The Berserker and the Pedant Page 2

  "Well then, fellow travelers. As you can see, or at least you will once we've stepped beyond the confines of this dungeon. The sun has begun to peek over the distant horizon, the birds shall soon be chirping, and there is a fine, crisp chill in the air. It's time to be off." Gurken was rather proud, this being more words than he often bothered to string together. So he was rather dismayed to find he lacked a proper audience; the dungeon was empty (if one can call an empty room a dungeon).

  On the floor were the chains with which he had bound the little thief. The manacles were open, lacking the former prisoner. And there on the wall were the fetters he used to bind Arthur, though one would be forgiven for confusing the fetters with the type of wall ornamentation used to organize various shovels, rakes, and other tools of considerable length that one used in the course of gardening. Seeing that there were not prisoners in this dungeon, Gurken left the way he had come.

  Standing in front of the dungeon (or, perhaps, the gardening shed), Gurken began to think. His mind set off in the direction of arriving at the opinion that Arthur and Pellonia had escaped. This laborious task was cut short in the nick of time.

  "I say there," Arthur interjected, "Gurken, good fellow! It's good to see you, let us be off, for the birds have begun to sing, and if you look yonder, you'll see the sun beginning to peek over the distant horizon."

  Arthur and Pellonia walked up to the gardening shed, crumbs from sweet cake about their attire, holding mugs of freshly brewed coffee, and stopped in front of Gurken.

  "I see that you are no longer bound," Gurken said, frowning, an expression to which he was most accustomed, "I begin to suspect that you've attempted an escape."

  "Escape? Come now, that's an interesting word," said Arthur, nervously gulping down the last mouthful of his sweet cake, beads of sweat forming on his brow. He tugged on the collar of his robe, as if to relieve heat and pressure building up from within.

  "Far from interesting," Gurken said, "I think it a most mundane word. A word so mundane, in fact, as to be deserving of an axe!" Gurken swung the axe off his back with his right hand and thrust it into the air in one expert motion. Ansuz, the dwarfen rune of insight and communication glowed bright orange and upside down on the head of the axe, the low hum of a flawless tuning fork vibrating Arthur's teeth and soul. Gurken's face went flush, "or even, perhaps, a shovel!" He pulled the shovel off his pack with his left hand, thrusting it towards Arthur. A few flecks of mud flicked off, splutting on Arthur's face.

  Arthur said something to the effect of "Oh no, not again." His words sounded far off to Gurken, as if spoken from the other end of a large chamber and echoing several times in order to arrive at his ears. Everything seemed to stretch and pull away and dim.

  "Gurken," said Pellonia, hardly seeming to notice, "if we were trying to escape, would we have brought you coffee and sweet cake?"

  Gurken was surprised at this statement. So surprised that his vision came rushing back in a great WHOOSH, and he was once again standing next to his friends, Pellonia and Arthur. He lowered the axe and the shovel. "Coffee and sweet cake? You brought coffee and sweet cake for me?"

  Pellonia looked at Arthur, then back at Gurken. "Well, to tell you the truth, we started here with a sweet cake for you. But, you see, the walk back was longer than I thought it would be, and I finished mine. Since I didn't have any more sweet cake, and I was still hungry, well, I ate it." Arthur flinched and began to invoke an ancient spell of protective power, though one would be forgiven for misunderstanding his incantations and elaborate gestures as cowering and covering his face with his hands.

  "Well, that's perfectly understandable," said Gurken.

  "It is?" asked Pellonia and Arthur together, and at once, with a look of relief on Arthurs face and amusement on Pellonia's.

  "Certainly," said Gurken, "I have often consumed more than I thought I would, but it is, as the elfs say, the thinking that is what counts."

  Out of reflex, Arthur began "I don't think that's precisely wha… whoof." Pellonia punched him in the gut, gave a disapproving look, and grinned at Gurken.

  "But then, where is this famous coffee I have been promised?" Gurken asked, smiling, an expression to which he was decidedly not accustomed, but which he found quite agreeable. "I see you have it in your hand, come pass it to me and let us be off. I brought sacks for us all to sleep in, which will protect us from the rain, too rough of terrain, and insects with a tendency to bite."

