Friday Flash: Bovrell Takes the Case

This week Chuck Wendig challenged us with a genre-mashup. I spun the random number generator, and it came up...humorous fantasy and whodunnit. Clearly, this was a job for Bovrell the Bold, the dubious apprentice-master who abandoned Halitor the Hero to his own devices. Bovrell never was terribly bright.

Chuck gave us 1500 words, and I used them.

Bovrell the Bold Takes the Case

Bovrell the Bold, Hero at large, pulled his horse to a halt and considered the castle. It wasn’t much of a castle. He was used to better, he told himself, but it was going to rain, and he hated it when his armor rusted. He crossed the drawbridge.

Careless of them to leave it down, really. Anyone could wander in. He, Bovrell, was a knight and a Hero, but you couldn’t trust everyone. They ought to use care. He followed his nose to the stable.

“Ho! Stableboy! I’ve a mount needs grooming!” Bovrell climbed down from his horse and waited for a groom. None came. Grumbling, he led Black Warrior into the stable, shouted again, and finally unsaddled the beast himself. “Fool stableboy, to run off. Fool lordling, to let his servants run off.” Bovrell groomed Black Warrior, badly, and walked back to enter the keep, where the laws of hospitality would require them to feed him. Thus would they bless themselves with his presence.

Bovrell pounded on the door, and the heavy oak panels swung open at the impact. He stepped into the hall.

The light within was dim, but not so dim Bovrell failed to see the body sprawled at the foot of an elegant but narrow staircase. The man was well-dressed, no longer young, and Bovrell guessed he had found the lord of this pathetic excuse for a castle.

“Sirrah! Sprawl not so on the floor, but rise and do proper honor to a noble guest!”

The man on the floor didn’t move. “Drunk, by all the gods!”

“I scarcely think so.” The voice was young, scornful, and feminine, as was the person who moved out of the shadows. “Or does drinking always produce a spear through the back?” She looked Bovrell over, as he did her.

“And who might you be?”

The question came simultaneously from each, but neither rushed to answer. Instead, Bovrell demanded, “Who is he?”

“He was the lord of this holding, and my uncle. But someone has killed him. Was it you?” She seemed rather calm for someone looking from the corpse of her kinsman to the armed and armored man who might have killed him.

“Nay, Fair Maid—you are a Fair Maiden, are you not?” Bovrell said it with capital letters. He was a man who believed in titles.

“Fair enough to judge men wisely, and maiden enough to beware your sort. I have just come from the kitchens, and find Uncle but lately dead, and you standing over him.” That wasn’t exactly true. Bovrell stood a distance away, dripping on the mat, but he was the only person present. “Are you certain you did not slay him?”

Bovrell overcame his outrage and confusion to repeat, “Nay, that I did not. I entered to find him even so, and all the servants fled from hence.”

“No, it’s just that we haven’t any servants. So far as I know, Uncle and I were the only ones in the castle, save for an old couple who cook and keep the fires burning. And now you,” she repeated meaningfully.

“Then he must have been slain by these servants of whom you speak.” It was obvious. It was also obvious that he would get little service or comfort here. Bovrell turned to leave, but the sound of rain on the drawbridge made him pause. “The laws of chivalry say you must offer me food, and shelter against the storm.”

She cocked a head to listen to the light patter of the rain. “Some storm. Those laws also say you must discover who slew my sole protector and bring the miscreant to justice. And say not it was old Elly and Eli. Neither could lift that spear.”

Nor could they, Bovrell had to admit when he saw the pair. That was in the kitchen, whence the Fair Maiden had led him, having first helped him off with his armor. Bovrell had made a few grabs at her in the process, but she was quick, and he’d gotten nothing.

Bovrell ate all he was offered before he reached his solution. “If no one else was in the keep, then you must have killed your uncle. Unwomanly fiend!”

“Nay, not I.”

“Who, then? I saw no sign of battle, nor was there ogre nor giant at the gate. Though,” he frowned, straining to think around his third tankard of ale, “The drawbridge was down and the door ajar. Aha!” He had it. “The killer fled!”

“So I must assume,” said the girl. “Now you are fed, will you pursue the knave?”

Bovrell sighed deeply. It was still drizzling and he would very much have preferred another tankard of ale. “As you ask it, Fair Maiden, so I must.” He thought some more. “Do you know who the villain might be? It would make it easier, you know.”

“So it would. You might,” she suggested, “visit our neighbor to the south, who has long coveted my uncle’s holdings.”

