Lore of the Underlings: Episode 8 ~ The Trial

Lore of the Underlings: Episode 8 ~ The Trial

Tales of tongues unknown

Translated by John Klobucher

(he wrote it too, but don’t tell anyone and spoil the
fun)

Copyright 2015 John Klobucher

Smashwords Edition

Visit John Klobucher’s
author
page
at Smashwords.com

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Cover art by John Klobucher

Table of Contents

Episode 8 ~ The Trial

About the Author

Episode 8 ~ The Trial

Ho-man knew his duty.

“Hear ye, hear ye! Your attention please… The
court of the Keep is now in session. People — prepare for judgment
day!”

The servants scurried to whisk away any sign,
every crumb from their feeding frenzy. Juxtyn Tymbly stopped to sop
up the last drops of sweet hospitality.

The battle tent was suddenly spartan.

Fyryx the Redder Than Ever glared impatiently
until they were done. Then he donned a tall leather judge’s hat and
spat out his instructions.

“Treasured guardsmen, honored eldest — I
trust you’ve left room for dessert! Just be prepared for something
sour, not sugar-coated. Bitter truth…” He sneered at the near wall
lined with folk. “For there’s hard evidence, more than a trace of
toxin in our blood again, an old familiar taste of poison spoiling
our body politic, friends. Worse than arsenic spiked with mace or
nightshade laced with angel’s bane. A venom I dreamed was finally
gone…” His fiery eyes lit briefly on Minyon. “And not the spark of
a new sedition, fueling a fevered anarchy…”

He paused, though only long enough to gnash
his teeth and look away. Then he shook as if trying to stir from a
nightmare or force a rude awakening.

“But we’ll nip it in the bud, I promise — rip
out this weed by its very roots. The antidote is in our court… a
medicine called punishment.”

The justice’s icy stare caught the
stranger.

“No better balm than a Guard at arms, or
salve as sure as the mud of our pit. It can cure outbreaks of crime
in no time, and we’ll prove it once again.”

All of a sudden a long furry vine rained down
from the smoke clouds overhead, unfurled from the billowing ceiling
dome. At the end, a heavy slab of headstone hung from a twisted
hangman’s noose.

“Let’s get down to business,” growled Fyryx.
“I’ve had my fill of this whole song and dance.”

He pulled a blade from behind his hassock.
“I’m cutting the chord at last!”

And he swung.

The dead weight was decapitated and fell to
the ground with a loud, round thud. The rope tied up to the roof
flew off and the tent’s great dome blew open wide.

Then all it took was a gust of wind to clear
the hall of its lyrical air, to kill its soundtrack, the chamber’s
music. Everything left was cut and dried — plain as day, black and
white, simple as that.

The brother Treasuror squinted at the high
noon sun now pouring in. “Welcome to my new arena, where brutal
truth is the only game. Look around. You won’t find a shadow of
doubt here. Not one shade of gray. No rhyme, just reason.”

He pointed his ironwood sword to the heavens.
“Mark this as the day the muses died.”

Ho-man shrugged but followed orders,
faithfully noting the dark decree. Then he added “That’ll be the
day” at the bottom of his diary.

When he ran out of leaf he turned over a new
one. And…

“Oh boy!”

He looked in disbelief. Something within the
log book shook him. “It’s a sign or prophecy.”

Then he remembered his tall teen friend.
“Psst, hey buddy…”

The big bopper listened.

“Ever reversed a lyric curse? Defended
against dark arts and crafts? I was just hoping with your lucky
charms, you might sport a magician’s hat.”

“Sorry, left that and my wand at home. The
closest to magic I come is a spell-check.”

“Close enough! This spells conundrum. A
riddle, Tom Cat. Take a look…”

Ho-man ripped a page from his notebook and
thrust it at the stunned John Cap. The stranger squinted at it a
moment, mapping its bold runes in his mind.

Meantime the clerk droned on in the
background, offering answers of his own. “I think it’s a forecast
of what’s to come — a darkness on the edge of town where poet is
outlaw and bard’s desperado.”

Odd, but John Cap had it too, the sickening
feeling of climate change. A sense that the seasons had slipped out
of rhythm. A fear that their meter was out of time.

The torn leaf was written in deep dark plum
ink, a purple prose almost familiar to him. He read it out loud
like an old incantation…

~ ~ ~

THIS VERSE LEFT

INTENTIONALLY

BLANK

~ ~ ~

Clang!

Ka-clang!!

The noise came from a discarded blade
cascading off the pillowstones.

Fyryx clapped his hands two times. “Fetch the
leaver.”

His voice was cold.

At the back of the hall, on the far wall next
to his vacant rest room, a huge but hidden doorflap was suddenly
split and violently thrown aside. Through the breach marched a
company of fourteen — two six-packs of leathery plainsmen with
cross-pikes, one tender-looking lad in shackles, and the fleshy
Finder himself, Bylo Hamyx. The hot, bothered pit bull led from
behind, his gnarliest finger pointing the way.

“Head for the ring of truth, men. We’ll dump
this haul and collect our due!” Then he added, spitful and spiteful
as ever, “Long as the scales o’ justice aren’t rigged…”

“Yo Bylo!”

“Aye Finder!”

His posse cheered, waving their weapons
overhead.

“Bounty or mutiny, we don’t care…”

And the motley crew grinned. They were armed
to the teeth. A dirty dozen spoiling to fight.

They took it out on their prisoner.

Despite the young man’s elvish size, the
plainsmen had him bound in coils of thick, coarse grapple rope fit
for a troll. Four of the swarthiest towed him hard, staggered or
dragged on his buckled knees. His slight body slumped, almost limp.
He was sinking.

