsied and did her best to play the part of princess. Now, Gerdy was a daddy’s girl, and Myra was too, but differently. Myra and the king’s relationship was stale. They could have dinner together every night yet go weeks without saying a word to each other.

  “As princess and an heir to the kingdom,” he started. An heir? Gerdy thought. Who is the other? But she didn’t have time to wonder. Epiman continued, “You will lead this delegation. Inside are my instructions for you. You are to follow them to the letter. Do not open this scroll until you reach King’s Way. That goes for all in the delegation. These scrolls should be read at the right time.”

  “Of course, Dad—I mean your highness,” Myra corrected hastily.

  Epiman handed over the scroll.

  “Gertrude,” he said. He directed his pale gaze at her. A flock of butterfly eagles took flight in Gerdy’s stomach. Why would the king call her? She stepped up to his desk.

  “As Myra’s friend,” he said slowly, “you are to escort the princess to King’s Way, attend any balls, meetings, tournaments, what have you, with the princess. Here are my further instructions.”

  Gerdy took the scroll from Epiman’s hands.

  “Now, Sir Epik, please step forward.” Epik, too, was taken aback but only briefly. He took his place beside Gerdy and Myra. “As the last remaining knight of the kingdom, you will accompany the princess and attend each event. Sir Wallack will go with you and mentor as needed.”

  Epik took the second to last scroll.

  Only one remained. K’nexes readied to step forward.

  “Captain Todder,” the king said. Todder, who had been studying the half-finished mural on the ceiling, cocked his head to the side. But not hearing his name called again, the captain’s eyes returned to the painting. “Um, Captain,” Epiman repeated dryly. Commander Lightbody elbowed Todder in the ribs.

  Todder jumped. “Right-o,” he said, stepping forward. “Something you need, Your Highness?”

  “Here is your scroll. You and a small regiment of the Palace Guard will accompany the delegation to the city. You will also attend and help out where needed.” Epiman stood and held the scroll out to the captain. “I will direct the ranger Collus to get the delegation to the city. He knows the way. Here you’ll find further instructions. And please, Captain, don’t read this until you enter the city.”

  The lot of them were reeling. A delegation? A crew couldn’t possibly get more motley3 than this.

  Epiman took it on his own accord to hurry them away, waving his hands in a sort of flourish that seemed to make Gerdy’s feet act of their own accord.

  “Good luck,” he said. “And Godspeed.”

  They packed quickly. And to Gerdy’s surprise, a coach and several horses waited for them as they exited the castle… as if she were in some fairytale, one she had never wished for.

  10

  The Road

  The coach wasn’t quite as posh as Myra would have hoped. She said as much, sulking as she and Gerdy stooped to enter it. It was built sturdily for hard travel, with hardwood siding, spoked wheels, and iron axles. No jewels or gold encrusted the coach. After all, it wasn’t headed for a jubilee ball. Epiman had made that part clear; whatever was waiting for them in King’s Way wasn’t fun and games.

  Four stallions teamed to pull the heavy wagon. They were all fine looking, a deep chestnut color with enough shine in their coats to put out an eye.

  The coachmen were men of the Palace Guard. They wore the purple trench coats and plumed helmets. They were burly and barely spoke a word to anyone but ate twice as much as the rest of the party.

  It would be a fortnight’s journey to King’s Way, or more depending on the conditions of the Road.

  Inside the coach, the sound of the wheels tumbling over cobblestone and creaking as it jostled and swayed with each turn were a constant drone above the other noises of the Road.

  Epik didn’t mind constants. The creaking coach, the constant rhythm of the pony between his legs. It was life’s constants more than anything else that had kept him in the Bog for twenty-eight years, before some sort of magic had drawn him to Dune All-En.

  Epik pictured the Bog, where Fatty Cheapskate still drank pints at the Hog’s Toot with Frank Biggle, the barman, each and every night. The Bog, where Epik’s stubborn mother lived, quietly disapproving of every choice her son made. He would have to write a letter to her soon. Not that she would ever read his letters.

  When Epik had visited her just after the escapade with the trolls and the king, she had given him the un-silent-treatment, acting as if he had never left. When he did mention going back to the city, she had ignored him, never admitting the truth—that her son was a hero. Epik had become something more than just a halfling from the Bog.

  He pushed his mother’s memory aside, thoughts for another time, and he urged Buster forward. But no matter the amount of encouragement Epik gave the pony, whether it be food or magic, Buster struggled to keep up with the coach and the other horses.

