Here you will find Dave’s Short Stories
Each story is self contained, although some tales might occur in the same universes.
The Bitter Ale
As the cloaked and hooded stranger, mounted on a sleek, black mare, rode down through the streets of Drethforwic in the fading light, candles were being lit in windows, street dogs were exchanging barks and scavenging for titbits, and people hurried to get back to their lodgings. Many of these passers by were to busy to notice the stranger, but one street urchin, Jack Sow, hungry from an unsuccessful day of begging, thought he would try his luck and approached the rider as they came to a stop before the hitching post at The Duke Drethfor Tavern.
Swinging down from the saddle, the stranger began to tie the mare to the post. “Hay for the horse, Sir?” Jack Sow piped up from behind. The figure by the horse turned their head slightly toward the boy, not enough for Jack to discern any features from under the hood, but enough to see the definite nod from the stranger before they flicked a shining silver piece into the air, which Jack, being nimble and quick, caught eagerly with both hands.
“Right away, Sir!” he said, and ran off down a side lane.
The stranger patted the mare before turning their gaze toward the flickering lighted windows and the swinging door of the tavern. Jack came hurrying back from the direction he had ran, hay clutched in his arms.
“Hay for the horse, Sir.” and he placed the hay in the empty manger in front of the graceful animal. No sooner had he put the hay down than a firm fist grabbed him by the back of his smock, lifting him slightly onto his tiptoes.
“Hushhh,” whispered the stranger, closing their other hand around Jack’s mouth before he could let out any sound. “Randel Laycock,” continued the stranger in a gruff whisper, “is he inside?”
The stranger loosened their grip on Jack’s mouth but kept tight hold of the scruff of his smock.
“Please, Sir. Laycock, Sir. I don’t know that name.” With this, he found his arm twisted up his back into a uncomfortable position.
“Best not lie to me, boy. Laycock’s go business all over this dirty backwater town.”
“Then you know he’s not to be crossed then, ouch, let go of me.” The noise from the tavern was enough to stop the conversation carrying to unwanted ears.
“If you still want to be able to lift a bundle of hay, I suggest you start being a bit more forthcoming.”
“Ouch, ouch, stop it. Alright, when he’s not hauled up in Laycock manor with his mercenaries, he’s usually found here drinking and lusting. But I don’t know, haven’t seen him for a few days, just some of his captains and men around near the dockside. That’s how they come to Drethforwic now, from the manor, what with the bridge being in ruins.”
The stranger began to loosen their grip on Jack.
“Here, for your trouble.” the stranger said, pressing another two silver pieces into his palm.
“Now, boy, you get far away from these streets for tonight.”
Jack Sow didn’t need to be told twice. He legged it as fast as he could, right to the edges of Drethforwic, on the road towards the village Kirklvaleton. It was on this road that he was accosted by a small militia of Laycock’s men. They beat him, took his silver, and left him for dead in a ditch by the side of the road. He hadn’t given up the stranger, his last thought before drifting into unconsciousness was that maybe, vengeance would finally befall the beastly Randel Laycock.
***
Stepping into the warm light of the bustling tavern, the imposing stranger pulled back their hood to reveal their face. An eerie, bewildered silence fell across the room as the bar wenches gasped, a serving girl dropped a tray of tankards over a table populated by chainmail and leather wearing men who jumped to their feet when the beer flowed over their legs and into their hobnail boots. They began to chastise the girl, one of the men, their captain, slapped her hard across the face with his leather gloved hand, sending her to the floor. One of the companions patted him on the back, and indicated to him the figure in the door way.
“Oi, cunt. What’s an ugly bastard like you doing, coming in here, upsetting the girls?” He laughed, dragging the serving girl to her feet. “By my accounts, you owe us for the drink. We can take that in silver or blood.”
“You will have neither from me.” said the stranger, firm and calm.
“Oh, is that right?” contended the captain. “Won’t be so cock sure when we string you up in the street, aye? You dumb ugly fuck.”
