My name is Lance Nobleblood, and this is the story of how half a dozen blockheaded assholes destroyed my farm and ruined my life.
On a balmy late-summer morning, I lay on my back, watching the clouds blow through the sky at their leisurely pace. The smell of fertile soil filled my nose, rich as a cup of fresh-brewed coffee. I could almost feel my babies thumping around in the ground below me, clamoring to exit the great womb of the land and be born into my loving hands.
There was nothing more pure and human to me than the act of creation. My babies were my one and only passion; I had never cared for much else in my life. The satisfaction of pulling them from the ground at the end of summer, turning them over in my hands, feeling the ripe weight of their newly matured flesh and inhaling deeply of their dusty scent, was the singular greatest moment of each year of my life. The winter months were bleak and depressing, endless and frustrating. Nothing grew in my lovingly-maintained fields during that time, and the highest high I was capable of feeling was that first temperate day of spring, brisk but full of hope and possibility—
“Lance, you weird fucker, quit canoodling with your potatoes.”
That was the problem with living within forty leagues of civilization. Some blockhead always had to come and make me do something.
I turned my head, looking above and behind me without getting up. “Marilyn Rambow. I thought you weren’t scheduled to interrupt my day until 16th hour.”
Marilyn looked down at me, hands on her hips. Her long grey braid swung like a horse’s tail batting away flies as she shook her head at me. “It’s half-past, Lance. How long have you been out here?”
I blinked. Sitting up, I checked the sun’s position. To little surprise, I saw that the time Marilyn proclaimed was true.
“Yeah. Well. Lost track of time. Been out since this morning,” I said, rising with a groan. I was old enough that I always had to groan when rising off the ground, but not so old that I needed a cane to assist me with it. “The babies are restless.”
Marilyn only stared at me with her glacier-blue eyes.
“I wasn’t canoodling,” I said.
“I believe you,” Marilyn said, taking a step forward and brushing a piece of grass from my sleeve with a tinge of contempt, “But that doesn’t mean everyone in town doesn’t think that’s what you get up to out here.”
I stared at her, mouth agape. “I knew you were the one who started that rumor!”
Marilyn sighed with exasperation. “Get inside, you old fool. I’m hungry.”
“Why can’t you just leave me be, you nasty old wizard?” I griped as I began to walk with her toward my humble house.
“Because you’d see no one but your potatoes if I didn’t come around,” she answered. “And for the last time, I’m not a wizard.”
“You wear a pointy hat and you’ve got long grey hair. You’d have a beard flowing down your chest if you were a man.”
“My, Lance, I just cannot fathom why you are still a bachelor when you have such sweet ways of wooing.”
We reached the front door, and I opened it, not putting in much effort to hold it for Marilyn.
“I’m not attracted to wizards,” I said.
Marilyn kicked me in the asscheek as she entered the house behind me. It was dark inside; I hadn’t come in all day to light any of the lamps. With a grumble, I bent down and scratched a match to life, holding the flame up to the oil lamp hanging from a nail on the wall. The room filled with the dancing flicker of its warm glow.
Looking around, I saw Marilyn had already come inside before coming out to retrieve me from my happiness. Six bottles of unlabeled beer sat on the rickety oak table I used for eating. My irritation lifted slightly.
“Is this the microbrew?” I asked, lifting a bottle and swirling it.
“Yes,” Marilyn said.
She stumbled suddenly, swearing bitterly as her booted toe caught on the floor.
I sighed and shook my head in mock exasperation. “How long have you been injecting yourself into my life, Marilyn, and you still can’t remember where the knot in the wood is? One of these days, you’re going to fall and crack your skull open. I don’t want to clean that up.”
“It’s not my prerogative to memorize every inch of your poor flooring job, Lance. Are you going to start dinner or not?”
I looked at her with my hands on my hips, indignant. “I just might not cook at all with that kind of abuse.”
Marilyn sighed and reached for one of the bottles, cracking it open on a jagged canine tooth. She spit the cap onto my poor flooring job and began to gulp down the concoction like a dying horse at a trough.
“Ah, good,” I teased as I crept into what passed for the kitchen in my cramped house, “So you haven’t poisoned me this time, then.”
She lowered the bottle and belched shamelessly, the sound loud in the enclosed space. My house was large enough for just me, exactly what I had envisioned when I was building it nearly twenty years before. Aside from the crude kitchen (really just a wood stove, a few pots, and the icebox), my house contained my eating table, a chair I bult from scraps (mine), a finely crafted stool with a squishy cushion (brought and used only by Marilyn), and my bed. Aside from the privy out back and the storage shed, it was the only building on all my land.
