Dan the Adventurer, page 8
part #2 of Gold Girls and Glory Series
Slam!
He came to on the muddy ground, gasping and hurting, badly rocked.
He knocked you down, Dan realized and filled with white-hot self-loathing. You let the prick knock you down!
Briar loomed over him and drew back his sword.
Dan grunted, raised an arm over his face, and wriggled away like a snake with a broken back.
Briar didn’t strike, though. He had merely feinted, just for the sick pleasure of seeing Dan’s desperate, ugly attempt at defense.
Briar laughed cruelly. “Look at you,” he sneered. “You’re pitiful.” He turned and called across the yard, “Holly, don’t turn away. Look at what you married. Look at what you brought into our grove.”
“Fuck you,” Dan growled, struggling to his feet.
“Oh,” Briar said with a mocking lilt, “and he’s so eloquent, too. So intelligent. You’ve really chosen a fine husband, sister. Well, no worries. He’ll grow old and die soon enough, and you’ll still be young and beautiful. It certainly won’t be hard to find a better husband next time around.”
“Asshole!” Dan bellowed and charged, determined this time to nail the bastard.
Briar tripped him, and Dan hit the ground hard. Hurting all over, he roared in frustration and climbed once more to his feet.
“Yield,” Briar said, his voice low and menacing. “Yield or I’ll ruin you.”
Dan couldn’t really see him anymore, beyond his basic shape. One eye was swollen completely shut. The other was closing fast. A slime of mud and blood filled his nostrils and mouth. He spat out a wad and grunted, “Never.”
Blows rained down so fast and so hard that Dan couldn’t even tell one from another. Everything was concussion and pain and the muted sounds of his own grunts and the faraway thumps of the strikes crashing into his head.
He stumbled forward, hoping against hope to slam blindly into Briar, but the only thing he crashed into was the ground. Again and again until finally, what seemed like hours later, Estus called out, “Time!”
Dan lay there dazed and gasping for air, blind from swelling, and engulfed in pain.
Briar’s voice sneered above him, “You came into my grove with your big muscles and your stupid face, acting tough, thinking you could push me around just because you’re big. How did that work out for you, human?”
13
Consequences
Dan lay in the dimness of Holly’s room. Everything hurt.
Holly’s healing magic had lifted him from the brink of unconsciousness, slowed the bleeding, and dulled the incredible pain in his skull.
In a way, however, the healing spell had made things worse. Before, he’d been wallowing in a semi-conscious blur of agony, overwhelmed by trauma and pain and self-loathing. Now that Holly had taken off the edge and brought him back around, he was aware of each individual pain, physical and emotional.
He wasn’t sure which hurt worse.
Briar had demolished him. Dan’s eyes were swollen shut, as were the air passages within his shattered nose. He’d broken a tooth halfway back along his jaw, which itself felt crooked and wouldn’t close right. Deep gashes crisscrossed his bruised and swollen face, where the edge of the wooden sword had split him to the bone, and cuts burned across his scalp and the back of his head.
Every breath hurt. A few of his ribs were broken. One on one side, more on the other.
His legs ached with bruising. A knot the size of a golf ball had swollen on one badly damaged shin.
Swollen to cartoonish proportions, his hands pulsed throbbing pain up his arms to the shoulders. Both wrists were broken, as were both hands and most of his fingers.
But for as bad as his injuries were, the humiliation hurt even worse.
He had been a fool.
He had truly believed that he could overpower Briar. He’d expected to take a few shots in order to land his own strike, but never in the heated build-up had he considered that he might not be able to hit the bastard.
He’d assumed that he would win.
And why had he assumed this? Upon what had he based his confidence?
He didn’t know.
Now, looking back, he realized that his confidence had been ridiculous. He’d based it on nothing. Size and pride. Nothing.
Hadn’t Holly warned him not to fight her brother?
Yes, she had. But he’d blown her off. In fact, Holly’s doubt had only made him angrier and more sure of himself.
