From Our Sponsors:

 

My backpack was coated with clinging turd-muck, but the clothes within at least had been spared direct contact. They stank, of course, but at that moment everything stank. “My lord, if I might step into yonder creek for a few blessed moments...”

“No time for that,” the blond giant snapped. “We told the villagers we would kill the roc, and so we shall. Come! There are deeds to be done!”

He strode, magnificent, toward the mountain. I imagined great talons raking that broad back, digging deep furrows in all that muscle, ripping forth miles and miles of dripping entrails and hanging Otrossius from the trees. It wasn’t as good as a bath, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

I followed him for three steps before the offal squishing beneath my clothes changed my mind. Stifling a scream, I ripped off my clothes and ran to the stream. I scrubbed and scratched and smeared sand across my body. It was glorious. I still stank by the time I got out of the water, and my skin was raw, but at least the shit was gone.

I wiped water from my eyes and looked around. Otrossius had gone on without me. I wondered if he had even noticed my absence? He seldom even notices my presence, after all, unless he needs me to fetch something or wants to blame me for something he did or said. I dreamt, while I dug clean clothes from my bag, of simply slipping away. But I knew that would annoy Our Hero, and once he decided to track me down no force in the world could stop him. His anger would be great. So, once dressed, I trudged along in his wake.

Darkness was coming early, the way it does in mountainous country. From my pack I hauled out a torch, an excellent, goo-tipped one purchased in Sarheen. It lit at the first spark of my flint and steel. Then I could find my way up the wooded slope.

Birds and other creatures twittered and cackled in the arboreal wilderness. Occasionally, I heard a snap or a thud that hastened my steps. I hate Otrossius, but he’s handy to have about when something wants to eat me.

Soon, I saw the roc’s impressive nest. Great logs, whole trees, piled in a wide oval, precariously perched on a bluff just large enough to support it. That bluff smelled of roc droppings, and seemed paler than the rock around it. No telling how many eons of shit had accumulated here; the legends of the roc’s atrocities and depredations were quite old.

A poor imitation of an owl’s hoot drew my attention, and I saw Otrossius waving. He had climbed into the nest, presumably to surprise the arriving roc with three feet of sharp steel. He beckoned me onward, but I felt the view would be better where I was.

A wolf’s howl somewhere in the dark forced me to calculate anew, and I decided I would be safer by Otrossius. I doused my torch, climbed to the nest and hauled myself up; the dry, dead branches left scrapes on my arms and splinters in my fingers. But I made it up, spurred by another low wolf wail. I clambered into a nest of a size that put the largest ship decks I’d ever seen to shame. It could have used a good stone-rub and swabbing, though; layers of ancient bird shit mired my steps. The bones of large animals littered the floor here and there.

“You are the slowest man in the world,” Otrossius whispered, although he had to force himself to do so. His eyes blazed the way they do when he’s angry. “How are you to describe my conquest over this thing if you do not even see it?”

I tried a quick deflection. “My lord, I saw the bird occult the moon.”

 

He blinked. “Occult...?”

I sighed. Simple words, I reminded myself. “It flew across the face of the moon, my lord. It’s near, perhaps set to return any moment.” It was a lie, of course, meant to divert Our Hero’s attention away from flogging me. But as chance had it, the roc suddenly came diving homeward with a great shriek.

“Stay out of my way,” Otrossius commended tersely.

I nodded to assure him that was my plan, no doubt.

The monster landed with a thud that caused the entire nest to shudder. Otrossius stole forward, which for him meant snapping branches with every fall of his gigantic feet. I nestled myself into a gap between dead oaks, and wondered if the beast would still be hungry after feasting on Otrossius.

For one glimpse of the thing, up close, had me convinced Otrossius finally would die.

The roc spread wings like galley sails, and hopped toward Otrossius. It covered forty yards in that hop, and the great beak rushed down at Our Hero in the blink of an eye. I could make out little detail in the dark, but the bird’s quickness and size gave me hope. Otrossius suddenly seemed like a mouse. His sword flashed and he leapt to one side; the beak ripped a gaping hole in the floor of the nest and Otrossius hewed at the huge feathered neck. The roc gave one mighty flap of those great wings and lifted just beyond reach of Our Hero’s sharp steel.

Then it dropped on him, and I stifled a cheer—only to realize Otrossius had rolled clear. The roc turned its monstrous back to me, and now stood between me and Otrossius.

The great caws rattled my brain, and the nest shook like a ship in a storm as the two adversaries struck and dodged repeatedly. I concluded the battle would likely send the whole nest toppling down the slope, and so prudently decided to get out whilst I could.

I crawled along slowly, earning new splinters and a fresh coat of sticky turd-muck. Behind me, Otrossius laughed and the great bird shrieked. Our Hero’s guffaws told me he was holding his own, and despair gnawed at my guts. Otrossius was stupid, but he was quick and never fatigued—he once wore out six whores in a single night and went looking for a seventh. He might keep up this battle for hours, and each passing minute meant better odds that he would land the lucky blow that finally felled the giant raptor.

