Again,

  Lying on the ground again, a large arrow sticking out of his leg.

  “Don’t stand in the way,” he heard his lord say.

  “Sorry,” he replied, groaning and clutching the arrow like a betrayed pet.

  In the courtyard, the chaos was complete.

  Someone was definitely getting fired for not hiding the arrows properly—

  as they had daily drills for.

  ***

  The chamberlain entered the little hospital, a day later,

  where the messenger was eating a caramel apple.

  As was custom when people got shot by Reralt.

  Or hit by Reralt.

  Or used by Reralt to practice his ‘throw anything’ feat.

  (Which is not a feat. Anybody can throw anything they can lift.)

  “Fedeggs!” the chamberlain said in a firm voice.

  How can I be in trouble? Fedeggs thought.

  “Where’s our Lord?” The chamberlain demanded to know.

  “Your task was to ride with him,” he added.

  Fedeggs dramatically pointed at his wounded leg.

  “Yes, well, you know—in these kinds of emergencies, you are allowed to sip our lord’s healing potion,” the chamberlain warned immediately after.

  “Only emergencies. They do not grow on trees, you know.”

  “I must’ve forgotten while passing out,” Fedeggs muttered, not amused.

  “Here’s a potion. Your horse is packed. Go find him—before small-scale genocide is on our hands. You know how he gets when unsupervised.”

  “Ah, please don’t make me do that,” Fedeggs groaned, shoving his face into the pillow.

  “He’s probably upset entire tribes by now…”

  “Do I have to remind you of your contract?”

  The chamberlain held it up—already in hand, as if expected.

  “A divine contract, I might add.”

  Fedeggs stood up, legs still aching, muttering curses under his breath.

  “Stupid gods… tricked me… stupid Reralt…”

  “What!?” the chamberlain barked.

  “Lord! Stupid Lord,” Fedeggs corrected quickly.

  “Good. Don’t let him hear that,” the chamberlain said, already walking away.

  “It breaks the immersion.”

  ***

  A short hour later, Fedeggs was riding his trusty horse, Bill.

  Bill was a mare of nine, originally one of Reralt’s horses—

  but far too smart for him.

  She simply refused to go into danger.

  Which, in a lucky coincidence, made her the perfect horse for Fedeggs,

  who also disliked danger,

  but was usually too late in noticing it.

  “Good. Now where did the moronic idiot go?” Fedeggs muttered,

  Bill commented in her usual—and only—way: amused.

  “Still hear you,” came the chamberlain’s voice from the parapet.

  “Lord Idiot,” Fedeggs corrected flatly.

  He looked to the horizon.

  No smoke.

  No heavy flocks of carrion birds.

  Perhaps he was lucky.

  Perhaps Lord Hero had been knocked out by a tree branch or something.

  He decided to ride to Edofake,

  a small village close to the castle—

  in the same unfortunate direction Reralt had gone.

  ***

  In Edofake, Fedeggs rode slowly in, scanning for signs of carnage.

  There were none.

  The villagers were having a barbecue.

  Bill commented by turning directly toward the gathering.

  Fedeggs let her.

  She usually knew what she was doing.

  “Is there a birthday? A marriage? Something?” Fedeggs inquired.

  The villagers fell silent for a second—then noticed the royal seal on the bag slung at his side.

  “Are you in service of the moron?” one of them asked, the anger thick in his voice.

  “I am in service of our Lord of Givia,” Fedeggs replied smoothly.

  He was trained very well.

  The moment villagers stopped seeing Reralt as their divine ruler, they’d riot.

  And then Reralt would probably kill them all in a grand inquisition spree.

  “He killed our last cow,” the man growled, holding up one hand.

  Fedeggs sighed.

  Of all the damage that could’ve been, this one wasn’t that bad.

  He probably got a steak out of it.

  He paid the man.

  ***

  Pointed in the right direction, Fedeggs and Bill rode on.

  They followed a well-lit path along the edge of the forest.

  He knew now that he trailed Reralt by about a day.

  Reralt was not a fast rider—too easily distracted.

  So Fedeggs would probably catch up with him before too long.

  Then he got distracted.

  By a man with a bloodied head.

  Being supported by a woman in a bridal dress.

  “Ah, damn,” Fedeggs thought. “That does not look good.”

  “Milady, what happened?” he asked, discreetly covering the royal seal on his bag.

  “A simpleton came and attacked my newly wed husband,” she said, letting the tears fall freely. “Now he got a weird twitch in his eyes, will he ever be the same?”

  Only one possibility here, Fedeggs thought.

  He gave the woman three gold pieces—usually enough for healing services, a bit extra for emotional damages.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  Though in this case, he wasn’t sure anything could heal him.

  “You can go to this healing monastery,” Fedeggs said, handing her a voucher.

  “They will take care of you.”

  This was his job:

  Damage control for the chaos that was Reralt.

  He was practiced in it.

  Bound to it.

  Tricked into it—by some divine figure he still didn’t understand.

  “Is this the monastery up the pass? It no longer exists, good sir. The monks were obliterated by some force of nature,” the woman added. She had heard it from passersby.

  “Of course it was,” Fedeggs sighed.

  “No we have the house of healing,” he pointed in the direction. “We have a bulk agreement with them” Fedeggs bit his lip. The monks were very pleased with it, until they realised the sheer volume of victims Reralt made.

  He had come far this time.

  Too far, he worriedly thought, as he nudged Bill into a trot.

