Barbarian saga, story 2. A little misunderstasting from the collision of barbarians and civilized financial institutes...
The floor of the vast main hall of the First City Imperial Bank was made of polished white stone veined with darker streaks. Each slab was strong enough to support the weight of an elephant, should some enterprising pachyderm decide to open an account or perhaps take out a mortgage—though, considering the nonexistent wages paid to the city’s draft elephants, he probably would not qualify for one. The floor, like the rest of the building, was exquisitely crafted, its blocks fitted so precisely that only the sharpest eye could detect the gaps, and even then only from very close to the ground. At first glance, the entire surface appeared to have been carved from a single enormous piece of marble.
Despite all this aesthetic and structural perfection, the floor faltered slightly when two new customers entered through the great archway, hoping to join the brave new world of civilized finance. The first slab emitted a grinding creak and shifted by a fraction of a unit of length that was very small, yet far from negligible. Whether this was caused by the physical pressure exerted upon it or by a sudden onset of existential anxiety was impossible to say. One thing, however, was certain.
The first arrival was an enormous man. At more than seven feet tall, his height only slightly exceeded the width of his shoulders. His skeleton was burdened with enough muscle to supply several entrants in a bodybuilding exhibition. But it was not merely his mass that made both the hall and everyone inside it gasp—or, at the very least, experience varying degrees of nervousness. He wore enough steel plate and chain mail to cover most of his skin even without the many furs, which, judging by their appearance, had come from creatures now extinct and possibly prehistoric. Hopefully creatures. To counterbalance this mountain of muscle and metal, he carried an immense two-handed axe whose edge gleamed bloodthirstily, casting hungry flashes of light across the people nearby. The savage expression on his bearded face, together with the strange flattening at the crown of his head, completed the impression of an entire barbarian horde condensed, for budgetary reasons, into a single man.
Then again, with a little imagination, one could easily picture what that head would have looked like beneath the enormous horned helmet the barbarian carried in his other hand.
Compared with that alternative, he currently looked almost peaceful.
For now.
The second visitor looked similar, though he was leaner, a shade taller, much younger, and considerably less bloodthirsty. Unlike his companion, his head was not strangely misshapen, and he wore a friendly grin on his face. He also carried a longsword. And an enormous bulging sack over one shoulder.
One did not need a degree in finance to recognize that these two men—clearly barbarians who had either just descended from the mountains or clawed their way up from hell—were not typical clients. They looked like the sort of people the bank usually disposed of very quickly, ejecting them onto the filthy street outside, where they landed among the by-products of draft elephants and other transportation systems. The bank maintained a sizable security force for precisely such occasions.
Its members were currently staring wide-eyed and openmouthed.
The problem, as every guard immediately realized, lay in the amount of force required to move mountains of meat and steel. True professionals might have begun calculating angles, leverage, and alternative means of generating sufficient momentum. In reality, the guards were preoccupied with other questions and sudden regrets. Why didn’t I take out that life-insurance policy? I should have listened to my mother and chosen a safer profession. Demon hunter or temple sacrifice suddenly seemed like a much better career.
Young Touk-an, an enthusiastic amateur bodybuilder, was also doing calculations in his head. He, however, was trying to determine how many years he would have to spend in the gym—and how much not-entirely-legal mushroom extract he would have to consume—to come anywhere close to looking like the barbarians.
Guards who survived the occasional moments when they had to do something besides stand still and radiate menace tended to develop excellent survival instincts. Accordingly, they did exactly what their standard operating procedures required and what was generally expected of them.
They stood rigidly and forced their faces into friendly smiles.
Far friendlier than Human Resources required.
The other clients who noticed the gigantic pair hurriedly completed their transactions or canceled them outright, without even arguing about the resulting administrative fees. They suddenly remembered that they had left a fire burning at home, that they were expecting a visitor at any moment, or simply that they ought to leave as quickly as possible. And, to be safe, perhaps visit their grandmother who lived far outside the city.
The employees unfortunate enough to be stationed in the hall murmured a strange mantra in unison:
“Not my counter. Please, not my counter.”
Both barbarians joined the end of one queue, which began shrinking at lightning speed despite the fact that the pale young woman behind the counter appeared to be trying to tie her fingers into knots.
The younger barbarian looked around with a calm smile. The older one swept his surroundings with suspicious, beady eyes, his lips curled furiously beneath his beard as though he were deciding whom to murder first. He gripped the haft of an axe apparently designed for splitting kindling to light a volcano and restlessly hefted the helmet in his other hand. He muttered constantly and angrily. The younger man replied in soothing monosyllables, as though trying to calm a dangerous animal.
The head of security finally resigned himself to being fired for failing to prevent an armed assault on the bank. He was now concentrating on a more immediate problem: surviving long enough to be dismissed.
Young Touk-an finally stopped gazing enviously at the bulging musculature of his dreams. Having failed to find a reasonable solution to his mathematical problem, he decided to act. His first impulse—to throw away his weapon and run home to his mother—was rejected. Instead, he resolved to try doing his actual job. Moving very slowly, he reached out and pressed one of the many concealed panic buttons installed throughout the hall.
In this particular case, the designer—borrowed for the duration of the project from the nearby Institute for the Mentally Deranged, Paranoia Department, Severe Paranoia Subdivision—had placed it in the nipple of one of the statuettes decorating the hall.
***
The panic button panicked instantly. In its terror, it pressed against a mechanical lever, which converted panic into a tug on a long cord running through a pipe to the security system’s central office and, from there, through several more contraptions to the nearby headquarters of the City Guard.
The cord was attached to the seventh tentacle of a parrotpus labeled ALARM SIGNALS—FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS. Fincy, as she was informally known, shrieked at the painful tug, thought for a moment, and then squawked her trained phrase:
“A-larm! A-larm! Fist City Imperoul Bank a-larm!”
The guard on duty jumped, then began cursing as he wiped his crotch, trying to remove his lunch—an enormous sandwich—and especially the hot sauce, which he knew from experience left very visible stains of a particularly suspicious color.
He swore again, yelled at the still-shrieking Fincy, and pulled the tentacle of another alarm parrotpus to summon the guard reserves, who were playing cards in a nearby ready room.
Incidentally, this saved one of the players from a crushing financial loss.
Then he woke the communications parrotpus and told her, speaking slowly and distinctly, “For the backup force: alarm at the First City Imperial Bank. Move there at once.”
The living communicator considered this for a moment, then began pulling the tentacle connected by a cord to the ready room, translating the message into a series of short and long tugs. These caused her confused colleague to shriek:
“For the breakup farts: alarm in the First City branch. Groove Derek at once.”