I had failed again, it seemed. But then despair, my constant companion, showed me another way. A dry branch broke in my grasp, and the stench of offal assaulted me as I clambered out of the nest. I had an idea ...

I dropped, cackling madly. I dove behind a boulder and retrieved another torch from the depths of my pack. My nervous fingers thwarted me for long moments, but finally a spark landed and the wonderful quick-firing goo of Sarheen did its magic. The torch lit with a wondrous, murderous hiss—and I lofted it easily into the giant nest.

Oh, the joy of it! Better than any fireworks show back in Formia! The bone-dry tinder of the nest caught, fueled by the eons of offal. In one glorious heartbeat, I had created a pyre for the roc and Otrossius!

In the new orange glow, I saw the combat clearly for the first time. Blood streaks lined the roc’s huge beak, and its eyes gleamed like orange suns. Feathers as large as hammocks drifted on the air as Otrossius hacked and hewed. Claws like spears stabbed at him, and now and then grazed him as he dodged and weaved. They both moved with dizzying speed. The combatants seemed so intent on destruction, they did not heed the fire rising around them.

I laughed aloud. Finally! Otrossius would die! I could return to Formia, tell the king of Our Hero’s epic demise, share all the tales of wonder from our travels. I would do my poetic best, emblazon Our Hero’s legend upon the minds of the world—and be the center of attention at all the best parties. My ship, so long awaited, had come in at last.

Smoke and flames obliterated all signs of the fighting foes, and I wondered if they’d died already. I thought I caught a whiff of roasting meat. I laughed until spittle dripped on my chin.

The gods must have heard my laughter.

The nest slid, crackled, snapped, sparked and tumbled. The whole fiery mass of it lurched downward, and there I stood in its path! An avalanche of fire, swift as a plunging hawk, intent on devouring me!

I ran, and spent not one moment thanking the gods for providing such bright illumination for my headlong descent. The tumbling pyre pursued me like a beast of prey—like a whole flaming wolfpack! There was no cover anywhere that could hold off the death behind me. Tears blinded me, and I cursed the gods who had decided to avenge Otrossius so damned quickly and with such characteristic irony.

 

Then something took me. I was lifted aloft, onto broad shoulders. Otrossius! Here I had tried to kill him, and now he sought to save my life. He plunged down that slope faster than any other mortal alive might have done, while I stared backward at the rushing wall of flame that devoured the mountainside.

I saw by the pursuing light that Otrossius had suffered blisters and fierce red burns along with countless scrapes, bruises and assorted punctures. I knew he would heal in no time—he always did—but felt guilty nonetheless.

Then we lurched into space, and became a pair of meteors as I left Our Hero’s grasp. We plummeted together, perhaps thirty feet, and splashed into a cool mountain stream. It was shallow, and my ankle nearly snapped like a stale biscuit. My back bent awkwardly over a stone and all the air left my lungs, but I noted Otrossius landed in a perfect crouch. The bastard.

He lifted me and dragged me across the stream, safe from the hurtling doom. I saw the monster’s blazing carcass, shedding feathers of flame, roll along with the inferno.

Then Otrossius propped me against an oak.

“My lord, you saved my...”

“Silence, oaf!” His eyes, inches from mine, bored into my soul and looked for things inside me he could twist and rend. “I saved you so I could kill you myself, with my bare hands!”

I must confess I wet my breeches at this point. I forgot all about the pain in my ankle, too. But I come from a long-lived people, and even as one part of my mind imagined being torn asunder by Our Hero’s teeth and fingernails, another part worked furiously to find a means by which I could live to die another day. Preferably a day far, far in the future.

“My lord, I confess,” I blurted, if only to buy another heartbeat or two. “It is all my fault, I have failed you...”

“Failed me! You...”

“Yes! I failed you, mighty lord!” An idea was forming, and it was my only chance. “My poor linguistic skills nearly cost Formia its greatest hero!”

I saw it, a wedge by which I might squeeze my way to a small chance at life. He was momentarily confused, dazed by a scholarly word with three syllables. Linguistics was not his strong subject.

My teeth chattered, but I pressed forward. “I translated the scrolls as best as I could, my lord! Did I not find the roc? Did I not find a new battle to display your awesome prowess?”

He nodded stupidly, but his eyebrows lifted at the mention of his prowess. He would bask for a moment in narcissistic glory, giving me time.

“But I failed, my lord Otrossius, for obviously I did not understand the full portent of the texts I translated.”

Puzzlement danced across his chiseled features. Ah! Salvation!

I made my desperate verbal thrust. “I swear to you, my lord, I had no idea rocs could breathe fire!”

Thank all the gods, he bought it.