“Always had all the charm of a dead maggoty sheep, haven’t you, Norbet?” retorted the stranger, a mad glint aflame in his eye.
“Wait, what. How the fuck do you know my name?!”
“How could I forget it, Norbet Wake, the Rat of Vanderhelm, and now, Laycock’s loyal lacky.”
“No, no, no. No way, No fucking way.” said the leather gloved Norbet in a dazed voice as he produced a mean looking dagger from his belt. “My eyes deceived me, but that voice, fuck I know that voice.”
“This fucker, this fucker here is meant to be dead.” he said, half in disbelief at the haunting vision in front of him. “How the fuck did you crawl back out of hell?”
The rest of the patrons, the working girls, and elderly watched the fierce escalation between the men of the tyrannical, self-proclaimed Sheriff Laycock and this imposing stranger in captivated silence.
“Northman is all they ever called him, ” said Captain Wake with his dagger raised in gesture towards the stranger, his guard now raised. “Some nobody, an unlanded fuck with an axe to grind. What the fuck, how can this be possible?”
Whispers bounced around the patrons. Northman, that was a name they’d had heard. A fierce warrior, some said, winning many glorious battles in years gone by, betrayed by this liege and friend, for greed, lust, and power. Could this figure be the Northman of the tales? Large and athletic of frame, wearing a cloth patch over his left eye and visible, reddened, rippled scarring, the type left only by flame and ember that covered the left side of his head, from under the covered eye all the way around to the back of his skull. His mousy blonde hair, short wherever the scarring hadn’t prevented its’ growth.
Things happened very quickly. Norbet and his table of five guards moved out of their corner and positioned themselves in a loose formation facing their quarry. Tables were dragged to one side. More ale was sloshed and spilt. Shrieks and yells came from the punters as blade and club were drawn on this Northman.
Shrugging off his heavy riding cloak, the one eyed wanderer revealed a smart, Oxblood leather jerkin, his chainmail was visible around the short sleeves and falling out from underneath much like a skirt. Two, ornately engraved hand-axes were affixed to the right side of his belt. A sword hung in its modest scabbard, narrow and long.
With what the patrons would later describe as supernatural speed and accuracy, Northman dropped the two guards either side of Norbet with a hand-axe buried in the head of each as they slumped to the floor.
Norbet pushed himself behind the remaining three of his men.
“Don’t just stand there, kill the bastard!” They charged Northman, but his blade was drawn to meet them. He easily parried the first ones slash, and drove the blade through his attackers neck. Blood spurting in fountains as the corpse tumbled down. The two other had big, metal wrapped clubs, encircling him they manage to land a few swings on his sword arm and across his broad shoulders. They are persistent and a heavy blow brings Northman to one knee.
As the man in front lifts his weapon high for the death blow, Northman takes advantage of the man’s exposed sides and forces himself up from his knee to tackle the guard. Spearing him into one of the great wooden beams that supported the taverns roof. Dust fell from the ceiling and the wood visibly splintered with the impact of the two men. Punching the pinned guard in the face with the hilt of his sword broke his concentration enough for the Northman to slice viciously down, in a diagonal across the mans neck, cutting deep down into the chest through the collarbone, he spluttered and choked as blood filled his mouth before his light went out.
Northman turned to parry the blow of the next clubman, he deflected but the swings kept coming, pounding the steel of his sword, sending powerful vibrations through his hands. Seeing the guard prepare for another wild swing, he quickly sidestepped the man and cleaved his head from his shoulders. It landed on the floor with a dull thud, eyes wide in fear, staring straight ahead.
Northman scanned around, but Norbet had vanished. In the commotion, the tavern had mostly emptied but a few, frozen in fear or simply too long in the tooth to leave when a brawl broke out, remained.
“A flagon of bitter for the victor” came a voice from the bar. Wiping his face with the sleeve of his tunic, Northman turned to face the barkeep. “Quite a mess you’ve caused, sir. If you don’t mind me saying. No more than these scoundrels usually cause though mind. Hilda?!”