Fortunately, especially for Guard Second Class Derek, all users had learned to decipher the system’s occasional glitches, so they understood well enough what they were supposed to do and where they were supposed to do it.
The guard in the communications office once again longed for the good old days, when everything had been handled by messengers and the only cords were attached to bells.
Then the city mage Lifeblendix A Bit Confused made yet another failed attempt to breed a new variety of large-fruited strawberry and produced parrotpuses instead. Everything had changed.
The earliest specimens had possessed only eight tentacles. These days, everyone was discussing the need to upgrade from sixteen-tentacle units to the more powerful thirty-two-tentacle models. The creatures had quickly been put to use in all manner of applications, giving rise to an entirely new branch of technology.
Parrotpuses were easy to train—or, in technical terminology, easy to crush-code with hammers—so that a tug on one tentacle made them pull another or produce a specific sound. The system was not entirely reliable. Even the finest units occasionally became badly bugged, often after supplementing their their diet with whatever they could catch, and in many situations they were less efficient than the old-fashioned alternatives.
But they were fashionable.
The City Guard was one of the first institutions to run entirely on IBM—Information-Banging Mutants, as parrotpus systems were officially known. Unofficially, they were miserable, screeching lumps of tentacles and mottled feathers, with a single nearly blind eye and a parrot’s beak protruding from somewhere among them.
Lifeblendix was working on a new mutated version that was supposed to possess visual capabilities comparable to those of a human. So far, the best he had achieved by crossbreeding a thirty-two-tentacle parrotpus with an eagle was an eyeless parrotpus with thirty-two tiny wings and an eagle’s beak capable of crunching and tearing through almost anything.
The failed experiment showed potential as either industrial wire cutter or an office paper shredder.
***
While the City Guard, assisted by modern magiotechnology, prepared a decisive counterattack on the bank, the source of the alarm finally reached the counter, where their not-at-all-quiet argument began to heat up.
“And I’m telling you, it’s stupid!” the older barbarian thundered, punctuating the exclamation point by striking the haft of his axe against the floor.
The poor floor creaked in pain.
“Calm down, Dad. It’s not stupid—”
“It is, it is, and it is! Stupid, stupid! Just look around. Whaddaya see, huh? I’ll tell you, ’cause it’s the same thing I see! A stupid big house full of a stupid amount of money that anybody can just take without breaking a sweat!”
“But, Dad—”
“Ain’t that right, huh? Ain’t it? Look around! A few whacks and I could smash straight through the wall. I wouldn’t even have to use my head! Then I’d just walk away with all that money.”
“Dad! Please keep your voice down.”
“And why in all the hells should I, huh?” the barbarian father raged like a storm suffering from indigestion.
He was known as Quarterer Punch-his-face. His son, Ballet Punch-his-face, was desperately trying to calm his irritable father. His efforts were producing results.
Just not the ones he wanted. Quite the opposite, in fact.
“It’s so bloody orcing stupid! All I gotta do is yell, ‘This is a… whatchallit… robbery! Gimme all your money, assholes!’” Quarterer roared, waving his famous quartering axe above his head.
The response was a tremendous chorus of clinking.
Sacks of coins clinked as the tellers shoved them through the openings beneath their windows. Discarded weapons joined them, along with purses containing the guards’ latest wages. The gold teeth of one elderly businessman added a slightly discordant note after he prudently knocked them out himself.
The percussion was accompanied by a chorus of wailing pleas: sniveling requests to be spared, or at least allowed to retain a majority of one’s important organs, followed by detailed inventories of sick and helpless children, elderly relatives, and—in one case—a remarkably extensive menagerie of house pets dependent upon the unfortunate family breadwinner.
It was beautiful music, beloved by robbers, bandits, brigands, and other professionals who earned their living along the fringes of legality.
Admittedly, the percussion needed some fine-tuning, particularly the gold teeth, and several of the singers had unsteady voices.
But it was beautiful nonetheless.
Quarterer grinned happily—until his son glared at him. Then his expression crumpled as he realized what had happened. He blinked several times, uncertain how to proceed.
Before the barbarian brain could finish processing this sudden change in circumstances, a squad of City Guards armed with heavy crossbows burst into the bank. They were exceptionally well trained: after no more than a second or two of confusion, they had their weapons aimed at the two barbarians.
At that range, trembling hands should not matter much.
“Well, you’ve really screwed this up, Dad,” Ballet observed with a long sigh into the sudden silence.
Seeing a glimmer of hope, the toothless businessman cursed his own haste and discreetly attempted to drag his teeth closer with one foot.
“Son of a moldy dog’s…” Quarterer growled, beginning his favorite curse as he tested the weight of his axe and selected his first target. He regretted allowing his son to talk him into removing his headgear before entering the bank—some nonsense about civilized manners or some other orcshit. His head was officially classified as a lethal weapon in several countries, and one city-state particularly devoted to regulation had even attempted to issue him a weapons permit, but he would still have felt safer in his beautiful horned helmet.
Unfortunately, putting it on would be difficult. He would have to set down the axe for a moment, and that seemed like an exceptionally stupid idea.
It was possible to deflect an arrow—or dodge one—though for most people this remained a purely theoretical possibility. Crossbow bolts were faster. And according to the usually dormant region of Quarterer’s brain responsible for counting, far too many of them were aimed his way. Avoiding every shot seemed impossible.
Unless he wanted to impersonate a vicious, homicidal barbarian porcupine.
“G-give up?” the guard officer managed on his second attempt. Surviving the statement for an entire second lent him a little confidence, and he continued in a firmer voice. “Give up! Surrender, or we’ll shoot!”
“What does that, whatchacallim, guard asshole want?” the elder Punch-his-face asked in confusion. “What am I supposed to give him? My axe—”
Before he could complete the sentence with the words “through his ass,” his son explained.
“Yes, Dad, but not the way you’re thinking. He wants us to drop our weapons and surrender. And I think that’s probably for the best, so we can explain this misunderstanding sooner.”
“And why in the broken horn of four-titted Agros would we do that, huh?” Quarterer growled, taking an immediate and extremely hostile dislike to the idea.
“Dad, it’s a misunderstanding. I’m sure we can explain this complicated situation—”
“Sure we can! One, two… eh, almost too many swings of the axe, and there won’t be anybody left standing to misunderstand anything! That’s what I’m saying!”
It must be said that the average member of the City Guard was made of sterner stuff than one might expect. Although the guards turned pale, they held their ground and did not flee.
On the other hand, they might simply have been paralyzed in place.
