I had to laugh at that. “You, sir, have a twisted sense of humor. I like that in a man.”
“Is that what you like? Men? Had you figured for that type.”
“Wh-what?” My laughter faded. “No! I’m not that type at all!”
“That’s not what I hear.”
I didn’t know what to make of that. “Why? What have you heard?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
By that point, I had cleared out the bullet that had jammed in the chamber. The problem hadn’t been the rifle but rather the ammunition, which apparently had been made irregularly. I was damned lucky the weapon hadn’t blown up in my face. “No. I wouldn’t like to know.”
“Can’t stand to face the truth, eh?”
“There’s nothing to know. Look,” I said, once I was satisfied that Vanessa was in perfect working order. “Here’s the bottom line, good fellow—”
“You have a thing for the bottoms of good fellows? You just proved my point.”
I ignored him. “You saved my life. Whatever your reason, and whatever your methods, and why ever you feel the need to just hurl insults from hiding instead of . . .” I was going to say “showing yourself” but anticipated another off-color distortion of a harmless sentiment, and so changed it to, “. . . coming out here and accepting my thanks . . . well, let those reasons remain your own. But know this: I am grateful to you, and Ben Finn’s gratitude knows no boundaries. I am eternally in your debt . . .”
“And would shoot me given half a chance.”
“Never!” I protested. “I’m not someone who forgets services that other people do for him, especially when those services save my stupid neck. I swear, on my honor, that I would never do you any harm or, by standing aside, allow someone else to do you harm. I take my debts seriously, and I owe you one that can never be repaid.”
“Very pretty words.”
I wasn’t thinking about their prettiness but just their honesty. “It’s not just words. It’s a solemn oath. I would never hurt you or take any action against you. As long as”—and I laughed—“you didn’t try to kill me, of course.”
“Why would I kill you? You’re much more entertaining alive. Besides, I don’t have to kill you. Sooner or later, you’ll get yourself killed.”
“Look,” I said, my patience starting to wear thin, “I’ve said my piece. You’ve said yours. You have my gratitude whether you want it or not. Now either show yourself, so I can shake your hand and thank you properly, or continue to hide and toss about insults because . . . I don’t know, because you have some deep-seated need to try to get me angry. I promise you, though, that you’re not going to succeed.”
“I won’t?”
“No. In fact, I bet we could actually be friends.”
There was a rustling of trees from overhead, and something suddenly dropped directly in front of me, landing in a crouch. It looked like a gargoyle come to life. Its nose and ears were pointed. It was wearing overlarge shoes, leggings, a loose shirt, and a conical hat perched atop its head. It was hard to tell how tall it was since it was so low to the ground, but I didn’t peg it as being more than three feet high. Still, one couldn’t judge how dangerous something was in Albion simply by its size, or lack thereof. Instantly, I started to reach for my pistol, not knowing what the thing in front of me was and not caring.
And then I stood there, stunned, my hand hovering over the butt of my pistol, because the thing opened its mouth and the voice of my “savior” emerged from it.
“Oh, we could be best friends,” it said, “if I liked people with arses for faces.” Then it nodded toward the pistol I was still reaching for but hadn’t quite gotten around to drawing. “Nice big weapon there. Compensating for something?”
“You’re what saved me?” I said, incredulous. “What are you?”
I had thought that it couldn’t have sounded more disdainful before. I was wrong. “Don’t you know anything, aside from how to make yourself an easy target? I’m a gnome, you ignorant twat.”
“A gnome?”
“That’s right. Repeat it a few times, and maybe it’ll stick. You know: like excrement does to your backside because you never remember to wipe it.”
I’d heard rumors about the creatures in the same way that everyone hears random stories about things that have gone wrong in the world. From what I’d picked up here and there, supposedly there was some fool in Brightwall who’d had a garden full of gnome statues. Somehow, the stupid things had come to life and spread throughout the entirety of Albion. There were those who claimed that our noble ruler was actually responsible for the mishap in some manner, but I dismissed such suggestions out of hand. Our ruler had many enemies and detractors who seized any opportunity to try to cast aspersions. I wasn’t fooled by it for a moment.
Word was that gnomes were relatively harmless, aside from their propensity for tossing out insults. Nor did it take much to dispose of them. A single well-placed shot was enough to blow them back to wherever it was they came from, be it Brightwall or the netherworld itself.
Angry over its incessant insults, I pulled my pistol out and took aim.
It didn’t flinch. Instead, it actually seemed to welcome the threat. “Hah! So much for what your word means. Go ahead, shoot. Prove that your promises are as worthless as you are. You know what I like about humans? They die. Which is what’s going to happen to you next time you’re not lucky enough to have a gnome warning you.”
Never had I wanted more to pull a trigger on a weapon than I did at that moment. By the same token, never had I been less able to. The damned thing was right. I had given my word. It didn’t matter that the recipient of that word was some inhuman, insulting creature that had started out life—or what passed for life—as a statue in someone’s garden, providing something for birds to roost upon and crap all over.
A promise was a promise.
I holstered my gun and said aloud for the first time: “A promise is a promise.”