“Yes, Godfred?” said a barmaid with a youthful but pale complexion.
“Go rouse your brother, Felgar. If he be not awake already. Graves need digging.”
Yes, Godfred.” and the girl disappeared through a door into the back.
“Is it true, what they said… That is, that you, you’re Northman? From the Saga of the Reavers, from the legend of the slaying of Vorpulf?”
“I don’t know about that.” said the one they called Northman. You may call me as I know myself to be. I am Ale.” He said, as he removed the two axes from the skulls of his fallen foes, wiping away the blood with their sleeves.
“Well, here’s a bitter, Ale.” said Godfred.
Ale took the pewter tankard and drank swiftly.
“Thank you, kindly.” said Ale. “I hadn’t expected such, hospitality, especially after… the bloodshed.”
“I’ll say that the bloodshed you’ve brought with you to our town is the type most of us have been longing for. Ever since that son of a bitch Laycock came back to the Manor, declared himself sheriff and brought in all these warring types, this towns gone to the dogs no mistake. He collects the taxes now, extortionate ones to. We’ve lost many good people who just tried to stand up to the thugs he entertains. They either get cut down where they stand, dragged to the gallows, or disappeared without trace. Yes, Sir. Mr Ale. If you’ve got a score to settle with Laycock, our hospitality is the least we give you in aid of our shared cause.”
Hilda returned, followed by a towering hulk of a man.
“Ah right, Felgar. We’ve got some work to do. Get these bodies out back and onto the cart. We’ll take them over to Drethfor Wood, you get a cosy pit dug for them. Felgur didn’t say anything, sheepishly surveyed the scene with is beady black eyes, before grabbing two of the dead thugs by a leg and began dragging them through the back of the tavern.
“Norbet managed to slip away. He’ll be raising the alarm.” Godfred said to Ale. “You’d best make haste and disappear from here. I’ll throw Laycock’s men off your scent.”
“I appreciate that.” Ale said, thankfully. He finished the rest of his drink, pulled his hood up, and strode out into the dark streets.
***
The Thistle Witch of Dalber
Thistles grew tall and fierce between the leafy Oak and Birch. The track was soft and the pony and cart, laden with wares, carved out deep thin channels through the mud. Some way off, the the discordance of crows’ squabbling floated back to the ears of the trader Bordan and his lad, Silus. Bordan clutched the reigns tightly as an ill breeze rattled the branches around them and delivered to the traveller’s nostrils an unpleasant and lingering stench.
“Foul things do creep about this forest.” Silus muttered.
“Foolish boy,” Reprimanded Bordan. “For six score and two I have wandered the lands. Foul things, I have learned, come in form of men, not beast. Robbers and murders are more often found in brothels and back streets than beneath the good green leaves of the ancient trees of Dalber.”
“But what of the stories, master? They say a witch calls this forest home.” Silus asked.
“They be just that, lad. Stories to scare the children and entertain the foolish.”
“Be that as it may, Sir. I am no woodland ranger, friend of fox and fenn. Get me back to a cosy tavern with a buxom wench to ease my woes and out from this dark wilderness before next nightfall. I pray master, now much further does this forest slow our path?”
“I expect to reach the Dalber crossroads by the midday sun. We should escape old Dalber by nightfall for the feild’s of Hemford.”
“I do hope we make right by your time keeping, sir”
“Doubt not that we will, insolent knave. Many time have I undertaken the route from Fort Banquill to Hemford by the walks of old Dalber. Make it by nightfall we shall.”
In silence for a while, they pressed on past great barked trunks and overhanging branches whose shadows danced across their path. They reached the crossroads when the sun was highest in the sky. Bordan decided to rest the pony for an hour. He ate an apple and some bread while putting Silus to task gathering mature thistles.
