Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Last Meal at Homebound: Part II

Tender as the moment was it lasted only a second as Magda, without a word, began to search the mess of her establishment for any weapons brought in with the wounded. Immediately finding a small crossbow and a short sword she barked an order to the boy to do the same. Magda made her way back to the familiar area behind the bar and laid the weapons alongside the iron skillet, figuring this place, the place she'd spent near all of the last thirty years as good a place to make her last stand as any. She'd fought and kicked the rear off of many a drunken barbarian from this very spot, tossed them out with her own bare hands with nary a skillet in sight to give her nae help. She was a'feared of no orc. That was for the certain.

The boy joined her behind the bar with a quiver of bolts and a dagger. He shook his head slowly as if to say "There's no more" when she looked at him hopefully. Looking away from the boy she spoke, "Wake those ye can. Tell them they must stand, or die like dogs at the end of an orc-spear." She looked back to him, locked his gaze. "Be brave. Honor yer father and yer clan. I'll cover ye as best I can from here with a crossbow if they make it in 'afore ye return to m'side. Hurry now, there isn't much time." He scurried away as ordered.

The drums were loud, growing impossibly louder as each second passed. She could hear breaking glass through the hastily fortified doors and blocked windows, could smell smoke from the fires they had started all over the village. Imagined in her mind orcs breaking down the door to her storage shed. Hoped against hope that maybe, this time, there would be a snake-man or two in there waiting for them.

She managed a smile at that last thought and suddenly wondered about her new elvish friends, Cor’Nal and Ademar. Where had they been these last days? Had they met their end as many adventurers do? Magda knew that they were wary of the coming bout with Schudlichton, as the druid himself made his disdain for war clear, but they would not abandon the town, would they? Not that their presence here would make much difference in the face of current odds, though they did have a knack for…

The shattering of one of her western windows brought Magda out of her thoughts. She looked into the parlour as the boy ducked instinctively. She saw that he had managed to get three bloody warriors to their feet. They were pale and ghostly, sweaty with unbroken fever and likely delirious. They were, in a word: Worthless.

Magda beckoned the boy back to her and while he made his way around she reached under her bar table and fumbled for a scrap of parchment, a feather pen and an inkwell. With shaking hand she scribbled a barely legible two-word note and stuffed it into the pocket of her apron.

“They don’t have any weapons.” The boy said as he returned to Magda’s side, referring to the still wobbly barbarians that he managed through some miracle of Kutenai, to help stand.

“Don’t need them,” she said, patting the pocket of her bloodstained apron where the note lay folded. “They’re not strong enough to cradle their own berries.”

“Aye.” The boy said absently.

“I’ll need ye t’ stay behind the bar with me.” Magda said. “We’ve only two crossbows, and I’ll be firing both of ‘em.”

The boy looked up at her curiously, he was frightened, but he was alert. “How will ye shoot them both?”

“I won’t stupid. I’ll only shoot one at a time, but I’ll need you to reload them after I fire each. Can ye do that?” The drums were so loud she could barely hear her own voice and she began to wonder if the boy could hear her, his nodding head confirmed that he could.

“Good,” she continued. “Now, they’ll likely come through the front door, but if they have much trouble they’ll come through the windows and look for a back door.” As she spoke she reached again under the table and found a small loaf of wheat bread, made with ingredients stored in her storage shed, ingredients brought here from warmer climates by Fengis. She put the bread on a small plate, set it in front of the boy. “If I fall, I don’t want you t’ be brave, ye hear? I want ye t’ flee.” Magda gave him a stern look, tried to make him understand that she was serious. “Don’t stay back fer me, I can take care o’ m’self.” She looked away for a moment before looking back to his sad face. “Likely I’ll be playin’ possum anyways.”

“If it does happen, try the back door first. If it’s blocked…” she hesitated, then forced herself to continue. “Play possum, as I’ll be playin’. Orcs have no interest in the dead. If they think ye are, they’ll leave ye be. When they do go, make yerself scarce, hide as long as necessary, then head south to Whitewall. Look for the two elves. Remember them?”

“Aye.” The boy nodded. Starving he picked at the half-stale loaf with two trembling fingers. It was delicious, the best bread he’d ever tasted.