  Bill whimpered and shook her head. They were in for a long trip this time.

  ***

  Close to the pass where the monastery once stood, two large eagles sat on a rocky outcrop.

  They were deep in discussion—about whether one of them should carry some sort of ring into a volcano.

  “Well, no, of course not,” one said. “Ruins the whole story.”

  “But it would save us a whole battle… in about 1,200 pages,” the other offered.

  “But those little people smell terrible,” the first one complained. “You carry them.”

  “Ugh. It’s so far. And the cuisine there is awful.”

  “Screw it. Let them walk,” they both agreed.

  “Sorry, oh mightiest of eagles,” Fedeggs offered.

  “Ah no, another landlubber who wants something from us,” one eagle muttered. “Let’s pretend we can’t speak.”

  “I already heard you speaking,” Fedeggs pointed out.

  “Roehoe roehoe,” the eagle responded.

  “Shouldn’t we caw?” the other asked.

  “Cawing is for crows, no?”

  “Then what sound do we make? Surely not that of a pigeon.”

  “But I can do an awesome pigeon.”

  Fedeggs cleared his throat. “Do you know where the Lord of Givia is heading?”

  “Roehoe roehoe,” said one.

  “Caw caw caw,” said the other.

  And then they flew away.

  Leaving Fedeggs with the exact answer to why they were used as sparingly as possible.

  “Over the pass it is,” he muttered, patting Bill’s neck.

  “Sorry, Bill. Probably no apple tonight.”

  Bill wasn’t amused.

  She stepped forward anyway consoled by the thought of biting the Lord when she saw him.

  ***

  The pass was cold, as always.

  Fedeggs did not like it at all.

  Still, he trusted that if Bill kept walking, things would probably turn out fine.

  They rounded a sharp hairpin in the road.

  The sight made Fedeggs sigh.

  He massaged his temples, then dismounted.

  Someone had to bury the monks.

  They’d been clearly cut down by—

  Well, Fedeggs knew who.

  The Realm had better need Reralt soon.

  Otherwise, there’d be nothing left to save—

  killed by the very one the prophecy claimed would save them.

  He, Fedeggs, was forced to minimize the damage.

  By riding ahead.

  By making sure things like this didn’t happen.

  Bound by a divine contract...

  ...because he’d slightly misinterpreted the terms of a mortgage debt.

  “Only 250 years to go. Tops,” he muttered, patting the last shovel of dirt onto the big pile of monks.

  At least they were monks of the Financial Order.

  Rumoured to have no heart.

  So he didn’t feel too bad for them.

  ***

  The other end of the pass was warm.

  A gentle summer breeze greeted him.

  In the distance, a small city loomed.

  “Oh no,” Fedeggs thought at the sight.

  “Let’s hope he didn’t enter the city.”

  As he got closer, he saw no smoke.

  No fleeing citizens.

  Everyone who passed him greeted him politely—

  most of them humming a song about a little child defeating an ogre.

  He glanced at his saddlebags.

  The royal crest was still visible.

  “Perhaps it’s not that bad,” he whispered to Bill.

  “Maybe someone knocked him out. Or he got eaten by a dragon.”

  Bill whinnied her usual laugh.

  Yeah, right, she thought.

  Like we have that kind of luck lying around.

  ***

  Fedeggs stopped for a little child on the side of the road.

  Not out of pity—

  that particular ship had sailed, come back, and been decommissioned.

  It now stood in a museum that had filed for bankruptcy long ago.

  The blanket she was tugging looked familiar.

  The crest was Reralt’s.

  “Child,” he said, tossing her a silver coin.

  She looked at it the way only a child who hadn’t yet learned the value of money could.

  “How did you get that blanket?”

  She stared at him, a strange intelligence flickering in her eyes.

  Then looked at Bill, who sniffed her contentedly,

  shook her head,

  and wandered off to nibble some grass.

  “There,” the child said, pointing to a rocky pasture up ahead.

  “Shall I show you?”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?” Fedeggs thought, and followed her.

  ***

  Fedeggs woke up again, feeling the back of his head.

  A big lump was throbbing.

  His stomach hurt terribly,

  and his right eye wasn’t seeing fully.

  He sat up.

  Looked around.

  The little girl was gone.

  He limped back to Bill, who stood contentedly at the side of the road—

  an apple in her mouth.

  The saddlebags were open.

  Fedeggs looked through them.

  He’d been robbed.

  By a little girl.

  She had taken all the good food, but left the valuables.

  Fedeggs looked at Bill,

  who seemed to smile at him—

  mocking him.

  “You know what hurts the most, Bill?” Fedeggs asked as they started moving again.

  “Not that you let the girl knock me out.

  Not that she took the food.

  Not even that she gave you the apple.”

  He sighed.

  “It’s that you chose to wait…

  to eat that apple…

  until I was awake again.”

  Bill smacked loudly on the sweet apple.

  Then whinnied, as horses do.

  It was an excellent apple.

  (As performed—or rather, not performed—by Fedeggs)

  No.

  I am not singing.

  It's not in the contract.

  I carry gold. I soothe widows. I dodge arrows.

  I deal with villagers, monks, eagles,

  and livestock-related war crimes.

  But I do not rhyme.

  Nothing rhymes here.

  he, made me laugh.

  If the gods want a ballad,

  they can hire a bard.

  I have receipts to file.

  And possibly an ulcer.

  That is all.