So it was that Bovrell, after a not wholly satisfying supper and another tankard of ale, found himself being armed once more, by the little serving man who was indeed very small, and very old.

The girl had to saddle the horse. Bovrell couldn’t manage it. He considered such chores beneath the notice of a Hero. About to mount, he stopped. “How am I to know if this neighbor has slain your lord?”

“Well,” suggested the Fair Maiden, “you might look for blood.”

“But blood may come from many sources.”

“True. So you might look for the gold-washed mail my uncle bore, and which has vanished.”

Bovrell rode out, grumbling, into the rain. It was easier to ride up to an ogre, slay it, and carry the Fair Maiden off to celebrate, than to do all this hunting in the rain.

He thought that again an hour later, as he stood dripping in the courtyard of the next castle. Bovrell had no idea how to proceed. Simply asking, “Excuse me, did you kill your neighbor?” seemed awkward. Ogres were definitely easier. He stuck to formulae.

“I seek shelter on this wet and unfriendly night,” he announced. Castle servants dashed about to dry him, bring him food, and prepare a bed. This, he thought, was more like it. This lord knew how to treat a guest. He couldn’t help wondering if yet another Fair Maiden was worth the journey through the rain, though he was glad her quest had sent him to a hot bath and warm bed.

And yet. Under all Bovrell’s idiocy, somewhere there lurked the Hero he had once set off to become. And so, in the night, he rose and searched. And he found the gold-washed mail. Long he stared at it, wondering. Then he wrapped the treasure in a cloth that lay at hand, and carried it back to his chamber. Dressing yet again in his wet clothing and gear, he armed up, crept to the stables, and roused a small boy.

“I must ride far this day. Saddle my mount and let me out at the postern.” It took a few coins, but the boy did as asked. Bovrell grumbled and swore the whole time, but he would do what a Hero did.

Arriving at the tiny keep in the chill dawn, Bovrell pounded on the door. The girl opened the door.

“You were right. He had the mail. I have retrieved it for you.”

The Fair Maiden received the cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms, and stood looking at him. Bovrell looked back. By rights, this woman was now his. He opened his mouth to say so.

“And what of the murderer?” she asked.

Bovrell swallowed. He had forgotten. “I have found who he was. I cannot be expected to revenge your uncle upon him. That,” he found inspiration to explain his lapse, “is a matter for the law.”

The girl only stared at him, with an unsmiling expression that scared him. After a long time, during which he shifted uncomfortably in his saddle and wondered if he were being cursed, she said, “I see. I thank you for your service.” The irony of her tone was lost on Bovrell, who was only glad he had not been turned into a frog, but even he understood the door which slammed in his face. This was one Fair Maiden who did not consider herself rescued.

Well, it was a poor and drafty castle in any case, he thought as he turned away. He had found the murderer for them. His work was done, the rain had stopped, and he would ride north.

From the ramparts, a man watched him disappear into the distance. When the dust vanished, he turned to find the woman standing beside him, the gold-washed mail in her arms. “Come, my darling. The elves say the illusion will vanish with the risen sun. This is the last of the treasure. We are finished here.”

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2016

Friday Fiction: Swords of the Desert, Part II

Four kids from another world have landed themselves in the Mojave desert, just in time to be caught up in Jake Stone's troubles. Read the beginning of the story here; this really is just a single story divided in two.

I got really carried away with this one, and will be working more with the characters and the story. But I pruned it to about 2200 words total, to keep it to two posts. The longer version will show up somewhere, sometime...probably in that anthology I keep saying I'll assemble!

#

Jake thought maybe he should lay off the whiskey. He had to be hallucinating. Nothing about the kids looked right, not for white kids, not for Indians. Especially not the one with the tail. Jake refused to think about that.

Hallucination or not, they couldn’t stay where they were. Jake knew he’d been followed into the desert, and the men behind him would kill a kid without a moment’s thought. Jake slid down off the horse, and stood still until the children stopped cringing.

“Well, I guess you can’t understand me, and I can’t understand you, but come on, let’s get you somewhere safe.” Jake held out his water flask to the girl who seemed to be in charge, mentally figuring how long it would last and how far it was to the spring at Cima. They’d make it, though they might be thirsty.

Then he looked back. The outlaws’ dust was closer. “We’d better skedaddle.” They didn’t understand his words, but the tallest girl looked where he looked, and seemed to understand the situation.

#

I couldn’t understand his speech, but the stranger’s meaning was clear enough. Someone was coming after him, and not in a nice way. We knew about that sort of thing, and since he seemed willing to help us find our way out of this bizarre desert, we got up and went along. He noticed right off that Lessa was hurt, and wanted her to sit up on the giant animal.

