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  True. All of it. It was a two-day walk to the center of the forest, and on the dawn of the second day, when Alvar cursed their ancestors, swore his magic would damn them to eternity trapped between worlds, the stronger of Senri’s two remaining comrades broke. He turned on his fellow guards and Senri cut him down with a single stroke. Then, calmly, he continued on.

  *~*~*~*

  The forest was a spirit-forsaken place. For two days, they’d tramped through absolute silence. Senri had experienced nothing like it, not even in the Wastes. This was a thick, almost sticky silence that threatened to draw the very life from their bones.

  It was as they finally neared their destination that Alvar Kitsune made his eighth play for freedom. His eighth tale.

  He will know what truly lies in store for him. He knows what I will do because it is exactly what he would do, and what I have learned of treachery, I have learned from him.

  “He’s going to kill me, you know,” Alvar said to the last guard, Hiraku. He said it conversationally, more calm than he’d been since leaving the village gates.

  When Hiraku frowned, Alvar nodded toward Senri. “Your silent leader there is under orders to kill me when we reach our destination. Murder me, then turn his blade on you before he takes his own life. That is why young Odon was left behind. Rescued from his fate because Jiro does not dare kill the son of his head guard. He is fond of the man, and too sentimental by far. Yet that sentimentality no longer extends to his oldest friend.”

  Hiraku shook his head. “Execution is not permitted—”

  Alvar cut him short with a laugh. “Public execution is not permitted. Private, though? Oh yes. Certainly. I am a threat to your emperor. He could have had me assassinated, but that would compel my men to avenge me, to carry on my efforts and depose the despot in my stead. No, Jiro had to take away the most precious thing a warrior has. My honor. Label me coward, have me convicted as one, and exile me… then kill me here, where no one will see. The village commander has been told not to send a search party after us when you fail to return. In the spring, the Seeker will find our bodies, and it will seem that I tried to escape and we all perished in the attempt.”

  Hiraku turned on Senri. “Tell me he is wrong.”

  Senri opened his mouth to say so, but he was a moment too slow, and in his hesitation, Hiraku had his answer. Hiraku pulled his sword—he was too slow, too, and perhaps he knew it, preferring to die with his blade in his hand. He barely had time to get it from his belt before his head lay at his feet.

  “Well done,” Alvar said, stepping forward and clapping Senri on the back. “An admirable job all around.”

  “Thank you, my lord.” Senri bowed, and as he rose, he took the dagger from his own belt and presented it to Alvar. The former marshal—and future emperor—took it with a grin.

  “There’s nothing like an empty belt to make a warrior feel naked,” Alvar said, sticking the dagger into his sash. “Now tell me, because I really must ask. Did I do exactly as Jiro claimed I would? All my attempts to escape?”

  All but one, Senri thought. But he’d dismissed the last. The ninth tale. So he only said, “You did.”

  “In the order he said I would do them?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Alvar threw back his head and laughed. “I don’t know if I should be flattered that he studied me so well or insulted that I was so predictable. I’ll miss him. I truly will. Even as I cut the head from his neck, I will feel regret. We get few enough friends in this life, and fewer still as good as Jiro Tatsu.”

  “My lord, we need to—”

  “Yes, yes. Stop talking and start acting. First, grab the boy’s blades. I won’t take your sword, but I’d like his, and you ought to have a dagger.”

  Senri bent to retrieve Hiraku’s blades. As he straightened, cold sliced through him. A blade between his ribs, driven straight into his heart. He hung there, impaled on his own dagger, and Alvar leaned over to whisper, “There was one more tale, was there not? Please tell me there was. I would be disappointed if Jiro missed it.”

  Emperor Tatsu had not missed it. There was indeed a ninth tale, this one stark and unembellished. It had come as Senri had left that tea room, the emperor taking his arm and saying, “One more. The most important of all…”

  Take it from one who knows—if you put your trust in Alvar Kitsune, he will put a dagger in your back. Do not ever doubt that.

  Yet he had. One last tale, the gravest and the truest, and Senri had ignored it.