Marilyn set her bottle down and herded me toward the kitchen with that impatient waving of her hands she did so often. I would’ve made a quip about being her servant, if not for the equal exchange our relationship (if one could call it that) was based around.
About five years before, Marilyn had shown up at my door, two beer bottles clutched in one hand. When I’d cracked the door to inspect my first visitor in years—aside from the tax collector—she’d pushed her way inside, sitting herself down in my only chair (this was before she brought her stool), and telling me to try the beer.
Given that she’d been wearing her signature pointy hat, long green cloak, and sage-like braids in her grey hair, it was a wonder I didn’t faint dead away on the spot, suddenly an unwitting host to a pushy and rude wizard.
Somehow, she managed to get me to try the beer, and that’s how I gained my one and only friend since I was a child.
She’d come over when she felt like it, bringing me the beer she brewed as a hobby. It really was very good. Almost good enough to trade for my home-cooked dinners of potatoes, prepared every way imaginable.
Apparently, she’d moved to the town five leagues to the south of my farm, and had trouble making friends. “They think I’m an evil wizard trying to take their children’s blood for potion making!” She’d said, and when I pointed out that people might not think that way if she didn’t barge into people’s homes and wear that goofy pointed hat all the time, she’d told me to go fuck my hand.
I let her dice some potatoes while I shredded, a comfortable silence falling over the house. I could hear her stomach grumbling beside me. Marilyn loved potatoes for their flavor and multitude of preparations. I loved them for the sense of accomplishment that only the act of cultivation could give. For me, eating them was only a small byproduct of my craft.
Two hours later, Marilyn and I sat opposite one another at my tiny table. It tilted to the right, its short leg always too little of a bother to try fixing. At this point, we were both used to holding onto our plates with one hand while we ate with the other.
“Babies are really almost there,” I said. “Probably only another week. Maybe less, depending.”
“Lance, if your potatoes weren’t so damned tasty, I’d called you a freaky fuck for the way you talk about them.”
“Best potatoes in the Empire,” I said with a grin.
Marilyn made a face, then went back to eating. She hated the Empire for some reason, though I was never too interested to ask why. Figured she was some sort of underground rebel agent, spying on the good potato farmers of the Emperor’s lands like me. I never had an issue with the big man, myself.
“What exactly is a microbrew, anyway?” I asked. “What makes it ‘micro’? It’s not like it’s—”
A knock sounded at the front door.
A knock? Nobody ever knocked on my door. Not except the wizard and, of course, that tax man. He was a nice guy.
I exchanged a look with Marilyn. She shrugged and gestured at the door, so I got up.
Cracking open the door, I saw an impossibly tall man in leather armor, a sword belted to his hips. He creaked as he moved.
“Yes?”
“Good evening, citizen,” the man said in a velvety baritone. “My party and I were just turned away at the inn in Heaverstad. Full capacity, even for soldiers of the Empire such as ourselves. I wonder if we can trouble you for a bit of fire and food, and perhaps a spot on your floor for the night.” He smiled warmly. “We can pay.”
As he spoke, I examined him in closer detail, opening the door just a bit more. He was indeed an imperial soldier; I could just barely make out the patch on top of his arm in the dying light of the evening. Two swords crossed over a lion’s head. The unmistakable mark of the Emperor.
I glanced back at Marilyn, who was scowling deeply. I thought it might be entertaining to irritate her by letting the soldiers in. If I’d known all that would come from that simple decision, I would’ve slammed the door in the man’s face.
“I would be honored to host such brave men of our great Empire,” I said, overly gregarious to further irritate Marilyn. “Please, come in.”
The soldier inclined his head at me. “I and the Emperor thank you for your kindness. My companions are outside hobbling the horses. They’ll be along shortly.”
I let the soldier inside, gesturing broadly, a grin plastered on my face. “My house is humble, but please, take a seat anywhere. On the bed is just fine.”
The soldier thanked me again, then bent to begin the long task of undoing the clasps on his greaves. Marilyn’s stool screeched across the floor as she stood, shooting me the dirtiest look I’ve ever received in my life.
“I’m going to take a shit,” she spat at me under her breath, though I’m sure in the tight space the soldier heard every word.
To his credit, he didn’t spare her a glance as she stormed out the back door, letting it slam behind her.
“I’ve got more than enough potato bake for you and your party,” I said, going to the kitchen and pulling down my last clean plate, then two bowls. I didn’t need a lot of dishes. “How many will be eating?”