Lessa was scared of the beast, but she was weak. The wound wasn’t bad, but she’d lost some blood, and she couldn’t keep up. She let him lift her to its back.

Wherever the Sphinx had landed us this time, at least they drank water. There was that one time…

#

The kids were quick, Jake saw, and they were tough. Even the one with the bloody bandage was game. He could see old Buck scared her silly—and what kind of kids had never seen a horse, anyway?—but when the boss girl told her to, she rode him.

Trouble was, they might make it to the wells at Cima, but what then? If he’d been alone, he’d have run for it. But with five of them and only one horse, they couldn’t even think about it.

Jake looked back again at the line of youngsters trotting along behind the horse. They looked tough, and one of them had a bow and quiver. That puzzled him, too. Not that bows were unusual in the area, but the bow wasn’t like any he’d ever seen. These kids were different. Jake shrugged. They were his responsibility now, whatever they were.

#

We trotted along for an hour or so, following the man and the big creature. Lessa was pale and squirming with discomfort when the man suddenly ducked aside into a clump of trees, and there was a little pool of water in the middle of them. He made a bunch more of his strange noises and lifted Lessa down from the beast.

He set to piling rocks and things to make some defenses, and we set to helping him. I had a thought.

“Joc, you climb up that tree thing and keep a lookout.”

A while later Joc slid down from the tree and said, “Someone’s coming.”

I tugged the man’s arm, and Joc pointed. The man couldn’t understand us, but he got the message. Now we could all see the dust cloud, and mounted men in it. I drew my sword, and Joc strung his bow. I wished we all had them. The man didn’t seem to be armed, though he had a long metal and wood stick that he laid carefully over the rocks. He handled it like a weapon, but it just looked like a club, which wouldn’t do much good, especially if whoever was after us had bows.

#

Jake glanced at the children. They looked calm. Did they understand what was about to happen? The one with the bow had strung it, and while it didn’t look like any bow Jake had seen before, it looked serviceable. The swords would be no use against guns.

Jake smiled grimly. He’d expected to die violently. He just never would have guessed he’d be defending the strangest bunch of kids he’d ever seen, against the meanest outlaws he’d ever met.

#

The attackers came on fast. I could hear the pounding of the great riding-beasts’ hooves, and then some kind of explosion. I guessed we hadn’t hidden too well, or they knew the spring, because they came right at us. Something hit a rock and showered us with stone chips.

We huddled lower. There were weapons here that we didn’t understand, and I felt really afraid for the first time. This was starting to look too much like the battle we’d escaped when the Sphinx brought us here: a lost cause.

I heard the man grunt, a kind of muffled sound as though it had been forced out of him. Something had torn a hole right through his shoulder, and blood soaked his shirt. He was still upright and his long stick was making explosions, but he was pale as water and I knew that shock and blood loss could kill him fast. Behind me I could hear the Sphinx whimpering.

I crawled over to the man and cut a strip from my shirt. When I touched the wound, the man flinched, but he went on firing his strange weapon.

I heard the Sphinx cry out again, and I knew what was coming. Well, just like last time, I thought. The Sphinx’s random transfers were better than staying where we were.

#

Jake knew he was hit hard. This was it, then. When he’d lost enough blood, he’d pass out, and Barlow would charge in.

When the girl began to bandage his wound, Jake was startled, but kept firing. That was the important thing. He doubted he’d make it, but he’d do his best for the kids. The older boy, the one with the bow, shot too. Jake saw an arrow go through one of the outlaws, who tumbled from the saddle and lay still. Jake whistled softly. That was some bow, and some shooting.

There were too many of them. There wasn’t time to reload the rifle, even if he could have with one arm useless. Jake dropped the long weapon and pulled out his six-gun. His vision was blurring. He would pass out, and then they’d all die. “Sorry, kids,” he whispered, and the world spun to black.

###

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

The sort of country the children walk through.

And, just for fun--the post office/store at Cima, probably built not long after they were there :)  I'm not actually certain there's a spring there--but there pretty much had to be, anywhere people set down and tried to live. The cottonwood tree certainly suggests it.

 Looking at this...I think the next photo essay will have to be about the Eastern Mojave and the Cima Dome, where this story takes place!