  Alvar yanked out the blade, and the warrior collapsed to the cold forest floor.

  S.C. HAYDEN’s fiction has been published in journals, magazines and anthologies, podcasted, shouted from rooftops, and scrawled on bathroom walls across the English-speaking world. Authorities have recently placed him in Savannah GA, but you can find him at www.schayden.com

  Hayden’s story is dedicated to the memory of his father, John Francis Hayden, who was taken from those who loved him, by cancer, in May of 1992.

  Elroy Wooden Sword

  S.C. Hayden

  Elroy Pagan was sleeping in his father’s hayloft when the barn door burst open with a crack and a bang.

  “Who’s there?” Elroy called out, his hair covered in straw.

  “Who’s there indeed,” a gruff voice sounded while others snickered and laughed. “Come down from that loft, lazy boy, or we’ll bar the door and set this barn a burning.”

  Elroy peered over the edge of the loft and recognized the plate-and-mail of the Constable Guard.

  “Alright, alright,” Elroy called, “I’m coming. Don’t get your underclothes in a twist.” Elroy shook the straw from his hair and pulled on his pants and boots. He harrumphed and coughed and made a show of clumsily descending the loft ladder. He did that to draw the guard’s attention away from the heap of straw in the loft beside him. Elroy, you see, hadn’t spent the night alone. Beneath that heap of straw, Gilly was lying still as stone.

  A farm boy bedding a tavern wench in his father’s hayloft was certainly nothing new. But Gilly wasn’t a tavern wench. Gilly was a water sprite, and taking a water sprite to your father’s hayloft was something else entirely.

  As soon as his feet were on the ground a gauntleted fist smacked into his jaw. Elroy staggered backwards and sat down in a pile of manure.

  “Me underclothes in a twist, eh?” The guard said.

  Elroy spat two teeth from his mouth, looked up, and smiled red and bloody. “What’s all this about, then?”

  “Your father was kind enough to volunteer your services to the Crown.” The guard said. “You’re to be knighted soon. It’s a great honor.”

  Elroy was dubious. If they made it sound good, it was likely going to be bad, and if they made it sound very good, it was likely going to be very, very bad.

  “Knighted?”

  “That’s right, ‘Sir Elroy, Knight of the Dung Heap.’” The guards laughed.

  Elroy’s father stood sheepishly in front of their cottage while Elroy was frog-marched out of the barn.

  “Good luck son,” his father shouted, “I know you’ll make me proud.”

  A guard, somewhat less discreetly than Elroy’s father might have liked, dropped a sack of coin at the old farmer’s feet. Elroy glared, but his father would not meet his eyes.

  “Miserable old goat,” Elroy muttered. He wasn’t surprised, a sack of the King’s small coin would buy a lot of distilled potato water, and Elroy Sr. was a man with a powerful thirst.

  Elroy was bundled into the back of an enclosed oxcart, which looked suspiciously like the ones used to transport prisoners. There were several others crammed into the cart already. Some were familiar, some not. All, like him, were poor. The cart bumped and rocked over pathways and lanes and thudded over ruts and ditches all the way to the High Road. Once there, he didn’t need to ask where they were going, the High Road only led one place.

  Elroy had been to the Capital a total of three times in his life. It was a quick-paced bustling place th
at stank at once of perfume and shit. It was a place where the noble and the commoner bumped elbows in the market and anything and everything could be had for a price. He’d always imagined that he’d leave the farm one day and head to the city to seek his fortune. But not like this. Not at sword point. Not locked up in the back of an oxcart.

  In truth, had he not met Gilly, he’d have already left. She was the only reason he’d hung about his father’s farm as long as he did. Despite her mood swings, her temper, and the not so insignificant fact that she was a green-skinned magical water sprite, he loved her. At least, he thought he did. Never having been in love before, it was difficult to tell.

