Sabledrake Magazine
August, 2001
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Hero Boy
Copyright © 2001 by Ken Mitchell
I admit it. I wanted to see the man that I had sworn to serve forever swing by his neck until he was dead.
Over the years I have learned that I must be honest with myself. I would have cherished watching Sir Pascal of Vixus and his shining armor his fall through the trap door. I would have savored the delicious snap of the rope as he came to a sudden and final stop. Indeed, I likely would have stood there for hours listening to the soft creaking of the rope as he swayed softly in the breeze.
Creak, creak, creak...
However, Hero Boy wasn't going to hang this day, and I knew it. Maddeningly, he knew it too.
He could see me standing near base of the scaffold stairs, and he could tell by the look on my face that the fix was in. I saw him glance down and make eye contact with Memoth at the front of the platform, and I know he could hear the sounds of the minstrel Barth in the distance.
Out of Hero Boy's sight, Toomy stood slightly behind the Sheriff, and the homely thief sported a big smile on his face (the Sheriff would find out later that his gold pouch was missing).
Gwenth, the last and most steady of all in our little band, was nowhere to be seen. Elves seem to blend into the trees, and there were plenty of big black oaks surrounding the clearing atop the "Hill Of Woe".
Hero Boy knew he was going to get out of this, all right. He stood there, no doubt thinking of the maiden that we were going to rescue right after his daring escape. Here we were, pulling his codpiece out of the fire, again. "We should just let him dangle," I thought. It would serve him right for taking us for granted.
Creak, creak, creak... such a lovely sound.
From the far distant towers of the town Edinbaugh came the low, slow tolling of the bells... it was midday, and high noon was execution time.
The Sheriff climbed ponderously up the long-suffering steps, which groaned if not from his bulk than from his countenance. Slowly, faux-majestically, he rose from the assembled mob and gazed upon his subjects as a viper does its prey. The sheriff slithered forward, and turned his mug towards us. He opened his maw and his words started to pour.
"We have come here today for this sober event to execute justice," he lied. "This scoundrel, the infamous Pascal of Vixus, has a warrant sworn for his life by the Duke of Vixus himself. Today we are here to serve that warrant in full measure."
I had been wondering what trumped up charges the Sheriff was going to use to justify getting rid of Hero Boy. I found it enlightening that he used the warrant from the good old Duke of Vixus, and I was more than a little discomforted at how quickly the news of Hero Boy's fall from grace in Vixus had traveled.
It's never a good thing when your own father signs your death warrant, and posts a reward for your capture dead or alive. This Sheriff was perfectly willing to use another man's lies to bring Hero Boy to the scaffold, with every intention of collecting the reward on Hero Boy's head.
As the Sheriff droned on, it occurred to me that the he and his men had been handling Hero Boy pretty well so far. They had nabbed Hero Boy on the way back from the latrine, after a night of bragging and boasting. Hero Boy was learning the hard way that he should not engage in chest thumping when there is a price on his head.
The first real mistake that the Sheriff had made is one that most people make when dealing with Hero Boy; a gaff that was going to cost the Sheriff his prize money and perhaps his life.
It's not surprising when people assume Hero Boy is the only one they have to worry about. He certainly looks the part of the lone hero. I felt the presence of Memoth, Toomy, Barth and Gwenth around me, and I knew what a major blunder the Sheriff had made. Most people (including Hero Boy himself, sometimes) think the rest of us travel with him to keep his armor shined and his supper cooked. I looked at the Sheriff. Those kinds of assumptions can get a man killed.
The Sheriff ended his remarks with his second mistake since capturing Hero Boy; a monumental screw up that lead us all to suffer a fate nearly as bad as death.
He asked Hero Boy if he had any last words.
Hero Boy was surrounded by a leering bloodthirsty mob. He was ringed by enemy soldiers. The leaders of the corrupt local government were unjustly hanging him on a warrant signed by his own father.
I asked the gods to smite this Sheriff on the spot.
Pascal of Vixus stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Yabba yadda yadda, yah de da yabba dah," he began. I won't bore you with the details. Trust me, you do not want to know what he said. Unlike Hero Boy, I would not inflict that homage to pomposity upon anyone.
Creak, creak, creak...
I noticed that when Hero Boy had finished speaking, there was an eerie silence that seemed to loll over the crowd. Even the insects and birds seemed still. At the time, I could only assume the small creatures in the area had indeed died of sheer boredom. In retrospect, it seems more likely that Memoth had cast a hush spell on the area, to aid her in the unlikely event that there was another spell-chukker in the audience.
Those on the scaffolding, however, were apparently unaffected by either the death-pall boredom or by Memoth's spell. The Sheriff grabbed Hero Boy's arm, and dragged him to the noose. Slowly, lovingly, he put the rope around Hero Boy's neck, and tightened it. He quickly turned around and pulled the drop lever, which made everything go a little more quickly than planned.
Hero Boy disappeared through the hole in a huge flash of metal. Alas, to the pity of us all, the rope vanished with him. That fine, sweet sound of the snapping of his neck was nowhere to be heard. Instead, a rather large crash rumbled as Hero Boy landed on the ground under the scaffold in a pile.
It was my job to rig the scaffolding while the others organized the rest of the escape. I suppose I should have put something under the scaffolding to soften the blow when Hero Boy hit the ground in all of that armor. I have a good excuse as to why I didn't. Nobody in the party has ever asked me about it, but if they do I have a great lie all ready to go. The truth is that the clang that I heard from his impact is my favorite part of this whole misadventure.