  While the men of the party rode up ahead of the coach—Coe, Rotrick, Todder, and Sir Wal
lack, a few of the Palace Guard—the dwarves, Wellspoken and Two-finger with ponies as reluctant as Buster that straggled behind with Epik.

  The men had appeared just in time to depart, atop steeds unburdened by the heavy wagon. Todder, however, did look uncomfortable. He rode warily while Coe and Rotrick let their horses zip ahead from time to time, spending the pent-up energy of their colts and checking the Road for signs of bandits or thieves.

  The Road straightened in a westward direction. The delegation had long passed the troops now encamped outside the Wall like layers of a bean dip. Next, they had passed the point where Epik and the Company had gone into the wood to defeat the trolls and the orcs those few short months ago.

  Epik’s heart twinged. That was where Gabby had taught him the spell he knew best: how to vanish. And it was where his father died.

  A new adventure lay ahead. Epik had never journeyed this far north before, and his mind raced with the notion that he could count himself in with other knights as one on a quest.

  Wellspoken’s pony ambled along beside Epik. The pony was a bit shabby in comparison to Buster, bred in the king’s stables.

  “Not sure I understand exactly all this pomp and circumstance,” the dwarf said. “Why can’t kings just leave well enough alone? Always butting in, bothering other kings. It’s pretty stupid when you think on it.”

  “But this is more than a kingly squabble,” Epik said.

  “You’re right. It’s a family feud4. The best kind—between celebrities.”

  “Did you know that Epiman’s father was the king in King’s Way?” Epik was struggling to put it all together, to work out where Epiman fit into the things he knew of the realm outside Dune All-En— things he only knew from stories, some he’d read and some he’d heard in bars. Stories like: King Tenebris wasn’t supposed to be able to have children.

  “King Tenebris,” Wellspoken said, “I guess we’re to call him the Grand Sovereign, now—emperor by another name. I can’t say I’m surprised he seized World’s Eye. One of the finest cities that I’ve ever been inside. Beautiful—or it was. And it was always ripe for the taking. Not easy to defend a castle in the middle of a plain.”

  “Right,” Epik nodded. “The Grand Sovereign. Epiman’s father.”

  He wished he had paid more attention to those tomes he’d found at Gabby’s shop—the books that mapped out lineages, battles, and histories of all the kingdoms in the realm. In those texts were histories of kingdoms that didn’t exist anymore, kind of like World’s Eye in a way, kingdoms that had fallen and become part of an empire… Or been flattened and erased off the map entirely.

  Epik ventured, “I thought King Tenebris, the Grand Sovereign, or whatever He Must Be Named, was some dark lord. I thought he ruled for a thousand years. I didn’t think he had an heir. He didn’t in the stories I've heard.”

  “Things have calmed down since those years, lad. Years when Tenebris ruled with a dark shroud over the kingdom.”

  The carriage twisted out of sight ahead.

  “Though I think you’re right. I did hear a rumor once when I was a boy,” Wellspoken said, “that Tenebris Epiman couldn’t have children. I think he was cursed by a witch—or that’s how it went in the story. Suppose he found a way to break that curse since then. Life finds a way—heard that once in a story, too. One about dragons or their kin.”

  “When you were a boy? But—”

  Wellspoken smiled, brown lips parting over pink gums. The braids of his beard tapped the pony’s saddle horn with each step. “Lad, I turned a hundred and twenty last year. And I’ll hopefully live a hundred more if I get my mind right and stop following Coe around the realm.”

  “Oh,” Epik said. “I didn’t know…”

  “There’s probably a lot you don’t know about dwarves. And I bet there’s a lot we don’t know about halflings.” Wellspoken winked, and his pony trotted ahead.

  “I doubt that,” Epik whispered to himself. Halflings, it seemed to Epik, were an open book—just one that no one wanted to read.

  If nothing else, the journey gave Epik time to think. Now he needed the knowledge he’d had at his fingertips in Gabby’s books. Gabby had wanted him to know these things. He’d spoken of King’s Way a couple of times, and he’d left those books for Epik to find. But Epik hadn’t packed them. Instead, he had chosen to bring all three volumes of The Art of Sorcery by Dolund Knuth with him on this journey.

  Which brought a new question to mind: if King Epiman’s father is a sorcerer, is the king one, too?

  And why did Epiman go by his surname? Kings and queens were titled by their given names. But Epik didn’t even know Epiman’s. He was sure if he had only looked at those texts, he would have found it.

  The Road twisted and curved and was less maintained, less the Road and just a road they were travelling. A spill of wet leaves obscured the potholes and pits. Fallen or half-fallen trees leaned and jutted into their path. Whole sections of road were washed or broken away.