  At long last the oxcart passed through the gates of the city proper. Once there, despite his dire circumstance, Elroy’s breath quickened. Through the splintered wooden slats of his mobile prison, he watched the hustle and bustle of the city unfold in all its wondrous complexity. Highborn Lords and Ladies dressed in splendid finery strolled haughtily past shoeless mud-stained wretches. Painted whores peered from shadowed doorways and drunkards fought in alleyways. Soldiers and constables marched to and fro while ragtag children darted hither and thither. Shopkeeps and smiths, tinkers and tailors, beggars and thieves, all plied their various trades.

  Seven oxcarts containing a total of fifty conscripts arrived in the Capital that day and were corralled in the courtyard of the King’s Castle. Elroy and the others were prodded out of the carts and into the open.

  “Well now,” said a squat, bowlegged fellow standing next to a table piled high with rusty swords, “Here we have some fighting men and no mistake about it.”

  Elroy felt like more of a tired, hungry, road-weary man than he did a fighting man but didn’t think it wise to say so.

  “Well don’t just stand there catching flies,” the bandy legged fellow went on, “grab a sword.”

  One by one they were led to the pile and given a sword. Fiftieth of the fifty, Elroy went last. All that was left was an old wooden practice sword.

  “Short straw,” a guard snickered.

  “Right then,” the bowlegged man who appeared to be some sort of captain, shouted. “By order of the King, you’re all knights now. Let’s go kill a dragon!”

  *~*~*~*

  The dragon lived in the northern hills just three days march along the River Althea. Slave goblins carried their provisions and Constable Guards rode horseback cracking whips and shouting orders. They marched in a shuffling irregular column, Elroy, fiftieth of the fifty, brought up the rear.

  The dragon in question, Elroy learned, was actually a pygmy dragon—a half-blind, rabid, pigmy dragon, to be precise. Considerably smaller than their larger and more infamous cousins, pygmy dragons were usually quite docile. Rabid pygmy dragons, however, were another matter entirely. Even half-bind, rabid pygmy dragons could be a handful.

  One of the slave goblins was, from the look of him, a northern hill goblin. Elroy sauntered up next to him.

  “You’re from up that way, right? Any advice on the best way to handle this dragon?”

  “Well,” the slave goblin muttered, “when it comes to dragons, the best thing to do is leave them alone entirely.”

  “Makes sense,” Elroy said.

  “But this particular dragon,” the goblin went on, “has been munching on livestock, along with the occasional hapless farmer, up and down the countryside for months now. The Lords are in a tizzy, hence you lot. It’s a brilliant plan really. If one of you actually manages to kill the dragon, problem solved, if not, who’s going to miss fifty peasants?”

  “Shit,” Elroy said.

  “Life’s a bitch, eh?” the goblin said.

  The next morning, just after the company had broken camp, Elroy shuffled, bleary-eyed, down the riverbank and to the water’s edge. The lazy green water made him think of Gilly, but then, everything made him think of Gilly. He unhitched his pants and readied himself. Before letting loose, Elroy froze. A pair of glowing eyes stared up at him from beneath the water’s surface. Without a sound, a figure rose from the water. It was Gilly. Her green skin glistened in the morning light and her hair was a tangle of riverweed.

  “Oh my,” Gilly said, “Is that for me?”

  Elroy looked down and blushed. His pizzle was still in hand and he was sporting his morning wood.

  “I…” Elroy stammered.

  “Hush now,” Gilly said, “there’s no time.” She slid two fingers into her mouth and pulled out a slick wet frond of riverweed. “Take this. Before you face the dragon, eat it. It will only work for a little while, so don’t waste it.”

  Elroy took the weed and stared at it dumbly. He opened his mouth to say something but Gilly had dropped back into the water, leaving no more than a ripple.

  Stumbling up the riverbank, Elroy stopped short when he realized his pizzle was still flopping in the breeze. He stuffed himself back in his pants and tucked the weed into his shirt. When he reached the column, an ache in his groin reminded him he’d completely forgotten to piss.

  They marched and they trudged, and they trudged and they marched. Fifty knights who days before were farmers, field hands, and stable boys. On the third day the column halted at the base of a steep wooded slope. The guards tied off their horses and the slave goblins set to digging latrines and cutting firewood.

