Purpose!”
“I'm sorry. It's just unusual that he would trust his only desirable daughter with two lousy escorts.”
“The king knows that I am more than capable of handling any situation that occurs. For example, the barbarians you angered have already gathered reinforcements and are hiding outside this stable as we speak, preparing to ambush us. And yet I remain absolutely confident of my ability to defeat them.”
Randall's eyes widened, and he glanced furtively outside the stable. No sign of them.
“They're hiding around the corner,” said Sir William. “I expect that they'll attack a few seconds after we exit.”
“You're, uh, not going to take this opportunity to test me on my combat skills, are you?” asked Randall.
“No.”
“Thank you very much.”
The stable valet returned with their mounts. Sir William climbed upon Crunch, the largest, fastest stallion in the king's army. Randall climbed upon Thud, a sieve-brained horse that usually just stood around sweating.
“You're, uh, going first, aren't you?” asked Randall.
“Yes.”
“Thank you very much.”
Crunch let out a mighty whinny as Sir William rode him out of the stable. Randall eased Thud forward a few steps into the doorway, but didn't see any reason to overexert the poor animal for the time being.
Ten barbarians rushed out from around the corner of the stable, all of them carrying various implements of skin-puncturing. Sir William threw his sword, smacking one of them in the forehead with the handle. That barbarian dropped his axe, which was promptly stepped on by the barbarian directly behind him. That barbarian howled in pain and threw his arms out to keep from falling, accidentally stabbing the barbarians on each side of him with the pair of daggers he'd been carrying. This caused those two barbarians to shriek in unison, startling the barbarian in the back of the group and causing him to drop the Stone of Vaporization, which the other barbarians had told him to be very, very careful with. As it struck the ground, the stone let out a flash of light with a rather anticlimactic fizzle sound, instantly disintegrating all nine of the barbarians in front of it.
“Uhhhhh...” said the last barbarian.
“Please leave,” Sir William requested.
The barbarian hesitated. “Can I take stone? It rented.”
“Go ahead.”
The barbarian picked up the Stone of Vaporization, then ran off as fast as he could. But his speed lessened his accuracy, and he tripped over an inconveniently placed patch of dust. He dropped the stone, vaporizing himself.
“There's a lesson to be learned here,” announced Sir William. “Whenever possible, fight stupid enemies.”
“I'll do that,” said Randall, as they began to ride their horses back to the castle.
Chapter 2
Getting Into the Plot
RANDALL'S departure at sunrise was slightly delayed by an unforeseen plunge into quicksand. He'd taken this particular route on his morning jog/stagger a couple times before, but this time vandals had changed the “Quicksand” sign to “No Quicksand Here.” Which is how he ended up waist-deep, sinking fast, and screaming for his life.
“Heeeeeeelp!” he shouted for what seemed like the hundredth time but was actually the ninety-seventh. He was a good two miles from the castle, so it was unlikely that anybody would hear him, but he was a strong believer in keeping busy.
“Heeeeeeelp! Hee—”
He cut off his scream as a kiriki stepped out of the woods. A kiriki was a cross between a wild boar, a dragon, and a cow, with a boar's size and temperament, a dragon's scales and ability to breathe fire, and a cow's desire to chew cud. These animals were the scourge of the area. Ferocious man-eaters, with long, brutally sharp teeth to assist in eating the aforementioned man. Basically, it was the kind of creature that provided a serious distraction from sinking in quicksand.
“Go away!” cried Randall. “Shoo! Scat! Skedaddle!”
The kiriki neither shooed, scatted, nor skedaddled. It licked its lips and walked up to the edge of the quicksand.
“Nice kiriki,” said Randall, in a babyish voice that implied a couple dozen I.Q. points had been pulverized into oblivion. “Nice, sweet, non-hostile kiriki! You're a good boy, aren't you? Yes you are! Yes you are! You're not going to open your mouth and sizzle the flesh right off my skull, are you? No you're not! No you're not! Because you're a
The niiiiice kiriki opened its mouth.
Randall cringed.
The kiriki sneezed, sending out a burst of flame that ignited the sleeve on Randall's left arm. He dunked it beneath the surface of the quicksand, extinguishing the fire. And, unfortunately, trapping his arm in the muck.
“Bad kiriki! Baaaaad kiriki!”
The kiriki opened its mouth again.
The blood drained from Randall's face and exited his body in the form of another liquid.
The kiriki glared at him for a moment, then turned around and began to walk away. Randall breathed a sigh of relief, which was then replaced by a jolt of panic as he remembered that he was now up to his upper respiratory area in the quicksand. But he didn't dare shout for help with the kiriki so close by. The rather annoying, high- pitched, nasal-sounding Voice of Reason told him he was dead meat.
Then, as he watched, the kiriki picked up a large fallen branch in its mouth, turned around, and returned to the edge of the quicksand, holding the branch out for Randall to grab.
“I'll be gosh-darned to heck,” Randall remarked, taking hold of the branch with his free hand. The kiriki backed up, slowly but surely pulling Randall out of the quicksand onto solid ground.
Randall got to his feet, wiping some of the gunk off his shirt. The kiriki stood there, regarding him closely.
“You're not such a bad guy after all,” Randall told it.
The kiriki pounced, knocking Randall onto his back. Its cud-soaked jaws snapped at Randall's face as he desperately tried to push it away. Its claws scraped violently against his chest, causing Randall to gasp with pain. The creature snarled and growled as it viciously attacked him.
Then, with a burst of strength, Randall threw up both of his hands, slamming them against the underside of the kiriki's belly. It turned its head as flames jettisoned from its mouth, and the creature began to stagger away, coughing and choking.
Right into the quicksand.
As it realized it was caught in the muck, the kiriki began yelping in terror. Randall lay on the ground and meditated about how much his body was hurting. The yelping turned to a puppyish whimpering as the kiriki rapidly sank to its torso.
Randall looked over at it, and stared into its pleading eyes. This didn't particularly please him, because he was still supremely ticked off at the rotten little creature and didn't want to feel sorry for it.
“I'm sort of obligated to save you, aren't I?” Randall wondered aloud. “As much as I'd like to just let you sink.”
The kiriki howled in fright.
“Fine. I'll save you, then we'll be even.”
He picked up the same branch the kiriki had used to pull him out and extended it toward the creature. It latched its jaws tightly around the branch, and Randall, straining a bit with the effort, pulled it out of the quicksand.
The kiriki dropped onto its side and lay there, panting. Randall hesitated, then slowly began to approach it. The kiriki turned and looked at him gratefully.
“I have to leave now,” Randall told it. “Sir William is already going to rearrange my body so that my head never sees sunlight again.”