  Buster and the ponies had even more trouble keeping up with the horses. They struggled to maintain the pace of the carriage as it rocked and clattered over bumps—with a squawk from Myra at every jolt.

  The first two nights they found wayside inns—places that made the Dayz Inn in Jersy seem like the Ritz-Charlatan. The only good thing Epik could say was they left the light on. But it was a dim light at best, and it flickered with every change in the wind.

  On the very outskirts of the territory still protected and taxed by Dune All-En, they found a farmhouse willing to take in the princess overnight, and reluctantly, took Gerdy, too.

  Epik camped with the others while Sir Wallack holed up in the coach. The next morning, Myra protested that it smelled of farts and sweat. It was the last night they would find shelter for a long while.

  Instead, they camped beside the road which became even less a road and more a clay path that wove into an ominous canopy. Moss-draped branches arched from one side to the other, blocking out the sun even in midday.

  They ate travel bread and whatever animal or berry the rangers could scrounge up near the road. Or sometimes on it. The carriage had knocked into several possums of unusual size in the waning evening light. They tasted as ratty as they looked.

  When Coe deemed it appropriate, they stopped. The ranger was wary of bandits and forced all but Myra to take a watch at night.

  The days that followed were bad. Epik had never felt such a rawness in his nether region. His eyes nearly closed on their own accord even in broad daylight. His mind kept wandering, wondering what lay in store for this delegation. What did it all mean? What would they have to do? And the scroll that he carried in his cloak kept poking him, begging to be read.

  11

  Endless Nights

  Do we have anything else to eat?” Sir Wallack grimaced at his portion of the rabbit that Rotrick had hunted.

  “There might be some leftover possum,” Rotrick said snidely.

  “I have a sack of potatoes in my bag,” Epik offered.

  “What can you do with a potato?” Rotrick asked in jest, but of course the dwarves took the bait.

  “Boil ‘em,” Wellspoken offered.

  “Mash ‘em,” Two-finger said.

  “That and the possum,” Wellspoken smiled. “Put those in a pot. Baby, you got a stew going.”

  Both dwarves roared with laughter.

  Sir Wallack grimaced. “You know,” he said to Gerdy over the fire, “you look familiar.”

  They were just a week into the journey. The whole of the party was worn from travel, but mostly they were all tired of hearing Wallack complain. He was worse than Myra fussing over his appearance, fastidiously brushing his garments and wasting drinking water to slick back his hair.

  They weren’t allowed to bathe with it. Myra was smelling less and less like a princess. And Gerdy smelled more and more like her dwarven side. Silently, she cursed her father, and then she cursed at Wallack, too.

  “What was that?” he asked.
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  “Well, she should look fam—” Epik managed before Gerdy’s boot found his hair-covered foot and pressed down—hard. “Ow! What was that for?”

  She gave him a look, one that said plainly to shut up.

  “Princess Myra and I like to watch Epik ride at the stables,” Gerdy said.

  “Oh, maybe that’s where I know you from.”

  Epik, of course, knew the truth, that Sir Wallack had taught both Myra and Gerdy in etiquette school when they were girls, young and new to the city. The two had made a big spectacle; they fought and were both kicked out of the school. Sir Wallack’s vague recollection didn’t place either of them, and that was fine by Gerdy. She never liked him even before he kicked her out.

  “And how is our little knight coming along?” Myra asked. It was probably only Gerdy who heard the insincerity in her tone.

  Myra was jealous of Epik, though Gerdy didn’t understand why. They had hardly seen the halfling the entire journey. His pony couldn’t keep up with their carriage, and he the dwarves were nearly an hour late for supper.

  Not that things were much better for Gerdy and Myra. Though together in the coach, they might as well have been a hundred miles apart. Sanchez felt like Gerdy’s only companion, lounging in her lap, clawing her at each bump. It only helped to remind Gerdy of how things would probably play out. Eventually, Myra would marry some prince from nowhere and Gerdy would surround herself with a hundred or so cats.

  “Oh, Epik’s doing fine,” Sir Wallack grinned. “Be doing much better if his head was fully invested. Half the time he forgets which fork is which.”

  “Which fork?” Coe sneered. Shaking his head, he pulled a stick from the fire. A rabbit’s hindquarters, glazed and crispy, came with it. Possibly for effect, he chewed a mouthful of the meat as he spoke. “I thought knights worried about the happenings on battlefields, in tournaments, and chasing holy goblets. That sort of thing.”

  “We chased a goblin once,” Two-finger offered.