In reality, Briar was a total badass. He had been around for a long time, sparring regularly for decades, maybe even centuries.
How could Dan have expected to walk into Briar’s backyard, play by his rules, and actually win?
He had agreed to Briar’s choice of weapons, had agreed not to punch or kick, and had even declined armor and helmet.
Briar was right. Dan was a fool, a pup, a clumsy muscle head.
Briar had beaten him to the brink of death, and Dan hadn’t landed a single shot. Briar had knocked him down, toyed with him, and spoken his mind.
Nothing Dan could ever do would erase that nightmare from his mind—or from the minds of Holly and Nadia.
He reached to the nightstand and patted around until his hand found the tumbler of whiskey that Nadia had been holding to his lips before she and Holly had left the room to let him sleep.
More whiskey would help to dull the pain.
But the joke was on him. His hand was too banged up and swollen to even close around the glass. He turned on his side, groaning with pain, and reached with the other hand, but that one wouldn’t work, either.
Some barbarian I am. Can’t drink, can’t hold a sword, can’t even whip a hundred-and-sixty-pound elf.
Briar had been so fast and so hard to hit. In T&T, humans maxed out at 18 dexterity, but elves maxed out at 19. Dan would bet his last copper piece that Briar had a maximum score.
What level was the bastard?
Higher than I am, that’s for sure, Dan thought miserably. Way higher.
Why hadn’t he even considered that possibility earlier?
This revelation called other situations into question, most notably the problem of Gruss. Nadia had warned Dan several times not to mess with Gruss, but Dan had blown her off, one hundred percent confident that he could whip the mobster’s ass any day of the week, maybe with one hand tied behind his back.
He’d been cocky and stupid, and he had paid dearly for it. He couldn’t afford to make the same mistake with Gruss. The mobster’s favorite hobby was chopping off body parts.
Now all Dan could do was lie there, hurting and hating himself.
He was supposed to investigate the crevasse and the catacombs, find the Pool of Dreams, and get some answers. But there was no way he could make the climb now, let alone defend himself and the girls if they ran into the ape-thing.
And what did that mean? Because he couldn’t descend into the catacombs, was Zeke in danger? Was Dan in danger? Were the girls?
He couldn’t say, couldn’t even guess, because in another act of brazen stupidity, he’d gotten so drunk at the feast that he couldn’t remember Zeke’s warning.
Worse yet, he had no idea when he would be able to investigate the catacombs. If he did nothing but rest, Holly’s Cure Minor Wounds spells, which she could cast only once per day, might heal him in a week.
To Hades with it, he thought.
Whining wouldn’t fix things. He’d heal when he healed, and then he’d try to avoid making stupid mistakes.
He was beginning to wonder if avoiding stupid mistakes was even possible for him.
Whatever the case, he was through feeling sorry for himself. He was beaten, not broken, and he would fight again.
He had no delusions about demanding an immediate rematch with Briar. That would just result in another one-sided ass-whipping.
For now, he would rest and heal and fight against self-pity. Over time, he would return to his full strength and go to the catacombs. The only way to earn back respect from Holly, Nadia, and himself, would be to suffer without complaint, heal, and do what he said he was going to do.
And then someday, somewhere, somehow, after he had leveled up and completed a good deal of training, he would have his rematch against Holly’s brother—but not until he had good reason to believe that he could actually win.
He wanted to avenge the beating as much as he wanted to breathe.
A new voice joined Holly and Nadia’s soft murmurs beyond the door. A deep voice, masculine, speaking in short, authoritative bursts.
Shit. It had better not be Briar, he thought, anger rising in him. Then he laughed bitterly, thinking, And what if it is? What would you do about it?
Even that bitter laughter hurt.
The door opened, and the girls came in. Nadia smiled uncertainly. Holly was fighting back tears.
Behind them strode Holly’s father.
Dan groaned, seeing him. He really didn’t feel like receiving a ration of horseshit from his hateful father-in-law.
