Why I Can't Have Nice Kings Page 12

  Upon hearing the tone of our conversation change and seeing my companions’ swords droop, the goateed man approached us. “Your friend is right. Brodus is only a man, but please don’t tell any of our customers that.”

  Jackal had used our distraction with the cyclops to get dressed. “Customers?”

  “We are members of a travelling circus. Brodus is our ‘cyclops,’ though, in actuality, he is just a tall man with one eye.”

  Brodus was still hunkered down at the other end of the pond, cringing. I couldn’t get a good enough look to verify his partner’s claims.

  “That’s unfortunate that he lost an eye in an accident, but inspiring that he uses his disability to his advantage,” Jackal said.

  “He didn’t lose it in an accident. He poked it out to make himself more employable in the circus industry.”

  Brodus nodded from afar.

  “Couldn’t he have not poked it out and found other work?”

  The goateed man shrugged. “You try being a seven-foot-tall mute in this economy. It’s really hard to get work when you can’t answer questions on a job interview. However, if you only have one eye and you’re seven feet tall, you don’t have to answer anything when you apply for the cyclops position.”

  “Surely, there has to be another way . . .”

  While we were busy with the conversation, Cat inched away from us.

  “So, what is your job in the circus?” Jackal said.

  “I am the proprietor, the famous Jalev.” He bowed, while not taking his eyes off of us.

  Jackal’s eyes lit up. “The Jalev! I’ve always wanted to see your circus since I was little.”

  “Well, we’re just past the hill over there, but we’re in the process of packing up for the next town.” Jalev rose back up and gave us a very long look. He spent a lot longer on me, and especially on my very sexy back, than on anyone else. “What, exactly, are people such as yourselves doing here?”

  “We’re a band of mercenaries. We were travelling through these woods on our way to the capital when we were waylaid by strange tribesmen.”

  Wolf appeared about to speak, but Jalev silenced him with the simple wag of an eyebrow. “That is fascinating. Perhaps—”

  At the other end of the pond, there was a loud splash, punctuated by a scream. The cyclops was whimpering in a ball, and Cat was standing over him with his fists balled up.

  “Cat, what are you doing?” Jackal asked.

  “He kept winking at me.”

  “What do you mean, winking? He only has one eye. Are you sure he wasn’t just blinking?”

  “When you quickly close only one eye, it’s called winking. If he was blinking, he would have closed both eyes. He only closed the one eye, therefore he was winking. And I’ll hit you again if you wink at me like that. You’re not my type.”

  Brodus began to cry.

  “He doesn’t have two eyes to wink with, idiot!”

  The small part of his brain that Cat used for reason must have finally clicked on. He actually looked bashful. “Ohhhhh. Sorry, mister cyclops. I forgot you only have one eye. Here, let me help you up. My mistake. Won’t happen again.”

  Jalev was already on the other side of the pond, holding the sniffling cyclops on his shoulder. I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten over there that fast. “Let’s get you back to the camp, big guy,” Jalev said. “I’ll make you my famous soup, and you’ll feel all better. Perhaps these fine mercenaries can make it up to us by performing a job for us, yes?”

  Wolf shook his head at Cat in disgust. “If it’s short. We can only spare a day. I suppose we do owe it to you, and we promise Cat will stay far away from Brodus. Won’t you, Cat?”

  “I promise. Sheesh. I only punched him, like, five or six times.”

  “Splendid.” Jalev was somehow right next to us again. “I’d like you three grizzled warriors and the guy that Axin and Weel did unspeakable but completely consensual things with to look around. We’ve had reports of a string of small, possibly unrelated incidents in our peaceful and honorable circus. Nothing major, mind you; an uptick in thumb wrestling, a couple of drunken brawls, an outbreak of nipple-twisting on men, and a few deaths by electrocution. Pretty normal, everyday things for a circus, but there seems to be a bit too many of those going on. Worst of all, there seems to be a lurker around, and I would like to know what he’s looking for.”

  Cat puffed out his chest. “I like the way this guy talks, Wolf. He really seems to get how grizzled I am.” Then Cat whispered in my ear, “What does ‘grizzled’ mean?”

