I awoke to yowling sunbeams and an absolute shag of a headache the next morning. I’d taken myself away for an early night after the brawl, but my companions had remained downstairs for some hours after, and as I lay awake on my straw mattress, held back from slumber by the lurching beat of heart, I listened to the laughter and songs and vague crashing sounds that drifted up from downstairs.
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The next few days were a drunken blur. I vaguely recall being abducted by a gang of squat-legged woodland orcs and roasted on a spit for a while, and I obviously escaped with my life intact and my skin unroasted but I’ve no idea how. It seems I was also hexed by a warlock at some point, because although I have no memory of meeting and/or being cursed by such a character, for a whole 24 hours I couldn’t speak. Instead, every time I opened my mouth there came a series of shrieks like the bewildered mooing of a cow.
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Observe your narrator now, his heart freshly pulped, his ego pureed, as he sits alone in a tavern off the Great Valley Road, bedraggled and hammered. I had left infernal Bloodroot on a stolen horse and begun the journey home to my kingdom. Not that there seemed much point in being a king anymore. All I wanted to do was lie in the gutter and shout insults at the moon.
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The climb damn near finished me off. I could think of not one solitary reason why anybody would need a tower so big. At the top of the blasted ever-stairs there was a small landing with a heavy door, with a sign on it that read: Vena’s Room. Go away.
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The trio of plumed soldiers had blossomed without warning into a regiment of plumed cavalry. Two dozen gleaming horsemen now blocked our path into the palace; two dozen lances aimed squarely at our noses.
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Impetuous, I leapt from Alfonso’s back and began to sprint to the city gates. I heard Selladore call out for me, somewhere far behind, as though in another world. All that mattered now was Astra.
With the grace of a sunbeam I raced betwixt the baffled guards, who could only turn and call out to me in vain. I lighted over the city streets, unable to think of anything but my beautiful wife. The city was but a blur. I shouldered my way through the throng of peasants and followed signs for the cathedral, readying myself for the fight of my life. I could hear the church bells!
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“And who might this young woman be?” asked Selladore as I stalked back to camp with Boomlay tottering along behind, her arms crammed full of pots and pans. Her cabbage was bringing up the rear, apparently of its own accord.
Continue readingTwenty twenty six! My resolution this year is ‘Have More Fun’. I don’t really know what I mean by that; I left it ambiguous and open-ended on purpose. Maybe a resolution more closely fitted to my current state of mind would be ‘Be Less Serious’, but I suppose it’s better (and more enjoyable) to encourage healthy behaviours rather than discourage bad ones.
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A NOTE ON THE DESTRUCTION OF GALANTHUS:
Actually, it turns out it’s a jolly good thing that fair Galanthus sank into the sea. Much later on, I read up on the town – slightly out of guilt from being a possible instigator of its implosion – and it turns out that Galanthus was home to the highest number of racists per square metre on the entire continent. The town had also held the title of ‘Scam Capital of the Six Kingdoms’ since 1243, and three separate hate groups called Galanthus their home, these being: The Anti-Troll League, The Elf Punchers, and the rather ambiguous General Loathing Society. All in all, they were a rotten bunch and you shouldn’t feel too sorry for them.
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“I told you!” cried Selladore as we stood watching my beloved pig sinking into the watery abyss.
We’d made it several miles, winding through the ranks of gnarled frozen fingers, when Margaret had misplaced her trotter and plunged through the ice. The hole around her grew, and within seconds she was in the middle of a large watery ring. She didn’t do a very good job of treading water. Through the ice, we watched the vague pink shape of my steed sink away from us.
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