Friday Flash: Genre Mash-up, Part I

NopeI'm still doing my own thing for my flash fiction prompts, and this week I pulled up a sub-genre mash-up that really caught my fancy. The lists gave me "sword & sorcery" and "wild west," and the story just started to come. And come. And come. I'm afraid you only get the first 1000 words today. The next 1000 words will be along next Friday, and I'm beginning to suspect it might take another thousand after that to finish the job. My apologies--this isn't even sort of an ending!

Swords of the Desert

We did pretty well against the first round of attackers. We met them with our swords bristling out in all directions, and they backed off after we cut down a couple of them. The Sarnassans weren’t very good fighters, but there were so many of them, I knew we stood no chance. The next round, they led with their spears, which was harder to defend against. Lessa screamed, and I had just enough time to guess she'd been hit when everything went black.

I didn't swoon. The world went black because the Sphinx panicked and transported us. He could do that, but the thing was, when he did, you never knew where you'd end up. Once, he landed us--but that's a different story.

When I could think again, I had no idea where we were. The air was hot and dry, and we stood in the bottom of a sandy wash. A few scrubby plants grew along the edges of the wash, and I could tell they were the type that would have thorns. I'd been born in country sort of like that, but this didn't look like Kamini, either. The plants were the right type, but they were no shrub I'd ever seen before. Warily, we looked around, but nothing attacked us. Only the sun shone down with a heat that felt like a blow, and I immediately began to sweat in my battle leathers.

"Ugh!" Joc grunted. "Where in the Shades did you land us this time, Sphinx?" We all lowered our swords and looked around. After a moment I sheathed my sword, and scrambled up the side of the wash. "No one around here. Come one. We'd better find some shade and some water, or we are cooked." I didn't bother asking Sphinx if he could take us home. He never can tell where he’s going. It wouldn’t have been safe to try, since we'd likely end up somewhere worse--under water, or back in the middle of that fight with a dozen Sarnassan lances through each of us. Usually someone with control over his magic figures out we're gone and pulls us back. That could take a while, though, and in the mean time we needed to take care of ourselves.

The others all sheathed their swords and scrambled up to join me. We looked across the empty land.

"There are trees over there," Lessa said. I remembered her scream and looked at her. Blood trickled down her arm, but she didn't seem to be badly hurt. "Sphinx, tie up that hole in Lessa's arm," I commanded. "Then we can walk over to those trees. If there are trees, there will be shade, and there should be water."

It was a good thought, but as we neared the trees I realized that we were walking up a shallow hill. That was weird. So were the trees. Their spikey branches weren’t casting the kind of shade I was thinking about, but it was something. We flopped down under the “tree” once I’d made sure there was nothing dangerous on the ground. I remembered that much from growing up in desert country. There’s always something sharp or poisonous or uncomfortable. Then, because it was hot and we had been fighting a battle and were tired, we went to sleep.
#
Jake Stone slumped in the saddle and let his horse pick a way through the Joshua tree forest. He’d been riding all day, and the prospector who’d told him there was a herd of wild cattle up here had surely been lying. There was nothing up here but those blasted Joshua trees, and the things gave Jake the willies. They didn’t look right.

Jake Stone’s plan was to find some wild cattle, round them up, throw a brand on them, and make a sale for enough money to get a stake and go back to prospecting. But things had gone wrong from the beginning, and now he had no cattle and maybe trouble riding his trail.

Jake pulled up, looking hard off to his left. There was something under that tree over there. If you could even call those things trees. Jake thought they were probably something from another world, or maybe God’s idea of a joke. But there was definitely something under the tree, and out here there weren’t many options. Probably cows, or calves. They were small for cows, but big for anything that lived out there of it’s own choice.

Jake rode closer, and stared. “I been riding too long,” he concluded. “I’m seeing things.” He rode closer. They were children, or at least small people. Jake couldn’t be sure, because he’d never seen children that looked like these, or wore such strange clothing. Whoever or whatever they were, they couldn’t stay where they were.

“Hey, you kids! What’re you doing out here?” Jake looked around, thinking they might be Indians, or might have escaped from Indians, but there was no one else in sight. Just four sleeping kids, one of them just waking up.

#
I heard a voice and opened my eyes, and wished I hadn’t. For one thing, it was hot, I was dreadfully thirsty, and my mouth and eyes were gummy. To make it worse, there was a really terrifying sort of man looking down at us from atop a very large hooved animal. And he was making noises at us, but it wasn’t any language I’d ever heard, and I may be only a youngster, but I’ve been around and I’ve heard a lot of languages.

I kicked the Sphinx. He’s the one who is really good with languages. He doesn’t have to have heard them before, he just sort of figures them out. He sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and I saw the stranger’s eyes go wide when the Sphinx lashed his tail around. He does that when he’s scared.