Their commander managed to continue his proposal in a strangled voice.
“Surrender, barbarians, or we’ll shoot you with our crossbows like… like two barbarians!”
“Dad, I really think it would be better to comply with this nice man’s request. The situation is confusing, but I’m certain I can explain—”
“You crazy in the head, son? Surrender? Huh? We of Clan Punch-his-face never surrender! And to coppers? Are you crazy?”
The young man leaned closer and whispered something that calmed the older barbarian slightly.
“Huh. Sounds like a bit too compo… comphy… complicated a trick, but if you insist. You gotta say it, though. I can’t let words like that come outta my mouth, and you know it.”
“Don’t shoot! We surrender!” the young barbarian called.
His father accompanied the declaration with a furious grimace utterly at odds with the words. He looked less as though he were surrendering than as though he had surrendered his right to leave his opponents alive and unquartered.
A sudden gale thundered through the bank, as though a small storm had blown in to deposit a few lightning bolts, taken one look at the barbarian standoff, and hastily fled. In reality, it was merely everyone except the barbarians releasing the breath they had been holding.
Then came a faint dripping sound as someone’s bladder gave out with relief.
“Drop your weapons and raise your hands above your heads!” the officer called.
“What?” Quarterer shrieked, turning angrily to his son. “That ain’t what you said was gonna happen!”
“But, Dad, when someone surrenders, he’s supposed to put down his weapons.”
“What kinda weird bullshit is this? You can stick that idea up a diseased basilisk’s asshole! I gotta drop my axe? Don’t you understand what that means? Besides, I just paid two Scoundrelian gold pieces to have it sharpened, and that custom-made haft cost me a whole dollar before that robber tried to charge me more! I’m not letting go of my axe! It’s practically part of the family!”
“But, Dad, they’ll give it back once everything has been explained. It’s only a formality.”
“Merely an administrative detail, to ensure that everything is done according to regulations,” the guard commander added helpfully.
Quarterer rolled his eyes furiously and ground several colorful and remarkably vicious curses through his teeth. Upon hearing them, one of the bank’s customers, crouched beside a counter, winced and fainted.
“Oh, all right,” Quarterer finally conceded beneath his son’s unwavering stare.
He placed his axe and helmet—which, thanks to its horns, could also serve as a weapon—on the floor beside his son’s sword. Then he reluctantly raised his hands and listened as his son uttered those unimaginably obscene words that made him want to vomit and caused the ghosts of his ancestors to stir in their less-than-peaceful dreams of unending slaughter.
“We surrender.”
***
City Guard Commander Simon Politelix silently thanked every god he could remember.
The moment he had rushed into the bank with his squad and spotted the stylized emblem of a crushed fist on the barbarians’ armor, he had nearly expelled something quite different from the shout he had prepared.
Something considerably more… tangible.
And from precisely the opposite orifice.
He had heard stories about the barbarians of Clan Punch-his-face. He had become a guard commander solely because the position was supposed to advance his planned political career, not so that he could depart this world in whatever deranged and bloodthirsty manner one of those barbarians had chosen for his name.
They all bore poetic names such as Quarterer, Crusher, Skullbiter, Eyeripper, and Hearttearer.
Whatever Simon Politelix’s faults, it must be said that he was no coward. During the fire at the home of the wealthy jeweler Sapphiris Chainsetter, he had fearlessly hurled himself into the flames and rescued most of the jewelry from the blazing inferno.
The rest, unfortunately, had melted.
And melted it would remain until Politelix urgently required a substantial sum of money. At that point, it would presumably undergo one final melting in the workshop of some discreet goldsmith or fence.
For the moment, however, Politelix was desperately formulating his next announcement to the two barbarians.
Their arrest still required one minor formality.
And the older one was definitely not going to like it.
***
And he definitely did not.
One member of the squad—selected by the commander solely because he had been impertinent the previous day—timidly approached Quarterer with a pair of shackles and gave him an apologetic look. The barbarian fixed him with a glare so murderous that even an experienced basilisk would have approved and taken notes. The guard’s blood nearly froze in his veins, and his hands trembled so violently that the chains rattled.
“And what in the name of a thrice-rotten turd from a stinking ape is that supposed to be?” Quarterer demanded.
The guard staggered.
“That is…”
For one fleeting moment, Politelix wondered why he even bothered. It would be so easy to give the order to fire and later claim that the barbarians had been about to attack.
Unfortunately, he suspected that even a barbarian filled with crossbow bolts and well on his way to joining Clan Colander or Clan Hedgehog would retain enough life to inflict some unpleasant injury in his dying rage.
Scars might lend authority to military and police officers, but Politelix was troubled by a vision of one enormous scar where his arm used to be.
Or his neck.
No, that was stupid. He would be dead before the scar could form.
He gathered every scrap of courage he possessed, imagined his wife shrieking at him—Simon! You idiot! You’re not going to let some barbarian nobody push you around!—and continued.
“I’m afraid it is another minor formality, you see. Every prisoner must be fitted with…”
Somehow, he could not bring himself to say shackles or chains.
Then inspiration struck.
“All you’d have to do is give your wrists a little tug and the chain would snap anyway,” he continued in the ingratiating tone he generally reserved for city or imperial officials who outranked him. “Should it get in your way, or anything…”
Another large drop of sweat rolled down his forehead and soaked into the shirt beneath his armor. If he kept sweating like this, his breastplate would rust.
Still better than having it splattered with blood.
His codpiece was also in danger of rust when the barbarian suddenly thrust both hands forward.
The guard with the shackles who was much closer to the source of sudden movement would have to deal with any resulting corrosion later. Despite the state of his trousers and absorbent woolen undergarments, he cautiously fastened the irons around the massive wrists hovering in front of his face.
The younger barbarian continued his quiet attempts to reassure his father.
“Just stay calm, Dad. They’ll take us to someone competent and sufficiently high-ranking, and he’ll release us once we explain everything.”
“I just hope that compotent don’t try to make us discontinent… discomponent? Arrr. Then again, maybe he should try, ’cause my head could use the exercise,” Quarterer muttered almost incomprehensibly.
Then he thundered at the man arresting him, “At least carry my helmet and axe, since I gotta carry these stupid trinkets for you. And don’t you dare get your greasy fingerprints all over ’em, or I’ll polish ’em with your blood, pig-head!”
The unfortunate guard staggered beneath the verbal gale and nearly fell over.
“You shouldn’t insult City Guards, Dad,” Ballet admonished him. “Although I would recommend treating our property with care,” he added in a noticeably sharper tone, addressing the second guard as the man fastened shackles around the younger barbarian’s wrists.