  "Well then," Arthur said, "I agree, let us be off."

  So it was that Gurken, Pellonia, and Arthur set off on their great adventure.

  The Mines of Moog were a week's travel, when one traveled by horse. Given that it would take some time to explore the mines, recover the orb, and return from the quest, the priests of Durstin were rather surprised when Gurken returned later, if one was being generous in their description, later that evening. The priests gave the most disagreeable of looks as Gurken dumped out of the sack, and onto the temple floor, pieces and parts of Arthur and Pellonia.

  "I have faith that," said Gurken to the priests, "when setting out on one's inaugural quest, one ought to be granted, as the elfs say, a mulligan."

  "My Gods," the priests said, making the holy sign of the star on their chests, "what happened?"

  "Well, you see," said Gurken, " we ran into these giant ants…"

  Episode Two

  The Berserker and the Sleep Sack

  "Anyone could have been killed by giant ants on the first day of their dumb quest," Pellonia remarked as she stomped through the tall, dry brush, smacking down the grass with a stick. "Stupid temple didn't have to send along babysitters."

  Gimnur Hammerfist, lead babysitter, walked ahead and fell into pace next to Gurken. Gimnur was armored in elven-forged steel, though it was nicked and dinged from heavy use in battle. A thick metal shield with dents that could only have been made from something as strong as the club of a frost giant was slung from his back, and he carried a large hammer weighted for smashing. A jagged spear tip protruded from the top of his helmet, presumably used to skewer his foes when rushing into a melee, for he did not seem the type to enjoy ornamentation for ornamentations sake. Gurken had offered to share a leather sleeping sack, only to be laughed at and told that real dwarves slept on cold, bare earth.

  "Gurken," Gimnur said, a friendly tone in his voice, "You're of the Stonebiter clan, eh? Tell me now, I always thought that name was a jest! A family of dwarves biting stones, the mere thought of it makes me chuckle." He chuckled, as if to accentuate his point. Gurken gritted his teeth. Now wouldn't be a good time to become wroth, having just left the city and there not being any true foes at hand. His traveling leathers had begun to chafe and Gimnur was disturbing his naturally good cheer.

  "A common misconception, Hammerfist. The name was earned by my forefather for an act committed to save our king. It's a glorious name! I bade you to respect it." Gurken raised one eyebrow and his leather gloves creaked with a sound of agony as he tensed his hands. Isa, the dwarfen rune of challenge and frustration, pulsed in a low blue light on the head of his axe.

  "Bade you?" Arthur whispered to Pellonia. "That's not even close! He's doing this deliberately!" Pellonia rolled her eyes. Arthur wore wizarding robes of traditional dark blue, silk, and smooth against the skin, highlighted with yellow mystical symbols embroidered along the hem. He did not wear a hat, as it was not required of his order and far too stereotypical, though out of necessity, he did wear spectacles. A sleep sack, provided by Gurken, was slung over his shoulder and stuffed with books, parchment and inks.

  Throkk, assistant babysitter, shambled behind Hammerfist. Throkk was tall as a tree, if the tree stood about eight feet tall. Bulky, thick black hair tufted through every opening in his clothing, and he smelled as though hygiene was not something weighing heavily upon his thoughts. He wore skins crafted from various beasts that he'd fought and slain. Whoever cleaned the skins had clearly not been overburdened with a sense of duty and took neither joy nor
pride in a job well done. The juicy bits had long since dried, mind you, but they still provided a certain intimidation to those whose sensibilities included not wanting to see the insides of flesh.

  "Throkk not scared of tiny Gurken dwarf and shiny axe. Throkk MASH!" Throkk glared at Gurken and mashed the ground with his club. He'd deftly crafted this club in the early hours of their long journey by uprooting a small tree and meditatively stripping the limbs and roots with his teeth as they walked. A small ant, no bigger than a breadcrumb, crawled from under his club where it had struck the ground.

  Pellonia and Arthur gasped, pointing at the ant. The ant considered them, and crawled away. Gimnur and Throkk laughed at their reaction. Not a polite chuckle, no - there was a bit of pointing and clearly erroneous statements such as "I can't breathe" and impolite implications as to their valor and worthiness for the quest.