“Poor kid’s strung up like a puppet,” John
Cap muttered to himself. His blue eyes were full of sympathy.
“Geez… And a punching bag by the looks of that mug…”

A sudden whoosh interrupted him.

Crack!

The sound of a bull whip split the air. Most
of the onlookers jumped in surprise as its thorn tip snapped at the
youth’s bowed head, no more than a lash from his half-closed
lids.

The whipping boy didn’t even flinch.

The oldest of Bylo’s bone collectors reached
for the short, curved pike at his side and pressed its point to the
leaver’s neck. “Giddy-up pony er you’ll be a gelding. We’s got us a
reward ta get.”

But he could have cursed till his voice was
hoarse. The yearling was still hearing none of it. And by now the
reason was painfully clear.

The handsome had been beaten out of him,
swollen and bloodied beyond recognition. An angelic face turned
apocalyptic. Lip split and red. Eyes black and blue.

Sons of anarchy, brothers grim, the riders
had been rough on him already. There was worse to come.

Bylo barked at his privateers. “Halt!” They’d
just made center court, which was staked out by the strangers’
sword. “Looks like tusk marks the spot,” he sneered. “Let’s give
‘em their little treasure back.”

The fore men stopped at the odd white blade
protruding from the earthen floor. They puzzled a moment at the
thing then dropped their captive aside it.

“Mmmph.”

His knees, both skinned and bruised, hit the
dirt as the snake-like ropes around him recoiled. He was untied yet
still in chains.

Bylo plowed his way ahead, netting a reeling
rod as he went from one of the twelve angry men in his crew. Soon
he reached their catch and circled. He poked at the youngster,
inspecting him.

“Been a while since we’d caught us one of
these,” the bloodhound howled for all to hear. “And look how puny —
we near threw him back!”

He prodded the boy even harder with the big
stick in his mangy paws. It didn’t take much to tip him over.

Thump.

He curled up on the floor. Berthed like a
baby. Pitifully fetal.

“No dirt-napping yet,” the Finder spat at
him. “Not till me and my men get paid.”

By reflex the kid tried to pull his limbs in
tighter, to turtle. His handcuffs stopped him. The man-size
manacles barely fit and made him look practically childish.

“Pew!”

Bylo suddenly sniffed the air and wrinkled
his bulbous crimson nose.

“Flea, fly, foe, scum! I smell the mud of a
leaver’s run…”

The suspect was coated in tar and muck that
was evidence of his westward escape route, a residue of the vast,
foul swamplands. It gave off an epic kind of stench, odors of
magnitude worse than sulphur.

Bylo spewed a phlegm of legend. “You’ll pay
for making us suffer your stink.”

He lifted his jackboot over the fall guy.
“Best time to kick a man, men — when he’s down!”

But then a girl or young woman cried out. She
tried to warn him. “Trey! Trey…”

Her voice worked like a magic elixir.

The young man’s eyes popped open wide to
shine in the sunlight, deep dark brown. And he spun far enough from
Bylo’s heel to topple the kingpin, who went reeling.

All of the Guard but for dour Syar-ull had a
bellicose laugh at the Finder’s expense. They hooted again when his
buttocks hit pay dirt.

He glowed an apoplectic red.

The young man didn’t have to look. He took a
long breath and exhaled her name. “Xo…” He knew her lilt like
music.

Somehow that filled him with the strength he
needed to clamber to his feet. He threw back his tangle of chestnut
curls and smiled.

It seemed like he’d never been broken.

“Order in the court!” roared Fyryx.

He waited for silence with knitted brow.

The Guard peeped a sheepish “Sir my sir.”

“As you were.

“Clerk Havvum! Read the charges.”

Ho-man stepped forward, hand stuffed in his
pocket and fishing for something. “Now where did that go…

“Uh-oh,” he muttered toward John Cap.

“Is there a problem, clerk?” questioned
Fyryx.

“Oh, no your honor. No problem at all. Just…
finding my mojo… to do this justice…”

“Mojo or no, Homeboy — just hurry up.”

The notary nodded, “Got it judge,” and
pinched a finger and thumb to his lips. Then he whistled a call so
shrill that John Cap tipped his head and cringed.

Less than an instant later something answered
from the open sky. It squawked a distant “Awk! Awk!” but was
overhead in nothing flat.

The unidentified flying object swooped into
the courtyard and dive-bombed Ho-man. The clerk caught its payload,
a stone, in one hand.

He found the hole to its hollow center and
pulled out the note he’d been looking for.

“Bingo!”

Meanwhile the bombardier touched down for a
two-point landing on Ho-man’s mullet, making an airfield of his
hair.

“Awk! Awk!” the flyer crowed.

Ho-man unrolled an enormous palm frond. “You
rock, Freebird! Don’t ever change.”

The stranger raised his eyebrows.
“Freebird?”

“Pet parrot, friend — and endangered species.
A northern sharp-tongued mockatoo…”

The gamecock was hawkish in size but
disguised by camouflage patches of green, tan, and brown. It looked
the visitor dead in the eye. “What are you gawwwking at cracker?!
Awk!”

John Cap was briefly taken aback.

“He doesn’t mean anything by it, Tom
Cat.”

Fyryx, in contrast, meant his sentence.
“Havvum! The charges — or I’ll charge you!”

“Awk! Better start palm reading, swami…”

Ho-man flattened the frond and read.

“Harken lawful citizens and loyal children of
the crown. The state submits this slate of complaints here today in
the sixty-eighth year of our lore. Prepare for the airing of
grievances and judgment by the people’s court.

“In the case of the Keep versus male teen,
leaver…” Ho-man snuck a peek at the youth who was standing there
still in his ironwood chains. “Treygyn of the folk clan Yin, a
minor allegedly age sixteen, is accused of multiple felonies all
stemming from a spree last night. Numerous crimes and
misdemeanors…”