“That axe is a family, uh, heirloom! It’s been in our family for a whole degeneration, ever since I ruined my old one on some stupid golem. Bent it so bad you could’ve used it for whippin’ cream! Twisted it all to hell, the stone bastard! This one was made for me by the best armorer in all bloody Akatonia. And he’ll never make a better one!”
“Because you paid him for the anatomically shaped haft with a counterfeit dollar, and when he began shouting at you, you immediately quartered him with the axe. That was extremely rude of you, by the way,” Ballet observed as one of the guards discovered that lifting the barbarian’s sack required both hands and nearly all his strength.
“That was completely legal, uh, self-defending! Exactly according to those… articulates you explained to me back then!” Quarterer protested, though his voice lacked conviction.
“That was excessive self-defense, Dad,” Ballet sighed. “He attacked you with words. You defended yourself with an axe.”
Then he turned to Politelix.
“Well, officer, I believe you should take us to someone duly authorized so that we may explain this entire misunderstanding. I should warn you, however, that if even a single coin is missing from my sack, we shall draw the appropriate conclusions.”
“Maybe we’ll draw somebody’s liver out!” Quarterer added bloodthirstily—and somewhat dreamily.
He was an expert in removing both internal and external organs from most known living species. It should be noted, however, that his technique was considerably more refined when performed on Homo sapiens and their cousins of most sorts.
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir,” Politelix replied absently, mentally replaying the younger barbarian’s words. “Er… you have money in that sack?”
“Of course. Thirty-five thousand silver dollars. And if even one is missing—”
“Then why did you go into the bank? No. I don’t want to hear another word.” Politelix clutched his head in his hands.
Or rather, in his left hand. With his right, he struck his helmet with his crossbow, accidentally firing a bolt directly between the legs of the figure in the fresco decorating the ceiling.
“I’ll take you away now,” he said, swiftly resuming his former servile manner when he caught the dangerous gleam in Quarterer Punch-his-face’s eyes. “With your kind permission, I shall escort you to my superior, Commander Bossack, and he can deal with you however he sees fit.”
Using the communicator, Politelix reported to the station:
“Two prisoners. We’re bringing them to the commander.”
This caused another spill across the trousers of the guard in the communications room.
This time, it was coffee, which did not leave such a suspicious stain.
It had, however, only just been brewed and was therefore extremely hot.
***
A procession consisting of two barbarians and an armed escort emerged from the bank and headed toward the nearby guardhouse. The younger barbarian walked calmly, entirely at ease. The older swept his gaze from side to side, flaying everyone in sight alive with his eyes.
Meanwhile, Politelix considered buying a tailor’s measuring tape and cutting off one inch for every day remaining in his service, as guards approaching retirement often did. This particular case might still end well and perhaps even earn him some glory for capturing barbarians from Clan Punch-his-face, but work like this was how people developed heart attacks, stomach ulcers, and—above all—deep slashing or puncture wounds. Sometimes they even suffered sudden decapitation.
To the immense relief of everyone involved—except Quarterer, who still hoped for a modest massacre—the procession reached the guardhouse without incident.
Several reserve squads awaited them, all armed with crossbows, along with a heavy-weapons team normally employed to demolish locked gates with a wheeled ballista. Under renewed threats of being transformed into barbarian hedgehogs, the two prisoners were forced to remove their armor. They were then herded into a special-duty holding cell ordinarily reserved for golems, giants, supermutants, and the occasional barbarian hero.
By then, even Ballet was growing uneasy. He repeatedly demanded that they be taken before the commander.
The cell was fairly spacious, since it had been designed to accommodate criminals larger than humans. Instead of windows, it had only a few ventilation holes, and its door was a solid slab of rough steel.
“This here looks pretty damn bad, son, by the thrice-cursed balls of Blind Ro,” Quarterer observed. “Reckon we should’ve gutted ’em all right at the start. Gonna be a lot harder now they’ve taken our metal bits too.”
He studied the walls, scrunching his face thoughtfully. Admittedly, his skull contained little that an ordinary human would recognize as thought, but by barbarian standards it was close enough.
“They’re thick, all right, but I reckon I could break through ’em.” Quarterer ran a hand over the top of his head. “Only there ain’t enough room in here for a proper, whatchacallit, run-up. Guess you really can’t break through a wall with your head in a place like this.”
He looked dejected for a moment. Then his eyes lit up.
“That door, though… I could probably—”
“Save your strength for now, Dad. We’ll try doing this peacefully first.”
Quarterer snorted. Then he began pounding on the door with his fists and roaring, “Either bring us something to eat or let us out! And I mean right now! Otherwise I’ll turn this place into, errr… something broken you ain’t gonna like!”
“Dad, I’m trying to think,” Ballet said, giving him a reproachful look.
“That’s all you ever do—this thinking thing! And if you hadn’t been thinking, we wouldn’t be in here, would we? It’s all your weird ideas! Dad, let’s go to the bank! Dad, surrender to the coppers! I oughta kick your ass, same as when you were little and pissed me off!”
Silence settled over the cell.
It was broken by the scrape of a bolt being drawn back.
Both barbarians spun toward the door. It slowly opened, revealing a large number of crossbows.
All cocked and aimed, naturally.
Not to mention loaded with very sharp bolts.
***
“My name is Bossack. Commander Bossack. That means I command all these people around me, I’m responsible for keeping the city safe, and my name is Bossack. Selfgladius Bossack. I hope you understand that, barbarians!”
The owner of the voice remained out of sight behind several ranks of armored guards, though, judging by its squeaky pitch, the concealment might not have been intentional. He could probably have taken cover behind a medium-sized rock or a clump of grass without much difficulty.
“Finally,” Ballet muttered. “Listen, Commander Bossack, this is all one enormous misunderstanding—”
“Silence!” Bossack shrilled. “You are unbelievably insolent, barbarians! Attempting to rob the First City Imperial Bank—”
“But we weren’t attempting to—”
“I said silence! I should have you executed for your insolence, but another option has presented itself. You’re going into the arena!”
“What?” both barbarians roared—one incredulously, the other hopefully.
“You’re going into the arena,” Bossack continued, somewhat shaken despite being shielded by his men. “Some intestinal disease has spread through the menagerie, and half the animals are so exhausted they can barely… you know… perform their natural functions. But the people demand entertainment. They’ve come from all over the region for today’s spectacle, and they’ll probably tear the arena apart if nothing happens.