  Near the top of the hill, the bow-legged captain explained, they would find a group of stony outcroppings, and beyond the outcroppings, tucked into the hillside itself, the dragon’s lair. The Constable Guard was to hold the camp while the knights climbed the hill, stormed the lair, and killed the dragon. Simple as pie, he told them.

  Fifty knights, men and boys who were tired and far from home, trudged up the hill. They did not march out of bravery, nor love of glory, nor loyalty to Crown and King, they marched because the guards had made it absolutely clear that any man who didn’t would earn himself a spear through the gut.

  The air atop the hill was foul. The scents of rotten meat and excrement commingled in a wicked brew. Old bones lay scattered, stark, white, and ominous. A foreboding place to say the least, but then, dragon lairs were not typically known for their charming ambiance.

  Fifty knights stood shoulder to shoulder outside the mouth of the dark yawning cave. Each man clutched his sword. Most, prior to their speedy ascension to Knighthood, had never held a sword, some had never seen one.

  Despite the danger, Elroy couldn’t help but laugh. Three days back, he’d been lying in his father’s hayloft with Gilly, talking idly about all the things he wanted to do with the rest of his life. Gilly, of course, had made fun of him. A silly boy with his head in the clouds, she’d called him. Well, Elroy thought, look at me now, a Knight of the Crown.

  Something stirred inside the cave. Black smoke billowed forth like a thundercloud. Bursts of orange light lit the smoke from within. The stench of sulfur added its stamp to the filthy miasma. The beast emerged through choked darkness. It was smaller than Elroy imagined it would be, twice the size of a large bull, perhaps. In truth, it looked half-starved. Its thick leathery skin seemed an ill-fitting cloak, shifting over its bones as it walked. Deep furrows sagged between its ribs. It lifted its horned head and scented the wind, tiny black eyes peering round in vain, then stamped its feet in what a man could be forgiven for assuming was blind rage.

  Elroy slipped the riverweed into his mouth and chewed. The moment the weed hit his belly he doubled over in pain. Saliva filled his mouth and he felt his bile rise but he willed himself not to vomit. He looked up just in time to see a plume of red orange fire sweep over him. Blinded, he stumbled backward as though pushed by a great gust of wind.

  Elroy’s clothing burned away, but his skin remained unharmed. River mud oozed from his pours like sweat. The mud dried and cracked and flaked away, fresh wet mud welling up in its place. Beneath it all, Elroy’s skin was as cool and slick as though he’d just slithered out of a river and plopped himself down on its bank.

  When the smoke cleared Elroy looked about himself.
A moment ago, he had stood as one of fifty and now he stood alone. Forty-nine men lay dead or dying. The stink of charred flesh filled the air.

  His wooden sword burning, Elroy let loose what he hoped was a blood curdling battle cry. The dragon stamped its feet and snapped its jaws and charged, screeching and bellowing, twin jets of fire streaming from its nostrils. The mad beast came in fast and low, swinging its head from side to side, hoping to gore Elroy with its horns, but Elroy ducked and dodged, threw his arm around the monster’s neck and swung himself onto its back.

  The Dragon, bucking, thrashing, and rocking, bounded down the hillside in a furry of smoke and fire. Elroy, legs wrapped tight around the dragon’s neck, one hand clutching the dragon’s horn, the other waving his burning wooden sword in the air, held fast.

  At last the dragon reached the bottom of the hill and collapsed in a smoking heap in the middle of the guard’s camp, utterly spent.

  And thus, a hero was born.

  *~*~*~*

  Upon his return to the city Elroy found that in addition to being the only knight to survive the dragon, he was the only knight, period. All of the true knights had been killed on one quest or another or had simply left the kingdom altogether in search of greener pastures. The kingdom, Elroy learned, was in dismal financial straits and the Crown was inconsistent at best when it came to paying wages. Quite used to being poor, he was not deterred.

  Elroy didn’t know much about knights. He imagined they went around doing good deeds and helping the less fortunate. He thought they were chivalrous. In truth, the knights of the kingdom, back when the kingdom had knights, were a bunch of stuck up peacocks who went about with their noses in the air acting hoity and superior. As such, they were roundly despised.