“These milk thistles will sell well at the apothacary markets in Hemford. If we gather them now they’ll be good for our arrival.” Bordan explains as Silus begins to fight with the prickly, purple flowered weeds. Silus slaved away gathering bunch after bunch of thistles. His hand’s had known feild work and labour so were rough and able to deal with the pricking and needling that the plants gave out while he gathered them to the cart and his master. Itchy and bloodied from the perforations, Silus gathered the last bundle of thistles onto the cart. Bordan and Silus climbed onto the seat of the cart continued on their way.
Suddenly, the chill breeze rushed towards them once more, cascading leaves everywhere that whipped about Silus and Bordan. Fouler and stronger than before, the stench returned to turn Silus’s stomach.
“That truely is the most unnatural smell of death.”
“Wrong again, you foolish boy. There is no more a smell so natural as death. Many an animal will lay down to die beneath a tree. Deer, Boar, or Badger, each will return to the earth from the forest’s open graves. I bet this stench is nothing more than a rabbit twisted by an affliction.”
“One dead rabbit make a stench so overpowering? You think me a fool, Sir but I say only foul play does stink so rotten.” Silus moaned, pinching his nose and gagging on the sickly sweet decay that penetrated the back of his throat and put viceral visions of butchered bodies in his mind.
Bordan looked stern. “I remind you of the township I collected your precious nose from, who would have sooner strung you from the bridge than let you enter tavern to become consumed by ale and lust again. Now keep your blathering mouth shut and perhaps your nose will follow by example.”
Silus remained quiet, but the stench continued to find him on the breeze causing him to heave and cough whenever the smell carried by.
Silus began to noitce a change in the foliage around them. What had been simply lush forest was now becoming thicker with dead and dried up plant matter. The thistles, though still the hight of a man, were brown and crisp. Their skeletal stems hard and sharp with claw hooked seeds ready in battalions to attached themsevles to furr or garment.
“Why does this forest get deeper and darker? Are we not almost at nightfall?”
“It is true, the sun has long since begun his decent.”
“Said you not that we would be escaped from Dalber afore night?” Silus exclaimed.
“You shall have your escape before long.” A stoney faced Bordan rounded on Silus. With unnatural vigor, Bordan cast Silus from the cart. He struck his head against a solid stump and all was black for Silus.
***
Silus felt as if waking from a drunken stupore, head splitting and spinning. He’d been drinking with the soliders at Fort Banquill, drinking a lot on their coin. Thing’s had turned less than friendly when he had no means to repay the beer debt. Being thrown into the street, he remembered that now, but who was dragging him by the legs? Then he recalled the man on the cart, the man that offered to pay the debt in exchange for a travelling companion the tend his pony and gather materials. Bordan. Bordan was dragging him. Silus tried to speak, but he discovered he was gagged. Disoriented and panic beginning to raise in him, he struggled trying to move his limbs. These too were bound up.
Starting to thrash frantically, he managed to cause Bordan to loose his footing.
“Awake are we? Good. She prefers a lively subject.” Bordan said with a chuckle. Silus let out some muffled screams through the rag that bound him up.
“The gag isn’t really necessary here. We’re too deep in the Dalber for your screams to reach any caring ears.”
Bordan grabbed Silus’s legs again and continued dragging through the fallen leaves and dried up thistles and into a clearing over a dirty mound that contained a number of horrors that terrifed Silus.
The air was now thick with the stench that had been brought to Silus on the wind. Every breath gave him the raw taste of decomposition. Through the dying light of the day and the dances of torch fire light, there could be seen bodies, more than Silus was able to count as he was dragged further into the clearing.
Some bodies were hung about the trees, others tied to the trunks, some just strune on the forest floor. All had been violated and disfigured in a similar manner. On every corpse,through every imaginable piece of flesh were forced the dried, sharpened stems of the thistles. From their protruding hollows, congealed blood collected from when the subject had been more lively. Further torment had been inflicted, with the mouths, eyes, and other orafices stuffed with the hooked seedheads and spiked leaves.