“So the two of you will perform. Put on a proper show, and we’ll return your belongings—even the money you stole from some as-yet-unknown location—”
“We didn’t steal anything,” Ballet protested.
“Do not interrupt me, barbarian! We’ll escort you outside the city and release you. You won’t receive such a generous offer anywhere else. Only in our enlightened city. Anywhere else, they would put ropes around your necks, and that is precisely what we shall do if you refuse the arena.
“Only volunteers and slaves may enter it. So what will it be, barbarians? Hemp ornaments for those disgustingly oversized necks of yours, or the arena?”
“An arena? Sounds like a glorious massacre,” Quarterer observed dreamily.
“You are Quarterer and Ballet Punch-his-face. One a notorious war criminal, the other still developing his nefarious reputation. Yet our city is generous enough to offer you this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity—or the fitting end your lives deserve.”
“On the other hand,” Quarterer said, with an attempt at cunning so obvious that no one could possibly miss it, “it’s been a long time since I tried that trick where you jerk your neck muscles hard enough to snap the dope. I mean the rope. They already tried hanging me three times, but every time, divine judgment said I was free to go. Guess I’m in good with the gods, what with all the believers I keep sending their way.
“And an arena might be kinda, uh, fun. But I’d probably sweat like a pig. And lately I’ve been having these, uh, maliced-nutria problems. Might lose too much weight. Nah, running around after little animals or whatever you keep in there, back and forth all day… That ain’t for an old man like me. Reckon I’d rather try the rope, like you said. Quicker that way, and I can go get drunk sooner.”
Quarterer had become remarkably talkative. He had two great loves in life: massacres and money.
And this smelled like both.
“Dad…”
“Barbarian, do you even understand yourself?” Bossack demanded.
“You pay pee-nuts, you get toilet monkeys. But if you threw in a little contribution toward my retirement insur—insurance, then we’d be talking. But just like that? Nah.” Quarterer shook his head sadly.
“Well, barbarian, when you put it that way…” Bossack mused. He spent a moment whispering and arguing with someone else out of sight.
Meanwhile, Ballet turned to his father.
“Dad, you can’t be serious! We haven’t done anything. They have to let us go!”
“Shut your hole, sonny! We’ve done things your way so far, and look where it got us, eh? From now on, we do things my way.
“And we do ’em bloody.”
“All right, barbarian,” Bossack said. “What do you want?”
“We’ll take the deal if you throw in…” The elder barbarian consulted the fingers of one hand. “Five thousand…”
Then he noticed that he possessed another hand and corrected himself.
“Ten thousand dollars, I mean. We’ll show you a massacre that’ll wake you up screaming for years. Oh, yeah… the massacre…” he added dreamily.
After more whispering, Bossack announced, “Stadiumislavix, the owner of the arena, says he cannot afford to pay more than one thousand—”
Quarterer growled and ostentatiously flexed his neck muscles, which were every bit as overdeveloped as the rest of him.
“That is, one thousand… two thousand… uh, for each of you. You must understand, he has considerable expenses. Feeding the animals, funeral costs for the attendants…”
“Then it’s a deal!” Quarterer boomed.
“Excellent!” The relief in Bossack’s voice was unmistakable. “Then we have an agreement. We’ll bring you some food, and in a few hours, you can begin.”
“Lots of food! And wine!” Quarterer demanded, plainly pleased with himself.
The door closed, and Ballet immediately turned on his father.
“What have you gotten us into this time, Dad? Do you even realize what you’ve done?”
“What’re you getting all worked up about, son? You think anybody in this city of tiny runts can take us? I’ll beat every last one of ’em to death with… uh, my head, if I have to.”
“But they don’t fight man against man here, remember? He was talking about animals. Do you understand what that means?”
“I can tear apart a few puppies with my bare hands while drunk and asleep,” Quarterer boasted. “Gonna punch their faces—I mean, whatchacallit when it’s an animal? Snouts? Yeah. Punch their snouts, and we’re done. Fight’s over.”
To make his point, he punched the wall. Then he blew the dust from his knuckles and admired the dent with satisfaction.
“Except they have some lunatic inventor-mage here who breeds one insane mutant animal after another! You have no idea what kind of monster they might send against us.”
“I don’t give a rat’s rear opening,” Quarterer announced, reinforcing his opinion with a trumpet blast from the opening in question. “Their beasts ain’t worth even that much to me. I’ve never met anything that couldn’t be quartered.”
“Let’s hope you’re right, Dad. More importantly, let’s hope they return our armor and weapons, so you’ll have something to do the quartering with.”
“I can always bite them.”
“You’ll break your new teeth, and Mom will kill you, Dad.”
“True. I’ll have to bite only the soft ones. Thanks for the reminder.”
***
An army of town criers spread through the city, informing the public of the change in the arena’s entertainment program.
Barbarians from most clans enjoyed an excellent reputation where massacres were concerned. Most regular spectators had heard of the ferocious Clan Punch-his-face, and some of the better-informed even knew Quarterer by name. Thus, despite rumors that every animal in the menagerie had died, a steady stream of visitors made its way toward the arena, eager for a bloody spectacle—and, above all, a chance to win at the betting tables.
“And now, it is my honor to present two renowned warriors! Fearless fighters! Barbarians of the celebrated Clan Punch-his-face! A father and son who have chosen to demonstrate their courage and ferocity before you! I give you Quarterer and Ballet!”
The announcer’s voice, amplified through an enormous brass horn, swept across the arena and unleashed a tremendous uproar from the crowd.
The spectators were ecstatic. Genuine warriors rarely appeared in the city’s arena. The mere sight of the two massive fighters, dressed in nothing but loincloths, told even the least informed observer that this would be far better than the usual fare: slaves and village fools whom recruiters had talked into participating once they were sufficiently drunk.
Such contestants rarely contributed anything beyond pitiful screams and pleas for mercy once they saw their animal opponents.
***
“I’ll show them!” Quarterer ground out curses and threats through clenched teeth. His fists balled, and smoke almost poured from his ears.
Being denied his axe and then driven into the arena nearly naked had shifted his mood from its customary bloodthirsty gloom to something approaching the full-blown berserker madness of his inglorious youth.
Meanwhile, his son stretched and warmed up—not with the exercises of some deadly martial art, as several spectators assumed, but with dance drills learned in an amateur ballet class. He had, after all, chosen his name in honor of his great passion.
That very subject was being debated among the more knowledgeable members of the audience. A barbarian’s name traditionally described his preferred method of disposing of enemies.
Consequently, variations of the following question could be heard throughout the stands:
“So what does he do? Dance them to death? Turn them into ballerinas and then tear them apart?”