  “I’m not sure what we can do about those,” Wolf said, “and a death by electrocution sounds pretty serious.”

  The pit of my stomach dropped. I had visions of cell phones, televisions, and computers running rampant in my medieval-inspired world.

  “Oh, we have those all the time here. Our new motto is, ‘Now with twenty-five percent fewer deaths by electrocution.’ It really does draw in more business. You’re probably asking what any of this has to do with you. Well, I’d like your crew to go around and see if there is any special cause for all of that. It’s probably just a few random occurrences, but my gut tells me to investigate. Having you walk around should, at least, calm everyone’s nerves. In exchange for your services, we can provide you with transportation. What do you say to a little bit of easy work that gets you to your destination faster?”

  Jackal had walked Brodus over to us and had given him a handkerchief to wipe his eye with. “You’re such an idiot, Cat. Let’s get the poor guy back to his camp.”

  “Can we at least clean off this stink?” Wolf said. “Cat really needs it.”

  “I’m at the height of ripeness, just waiting for someone to pluck me.”

  “It’s over that ridge,” Jalev said as he led Jackal and Brodus away. “Meet me there when you’re done.”

  Wolf pushed Cat under the water and held him there, maybe a bit too long.

  “Wow, that was refreshing,” Cat said. “The water feels great on my junk.”

  We quickly finished our bath after Cat had recovered the rubber ducky that he had pulled from I didn’t want to know where, and changed into clean clothes. We burned our old clothes for fear that they might kill any wildlife that accidentally wandered near them, and then headed to the circus.

  A Quest for a New Chapter Title

  The circus was a bit of a letdown. Most of the tents were down, and all of the animals were in their cages. None of the clowns even had any makeup on, though some of them were still wearing their big floppy shoes. Not that I could blame them. If I had floppy shoes, I’d wear them all the time, too.

  One of the workers sighted us immediately and took us towards Jalev’s trailer. If she hadn’t found us we would have easily gotten lost through that sea of trailers, wagons, and cages. As soon as we sighted Jalev’s trailer, our guide excused herself and ran off. Brodus sat off in a corner dozing under a large blanket. Wolf rushed us to Jackal’s side, probably to prevent her from revealing anything important. He had nothing to worry about, as it was almost impossible to get a word in around the highly animated Jalev.

  “Ahh, excellent,” Jalev said. “I was just telling your young friend, here, about our operation. She would be perfect for several positions we have open, but, alas, she has informed me that she is not looking for a new occupation.”

  “I didn’t know they had a—” Cat tried to say before Jalev stopped him with a wink.

  “I’d like you to start by interviewing our strong woman, Weyma. She saw this lurker last night. Though, as it is getting late, that will have to wait until tomorrow. For tonight, I will show you to your trailers. This way.”

  Before we could speak, he pointed at the sleeping Brodus and then pointed in the opposite direction. We followed him silently until we were sure we were out of range.

  “You will find Weyma a bit brusque, although, with your mustachioed companion, I am sure you are used to that.”

  Cat smiled. “This guy just gets me.
Are you guys looking for a handsome lead?”

  “I think they make the gorillas wear pants here,” Jackal said.

  Cat gave Jalev a questioning look, and Jalev nodded in response.

  Wolf pretended Cat hadn’t said anything. “So, Jalev, what exactly does this lurker look like?”

  Jalev directed us to make a left to avoid the center area, where they were taking down the main tent. “Ahh, well, that is a bit of a problem, as there have been several conflicting reports. The most recent sighting described him as wearing a black, wide-brimmed hat, a small mask, and a cape.”

  Fantastic. We were looking for either Zorro or the Hamburglar.

  Wolf chuckled. “That sounds like the legend of the Tickling Bandit from my childhood.”

  “If it’s from your childhood, that’d mean he’d be at least 150.” Cat started counting his toes. “Err . . .151. How many leap years have there been since you were born?”

  “Cat, I’m three years younger than your dad, and he’s fifty-four. Well, he would have been. Sorry.”

  Cat slapped him on the back. “That’s OK, Wolf. And I think you’re a little off. Dad would have been 237 next week.”