“When ye get there…” Another crash of broken glass interrupted Magda. Great heat followed an explosion of fire as one of the orcs incendiary devices came through the unbroken west window. Smoke and flame roared at the front of the bar. At first opaque, blinding Magda and her charge from seeing the door in front of them, then the initial flash subsided, allowing them to see through the haze. The residual flame engulfed one of the standing wounded, burning, he screamed as he ran headlong toward the other two nearer the door. They moved away from him slowly, as if he may have been afflicted with some catchable ailment. The burning man then fortuitously tripped over a body on the ground. He writhed, still engulfed in flame, still screaming.

Magda reached for a crossbow, took quick aim and loosed a bolt into the dying barbarian. He gasped a final time as the bolt gave him the warrior’s death he deserved.

Magda handed the crossbow to the boy. His hands shook nearly uncontrollably as he took it from her, not taking his eyes away from the unmoving, yet still burning barbarian.

“Load!” she yelled. The boy snapped back to her, his face was pale, a wet sheen of sweat caused by heat and terror covered it. “Get hold of yerself and load, dammit!”

The boy looked to the quiver, took a bolt from the leather and with help of adrenaline, pulled the drawstring back with unnatural ease. He nocked the bolt in place. Proud, he looked up at Magda, whose gaze was locked to the door. He looked to see what it was she saw and wished he hadn’t as he could see a column of marching, unhindered orcs approaching through the window that flanked the right side of the front door. Suddenly, as he resisted the urge to water his pants he was acutely aware of the smell of burning flesh. He wanted to vomit.

Then he did.

9 comments:

  1. Please forgive the roughness of the first two entries of this chapter. It's not only a rough draft, it's a first draft.

    Couldn't wait to get them posted. These first two parts were all written over the last 24 hours. While I was at work.

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  2. I thought I was the master of cliff hangers!Well done sir.
    I must say that I am honored that we simple elves from far away were remembered during such distress. The problem with these two entries is that now you have let the junkies get a taste and they are already having withdraws!

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  3. "I thought I was the master of cliff hangers! Well done sir."

    Well, a boy can learn. I suppose.

    As to the withdrawals, the end is coming soon I'm afraid, with an epilogue if all goes as planned.

    Hope it lives up to expectation.

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  4. A triumph of a job on that one! That was great! Of course, I am probably about to be heartbroken, as I am quite fond of Magda, and things look evil at best. You both say these are "rough drafts" yet I would put them up against any I have read, and they would hold their own. You both have truly missed your calling. This was well worth the poking!

    Encore! Encore!

    This is like a festival of stories. I am tale drunk and and asking the bar-keep for another round.

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  5. Perhaps "rough draft" is an oversimplified statement. I believe what we mean is that these drafts are as rough as we will allow. I can't speak for The Man Behind the Screen but I know that my writing has a fatal flaw: I don't know what a rough draft is. I'm constantly revising and editing as I write. This is bad because it requires a lot of time. I've never been comfortable with free writing and then revising.
    I also think TMBS would make a great writer. Unfortunately, I believe he is plagued with the same shortcomings as I: constant bouts of writers block and (I hate to admit it) laziness! If you want to be a writer you have to write a ton of material. My favorite author puts out 1-2 (3-400 page) novels a year! I can't imagine how long it would take either of us to compile enough material for just one novel. Sorry, I seem to have gone off on a tangent.

    Let us hope the bar-keep can keep up with the demand!

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  6. I think with a few more stories like these you might be able to pull the ever persistant Ademar Nightwalker out of retirement and back into the game for a few sessions.

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  7. Cor'Nal..!

    OMG I saw him too. There he goes.

    Uh, uh...

    Oh. He's gone.

    Damned druids.

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  8. Yes, even if you are right, and I appreciate the compliment nonetheless, I would certainly become a victim of my own laziness as well as my own perfectionism.

    I am unable to free write and as you stated, such is the same with me, I rewrite and revise constantly. Cleaning up grammar and rewording sentences ad nauseum.

    Makes it hard to maintain creative consistency. But then thats probably why most "Obsessive Compulsives" don't make good authors.

    Truly, if we stuck to a rule that an author I am fond of made for himself, we could be successful. At least in how finishing a novel is concerned.

    His rule is to, no matter what, force himself to write at least one single page a day. After a full year, a writer who sticks to the rule should have a novel that exceeds 400 pages, as many days the creative flow will allow for more pages being written over the years time.

    400 pages is close to the average "fantasy novel" length. I think I could say what I need to say in that amount of time.

    It makes sense, but I can't even stick to that. Too many video games to play.

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