“And first,” the amplified voice boomed across the arena, “to give our warriors a chance to warm up… here come our returning champions! The wild! The untamed! The rulers of the plains! The lions!”
“Send out those walking sausages already!” Quarterer roared over the announcer. “Bring ’em here, and I’ll quarter ’em with my bare hands! Come on!” he raged, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth.
The grinding and clanking that answered him was nearly drowned out by the cheering of the many-headed and many-voiced crowd—not the same thing, since a mute two-headed ogre and several ventriloquists had also come to the arena for entertainment. The noise meant that the gates to the menagerie were opening.
Four large, muscular predators charged out, apparently very hungry. Their greeting roars confirmed the impression.
The barbarians stood back-to-back and waited.
The lions began circling them slowly, uncertain how to proceed. All four were veterans of the local arena, and more than a few unfortunate souls had ended up in their stomachs. Those victims, however, had generally screamed hysterically, begged for mercy, attempted to scramble up the arena’s steep walls, or simply lain motionless on the ground and sobbed.
These particular meals had apparently never learned the prescribed behavior. Perhaps that part had been cut from their version of the script. Or perhaps they were amateurs ignoring the script entirely, and amateurs were always the most dangerous. One never knew what such fools might do.
The two exceptionally well-built specimens of prey crouched with their muscles tense. One was producing noises comparable in volume to those of previous victims, though considerably more aggressive in tone. The lions did not understand human speech, but they had the distinct impression that they would not have appreciated what he was saying.
This made them nervous, particularly an older male who had finally succumbed to the intestinal flu sweeping through the menagerie. The older barbarian’s shouting aggravated the turmoil in his bowels, which was steadily intensifying despite the fact that he had eaten very little over the past few days.
He was fortunate not to understand what the barbarian was yelling at him.
One of the insults could be translated roughly as:
“Come on, you filthy hairy pile of shit! I’ll kick you so hard in the ass you’ll be spitting turds!”
By then, the lions had completed three full circuits around their intended victims.
Both the audience and Quarterer were furious that nothing was happening. Ballet, merely bored, yawned and politely covered his mouth with one massive hand.
***
At last, Quarterer ran out of both insults and patience. With a deranged howl, he charged one of the bewildered lions.
The lion did not move aside. It roared, more in surprise than as a threat. Prey ran. That was what the lion was accustomed to.
But prey was supposed to run away from the king of predators, not toward him.
And it was definitely not supposed to grab him by the mane.
“Where d’you think you’re going, you bastard? Get over here! I’ll rip your head off, and then I’ll shit—”
Quarterer never finished the threat. Instead, he erupted into thunderous laughter, sounding like an avalanche crashing merrily down a mountainside and destroying the occasional village.
The lion he had attacked happened to be the sick one. The stress finally became too much. With a miserable groan, it lost control and began to… evacuate its bowels.
Most of those present later described the incident somewhat more crudely:
“So the barbarian jumps at the lion and roars at it, right? And the lion completely shits itself and runs away!”
Quarterer and practically the entire audience laughed hard enough to roll on the ground. Quarterer did not, because he was an experienced fighter and knew better. Most of the spectators were packed too tightly together to collapse to the ground. The few wealthy patrons with private boxes considered themselves too dignified for such behavior, though the king later admitted to his wife, the queen, that he had seriously contemplated doing so.
Even the habitually solemn Ballet smiled when he glanced back and saw the soiled lion fleeing across the arena.
The remaining lions, enraged by their companion’s humiliation, attacked. Two leaped at Ballet, while the third charged Quarterer, who was still choking with laughter.
Ballet spun and pirouetted around one airborne lion. With a precisely placed slap, he redirected it toward a suitable landing site.
The second lion served as that landing site, though it was somewhat mobile.
Both great cats crashed to the ground in a tangled heap of fur and claws. Before they managed to disentangle themselves, they inflicted several impressive scratches on each other.
Quarterer turned toward the lion flying at him and leaped, still roaring with laughter.
The two projectiles of flesh and bone collided in midair.
Quarterer wrapped his arms around the lion’s neck and snapped his head forward. His forehead struck the lion’s skull with a thunderous impact.
Delivered with less force, the blow would probably have knocked the animal unconscious.
Quarterer, however, had employed the full power of barbarian neck muscles trained in the secret arts of head-banging.
The lion’s head burst like an overripe melon.
Quarterer rose and began wiping lion brains from his face, shouting furiously, “These bastards are full of shit!”
Meanwhile, Ballet helped the two bewildered lions disentangle themselves from their living knot. Then he seized one by the tail and began spinning it through the air.
He hoped the tail would withstand the centrifugal force.
He continued accelerating.
Once the speed seemed sufficient, he released the shrieking lion and sent it on its way.
The animal sailed over the barrier, screaming in terror, and crashed into the audience. Spectators scattered from that section, while those elsewhere stood eagerly to obtain a better view of whatever would happen next.
The lion bitterly disappointed them.
The king of beasts was horribly dizzy. Landing headfirst on an oak bench did nothing to improve his condition. He stood unsteadily for a moment, vomited, and passed out.
Several attendants armed with spears and nets forced their way through the delighted crowd to rescue the valuable lion. Spectators were already tearing out tufts of its fur as souvenirs, and one enterprising man had produced a skinning knife and was staring at the mane with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
Back in the arena, an equally delighted Quarterer was chasing the final lion in circles, trying to cut it off from the safety of the tunnel.
“I’ll strangle you with your own tail, you mangy bastard!” he shouted.
The audience cheered him on enthusiastically.
***
Meanwhile, in the organizers’ box, the arena’s owner, Stadiumislavix, was fighting back tears and losing. His close friend Bossack tried in vain to console him.
“I’m ruined! Half my animals have shit themselves to death, and those two lunatics are going to wipe out the rest. What were you thinking, Selfgladius? You’ve destroyed me!”
“I thought those monsters of yours were supposed to be worth something,” Selfgladius Bossack squeaked. “Stop sniveling. Those barbarian crooks stole thirty-five thousand silver dollars from somewhere. We’ll use the money to cover your losses. And look how successful the show is! Even the king is enjoying himself.”
He pointed one thin finger toward the royal box, from which sounds of royal enthusiasm could be heard. This was almost unprecedented; the king had been sour and dour ever since the great war.
“There’s just one problem with your brilliant idea! You promised to return the money to them.”
“If they survive.”
“Do they look as though they’re about to drop dead from the flu? Because they certainly aren’t going to let themselves get eaten!”
“What about that new creature Lifeblendix gave you last week?”