But the Iron Druid didn’t speak. He paused at the foot of the bed, staring down at Dan with his jaw set and his eyes full of contempt and disgust.
Then Holly’s father began to mutter Elvish incantations.
A second later, a wave of warmth and pleasure rolled over Dan. The wave washed away all pain and discomfort and then pulled back out again, leaving him whole again.
Completely healed.
He flexed his hands, touched his jaw, and prodded his ribs.
A single spell had put him back together. There was no pain, no weakness, no broken bones. Probing with his tongue, he realized that even his shattered tooth had returned.
Dan sat up, too embarrassed to smile, and nodded at his father-in-law. “Thank you.”
The Iron Druid blinked down at him, then turned to his daughter. “He is healed. I have honored my end of our agreement. Now you must honor yours.”
Holly nodded, weeping harder. Nadia put an arm around her shoulders.
Without another word, the Iron Druid strode from the room, his dark robes fluttering behind him, and was gone.
“Thank you,” Dan said, swinging his legs out of bed. “Must’ve been tough, talking him into healing me.”
Holly shook, lost to tears.
“I’ll gather our stuff,” Nadia said. “The faster we get out of here, the better.”
Holly nodded again, sobbing even harder.
Dan got out of bed and wrapped his arms around her and stroked her golden hair. She felt very small, pressed against him, shaking and crying.
Nadia piled their bags beside the door, then tapped Dan’s shoulder. “Get dressed. It’s time to go.”
“What happened?” Dan asked, stepping back and holding Holly’s shoulders.
Holly started to speak, but then her mouth tightened shut and wriggled, as if the words were too awful to speak. She shook her head, her hurt eyes streaming tears.
Nadia answered instead, her green eyes burning with anger. “Her dad exiled her from the grove.”
14
Roderick’s Raiders
They left the grove without fanfare or farewell and crossed the damp meadow beneath cloudy skies, no one saying much. When they reached the muddy road, a cold rain began to fall.
They pulled up their hoods and kept trudging along. At least it wouldn’t be raining in the catacombs.
Thank Crom for small favors.
Rounding a bend in the road, they beheld an ugly scene. At the front of a stalled wagon, a bald man in studded leather armor cursed loudly at an ox, demanding the beast pull harder.
The ox stood in the mud, blinking into the rain. Ribs stood out against its muddy hide, which was checked in bloody lash marks.
“Move, you stupid beast!” the man bellowed. He wore a red armband over his armor.
Dan was ready to say something, but Nadia grabbed his arm and pointed.
At the back of the wagon, several men, all of them armed, armored, and wearing red armbands, shouted at a cluster of ten or fifteen humanoids in chains. “Push, bitches!”
Looking beaten and bedraggled, the captives strained against the wagon to no avail.
They were mostly elves, though not grey elves. Green elves and red elves, Dan thought, alongside a couple of gnomes and a dwarf, all women.
The armed men at the back of the wagon shouted at the women to push harder.
Dan’s eyes narrowed, seeing the whip at the side of the man yelling at the women.
Strange laughter rolled out of a large cage sitting in the wagon. Within the cage, a tall, muscular woman with greenish skin and blood-red hair clutched the iron bars. Wearing only a fur bikini, she laughed down at the scene, though whether she was mocking the captives or their captors, it was impossible to say.
“Slavers,” Nadia growled.
Dan grabbed the pommel of his sword. Slavers. The biggest assholes in the universe.
“Come on,” Holly said and led them off the road. The slavers hadn’t noticed them yet.
Dan and the girls moved into the trees and flanked the road, drawing closer to the slavers under cover of the forest. Thankfully, the rain-soaked leaves were silent beneath their footfalls as they took up position in the forest near the wagon.
Nadia started stripping off her clothing.
Dan stared at her perfect body. “Um, you want to get freaky now of all times?”
Nadia smirked. “You wish. I’m shifting. Turn around, both of you. I don’t want you to see this.”