  Jalev had uncharacteristically stopped speaking and was taking a bit too much interest in what they were saying. His eyes made it look like he was mentally taking notes of everything they said, while still managing to take the time to eye my back in between pauses.

  “You know,” Jalev said. “There are some who say that the Tickling Bandit was a real person, and those legends do place him as active in the Forest of the Thumb, which happens to be nearby.”

  Wolf laughed. “Like one man could take out an entire squadron of elite royal knights guarding the king’s niece. That would take a whole group of men, and there’s no way a group of people who were that skilled could collectively fail to do anything noteworthy for fifty years.”

  “I know I couldn’t,” Cat said as he “inadvertently” knocked over a cage, letting a large snake loose.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Jalev said as he shooed the snake back into the cage. “We have also received reports that this lurker is a rather attractive blonde woman, and others that describe him as having a red mustache and a ‘Professional Lurker’ sash, though I would think that if either of those was true, someone would have spotted this person rather easily since then.”

  “My money is on it being an invisible man,” Cat said. “The last circus I was at had one. He was even intangible.”

  “If he was invisible and intangible, how could you tell he was there?” I said. “It could’ve been someone projecting their voice.”

  “No, he was a mute, too. It was amazing.”

  Jalev brought us to a stop in front of two rickety-looking wooden trailers with paint so faded, it didn’t seem to be there at first glance. I couldn’t see any horses nearby to move them with, but then again, I hadn’t seen any near the other trailers. I figured they had to be kept in a central location until it was time to move. My shoulders felt like they were about to fall off, so I set my pack inside one of the trailers. Cat and Wolf followed suit.

  “As it’s about to get dark, you can start in earnest in the morning. We’ll likely get moving around ten tomorrow. Dinner can be found around the small bit of smoke you see coming from over there.” Jalev pointed behind him. “I’ll leave instructions that you are now our guests.”

  “Ahh, so, not the big smoke coming from over there.” Cat pointed to Jalev’s left. “Is that some sort of closing ceremony?”

  For once, Jalev’s eyes focused on a single spot for more than a few seconds. His mouth dropped. “No, it is not. With all of the cloth tents and wooden wagons, I would never allow something so big.”

  Whip It. Whip It. Owwww

  Chaos ensued. The fire was growing rather quickly, and the sound of a very respectable ruckus grew closer. A number of workers came sprinting past our shabby wagons in a state that I can only describe as passably disorganized. It took Jalev several attempts to get one of them to stop long enough to get a response.

  The middle-aged woman did a pretty good job of seeming out of breath. “We’re under attack!”

  Jalev glanced back at us, probably to tell us to gather our weapons, but we were all well past that stage, so he turned back to the woman. “By the townsfolk? With our numbers, they shouldn’t give us much trouble.”

  Her feet wanted to keep moving, and her upper body seemed to agree, but Jalev’s gaze was enough to keep her in place. “No. These are professionals. Merf and Gurb tried to stop them, but the big one took them down with one swipe of his blade.”

  “Merf and Gurb are . . . were our security personnel. They both served in the Garandian army. They would have also been the ones to lead our workers in any skirmishes with an angry populace. How many of them were there?”

  “Three that I saw, but they weren’t no amateurs.” Her feet finally overruled Jalev’s gaze, and she took off.

  Jalev shook his head as she ran from view. “Well, it appears quite fortuitous that your little band arrived when it did.”

  Wolf motioned Cat to stand next to him. “As long as ‘fortuitous’ pays extra. We did not agree to fight your battles for you.”

  “Yes, all right. Whatever your usual rate is fine, but we must hurry. If my circus is destroyed, I’ll have nothing left worth paying you for.”

  Jackal stopped to tie her boot. “Go on. I’ll catch up.”

  We ran toward the fire. It was easy to find where we needed to go; we just ran in the opposite direction from everyone else. It took quite a while to move the quarter of a mile to our objective, as the bodies moving away often exceeded the space between the narrow trailers and wagons. The occasional escaped animal also slowed us down, though, fortunately, even lions and bears are afraid to fight a mostly naked man. (More than likely, they were just trained well, but I was not going to argue with Cat.)

