ScaleGuard 3: I Accidentally Started a Communist Revolution in Another World Read online

  I grinned at him and then shoveled more salad into my gob.

  *

  Radu left the temple that night to return to the foxfolk village in the forest. Apparently he only traveled to and from Mebdurb at night because the village children tended to throw rocks at him, which went a long way to explaining his surly attitude. The following morning, Listro gave me some good news.

  “One of the villagers was out trading in Lanowyle, and he encountered the adventurers you described,” Listro explained over breakfast. “I sent a messenger pigeon to the village temple immediately, and received word just a few moments ago that they are on their way here.”

  “Oh thank fuck,” I said, relaxing. Listro was okay enough company, but I’d really grown to miss my friends in the ScaleGuard. “Any idea of how long it’ll take them to arrive?”

  “On foot? The journey from Mebdurb to Lanowyle is usually about a day.”

  So that’s how I ended up spending the day in Mebdurb.

  Listro returned my equipment to me, so I was walking around in my sleeveless leather armor with the white fur collar, showing off my arms which had become, if I do say so myself, attractively muscular in my months adventuring in Crucible. Were the villagers impressed? I mean, probably not by my arms. Many were fieldhands with greater muscles than I. But the two axes that hung on my side definitely signaled me as someone you didn’t want to start trouble with.

  Mebdurb was really more of a county, going by the definitions I’d been raised with. Sure, there was a central little village area with a market and some homes and the temple overlooking it from a riverside hill. But most of Mebdurb was farmland. If I stood on the edge of the little township area and looked out across the rolling fields, I could see more buildings in the distance which were also considered part of Mebdurb.

  From how Listro explained it, each farm was essentially its own little subcommunity in the greater village community. Multiple families lived on each farm, in a cluster of buildings surrounded by fields of vegetation. Each little farm community had an elder who organized them and regularly sent people to sell food at the village market, plus deliver taxes to Mebdurb’s alderman, a softspoken man with a salt-and-pepper beard named Carwyn.

  I met a lot of the townsfolk that day. Branwyn was Carwyn’s daughter who assisted her father in his clerical duties and seemed much bolder and brasher than the alderman. Then there was the butcher, Hevnir, who was so impressed to learn that I was an adventurer that he challenged me immediately to a drinking contest, which I politely declined. Had I accepted, the booze would have been provided by Lach, an older gentleman who ran Mebdurb’s tavern, creatively named Mebdurb Tavern.

  Lowri was an old woman and the town gossip, who after meeting me took me aside and in a low voice warned me not to make any moves on Jerald’s daughter Fanri up on the farm to the North, as she was romantically entangled with both Macsen and Roderick, who were ever competing with one another to be the first in her heart and would take a dim view of any new suitors. I had no idea who any of these people she was talking about were, but I respected that she probably knew what was up.

  “My son wants to be an adventurer,” Hevnir told me in the tavern as the sun sank below the horizon. “Arm wrestle me, at least. Let his old man get to brag about beating the adventurer at something!”

  I raised an eyebrow and took a sip of the truly awful ale they served here. “You’re like twice my size,” I pointed out.

  Hevnir grinned. “You could still win. ‘Course there’s always that drinking contest.”

  “Absolutely not. I’m leaving tomorrow and I am not travelling with a hangover.” I looked the beast of a man up and down. “Also, again, you’re twice my size.”

  “Perhaps you would have more muscle if you didn’t give most of your meats to your pet there,” he pointed out.

  I tossed a piece of pork to Riverjaw under the table. The croc snapped it up happily. “I have no idea what you mean by that.”

  The butcher said nothing and just smiled at me, challenge in his eyes.

  I sighed. “Tell you what, you can tell your son that I turned out to be a total wimp.”

  He laughed. “Good! Lach! Another round for my friend here!”

  “Enjoying Mebdurb, then?” a middle aged woman asked, sitting down at our table. I knew I’d been introduced to her earlier, but she had been just one of many people I’d been introduced to and I struggled to remember her name.

  “Of course he is, Tesni!” Hevnir told her. “He and his big lizard.”

  Oh thank god her name was Tesni.