Stadiumislavix wiped his eyes and looked hopefully at Bossack.
“You’re right. It was originally supposed to be a translator parrotpus, but it looks thoroughly lethal. We haven’t tested it in the arena yet, but it should be able to handle them!”
***
Meanwhile, Quarterer caught the panicked lion but found himself unable to carry out his threat. When he seized its tail and attempted to wrap it around the animal’s neck, the overstrained spine snapped. Quarterer shook the corpse several times, then tossed it aside in disgust.
“Well? What now?” he roared in disappointment.
The crowd roared back.
While work crews frantically rearranged the tunnels connecting the menagerie to the arena, Stadiumislavix sent out a massive man-eating bear to keep the barbarians occupied. It was the only specimen to have escaped the intestinal flu. The enraged beast had already destroyed everything within reach, but after the performance with the lions, Stadiumislavix was not optimistic. He consoled himself with the thought that if the bear lost, the spectacle might at least earn him enough betting revenue to buy another one.
Even an untrained bear would be better than no bear at all.
The animal lumbered into the arena with a growl and reared onto its hind legs. It stood nearly thirteen feet tall.
Quarterer rushed eagerly toward it.
“Look, son! A new fur coat for your mother!”
“Dad, that species is nearly extinct! You shouldn’t kill it merely for amusement. And Mom doesn’t even wear fur.”
Despite his objections, Ballet began moving slowly toward the bear, just in case his father had bitten off more than he could beat to death with his head. In addition to its magnificent coat, this particular furry toy possessed a pair of massive jaws filled with yellow teeth.
The bear, however, showed little interest in fighting.
More precisely, whatever fighting spirit it had possessed faded rapidly. It was too large and heavy for clever wrestling techniques, but several punches—and especially several headbutts—quickly knocked every trace of aggression out of it.
Its sheer bulk saved it from anything worse than a thorough beating.
Once the bear decided that escape was its only hope, not even Quarterer’s best efforts could stop it, though he did manage to slow it down. When the animal had squeezed halfway into the tunnel opened by its handler, Ballet grabbed his father and attempted to reason with him.
“Come on, Dad. He’s had enough. Let him go.”
Quarterer reluctantly agreed and released the bear’s stubby tail.
The several-ton furry torpedo shot free and slammed headfirst into the wall.
Quarterer turned and shouted at the arena.
“Send us something else! Or let us out! I’m thirsty! Argh!”
As if in answer, the hinges of an enormous gate began to creak. It was the entrance once used for elephants, back in happier times, before the Pachyderm Rights Initiative persuaded the city’s businessmen that elephants were more profitable in transportation than in arena combat.
A massive monstrosity squeezed through the opening with considerable difficulty. It was approximately the size of an elephant and, except for one small detail, resembled a huge, fat dragon.
That detail was its head.
Or rather, its heads.
Instead of one large head, nine long serpentine necks rose from its body, each ending in head equipped with tooth-filled jaws.
Quarterer shook his head. “Well, I’ve seen a horse puke, a snake piss, and a frog punch a rock, but I ain’t never seen this shit before!”
“Uarghhhh!” the heads announced in chorus.
“Yeah? So what?” Quarterer roared back.
The heads stopped and looked at one another. Then the serpentine necks stretched forward, and the creature attempted with all its might to explain the situation.
“Argh! Grrh! Wessss killssss youssss!”
“Keep telling yourself that and give it your best, ’cause I’d like to play with you for a while!” Quarterer shouted. Then he lowered his voice. “Son, this thing looks nastier than a goblin fart.”
“It has to be the work of that wizard Lifeblendix, Dad. I told you so.”
“That piss-eating wizard bastard!”
“Supposedly, his creations rarely turn out well.” Ballet kept a straight face. “I have no idea what this one was intended to be.”
“If I had my axe, I’d quarter the bastard. Only I don’t have my axe,” Quarterer said sadly.
“But there is one advantage in not having it,” Ballet said, searching for a silver lining. “Imagine having to carve a picture of this creature into the haft afterward.”
“That’s damn right, son! Never thought of that. That nine-headed bitch would take up at least half the damn haft. So I’ll just have to bring her down with my bare hands. Strangling one snaky bastard usually ain’t much work. And this one’s got…”
“Nine heads, Dad. But how do we get close to her?”
“We sssshall getssss closssse to you, and then we ssshall eatssss you!” the heads roared in unison.
That rare moment of unity ended immediately as the heads began arguing among themselves.
“Whatssss do you meansss, we ssshall eatsss you? I’m the onessss who getssss the meal! Me!”
“No, me firssst!”
“No waysss! I killsss, I eatsss!”
“No! Me! Me!”
While the nine-headed hydra suffered an identity crisis and a personality split nine ways into essentially identical parts, both barbarians attacked. The heads noticed them in time and snapped at Ballet, who danced among them like a whirling dervish.
Quarterer used the distraction. With a scream of “Gonna kick your fat ass!” he jumped and fulfilled his promise. His heavy leather boot—the only piece of his original equipment the guards had left him—struck directly beneath the creature’s tail. He adjusted his aim slightly upward at the last instant after noticing the alarming dimensions of the opening at the rear end.
The kick was powerful enough to heave the hydra upward and lift both hind legs from the ground. It lost its balance and crashed down on all nine heads. Ballet leaped clear and somersaulted to safety while the older barbarian continued kicking and screaming.
“Gonna kick your ass so hard you’ll lick my boots clean!”
This was one of Quarterer’s favorite threats, though usually an empty one. With ordinary opponents, fulfilling it was anatomically all but impossible. With the hydra, it might have been possible, but he discovered that he did not actually want to try.
“He’ssss kickingssss our assss!” one of the slightly more intelligent heads noticed and reported to the others.
The hydra spun around with lightning speed—at least by the standards of its usual movement—only for Quarterer to punch the nearest head directly in the eye. It shrieked. Quarterer smiled, then commenced a strategic repositioning maneuver so rapid that his boots raised enough dust to obscure the battlefield.
“Your turn, youngster!” he shouted over his shoulder. “Try kicking its ass too!”
Ballet leaped onto the beast’s back, but before he could act, one head lashed toward him with the promise of a painful collision. He somersaulted away and joined his father in strategic repositioning, also known as long-distance running around the arena.
The failed attempt to breed a universal translator thundered after them.
“We have to split up, Dad! On three, you go left and I’ll go right!”
“Clear as mud! Three… how many fingers is that?”
“One, two, three!”
The barbarians veered sharply apart.