The gnome looked and sounded disappointed. “You must be joking. Not that there’s a bigger joke in all these words than your face, but still . . .”
“No, I’m not joking. I’m not going to go back on an oath just because you’re not human. And why would it bother you that I’m letting you live? Would you rather die than be faced with the idea that a human’s word is his bond?”
“Yes,” said the gnome without hesitation. “Humans are worthless, smelly, foul-breathed, and disgusting. And those are their good points.”
“Okay, well . . . you can add the fact that we keep our word to our good points.”
“You call that a good point? What kind of brainless git makes a promise that he’d rather not keep, then keeps it even though it’s going to cause him nothing but problems ?”
“The kind who believes that promises mean something.”
“The stupid kind, you mean.”
“There’s no point in arguing this with you,” I said. “I’ll be on my way, gnome, and you be on yours. Good day.”
“How can any day be a good one when you live to see the end of it?”
I didn’t bother to reply. What was the point? The creature was what it was, and there was nothing to be gained by trying to go toe-to-toe with it in an insult competition. “Farewell, gnome.”
I continued on my path down the road, then I heard a scuffling next to me. I looked down. The gnome was following me. “Where do you think you’re going?” I said.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On where you’re going,” said the gnome, with a gleeful ringing in its voice.
“Wait a minute.”
“Why a minute? Is that the maximum length you can hold a thought in your head?”
“I didn’t say you could come with me.”
The gnome chortled at that. “You didn’t say I couldn’t. Now that I think about it, even if you had said I couldn’t, that wouldn’t stop me.”
“But . . .” My mind was racin
g. “But why in the world would you want to come with me? I don’t even know where I’m going.”
“Of course you don’t. With your head so far up your arse, how could you possibly be aware of anything?”
“The point is, there’s nothing for you to be gained by tagging along.”
“Of course there is!” said the gnome with entirely too much joy for my comfort. “Usually I just hang out here and torment passersby. And I usually have to hide because I don’t need them taking shots at me. But you! You I can follow around and say whatever I want, and thanks to your precious sense of honor, you can’t do a damned thing about it!”
“And if I get fed up with you and shoot you myself?”
“Then I prove that your word means nothing. It’s win-win for me!”
“Being shot is a win for you?”
“It would mean I wouldn’t have to listen to your puerile opinions anymore, so yes.”
“Fine,” I said, doing my damnedest not to let my exasperation show. “Do whatever you want.”
With that comment, I continued on my way. I resolved right then and there that the smartest and simplest way to handle things was to stop talking to the stupid creature. It was just reacting to my discomfort. If I gave it nothing to respond to, then sooner or later, it would get bored with following me around and look for fresh game to torment.
That was my reasoning, at any rate.
In retrospect, I have to admit that when I’m wrong about something, I’m not just wrong in a small way. I’m wrong in a huge way.
Chapter 4
Unnecessary Difficulties
I WALKED FOR SEVERAL DAYS, AND THE gnome stayed right with me. It was incredibly annoying because if the stupid thing hadn’t been following me, I would actually have enjoyed the time to myself. Instead, he continued to harangue me almost nonstop. It seemed the only time he ceased was when he was gathering breath, which surprised me since I would have sworn the stupid things had no need to breathe.
It was all I could do to ignore him. He kept spewing out scattershot insults about everything and anything, regardless of whether it had any bearing on my life. He insulted my nonexistent wife, my deceased parents (as if they still lived), and my never-born offspring. Although, to be truthful, I was simply assuming that I had no offspring. It was entirely possible that somewhere out there, little Finns were running around who only had secondhand knowledge of their father courtesy of tales spun about me by their mothers. I suppose I could have checked back with all the women I’d slept with to see whether any of those trysts had borne fruit, but really, who has that kind of time?
Basically, he was just trying to get a rise out of me, and there was no way I was going to allow him to do so.
After several days of travel, I was feeling weary around midday and found a relatively secluded spot where I could grab a quick rest. I wasn’t the least concerned that something would sneak up on me and try to kill me. The gnome was having way too much fun hurling insults and he wasn’t about to allow the object of his dissection escape through the expedient of being slaughtered by a passing balverine or some such. I actually managed to fall asleep despite the harangues. When I awoke, the sun had moved a bit through the sky, indicating that at least a couple of hours had passed. I waited for the usual avalanche of snide comments from the gnome, but none were forthcoming.
“Maybe somebody shot it,” I said hopefully to the empty air.
I started walking, still braced for a flurry of insults.
Still nothing.
Could it be? Has the stupid thing finally grown tired of harassing me?
It seemed too good to be true, but after several more hours had passed, I was convinced. The gnome had tired of my lack of response and moved on to find more-easilyinflamed prey. My strategy had paid off.
Before I could celebrate my newfound freedom from the perpetual harassment of the gnome, I heard the thundering of hooves in the near distance, which surprised the hell out of me because it always seemed that there was never a horse in Albion when you needed one. Whoever it was was approaching very quickly. I had no idea who it could be, nor did I desire to find out. There were simply too many things that could go wrong in Albion to take for granted that someone wasn’t going to be out to get you.