  “Crocodile,” I said. “Riverjaw is a crocodile.”

  Tesni looked under the table. “He’s… trained, yes?”

  “No,” I told her. “But he knows his manners.”

  She frowned and scooched her chair a little bit away from Riverjaw. The croc did not seem to care.

  “So you don’t plan to stay in Mebdurb much longer?” Tesni asked after a moment.

  I shrugged. “We gotta go where there’s jobs. We’ll probably head down to Basilar. Maybe Kroll. Though I kind of want to visit the foxfolk village before I go.”

  “Be careful with that,” Hevnir warned. “The foxfolk carry a lot of diseases.”

  “They do?” I asked, trying to hide a smirk. “You know one of my party members is a foxfolk, and I haven’t caught anything from her.”

  “One of your…” His eyes widened. “And she’ll be visiting the village tomorrow?”

  I nodded and raised an eyebrow. Hevnir had the good grace to look embarrassed.

  “You said ‘she?’” Tesni asked. “Your party has a woman in it?”

  “Women,” I corrected her. “I’m actually the only guy.”

  Tesni’s eyes widened and her face turned red. Hevnir burst out laughing. “Looks like you’ve got some competition for the strapping young lad, Tes!”

  My face burned. Prior to dying on Earth and being transported to Crucible, I had been a nerd-ass loser. Being described as a “strapping young lad” just felt… wrong somehow.

  Also if that was what Tesni was interested in, I hadn’t picked up those signals at all. Dimly I wondered how many other such signals I’d failed to pick up on in my life. Lives? I’d been tossed into Crucible fully formed and mostly the same person I’d been on Earth, so I wasn’t sure if this was my second life or still counted as my first. Maybe I’d ask Sobek if I ever saw him again.

  I gulped down the rest of the shitty ale. Then I ordered more.

  The rest of the night passed by in a sort of wibbly-wobbly blur. The floors and walls tilted this way and that as I explained to Hevnir and Tesni and anyone else who would listen all about my thoughts on priests and temples and stuff.

  “So then I was all ‘well why don’t farmers just spend a month levelling as priests, so’s they can get the food spell?’ And they were all ‘well I never thought of that!’”

  “Huh,” Tesni said. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. It would make growing food easier.” The other tavern patrons nodded in agreement.

  “And it would econoco-- ecumenic-- ecoco… good money stuff!” I slammed a hand on the table. “No more hungry! Bye bye scarcity!”

  “We wouldn’t need to worry about going hungry if we did that!” one of the farmers exclaimed.

  “Right, and then no more robbing foxeses!” I declared.

  The patrons glanced uncomfortably at each other. A few looked guilty. “They’re just foxfolk,” one grumbled.

  “Ooooh no,” I said, shaking my head. “I know a foxfolk lady. And she’s a badass and she stabs monsters and she fucks orcs!” I hiccuped. “Kono’s my best friend. And Lyra’s my best friend too. Also Vee. They’re all my best friends. And I won’t hear no mean things said about my best friends!”

  I tried to wag my finger at the guy. Weirdly, even though I was certain I was only holding out one finger, I could clearly see three.

  “Alright, Gids,” Tesni said with a smile. “I think you may have had too muc
h to drink.”

  Hevnir laughed. “No wonder you wouldn’t accept my drinking challenge!”

  Tesni helped me to my feet and held me up as I stumbled out of the tavern. She walked me to the temple and settled me into the bed.

  For a moment, she lingered over me, her face inches from mine. In my inebriated state, I was certain that she was either going to kiss me or unhinge her jaw and swallow me whole. Possibly both. But at least Riverjaw had followed us and I could count on my buddy to eat anyone who ate me. I would be avenged.

  Then Tesni drew her face away. “You must be a handful for those adventurer girls,” she chuckled. “Rest well, Gids.”

  “OK,” I mumbled closing my eyes. “Nighty night…”

  And then I fell asleep.

  III

  The Lord’s Men

  I woke up the next morning with a splitting headache and cursed the fact that coffee hadn’t been discovered in this world. Or maybe it had, but just in some other part of it and not in Fantasy Europe. Either way, I was tragically bereft of that hot bean juice as I tried to deal with my hangover.

