Two
haggard weather beaten villagers stood beneath the tavern awning to escape the
glare of the noonday sun and argued loudly about, which village maiden had the
lustiest bosom. They swayed gently back and forth with mugs of cheap liquor in
their hands trying their best to keep their inebriated bodies upright, but the
pair’s friendly bickering immediately ceased upon sight of a familiar yet
sinister silhouette in the distance. The pair silently watched as the hunchback
lumbered into the village on his donkey being careful to remain unnoticed by the
hulking disfigured lout. They observed with curiosity as the hunchback nailed a
piece of parchment to one of the common hall doors, contributing to the thick layer
of parchment, which already adorned it, and then followed the creature with
their eyes as he rode out of the village toward the tower, which loomed
oppressively over the horizon.
The
two men waited, and when they were satisfied the hunchback would not return,
they staggered up to the common hall door’s to see what the fiend had posted. Most
of the town’s folk never bother with the parchments nailed to the door, ‘they was
covered with rich men’s letters,’ and most figured it wasn’t worth the bother to
decipher them. The town crier was a better source of information anyway. But,
this wasn’t the usual circumstance. The villagers rarely saw the hunchback from
the tower post anything on the common hall doors, at least not while the sun
was still shining high in the sky.
“What’s
it say?”
“Can’t
you read?”
“You
can’t read neither.”
“I’s
can read just fine thank ya.”
“Proves
it. What them curly letters say?” the man said pointing to the parchment.
“They
says,” the man said with a confident smile. “Five gold pieces to a good able
bodied fellow who’s wants to help at the keep for one day.”
“Five
gold pieces for one day of work,” the man whistled. “Them letters really spell
that?”
“Yep,
them’s what they says.” The man however could only confidently recognize the
word for ‘work’ and the word for ‘gold,’ which was all he thought a man really
needed to know.
“I’ll
take that gimp up on his offer. I could use five gold pieces.”
“Well
than you’s as empty headed as you’s ugly. Nobody go up to the keep, and ifs they
do, they don’t come back,” the
peasant said adding some menace to the end of his warning by running an
invisible knife across his throat.
“You’s
just a yellow coward, who believes anything those old crazy coots say at the
tavern. I don’t believes anything that come out of those geezers mouths.”
“I’m not a coward,” the other
peasant protested.
“Then
come with me and prove it. Two and a half gold pieces is still worth it for
half the work.”
“I’d
go, but I gots things to do.”
“Like
what?”
“I
just got stuff to do. You’re not my keeper.”
“Good.
More money for me. I wouldn’t want to share that kind of money with you anyway.”
The
braver villager tore down the parchment, rolled it up, shoved it into the waist
of his mead stained pants, and took off for the tower keep thinking of what he
would do with his five gold pieces all along the way.
The
peasant emboldened by alcohol knocked loudly on the tower’s great door but
there was no answer. The time stretched on with no sign of anyone and he was
beginning to think about leaving when Hump answered the door with his great axe
in hand. The peasant took a few steps back, summoned his remaining drunken
courage and produced the now wrinkled parchment from his trousers.
“I’ve
come about the work sir,” he said meekly.
Hump
looked the peasant up and down, and then moved his gaze to behind the man to
scour the area for others who might be lying in wait to ambush him. When he was
satisfied there was no immediate threat, he pushed the door open fully and
muttered in a soft gruff tone “Come this way.”
The
sobering peasant nervously trailed Hump through a winding maze of dark
corridors and locked doors to find Dark Francis sequestered in his chamber absorbed
in study. The gray haired wizard sat hunched over a large wooden table, which
supported a large array of books, scrolls and jars filled indiscernible
contents, carefully counting off drops as they fell from a long glass pipette
into a small cast iron cauldron held aloft above a candle flame, which licked
at its soot blacked bottom.
“53…
54… 55,” Dark Francis counted.
Upon
the utterance of fifty-five, an extra drop escaped from the long glass tube,
fell into the cauldron and caused a large multi-colored cloud to explode up
into Dark Francis’s face, the result of which turned patches of his beard a
bright iridescent purple. The wizard coughed, sputtered, and collapsed onto the
stone floor motionless. After several moments passed, he regained consciousness
and noticed the pair for the first time.
“Oh,
I didn’t see you there. Please, come in,” Dark Francis said making his way to
his feet and brushing himself off. “Are you here for the job? Fantastic. Let me
show you where you’ll be working.”
The
villager found himself at the mouth of a cavern closed off by an enormous
barred gate and secured by an iron lock the size of a man’s head. The cavern
opened up below the tower at the end of a valley and looked to the poor man
like the tower’s wicked tooth filled mouth waiting to swallow him whole. He then
began seriously scrutinize his life’s choice.
“It’s
a very simple job I assure you,” Dark Francis said with his arm around the
quaking peasant, half to reassure him and half to keep him from running.
“All
you need to do is clean out her cave and replace the straw bedding. It should
only take the rest of the day to do a proper job, and if you do well, you can return
each month to perform the task.”
“What
exactly…” stuttered the peasant, but Dark Francis interrupted.
“Don’t
worry,” Dark Francis said with what he thought was a comforting tone. “She’s as
gentle as a lamb, unfortunately. She’s just for show now I guess, but she’s
very shy, which is more than a little annoying. I mean what is the point in having one if you can’t show it off occasionally.
