Reaper's Gale
No wonder they’d all lost their minds.
‘Why is it,’ Udinaas said, ‘when some people laugh it sounds more like crying?’
Seren Pedac glanced up from the sword bridging her knees, the oil-stained cloth in her long-fingered hands. ‘I don’t hear anyone laughing. Or crying.’
‘I didn’t necessarily mean out loud,’ he replied.
A snort from Fear Sengar, where he sat on a stone bench near the portal way. ‘Boredom is stealing the last fragments of sanity in your mind, slave. I for one will not miss them.’
Seren Pedac sheathed the sword. ‘I think I would like to hear your version of such stories, Udinaas. How you would like them to turn out. At the very least, it will pass the time.’
‘I’d rather not singe Kettle’s innocent ears-’
‘Perhaps she’s ill.’
‘Well, first, the hidden lair of the evil ones. There’s a crisis brewing. Their priorities got all mixed up-some past evil ruler with no management skills or something. So, they’ve got dungeons and ingenious but ultimately ineffective torture devices. They have steaming chambers with huge cauldrons, awaiting human flesh to sweeten the pot-but alas, nobody’s been by of late. After all, the lair is reputedly cursed, a place whence no adventurer ever returns-all dubious propaganda, of course. In fact, the lair’s a good market for the local woodcutters and the pitch-sloppers-huge hearths and torches and murky oil lamps-that’s the problem with underground lairs-they’re dark. Worse than that, everyone’s been sharing a cold for the past eight hundred years. Anyway, even an evil lair needs the necessities of reasonable existence. Vegetables, bushels of berries, spices and medicines, cloth and pottery, hides and well-gnawed leather, evil-looking hats. Of course I’ve not even mentioned all the weapons and intimidating uniforms.’
‘You have stumbled from your narrative trail, Udinaas,’ Seren Pedac observed.
‘So I have, and that too is an essential point. Life is like that. We stumble astray. Just like those evil minions. A crisis-no new prisoners, no fresh meat. Children are starving. It’s an unmitigated disaster.’
‘What’s the solution?’
‘Do they succeed?’
‘For a time, but recall those ill-conceived torture implements. Invariably, some enterprising and lucky fool gets free, then crushes the skull of a dozing guard or three, and mayhem is let loose. Endless slaughter-hundreds, then thousands of untrained evil warriors who forgot to sharpen their swords and never mind the birch-bark shields that woodcutter with the hump sold them.’
Even Fear Sengar grunted a laugh at that. ‘All right, Udinaas, you win. I think I prefer your version after all.’