“Stop it,” I said. The man opened his mouth and a stream of gibberish came out. I looked at the Sphinx. “Can you tell what he’s saying?”

"No." I looked from the crestfallen Sphinx to the nervous stranger, and tried on a smile. We'd have to go with what we had.

###

Just wanted you all to know that I actually love Joshua Trees!

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015

Friday Flash Fiction: Utopian/Heist mashup

It's Friday (or nearly), and time for another Chuck Wendig Challenge. This week was a favorite, the subgenre mashup, and the roll of the dice got me "Utopian Heist/Caper" which was good, since I more or less know what they are (though I totally would like to try a cryptozoological bodice ripper). I decided to be very literal with this one. Wendig gave us 2000 words, but I was pressed for time and maybe too tired to have enough imagination, because I ended up well short of 1000.

Burglars in Paradise

“Look at this, Julia! The place isn’t even locked.”

“Let me see, Melvin.” The shapely blonde tested the doorknob. Sure enough, it turned and the door swung open a little. Like Melvin, Julia pulled it shut again very quietly and looked around for the catch. No one was in sight. No surveillance cameras recorded their every move. Nothing moved but the two of them, and no sound but a light breeze disturbed the perfection of the night.

“Those guys in the bar were right. This place is perfect,” Melvin enthused. "It really is utopian, just like they said."

So why does it make me so nervous? Julia wondered. A job shouldn’t be this easy. Rather, it shouldn't look this easy, because her experience with Melvin said that as soon as things looked good, something would go wrong. She'd have felt more comfortable if they'd already had to flee the cops a half a dozen times. They’d probably go through that door and get torn to shreds by pit bulls or something. Still. They needed a good heist, and soonest. This might be their last chance.

Melvin enthused, but Julia noticed that he was just as reluctant as she was to open the door and go in. She stepped a few paces down the clean, attractive street to the next door.

It was also unlocked.

“What’s with this place? Doesn’t anybody lock their doors? I mean, banks and pharmacies without locks?”

“Maybe that’s what the guys meant. It’s perfect. Shoot, the place is even named ‘Utopia.’ Don’t that mean perfect?”

Julia frowned. It was in the back of her mind that “Utopia” didn’t exactly mean perfect, though she couldn't recalle ever hearing it used in any other way. “Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “Perfectly clean streets, perfect unlocked doors. Maybe it’s even perfectly lacking in guard dogs. And loaded with perfect money.”

The burglars looked up and down the street and frowned. This was a place with money. You could tell. Shoot, they’d even had to walk a few miles from the train station, because places with this kind of money didn’t like trains running through. In Julia’s experience, rich people had burglar alarms and guard dogs. And there never was a bank without all that and security guards too.  But, then, rich people also locked their doors, even in the kinds of “safe” towns where lots of people mightn’t. This place was really different.

“Only one way to find out.” Melvin was back at the first door, easing it open. No dog attacked, no guns fired, no alarms sounded. With a mental shrug, Julia followed him inside. Nightlights illuminated the back hallway where they stood, and led them toward more interesting parts of the building.

The bank. Julia reminded herself it was a bank, and they were there to remove as much of its money as they could carry away. They hadn't really planned this one, but they had their MO down pat. Enter the bank, disable the alarms, crack the vault, get the hell out of Dodge. It wasn't a fancy plan, but it worked for them. Usually. It made her uneasy, changing the routine. She hadn't gone to disable the alarm, because there wasn't one. Already she was off their rhythm.

The duo padded down the long hall, past closed offices. They were dark. No alarms sounded, no dogs barked, no security guard accosted them.

No security guard? This really was utopian, and it made Julia very, very nervous.

She grew a great deal more nervous when they reached the vault. Melvin thought it was amazing good luck. Julia wasn't so sure.

The vault had no lock. It was really just a closet. A closet full of money.

"Look at this!" Melvin didn't even remember to keep his voice down. By now, Julia was pretty sure it didn't matter. "It's like it was designed for us!"

Julia knew what he meant. They weren't very good at the vaults. The last three banks they had hit, they'd been unable to get into the vault, and had to make do with the loose change in the desks and the coins from the soda machine in the break room. Still cautious, she pushed open the door of the money room--you couldn't call it a vault, with no locks--and peered in. Melvin couldn't wait, and in his hurry to get past her and find the money, pushed them both into the room.

And into nothingness. As the world vanished from around them, Julia remembered, at last, the exact meaning of utopia.

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2015