A Gamer's Guide 357

I have now been waiting in this damn field for the better part of two hours. Sundown, she said. Twilight, one might call it. And yet, the sun is down, and where is it?

It is taking every inch of willpower I have—which is not a lot of inches—to not begin painting the ground red. Because, as you might recall, it’s snowing. The snowing actually picked up quite a bit in the last hour, so I’m standing damn near up to my shins in white snow, and all it’s doing is reminding me of that awful place where painting is all I could do. 

If it hadn’t been for my night vision, I would probably have found this darkness very troubling as well. This time of the year, darkness descends surprisingly quick. Not as fast as back home in Sweden, of course. There, at this time of the year, the sun would have been down hours ago. Ahh, the joys of a temperate nation… 

Honestly, I’m probably only this hissy about things because I’m nervous. Today’s been a stressful day, to say the least. And that’s even when you disregard the whole… Well, what do you even call this business? A herald so powerful not even four humans can handle it. Or maybe three humans and a whatever-I-am. Either way, it isn’t enough to handle it. Handle what? Who knows! Rice didn’t even tell me what I’m supposed to be looking for. Will it be a goblin herald, like they usually are? Or will it be something else? If I remember correctly, the heralds attacking Earth are usually animals. Now that I think about it, why is that? Why not make human heralds? Or are we not good enough for him? 

Damn racist. And because of him, I had to redo all my plans for the day. It was stressful enough trying to convince Lett to come along to the festival, but to do so without also coming along? Hell on Earth. Hell in… Purgatory? Bah, whatever!

Bad memory. It was only two hours ago but it still haunts me. Ah, yeah, let’s just strap him onto the back of the sled, I’m sure he’ll be super happy. No, he won’t be able to partake in the play or do anything but sit and shiver in the snow. But hey, if you put him to sell stuff, maybe he’ll actually be useful! Oh, but I’m not coming. No reason. Leave the orphanage empty. No reason for that, either. 

Great. Wonderful. Delightful day. I looo~~ve the wintertime. 

…This feels wrong. Everything today has felt off. It might just be that I’m upset that the already stressful plans I had for today have gone awry, but… No, there’s something else.

It just doesn’t make sense. The god of kings has sent a herald to attack me? Here? Now? I don’t get it. And even if it isn’t heading for me, the only other likely candidate is Rice, who’s been hunting heralds as a side-gig for years now. And he’s only sending a targeted herald attack now? 

It bothers me. It bothers me to no end, and I hate it. The only other possibility would be that it was heading for the church itself, but even that makes no sense. No, there has to be a reason.

Grumbling, I keep my eye on my surroundings. Sniff sniff sniff. Nothing but the cold, barren scent of snow. Technically speaking it isn’t that cold—only about a dozen degrees negative—but the wind makes it feel like more. As I watch the empty, snow-blue plain in front of me, a stray bit of wind rushes by, picking up powder-like snowflakes gathered atop the snow to create spiralling patterns in the wind. In the distance, I can hear the thump of heavy snow falling off the branches of a tree. 

At least Lett won’t have to know about any of this. I can only imagine how he would feel coming face to face with a herald sent from the god of kings. The first time I saw him… I’ll never forget the look on his face. One eye weeping purple sludge, neck twisted around. It truly is a miracle he survived all that. 

Whatever smile I was trying to muster falls off my face just as quickly.

…And what a life to return to. Being unable to walk is one thing, but being forced to live in a house where everyone treats him like less than air? I can’t even imagine the pain he’s been in. 

At least he’ll be spared the pain of reliving his trauma. At least…

Something tugs at a seam in my brain, unwinding it and making all my lobes come loose.

Hm? Might it…?

I shake my head and begin pacing across the snow, back and forth and back and forth. Loose snowflakes that had gathered in my hair fall down in little clusters. I don’t know. Before I think any further on this, let’s consider the facts.

The god of kings is a petty moron.

He would absolutely send a personal hit-herald specifically to tie up the loose end that is Lett.

…Shit, it makes sense!

But it isn’t necessarily true simply because it makes sense. Heck, there could be a million different explanations for why this is happening now and not before! It doesn’t have to be…

I pause my pacing. Ah. Three birds with one stone. A chuckle escapes my lips, horrifying me to the point where I have to smother it with my hand. Three enemies, all in the same place. Me, Rice, and Lett. It’s so simple. It all makes sense now. He’s coming to kill—

The moonlight disappears. 

I whirl to face the sky, the east, where the enemy is coming from, the one I must kill to save Lett, only to stop dead, unable to so much as ready my claws.

Up in the sky, soaring effortlessly, is a dragon large enough to blot out the moon. There is no way to tell how big it is. Much like how airplanes are too high up to be compared to anything, this dragon is incomparable in size. With minimal clouds to share the sky with, I have no way of telling its actual size.