The hydra attempted to copy their maneuver, which proved complicated. Roughly half its heads decided to pursue Ballet, while approximately the other half wanted revenge on Quarterer for the massage he had administered to its backside. The ninth head, always a little slower than the others, thought only of returning to the den and soothing its abused rear end in the mud pool.
Because the team failed to communicate its intentions, the hydra did not turn at all. It continued straight ahead like a runaway locomotive. To make matters worse, the necks became thoroughly tangled as the heads twisted toward their preferred targets.
Before they could untie themselves, the body reached the arena wall and struck it at full speed.
The ninth head, still the only one pointing straight forward, drove into the wall like a spear and punched through it, its eyes bulging as realization dawned too late.
For one miraculous instant, the impact shocked enough brain cells into working order that the head conceived a genuinely intelligent and humorous comment—the first of its life. Unfortunately, it lost consciousness before speaking, and the brilliant remark was lost forever.
Confused by this partial loss of consciousness, the hydra spent a moment twitching helplessly and arguing over whose fault it was. When the first blow landed, however, the surviving consciousnesses quickly agreed that escape was necessary, reunited by the thought of a common enemy.
The creature struggled mightily but failed. The head embedded in the wall was firmly wedged, and the other eight necks had formed a tight knot.
Thus, while the furious hydra fought to free itself, the rear half of its body was tenderized by the fists of an even more furious barbarian. Quarterer noticed that the monster was extremely angry, which he regarded as trespassing on his professional territory, and worked himself back toward a full berserker rage.
Ballet stood to one side, delivering quick, precise punches to the eyes of the heads attempting to untangle the knot.
“I’ve figured out the proper tactic against this monster, Dad!”
“And what’s that supposed to be?” Quarterer rasped, slowly running out of breath after all the cursing and anatomically improbable threats. At the last instant, he ducked and allowed the hydra’s thick tail to fan the sweat from his forehead.
“We beat it to death!”
“Finally, a tictactic I like!” Quarterer agreed enthusiastically, hurling himself onto the thrashing hydra’s back.
Eight heads hissed furiously and redoubled their efforts to break free.
A moment later, a discordant note entered the eight-part hissing. Instead of one furious “Sssss!” there came a tearful “Tshhhhh!”
Ballet had leaped into the air and struck one head beneath the jaw with a spinning kick, knocking several sharp teeth loose. The unfortunate head nearly bit off its own tongue with the teeth that remained.
Ballet pushed off, using another head’s eye as a handhold, and twisted his way out of the gigantic knot.
The arena walls had been built sturdily. They had to be, considering the battles they were intended to contain. The original megalomaniacal plans had never quite materialized, but the structure still had to withstand considerable punishment.
At last, however, the section surrounding the wedged head lost its structural integrity. With one mighty pull, the hydra tore itself free, demolishing part of the wall, causing panic in the adjacent stands, and extracting fresh tears from the arena’s owner.
Quarterer was preparing to strangle the creature one neck at a time when he lost his footing and fell. He rolled between its thick, stumpy legs and regained his feet, then set off after the hydra, which was already pursuing Ballet as he zigzagged across the arena.
After several strides, Quarterer changed tactics. He began circling the arena, gathering speed and hoping to approach the sound barrier. Ballet recognized the plan and maneuvered the hydra toward the point where his father would complete the circuit.
The beast was not built for running, and the unconscious ninth head complicated matters by flailing behind it and repeatedly falling beneath its feet. The hydra narrowly avoided tripping over its own head, but then its left foreleg landed in the spot where the sick lion had suffered its humiliating accident. The foot slipped. As the creature lost its balance, its right hind leg came down on the ninth head.
The hydra was already beginning to topple when the elder barbarian reached maximum ramming speed, launched himself through the air, and drove the crown of his head into its ribs. Several bones broke, and the entire beast was hurled sideways.
The tangled mass of heads and necks crashed into an iron grating. With the assistance of several balletic maneuvers, Ballet swiftly arranged them into a living tableau entitled “A Hydra Walks into a Bar.”
All the heads participated in this work of art except the ninth. Roaring triumphantly, Quarterer tore it off at the base of the neck and wielded it as a war flail. He swung the improvised weapon in wide arcs, battering the still-living heads and anything else within reach—which nearly included his son.
His victorious howl vanished beneath the thunderous cheering of the crowd.
***
Meanwhile, in his private box, the ruined Stadiumislavix sobbed bitterly.
This puzzled the royal chancellor, who had come on the king’s behalf to congratulate him on the magnificent performance and convey His Majesty’s wishes. The mighty ruler desired to grant the brave barbarians an audience.
By then, the arena had become relatively calm. Beating the motionless body with its own heavy head had exhausted Quarterer, so he accepted his son’s suggestion that he might have done enough.
***
An hour later, both barbarians had recovered all their belongings and money, including the reward they had been promised.
“Ye are warriors of truly mighty strength and courage, as is plain to every soul assembled here. Yet there is one matter that my heaven-crowned head cannot comprehend. How came two warriors of such celebrated renown to fight in the arena, when that dubious privilege is reserved solely for slaves and condemned criminals?”
“It was a misunderstanding, Your Majesty,” Ballet began. “After a long pursuit, we eliminated a gang that had been attacking merchant caravans bound for your city. Once we arrived, the Merchants’ Guild paid us the promised reward. After a brief discussion…”
Ballet shot his father a quick glance.
“…we decided to deposit it in a bank. Unfortunately, Father was dissatisfied with the security arrangements at the financial institution in question and began theorizing about how easily someone might rob it. That led to a misunderstanding we were never given an opportunity to explain.”
***
A few hours later, two generations of the famous barbarian Clan Punch-his-face were making their way around the marketplace, hauling even more gold and silver, courtesy of the delighted king. They were searching for riding animals capable of bearing their considerable weight. They needed three: one for each barbarian and one for the treasure. Quarterer, whoever, argued that they should take four in case he’ll need a snack later.
“Your stupid ideas got us into a fine mess,” Quarterer grumbled. “In the end, we still had to solve everything with good old-fashioned brute force. But that was one hell of a fight, eh?”
“Mm,” Ballet contributed.
“All that nonsense about banks, surrendering, and running away…”
“…isn’t right for barbarians,” Ballet finished gloomily when his father remained silent for an unusually long time. “You’ve said that several times already.”
Quarterer did not answer. He was staring wide-eyed at something ahead of them.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Uh, that running away…”
“What about it?”
“Sometimes even a barbarian has to do it, son. Your mother’s charging this way, and judging by the look on her face, I’d say she’s already heard about our minor banking misunderstanding. So… run. RUN!”