  We eventually came upon the source of the disturbance. Standing over a very dead circus worker—who must have tried to oppose him, judging by the sword nearby—was a large man in red and black armor. The man laughed maniacally and stabbed the corpse repeatedly, apparently in case we weren’t sure he was the bad guy. If it had still been in fashion, I imagined they would add some boos to the tape to give even the densest person a clear idea that they weren’t supposed to root for this guy. I mentally inserted the boos so I could at least get a laugh out of something to maintain my sanity.

  Jalev was nowhere to be seen.

  When the man finally looked up from his game of Stab the Corpse, he gave Wolf a broad smile. “Ha! Look who it is, Fox. It’s Wolfie and Kitty.”

  A stout man in similar armor stepped out from behind him. “Fox left with our friend. Also, I think their names are Wolf and Cat.” He had that whiny voice that belongs to people who like to correct every tiny error, like what shade of brown Arik’s belt is or how I spell my name.

  “Bah! Oh, well, more fun for us, Platypus. I wonder how much extra we’ll get paid for offing the Fanged Trio.” He advanced on Wolf, who locked his shield with Cat’s.

  The one called Platypus (who I now noticed was wearing a helmet in the shape of the animal of the same name) pulled two large metal paddles from his belt. “There is nothing in the contract about it, but with less competition, it should prove most beneficial in our future contracts. I’d still kill the pantsless one for free since he took my bit.”

  Wolf stuck his head above his shield. “The Toothy Three will always be a cheap knockoff of the Fanged Trio, and we’re really getting tired of proving it.”

  “Yeah,” Cat said, “and you totally missed the much cooler names of the Tooth Fairies or the Maws of Doom.”

  The taller one scowled at Cat. “But those don’t tell you how many people there are in our group.”

  Wolf laughed. “Manatee, that’s exactly why you’ll always be in our shadow. Think outside the box, man.”

  Manatee growled—not at all like an actual manatee—and cha
rged. Wolf took his strike easily in the shield and counter-attacked, but Manatee dodged. Cat squared off against Platypus. Jackal aimed her crossbow at the melee but couldn’t find an opening as the combatants danced back and forth. I considered jumping in, but my skill at throwing swords at bushes didn’t seem to apply to this situation, and our opponents were clearly more skilled than I at the more mundane arts of war.

  When Manatee backed off to catch his breath, Wolf glanced over at Jackal and me. “Go find a middle-aged woman in a fox helmet. She’s the brains of this outfit and is sure to be looking for their real objective.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Manatee said as he brought his long, thick blade down on Wolf’s shield yet again. “Our objective is to kill indiscriminately, and we do not at all have an objective to steal anything in particular, especially not something in a velvet bag.”

  Jackal stood like a statue. “But, Wolf, this is my first mission. I can’t do it alone.”

  Wolf staggered back as Manatee slammed a particularly hard blow against his shield. “Jackal, you did fine against Blackie’s tribe. Great, even. I probably would’ve died if you hadn’t hit that big guy. We’re counting on you. Harry can’t do it alone.”

  “Hey,” I said. “I can too.”

  Jackal grabbed my shirt sleeve and pulled me away. Her uncertainty was still there if you looked real hard, but I decided not to point it out. The character (and probably the actress) needed this. We headed back the way we had come.

  “Do you know the way?” I said. “Where’s Jalev?”

  As if he had been summoned—or the actor had been waiting for us—Jalev appeared from around the corner. “Need to get back to your wagon? I’ll lead you there.”

  Jackal’s face scrunched in confusion. “How?"

  Before I could ask about the part that would make me look heroic, a whip snapped just above my head. I was disappointed that its owner was not a Harrison Ford knockoff in a fedora and was instead a muscular, middle-aged woman wearing a fox-shaped helmet. Behind her, a man with a red mustache slunk out of view yelling, “Lurk, lurk, lurk!” as he went. I was intensely jealous of him since that was my move, but the only direction I could currently slink was back to the other battle, which involved twice the number of people who wanted to injure me. I had learned long ago that even when people try to fake-injure you, it still leaves bruises. I flinch whenever I see a butter knife, and newspapers give me night terrors.