  The headache was still pounding after I had some fruits for breakfast and then stepped out of the temple and into the far-too-bright day. It continued to plague me as I stumbled down the hill and into town, and so it took me a few minutes to figure what the loud people in the center of Mebdurb were going on about.

  “Look,” a well-dressed man on horseback was saying, “it’s very simple. You pay your taxes, and you get to keep living well. You don’t pay your taxes, and we take what little you have until we’re all even up. Got it?”

  The man standing in front of Horseback Boy nodded, eyes wide. It took me a second to remember that he was Carwyn, the village alderman. It took me a few more seconds to realize that there were two more well-dressed men on horseback present, and that one of them was holding Carwyn’s daughter.

  “I do have the taxes, sir!” Carwyn sputtered. “Or, I will! In a few days!”

  “Tsk, tsk, Carwyn,” the man said. “They were due yesterday. Have you been lax in your duties collecting them?”

  “N-no, sir! People need time to get them together, is all!”

  “They’ve had four months, Carwyn,” the man said. “Oh well; it’s a shame. I suppose that Branwyn here will just have to work off your debt in the guard barracks for the next month, no?”

  Branwyn squirmed and tried to scream, but the man who held her kept a hand clamped over her mouth. His grip was too tight for her to escape.

  There were a number of other villagers around, watching the events unfold with their breaths held. I walked up to Tesni. “What’s happening?” I asked.

  “Taxes were short,” Tesni replied in a hushed voice. “That’s Idilis, the captain of Lord Welbrig’s guard. He’s authorized to take folk as workers to make up the difference if taxes are short.”

  I looked at the men holding Branwyn. One was clearly leering at her. Carwyn was begging Captain Idilis to please give him another chance and let his daughter go, but the guard captain didn’t seem interested.

  “‘Workers,’ you say.”

  Tesni didn’t reply. She didn’t need to. The sickened and fearful look on her face said everything.

  I felt a growl rise up in my throat, and stamped it down. Eyes locked on the guard captain, I strode forward.

  “The fuck do you think you’re doing with her?” I asked, somehow managing to project my voice firmly even through the hangover. A part of me wondered just what the hell I thought I was doing walking into trouble like this. The rest of me was too pissed off to give a damn.

  “Hm?” Captain Idilis turned his attention to me. “Who are you?”

  “Oh, no one special,” I said with a grin, thankful that I’d put on my gear and brought my weapons with me this morning. I’d been expecting to meet with the rest of the ScaleGuard and get out of here, after all. “Just a passing adventurer, is all.”

  Idilis laughed. “An adventurer? Trust me, friend, these dirt-poor peasants couldn’t afford your help, not that they need it anyway. They know the law and they know what happens when taxes come up short.” His eyes flickered toward Branwyn, still struggling in the other guard’s grasp. “Since the village can’t work hard enough to pay its debts, the girl will work for them. It’s just business.”

  I drew the axes from my belt. “Just business, got it,” I said. “This isn’t. It’s pleasure.” And then I threw an ax at him.

  He dodged out of the way, his eyes wide. “How dare you--!” he began, but then I flicked my wrist and the ax came spinning back. Fortunately for him, it whizzed right past his face, only nicking his ear and cheek, before the handle settled into my hand again.

  Idilis brought his hand up to his face and felt at the blood flowing from the slash. He brought his fingers in front of his eyes and stared at them for a second, then scowled and turned to his buddy holding Branwyn hostage. “Kill her.”

  “Nah,” I said as the other knight fumbled for his sword. Branwyn screamed. No one heard the *pop!*

  Riverjaw appeared right on top of the horse that held Branwyn and the knight. The poor beast whinnied in terror as it felt a massive reptilian thrash about on its ass, while the knight screamed as some of the strongest jaws in nature clamped down on his arm. Riverjaw thrashed some more, falling off the horse and dragging the knight with him. Branwyn was thrown to the ground and the horse jumped away, galloping off in a desperate bid to get away from all this madness.

  I rushed past Idilis and helped Branwyn to her feet as Riverjaw slammed the screaming knight repeatedly into the dirt. “Are you OK?” I asked.