Bordan was dragging the distraught Silus towards a blood stained alter made from three huge stones, candles burnt down and flickering all around. Hoisting Silus easily onto the slab, Bordan fastened the bonds round Silus’ arms and legs around two large Iron rings that were embedded at either end of the alter. Silus’s sobbing became further muffled by the return of the fell wind that seemed to emanate from a rotting, ancient hovel constructed around a long dead great oak.
Bordan stepped away from the alter, raised his arms into the air and cried, “Oh most abored witch of thistles. I bring you sacrifice to sate your ravenous lust. Darkest spirit of Dalber, terrible Thisorax. Lady of hook and sting. Grant to me your wicked blessings, spare me from the fate of your foes and bistow upon me all the unholy blessings of the Thistle Witch of Dalber!”
From the gaping mouth of the hovel, a black shape began to reveal itself. First to emerge from the darkness was the clacking, pale jaws; unnaturally extened and baring great, blackened, needlelike fangs protruding at all angles from the drooling, sickening mouth. A hidious, bulbous grey tongue lolled about the mouth, saliva dripping from the pointed tip. More of the creature became visable in the failing light as it lurched from its hovel. Atop its head were masses of lank black hair, matted and thick with dirt. Swinging from the festering heap of furr, clung innumerable thistle seedheads, evil baubles with clawing hooks.
Yellow were the beasts eyes and bloodshot; sunken into the sockets. Elongated limbs followed with a jerky quickness that allowed the creature to arrive at and assend the alter before Silus had chance the resume his muffled cries. The creatures hot breath on his face was that of rotting meat with a earthy, metallic pungency. The creature raised a knarled hand with long, stick like fingers that scratched his skin as they passed over his face. Forcing its rough and sharp talons of one skeletal hand into Silus’ mouth, he felt his lip burst and his tongue become impaled. Blood filled his mouth. This forced Silus to cough and flecks spattered out, streaming down his chin. The Thistle Witch’s tongue lashed across the steams of blood and this seemed to cause a visceral euphoria to swell in the demon whose teeth widened into an excited grimace with increased clacking and salivation. With its other hand, ripping hooked seedheads from its own matted hair, began forcing these into Silus’ bloodied mouth, further laserating his already blood filled mouth.
Silus’s eyes began to roll back into his head as he struggled to breath through the blood and seedheads. The creature brought its own tormenting eyes closer to Silus’s, before piercing his jelly with its pointed stick fingers, proceeding to stuff the new carved holes with its hooked seeds. Barely concious, rithing in agony, Silus felt his heart slowing and his life leaving him. The final blow from the Thistle Witch came with a ear splitting scream as she plunged her wooden fingers through his stomach and chest. Blood flowed from the shuddering corpse of Silus. The Thistle Witch began to feed. Tearing flesh from bone and lapping the spilled blood with it’s grotesque tongue. When all but the butchered torso and defiled head of Silus was left, the creature hung him from the branches above its hovel. Then the Thistle Witch began to sing and chitter in rasping and dreaded tones that fall upon human ears like the tightening of the hangman’s rope.
***
Bordan managed to make the edge of the forest by nightfall. He made camp and rested. That night he had a perculiar dream. Dreams of thistle fields that were bathed in golden sunlight, before the skys reddened and the ligth was lost. The lushous fields dwindled into the brown, dried husks of the thistles with their seedheads hooked and clawing. Bordan wanted to escape, he began to run through the now dead fields. The seedheads attached themselves to his robes and scratched at his skin with the prickles and needles of the leaves. He stumbled from the catching and tripping caused by the never ending glut of dead thistles. Then an evil song came to him upon the wind.
“If wishes of the thistle seek, bring with you another, weak.
Deliver to the table warm, I’ll leave him cold, free from flesh and bone.
Make the offer, escape same fate, and wishes true will come, just wait.
The Thistle Witch will have you hooked, once the sacrifice is plucked. Dealing with the demon, done. You will have reward if you see next sun.”
Bordan woke with a start. It was morning, and time to get to the markets at Hemford. Surely, he will reap his reward. The Thistle Witch’s blessings had not failed him before.