“No, no, no, nooooo,” I cried, cradling the leaves of my murdered babies.
I could say nothing else. My entire livelihood, the only thing that had ever brought me true happiness, gone. Gone while I was off in a wizard’s child-eating cabin fathoms away, eating nuts and crappy jerky.
I rolled in the soil, agony consuming my mind and body. The salt infecting the soil burned my nose, my tears a cruel joke with their salty flavor. Nothing would ever grow in my fields again. All I could do was stroke the leaves of my murdered children and whine like a coyote. My tears puffed my eyes so much that I could barely see past the swollen skin of my misery.
“Wow,” Marilyn said, hands on her hips as she inspected the sodium-laced murder scene, “This is… pretty evil. And… really specific.”
I wailed wordlessly in response, phlegm gurgling in my throat.
“It’s like they knew exactly what would chap your ass,” she continued in awe.
My chest heaved with a fresh sob. I felt a snot bubble form on one nostril, then pop against my upper lip.
“Lance?”
I moaned incoherently.
“Lance,” Marilyn began, “I know you love your potatoes and everything, but… You’re forty-two years old. This…” she gestured vaguely at me on the ground, “…This is a little hard to watch.”
I tried to tell her to fuck off, but through my snot and puffy lips it came out more like “fug obb”.
“Seriously, I’m getting uncomfortable watching this.”
Somehow, I found it in myself to get hold of myself enough to take a few deep breaths. Pushing myself up to a seated position, I scrubbed at my red eyes with the back of my hand.
“There we go. Upsa-daisy. You’ll get through this. The greatest view comes after the hardest climb. The night is always darkest before the dawn. The…” she trailed off, then sighed. “That’s all I’ve got. Are you done now?”
I wasn’t, but I forced myself to hold the sobs at bay. For now. I looked up at the wizard and held a hand out.
Her eyebrows shot up so high, they nearly disappeared under her hat. “Are you kidding—you know what, fine,” she said, taking my proffered hand and heaving me to my feet. “Baby.”
She made a show of dusting me off as I reined in my tears. When she saw the slick snot coating my nose and mouth, she held up a fist to stifle a gag.
“For hell’s sake, clean yourself up,” she chided, pulling a hanky from somewhere in her shirt and dangling it before me like used underwear.
I took it, scrubbing my face clear of tears and snot, though I remained swollen and red. When I offered the hanky back, she did that gagging thing again. I tucked the hanky in my pocket instead.
“Okay,” Marilyn said with an exhale, “We’ll continue with the plan. We’ll just have fewer supplies for our trip. That’s alright, we can still make do. When we—”
She cut off, noticing my lip starting to quiver all over again. The look she gave me was so nasty that I forced the oncoming tears back.
She sighed. “Just come on, drama queen.”
**
I followed Marilyn silently, stewing in my misery. My plan of ditching the wizard and begging the constable for mercy had been abandoned the second I saw the salt in my soil. There was no point to try to save my situation now; I no longer had a situation.
I didn’t ask Marilyn where we were going, and the only thing I paid attention to was my feet shuffling over the ground. They didn’t go over the smooth bricks of the road, so I assumed Marilyn was taking us through fields and plains rather than chancing discovery by fellow travelers.
Eventually, the distant din of voices and horses drew my swollen eyes from the ground.
Visible just below the setting sun was a town, far larger than Heaverstad. My knowledge of the Empire’s topography and settlements was limited to a vague understanding that the nearest place to buy supplies was Heaverstad, and that bigger cities and the capital city lay somewhere far away.
How far? No idea. I didn’t need to know that kind of information to grow potatoes.
“Where are we?” I finally asked. My throat was dry and cracked from dehydration. I thought of the salt I’d lost through my tears, and another wave of dismay threatened to erupt from me. I held it in with some effort.
“Middleton,” Marilyn answered without glancing at me. “It’s the halfway point between the northern villages and the city of Saradedal.”
“Sara… what?”
“Saradedal,” Marilyn snapped. “Have you never looked at a map of the Empire before?”
I hadn’t, but I wasn’t about to tell her that. “That’s a stupid name for a city. Sounds like nonsense.”
“Well, I didn’t name it,” Marilyn said, kicking at a rock in her path. “Anyway, we’re going to stay in Middleton tonight. I don’t think word has spread this far yet, but we’ll have to be on alert. Hopefully we can arrange for some transport to Saradedal in the morning. That’s where my friends are.”
“I think it’s prudent to ask at this point exactly what you mean by ‘friends’. Are these people criminals?”
She hesitated. “To some, yes.”
“What does that mean?”
She shot me a look. “Will you just trust me? It’s better to just meet them first. Alright?”
I felt like pushing her on it, irritated and tired as I was, but between my fatigue and heartbreak, I realized I didn’t actually care at the moment.