To that end, I decided to dodge the issue entirely by heading into the woods themselves rather than sticking to the main road. It seemed a reasonable tactic to take. I could continue parallel to the road, especially if I stayed within sight of it, while at the same time making it impossible for casual passersby—not to mention would-be thieves or highwaymen—to spot me.
So I left the road, retreating into the woods until I could see the road but no one traveling it could spot me. The trees were far enough apart that passing between them posed no difficulties. It wasn’t as if I had to hack a path through them with my sword.
I watched from a safe distance as the riders I’d heard earlier rode past. They were cloaked in gray, their horses gorgeous white beasts. I didn’t know who they were or where they put their allegiance, but it didn’t matter. As long as they were no threat to me, I honestly didn’t care.
As the sounds of their mounts faded into the distance, I relaxed once more. Between my more secure way of traveling off the road and the absence of the gnome from my life, I began feeling as if a weight had been lifted from me. I walked with a new spring in my step. I even felt so jaunty that I startled to whistle. You would think that I would have known better than to draw attention to myself in that way, but no, apparently not.
Remember how I discussed just how distinctive the sound of a trigger being cocked is? How it can freeze you on the spot in anticipation of a shot being fired at you? As it so happens, I was no less vulnerable to such noises, especially when I heard it multiple times.
Such was the case on that occasion as at least half a dozen triggers were cocked into place from various points around me. Whoever it was, they were secure behind trees and bushes, and they clearly didn’t have my best interests at heart.
“Hello?” I called tentatively. I didn’t raise my hands because that was a bit too much of a defeatist posture for me to take. I had my pride, after all, as battered and shredded a thing as it might be. However, I took great care not to do anything even the slightest bit provocative. “May I help you?”
“Who goes there!” came a sharp voice, offering the traditional three-word question that was typical for military campsites and outposts. Hell, I’d uttered it enough times myself back when I was part of the Swift Brigade at Mourningwood Fort . . .
Then it came to me. The voice that had spoken sounded very familiar to me. Tentatively I called out, “Baron? Is that you?”
There was a brief and, I could tell, puzzled silence, and then the same voice came back to me, except far less formal and belligerent. “Finn? Ben Finn?”
“The very same.”
“I’ll be damned.” A young man emerged from the lengthening shadows of the forest. “God, Finn, I didn’t expect to see you here!” Then he raised his voice to his unseen companions. “Stand down, you idiots! It’s Ben Finn, Major Swift’s pride and joy, the gods rest his soul!”
“The gods rest his soul,” I repeated. I hated saying it because even after all this time, I despised the idea that Swift was dead; gunned down by the tyrannical Logan while I had stood there helpless to do anything to avert it.
Baron was a young soldier whom I had encountered in my travels. I’d first run into him during a bar brawl in Bloodstone. Some fool was coming in behind me, ready to crack my skull open with a bottle, and Baron had taken him down with a swift blow to the side of the head. “Not much for seeing people hit from behind,” said Baron, which wasn’t his actual name, by the way. It was just a nickname he’d picked up because he had a curious code of ethics that prompted many to liken him to a nobleman.
Thanks to his saving my skull, he’d earned my gratitude. Last time I’d seen him, we’d served together at Mourningwood Fort. Major Swift had disp
atched Baron to try to bring up reinforcements from Silverpines, and I’d never seen him after that. I’d assumed that he’d been killed on the way, but obviously not. Turned out that by the time he’d gotten back, the battle with the hollow men was long over, and most of the remains of the Swift Brigade had decamped. “I was too little, too late,” Baron told me. “Sorry to have missed it. I bet it was a hell of a fight.”
“It was sure a hell of something,” I assured him, remembering the sight of monsters trying to overwhelm the Fort through sheer, terrifying numbers. It was there at Mourningwood Fort that I had first encountered the noble Hero who would become our ruler, and I—along with other members of the Brigade—had agreed to fight by our ruler’s side in the quest to rid Albion of Logan.
My obligations to the ruler had wound up separating me from most members of the Swift Brigade although I had caught glimpses of them in pitched battle against the dark forces that tried to overrun Bowerstone that fearsome day.
Now I was seeing more of them as, like Baron, they came out of the shadows and regarded me with a mixture of interest, suspicion, and even some hostility. I had no idea where such hostility might be coming from, but sometimes it seemed as if people needed no excuse to take a dislike to me. Hard to understand, I know. I’m normally such an utterly charming fellow.
“What’re the lot of you doing out here?” I said.
“Making camp. Come.” He gestured for me to follow. “We have a lot to talk about.”
We do? I thought, but saw no reason to say that aloud.
The rest of them had eased up the hammers on their weapons, so that was a positive thing. They weren’t planning to fill me with holes, or at least not yet they weren’t. Baron moved toward me and draped a friendly arm around my shoulder, telling me that it was good to see me and that I shouldn’t at all take offense at the fact that they’d all been pointing weapons at me earlier.
In short order, we arrived at an encampment. There were tents pitched and more soldiers, at least a dozen or so, cooking up food and throwing back drinks. A few of them afforded me brief, disinterested glances before returning to whatever they were doing.