  "You! You just made a BIG mistake," Pellonia taunted. "Gurken is going to become wroth. You know he's a templerager, right? You won't like him when he's wroth! Gurken's going to tear into you with his axe and… um, apparently, savage you with the sleep sack he is taking out of his pack. Then… brutally untying. And ruth…less…ly… climbing…in?" She looked at Gurken with a mixture of anger and confusion, sprinkled with a bit of wonder and a dash of concern.

  "Gurken!" she whispered, as Gimnur and Throkk thrashed on the ground in uncontrolled laughter. "What are you doing? Now isn't the time for a nap!"

  Gurken, standing with an open sleep sack about his feet, dropped the sides and held out a fist towards Pellonia. He raised his thumb, "Firstly, the merchant selling these sleep sacks spoke about how they can ward off a certain degree of moisture, thus making them fit for sleeping dry even in the rain, so long as the water did not puddle underneath."

  "What does that have…" Arthur began.

  "Have you not learned it's unwise to interject me, wizard?"

  Arthur ceased his interjection, preferring to listen to Gurken finish, rather than listen to his own voice - despite his enduring love for it - the cost would likely have been more than he wanted to pay.

  Gurken raised his forefinger. "Secondly… the shopkeeper also said they would provide comfort from small rocks, a miscomfort I can attest to, having felt it often enough that small impressions are permanently etched upon my back."

  Arthur gritted his teeth upon hearing the word "miscomfort"; but let no one say that wizards are unable to learn, as he said nothing.

  Gurken raised a third finger. "And lastly," he smiled, "according to the good vendor, the sacks have the agreeable convenience of keeping various biting insects…"

  "Such as ants?" said Pellonia.

  "Such as ants, " Gurken agreed, "at bay."

  "Gurken," Arthur began, having waited for a lull in the conversation so as to not inappropriately interject, "It's one tiny ant."

  "As to that," Gurken said, "you are, as always, faultless in your art of perception. There is currently only one tiny ant. But, is this not the field upon which we encountered much larger ants which resulted in a certain amount of death among us? Also, wasn't the appearance of larger ants preceded by that of smaller ants?"

  Throkk lifted a foot, and stomped on the little ant. It was too small to make a proper squishing sound. As if Gurken had been granted the gift of prophecy, a somewhat larger ant crawled over Throkk's foot, this one as big as a hand.

  "We run!" Arthur said, staring and pointing at the ant. "We should retreat! Withdraw to fight another day, I always say."

  "Run!" scoffed Gurken, "I, a templerager of the Stonebiter clan, run? I think not! You? A learned and powerful wizard run from mere ants? I think you'll not do that twice! Unless you're satisfied with how that turned out last time."

  "Well, shouldn't we fight?" asked Pellonia, pulling out a blade, albeit one more appropriate to the peeling of fruit than to piercing a carapace.

  "What, fight ants? Come, now what have they done to us?"

  "Besides kill us?" Arthur murmured in a voice low enough to avoid interjection.

  "Nope, nothing to be gained by it. There is but one thing to do. I see you are both standing there doing nothing, and it would take far too long to open your own sleep sacks and set them up. So, are you getting in here with me? I can't continue to wait for you."

  Pellonia and Arthur scrambled over to Gurken, stepped in the sleep sack, and helped pull the sack up and over their heads.

  Throkk and Gimnur guffawed, rolling on the ground. "Ooo, the ferocious templerager. Does he need a nap before he fights?" Gurken and his friends laced up the side of the sleep sack; Pellonia's stuck out her tongue as she threaded the tie through the holes, Arthur held the sides up high, and Gurken looked smug and smiled at Gimnur Hammerfist.

  Throkk stood up and went over to look at the larger ant. He raised his club, intending to strike a deadly blow and crush the beast, when it sprayed him in the face with a pulpy - and rather rank - liquid. Throkk howled in rage and crushed the ant with his club. "Tiny ant no spray Throkk! Throkk squish tiny ant like bug!" he bellowed, wiping the fluid from his eyes.