What I do know is that it has four wings, and five horns. 

And it is not landing. 

Like the first man spotting a plane, I watch in slack-jawed astonishment as it lazily crosses the sky, forcing me to crane my neck as it passes overhead, going and going and…

Only when I have to turn around to watch it continue does it strike me that I should be chasing it. And even then, it takes my feet to start moving for me to realize that it isn’t heading towards the orphanage. 

“Wait,” I say, breathily, having forgotten to breathe deeply enough to say it. “No, wait,” I repeat, this time with more air. “You’re going the wrong way,” I mumble, and I start to walk, clumsily, one foot in front of the other, only to stumble on a rock hidden by the snow, falling to the ground, my knees sinking into the snow and my torso too as my hands grope but fail to find any kind of support. The snow doesn’t even feel cold, and it doesn’t melt against my skin. It’s just fluffy, and a little ticklish. “No, wait, please.” 

The sound of rushing footsteps is becoming ever-louder. When did that start? 

I try to get to my feet, only to slip, once, twice, growing frustrated but with none of the hotness to accompany it. I didn’t think about it before, but even anger becomes lessened when there’s no blood to heat your face. Shit. Shit. Shit. 

I get on my knees, shaking out of some emotion I can’t name—or maybe it’s just how weak my body is—and I almost rise again, when all of a sudden the rushing of feet, of powerful creatures galloping, is near, near enough to be deafening, and someone shouts “Prince!” and then a hand wraps around my shivering, aching arm, pulling me up not to my feet but rather all the way onto drakeback. 

The shock of going from kneeling to sitting is almost enough to leave me slipping off, but a hand slips behind my back, holding me in place. To the left, I find a drake running closely by, ridden by… “Rice?”

Her only greeting is a curt, clearly stressed nod. But if she’s next to me, then who the heck picked me up?

In front of me, more than a full head shorter than me, is a goblin wearing a frankly ridiculous hat. Does it really need three feathers in it? The sight is comical enough to drain all terror from my limbs, though the shaking, shivering notion that oh my God it’s going for Lett keeps me from relaxing. As I try to make sense of the hat, the goblin himself turns around, showing his face. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a red goblin before, nor one with freckles. “Pardon the yoink, sire, I’m afraid we haven’t got the time to stop and exchange pleasantries. Will you forgive the discourtesy of failing to remove my hat?”

“It’s going for Lett,” I say, to him, to Rice, to the wind. “Oh, God, it’s going to finish the job. And then it’s going to kill us. The village will be cinders by the time we arrive. What are we going to do? Rice, what are we going to do?”

“Is it heading towards the village?”

“Yes,” I reply. “It is. It’s—why didn’t you say it was a dragon? Rice, we can’t kill a four-winged dragon!”

“You’re right,” she admits. The wind whips across our faces, and the drakes rush across the plains, throwing snow into the air, leaving clouds of disturbed snowflakes. There must be hundreds of them, all ridden by sweaty, fearful warriors. But my attention is concentrated fully on her. Right now, all I can see is her face, half obscured by the brim of her snow-covered hat, her nearly all-present dimples jarringly absent. “We can’t kill a four-winged dragon.” She turns to me, her eyes gleaming with a strange, lethal determination. “But we can kill a herald.”

Gritting my teeth, I turn away from her. Stray locks of my awkwardly long hair whip across my face and I brush them behind my ear, cursing in a voice low enough not to be heard. 

“Well said, sire,” the guy in front of me says, disproving my previous statement. 

“Don’t call me that.”

“No? Very well then,” he replies diplomatically. “Oh, do hold yourself fast, we’re about to—” The drake beneath me suddenly becomes weightless as it flies over a felled tree that happened to litter the road we’re rushing down. It’s only by the briefest margin that I’m able to heed his warning and clasp my legs around the side of the drake, keeping myself from taking a snowy plunge. I curse again, eliciting a chuckle from my unchosen captain. “Such a way with words.”

“It’s one of my skills,” I tell him gruffly. “If you could understand my actual language, you’d think I was a very crass man.”

“Surely not, my good man. It is seldom indeed one meets such a well-spoken man. As a matter of fact…” Even though the drakes are running at what might modestly be estimated at about seventy kilometers an hour, the goblin in front of me still feels relaxed enough to turn around where he sits, raising the brim of his bizarre hat to get a good look at me. “There he is! I had a hunch, but now that I’m looking right at you, there’s really no question about it.” He grins, showing off several blackened teeth and a lob of what appears to be some kind of chewing tobacco. Snapping his finger, he points it at me, and says, very cheerfully, “You’re that Fennrick fella, aren’t you?”

I briefly consider the possibility of one of the other challengers sharing my name, only to disregard it nearly instantly. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“What a tickling coincidence! Me and my good men here have actually been sent to hunt you down. Isn’t that just the tits?”