It's amazing how fast Gwenth is. I am always shocked to see both the accuracy and speed with which arrows can start sprouting from the bad guys when Gwenth is in action. Six of the Sheriffs men simply fell over dead in a flash. Before the locals knew what had hit them, Toomy had Hero Boy out from under the scaffold and both of them had swords in hand. Memoth had run to the edge of the clearing and was chanting something nasty and Barth was bringing our horses around.
My job now was to take my staff and clear a path. When it comes to fighting, I love my work. Whether battling an ogress or clearing an egress, I relish beating up on the bad guys. My staff took wing, with a left to the head of a City Guardsman, and a right to the crotch of a soldier. I caught a flash from the corner of my eye, and I saw Hero Boy mixing it up with the captain of the City Guards. That captain was a dead man already; he just didn't know it yet. While I have no love in my heart for Hero Boy, I will freely admit that I have never seen his equal (or anyone even remotely close to it) with a sword.
In what seemed like mere seconds, the path was clear, the Captain of the Guards was gutted, and we were on our way out of that mess.
I know what you are thinking, that we had made a great escape from the clutches of sure disaster, and that we were lucky to be able to run for it. That's a reasonable assumption, a well thought out response, and exactly what most people would do.
You don't, however, know Hero Boy. No, we weren't running for it. We were going to storm the castle to free the maiden in distress. We had to go save Hero Boy's current "One True Love".
Mind you, he had never met this woman, didn't know a thing about her other than her father's claim that she was the most beautiful young woman on the planet... I believe he called her "A rose in the height of springtime" or some such rubbish. Hero Boy wanted the maiden fair. Memoth, herself hopelessly besotted with Hero Boy, wanted "what's best for him". Toomy wanted money, and we tend to be a great diversion for a thief. Barth was looking for an epic song of his own. Gwenth? I don't have a clue about Gwenth, never have. Me, I wanted nothing but to serve Hero Boy as his loyal sidekick.
You see, in a drunken moment I had sworn an oath to the man who had saved me from being eaten by a troll, vowing to "serve by your side from now until forever." While I am glad to not have been digested years ago by a shambling mound of halitosis, there are some days that seemed destined to remind me that forever is a very, very long time.
This was one of those days.
Storming the castle was easy enough; we simply rode through the open gate. Barth had scattered the Sheriff's horses, and while a man in great shape can run the distance between the Hill of Woe and the castle in about 20 minutes, it takes considerably longer for out-of-shape city guardsmen wearing armor to get that far. We had some time.
Toomy had previously scouted the city (and no doubt picked a few pockets along the way), and he was able to lead us directly to where the maiden was being "held".
Hero Boy, always the gentleman, busted down the unlocked door without so much as a knock, and rushed into the main parlor of the Sheriff's residence. I don't know what he was expecting to see, but what he found was a group of six startled women who had busily engaged in fitting a wedding gown to the rather portly form of a plain faced woman obviously nearing 40.
"I am looking for the lovely maiden Shezelle," Hero Boy gushed, walking over the crunching pile of wood that had recently been a door. "I have come to save her from durance vile and return her to the loving arms of her father..."
The woman being fitted glared down from the chair she was standing on, with a menace normally seen only in the face of an orc. The silence in the room was almost deafening. The only noise I could hear was the soft swaying of the chandelier from above.
Creak, creak, creak...
"I am the lovely maiden Shezelle, and I have absolutely no intention of leaving with you and going back to that Ogre of a father," she spat at Hero Boy.
You know, one of the best things about being a sidekick is that I am the person who gets to interject a dramatic sigh at just the right time...
I sighed.
"The Sheriff has asked me to marry him, and this Saturday I shall be his bride!" she boasted, glaring at all of us unwelcome visitors to her new lair. "I am going to call the guards and have you arrested! You are going to have to pay for that door you destroyed!"
I thought back quickly to our recent battle. Did we kill the Sheriff? I didn't, and I don't think Hero Boy did either. Did Gwenth? I don't know. There was time enough to sort that out later.
"Umm, sire, err don't you think perhaps it's time we head for Lollith?" I said. It was long past time we got out of town, and getting longer by the second. Of course, we were not going to Lollith, too many people knew us there (may as well try to leave a false trail whenever possible, I always say), but we needed to be going somewhere other than here.
"Well, yes, of course" Hero Boy said, "We will relay to your father that you are well and that you have found your one true love."
"By mail," I added.
Hero Boy reached into my vest pocket and pulled out my coin purse. He dumped two gold pieces on the table, and walked out. The rest of us followed him quickly out the now-battered doorway.
We hurried out of town through the north gate, and headed for the deep woods. Gwenth and Memoth lagged behind to cover our trail. Soon the two rejoined us, and Memoth rode to Hero Boy's side. Gwenth and his eleven steed seemed simply to vanish from sight.
After about an hour I heard what sounded like thunder; there was not a cloud in the sky. Hero Boy looked at Memoth and frowned, and quietly she looked away. We had traveled with her long enough to know the sound of a delayed blast fireball. Trying to track down this party is a dangerous business.
We camped that night in the deep woods, and as I lay waiting for sleep I listened to the gentle rustling of the trees in the breeze.
Creak, creak, creak...
I watched the stars that appeared through a gap in the canopy of leaves, and I was reminded of a couple of things that my travels with Hero Boy had taught me.
The first is that no matter how difficult the adventure gets, if you have good people guarding your back, then you always have a chance.
The second thing I remembered, of course, is that forever is a very, very long time.