The soldier finished removing his armor, letting it fall to the floor at his feet. “That sounds lovely, citizen. There are two more outside with the horses.”
I doled out three servings of my delicious bake onto the dishes, humming with delight. The soldiers would be sure to overpay what the potatoes in the food were worth. I’d have extra money, and I’d already succeeded in irritating Marilyn.
It was such a great night.
Until the soldier went to take my seat at the table. He crossed the small room, and like a joke from the gods themselves, the man’s booted foot caught on the knot in the wooden floor.
I froze, the bowl of steaming potato bake still in my hands, as the man went down in what felt like slow motion.
I would like to say I dropped the bowl of my delicious concoction, rushing over to catch the man before he could fall and injure himself. That would’ve been quite honorable and heroic.
Instead, I only gripped the bowl tighter, watching as his head collided sickeningly with the side of my table. It was solid oak, cut from the very trees outside my house. Strong stuff.
In the grand stories told endlessly in taverns, warriors are always hard to take down. They survive horrible gut wounds, fighting on despite the pain and the blood, maintaining their honor until the last moment of their heroic lives. They charge fortresses with arrows sticking out of their arms.
The stories are full of shit. It’s ridiculously easy to kill a human being.
All it took for this soldier, whose name I hadn’t even asked yet, was his own body’s momentum and the side of my very strong wooden table.
As he collapsed bonelessly to the ground, I didn’t immediately rush over and check for signs of life. Instead, transfixed by the scene before me, I let the bowl tip backward, dripping grease and melted cheese onto my shoes as the soldier’s blood began to pool on the wooden floor.
Instead of asking the man if he was alright, I could only utter a sort of ‘aouhgghh’ noise, similar to how I’d imagine a confused goose might sound.
Finally, my paralysis broke. I set the bowl down, stepping slowly over to the man on the floor. Kneeling down, I placed a shaking hand beneath his nostrils. No air rushed out of his lungs.
“Oh, shit,” I muttered, and that was when Marilyn walked in from the back door.
My head spun to look at her. She stood frozen, the door clanging shut in the breeze behind her.
Unfortunately, she found her words quickly. “What the fuck, Lance? Why’d you kill him?!”
Other voices sounded from outside. “Keep your sodding voice down, woman!” I half-whispered. “I didn’t kill him! He—”
The front door opened, and the two other soldiers entered my home, laughing about something as they passed the threshold. When they saw me crouching, then the body of their friend behind me on the floor, their faces fell.
“Wait,” I choked out, understanding how this looked, “It’s not—”
They drew their swords in unison, anger flooding their faces.
“He’s killed Lars!” One of them cried, then looked at me. “You’ve committed a crime against the Empire, citizen.” He took a step forward.
Marilyn’s arm suddenly moved, flailing like a worm. A burst of light exploded from her hand a moment later, striking the soldier who’d spoken straight in his chest. He caught fire quite quickly, despite his leather armor.
“What the fuck!” I screeched, my voice nasally and high. I pointed my finger at her accusingly, coming to my feet. “I knew you were a wizard!”
The other soldier saw the skin melting off his comrade and did what I would’ve done: he turned and fled, screaming.
“Shit!” Marilyn cursed, turning about in a frenzy. She looked at me. “Lance! Out the back! Run until you hit the woods.”
“What—I’m not—under no circum—”
“He’s going to raise the alarm!” She cried, coming toward me and taking me by the shoulders. “You’ll be hanged for murder!” She began to drag me toward the back door.
“But I didn’t—you’re the only one here who’s committed a murder!” I protested.
She ignored my accusation. “Hide in the woods until I come for you. Don’t come back here until I do.”
“What about you? Where are you going?”
She opened the back door and shoved me out into the night. “To chase that idiot down before he wakes the constable! Now go!”
Against my better judgment, I went. I ran across my lands, shoes thudding on the fertile soil and my chest constricting alarmingly. I never ran if I could help it. Ever. My body was good for the slow, intentional movements of planting and harvesting.
I looked back several times as I made my shambling way toward the treeline on the eastern edge of my property. I saw Marilyn burst out the front door and go running toward Heaverstad, the direction the soldier had likely gone.
I reached the questionable safety of the woods, collapsing against a thick oak trunk. It took me several minutes to catch my breath. A stitched pulled at my right side. My toes hurt. I was still hungry.
“Damn that fucking wizard,” I grumbled.
Next chapter drops July 3rd, 2026
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