You know what I mean?”
“I…
guess… so… sir,” stuttered the peasant.
“Oh,
another thing. To make sure she
doesn’t bother you, You need to smear the contents of that barrel all over you.
If you stay in there long enough without it on, she’ll get comfortable enough
to come out and then she’ll never leave you alone. This will make sure she
stays away so you can work.”
The
peasant removed the lid from the barrel and immediately jerked a hand up to his
face to cover his nose.
“It’s
just some rotten fish guts. She hates the smell. Don’t worry you can’t put too
much on. Just apply generously, and you won’t even know she’s there,” Dark
Francis said while he unlocked the gate.
The
peasant hesitated at the barrel with his hand still clamped firmly over his
nose frantically contemplating whether he could out run the hunchback if he wanted
to make a hasty retreat.
“Hump
why don’t you give the man a hand,” Dark Francis said observing the peasant’s
reluctance.
Hump
grabbed the man by the shirt and trousers, and lifted the man with ease head
first down into the barrel until only the man’s legs were sticking out above
the rim kicking wildly at the air. A few seconds later, Hump withdrew the man,
who gasped and sputtered frantically trying to expel fish ooze from his nasal
passages.
“There
you are my good fellow. Now you’re all set. I’ll be back to check on your
progress in a few hours,” Dark Francis said before he and Hump departed for the
tower.
“Five
gold pieces, five gold pieces, five gold pieces,” the man said repeatedly as if
it were a protective spell meant to fend off the odor.
The
peasant found a wheelbarrow, shovel, pitchfork and broom propped up on one side
of the gate. He stacked the tools inside the barrow and crouched down behind it
to use as a shield to protect himself from whatever unspeakable horror he might
find inside. The villager wheeled everything cautiously into the fissure
expecting a huge one eyed giant to grab him the moment he entered to bite his
head off and roast his limbs, but he only found a large heap of dung and a
larger mound of compressed dirty straw both illuminated by the light that
filtered in from outside. The cavern continued farther than he could see in the
dim light, but from what he saw there was no monster, beast or animal within
the hollow waiting to gobble him up. He breathed a sigh of relief followed by a
gag caused by the muck that covered him. He vomited a bit into his mouth,
swallowed it back down and got to work.
First,
the peasant heaped the dirty straw onto the wheelbarrow, deposited it in the
forest and replaced it with fresh straw he found housed in a covered shelter nearby.
He then proceeded to dispose of the dung by making several trips loading the
excrement into the wheelbarrow and dumping it in the woods.
The
peasant mused that the dung smelled like a field of wild flowers compared to
the stink of the rotting fish guts that clung to his skin. He could even taste
it in the air with each shallow breath, so after a few unbearable hours of
sporadic dry heaving and retching, he marched off to a creek to wash off the sludge.
He normally reserved his bath for the end of each month, but this was a special
situation. After a thorough scrubbing, he sufficiently removed the smell from
his body and clothes, and returned to the cave to sweep.
The
man whistled happily to himself as he swept, thinking of the bounty he would
purchase with his new found wealth. He daydreamed of fine meals and mead, the
women who would flock to him and more importantly the envious men, who would
now fantasize about being in his shoes, tattered and holey as they were.
The
peasant was deep in his revelry, when he heard a noise behind him. The sound of
what he imagined to be rough scales sliding over rock. He turned only to see
nothing but empty space and shadows, so he told himself it was the sound of the
broom and reminded himself not to let his fancy run away with his sense. He continued
to sweep, but stopped cold at the feeling of hot breath beating out a slow
cadence on the back of his neck. It’s probably just my mind playing tricks on
me, he told himself. He closed his eyes took a few large deep breaths to try to
calm down and slowly turned around. When he opened his eyes, he was staring
into a pair of great shimmering eyes. A female dragon stood before him, her
flame colored eyes stared right back into the villagers framed by an aggressively
horned crown and rows of dagger like teeth, which protruded from her narrow
muzzle.
The
man stood frozen, a warm sensation sprouted from his groin and ran down his
legs to puddle on the floor, his hands clenched the handle of the broom so
tightly that it drove splinters into his hands, but he was scarcely aware of
these sensations. His full focus was squarely on the menacing looking beast in
front of him.
The
dragon let out a tinny puff of smoke from its flared nostrils before giving the
peasant a long slobbery lick from his chin to his forehead causing his hair to
stick straight up from the moist caress.
The
peasant opened his mouth to yell but found it replaced by the high-pitched
scream of a thirteen-year-old girl. The dragon startled by the sudden noise beat
a frantic retreat back into the cavern, and the peasant returning to his senses
turned without hesitation to make a hasty flight for the exit. He exploded through
the gate with a speed he had never known. The shrubbery and leaves were only a
blur in his periphery as he hurtled past Dark Francis and Hump and on into the
forest screaming hysterically the entire way.
The
peasant began to fade from sight amongst the foliage, and his scream became
faint by the time Dark Francis yelled after him “Are you coming back?!”
There
was no reply.
“That’s
unfortunate. I thought he was the one,” Dark Francis said sullenly. The dragon
now out of confinement rested its head on Dark Francis’s shoulder and began
nuzzling him affectionately while propagating a deep rumbling purr. “I wonder
what spooked him.”
Hump
just shrugged his massive shoulders and began to stroke the dragon’s long neck.