Dan started to say how ridiculous she was, but he could tell she was serious, so he turned around. He was aware of soft moaning and growling behind him, but he honored Nadia’s wishes and kept his eyes on the stalled wagon.
“So what’s the plan?” Dan said.
“Kill the bastards,” Holly said, stringing her bow.
“Sounds good to me,” Nadia growled, stepping up beside them in her fused form.
“Hold on,” Dan said. “Let’s assess the situation.”
Holly’s father might have erased Dan’s physical wounds from the fight with Briar, but every ass-whipping comes with a complimentary lesson, and Dan wouldn’t soon forget what he’d learned on the training yard.
He and the girls couldn’t assume that they could beat these slavers simply because they were assholes.
“There are six or seven slavers down there,” he whispered. “We can’t rush blindly into this.”
“See their red armbands?” Holly whispered, and Dan realized that she was nocking an arrow. “They’re with Roderick’s Raiders, the same group that killed my brother Nettle.”
“Shit,” Dan said, sliding his sword free of its sheath. “All right. So they definitely deserve to die. But can we take them?”
As he talked, he scanned the scene, gauging the enemy. They looked like seasoned veterans and mean sons-of-bitches to boot.
From this angle, he could see the back of the hobgoblin woman in the cage. Her tiny fur bikini barely concealed her shapely green ass. Lines of ruined flesh crisscrossed her back, draining blood that turned pink in the steady rain.
They had whipped her just as they had whipped the ox.
As Dan studied the hobgoblin, she turned and stared directly at him. Her bright yellow eyes widened, and a wicked smile twisted across her harsh, red face. Jutting from the smile, two short, sharp-looking tusks glimmered in the rain.
“I’m going to kill as many of them as I can,” Holly said, glaring down at the men.
“Yeah,” Nadia said, leaning eagerly forward, ready to spring from the forest.
“Okay,” Dan said, “but let’s at least figure out a plan of attack.”
Down on the road, the slaver at the front of the train uncoiled his whip, cursing at the ox.
The poor animal just stood there in the rain, too spirit broken to flinch away, let alone yank the wagon from the mud.
“You’d better hurry with that plan, or I’m going to shoot the bald guy,” Holly said, drawing her bow.
“Hold on,” Dan said, as the man with the whip drew back his arm. “Give Nadia and me time to get close and—”
Thock!
The bald man’s head snapped forward. The bloody point of an arrow jutted from his eyeball.
For half a second, Dan thought that Holly had fired the shot. But then he realized two things simultaneously. Holly still held her arrow at full draw, and the arrow that had skewered the bald man’s head had come from the opposite direction, out of the woods across the road.
The bald man wobbled, dropped the whip, and toppled forward to slam face-first into the muddy road. The feathered end of the arrow stuck up from the back of his head like a weathervane.
The slavers at the back of the wagon started shouting and pulling weapons.
One of them spun and dropped, struck in the throat with another arrow fired from across the road.
“Die,” Holly whispered, and fired for the first time. Her arrow struck a slaver with a dull thump, plunging into his side. The man convulsed, dropped to the ground, jumped back up, and scrambled wildly into the wagon, crouching down and peering from behind its short slat rail.
Holly nocked another arrow.
With a chuckling growl, Nadia leapt from the tree line.
So much for strategy, Dan thought and raced after her.
The wounded man in the back of the wagon lifted a crossbow over the rail, aiming at Dan.
Dan kept charging but wove side to side. He spun his sword overhead, roaring, and waited for the crossbow bolt.
The bolt fired—but arched high into the air as the crossbow tilted skyward and fell away.
The slaver flailed against the cage, desperately clawing at the muscular green arms jutting from between the bars and strangling the life from him.
Thanks, hobgoblin, Dan thought. A bolt only did 1-4 points of damage in T&T, which was no big deal if you were playing a game. Taking a crossbow bolt in reality, however, blew dead rats.