We passed into Middleton without incident. There were guards in the wooden watchtower we passed under at the town’s borders, but they didn’t even look at us. Thinking back, they were probably asleep.
It was easy to find the inn. We just followed the sound of drunken chortling and cat-calling.
The Lion’s Mane was crammed full of people, most of them reeking of body odor and piss. I didn’t smell great myself at this point, but I’d gotten used to my own stink. This new assault on my nostrils turned my stomach.
Farmers and ordinary artisans filled the stools set along the bar. These men were the most drunk, and also responsible for most of the disgusting comments shot in the general direction of the serving girls. At the sticky, cracked circular tables set throughout the room, sellswords and traders mingled, slopping beer and whisky over the rims of their cups as they related tales of bravery that were probably ninety percent horseshit. A fiddler scraped out a wretched tune on a stool before the cold hearth. I instantly got the urge to throw a potato at her face.
Nestled into the table in the furthest corner from the door was a group of three nondescript men in black cloaks, their hoods up over their heads, casting their faces in shadow. They didn’t laugh or joke or play five-finger-filet like the other groups. Though I couldn’t see their eyes, I knew they were watching the other patrons closely.
I leaned over to Marilyn. “We are not going anywhere near those guys in the back.”
“We’ll see,” was all she said in answer before shepherding me toward the bar.
Situated behind the bar was a burly red-headed man. As we approached, he poured whisky into a mug with a flourish that was quite show-offy, in my opinion.
“Evening,” Marilyn called out to him.
He paused in his work and turned to look at us, his leaf-green eyes seeming to stab me in the soul. He looked like he knew a thousand ways to kill me and most of them were with his mind.
“Only got one room open,” he called back, then topped off the mug, sending it sliding across the wet bar top, directly into the waiting hands of a thirsty-looking milkmaid. She winked at him before taking a long drink from the mug.
I sagged, not loving the prospect of finding another inn. “Guess it’s on to—”
“We’ll take it,” Marilyn interrupted.
As the uncanny red-haired man twisted around to pull a key off its hook in the wall, I rounded on Marilyn.
“What do you mean, ‘we’ll take it’? I’m not sharing a room with you!”
“Not that I’m at all interested in you,” Marilyn said, “But ouch.”
“Get offended all you want. I want my own room.”
“Even if you had the money to pay for your own room,” Marilyn pointed out, “This is the only place in Middleton where we don’t stand a seventy percent chance of being touched in our sleep. Even this place isn’t great.”
“Why? Because of those creepy guys in black over there?”
“No,” she explained, “Because someone’s already stolen a sack of nuts from your bag.”
“What?”
I whirled, pulling the bag around to my front. The clasp was indeed undone.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Marilyn’s hand come up, palm forward. A moment later, there was a heavy thud on the sticky floor a few feet to my right. I looked, seeing a thin man sprawled between the feet of two sellswords. At his side was a bag of nuts. Our bag of nuts.
I turned back to Marilyn, pointing at her handiwork. “Did you just kill another guy?”
She had the nerve to look offended. “What? No! I just stunned him. Go take our nuts back.”
“By the Emperor’s taint,” I cursed, walking over and stooping to scoop up the sack. The sellswords didn’t even spare me a glance, even though it probably looked like I’d just robbed a man who’d passed out drunk.
Once Marilyn took the key and paid for our room (calling it that made me gag), we pushed past the rowdy patrons and somehow found the staircase in all that mess of bodies.
Upstairs, it was a bit quieter, though I could clearly hear the occupants behind each door we walked past. Most of them were either snoring or engaged in loud, unabashed physical acts that made my ears turn red. Marilyn seemed unbothered by it all, her face impassive as she stopped in front of a door and shoved the key inside its lock.
Once inside, I inspected the room for crouching murderers and cockroaches. Though I found none, the room was still cramped and dingy. The blanket spread over the bed looked like it had been dug out of my great-grandfather’s grave. Marilyn took one look at it and dropped her bags onto the floor.
“You can have the bed,” she proclaimed, removing her stupid hat and setting it on the windowsill. “See you in the morning.”
With that, Marilyn tossed her bedroll on the floor (there wasn’t much of it in the tiny space), removed her cloak and balled it up to use as a pillow.
This is where I may lose some of your respect.
Though I was perfectly aware that the gallant, gentlemanly thing to do was to offer the woman in my company use of the bed, demanding that she allow me to take her place on the hard floor, I found that I absolutely did not want to make that offer.
Marilyn had dragged me through the countryside all day, laden with packs on my shoulders much like a donkey. She’d caused the entire mess we were in and the destruction of my precious children and their home. Plus, I was exhausted, starving, dehydrated, and still sore about the ‘drama queen’ quip from earlier.
So, I threw my ravaged body onto the mattress and curled up in the crypt blanket, pretending I didn’t notice the various stains dotting the thing like a topographical map.
And I fell asleep. I hope I snored.
Next chapter drops July 17th, 2026
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