  Pellonia and Gurken could no longer be seen; the sack had been bound up the side and over their heads. Arthur, having the greatest height, looked on as a pair of ants crawled out of the tall grass and into the clearing, scrambling towards poor Throkk. They sprayed foul smelling mist into the air as they came. Throkk smashed one ant with his club as Gimnur crushed the other.

  "Gurken, what are you doing?" Gimnur demanded, the change in tension in his voice betraying his growing concern. "It's just a few measly ants!"

  Arthur finished lacing the sack closed, and the trio, unable to coordinate their movements, promptly fell over. A dozen more ants scurried into the clearing, spraying mist in the air. The ants scrambled over the sack and charged past, towards the remaining combatants. Gimnur and Throkk made fast work of them. "Is that the best they can do? Spray us with a bit o' disgusting mist? We can kill thousands of these little buggers without breaking a sweat! Bring it on!"

  As if in answer to his taunt, a sink hole opened in the ground, ten feet from Gimnur and Throkk. Dozens of small ants, and one ant of considerable size, streamed out of the hole. The ant of considerable size's head was as big as Throkk and its mandibles made loud "toch toch toch" sounds as they opened and closed.

  Pellonia, peering out a tiny hole in the seam of the sack, saw Throkk and Gimnur charge the giant ant before being obscured by it. She heard the sound of a battle cry, followed by the sound of battle screaming, battle crying, and finally, battle silence.

  "This is NOT our fault," Pellonia said.

  "Still, we should return their remains to be mended," said Arthur.

  The sack was scooped into the air, and pinchers compressed around them, trapping their arms at their sides. The giant ant brought them to the hole and dove inside.

  Episode Three

  The Berserker and the Ant

  Pellonia, who to all appearances was a twelve-year-old girl with chestnut pigtails, freckles, and impish little dimples woke up in the very uncomfortable and rather unfamiliar position of being pressed between Arthur and Gurken and sewn into a leather sleep sack.

  "Well, THAT happened," she said in disbelief, peeping out a hole in the hem of the sack. The darkness extended beyond the confines of the sack and into the space beyond. She listened, but could not hear anything over the sound of Gurken's thundering dwarfen snores. She floundered around in the darkness of the sack until she found his beard and followed the clay-caked mat of hair up to his nose, and - the effort requiring both of her hands - pinched his nose shut. He snorted air in through his mouth and woke.

  "Wha-? Where are we?" he said, smacking his parched lips. "Are there foes about?"

  "We're wherever the giant ant carried us. Now shut it, you're louder than a sickly dragon. I'm trying to listen." She listened, there was nothing to be heard but the cacophony of silence. She cut the leather binding on the sack with her knife, pulled open a hole, and crawled out. She cut the rest
of the leather cord, freeing Gurken and Arthur from the sack.

  "What do we do now?" Pellonia asked.

  Gurken stood up, stretching his legs. He was rather thrilled that the sack had worked as advertised. Though he had slept upon the earth, it had shielded him from small rocks and lumps prone to cause discomfort and disturb one's sleep, he had remained dry - though to be honest, there was little enough moisture about - and it had protected them from insects, like ants, that were prone to bite tender and exposed skin - just ask poor Throk and Gimnur.

  "Seeing as we've just awoken, a coffee wouldn't be out of order," Gurken said.

  "A coffee? We don't even know where we are! We can't even see!" Pellonia gestured in the dark to indicate that they could not see.

  "Well, hold on, it's a tolerable temperature, we're neither too cold nor too hot. We're neither being rained on nor battered by a too hot sun. I hear no foes seeking to skewer us, and we've camped here safely through the night unmolested. Coffee necessitates fire, which will provide light, with which we can learn where we are while we brew our coffee. Shall we put this plan into action?"

  Pellonia could think of no argument against, so Gurken picked up Arthur with one hand and shook him awake.

  "What? No, please don't kill me! I didn't even say anything this time!" pleaded Arthur.

  Gurken chuckled. "Wizard, we need fire. Can you magic us one?"

  "Can… you… magic us one? Really, that's how you ask?" asked Arthur, plainly irritated at the rough treatment.

  "Can you… magic us one… please?" Gurken said, confused.