  She stared up at me with wide eyes. “I think?” she said. “What just happened?”

  Before I could answer, Idilis cried out: “A deathdrake!”

  Oh. Fuck.

  I turned to see him pointing at me with a wild expression. “You must be the necromancer that paladin was hunting!” he shrieked. “Kill him! Before he summons more of those beasts!”

  “So Branwyn,” I said, gripping my axes and assuming a combat stance. “You should probably take your dad and run.”

  “Um, right.” She rushed off. The knight who was neither having his bones broken by a crocodile nor named Idilis came charging at me, intent on either running me down with his horse or skewering me with his sword.

  *Pop!*

  Another crocodile appeared right above him, crashing down into the knight and bringing him off his horse. I ran forward, tossing the ax in my left hand to my right so that it was holding both. Then I grabbed the horse’s reins and jumped onto it.

  “Shush,” I told the animal, patting its neck. I projected calm into it and felt my Animal Empathy Ability do its job. “It’s alright, bud.”

  The horse, who in normal circumstances would probably not be willing to listen to someone who had just hopped onto it immediately after a crocodile appeared on its back and dragged its rider off, calmed and let me take the lead. I turned it to face Idilis.

  The captain’s mouth hung open as he stared at me. Even his horse seemed nervous. I grinned and snapped my fingers, and Riverjaw let go of his knight while the other crocodile vanished. The two knights, bloody and broken, stumbled shakily and painfully to their feet. The one Riverjaw had been abusing nearly collapsed, his arm hanging limply at his side, but his fellow managed to hold him up.

  “So I’m curious,” I said. “How does it feel to be powerless? How does it feel being the one getting bullied for once?”

  Idilis managed to close his mouth, and fury blazed in his eyes. “Lord Welbrig will hear of this, boy,” he growled. “Don’t think this will go unpunished.”

  He turned his horse and galloped away. The other two knights looked around helplessly, then limped off after him.

  Sighing, I turned back to look at the villagers, and I noticed then that, at some point during my scuffle, three new spectators had joined them: an elf in heavy armor, a human in dark robes and glasses, and a foxgirl with a bare midriff. r />
  “Oh.” I waved at them and gave a weak smile. “Hey guys.”

  “Um, Gids?” Lyra asked. “What did you just do?”

  *

  So I may have acted without thinking of the consequences. The villagers made that pretty clear over the course of the next hour.

  “You… attacked Lord Welbrig’s men?” Listro asked, eyes wide and face blank. “You physically attacked them?”

  “He absolutely did!” laughed Hevnir. “And then he stole one of their horses! It was amazing!”

  “That’s not the word I would use…” muttered Carwyn.

  “He saved me!” Branwyn told him.

  “I know,” said the alderman, “and I’m grateful. But… what will Captain Idilis and Lord Welbrig do in response?”

  That right there was the golden question that I had failed to consider, and it was the question that stopped everyone in their tracks.

  We were assembled in the temple’s main hall. Even with it being the largest building in Mebdurb, it still could barely contain everyone who’d shuffled in. The town meeting was stuffy and claustrophobic, and many of the eyes of the townsfolk were on me.

  I grinned sheepishly. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t really think.”

  “No shit,” Kono said. “We were done. We were going to leave this shitty kingdom as soon as we collected you, and instead you decided to pull this crap?”

  “Now, lay off him fox,” Hevnir said. “And this isn’t a shitty kingdom.”

  Kono’s eyes flashed at him. “Oh sorry,” she said. “Are you not used to foxfolk not bowing their heads and walking away from you, sir? Should I bare my back for ten lashings?”

  Hevnir’s face went purple, and Listro stepped in. “No lashings,” he said. “That hasn’t been the law for nearly a decade now.”

  I blinked. “That was a law?”

  “Ten lashings for foxfolk who talk back to humans,” Kono said, eyes focused on Hevnir. “Feeling nostalgic for that, big man?”

  He sputtered, then pointed angrily at her. “Why is she even here!?”

  “She’s part of my party,” I said. “She’s my friend. Don’t be a dick, Hev.”